ToOlive Warnock
TO Harry Bruton it seemed an eternity before the little steamer,Caucase, was berthed, the gangways placed in position, and the passengers allowed to disembark on the quay at Le Pirée. For nearly half an hour he had been standing on the quay-side shouting inanities to his friend Dick Cassels who, clad in flannels, a straw hat, and a lemon-coloured tie, stood grinning on the deck and failing to catch a word that was called to him.
“Had a good time?” shouted Bruton.
Cassels, examining his watch and craning his neck forward, yelled back:
“Just 8.40.”
“Oh—damn! Can’t you hear?”
“What do you say?”
“Damn!—that’s all.”
This sort of thing could not go on indefinitely, and Bruton, shrugging his shoulders, began to laugh. Nevertheless, he was terribly anxious for Cassels to come on shore. Every minute mattered. God alone knew what might be happening at this very second in that big house on the outskirts of Athens—that house whose garden even now, in April, was one huge, thick cluster of flowers, crimson, blue and yellow.
Bruton had been in Greece a couple of years. Leaving Oxford at the age of twenty-three, he had gone to Athens to study and write. Cassels was coming to him for a few days on his way to Constantinople. Friends of many years standing, both had for some weeks been looking forward eagerly to this meeting, and now, though they were within a stone’s throw of each other, they could not clasp hands. At last the gangways were pushed from the boat to the quay, and Cassels was one of the first to step on shore.
“Let’s hurry through the Customs as quickly as possible,” said Bruton, “I’ve got a car waiting on the road.”
Five minutes later they were in the car rushing at top speed in the direction of Athens, four miles away.
“And now that those rotten Levantine Jews have ceased pawing my baggage and me,” said Cassels, “how are you?”
“Top-hole. And you?”
“Never fitter in my life. Good lord, it’s fine to see you again, Harry. Had a ripping time on board. There was a French girl who sang....”
Bruton interrupted him by placing a sudden hand on his friend’s arm.
“An awf’ly rotten thing’s happened, Dick. I must tell you all about it before we arrive. I’ve got a friend here in Athens—a man called Gascoyne. Yesterday his girl jilted him and ran off God knows where with another fellow. She played up to him—to Gascoyne, I mean—to the very last moment: spent the evening with him the day before she skedaddled. Well, Gascoyne’s done—absolutely broken. All yesterday and last night I was with him, literally keeping him from suicide. I am going to him now: I daren’t leave him alone.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Cassels. “Rather a weak sort of devil, isn’t he? And why the dickens shouldyoubother about him, anyway? This is going to knock the bottom out of our holiday.”
“I’m afraid it is. But, you see, he’s all alone and I’m his closest friend. His mother’s dead, his father’s away, and there he is with just one man-servant, a Greek, living alone in an enormous, rambling house. I scarcely liked to leave him even while I came to meet you.”
Cassels cursed under his breath and lit a cigarette.
“I’m beastly sorry,” said Bruton, “but what can I do? If anything should happen to him I should blame myself for ever.”
“Oh, you’re doing quite the right thing, old son,” Cassels assured him, “but what a damned ass the man is! It makes me sick the way young fools carry on about women.”
“But he’s not a fool. As self-contained and manly a chap as you could wish to meet. Now, listen. What I propose to do is this. We’ll go and seek him now, have breakfast together, and persuade him to come back with us to my place. I can easily put him up. Wherever we go we’ll take him with us. He wants pulling out of himself, and in a day or two he’ll probably be all right. But just at present he’s dangerous—dangerous to himself, I mean, though I may tell you I’ve got his revolver all right. But here we are.”
The car slowed down and stopped in front of a big white house with green shutters, standing well back from the road. A great wooden gate barred their way. In response to their ring, an oldish man came hurrying from the house.
“Everything all right?” asked Bruton.
“Yes, sir. Mister Cyril’s digging in the garden.”
And at the back of the house they found Gascoyne, a fair handsome fellow with blue eyes and freckles; he wore no coat, and his open white shirt revealed a magnificent chest.
Shaking hands with Dick Cassels, he invited them indoors.
“Coffee and things are waiting for you,” he said.
“Good!” exclaimed Cassels; “for I’m dreadfully hungry. On the boat we’ve been breakfasting at 10.30. Such a rummy breakfast! Wine and rolls andhors d'œuvresand cheese.”
They stepped into the house and entered a large cool room with whitewashed walls; the pine-wood floor was bare except for an occasional Persian rug whose smooth colours held and gratified the eye.
“Do help yourselves,” said Gascoyne. “No, don’t. Sit in these easy chairs and I’ll wait on you.”
His fresh face was a little haggard and his eyes glittered. He busied himself with cups, plates, and food, and when his friends had begun eating, he eagerly and tremblingly seized a decanter of whisky, filled a champagne-glass to the brim, and drank it off neat in two gulps.
“Oh, I say,” exclaimed Cassels, “I didn’t know you had any whisky there. Do give me some.”
“Certainly. I’ll get you some soda.”
When Gascoyne had left the room, Bruton turned to his friend.
“What on earth are you drinking whisky for at this time of the morning?”
“Well, the great thing is not to let your friend think he is doing anything unusual. He knows we are watching him carefully, and a watched man always poses. He is suffering, and perhaps he is a little unhinged—all the more reason why we should not only make no comment on what he does, but should behave ourselves as nearly as possible in the same way that he does.”
“I wonder,” said Bruton.
Gascoyne entered with three or four bottles of soda-water.
“Oh, really, you shouldn’t have troubled,” protested Cassels, “for I’d much rather have it neat. I’m sick of red wine, and they hadn’t even a drop of whisky on board.”
And he helped himself to a glassful.
“How shall we spend the morning, Cyril?” asked Bruton. “Shall we drive to the Acropolis and sleep for an hour in the shade of the Parthenon?”
Gascoyne looked at him curiously for a moment, and then laughed.
“What a funny old thing you are!” he said. “No. Been to Athens before?” he asked Cassels.
“No—this is my first visit.”
“Very well, then. We’ll go to the Acropolis to-night. There’s a full moon, and one’s first sight of the Acropolis should always be by moonlight. This morning we’ll take the car to Eleusis. There are Mysteries there,” he added, darkly, “undiscoverable Mysteries. The Temple of Demeter is now a confusion of broken stones. We can bathe there. The sea is blue.”
He drank more whisky and still more, and while his friends ate their breakfast he had continual recourse to the decanter. But he exhibited none of the more obvious signs of intoxication: his voice and gait were steady; only his eyes were wild, and his face strained.
After pacing the room for a short while, he sat down in a deck-chair facing his friends.
“Finished?” he asked. “Do have some more. Those oranges were plucked only this morning. No? Well, then, come upstairs with me: I’ve got something rather magnificent I want to show you.”
He rose and led the way from the room. The house was full of greenish light reflected from the half-open shutters. The staircase leading to the upper story was made of white marble flushed gently with pink. Gascoyne, opening a door, said:
“This is my bedroom.”
They entered and he pointed to a plaster cast of a woman’s head nailed upon the wall opposite the window. Walking to the window, they half-seated themselves upon the dressing-table there and looked at the cast. Instinctively, Cassels knew it was Gascoyne’s love.
“It is very beautiful,” said he softly.
The face had the inscrutable smile of La Gioconda; there was mystery in the mouth, imagination in the eyes, and holiness dwelt on her brows.
“Who did it?” asked Bruton.
“Some artist chap,” answered Gascoyne; “as a matter of fact,” he continued, carelessly, “the man she’s run away with. He’s very clever, don’t you think?”
He walked up to it, as though scrutinizing it for the first time; then, returning, he put his face close to the face of Bruton and said:
“Damned little devil, isn’t she?”
But it was Cassels who answered him.
“She has the most wonderful face I have ever seen,” he said; “the kindest face. But, then, nearly all faces are masks. That, I suppose, is what they’re for—to deceive, I mean.”
“Outside,” said Gascoyne, “I have the most gorgeous view.”
They turned and looked. The windows were wide open. Beneath them was a thick, undulating carpet of pear-blossom as thick as a heavy fall of snow, and as brilliant as snow in the sun. The orchard was several acres in extent. In the distance were blue mountains; the sky above them had a faint tinge of purple.
“Good Lord! How wonderful!” exclaimed Cassels. “And is this Greece or Paradise?”
“It was both—till yesterday,” said Gascoyne. “Now it’s hell. By the way, Cassels, are you a good shot with a revolver?”
“Pretty fair. At least, I used to be, but I’ve had no practice for years.”
“I wonder if you can shoot as well as this.”
And on the instant he turned round and, at arm’s length, held out a Webley, pointing it straight at the cast on the opposite wall. In rapid succession he fired six rounds, smashing the cast into a hundred pieces. His friends, standing one on either side of him, looked on without a word or movement.
“Rather good shooting,” said Cassels, at length, as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world to pour lead into bedroom walls after breakfast.
Bruton, pale and trembling, exclaimed:
“But I thought I’d taken your revolver!”
“Have you taken my other revolver?” asked Gascoyne, his face working with anger. “What the devil for? Where is it? Give it me now. Get it, I tell you! Who in God’s name are you to come here stealing the things I may want at any minute?”
Bruton put his hand on Gascoyne’s arm.
“Don’t be angry with me, Cyril,” he said, penitently. “I was a fool to do it, I know. But I was so upset last night—I scarcely knew what I was doing.”
“But why did you take it?”
But again it was Casselswho answered him.
“He told me on the way here why he had taken it. He was afraid you would find the—the other man and kill him.”
Gascoyne’s face cleared a little.
“In any case, it was a damned silly thing to do,” he said.
“I know it was,” said Bruton, “but you’ve forgiven me, haven’t you? It’s up at my place—I’ll get it you this afternoon or some time to-morrow. Look here, Cyril. Why not come and stay with me? I’ve plenty of room. It’ll be a change for you.”
“Thanks. But I don’t want a change. As a matter of fact, I’m damned tired. I think I’ll go to sleep.”
He was still holding his revolver, but now he put it down on the dressing-table with a gesture of disgust.
“I’ll not go with you to Eleusis,” he added. “Use my car, won’t you? You’ll find it round at the hotel garage, and Eurinikos will drive you if you want him. I’ll call for you to-night after dinner, and we’ll all go together to the Acropolis.”
“Right,” said Cassels.
“But are you sure you’ll be able to sleep?” asked Bruton, involuntarily glancing at the revolver.
“Of course I shall be able to sleep,” answered Gascoyne, irritably; “why the hell shouldn’t I?” He hesitated a moment. “Well, good-bye for the present,” he added, in a matter-of-fact voice.
“See you to-night, then,” said Cassels, smiling frankly.
The two friends left Gascoyne, Bruton closing the door in careful silence. Out in the street, he asked:
“What do you think of him?”
“Look here, Harry,” said Cassels, “let’s not talk about it at all. If you think you ought to stay with him we’ll wait downstairs until he wakes up. But if you think he can be safely left, let’s go out for the day together and forget all about him. With a chap like that you don’t know how much is sincere and how much is acting. Probably the poor devil doesn’t know himself.”
“But he’s got his revolver with him!”
“Yes, he has. What then?”
“He may use it.”
“Precisely. For Heaven’s sake, Harry, do make up your mind what you are going to do. But let me tell you this—your presence irritates him, and it is much better for him to be left alone.”
“Well, then, we’ll leave him. We go this way for the garage.”
Dinner that night at the Minerva Hotel was rather a dull affair, for Bruton even at the third course began to fidget about Gascoyne and to wonder if his friend were lying dead in his bedroom.
“Let’s have some wine, Harry,” said Cassels. “What’s that golden booze the people at the next table are drinking?”
“Some native stuff—Olympus they call it, I think.”
“Well, we’ll have a bottle—two bottles.”
But the more Bruton drank the more despondent he became, and over coffee and liqueurs he said:
“It’s quite time he was here. Half-past nine.”
“For heaven’s sake, do keep calm. We can do nothing but wait.”
“Yes, I know. But I feel we ought not to have left him alone all day. How rotten he would feel when he woke up! And, in his present condition, he may be annoyed that we’ve come here to dine. I do hope my servant has given him my note telling him where to find us.”
He moved restlessly, and then rose to his feet. An idea had struck him. It was possible Gascoyne had left a note or a message for him at his flat across the way.
“Excuse me a minute, won’t you? I’ve left something at my flat that I want.”
He hurried away. In five minutes he was back again, holding a note in his hand.
“He left this at my flat this afternoon,” said Bruton, agitatedly; “what does it mean?”
Cassels read the following.
I’m not coming to-night. I’m staying at home. All the loveliness of the world has become cruel. Sympathy is an intrusion and kindness bruises. Yet if you and your friend would like to come and get drunk with me to-night, you will be welcome.
I’m not coming to-night. I’m staying at home. All the loveliness of the world has become cruel. Sympathy is an intrusion and kindness bruises. Yet if you and your friend would like to come and get drunk with me to-night, you will be welcome.
“I understand his mood well enough,” said Cassels. “We’d better be getting along, hadn’t we? The best thing we can do is to let him drink himself to sleep. To-morrow we’ll put the screw on.”
They hurried down the road and in a quarter of an hour had reached the big white house with the green shutters. In the moonlight it looked insubstantial, ethereal, like some enormous ghostly bird preparing for flight. The door of the main entrance showed there was a light in the hall, and through the half-closed shutters of one of the rooms on the ground-floor more light revealed itself.
They rang, but there was no response. Nor did their knocking evoke any movement they could hear. Ringing and knocking alternately, they stood for five minutes or so, speaking little, but into the hearts of both of them fear had begun to creep.
“Damned funny!” said Bruton, at length. “Look here, Dick, will you stay where you are while I go and investigate? He may be in the garden somewhere, or he might have dropped off to sleep in one of the outhouses.”
Cassels, sitting down on the top step, lit his pipe. Summing up the situation and attempting to calculate the chances of Gascoyne’s having committed suicide, he muttered: “More than likely—more than likely. A chap like that might do it just for the sake of making an effect—just to give the whole affair its proper dramatic close.”
Bruton was a long time away. At last he returned, running.
“Are you there, Dick? No: I’ve found nothing. He’s not there. I’ve tried all the windows I can get at, but they’re all locked. His servant sleeps out, and I don’t know where to get hold of him. We must break one of the windows.”
“Yes, I suppose we must, if it’s only to ease our own minds. This damned business is getting on my nerves.”
They selected the smallest window, broke it open, and entered the house.
“You’d better let me go first,” said Cassels, “my nerves are a bit steadier than yours.”
They entered the lit-up room—the room in which they had breakfasted. It was untenanted. The decanter which, earlier in the day, had been half full was now empty; by its side was a bottle of brandy holding a third of its original contents. Without a word, acting on the same impulse, they left the room, ascended the stairs and entered Gascoyne’s bedroom. This also was untenanted. Near the door the floor was covered with the debris of the shattered cast. Bruton walked to and almost pounced upon the dressing-table, opening one drawer after another.
“His revolver’s gone,” he said, as if the final word had been spoken.
“Is there a piano in the house?”
“Yes—why?”
“Let’s go and play it. It’ll pull us together a bit. After all, what is there more likely than that he’s gone for a long tramp? Or he might have changed his mind and gone to your place after all. In any case we can do nothing now but wait.”
A little comforted, Bruton led the way to the music-room.
“Play something, Dick: I’m too shaky,” he said.
So Cassels played some of the humane if rather turgid music of Schumann in which one may always find balm for the poisoned mind. The brooding sound brought them both consolation for a time, but at length Bruton’s mind wandered away from the music, and he began to tease and lacerate his spirit with horrible thoughts.
“Supposing he is lying dead in a cupboard somewhere,” something whispered to him, “or in a bath. He might have cut a vein and even at this moment be bleeding to death. Or he might have gone on to the roof.” Then, rising from his chair, he said, hurriedly:
“Dick—we must go and look for him—we must go and find him!”
At the first word Cassels’ fingers dropped lifeless on the keys.
“I was thinking the same thing myself,” he said. “We’ll do the ground-floor first.”
Slowly and in silence they went from one room to another, switching on the electric lights and looking in every place—likely and unlikely—which a man might have chosen to hide his own dead body in. The rooms, for the most part, were large and sparsely furnished, and a mere glance was in many cases sufficient to assure them that there, at least, no tragedy had been enacted. But in a narrow, long passage leading to the back premises, and in the back premises themselves, were many cupboards. These they opened one by one and, striking matches, peered inside.
“Damn the whole business!” exclaimed Bruton; “my legs feel like jelly. Each time I look I expect to see—something.”
And Cassels found that the hand with which he held the matches on high trembled. His body was cold and he felt sick.
Nothing on the ground-floor. In the room upstairs there was much more furniture, and they feverishly opened the lids of boxes and ottomans, looked under beds, pulled open the doors of wardrobes, and searched behind curtains. Coming out of the third bedroom they had searched, they both suddenly stood still with a sensation of terrible and grotesque fear: Gascoyne was standing at the doorway, leaning drunkenly against the jamb and watching them.
“Looking for me?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Cassels, who was the first to collect himself; “we thought you had fallen asleep in one of the bedrooms. We’ve come to drink with you.”
“Drunk enough,” said Gascoyne. “Been drinking all day. However, you fellows help yourselves: plenty of drink downstairs. Staying the night? Good. I’m going to bed. Choose your own rooms. S’long.”
He groped his way to his bedroom. Bruton followed him. Cassels, standing in the passage, heard the following conversation.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Cyril?”
“Course I’m all right. Why the hell shouldn’t I be all right? What’s the matter with me, eh? That’s what I want to know—what’s the matter with me?”
“Oh—nothing. Of course there’s nothing. Good night, then.”
Bruton emerged from the room pale and excited. When they had reached the foot of the stairs, he whispered:
“I’ve got it. I’ve got his revolver. I took it out of his coat-pocket. Look! All six chambers are loaded.”
After a drink the two friends, choosing separate rooms, went to bed.
It must have been about three o’clock next morning that Cyril Gascoyne awoke with an intolerable thirst. For a little while he lay wondering where he was and trying to remember the events of the previous day. Like a nightmare they came to him, and with them came a feelingof self-disgust.
Sitting up in bed he groped about for his coat and, taking a box of matches from one of his pockets, struck a light. Some blind instinct made him feel in the right-hand side-pocket to discover if his revolver was still there. The pocket was empty.
In a flash he jumped out of bed and turned on the light.
“Damn him!” he muttered; “he’s got them both now!”
And then his brain, overwrought and dizzied with the fumes of alcohol, began to breed the thoughts and desires of madness.
“So Bruton thought I was going to commit suicide, did he? And he’s tried to outwit me! The damned fool! Why, blast it, if I’d wanted to shoot myself I would have shot myself. Why not? But I’ll show him. He can’t get the better of me—I’m damned if he can.”
He chuckled with insane laughter, and his eyes became deep with cunning. Having turned out the electric light, he lit a candle, noiselessly opened the door, and listened. Not a sound. Yes: breathing—the sound of someone breathing deeply in his sleep. He crept along the passage, stopped and listened again. The sound came from the room on his right, the door of which was open. For a brief second he looked inside: it was Bruton, fast asleep.
Gascoyne had no doubt at all that his revolver lay under the pillow beneath Bruton’s head. He was as confident it was there as if he had seen it. He extinguished the candle, put it on the floor, and crept into the bedroom on his hands and knees, making no sound, and breathing through both mouth and nostrils. His fingers slid along the mattress until they reached the pillows. Then for a minute he paused. Gently, gently his open hand felt its way inch by inch, pressing itself hard upon the mattress. Again he paused. The sleeper did not move. Then, once more, his hand began its stealthy work, exploring, sensitive, apprehensive....
In ten minutes he was sitting on the floor holding the revolver, sweat on his forehead, a dreadful dryness in his throat. And now he rose to his feet and walked quickly and agitatedly but very silently to his own room, locking the door behind him.
“I’ll show him!” he muttered. “I’ll teach him to meddle.”
Taking a thick eiderdown quilt from a cupboard, he spread it carefully on the bed. Then, with the revolver still in his hand, he crept head-first beneath the clothes, dragging them closely around him....
No one heard the shot that was fired....
Not until the marvellous April dawn of Greece came that morning did Bruton wake up and, jumping out of bed, try oh! so quietly to open Gascoyne’s door. For, if Gascoyne slept, he did not wish to wake him.
ToMarcel Xystobam
ISUPPOSE there are few civilian prisons in the Near East more humanely conducted and governed than the cosmopolitan Citadel of Salonika. Yet the Citadel is most inhuman. Men rot there: their brains rot, and their bodies become flabby, sickly and inert.
If, as a casual and inquiring visitor, you enter through the archway, you will be told to go to the right and then make a sudden turn to the left into a kind of cage which leads you to a staircase; mounting the stairs, you reach a platform placed high in the true centre of a circle. The circle below you is divided into four roofless segments: in one segment are Greeks; in another, Bulgars; in the third, Turks; in the fourth, Armenians, Montenegrins, Spanish Jews, and men of many other nationalities. The prisoners are separated by high walls; for if they mingled with each other they would fight, and perhaps kill; but well-behaved victims of law, if they choose, may leave for a short time one segment for another.
The Citadel is inhuman because the men living there are not compelled to work. Any work is better than none. Even a treadmill is a boon compared with everlasting indolence. I have been there many times and, fascinated, have watched young men sitting with their backs to the walls, staring with unfocussed eyes at—nothing. Always staring at nothing and, no doubt, thinking of nothing, and hoping nothing and regretting nothing.
For this reason they decay.
Euripitos Cavalcini—half Greek, half Italian—had not yet recovered from the shock of his arrest, trial and sentence. Three months ago he was one of the proudest men in Salonika—nay, one of the most overbearing, one of the most insolent. He owned much land, two breweries, and four streets of houses in the slums; he kept a flaunting large-bosomed courtesan; he was a patron of the arts, and the walls of two of his large rooms sported many of Rops’ indecencies. He commanded respect, admiration. As soon as he entered a bank, lo! the manager was by his side. And before he had time to sit down at a restaurant table, the head waiter was reporting to him the latest additions to his wine-cellar.
But successful and magnificent though Euripitos Cavalcini was, he had his limitations. Life intoxicated him, and his grandiose vanity was an incessant drug. In Salonika there were cleverer men than he, and when he floated the India Bazaar Company with a capital of half-a-million, he felt strong enough to own half the world as enemies. But he was found out. The colossal swindle ruined many families, and even before he was pronounced guilty great crowds of men and women would gather round the court to cast insult upon him as he was taken in and escorted out.
The sentence of two years’ imprisonment broke him. His magnificence fell from him in a single hour, and the insolent, hot spirit of him became abased and cringing.
That is why, when in the Citadel, he was so humble. The lord of life had become life’s slave. He was afraid of the meanest and most wretched of his fellow-prisoners. Life had turned upon him once and brought him to the dust, and some dark fear warned him that even yet life had not had its full revenge.
So he humbled himself and served others. The courtesan whom he had loved used, twice a week, to bring him food—cooked meats, fruit and sometimes a bottle of wine. These he would press into the hands of others—especially those who eyed him with contempt or who were harsh to him. Particularly did he cultivate the friendship of the big and strong, partly because he feared them, and partly because he hoped that in time of need—physical need—they would come to his defence.
Soon he became the victim of a great bearded man with small eyes of cunning, a man who, towering contemptuously above others, strode up and down the prison half his waking hours, his thick bare arms folded on his chest, his head set defiantly upon a bullock-like neck. This man was named Aristides, and it was said he was there because he had half-killed a demirep who had not kept faith with him.
“Take this, Aristides,” said Cavalcini, one afternoon, pulling a bottle of wine from beneath his cloak and furtively handing it to the bearded giant who was striding hither and thither.
Aristides, taking the bottle by the neck, held it up above his head against the sky’s brilliant blue.
“It is full?” he asked.
“Yes, it is full. And I have some grapes also.”
A big bunch of grapes changed hands. Aristides, having torn off a mouthful with his teeth, chewed them meditatively, spat out the skins on Cavalcini’s feet, and then stared down on his victim.
“Anything else?” he asked, loudly.
“No,” faltered Cavalcini.
With a snarling smile of amused contempt, Aristides resumed his walk.
There were terrible hours when Cavalcini gave way to morbid introspection. There was nothing in him that he kept sacred from himself; there was nothing so vile that he did not wish to understand it. Yet this habit of introspection dragged him deeper and deeper into dejection.
One morning he threw himself on the ground near the wall and covered his face with his cloak.
“Why am I so afraid?” he asked himself. “What harm can come to me here? Aristides will not hurt me. Aristides is my friend.”
Presently, he slept. It was a burning July day, and here, in this roofless prison, the air burned one’s skin. There was a faint, foul odour. The hard, enamelled sky and the sun beating on the walls mocked the prisoners. The sentry on the little raised platform in their midst looked pale and ill. A boy-prisoner—he had stabbed his mother—moaned occasionally in his sleep. There was little sound in any of the prison’s four compartments, for everyone was lying down exhausted—some asleep, some merely stupefied. Everyone except Aristides. The giant, saturnine and insolent, promenaded like an emperor who has covered himself with degradation. His eyes, examining the sweating men around him, picked out Cavalcini. Walking up to him, he kicked his victim on the buttocks. Cavalcini lifted his head and, seeing Aristides, staggered to his feet.
“Walk with me!” commanded Aristides.
For a full hour they strode up and down, no word passing between them, Cavalcini apprehensive and trembling, Aristides bearing himself as though ten thousand eyes were upon him.
A slow month crawled from the future into the past. There were hours—especially at night time when all the prisoners lay herded together in the big room upstairs—in which Cavalcini took the edge off his suffering by thoughts and half-formulated plans of escape. In his heart he knew he would never escape, that he would never attempt it, but it gave him pleasure to devise schemes for eluding the sentry, for scaling the walls, for leaving Salonika for the freer world of Marseilles or Port Said.
One day he thought he would curry favour with Aristides by talking to him of his plans. So, very humbly and with his eyes on the ground, he walked over to where the big bearded man was standing.
“I’ve had something on my mind for a long time past,” he began; “something in which you might be willing to help me.”
“Well,” said Aristides, “what is it?”
“Escape—escape from this den—this den of animals.”
His companion laughed.
“Isn’t that what most of us have been thinking of ever since we came here? Try again: think of something new.”
“But it could be done. I’m sure of it.”
“Can you scale the wall?” asked Aristides, nodding towards the outer wall that seemed to tower in the sky.
“No. But I might walk through gates that are locked and barred.”
“How? Speak out. Don’t play withme.”
“I mean bribery. I have money—plenty of money. That is to say, I can get plenty.”
“How much?”
“A thousand drachmæ. Ten thousand drachmæ.”
“Ho-ho?”
Aristides spat.
“You want my help?” he asked.
“I thought we might get awaytogether,” said Cavalcini, afraid of what he had already spoken, and horrified at the things he yet might utter. “Two can sometimes contrive a thing that is impossible for one,” he added.
“Well,” said Aristides, “ten thousand drachmæ would not be enough. Can you get twenty thousand?”
“I might. I will try. My friend is coming this afternoon with my food. I will ask her what she can do.”
And as Aristides stood silently contemptuous, Cavalcini turned miserably away, feeling that he had committed himself to some frightful scheme he could not possibly carry out, and that he had done so to no purpose, for it was obvious Aristides was no better disposed towards him now than he had been before.
“I must not talk to anyone again,” he said to himself; “my nerve is gone, and I say things I do not mean.”
It was true he could get the sum of money he had named, but it was not true that he wished to attempt to escape. Only heroes and very desperate men escaped from that prison, and he was too deeply involved in misery to be desperate. But when his mistress came and he spoke to her for a few moments, as the prison rules permitted, he told her how to get the money.
“Bring it next time you come—bring it in hundred-drachmæ notes. Wrap them into a little parcel and when you are talking to me, slip it into this pocket of my tunic. I will stand as I am standing now. But be very careful you are not observed.”
“But where shall you go when you escape?”
“I don’t know,” he said, miserably.
She looked at him with eyes of compassion, took him in her arms and kissed him.
A few days later she called again, and passed the money into his pocket, unobserved.
“Don’t get yourself into worse trouble than you are in now,mon p’tit,” she said, her eyes full of tears.
He took the notes to Aristides, retaining five hundred drachmæ for himself, of which he told Aristides nothing.
“I have brought you the money,” he said.
Aristides’ small eyes almost disappeared into his head with greed and cunning.
“Do not give me it now,” he said; “many eyes are upon us. That swine of a sentry is looking. Wait until we go to bed.”
And he turned on his heel and began walking disdainfully to and fro.
Now, at the time of which I am writing, the sentry on duty over the prisoners in the Citadel was relieved every two hours. By day there was only one sentry; by night there were two—one in the “compound,” one on the gallery above. Against one of these men Aristides nursed a fanatical hatred. They had known each other for a long time; indeed, they were both from the same mountain village; but they had not met for many years. Critias had married the girl Aristides loved, and though she was now dead and Critias had come down in the world, nevertheless Aristides’ hatred had flamed anew at sight of his old enemy. Nor had Critias wished for a reconciliation; on the contrary, he had sought every opportunity to revile and taunt Aristides in his state of bondage. Aristides had sworn to have revenge on the sentry before he left the prison, and so near was his hatred and so dear was the thought of vengeance, that he could not persuade himself to attempt to escape until he had done his worst against his old enemy.
As he walked hither and thither, his thick hairy arms folded on his chest, his chin on his bosom, he matured the half-formed plans that had come to his mind on the first occasion on which Cavalcini had spoken to him of escape. His term of imprisonment had only three more months to run: he would gladly serve those months if he could compass the death of his enemy, throw the guilt upon another, and secure at least a substantial portion of the money Cavalcini possessed.
The whole thing was so simple that he smiled contemptuously at Cavalcini as he passed him.
That night as they were preparing for bed, Cavalcini once more offered the money to Aristides.
“Give me half,” said the giant, “and keep the other half for yourself. I will tell you my plans to-morrow.”
“But where shall I hide it?” asked Cavalcini.
“Where I hide mine—in the pocket of your robe. Nobody would think of looking there for valuables.”
And he ostentatiously put the notes Cavalcini had given him in the inside pocket of his robe.
But before an hour had gone Aristides had secretly removed them to the middle of the straw in his mattress.
Cavalcini could not sleep. His head was hot and light with anxiety. He would, he knew, have to attempt to escape with Aristides, yet the prospect of this attempt terrified him. But Aristides, it was evident, was depending upon him, and he did not dare to disappoint him.
Because of his apprehensiveness, Cavalcini’s senses became abnormally keen, and it was with a feeling of nausea that he felt the sour odour of his fellow-prisoners as they turned in their beds. He could hear a low voice in distress at the far end of the room, and he told himself that it must be the wretched boy-prisoner talking in his sleep.
And then he became aware of someone moving: there was no sound, and the sense of movement was not conveyed to his brain by his eyes. It was as though stealthy and impending disaster were in the air, impinging on his brain through some unknown sense-channel.
He raised his head an inch and saw the bulky form of Aristides approaching. Cavalcini shook with fear. The giant was undressed, and his form, without his long, flowing robe, seemed much larger and stronger than when fully clad. Nearer and nearer he crept until he reached Cavalcini’s bed, where he stopped. The little man simulated sleep, but under his lids his eyes watched what might befall. Aristides took Cavalcini’s robe from the end of his bed and donned it; it fitted grotesquely. Then, in silence, he passed the foot of the bed and made his way to the treacherous, winding stone stairway leading to the four compartments below.
Terrified, hypnotized, Cavalcini sat up in bed, crawled to its foot, and watched this wanderer in the night. He saw Aristides—for there was a moon—descend the steps and crawl by the side of the wall as cruelly and as sinuously as a tiger. The sentry, twenty yards from Aristides, appeared to be facing him, but it seemed certain he saw nothing, for he made no movement and called out no challenge. Aristides stopped, advanced a little, and stopped again, crouching. His body was so tightly squeezed against the wall that to Cavalcini it seemed to have become part of it. For a long time he did not move. But when the sentry turned his back on the would-be murderer and with slow regular paces began to walk away from him, Aristides rushed forward with a bound. Cavalcini could not see what happened next, but he caught the glint of a knife raised on high, and a few seconds later he saw the sentry lying motionless on the ground and the giant running back to the stone stairway. It had all taken in place in absolute silence. For a few moments Cavalcini did not realize what had happened. When, at last, he understood, his brain seemed to freeze with horror. Trembling, he sank back on his pillow and shut his eyes. He dared not move: it was dangerous even to breathe. He felt, rather than saw Aristides return and pass his bed, and he knew that his robe had been replaced.
Silence, save for the rapid, distressed muttering of a boy-prisoner at the far end of the room. After what had happened, it seemed an outrage that the night should continue. Cavalcini, feeling himself to be the victim of evil powers it was useless to resist, lay shivering with cold in the warm night, saying to himself over and over again.
“He has killed the wrong man! Why didn’t he kill me? He has killed the wrong man! Why didn’t he kill me?”
Suddenly, down in the “compound” below, a voice, sharp and clear, rang out. The guard was being summoned. The body had been found. Armed soldiers entered. Torches and candles were brought. Orders were given and countermanded. Swords were drawn and bayonets fixed. In two or three minutes the soldiers began to climb the stairway and take up positions along the gallery, fifteen paces apart, by the prisoners’ beds. A shrill whistle was blown many times until all the prisoners were awake.
“Every man will sit up in bed!” called out the officer in charge of the guard, speaking alternately in several languages. “If anyone attempts to get out of bed, he will be shot.”
And then began a systematic search. Cavalcini only dimly realized what was happening, but when the officer and a sergeant reached his bed he became a ghastly victim of terror. His very looks condemned him. The officer eyed him with searching suspicion.
“Get out of bed and stand up!” he ordered.
Cavalcini put his feet on the floor and attempted to stand, but he collapsed on the bed, a miserable heap of quaking fear.
“Blood!” exclaimed the sergeant. “Look! There’s blood on his gown!”
“Stand up!” commanded the officer.
Cavalcini slipped to the floor and crawled forward on his hands and knees, gibbering.
Then the officer, searching the pockets of Cavalcini’s gown, pulled out a handful of hundred-drachma notes.
“Arrest him!” he said, calmly.
Cavalcini was pulled on to his feet and half-dragged, half-carried to the dark little hole, less than four feet high, that is to be found in the stone wall at the top of the stairway.
There he lay in a muddled heap, bereft of sense, every nerve quivering.
Three months later, Aristides, with his woman, was dining at one of the flashy restaurants on the quay-side.
“Tell me!” she said, pressing her foot upon his and rubbing his calf against her knee; “tell me! Where did you get all your money?”
“Well,” said he, smiling at her cunningly, “it was given me by a great friend of mine in prison. He used to give me half of everything he had. Poor devil! He’s dead. They shot him. He didn’t behave himself very well. He murdered one of the sentries.”
ToEllary Warden
LE Grand Couronné was the last of the mountain peaks to disappear in the darkness that so quickly follows twilight in Greece. To Valentine Latimer, excited by malaria, it seemed to curtesy as it went. He raised himself on to the fire-step, took off the gauze mask that protected his face from mosquitoes, and handed it to his orderly.
“Won’t you keep it on, sir?” asked his orderly; “the mosquitoes are out in their millions to-night.”
“It’ll make no difference,” said Latimer, “and I can’t breathe with that damned thing smothering me.... How heavy the air is!”
His servant stood behind him leaning with his back against the rock trench-wall, his head—so tall was he—almost touching the parados.
“We’d better visit the sentry-groups, Morgan,” said Latimer.
The man had slung his rifle, but Latimer did not move. He was listening to the fitful rustle of the trees immediately overhead. The sound reminded him of his father’s garden at home—the garden in which he had spent the happiest hours of his life. The little breeze went its way, and almost immediately a sour smell stole up from the trench. Into his fevered brain came the word “decay ... decay,” and stayed there like a drop of poison.
“Everything is strangely quiet,” he observed.
“Yes, sir,” said Morgan.
And, indeed, the silence was as heavy as the heavy air. Latimer had the curious feeling that he and his orderly were the only people in that country-side, and when a cough broke upon the stillness, he started.
“That’s number two group,” said he, mechanically; “Corporal Davies is in charge there, eh, Morgan?”
Some sickly lines of Edgar Allen Poe started up in his brain and began to race along it, repeating themselves again and again. Though he was a little worried by their repetition, they gave him a sense of romance, of power.
“We’ll start from the ravine and work upwards,” he said, stepping onto the duck-boards.
Though both officer and servant were well acquainted with those steep and winding trenches, they had to feel their way along, so black was the night, so ineffective the light of the glinting and eager stars. They came upon a group of men in a fire-bay; two of them, stretched on the fire-step, were asleep. The sentry on duty stood looking over the top of the trench; by his side was the N.C.O. in charge of the group.
“Everything all right, Corporal?” asked Latimer, in a low voice.
“Everything, sir,” whispered the corporal.
A few yards further on, Latimer stopped. He wanted to cry out. He longed to scream wildly and break this conspiracy of silence. Suddenly, it seemed to him as though the entire country-side were for a brief second illuminated by a magnificent burst of light: Le Grand Couronné was revealed from top to toe; in the slits crinkling the breasts and flanks of the mountain he saw dark, bearded Bulgars, bullet-headed and yellow-toothed. They were all gazing at him with cruel, malignant eyes.... The hallucination passed.
“I feel ill, Morgan,” he said.
Morgan, a man twice Latimer’s age—for Latimer was still in his teens—took from his pocket a bottle of tabloids.
“You ought to have gone sick this morning, sir,” said Morgan; “or, better still, let me take you to the telephone dug-out.... Have a drink from my water-bottle, sir.... Ask Captain Mitchell to send another officer out to relieve you.”
“Oh, no; I’ll stick it out. But let me have a drink.”
But the water had none of the virtue of water: it was tepid and sickly, and it tasted slightly of grease....
The sound of a single rifle-shot from the enemy’s lines ripped the silence. It meant nothing: itwasnothing. Yet Latimer cursed beneath his breath.
“Let’s get on,” he said, and proceeded to feel his way towards the ravine.
In a few minutes they reached it. Here was another sentry-group. Assuring himself that all was in order, he began to retrace his steps. He was conscious of nothing except the procession of fantasies and memories within his brain: verses he had written last year beneath the young flowering laburnum in his father’s garden; a girl’s hand in which his heart seemed to be inevitably cupped; a flannelled figure, with a rapid, crushing serve, on the other side of the tennis-net; barbaric music from “Boris Godounov,” which he hadheard in that wonderful summer of 1914; a great day on the river with his friend. At first these memories came singly; then they clustered together horribly and seemed to menace him.
“Fever: just fever,” he assured himself.
“Yes—just fever,” echoed his orderly.
Latimer turned upon him with his arms outstretched.
“Did I talk aloud?” he asked, in dread.
“Why, yes, sir. Weren’t you speaking to me?”
Soon their way became very steep, for the system of trenches took the side of a hill: here and there they were compelled to climb with hands as well as feet. When near the top of the hill, Latimer took off his heavy metal helmet and wiped his wet forehead with the back of his hand.
“Only one more sentry post, thank God!” he said.
Then, suddenly, an enemy battery opened fire on that sector of which Latimer had temporary charge. Most of the shells dropped in the Little Wood down below. A machine-gun from La Tortue, on their right flank, chattered incessantly, and two trench-mortars from the same place shook the air and shattered it.
Latimer hurried down the hill with his orderly behind him. In five minutes they were in the Little Wood. All the shells were dropping short. This sort of thing was likely to continue at intervals all night: it was the enemy’s usual procedure.
In the Little Wood, which smelt so stalely, Latimer sat down and suddenly began to vomit. His orderly stood by regarding him compassionately; he took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to his master. In a few minutes Latimer, trembling and cold, rose and started to creep down the trench to the ravine....
A few hours later dawn began to paint the sky yellow, and the mountains moved out of the dark and assumed their daily places. In half-an-hour Latimer would be relieved.
“Report yourself to Sergeant Black, Morgan: I shan’t want you any more.”
He turned for a second to give his orderly a ghost of a smile, and then, placing his arms on the parapet, watched what was happening to the mountains and the sky. His large eyes glistened.
“Oh, how beautiful! How very beautiful!” he exclaimed aloud, as he gazed at the violet mist at the feet of the Belashitza Mountains. “I do wish father was here.... I do wish father....”
“Hello, Latimer! How goes it?”
The boy turned round: his company commander was standing behind him, looking at him curiously.
“You see how it is, sir,” said Latimer, gravely, “When night goes....”
His eyes quickly became dilated, and he swayed a little.
“You’re ill, laddie. Come back to Headquarters with me.”
“Fever—just fever. People have been playing tennis in my head all night. And Morgan’s killed. I wish I was dead myself.”
His lips trembled and a dry sob shook his shoulders.
“I do wish father was here,” he said.
ToFrank Harris
IN their little flat between Rue Egnatia and the northern end of Rue Venizelos, Marie and Alys Cruchot deemed themselves safe from the great fire which, no one quite knew how, broke out in Salonika that oppressive Sunday in August, 1917. Their habit of holding themselves aloof from their neighbours, of disdaining even to recognize their neighbours’ existence, had isolated them from all local news, and in the hours of excitement that filled Sunday evening they held themselves more proudly than ever. The fire was a very long way off, and even if it should spread in their direction, it must be days before it could reach them.
Marie, the elder sister, was golden-haired and slim and tall: her skin was golden, and gold-brown were her eyes. She was twenty-three. Alys had her sister’s straightness and slimness; but her hair was dark, her skin was very white, and her eyes were almost lilac-blue. Alys was nineteen.
Their father had been chaplain to the French colony in Salonika, and immediately after his death in 1914 the two girls had been compelled to rely upon their own efforts for the means of support. Refusing all offers of help from their friends, they quickly acquired a working knowledge of shorthand, and were now employed as typists in the great store in Rue Venizelos from ten till six.
None guarded their virtue so carefully as they guarded theirs: no lives were more secluded or better ordered. To those whom circumstances compelled them to know, they were very gentle; but to strangers they presented a reserved and haughty front that protected them from all whom their beauty attracted and fascinated.
“Shall we go to bed?” asked Marie, late in the evening.
“Well,” said Alys, rather gravely, “to tell you the truth, I feel too excited to sleep.”
She was standing at the window looking at a livid sky.
Marie rose from her work at the table and joined her sister.
“Look!” said Alys; “isn’t it wonderful? I think it’s going to be one of the big fires of history. Some day children will learn about this in school-books.”
Marie put her arm round her sister’s neck and patted her cheek.
“Yes, little princess, itiswonderful. Look at that smoke, how it rolls and writhes!—just as though it felt angry.”
Alys nodded and nestled closer to her sister.
“Are you afraid?” asked Marie.
“Oh, no: not afraid: it is too beautiful to make me afraid. Perhaps I am what is called awe-struck.”
In the street below men and women were rushing to and fro distractedly, carrying armfuls of their household goods—blankets, mattresses, pots and pans, bird-cages, babies, carpets, cradles, chairs, etc. They dumped them in the street, the womenfolk sitting on them whilst their men went far afield seeking means of transport. Across the street, on the second storey, a wine-merchant, at his wits’ end, was hurling casks of wine onto the pavement below; each burst open with a crash, the wine rushing out and making a thick stream in the gutter. No one stopped to laugh at him.
“What cowards these natives are!” exclaimed Marie, with disgust; “they always begin to squeal before they’re hurt.”
“I should like to go out and wander about and see what everybody is doing,” said Alys.
“Better not,” counselled Marie. “There’ll be a lot of looting, I expect, and half the natives will be drunk. Look how frightfully excited they all are! But we must not get too excited or we shall never sleep. We have to work to-morrow, you know.”
Still, they stood for a long time at the window, fascinated yet contemptuous. The scene below grew wilder minute by minute. The vast white furnace half a mile away lit up the street. Confusion was everywhere. Occasionally, a woman’s shriek came up to them like a stupid bit of theatricality. Now and again a band of young men brandishing sticks marched down the street, singing and laughing.
At last, Marie drew her sister within the room.
“Thank God we are not as other people,” she said, smiling. “Let us go to bed.”
They shared the same room. Alys was afraid, but she did not dare confess her fear to her sister. Marie had always taught her that they were better than other people. No doubt they were better. Nevertheless, she trembled a little as she knelt down to pray. Her fear increased when she discovered that she was mumbling words without any thought or hope behind them.
Suddenly, she started and rose to her feet.
“What is that?” she asked, panting.
They heard the noise of heavy furniture being moved in the flat above.
“I was wondering how long they would dare to stay,” said Marie, contemptuously. “This is a city of cowards.”
Alys slipped into bed, and Marie, who slept at the other side of the room, came over and kissed her.
“Are you quite sure?” asked Alys.
“What do you mean, little dear?”
“Oh, nothing. But we really are safe, aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. Even if they don’t put the fire out, it can’t reach us for days and days. Good-night, princess. Sleep well!”
She put her arm round her sister’s neck and, for a little minute, lingered in love, blessing her. Then she rose, walked over to her own bed and, having drawn the thick curtains over the windows, blew out the solitary candle.
But Alys could not sleep. She only half-slept. Her tired little body seemed to sleep, but her mind buried itself in fancies—the sort of fancies that come to us in fever. This is what her imagination said to her:
“Ifthe fire should come up the stair, walking, running. Then Marie and I would have to jump from the window.... You can buy fire. They put fire on the end of little match-stalks and sell him. They imprison him in tiny bits of phosphorus.... Oh, yes: just rub a match between your moist palms in the dark and your hands seem to be on fire. But it isn’t fire, really—just a strange kind of light.... Imprison! But no one likes being caged up. Fire doesn’t. Sometimes he leaps out of his cage—like to-night—and just shows you.... If we were in the street, we should be trampled on. Marie has not thought of these things.... Tiny bits of phosphorus. Just matches....”
Most wildly did these fancies crowd upon her. Real sleep came at last.
Marie and Alys were the only two who slept that night in that quarter of the town.
Adolph’s face was thin and intellectual. He had beautiful hands, and his wrists and ankles were as thin as an athlete’s. He sat in his gaudy brothel, drinking.
“A real God-send,” he said to his partner, and as he spoke he tapped his fingers on the little table holding their drinks. “A real slap-up present from the Almighty. Delivered free of charge.”
“Oh yes, oh yes: God is good. But what are we todo?” asked his partner, the man whom they called Tansy.
“Well, it’s simply a matter of choice. We’ve plenty to select from. All our customers are sick of these Barcelona girls: they haven’t a bite left in them. They start in Paris. Their bloom off, they go to London. When London’s sucked them dry, they go to Marseilles and from Marseilles to Port Said and from Port Said they come here and from here they go to ... well, I suppose they go to Hell. Not a single one comes from Barcelona. Now, we could do with half-a-dozen virgins.”
“Virgins?” asked Tansy, leering filthily. “And what strange fowl may they be?”
“Well, the Cruchot girls are virgins. Marie and Alys. I’ve had them at the top of my list for three years. They’re worth six thousand drachmæ apiece. From Pedro’s report here, the fire should reach their house at a quarter to one.”
“They’ll have skedaddled by now,” said Tansy, “it’s just on midnight.”
“They were at home an hour ago!” exclaimed Adolph.
“Well, what do you say to getting these two to-night and leaving the second-rate stuff till to-morrow?”
Adolph nodded.
“We’d better take Mrs. Knumf along with us.”
He rang a bell. Presently a male servant entered.
“Tell Mrs. Knumf I want her. She must put on her outdoor things,” said Adolph.
He dismissed the man with a motion of his flawless hand.
“Another drink,” suggested Tansy.
“I’ve had enough.”
“Share a bottle of champagne with me; this is a night of nights. Besides, we want priming. Those Cruchot girls will require a hell of a lot of managing. You see! If the elder one suspects anything, she’ll fight like a demon.”
He opened a bottle of champagne and filled two glasses. They drank. Tansy sat leering and perspiring. Soon the door opened and in walked a woman of incredible and revolting respectability. She was dressed in black.
“Ah! Mrs. Knumf,” said Adolph. “Sit down. Have some wine. Now, you know the Cruchot girls, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. At least, by sight,” said Mrs. Knumf, sipping her wine genteelly, and simpering.
“Well, Tansy and I are after them. They’re still in their flat. In half-an-hour or so the fire will be upon them. We must let them nearly get caught, and then we’ll rescue them. It should be simple enough. We will take the carriage. They will come back here with you. This is your private house: it is the headquarters of the Sisters of Mercy of the Orient: it is a branch of the Sacred Heart League: it is anything you like to call it. You understand? Well, then, come along.”
Mrs. Knumf eagerly swallowed the remainder of her champagne and rose. She composed her face and began to fiddle with a pair of black gloves. She coughed behind a delicate hand.
They passed into the street and entered a carriage. Even here, near the quay, they could hear the explosive noises that the hundred-acre furnace made. A vast belt of smoke blotted out half the stars. Millions of sparks were jerked into, and quenched by, the smoke, like water frantically forced through a hose-pipe.
They had but seven or eight hundred yards to go; the streets were crowded and they could proceed only at a snail’s pace. So intense was the light and so black the shadows that the streets and buildings looked grotesquely unreal. Almost everybody was shouting wildly. Many carried open bottles: their eyes were wide and glittering. An old man sat in the gutter laughing horribly and shouting indecencies to people as they passed. Some of the smaller shops had been broken open, and looting proceeded apace.