“at last, my god, at last!”
“at last, my god, at last!”
Thedeath-cry that Mouraki Pasha uttered under Demetri’s avenging knife seemed to touch a spring and set us all a-moving. The sound of it turned the soldiers’ idle lassitude into an amazed wonder, which again passed in an instant to fierce excitement. Phroso leapt, with a shriek, to her feet. I hurled myself across the space between me and the rope, knife in hand. The soldiers, neglecting their unarmed prisoner, turned with a shout of rage, and rushed wildly up the slope to where Demetri stood, holding his blade towards heaven. The rope parted under my impetuous assault. Phroso was by my side, in an instant we were in the boat; I pushed off. I seized the sculls; but then I hesitated. Was this man my friend, my ally, my accomplice, what you will? I looked up the slope. Demetri stood by the body of Mouraki. The four soldiers rushed towards him. I could not approve his deed; but I had suffered it to be done. I must not run away now. I pushed the sculls intoPhroso’s hands. But she had caught my purpose, and threw herself upon me, twining her arms about me and crying, ‘No, no, my lord! My lord, no, no!’ Her love gave her strength; for a moment I could not disengage myself, but stood fast bound in her embrace.
The moment was enough. It was the end, the end of that brief fierce drama on the rocky slope, the end of any power I might have had to aid Demetri; for he did not try to defend himself. He stood still as a statue where he was, holding the knife up to heaven, the smile which his loud laugh left still on his lips. Phroso’s head sank on my shoulder. She would not look; but the sight drew my eyes with an irresistible attraction. The bayonets flashed in the air and buried themselves in Demetri’s body. He sank with a groan. Again the blades, drawn back, were driven into him, and again and again. He was a mangled corpse, but in hot revenge for their leader they thrust and thrust. It turned me sick to look; yet I looked till at last they ceased, and stood for an instant over the two bodies, regarding them. Then I loosed Phroso’s arms off me; she sank back in the stern. Again I took the sculls and laid to with a will. Where we were to go, or what help we could look for, I did not know; but a fever to be away from the place had come on me, and I pulled, thinkingless of life and safety than of putting distance between me and that hideous scene.
‘They don’t move,’ whispered Phroso, whose eyes were now turned away from me and fixed on the beach. ‘They stand still. Row, my lord, row!’
A moment passed. I pulled with all my strength. She was between me and the land; I could see nothing. Her voice came again, low but urgent:
‘Now they move, they’re coming down to the shore. Ah, my lord, they’re taking aim!’
‘God help us!’ said I between my teeth. ‘Crouch in the boat. Low down, get right down. Lower down, Phroso, lower down!’
‘Ah, one has knocked up the barrels! They’re talking again. Why don’t they fire?’
‘Do they look like hesitating?’
‘Yes. No, they’re aiming again. No, they’ve stopped. Row, my lord, row!’
I was pulling as I had not pulled since I rowed in my college boat at Oxford nine years before. I thought of the race at that moment with a sort of amusement. But all the while Phroso kept watch for me; by design or chance she did not move from between me and the shore.
‘They’re running to the boat now. They’re getting in. Are they coming after us, my lord?’
‘Heaven knows! I suppose so.’
I was wondering why they had not used their rifles; they had evidently thought of firing at first, but something had held their hands. Perhaps they, mere humble soldiers, shrank from the responsibility. Their leader, whose protection would have held them harmless and whose favour rewarded them, lay dead. They might well hesitate to fire on a man whom they knew to be a person of some position and who had taken no part in Mouraki’s death.
‘They’re launching the boat. They’re in now,’ came in Phroso’s breathless whisper.
‘How far off are we?’
‘I don’t know; two hundred yards, perhaps. They’ve started now.’
‘Do they move well?’
‘Yes, they’re rowing hard. Oh, my dear lord, can you row harder?’ She turned to me for an instant, clasping her hands in entreaty.
‘No, I can’t, Phroso,’ said I, and I believe I smiled. Did the dear girl think I should choose that moment for paddling?
‘They’re gaining,’ she cried. ‘Oh, they’re gaining! On, my lord, on!’
‘How many are rowing?’
‘Three, my lord, each with two oars.’
‘Oh, the deuce! It’s no good, Phroso.’
‘No good, my lord? But if they catch us?’
‘I wish I could answer you. How near now?’
‘Half as near as they were before.’
‘Look round the sea. Are there any boats anywhere? Look all round.’
‘There’s nothing anywhere, my lord.’
‘Then the game’s up,’ said I; and I rested on my oars and began to pant. I was not in training for a race.
The boat containing the soldiers drew near. Our boat, now motionless, awaited their coming. Phroso sank on the seat and sat with a despairing look in her eyes. But my mood was not the same. Mouraki was dead. I knew the change his death made was great. Mouraki was dead. I did not believe that there was another man in Neopalia who would dare to take any extreme step against me. For why had they not fired? They did not fire now, when they could have shot me through the head without difficulty and without danger.
Their boat came alongside of ours. I leant forward and touched Phroso’s hand; she looked up.
‘Courage,’ said I. ‘The braver we look the better we shall come off.’ Then I turned to the pursuers and regarded them steadily, waiting for them to speak. The first communication wasin dumb show. The man who was steering—he appeared to be a subordinate officer—covered me with his barrel.
‘I’m absolutely unarmed,’ I said. ‘You know that. You took my revolver away from me.’
‘You’re trying to escape,’ said he, not shifting his aim.
‘Where’s your warrant for stopping me?’ I demanded.
‘The Pasha—’
‘The Pasha’s dead. Be careful what you do. I am an Englishman, and in my country I am as great a man as your Pasha was.’ This assertion perhaps was on, or beyond, the confines of strict truth; it had considerable effect, however.
‘You were our prisoner, my lord,’ said the officer more civilly. ‘We cannot allow you to escape. And this lady was a prisoner also. She is not English; she is of the island. And one of the islanders has slain the Pasha. She must answer for it.’
‘What can she have had to do with it?’
‘It may have been planned between her and the assassin.’
‘Oh, and between me and the assassin too, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps, my lord. It is not my place to inquire into that.’
I shrugged my shoulders with an appearance of mingled carelessness and impatience.
‘Well, what do you want of us?’ I asked.
‘You must accompany us back to Neopalia.’
‘Well, where did you suppose I was going? Is this a boat to go for a voyage in? Can I row a hundred miles to Rhodes? Come, you’re a silly fellow!’
He was rather embarrassed by my tone. He did not know whether to believe in my sincerity or not. Phroso caught the cue well enough to keep her tongue between her pretty lips, and her lids low over her wondering eyes.
‘But,’ I pursued in a tone of ironical remonstrance, ‘are you going to leave the Pasha there? The other is a rogue and a murderer’ (it rather went to my heart to describe the useful, if unscrupulous, Demetri in these terms); ‘let him be. But does it suit the dignity of Mouraki Pasha to lie untended on the shore, while his men row off to the harbour? It will look as though you had loved him little. You, four of you, allow one man to kill him, and then you leave his body as if it were the body of a dog!’
I had no definite reason for wishing them to return and take up Mouraki’s body; but every moment gained was something. Neopalia had bred in me a constant hope of new chances, offresh turns, of a smile from fortune following quick on a frown. So I urged on them anything which would give a respite. My appeal was not wasted. The officer held a hurried whispered consultation with the soldier who sat on the seat next to him. Then he said:
‘It is true, my lord. It is more fitting that we should carry the body back; but you must return with us.’
‘With all my heart,’ said I, taking up my sculls with alacrity.
The officer responded to this move of mine by laying his rifle in readiness across his knees; both boats turned, and we set out again for the beach. As soon as we reached it three of them went up the slope. I saw them kick Demetri’s body out of the way; for he had fallen so that his arm was over the breast of his victim. Then they raised Mouraki and began to carry him down. Phroso hid her face in her hands. My eyes were on Mouraki’s face; I watched him carried down to the boat, meditating on the strange toss-up which had allotted to him the fate which he had with such ruthless cunning prepared for me. Suddenly I sprang up, leapt out of the boat, and began to walk up the slope. I passed the soldiers who bore Mouraki. They paused in surprise and uneasiness. I walked briskly by, taking no notice of them, andcame where Demetri’s body lay. I knelt for a moment by him, and closed his eyes with my hand. Then I took off the silk scarf I was wearing and spread it over his face, and I rose to my feet again. Somehow I felt that I owed to Demetri some such small office of friendship as this that I was paying; and I found myself hoping that there had been good in the man, and that He who sees all of the heart would see good even in the wild desperate soul of Demetri of Neopalia. So I arranged the scarf carefully, and, turning, walked down the slope to the boats again, glad to be able to tell the girl Panayiota that somebody had closed her lover’s eyes. Thus I left the friend that I knew not of. Looking into my own heart, I did not judge him harshly. I had let the thing be done.
When I reached the beach, the soldiers were about to lay Mouraki’s body in the larger of the two boats; but having nothing to cover his body with they proceeded to remove his undress frock coat and left it lying for an instant on the shingle while they lifted him in. Seeing that they were ready, I picked up the coat and handed it to them. They took it and arranged it over the trunk and head. Two of them got into the boat in which Phroso sat and signed to me to jump in. I was about to obey when I perceived a pocket-book lying on the shingle. It was not mine. NeitherDemetri nor any of the soldiers was likely to carry a handsome morocco-leather case; it must have belonged to Mouraki and have fallen from his coat as I lifted it. It lay opened now, face upwards. I stooped for it, intending to give it to the officer. But an instant later it was in my pocket; and I, under the screen of a most innocent expression, was covertly watching my guards, to see whether they had detected my action. The two who rowed Mouraki had already started; the others had been taking their seats in the boat and had not perceived the swift motion with which I picked up the book. I walked past them and sat down behind them in the bows. Phroso was in the stern. One of them asked her, with a considerable show of respect, if she would steer. She assented with a nod. I crouched down low in the bows behind the backs of the soldiers; there I took out Mouraki’s pocket-book and opened it. My action seemed, no doubt, not far removed from theft. But as the book lay open on the shore, I had seen in it something which belonged to me, something which was inalienably mine, of which no schemes or violence could deprive me: this was nothing else than my name.
Very quietly and stealthily I drew out a slip of paper; behind that was another slip, and again a third. They were cuttings from a Greek newspaper.Neither the name of the paper, nor the dates, nor the place of publication, appeared: the extracts were merely three short paragraphs. My name headed each of them. I had not been aware that any chronicle of my somewhat unexpected fortunes had reached the outer world; and I set myself to read with much interest. Great men may become indifferent as to what the papers say about them; I had never attained to this exalted state of mind.
‘Let’s have a look,’ said I to myself, after a cautious glance over my shoulder at the other boat, which was several yards ahead.
The first paragraph ran thus: ‘We regret to hear that Lord Wheatley, the English nobleman who has recently purchased the island of Neopalia and taken up his residence there, is suffering from a severe attack of the fever which is at the present time prevalent in the island.’
‘Now that’s very curious,’ I thought, for I had never enjoyed better health than during my sojourn in Neopalia. I turned with increased interest to the second cutting. I wanted to see what progress I had made in my serious sickness. Naturally I was interested.
‘We greatly regret to announce that Lord Wheatley’s condition is critical. The fever has abated, but the patient is dangerously prostrate.’
‘It would be even more interesting if one had the dates,’ thought I.
The last paragraph was extremely brief. ‘Lord Wheatley died at seven o’clock yesterday morning.’
I lay back in the bows of the boat, holding these remarkable little slips of paper in my hand. They gave occasion for some thought. Then I replaced them in the pocket-book, and I had, I regret to say, the curiosity to explore further. I lifted the outer flap of leather and looked in the inner compartment. It held only a single piece of paper. On the paper were four or five lines, not in print this time but in handwriting, and the handwriting looked very much like what I had seen over Mouraki’s name.
‘Report of Lord Wheatley’s death unfounded. Reason to suspect intended foul play on the part of the islanders. The Governor is making inquiries. Lord Wheatley is carefully guarded, as attempts on his life are feared. Feeling in the island is much exasperated, the sale to Lord Wheatley being very unpopular.’
‘There’s another compartment yet,’ said I to myself, and I turned to it eagerly. Alas, I was disappointed! There was a sheet of paper in it, but the paper was a blank. Yet I looked at the blank piece of paper with even greater interest; for I had little doubt that it had been intended tocarry another message, a message which was true and no lie, which was to have been written this very morning by the dagger of Demetri. Something like this it would have run, would it not, in the terse style of my friend Mouraki Pasha? ‘Lord Wheatley assassinated this morning. Assassin killed by Governor’s guards. Governor is taking severe measures.’
Mouraki, Mouraki, in your life you loved irony, and in your death you were not divided from it! For while you lay a corpse in the stern of your boat, I lived to read those unwritten words on the blank paper in your pocket-book. At first Constantine had killed me—so I interpreted the matter—by fever; but later on that story would not serve, since Denny and Hogvardt and faithful Watkins knew that it was a lie. Therefore the lie was declared a lie and you set yourself to prove again that truth is better than a lie—especially when a man can manufacture it to his own order. Yet, surely, Mouraki, if you can look now into this world, your smile will be a wry one! For, cunning as you were and full of twists, more cunning still and richer in expedients is the thing called fate; and the dagger of Demetri wrote another message to fill the blank sheet that your provident notebook carried!
Thinking thus, I put the book in my pocket,and looked round with a smile on my lips. I wished the man were alive that I might mock him. I grudged him the sudden death which fenced him from my triumphant raillery.
Suddenly, there in the bows of the boat, I laughed aloud, so that the soldiers turned startled faces over their shoulders and Phroso looked at me in wonder.
‘It’s nothing,’ said I. ‘Since I’m alive I may laugh, I suppose?’ Mouraki Pasha was not alive.
My reading and my meditation had passed the time. Now we were round the point which had lain between us and the harbour, and were heading straight for the gunboat that was anchored just across the head of the jetty. Phroso’s eyes met mine in an appeal. I could give her no hope of escape. There was nothing for it: we must go on, we and Mouraki together. But my heart was buoyant within me and I exulted in the favours of fortune as a lover in his mistress’s smiles. Was not Mouraki lying dead in the stern of the boat and was not I alive?
We drew near to the gunboat. Now I perceived that her steam launch lay by her side and smoke poured from its funnel. Evidently the launch was ready for a voyage. Whither? Could it be to Rhodes? And did the pocket-book that I felt against my ribs by any chance contain the cargowhich was to have been speeded on its way to-day? I laughed again as our boat came alongside, and a movement of excitement and interest rose from the deck of gunboat and launch alike.
The officer went on board the gunboat; for an hour or more we sat where we were, sheltered by the side of the vessel from the heat of the sun, for it was now noon. What was happening on board I could not tell, but there was stir and bustle. The excitement seemed to grow. Presently it spread from the vessel to the shore and groups of islanders began to collect. I saw men point at Phroso, at me, at the stiffened figure under the coat. They spoke also, and freely; more boldly than I had heard them since Mouraki had landed and his presence turned their fierce pride to meekness. It was as though a weight had been lifted off them. I knew, from my own mind, the relief that came to them by the death of the hard man and the removal of the ruthless arm. Presently a boat put off and began to pull round the promontory. The soldiers did not interfere, but watched it go in idle toleration. I guessed its errand: it went to take up the corpse of Demetri, and (I was much afraid) to give it a patriot’s funeral.
At last Mouraki’s body was carried on to the gunboat; then a summons came to me. With aglance of encouragement at Phroso, who sat in a sort of stupor, I rose and obeyed. I was conducted on to the deck and found myself face to face with the captain. He was a Turk, a young man of dignified and pleasant appearance. He bowed to me courteously, although slightly. I supposed that Mouraki’s death left him the supreme authority in Neopalia and I made him the obeisance proper to his new position.
‘This is a terrible, a startling event, my lord,’ said he.
‘It’s the loss of a very eminent and distinguished man,’ I observed.
‘Ah, yes, and in a very fearful manner,’ he answered. ‘I am not prejudging your position, but you must see that it puts you in a rather serious situation.’
There were two or three of his officers standing near. I took a step towards him. I liked his looks; and somehow his grief at Mouraki’s end did not seem intense. I determined to play the bold game.
‘Nothing, I assure you, to what I should have been in if it had not occurred,’ said I composedly.
A start and a murmur ran round the group. The captain looked uncomfortable.
‘With his Excellency’s plans we have nothing to do—’ he began.
‘Aye, but I have,’ said I. ‘And when I tell you—’
‘Gentlemen,’ said the captain hastily, ‘leave us alone for a little while.’
I saw at once that I had made an impression. It seemed not difficult to create an impression adverse to Mouraki now that he was dead, though it had not been wise to display one when he was alive.
‘I don’t know,’ said I, when we were left alone together, ‘whether you knew the relations between the late Pasha and myself?’
‘No,’ said he in a steady voice, looking me full in the face.
‘It was not, perhaps, within the sphere of your duty to know them?’ I hazarded.
‘It was not,’ said he. I thought I saw the slightest of smiles glimmering between beard and moustache.
‘But now that you’re in command, it’s different?’
‘It is undoubtedly different now,’ he admitted.
‘Shall we talk in your cabin?’
‘By all means;’ and he led the way.
When we reached the cabin, I gave him a short sketch of what had happened since Mouraki’s arrival. He was already informed as to the events before that date. He heardme with unmoved face. At last I came to my attempted escape with Phroso by the secret passage and to Constantine’s attack.
‘That fellow was a villain,’ he observed.
‘Yes,’ said I. ‘Read those.’ And I handed him the printed slips, adding, ‘I suppose he sent these by fishing-boats to Rhodes, first to pave the way, and finally to account for my disappearance.’
‘I must congratulate you on a lucky escape, my lord.’
‘You have more than that to congratulate me on, captain. Your launch seems ready for a voyage.’
‘Yes; but I have countermanded the orders.’
‘What were they?’
‘I beg your pardon, my lord, but what concern is it—?’
‘For a trip to Rhodes, perhaps?’
‘I shall not deny it if you guess it.’
‘By the order of the Pasha?’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘On what errand?’
‘His Excellency did not inform me.’
‘To carry this perhaps?’ I flung the paper which bore Mouraki’s handwriting on the table that stood between us.
He took it up and read it; while he read, Itook my pencil from my pocket and wrote on the blank slip of paper, which I had found in the pocket-book, the message that Mouraki’s brain had surely conceived, though his fingers had grown stiff in death before they could write it.
‘What does all this mean?’ asked the captain, looking up as he finished reading.
‘And to-morrow,’ said I, ‘I think another message would have gone to Rhodes—’
‘I had orders to be ready to go myself to-morrow.’
‘You had?’ I cried. ‘And what would you have carried?’
‘That I don’t know.’
‘Aye, but I do. There’s your cargo!’ And I flung down what I had written.
He read it once and again, and looked across the table at me, fingering the slip of paper.
‘He did not write this?’ he said.
‘As you saw, I wrote it. If he had lived, then, as surely as I live, he would have written it. Captain, it was for me that dagger was meant. Else why did he take the man Demetri with him? Had Demetri cause to love him, or he cause to trust Demetri?’
The captain stood holding the paper. I walked round the table and laid my hand on his shoulder.
‘You didn’t know his schemes,’ said I. ‘They weren’t schemes that he could tell to a Turkish gentleman.’
At this instant the door opened and the officer who had been with us in the morning entered.
‘I have laid his Excellency’s body in his cabin,’ he said.
‘Come,’ said the captain, ‘we will go and see it, my lord.’
I followed him to where Mouraki lay. The Pasha’s face was composed and there was even the shadow of a smile on his pale lips.
‘Do you believe what I tell you?’ I asked. ‘I tried to save the girl from him and in return he meant to kill me. Do you believe me? If not, hang me for his murder; if you do, why am I a prisoner? What have I done? Where is my offence?’
The captain looked down on Mouraki’s face, tugged his beard, smiled, was silent an instant. Then he shrugged his shoulders, and he said—he who had not dared, a day before, to lift his voice or raise his finger unbidden in Mouraki’s presence:
‘Faugh, the Armenian dog!’
There was, I fear, race prejudice in that exclamation, but I did not contradict it. I stood looking down on Mouraki’s face, and to my fancy, stirredby the events of the past hours and twisted from sobriety to strange excesses of delusion, the lips seemed once again to curl in their old bitter smile, as he lay still and heard himself spurned, and could not move to exact the vengeance which in his life he had never missed.
So we left him—the Armenian dog!
Onthe evening of the next day I was once again with my faithful friends on board the little yacht. Furious with the trick Mouraki had played them, they rejoiced openly at his fall and mingled their congratulations to me with hearty denunciations of the dead man. In sober reality we had every reason to be glad. Our new master was of a different stamp from Mouraki. He was a proud, reserved, honest gentleman, with no personal ends to serve. He had informed me that I must remain on the island till he received instructions concerning me, but he encouraged me to hope that my troubles were at last over; indeed I gathered from a hint or two which he let fall that Mouraki’s end was not likely to be received with great regret in exalted circles. In truth I have never known a death greeted with more general satisfaction. The soldiers regarded me with quiet approval. To the people of Neopalia I became a hero: everybody seemed to have learnt something at leastof the story of my duel with the Pasha, and everybody had been (so it now appeared) on my side. I could not walk up the street without a shower of benedictions; the islanders fearlessly displayed their liking for me by way of declaring their hatred for Mouraki’s memory and their exultation in his fitting death. In these demonstrations they were not interfered with, and the captain went so far as to shut his eyes judiciously when, under cover of night, they accorded Demetri the tribute of a public funeral. To this function I did not go, although I was informed that my presence was confidently expected; but I sought out Panayiota and told her how her lover died. She heard the story with Spartan calm and pride; Neopalians take deaths easily.
Yet there were shadows on our new-born prosperity. Most lenient and gracious to me, the captain preserved a severe and rigorous attitude towards Phroso. He sent her to her own house—or my house, as with amiable persistence he called it—and kept her there under guard. Her case also would be considered, he said, and he had forwarded my exoneration of her together with the account of Mouraki’s death; but he feared very much that she would not be allowed to remain in the island; she would be a centre of discontent there. As for my proposal to restore Neopalia toher, he assured me that it would not be listened to for a moment. If I declined to keep the island,—probably a suitable and loyal lord would be selected, and Phroso would be deported.
‘Where to?’ I asked.
‘Really I don’t know,’ said the captain. ‘It is but a small matter, my lord, and I have not troubled my superiors with any recommendation on the subject.’
As he spoke he rose to go. He had been paying us a visit on the yacht, where, in obedience to his advice, I had taken up my abode. Denny, who was sitting near, gave a curious sort of laugh. I frowned fiercely, the captain looked from one to the other of us in bland curiosity.
‘You take an interest in the girl?’ he said, in a tone in which surprise struggled with civility. Again came Denny’s half-smothered laugh.
‘An interest in her?’ said I irritably. ‘Well, I suppose I do. It looked like it when I took her through that infernal passage, didn’t it?’
The captain smiled apologetically and pursued his way towards the door. ‘I will try to obtain lenient treatment for her,’ said he, and passed out. I was left alone with Denny, who chose at this moment to begin to whistle. I glared most ill-humouredly at him. He stopped whistling and remarked:
‘By this time to-morrow our friends at home will be taking off their mourning. They’ll read in the papers that Lord Wheatley is not dead of fever at Neopalia, and they won’t read that he has fallen a victim to the misguided patriotism of the islanders; in fact they’ll be preparing to kill the fatted calf for him.’
It was all perfectly true, both what Denny said and what he implied without saying. But I found no answer to make to it.
‘What a happy ending it is,’ said Denny.
‘Uncommonly,’ I growled, lighting a cigar.
After this there was a long silence: I smoked, Denny whistled. I saw that he was determined to say nothing more explicit unless I gave him a lead, but his whole manner exuded moral disapproval. The consciousness of his feelings kept me obstinately dumb.
‘Going to stay here long?’ he asked at last, in a wonderfully careless tone.
‘Well, there’s no hurry, is there?’ I retorted aggressively.
‘Oh, no; only I should have thought—oh, well, nothing.’
Again silence. Then Watkins opened the door of the cabin and announced the return of the captain. I was surprised to see him again so soon. I was more surprised when he came at me withoutstretched hand and a smile of mingled amusement and reproof on his face.
‘My dear lord,’ he exclaimed, seizing my defenceless hand, ‘is this treating me quite fairly? So far as a word from you went, I was left completely in the dark. Of course I understand now, but it was an utter surprise to me.’ He shook his head with playful reproach.
‘If you understand now, I confess you have the advantage of me,’ I returned, with some stiffness. ‘Pray, sir, what has occurred? No doubt it’s something remarkable. I’ve learnt to rely on Neopalia for that.’
‘It was remarkable in my eyes, I admit, and rather startling. But of course I acquiesced. In fact, my dear lord, it materially alters the situation. As your wife, she will be in a very different—’
‘Hallo!’ cried Denny, leaping up from the bench where he had been sitting.
‘In a very different position indeed,’ pursued the captain blandly. ‘We should have, if I may say so, a guarantee for her good behaviour. We should have you to look to—a great security, as I need not tell you.’
‘My dear sir,’ said I in exasperated pleading, ‘you don’t seem to think you need tell me anything. Pray inform me of what has occurred, andwhat this wonderful thing is that makes so much change.’
‘Indeed,’ said he, ‘if I had surprised a secret, I would apologise; but it’s evidently known to all the islanders.’
‘Well, but I’m not an islander,’ I cried in growing fury.
The captain sat down, lit a cigarette very deliberately, and observed:
‘It was perhaps stupid of me not to have thought of it. She is, of course, a beautiful girl, but hardly, if I may say so, your equal in position, my lord.’
I jumped up and caught him by the shoulder. He might order me under arrest if he liked, but he should tell me what had happened first.
‘What’s happened?’ I reiterated. ‘Since you left us—what?’
‘A deputation of the islanders, headed by their priest, came to ask my leave for the inhabitants to go up to the house and see their Lady.’
‘Yes, yes. What for?’
‘To offer her their congratulations on her betrothal—’
‘What?’
‘And their assurances of loyalty to her and to her husband for her sake. Oh, it simplifies the matter very much.’
‘Oh, does it? And did you tell them they might go?’
‘Was there any objection? Certainly. Certainly I told them they might go, and I added that I heard with great gratification that a marriage so—’
What the captain had said to the deputation I did not wait to hear. No doubt it was something highly dignified and appropriate, for he was evidently much pleased with himself. But before he could possibly have finished so ornate a sentence, I was on the deck of the yacht. I heard Denny push back his chair, whether merely in wonder or in order to follow me I did not know. I leapt from the yacht on to the jetty and started to run up the street nearly as quickly as I had run down it on the day when Mouraki was kind enough to send my friends a-fishing. At all costs I must stop the demonstration of delight which the inconvenient innocence of these islanders was preparing.
Alas, the street was a desert! The movements of the captain were always leisurely. The impetuous Neopalians had wasted no time: they had got a start of me, and running up the hill after them was no joke. Against my will I was at last obliged to drop into a walk, and thus pursued my way doggedly, thinking in gloomy despairhow everything conspired to push me along the road which my honour and my pledged word closed to me. Was ever man so tempted? Did ever circumstances so conspire with his own wishes, or fate make duty seem more hard?
I turned the corner of the road which lead to the old house. It was here I had first heard Phroso’s voice in the darkness, here where, from the window of the hall, I had seen her lithe graceful figure when she came in her boy’s dress to raid my cows; a little further on was where I had said farewell to her when she went back, the grant of Neopalia in her hand, to soften the hearts of her turbulent countrymen; here where Mouraki had tried her with his guile and intimidated her with his harshness; and there was the house where I had declared to the Pasha that she should be my wife. How sweet that saying sounded in my remembering ears! Yet I swear I did not waver. Many have called me a fool for it since. I know nothing about that. Times change, and people are very wise nowadays. My father was a fool, I daresay, to give thousands to his spendthrift school-fellow, just because he happened to have said he would.
I saw them now, the bright picturesque crowd, thronging round the door of the house; and on the step of the threshold I saw her, standing there,tall and slim, with one hand resting on the arm of Kortes’s sister. A loud cry rose from the people. She did not seem to speak. With set teeth I walked on. Now someone in the circle caught sight of me. There was another eager cry, a stir, shouts, gestures; then they turned and ran to me. Before I could move or speak a dozen strong hands were about me. They swung me up on their shoulders and carried me along; the rest waved their hands and cheered: they blessed me and called me their lord. The women laughed and the girls shot merry shy glances at me. Thus they bore me in triumph to Phroso’s feet. Surely I was indeed a hero in Neopalia to-day, for they believed that through me their Lady would be left to them, and their island escape the punishment they feared. So they sang One-eyed Alexander’s chant no more, but burst into a glad hymn—an epithalamium—as I knelt at Phroso’s feet, and did not dare to lift my eyes to her fair face.
‘Here’s a mess!’ I groaned, wondering what they had said to my poor Phroso.
Then a sudden silence fell on them. Looking up in wonder, I saw that Phroso had raised her hand and was about to speak. She did not look at me—nay, she did not look at them; her eyes were fixed on the sea that she loved. Then her voice came, low but clear:
‘Friends—for all are friends here, and there are no strangers—once before, in the face of all of you I have told my love for my lord. My lord did not know that what I said was true, and I have not told him that it was true till I tell him here to-day. But you talk foolishly when you greet me as my lord’s bride; for in his country he is a great man and owns great wealth, and Neopalia is very small and poor, and I seem but a poor girl to him, though you call me your Lady.’
Here she paused an instant; then she went on, her voice sinking a little lower and growing almost dreamy, as if she let herself drift idly on the waves of fancy.
‘Is it strange to speak to you—to you, my brothers and sisters of our island? I do not know; I love to speak to you all; for, poor as I am and as our island is, I think sometimes that had my lord come here a free man he would have loved me. But his heart was not his own, and the lady he loves waits for him at home, and he will go to her. So wish me joy no more on what cannot be.’ And then, very suddenly, before I or any of them could move or speak, she withdrew inside the threshold, and Kortes’s sister swiftly closed the door. I was on my feet as it shut, and I stood facing it, my back to the islanders.
Among them at first there was an amazedsilence, but soon voices began to be heard. I turned round and met their gaze. The strong yoke of Mouraki was off them; their fear had gone, and with it their meekness. They were again in the fierce impetuous mood of St Tryphon’s day: they were exasperated at their disappointment, enraged to find the plan which left Phroso to them and relieved them of the threatened advent of a Government nominee brought to nothing.
‘They’ll take her away,’ said one.
‘They’ll send us a rascally Turk,’ cried another.
‘He shall hear the death-chant then,’ menaced a third.
Then their anger, seeking an outlet, turned on me. I do not know that I had the right to consider myself an entirely innocent victim.
‘He has won her love by fraud,’ muttered one to another, with evil-disposed glances and ominous frowns.
I thought they were going to handle me roughly, and I felt for the revolver which the captain had been kind enough to restore to me. But a new turn was given to their thoughts by a tall fellow, with long hair and flashing eyes, who leapt out from the middle of the throng, crying loudly:
‘Is not Mouraki dead? Why need we fear? Shall we wait idle while our Lady is taken fromus? To the shore, islanders! Where is fear since Mouraki is dead?’
His words lit a torch that blazed up furiously. In an instant they were aflame with the mad notion of attacking the soldiers and the gunboat. No voice was raised to point out the hopelessness of such an attempt, the certain death and the heavy penalties which must wait on it. The death-chant broke out again, mingled with exhortations to turn and march against the soldiers, and with encouragements to the tall fellow—Orestes they called him—to put himself at their head. He was not loth.
‘Let us go and get our guns and our knives,’ he cried, ‘and then to the shore!’
‘And this man?’ called half-a-dozen, pointing at me.
‘When we have driven out the soldiers we will deal with him,’ said Master Orestes. ‘If our Lady desires him for her husband, he shall wed her.’
A shout of approval greeted this arrangement, and they drew together into a sort of rude column, the women making a fringe to it. But I could not let them march on their own destruction without a word of warning. I sprang on to the raised step where Phroso had stood, just outside the door, and cried:
‘You fools! The guns of the ship will mow you down before you can touch a hair of the head of a single soldier.’
A deep derisive groan met my attempt at dissuasion.
‘On, on!’ they cried.
‘It’s certain death,’ I shouted, and now I saw one or two of the women hesitate, and look first at me and then at each other with doubt and fear. But Orestes would not listen, and called again to them to take the road. Thus we were when the door behind me opened, and Phroso was again by my side. She knew how matters went. Her eyes were wild with terror and distress.
‘Stop them, my lord, stop them,’ she implored.
For answer, I took my revolver from my pocket, saying, ‘I’ll do what I can.’
‘No, no, not like that! That would be your death as well as theirs.’
‘Come,’ cried Orestes, in the pride of his sudden elevation to leadership. ‘Come, follow me, I’ll lead you to victory.’
‘You fools, you fools!’ I groaned. ‘In an hour half of you will be dead.’
No, they would not listen. Only the women now laid imploring hands on the arms of husbands and brothers, useless loving restraints, angrily flung off.
‘Stop them, stop them!’ prayed Phroso. ‘By any means, my lord, by any means!’
‘There’s only one way,’ said I.
‘Whatever the way may be,’ she urged; for now the column was facing round towards the harbour. Orestes had taken his place, swelling with importance and eager to display his prowess. In a word, Neopalia was in revolt again, and the death-chant threatened to swell out in all its barbaric simple savagery at any moment.
There was nothing else for it; I must temporise; and that word is generally, and was in this case, the equivalent of a much shorter one. I could not leave these mad fools to rush on ruin. A plan was in my head and I gave it play. I took a pace forward, raised my hand, and cried:
‘Hear me before you march, Neopalians, for I am your friend.’
My voice gained me a minute’s silence; the column stood still, though Orestes chafed impatiently at the delay.
‘You’re in haste, men of Neopalia,’ said I. ‘Indeed you’re always in haste. You were in haste to kill me who had done you no harm. You are in haste to kill yourselves by marching into the mouth of the great gun of the ship. In truth I wonder that any of you are still alive.But here, in this matter, you are most of all in haste, for having heard what the Lady Phroso said, you have not asked nor waited to hear what I say, but have at once gone mad, all of you, and chosen the maddest among you and made him your leader.’
I do not think that they had expected quite this style of speech. They had looked for passionate reproaches or prayerful entreaties; cool scorn and chaff put them rather at a loss, and my reference to Orestes, who looked sour enough, won me a hesitating laugh.
‘And then, all of you mad together, off you go, leaving me here, the only sane man in the place! For am not I sane? Aye, not mad enough to leave the fairest lady in the world when she says she loves me!’ I took Phroso’s hand and kissed it. It lay limp and cold in mine. ‘For my home,’ I went on, ‘is a long way off, and it is long since I have seen the lady of whom you have heard; and a man’s heart will not be denied.’ Again I kissed Phroso’s hand, but I dared not look her in the face.
My meaning had dawned on them now. There was an instant’s silence, the last relic of doubt and puzzle; then a sudden loud shout went up from them. Orestes alone was sullen and mute, for my surrender deposed him from his brief eminence.Again and again they shouted in joy. I knew that their shouts must reach nearly to the harbour. Men and women crowded round me and seized my hand; nobody seemed to make any bones about the ‘lady who waited’ for me. They were single-hearted patriots, these Neopalians. I had observed that virtue in them several times before, and their behaviour now confirmed my opinion. But there was, of course, a remarkable difference in the manifestation. Before I had been the object, now I was the subject; for by announcing my intention of marrying Phroso I took rank as a Neopalian. Indeed for a minute or two I was afraid that the post of generalissimo, vacant by Orestes’s deposition, would be forcibly thrust upon me.
Happily their enthusiasm took a course which was more harmless, although it was hardly less embarrassing. They made a ring round Phroso and me, and insisted on our embracing one another in the glare of publicity. Yet somehow I forgot them all for a moment—them all, and more than them all—while I held her in my arms.
Now it chanced that the captain, Denny and Hogvardt chose this moment for appearing on the road, in the course of a leisurely approach to the house; and they beheld Phroso and myself in a very sentimental attitude on the doorstep, withthe islanders standing round in high delight. Denny’s amazed ‘Hallo!’ warned me of what had happened. The islanders—their enmity towards the suzerain power allayed as quickly as it had been roused—ran to the captain to impart the joyful news. He came up to me, and bestowed his sanction by a shake of the hand.
‘But why did you behave so strangely, my lord, when I wished you joy an hour ago on the boat?’ he asked; and it was a very natural question.
‘Oh, the truth is,’ said I, ‘that there was a little difficulty in the way then.’
‘Oh, a lover’s quarrel?’ he smiled.
‘Well, something like it,’ I admitted.
‘Everything is quite right now, I hope?’ he said politely.
‘Well, very nearly,’ said I. Then I met Denny’s eye.
‘Am I also to congratulate you?’ said Denny coldly.
There was no opportunity of explaining matters to him, the captain was too near.
‘I shall be very glad if you will,’ I said, ‘and if Hogvardt will also.’
Hogvardt shrugged his shoulders, raised his brows, smiled and observed:
‘I trust you’re acting for the best, my lord.’
Denny made no answer at all. He kicked the ground with his foot. I knew very well what was in Denny’s mind. Denny was of my family on his mother’s side, and Denny’s eye asked, ‘Where is the word of a Wheatley?’ All this I realised fully. I read his mind then more clearly than I could read my own; for had we been alone, and had he put to me the plain question, ‘Do you mean to make her your wife, or are you playing another trick?’ by heaven, I should not have known what to answer! I had begun a trick; the plan was to persuade the islanders into dispersing peacefully by my pretence, and then to slip away quietly by myself, trusting to their good sense—although a broken reed, yet the only resource—to make them accept an accomplished fact. But was that my mind now, since I had held Phroso in my arms, and her lips had met mine in the kiss which the islanders hailed as the pledge of our union?
I do not know. I saw Phroso turn and go into the house again. The captain spoke to Denny; I saw him point up to the window of the room which Mouraki had occupied. He went in. Denny motioned Hogvardt to his side, and they two also went into the house without asking me to accompany them. Gradually the throng of islanders dispersed. Orestes flung off in sullendisappointment; the men, those who had knives carefully hiding them, walked down the road like peaceful citizens; the women strolled away, laughing, chattering, gossiping, delighted, as women always are, with the love affair. Thus I was left alone in front of the house. It was late afternoon, and clouds had gathered over the sea. The air was very still; no sound struck my ear except the wash of the waves on the shore.
There I stood fighting the battle, for how long I do not know. The struggle within me was very sore. On either side seemed now to lie a path that it soiled my feet to tread: on the one was a broken pledge, on the other a piece of trickery and knavishness. The joy of a love that could be mine only through dishonour was imperfect joy; yet, if that love could not be mine, life seemed too empty a thing to live. The voices of the two sounded in my ear—the light merry prattle and the calmer sweeter voice. Ah, this island of mine, what things it put on a man!
At last I felt a hand laid on my shoulder. I turned, and in the quick-gathering dusk of the evening I saw Kortes’s sister; she looked long and earnestly into my face.
‘Well?’ said I. ‘What is it now?’
‘She must see you, my lord,’ answered the woman. ‘She must see you now, at once.’
I looked again at the harbour and the sea, trying to quell the tumult of my thoughts and to resolve what I would do. I could find no course and settle on no resolution.
‘Yes, she must see me,’ said I at last. I could say nothing else.
The woman moved away, a strange bewilderment shewing itself in her kind eyes. Again I was left alone in my restless self-communings. I heard people moving to and fro in the house. I heard the window of Mouraki’s room, where the captain was, closed with a decisive hand; and then I became aware of some one approaching me. I turned and saw Phroso’s white dress gleaming through the gloom, and her face nearly as white above it.
Yes, the time had come; but I was not ready.
Shecame up to me swiftly and without hesitation. I had looked for some embarrassment, but there was none in her face. She met my eyes full and square, and began to speak to me at once.
‘My lord,’ she said, ‘I must ask one thing of you. I must lay one more burden on you. After to-day I dare not be here when my countrymen learn how they are deluded. I should be ashamed to face them, and I dare not trust myself to the Turks, for I don’t know what they would do with me. Will you take me with you to Athens, or to some other port from which I can reach Athens? I can elude the guards here. I shall be no trouble: you need only tell me when your boat will start, and give me a corner to live in on board. Indeed I grieve to ask more of you, for you have done so much for me; but my trouble is great and— What is it, my lord?’
I had moved my hand to stop her. She had acted in the one way in which, had it been to save my life, I could not have. She put what had passed utterly out of the way, treating it as the merest trick. My part in it was to her the merest trick; of hers she said nothing. Had hers then been a trick also? My blood grew hot at the thought. I could not endure it.
‘When your countrymen learn how they are deluded?’ said I, repeating her words. ‘Deluded in what?’
‘In the trick we played on them, my lord, to—to persuade them to disperse.’
I took a step towards her, and my voice shook as I said:
‘Was it all a trick, Phroso?’ For at this moment I set above everything else in the world a fresh assurance of her love. I would force it from her sooner than not have it.
She answered me with questioning eyes and a sad little smile.
‘Are we then betrothed?’ she said, in mournful mockery.
I was close by her now. I did not touch her, but I bent a little, and my face was near hers.
‘Was it a trick to-day, and a trick on St Tryphon’s day also?’ I asked.
She gave one startled glance at my face, andthen her eyes dropped to the ground. She made no answer to my question.
‘Was it all a trick, Phroso?’ I asked in entreaty, in urgency, in the wild longing to hear her love declared once, here, to me alone, where nobody could hear, nobody impair its sweet secrecy.
Phroso’s answer came now, set to the accompaniment of the saddest, softest, murmuring laugh.
‘Ah, my lord, must you hear it again? Am I not twice shamed already?’
‘Be shamed yet once again,’ I whispered; then I saw the light of gladness master the misty sorrow in her eyes as I had seen once before; and I greeted it, whispering:
‘Yes, a thousand times, a thousand times!’
‘My dear lord!’ she said; but then she sprang back, and the brightness was clouded again as she stood aloof, regarding me in speechless, distressed puzzle.
‘But, my lord!’ she murmured, so low that I scarcely heard. Then she took refuge in a return to her request. ‘You won’t leave me here, will you? You’ll take me somewhere where I can be safe. I—I’m afraid of these men, even though the Pasha is dead.’
I took no notice of the request she repeated. I seemed unable to speak or to do anything elsebut look into her eyes; and I said, a touch of awe in my voice:
‘You have the most wonderful eyes in all the world, Phroso.’
‘My lord!’ murmured Phroso, dropping envious lids. But I knew she would open them soon again, and so she did.
‘Yes, in all the wide world,’ said I. ‘And I want to hear it again.’
As we talked we had moved little by little; now we were at the side of the house, in the deep dull shadow of it. Yet the eyes I praised pierced the gloom and shone in the darkness; and suddenly I felt arms about my neck, clasping me tightly; her breath was on my cheek, coming quick and uneven, and she whispered:
‘Yes, you shall hear it again and again and again, for I am not ashamed now; for I know, yes, I know. I love you, I love you—ah, how I love you!’ Her whispers found answer in mine. I held her as though against all the world: all the world was in that moment, and there was nothing else than that moment in all the world. Had a man told me then that I had felt love before, I would have laughed in his face—the fool!
But then Phroso drew back again; the brief rapture, free from all past or future, all thoughtor doubt, left her, and, in leaving her, forsook me also. She stood over against me murmuring:
‘But, my lord—!’
I knew well what she would say, and for an instant I stood silent. The world hung for us on the cast of my next words.
‘But, my lord, the lady who waits for you over the sea?’ There sounded a note of fear in the softly breathed whisper that the night carried to my ear. In an instant, before I could answer, Phroso came near to me and laid one hand on my arm, speaking gently and quickly. ‘Yes, I know, I see, I understand,’ she said, ‘and I thank you, my lord, and I thank God, my dear lord, that you told me and did not leave me without shewing me your love; for though I must be very unhappy, yet I shall be proud; and in the long nights I shall think of this dear island and of you, though you will both be far away. Yes, I thank heaven you told me, my dear lord.’ She bent her head, that should have bent to no man, and kissed my hand.
But I snatched my hand hastily away, and I sprang to her and caught her again in my arms, and again kissed her lips; for my resolve was made. I would not let her go. Those who would might ask the rights of it; I could not let her go. Yet I spoke no word, and she did not understand,but thought that I kissed her in farewell; for the tears were on her face and wetted my lips, and she clung to me as though something were tearing her from me and must soon sunder us apart, so greedy was her grasp on me. But then I opened my mouth to whisper in her ear the words which would bid defiance to the thing that was rending her away and rivet her life to mine.
But hark! There was a cry, a startled exclamation, and the sound of footsteps. My name was shouted loud and eagerly. I knew Denny’s voice. Phroso slid from my relaxed arms, and drew back into the deepest shadow.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ I whispered, and with a last pressure of her hand, which was warm now and answered to my grasp, I stepped out of the shelter of the wall and stood in front of the house.
Denny was on the doorstep. The door was open. The light from the lamp in the hall flooded the night and fell full on my face as I walked up to him. On sight of me he seemed to forget his own errand and his own eagerness, for he caught me by the shoulder, and stared at me, crying:
‘Heavens, man, you’re as white as a sheet! Have you seen a ghost? Does Constantine walk—or Mouraki?’
‘Fifty ghosts would be a joke to what I’ve been through. My God, I never had such a time!What do you want? What did you call me for? I can’t stay. She’s waiting.’ For now I did not care; Denny and all Neopalia might know now.
‘Yes, but she must wait a little,’ he said. ‘You must come into the house and come upstairs.’
‘I can’t,’ I said obstinately. ‘I—I—I can’t, Denny.’
‘You must. Don’t be a fool, Charley. It’s important: the captain is waiting for you.’
His face seemed big with news. What it might be I could not tell, but the hint of it was enough to make me catch hold of him, crying, ‘What is it? I’ll come.’
‘That’s right. Come along.’ He turned and ran rapidly through the old hall and up the stairs. I followed him, my mind whirling through a cloud of possibilities.
The quiet business-like aspect of the room into which Denny led the way did something to sober me. I pulled myself together, seeking to hide my feelings under a mask of carelessness. The captain sat at the table with a mass of papers surrounding him. He appeared to be examining them, and, as he read, his lips curved in surprise or contempt.
‘This Mouraki was a cunning fellow,’ said he; ‘but if anyone had chanced to get hold of this box of his while he was alive he would not have enjoyed even so poor a post as he thought hisgovernorship. Indeed, Lord Wheatley, had you been actually a party to his death, I think you need have feared nothing when some of these papers had found their way to the eyes of the Government. We’re well rid of him, indeed! But then, as I always say, these Armenians, though they’re clever dogs—’
But I had not come to hear a Turk discourse on Armenians, and I broke in, with an impatience that I could not altogether conceal:
‘I beg your pardon; but is that all you wanted to say to me?’
‘I should have thought that it was of some importance to you,’ he observed.
‘Certainly,’ said I, regaining my composure a little; ‘but your courtesy and kindness had already reassured me.’
He bowed his acknowledgments, and proceeded in a most leisurely tone, sorting the papers and documents before him into orderly heaps.
‘On the death of the Pasha, the government of the island having devolved temporarily on me, I thought it my duty to examine his Excellency’s—curse the dog!—his Excellency’s despatch-box, with the result that I have discovered very remarkable evidences of the schemes which he dared to entertain. With this, however, perhaps I need not trouble you.’
‘I wouldn’t intrude into it for the world,’ I said.
‘I discovered also,’ he pursued, in undisturbed leisure and placidity, ‘among the Pasha’s papers a letter addressed to—’
‘Me?’ and I sprang forward.
‘No, to your cousin, to this gentleman. Pursuing what I conceived to be my duty—and I must trust to Mr Swinton to forgive me—’ Here the exasperating fellow paused, looked at Denny, waited for a bow from Denny, duly received it, duly and with ceremony returned it, sighed as though he were much relieved at Denny’s complaisance, cleared his throat, arranged a little heap of papers on his left hand, and at last—oh, at last!—went on.
‘This letter, I say, in pursuance of what I conceived to be my duty—’
‘Yes, yes, your duty, of course. Clearly your duty. Yes?’
‘I read. It appeared, however, to contain nothing of importance.’
‘Then, why the deuce— I mean—I beg your pardon.’
‘But merely matters of private concern. But I am not warranted in letting it out of my hands. It will have to be delivered to the Government with the rest of the Pasha’s papers. I have, however, allowed Mr Swinton to read it. He saysthat it concerns you, Lord Wheatley, more than himself. I therefore propose to ask him to read it to you (I can decipher English, but not speak it with facility) in my presence.’ With this he handed an envelope to Denny. We had got to it at last.
‘For heaven’s sake be quick about it, my dear boy!’ I cried, and I seated myself on the table, swinging my leg to and fro in a fury of restless impatience. The captain eyed my agitated body with profound disapproval.
Denny took the letter from its envelope and read: ‘London, May 21st;’ then he paused and remarked, ‘We got here on the seventh, you know.’ I nodded hastily, and he went on, ‘My dear Denny—Oh, how awful this is! I can hardly bear to think of it! Poor, poor fellow! Mamma is terribly grieved, and I, of course, even more. Both mamma and I feel that it makes it so much worse, somehow, that this news should come only three days after he must have got mamma’s letter. Mamma says that it doesn’t really make any difference, and that if her letter waswise, then this terrible news can’t alter that. I suppose it doesn’t really, but it seems to, doesn’t it? Oh, do write directly and tell me that he wasn’t very unhappy about it when he had that horrible fever. There’s a big blot—because I’m crying! I know you thought I didn’t care abouthim, but I did—though not (as mamma says) inoneway, really. Do you think he forgave me? It would kill me if I thought he didn’t. Do write soon. I suppose you will bring poor dear Charley home? Please tell me he didn’t think very badly of me. Mamma joins with me in sincerest sympathy.—Yoursmostsincerely, Beatrice Kennett Hipgrave.P.S.—Mr Bennett Hamlyn has just called. He is awfully grieved about poor dear Charley. I always think of him as Charley still, you know. Do write.’
There was a long pause, then Denny observed in a satirical tone:
‘To be thought of still as “Charley” is after all something.’
‘But what the devil does it mean?’ I cried, leaping from the table.
‘“I suppose you will bring poor dear Charley home,’” repeated Denny, in a meditative tone. ‘Well, it looks rather more like it than it did a few days ago, I must admit.’
‘Denny, Denny, if you love me, what’s it all about? I haven’t had any letter from—’
‘Mamma? No, we’ve had no letter from mamma. But then we haven’t had any letters from anybody.’
‘Then I’m hanged if I—’ I began in bewildered despondency.
‘But, Charley,’ interrupted Denny, ‘perhaps mamma sent a letter to—Mouraki Pasha!’
‘To Mouraki?’
‘This letter of mine found its way to Mouraki.’