“Then, tell me please, what you know of the story,” said the governor to Sheila at King’s House one afternoon two weeks later. “I only get meagre reports from the general commanding. But you close to the intimate source of the events must know all.”
Sheila shrank at the suggestion in the governor’s voice, but she did not resent it. She had purposes which she must carry out, and she steeled herself. She wanted to get from Lord Mallow a pledge concerning Dyck Calhoun, and she must be patient.
“I know nothing direct from Mr. Calhoun, your honour!” she said, “but only through his servant, Michael Clones, who is a friend of my Darius Boland, and they have met often since the first outbreak. You know, of course, what happened at Port Louise—how the Maroons seized and murdered the garrison, how families were butchered when they armed first, how barbarism broke loose and made all men combine to fight the rebels. Even before Mr. Calhoun came they had had record of a sack of human ears, cut from the dead rebel-slaves, when they had been killed by faithful slaves, and good progress was made. But the revolters fixed their camps on high rocks, and by blowing of shells brought many fresh recruits to the struggle. It was only when Mr. Calhoun came with his hounds that anything decisive was done. For the rebels—Maroons and slaves—were hid, well entrenched and cautious, and the danger was becoming greater every day. On Mr. Calhoun’s arrival, he was almost caught in ambush, being misled, and saved himself only by splendid markmanship. He was attacked by six rebels of whom he killed four, and riding his wounded horse over the other two he escaped. Then he set the hounds to work and the rebellion in that district was soon over.”
“It was gathering strength with increasing tragedy elsewhere,” remarked the governor. “Some took refuge in hidden places, and came out only to steal, rob, and murder—and worse. In one place, after a noted slave, well known for his treachery, had been killed—Khoftet was his name—his head was cut off by slaves friendly to us and his heart roasted and eaten. There is but one way to deal with these people. No gaming or drinking must be allowed, blowing of shells or beating of drums must be forbidden, and every free negro or mulatto must wear on his arm a sign—perhaps a cross in blue or red.”
“Slavery is doomed,” said Sheila firmly. “Its end is not far off.”
“Well, they still keep slaves in the land of Washington and Alexander Hamilton. They are better off here at any rate than in their own country, where they were like animals among whom they lived. Here they are safe from poverty, cared for in sickness, and have no fear of being handed over to the keepers of carrion, or being the food of the gallinaso. They can feed their fill on fricasees of macaca worms and steal without punishment teal or ring-tailed pigeons and black crabs from the massa.”
“But they are not free. They are atoms in heaps of dust. They have no rights—no liberties.”
Sheila was agitated, but she showed no excitement.
She seemed to Lord Mallow like one who had perfect control of herself, and was not the victim of anticipation. She seemed, save for her dark searching eyes, like one who had gone through experience which had disciplined her to control. Only her hands were demonstrative—yet quietly so. Any one watching her closely would have seen that her hands were sensitive, expressed even more markedly than her eyes or lips what were her feelings. Her tragedy had altered her in one sense. She was paler and thinner than ever she had been, but there was enough of her, and that delicately made, which gave the governor a thrill of desire to make her his own for the rest of his life or hers. He had also gone through much since they had last met, and he had seen his own position in the balance—uncertain, troubled, insecure. He realized that he had lost reputation, which had scarcely been regained by his consent to the use of the hounds and giving Dyck Calhoun a free hand, as temporary head of the militia. He could not put him over the regular troops, but as the general commanding was, in effect, the slave of Dyck Calhoun, there was no need for anxiety.
Dyck Calhoun had smashed the rebellion, had quieted the island, had risen above all the dark disturbances of revolt like a master. He had established barracks and forts at many points in the island, and had stationed troops in them; he had subdued Maroons and slaves by the hounds. Yet he had punished only the chief of those who had been in actual rebellion, and had repressed the violent punishments of the earlier part of the conflict. He had forbidden any one to be burned alive, and had ordered that no one should be executed without his first judging—with the consent of the governor!—the facts of the case.
Dyck had built up for himself a reputation as no one in all the history of the island had been able to do. He commanded by more than official authority—by personality and achievement. There was no one in the island but knew they had been saved by his prudence, foresight and skill. It was to their minds stupendous and romantic. Fortunately they showed no strong feeling against Lord Mallow. By placing King’s House at disposal as a hospital, and by gifts of food and money to wives and children of soldiers and civilians, the governor had a little eradicated his record of neglect.
Lord Mallow had a way with him when he chose to use it. He was not without the gift for popularity, and he saw now that he could best attain it by treating Dyck Calhoun well. He saw troops come and go, he listened to grievances, he corrected abuses, he devised a scheme for nursing, he planned security for the future, he gave permission for buccaneer trading with the United States, he had by legislative order given the Creoles a better place in the civic organism. This was a time for broad policy—for distribution of cassavi bread, yams and papaws, for big, and maybe rough, display of power and generosity. He was not blind to the fact that he might by discreet courses impress favourably his visitor. All he did was affected by that thought. He could not but think that Sheila would judge of him by what he did as much as by what he said.
He looked at her now with interest and longing. He loved to hear her talk, and she had information which was no doubt truer than most he received—was closer to the brine, as it were.
“What more can you tell me of Mr. Calhoun and his doings?” he asked presently. “He is lucky in having so perfect a narrator of his histories—yet so unexpected a narrator.”
A flush stole slowly up Sheila’s face, and gave a glow even to the roots of her hair. She could not endure these references to the dark gulf between her and Dyck Calhoun.
“My lord,” she said sharply, “it is not meet that you should say such things. Mr. Calhoun was jailed for killing my father—let it be at that. The last time you saw me you offered me your hand and heart. Well, do you know I had almost made up my mind to accept your hand, when the news of this trouble was brought to you, and you left us—to ourselves and our dangers!”
The governor started. “You are as unfriendly as a ‘terral garamighty,’ you make me draw my breath thick as the blackamoors, as they say. I did what I thought best,” he said. “I did not think you would be in any danger. I had not heard of the Maroons being so far south as Salem.”
“Yet it is the man who foresees chances that succeeds, as you should know by now, your honour. I was greatly touched by the offer you made me—indeed, yes,” she added, seeing the rapt eager look in his face. “I had been told what had upset me, that Dyck Calhoun was guilty of killing my father, and all the world seemed dreadful. Yes, in the reaction, it was almost on my tongue to say yes to you, for you are a good talker, you had skill in much that you did, and with honest advice from a wife might do much more. So I was in a mind to say yes. I had had much to try me, indeed, so very much. Ever since I first saw Dyck Calhoun he had been the one man who had ever influenced me. He was for ever in my mind even when he was in prison—oh, what is prison, what is guilt even to a girl when she loves! Yes, I loved him. There it was. He was ever in my mind, and I came here to Jamaica—he was here—for what else? Salem could have been restored by Darius Boland or others, or I could have sold it. I came to Jamaica to find him here—unwomanly, perhaps, you will say.”
“Unusual only with a genius—like you.”
“Then you do not speak what is in your mind, your honour. You say what you feel is the right thing to say—the slave of circumstances. I will be wholly frank with you. I came here to see Dyck Calhoun, for I knew he would not come to see me. Yes, there it was, a real thing in his heart. If he had been a lesser man than he is, he would have come to America when he was freed from prison. But he did not, would not, come. He knew he had been found guilty of killing my father, and that for him and me there could be no marriage—indeed he never asked me to marry him.
“Yet I know he would have done so if he could. When I came to know what he was jailed for doing, I felt there was no place for him and me together in the world. Yet my heart kept crying out to him, and I felt there was but one thing left for me to do, and that was to make it impossible for me to think of him even, or for him to think of me. Then you came and offered me your hand. It was a hand most women might have been glad to accept from the standpoint of material things. And you were Irish like myself, and like the boy I loved. I was sick of the robberies of life and time, and I wanted to be out of it all in some secure place. What place so secure from the sorrow that was eating at my heart as marriage! It said no to every stir of feeling that was vexing me, to every show of love or remembrance. So I listened to you. It was not because you were a governor or a peer—no, not that! For even in Virginia I had offers from one higher than yourself—and younger, and a peer also. No, it was not material things that influenced me, but your own intellectual eminence; for you have more brains than most men, as you know so well.”
The governor interrupted her with a gesture. “No, no, I am not so vain as you think. If I were I should have seen at Salem that you meant to say yes.”
“Yet you know well you have gifts, though you have made sad mistakes here. Do not think it was your personality, your looks that induced me to think of you, to listen to you. When Mr. Calhoun told me the truth, and gave me a letter he had written to me—”
“A letter—to you?”
There was surprise in the governor’s voice—surprise and chagrin, for the thing had moved him powerfully. “Yes, a letter to me which he never meant me to have. It was a kind of diary of his heart, and it was written even while I was landing on the island on Christmas Day. It was the most terribly truthful thing, opening his whole soul to the girl whom he had always loved, but from whom he was separated by a thing not the less tragical because it was merely technical. He gave it me to read, and when I read it I saw there was no place for me in the world except a convent or marriage. The convent could not be, for I was no Catholic, and marriage seemed the only thing possible. That day you came I saw only one thing to do—one mad, hopeless thing to do.”
“Mad and hopeless!” burst out Lord Mallow. “How so? Your very reason shows that it was sane, well founded in the philosophy of the heart.”
He was eager to win her yet, and he did not see the end at which she aimed. He felt he must tell her all the passion and love he felt. But her look gave no encouragement, her eyes were uninviting.
Sheila smiled painfully. “Yes, mad and hopeless, for be sure of this: we cannot kill in one day the growth of years. I could not cure myself of loving him by marrying you. There had to be some other cure for that. I never knew and never loved my father. But he was my father, and if Mr. Calhoun killed him, I could not marry him. But at last I came to know that your love and affection could not make me forget him—no, never. I realize that now. He and I can never come together, but I owe him so much—I owe him my life, for he saved it; he must ever have a place in my heart, be to me more than any one else can be. I want you to do something for him.”
“What do you wish?”
“I want you to have removed from him the sentence of the British Government. I want him to be free to come and go anywhere in the world—to return to England if he wishes it, to be a free man, and not a victim Off Outlawry. I want that, and you ought to give it to him.”
“Why?”
Indignation filled her eyes. “You ask why. He has saved your administration and the island from defeat and horrible loss. He has prevented most of the slaves from revolting, and he conquered the Maroons. The empire is his debtor. Will you do this for one who has done so much for you?”
Lord Mallow was disconcerted, but he did not show it. “I can do no more than I have done. I have not confined him to his plantation as the Government commanded; I cannot go beyond that.”
“You can put his case from the standpoint of a patriot.”
For a moment the governor hesitated, then he said: “Because you ask me—”
“I want it done for his sake, not for mine,” she returned with decision. “You owe it to yourself to see that it is done. Gratitude is not dead in you, is it?”
Lord Mallow flushed. “You press his case too hard. You forget what he is—a mutineer and a murderer, and no one should remember that as you should.”
“He has atoned for both, and you know it well. Besides, he was not a murderer. Even the courts did not say he was. They only said he was guilty of manslaughter. Oh, your honour, be as gallant as your name and place warrant.”
He looked at her for a moment with strange feelings in his heart. Then he said: “I will give you an answer in twenty-four hours. Will that do, sweet persuader?”
“It might do,” she answered, and, strange to say, she had a sure feeling that he would say yes, in spite of her knowledge that, in his heart of hearts, he hated Calhoun.
As she left the room, Lord Mallow stood for a moment looking after her.
“She loves the rogue in spite of all!” he said bitterly. “But she must come with me. They are apart as the poles. Yet I shall do as she wishes if I am to win her.”
The next day came a new element in the situation: a ship arrived from England. On it was one who had come to Jamaica to act as governess to two children of the officer commanding the regular troops in the island. She had been ill for a week before nearing Kingston, and when the Regent reached the harbour she was in a bad way. The ship’s doctor was despondent about her; but he was a second-rate man, and felt that perhaps an island doctor might give her some hope. When she was carried ashore she was at once removed to the home of the general commanding at Spanish Town, and there a local doctor saw her.
“What is her history?” he asked, after he had seen the haggard face of the woman.
The ship’s doctor did not know; and the general commanding was in the interior at the head of his troops. There was no wife in the general’s house, as he was a widower; and his daughters, of twelve and fourteen, under a faithful old housekeeper, had no knowledge of the woman’s life.
When she was taken to the general’s house she was in great dejection, and her face had a look of ennui and despair. She was thin and worn, and her eyes only told of the struggle going on between life and death.
“What is her name?” asked the resident doctor. “Noreen Balfe,” was the reply of the ship’s doctor.
“A good old Irish name, though you can see she comes of the lower ranks of life.”
“Married?”
The ship’s doctor pointed to her hand which had a wedding-ring. “Ah, yes, certainly... what hope have you of her?”
“I don’t know what to say. The fever is high. She isn’t trying to live; she’s got some mental trouble, I believe. But you and I would be of no use in that kind of thing.”
“I don’t take to new-fangled ideas of mental cure,” said the ship’s doctor. “Cure the body and the mind will cure itself.”
A cold smile stole to the lips of the resident doctor. Those were days of little scientific medical skill, and no West Indian doctor had knowledge enough to control a discussion of the kind. “But I’d like to see some one with brains take an interest in her,” he remarked.
“I leave her in your hands,” was the reply. “I’m a ship’s medico, and she’s now ashore.”
“It’s a pity,” said the resident doctor reflectively, as he watched a servant doing necessary work at the bedside. “She hasn’t long to go as she is, yet I’ve seen such cases recover.”
As they left the room together they met Sheila and one of the daughters of the house. “I’ve come to see the sick woman from the ship, if I may,” Sheila said. “I’ve just heard about her, and I’d like to be of use.”
The resident doctor looked at her with admiration. She was the most conspicuous figure in the island, and her beauty was a fine support to her wealth and reputation. It was like her to be kind in this frank way.
“You can be of great use if you will,” he said. “The fever is not infectious, I’m glad to say. So you need have no fear of being with her—on account of others.”
“I have no fear,” responded Sheila with a friendly smile, “and I will go to her now—no, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer to go alone,” she added as she saw the doctor was coming with her.
The other bowed and nodded approvingly. “The fewer the better,” he said. “I think you ought to go in alone—quite alone,” he said with gentle firmness, for he saw the girl with Sheila was also going with her.
So it was that Sheila entered alone, and came to the bed and looked at the woman in the extreme depression of fever. “Prepare some lime-juice, please,” she said to the servant on the other side of the bed. “Keep it always beside the bed—I know what these cases are.”
The servant disappeared, and the eyes of the sick woman opened and looked at Sheila. There shot into them a look of horror and relief in one, if such a thing might be. A sudden energy inspired her, and she drew herself up in bed, her face gone ghastly.
“You are Sheila Boyne, aren’t you?” she asked in a low half-guttural note.
“I am Sheila Llyn,” was the astonished reply. “It’s the same thing,” came the response. “You are the daughter of Erris Boyne.”
Sheila turned pale. Who was this woman that knew her and her history?
“What is your name?” she asked—“your real name—what is it?”
“My name is Noreen Balfe; it was Noreen Boyne.” For a moment Sheila could not get her bearings. The heavy scent of the flowers coming in at the window almost suffocated her. She seemed to lose a grip of herself. Presently she made an effort at composure. “Noreen Boyne! You were then the second wife of Erris Boyne?”
“I was his second wife. His first wife was your mother—you are like your mother!” Noreen said in agitation.
The meaning was clear. Sheila laid a sharp hand on herself. “Don’t get excited,” she urged with kindly feeling. “He is dead and gone.”
“Yes, he is dead and gone.”
For a moment Noreen seemed to fight for mastery of her emotion, and Sheila said: “Lie still. It is all over. He cannot hurt us now.”
The other shook her head in protest. “I came here to forget, and I find you—his daughter.”
“You find more than his daughter; you find his first wife, and you find the one that killed him.”
“The one that killed him!” said the woman greatly troubled. “How did you know that?”
“All the world knows it. He was in prison four years, and since then he has been a mutineer, a treasure-hunter, a planter, and a saviour of these islands!”
The sick woman fell back in exhaustion. At that moment the servant entered with a pitcher of lime-juice. Sheila took it from her and motioned her out of the room; then she held a glass of the liquid to the stark lips.
“Drink,” she said in a low, kind voice, and she poured slowly into the patient’s mouth the cooling draught. A moment later Noreen raised herself up again.
“Mr. Dyck Calhoun is here?” she asked.
“He is here, and none to-day holds so high a place in the minds of all who live here. He has saved the island.”
“All are here that matter,” said Noreen. “And I came to forget!”
“What do you remember?” asked Sheila. “I remember all—how he died!”
Suddenly Sheila had a desire to shriek aloud. This woman—did this woman then see Erris Boyne die? Was she present when the deed was done? If so, why was she not called to give evidence at the trial. But yes, she was called to give evidence. She remembered it now, and the evidence had been that she was in her own home when the killing took place.
“How did he die?” she asked in a whisper.
“One stroke did it—only one, and he fell like a log.” She made a motion as of striking, and shuddered, covering her eyes with trembling hands.
“You tell me you saw Dyck Calhoun do this to an undefended man—you tell me this!”
Sheila’s anger was justified in her mind. That Dyck Calhoun should
“I did not see Dyck Calhoun strike him,” gasped the woman. “I did not say that. Dyck Calhoun did not kill Erris Boyne!”
“My God!—oh, my God!” said Sheila with ashen lips, but a great light breaking in her eyes. “Dyck Calhoun did not kill Erris Boyne! Then who killed him?”
There was a moment’s pause, then—“I killed him,” said the woman in agony. “I killed him.”
A terrible repugnance seized Sheila. After a moment she said in agitation: “You killed him—you struck him down! Yet you let an innocent man go to prison, and be kept there for years, and his father go to his grave with shame, with estates ruined and home lost—and you were the guilty one—you—all the time.”
“It was part of my madness. I was a coward and I thought then there were reasons why I should feel no pity for Dyck Calhoun. His father injured mine—oh, badly! But I was a coward, and I’ve paid the price.”
A kinder feeling now took hold of Sheila. After all, what this woman had done gave happiness into her—Sheila’s-hands. It relieved Dyck Calhoun of shame and disgrace. A jail-bird he was still, but an innocent jail-bird. He had not killed Erris Boyne. Besides, it wiped out forever the barrier between them. All her blind devotion to the man was now justified. His name and fame were clear. Her repugnance of the woman was as nothing beside her splendid feeling of relief. It was as though the gates of hell had been closed and the curtains of heaven drawn for the eyes to see. Six years of horrible shame wiped out, and a new world was before her eyes.
This woman who had killed Erris Boyne must now suffer. She must bear the ignominy which had been heaped upon Dyck Calhoun’s head. Yet all at once there came to her mind a softening feeling. Erris Boyne had been rightly killed by a woman he had wronged, for he was a traitor as well as an adulterer—one who could use no woman well, who broke faith with all civilized tradition, and reverted to the savage. Surely the woman’s crime was not a dark one; it was injured innocence smiting depravity, tyranny and lust.
Suddenly, as she looked at the woman who had done this thing, she, whose hand had rid the world of a traitor and a beast, fell back on the pillow in a faint. With an exclamation Sheila lifted up the head. If the woman was dead, then there was no hope for Dyck Calhoun; any story that she—Sheila—might tell would be of no use. Yet she was no longer agitated in her body. Hands and fingers were steady, and she felt for the heart with firm fingers. Yes, the heart was still beating, and the pulse was slightly drumming. Thank God, the woman was alive! She rang a bell and lifted up the head of the sick woman.
A moment later the servant was in the room. Sheila gave her orders quickly, and snatched up a pencil from the table. Then, on a piece of paper, she wrote the words: “I, not Dyck Calhoun, killed Erris Boyne.”
A few moments later, Noreen’s eyes opened, and Sheila spoke to her. “I have written these words. Here they are—see them. Sign them.”
She read the words, and put a pencil in the trembling fingers, and, on the cover of a book Noreen’s fingers traced her name slowly but clearly. Then Sheila thrust the paper in her bosom, and an instant later a nurse, sent by the resident doctor, entered.
“They cannot hang me or banish me, for my end has come,” whispered Noreen before Sheila left.
In the street of Spanish Town almost the first person Sheila saw was Dyck Calhoun. With pale, radiant look she went to him. He gazed at her strangely, for there was that in her face he could not understand. There was in it all the faith of years, all the truth of womanhood, all the splendour of discovery, all that which a man can see but once in a human face and be himself.
“Come with me,” she said, and she moved towards King’s House. He obeyed. For some moments they walked in silence, then all at once under a magnolia tree she stopped.
“I want you to read what a woman wrote who has just arrived in the island from England. She is ill at the house of the general commanding.”
Taking from her breast the slip of paper, she handed it to him. He read it with eyes and senses that at first could hardly understand.
“God in heaven—oh, merciful God!” he said in great emotion, yet with a strange physical quiet.
“This woman was his wife,” Sheila said.
He handed the paper back. He conquered his agitation. The years of suffering rolled away. “They’ll put her in jail,” he said with a strange regret. He had a great heart.
“No, I think not,” was the reply. Yet she was touched by his compassion and thoughtfulness.
“Why?”
“Because she is going to die—and there is no time to lose. Come, we will go to Lord Mallow.”
“Mallow!” A look of bitter triumph came into Dyck’s face. “Mallow—at last!” he said.
Lord Mallow frowned on his secretary. “Mr. Calhoun to see me! What’s his business?”
“One can guess, your honour. He’s been fighting for the island.”
“Why should he see me? There is the general commanding.”
The secretary did not reply, he knew his chief; and, after a moment, Lord Mallow said: “Show him in.” When Dyck Calhoun entered the governor gave him a wintry smile of welcome, but did not offer to shake hands. “Will you sit down?” he said, with a slow gesture.
Calhoun made a dissenting motion. “I prefer to stand, your honour.”
This was the first time the two men had met alone since Dyck had arrived in Jamaica, or since his trial. Calhoun was dressed in planter’s costume, and the governor was in an officer’s uniform. They were in striking contrast in face and figure—the governor long, lanky, ascetic in appearance, very intellectual save for the riotous mouth, and very spick and span—as though he had just stepped out of Almack’s; while Calhoun was tough and virile, and with the air of a thorough outdoor man. There was in his face the firm fighting look of one who had done things and could tackle big affairs—and something more; there was in it quiet exultation. Here he was now at last alone with the man who had done him great harm, and for whom he had done so much; who had sought to wipe him off the slate of life and being; who had tried to win the girl from whom he himself had been parted.
In spite of it all—of his life in jail, of his stark mutiny, of the oppression of the governor, he had not been beaten down, but had prospered in spite of all. He had by his will, wisdom and military skill, saved the island in its hour of peril, saved its governor from condemnation; and here he was facing the worst enemy of his life with the cards of success in his hands.
“You have done the island and England great service, Mr. Calhoun,” said the governor at last.
“It is the least I could do for the land where I have made my home, where I have reaped more than I have sown.”
“We know your merit, sir.”
A sharp satirical look came into Calhoun’s face and his voice rang out with vigour. “And because you knew my merit you advised the crown to confine me to my estate, and you would have had me shot if you could. I am what I am because there was a juster man than yourself in Jamaica. Through him I got away and found treasure, and I bought land and have helped to save this island and your place. What do I owe you, your honour? Nothing that I can see—nothing at all.”
“You are a mutineer, and but that you showed your courage would have been hung at the yard-arm, as many of your comrades in England were.”
A cold smile played at Calhoun’s lips. “My luck was as great as my courage, I know. I have the luck of Enniscorthy!”
At the last words the governor winced, for it was by that touch Calhoun had defeated him in the duel long ago. It galled him that this man whom he detested could say such things to him with truth. Yet in his heart of hearts he had for Calhoun a great respect. Calhoun’s invincible will had conquered the worst in Mallow’s nature, had, in spite of himself, created a new feeling in him. There was in Mallow the glimmer of greatness, and only his supreme selfishness had made him what he was. He laid a hand on himself now, though it was not easy to do so.
“It was not the luck of Enniscorthy that sent Erris Boyne to his doom,” he said, however, with anger in his mind, for Dyck’s calm boldness stirred the worst in him. He thought he saw in him an exultancy which could only come from his late experiences in the field. It was as though he had come to triumph over the governor. Mallow said what he had said with malice. He looked to see rage in the face of Dyck Calhoun, and was nonplussed to find that it had only a stern sort of pleasure. The eyes of Calhoun met his with no trace of gloom, but with a valour worthy of a high cause—their clear blue facing his own with a constant penetration. Their intense sincerity gave him a feeling which did not belong to authority. It was not the look of a criminal, whatever the man might be—mutineer and murderer. As for mutineer, all that Calhoun had fought for had been at last admitted by the British Government, and reforms had been made that were due to the mutiny at the Nore. Only the technical crime had been done by Calhoun, and he had won pardon by his bravery in the battle at sea. Yes, he was a man of mark, even though a murderer.
Calhoun spoke slowly. “Your honour, you have said what you have a right to say to a man who killed Erris Boyne. But this man you accuse did not do it.” The governor smiled, for the assumption was ridiculous. He shrugged a shoulder and a sardonic curl came to his lip.
“Who did it then?”
“If you will come to the house of the general commanding you will see.”
The governor was in a great quandary. He gasped. “The general commanding—did he kill Erris Boyne, then?”
“Not he, yet the person that did it is in this house. Listen, your honour. I have borne the name of killing Erris Boyne, and I ought to have killed him, for he was a traitor. I had proofs of it; but I did not kill him, and I did not betray him, for he had alive a wife and daughter, and something was due to them. He was a traitor, and was in league with the French. It does not matter that I tell you now, for his daughter knows the truth. I ought to have told it long ago, and if I had I should not have been imprisoned.”
“You were a brave man, but a fool—always a fool,” said the governor sharply.
“Not so great a fool that I can’t recover from it,” was the calm reply. “Perhaps it was the best thing that ever happened to me, for now I can look the world in the face. It’s made a man of me. It was a woman killed him,” was Calhoun’s added comment. “Will your honour come with me and see her?”
The governor was thunderstruck. “Where is she?”
“As I have told you-in the house of the general commanding.”
The governor rose abashed. “Well, I can go there now. Come.”
“Perhaps you would prefer I should not go with you in the street. The world knows me as a mutineer, thinks of me as a murderer! Is it fair to your honour?”
Something in Calhoun’s voice roused the rage of Lord Mallow, but he controlled it, and said calmly: “Don’t talk nonsense, sir; we shall walk together, if you will.”
At the entrance to the house of the general, the man to whom this visit meant so much stopped and took a piece of paper from his pocket. “Your honour, here is the name of the slayer of Erris Boyne. I give it to you now to see, so you may not be astonished when you see her.”
The governor stared at the paper. “Boyne’s wife, eh?” he said in a strange mood. “Boyne’s wife—what is she doing here?”
Calhoun told him briefly as he took the paper back, and added: “It was accident that brought us all together here, your honour, but the hand of God is in it.”
“Is she very ill?”
“She will not live, I think.”
“To whom did she tell her story?”
“To Miss Sheila Llyn.”
The governor was nettled.
“Oh, to Miss Llyn When did you see her?”
“Just before I came to you.”
“What did the woman look like—this Noreen Boyne?”
“I do not know; I have not seen her.”
“Then how came you by the paper with her signature?”
“Miss Llyn gave it to me.”
Anger filled Lord Mallow’s mind. Sheila—why now the way would be open to Calhoun to win—to marry her! It angered him, but he held himself steadily.
“Where is Miss Llyn?”
“She is here, I think. She came back when she left me at your door.”
“Oh, she left you at my door, did she?... But let me see the woman that’s come so far to put the world right.”
A few moments later they stood in the bedroom of Noreen Boyne, they two and Sheila Llyn, the nurse having been sent out.
Lord Mallow looked down on the haggard, dying woman with no emotion. Only a sense of duty moved him.
“What is it you wished to say to me?” he asked the patient.
“Who are you?” came the response in a frayed tone.
“I am the governor of the island—Lord Mallow.”
“Then I want to tell you that I killed Erris Boyne—with this hand I killed him.” She raised her skinny hand up, and her eyes became glazed. “He had used me vilely and I struck him down. He was a bad man.”
“You let an innocent man bear punishment, you struck at one who did you no harm, and you spoiled his life for him. You can see that, can’t you?”
The woman’s eyes sought the face of Dyck Calhoun, and Calhoun said: “No, you did not spoil my life, Noreen Boyne. You have made it. Not that I should have chosen the way of making it, but there it is, as God’s in heaven, I forgive you.”
Noreen’s face lost some of its gloom. “That makes it easier,” she said brokenly. “I can’t atone by any word or act, but I’m sorry. I’ve kept you from being happy, and you were born to be happy. Your father had hurt mine, had turned him out of our house for debt, and I tried to pay it all back. When they suspected you I held my peace. I was a coward; I could not say you were innocent without telling the truth, and that I could not do then. But now I’ll tell it—I think I’d have told it whether I was dying or not, though. Yes, if I’d seen you here I’d have told it, I’m sure. I’m not all bad.”
Sheila leaned over the bed. “Never mind about the past. You can help a man back to the good opinion of the world now.”
“I hurt you too,” said Noreen with hopeless pain. “You were his friend.”
“I believed in him always—even when he did not deny the crime,” was the quiet reply.
“There’s no good going on with that,” said the governor sharply. “We must take down her statement in writing, and then—”
“Look, she is sinking!” said Calhoun sharply. The woman’s head had dropped forward, her chin was on her breast, and her hands became clenched.
“The doctor at once-bring in the nurse,” said Calhoun. “She’s dying.”
An instant later, the nurse entered with Sheila, and in a short time the doctor came.
When later the doctor saw Lord Mallow alone he said: “She can’t live more than two days.”
“That’s good for her in a way,” answered the governor, and in reply to the doctor’s question why, he said: “Because she’d be in prison.”
“In prison—has she broken the law?”
“She is now under arrest, though she doesn’t know it.
“What was her crime, your honour?”
“She killed a man.”
“What man?”
“Him for whom Dyck Calhoun was sent to prison—Erris Boyne.”
“Mr. Calhoun was not guilty, then?”
“No. As soon as the woman is dead, I mean to announce the truth.”
“Not till then, your honour?”
“Not till then.”
“It’s hard on Calhoun.”
“Is it? It’s years since he was tried and condemned. Two days cannot matter now.”
“Perhaps not. Last night the woman said to me: ‘I’m glad I’m going to die.’” Then he added: “Calhoun will be more popular than ever now.”
The governor winced.