WE sought you at your house, Kit,” said Dr. Ulswater; “we sought you also at the establishment where you generate that mystical fluid which now travels meekly, invisibly, its slender wires, and now spits like a red-hot cat. You electrical engineers have your fingers on the pulse of the universe. I admire in you the representatives of the age.
“The condition of affairs in Portate was most mixed and unclassified. No light anywhere, except here and there a smoky lantern, and such sulphurous beams as the eye of imagination might detect, or conceive, gleaming from the bosoms of some thousands of furious citizens. We reached the railway station with the feeling of having been miraculously rescued. The town, however, was quieting down. Most of the citizens had gone home to plot your assassination. Your ultimatum seemed to be everywhere known. Evidently you were not meaning to be found that night by friend or foe, and therefore Sadler and I went our way in the interests of archæology.
“There is a national museum at the capital of this country, which contains an extraordinary collection of Inca relics, but is as disorderly as Portate emotions. Thither we went by the slowest train the ingenuity of man ever invented, getting what sleep we could, through the night, upon car seats of mistaken construction, each one of which was a populous commonwealth of bugs.
“Arrived at our destination in the morning, I found my way to the Museum, and presently was buried from the world, lost to the present. It must have been near noon when Sadler came and found me surrounded by pottery, weapons, tools, and the swathed bundles of the mummied dead.
“'Doctor,' he said; 'when's your birthday?'
“I reflected.
“'Bless my soul, it's to-morrow! This thing's got to stop! I'll be older than an Inca!'
“'You're a swaddled infant,' he said. I thought Mrs. Ulswater said it was to-morrow. I've got a present for you.'
“Birthdays, indeed! What had I to do with birthdays, who was reborn into eternity on the day I married Mrs. Ulswater! I had no use for them. I wished some one would make me a present of the treasures of that mixed-up and ruinous museum, and rescue them for archaeology. Carvings! Do you happen to know that the Inca signs of the Zodiac are practically identical with the Egyptian, that, moreover, they probably antedate them, that——”
“No, we don't,” interrupted Sadler. “It ain't so.”
“I can prove it to any man with eyes,” shouted Dr. Ulswater, thumping his knee.
“Which I holds myself,” said Sadler, gloomily, “that any man, with eyes, can see as them signs of the Zodiac all comes from the jim-jams, and the first man that made 'em was the first man that had drunk not wisely but too often.”
“Ha!” said Dr. Ulswater. “Why! Now, that's an idea! It really is!”
“Fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Ulswater. “What was the present, and what about it?”
Susannah said, “What's in the box?” and I,
“What are you doing with my trunk?”
Dr. Ulswater wanted to stop there and discuss the origins of the signs of the Zodiac, and the orderly narrative was getting into a bad condition, but Sadler took it up.
“Well, it was this way, ma'am,” he said. “I left the doctor at the Museum. Them mummies didn't look to me respectable, but maybe they are, only as you told me to look after the doctor, I didn't know as I'd ought to leave him in that there dissipated society. But I went off down the street, and by and by I see a man I knew, named Sanchez Beteta. He used to be a graceless young one, son of a poverty-stricken caballero who lived on Valencia Street in Portate. Beteta was walking stately and soft, and he had on patent-leather shoes that was pointed like pins, and he had a cane that was an airy vision, and a buttonhole bouquet, and fixings, and side whiskers, and clothes that was beautiful to make a bad egg remember its young dreams, and he come along like his garments was angels' wings. I says to myself: 'I want to be like that'; and I pokes him in the chest sudden and solid, and I says, sort of ingratiating:
“'Where'd you steal them clothes?' I says in West Coast Spanish. He looked me over with a haughty eye. Then he says:
“'If you're a ghost,' he says, 'I wished you'd fade away. How and why do you exist, aged one?' and I says:
“'Get me a bouquet and a cane. I want some vanity.'
“Then we went and got them vanities, and paraded in glory on the fashionable highway that's called 'The Paseo,' and he told me the origin of his clothes. They came from his being in the Government, a sort of Subcommissioner of National Monuments and Memorials, and from that position's having some pickings of drumsticks while his superiors was busy with other parts of the chicken. I told him how I'd come there, and how electricity had played it dark on Portate, and how Dr. Ulswater was at the Museum sorting out knowledge and wishing he had an Inca mummy for home consumption. Beteta knew about Portate. It was in the morning paper that's called 'El Patria.' Then he took to thinking.
“'Would the learned senor,' he says, 'pay a price for a royal mummy? He is, you say, of great wealth.'
“I says: 'Why?'
“'Because,' he says, 'I may have such an article to dispose of.'
“'Which,' I says, 'is a fraud. It's made of mashed paper and it ain't got no pedigree.'
“'Not at all,' he says, 'not at all! I scorn you. Could I, who am but an amateur, deceive one learned as your friend? It was in this way, simply. Some years ago an ancient tomb was opened and found to contain mummies of the family of the Inca, Huayna Capac. Of him you know nothing at all, but your friend does, and without doubt he knows that most of that family died during, or after, the Conquest. Without doubt he knows of the tomb I speak of and its discovery. It was described in the publications of science. Now the Museum is in my Department of Monuments and Memorials, and somewhat under my charge, because of my great interest in my country's antiquities. Also because of this interest I was allowed to acquire one of these relics for my private collection. But alas! I am unfortunate! Integrity and poverty go together. It rends my heart. I fear I had better dispose of my treasure. You will ask, “Why not to the Museum?” Again, alas! Evil tongues would whisper. I, an official of the Department, sell to the Department! My own conscience, too delicate, would shrink. But you are hardened, of an evil mind, a cynic. You don't understand the scruples.'
“'Sure,' I says, 'I do. Remorse and me are bosom friends. Come see the doctor.'
“'At present,' he says, 'I have an important engagement. Bring him to my house at three this afternoon. Number 20, Street of the Museum.'
“I went after the doctor then, and asked him would he have a birthday present, and what was the market price of royal mummies of the family of Hannah Atkins. 'Who?' says he, and I tried it again. 'Oh!' he says, 'Huayna Capac!'
“'The same,' I says. He stated a likely price, which stumped me some, for Beteta had only asked about a third of that for his mummy, and I didn't see Beteta's game. I judged he must be an ignorant amateur on mummies.
“We went to lunch, and about three o'clock we come round to Beteta's house. It stood side up to the side of the Museum, with a little paved court, or patio, between. You had to go into the patio to get into Beteta's house, and there was a small door in the Museum that opened on the patio too. Beteta let us in and showed his mummy in a box on a table, and it was that roped and done up in coloured cloth you could tell it from any sort of bundle, only there was a copper placard on it, which appeared to be antique.
“'It has been in the Museum for some days past,' says Beteta, 'because of comparisons I desired to make with the other plates.'
“'Ah!' says the doctor.
“'I regret that an important engagement now hurries me,' says Beteta. 'My house is yours, but if you go back to Portate to-day, the train leaves in two hours.'
“'Oh!' says the doctor. 'To be sure, we must go back.'
“'So regrettable! But, without doubt,' says Beteta, 'you will return. My house is yours. For me, but an amateur, to make acquaintance of a learned archaeologist, how grateful! You find here materials for packing. My house is yours. Adios, senores. The public servant is not master of his time. Adios, senores. My house is yours.'
“Then he took his cash and left us, we feeling sort of surprised.
“'What's your expert opinion?' says I.
“'Why,' says the doctor, putting on his glasses again and looking wise, I think you and your intimate friend belong to the genus gammon, species humbug; but his mummy is all right.'
“'If it's a sure Hannah Atkins, that's what I'm asking,' I says. 'I guess Beteta ain't even an amateur on mummies, and he's skeered of conversation with you. I guess you're right there.'
“We packed Hannah Atkins, and toward five o'clock I shouldered the box. Some populace saw us come from the patio and followed us to the station, wondering what a caballero, with a cane and a buttonhole bouquet, and a box four foot long on his shoulder, and a amiable large party in a white vest behind him, was doing with that there combination of circumstances. So we caught the train and started for Portate. There was another man I used to know on the train. He was a Scotch engineer in the employ of The Transport Company and named Jamison.”
SADLER paused. I knew Jamison too.
“What was Jamison coming to Por-tate for?” I asked. “Did he say?”
“He did,” said Sadler. “His conversation was meaty. I'm makin' a dramatic pause.”
Then he paused some more.
“I don't think much of that birthday present!” said Susannah, scornfully.
“Then I'll expand your imagination, Susannah,” said Dr. Ulswater. “Huayna Capac was the great Inca who died in 1527, the year Pizarro landed. Three of his sons contended for the throne, Huascar, Atahualpa and Manco, but how many other children he left is nowhere stated, to my knowledge. The marital system of the royal house, however, being such as it was, it is probable they were numerous. The mummies discovered some four years ago were five in number, each with a copper plate sewn to the cerements, and inscribed, ostensibly by one Padre Geronimo Valdez. Each of the inscriptions states that the enclosed person was a daughter of Huayna Capac, who had been baptised and buried by himself, Padre Geronimo. The date given on this plate is 1543. We have yonder then, in all probability, all that remains of a daughter of the Incas.”
“It isn't expanded at all,” said Susannah, meaning her imagination.
“What was her name?” asked Mrs. Ulswater.
“Curiously,” said Dr. Ulswater, “the inscription doesn't state.”
“Her name's Hannah Atkins,” said Sadler.
“Fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Ulswater. “What happened next?”
Dr. Ulswater continued the narrative. “Mr. Jamison was a Scotch person, with dusty eyebrows and considerate eyes, his speech compact of caution and a burr. Sadler told him of our acquisition and inquired about the man Beteta.
“'Because,' I added, 'if the gentleman is no amateur of mummies, why should he have a mummy in his possession? And if he hadn't any,—if, in fact, he stole it from the Museum,—why should he risk so much for the no great sum the mummy is worth, in fact, for the yet smaller sum which he received? It seems more probable that in some way it must have been his.'
“'I hae doots of it,' said Jamison, drily.
“'Does he know anything of archaeology?'
“'I hae doots of it.'
“'Did he steal it, then?'
“'I hae doots it was something resembling that, though maybe no precisely.'
“'For that absurdly small compensation?' “'I hae doots about the size of it.'
“'What for, then?'
“'I hae doots ye'll find some pink military at Portate that'll maybe explain.'
“Sadler here burst into spacious laughter.
“'We're speeding to our doom, doctor,' he said. 'Ho, ho!'
“'I hae doots, said Jamison, 'he may have it,' said Jamison.
“'But,' I said, 'that doesn't explain Beteta.'
“'I hae doots,' said Jamison, 'he may have an understanding with his Department.'
“'Why,' I said, 'you grow in mystery, Mr. Jamison. You cover the land with darkness. If the sum he received was too small to explain him by himself, it is surely too small to explain an arrangement implying a distribution. Ha!' I exclaimed. Let me consider.'
“'Right you are, doctor,' said Sadler. 'You have the idea now. He wan't anywhere round when we left.'
“Certainly, on consideration it seemed to me, that if we were accused of ourselves extracting her whom Sadler insists on calling Hannah Atkins—feloniously from the Museum, we would have some difficulty in proving the culprit to have been Beteta.
“'Beteta,' said Jamison, slowly, after a pause, 'has some sma' penetration. Without knowing much about archaeology, he might consider that a gentleman with a steam yacht is maybe a man of some substance, that might pay a bit more for immunity than for a mummy. For the interests of the Museum, he might consider it proper to attract a strategic contribution from a foreigner. I hae doots the appropriations for the Department of Public Monuments and Memorials don't support its offeecials to their satisfaction. He might arrange the circumstances so that the circumstances would be suffeecient. He might so put it to persons who might be suffeeciently authoritative to make it suffeeciently safe. They might send an authoritative despatch to the Mayor of Portate. I have a bit of information the facts are no so far from that supposition. No that I'd care to be an authority for the statement.'
“'He's an infernal scoundrel!' I exclaimed.
“'It may be so,' said Jamison, 'but he has some sma' penetration. It's my recollection too that our friend Sadler was in no verra good odour with the authorities when he left some years ago. Folk said he ran away a wee bit surrepteetiously, or maybe he'd deny that.'
“Sadler again roared with laughter.
“'I hae doots Beteta has the penetration to remember that too,' said Jamison.
“'However,' I said. 'Kirby will see us through.
“'Aye! Kirby? Is he a friend of yours?'
“I told him of my old friendship with Kit.
“'Oo! Is it so? But I hae doots Kirby has troubles of his own. I hae doots it would be better to keep the two troubles apart.'
“Here Sadler got up suddenly from his seat, asking of Jamison:
“'Say, does Steve Dorcas live where he used to?'
“'Aye,' said Jamison. 'He does.'
“'Well,' said Sadler, 'it's this way, doctor. Seeing I got you into it, I guess it's mine to get you out,' and he left the car. I asked who was Dorcas.
“'Oo—he's superintendent of The Transport Company,' said Jamison, 'but I doot if Sadler will be able to find him the night. His house is outside of Portate a bit. We pass it on the railroad.'
“He paused and looked thoughtfully through the window. The night was falling. A desolate country indeed, a sandy and rocky desert, is this coastland, for the most part. I was reflecting that, if Sadler had a plan, I might as well take what comfort was passing, whatever meat of conversation on several subjects this shrewd Scotchman might afford. I started on the subject of South-American archaeology, but Jamison did not respond. His mind seemed to be elsewhere. At last he said:
“'Ye'll maybe make a reasonable compromise, if Dorcas is with you, and I hae no great doots but he will be, for he was friendly with Sadler once. And leaving that, I'll no deny I'm going down to Portate myself on a soommons from Dorcas, but it's no aboot you and your mummy. It's to take charge of The Union Electric's plant. Whereby, as you're a man, I see, of no sma' penetration yourself, doctor, ye'll be seeing it's likely Kirby's no expected to be in a poseetion to run the plant to-morrow night.' “'It seems to follow, Mr. Jamison,' I said, 'that the Mayor means to arrest him tomorrow.'
“He nodded.
“I hae some information he did so this morning, but I opine the Mayor will be letting him out this night to run the plant, or Portate will be dark again.'
“'On account,' I questioned, 'of there being no train that would get you to Por-tate before ten?'
“'Your penetration is no sma' matter, doctor,' he said. 'It's working well.'
“'It's a wild thing, Mr. Jamison,' I continued, after some thought, 'a frivolous intelligence, a restless and turbulent member. Its mad quest after information is always making me trouble. It wants to know now how you and the Superintendent of The Transport Company happen to be so willing, not to say eager, to get into collusion with these corrupt and debt-dodging municipal thieves in Portate, and thereby to spoil Kirby's most enlivening and pleasant stratagem for collecting a just debt. It wants to know whether Kirby's being in jail is any personal gratification to either of you gentlemen.'
“He broke into a dry but not unkindly laugh.
“'No personal, doctor. Kirby is a good man. Oo—a wee bit hasty and cocksure, but he's only a lad. But your penetration is doing well. I'm thinking it might better go on.'
“'On your suggestion, it will,' I assented. 'The Transport Company and The Union Electric are rivals presumably. Presumably, then, the former has no objection to winning favour with the authorities at the expense of the latter. Waiving the question of fairness or morality——'
“'Aye, better waive 'em,' said Jamison, drily.
“'Waiving them entirely,' I said, 'The Transport Company seems to be in line with prosperity at the present moment.'
“Here Sadler came back in the car.
“'Engineers and conductors are easy on this road,' he said. 'One dollar apiece. We'll pull up where the road crosses to Dorcas' place, and disappoint that there pink military.'
“'Verra good,' said Jamison, nodding kindly. 'I'll go with ye, and I'm thinking we'll be there in a few moments now.' Presently the train slowed down and stopped. Sadler shouldered Hannah Atkins, and we got out. The train went on its way. The glimmer of the not distant city showed that the electric plant was working. To the left some distance stood a large house among trees, and to it a road ran from the railway crossing. It stood near the bank of the river, a yellow, stuccoed house with a patio. A man who met us at the door exclaimed:
“'What, Jamison! What, what! Why, why! Sadler! Come in, come in. What's that box? How d'ye do? Have a cigar! Have a drink. Good Lord!'
“He was introduced to me as 'Steve Dorcas.'”
HE was short, thickset man with a stubby chin whisker, an incessant energy, and an amazingly choppy manner of speech.
“'Just so; just so,' he said when he had heard our circumstances and needs. 'Drive you around myself. Do it myself.'
“Shortly thereafter he was driving us with two small ferocious horses through the starlit night, over tumultuous roads, circling the city, in order that—without passing through it, or meeting its expectant pink militia or gend'armerie—we might get to some point on the bay where a boat could be obtained to theVioletta.
“'I see, I see,' he said. 'You'll have to get away. Get away. Before daybreak. Beteta. Know him well. Damn rascal. Right, Jamison! Right. Clever old boy, Jamison. Old boy. I was up City Hall. City Hall. Five o'clock. Saw Mayor. Saw despatch. No names though. Said Museum was robbed. Description. No names. How should I know? Too early, though. Beteta ought to have waited. Seven o'clock. Time enough. Damn fool. Make no great difference. Maybe not. Humph! Good enough case. Got you short. Eh? Few thousands. Blackmail. Wouldn't do. Eh? Keep the mummy? Lord, yes. Your game. Whoa! Here's Kirby's house. See if he's here.'
“Singular conversationalist, Mr. Dorcas. His discourse resembled the precipitous flow and fall of successive bricks. He pulled up before that house of the picket fence, visited by Sadler and myself the night before. But all was dark, not a window lit, no one within.
“We could see, however, the low buildings, tall stacks, and shining windows of the electric plant some distance away. Jamison departed for the plant, saying he would tell Kirby we were there, if Kirby were at the plant. Dorcas fastened his horses to the picket fence. We sat on the edge of the porch and held council.
“'Kirby in bad hole,' said Dorcas. 'Mayor crazy. No lights. Snuffed out the city. Cool, but risky. These boys, Lord! What nerve they have! Don' know. Might have worked, maybe. But that riot. Bad. Irish. Jimmie Hagan. Red hair. Proclamations. Hot. Printed too. Hagan had 'em. Mayor's tenderest corns stepped on. Insurrection. Sedition. Mob. File of soldiers. Dead wall. Bang! Dead Irish. Next, Kirby took the riot. Clubbed the Mayor with it. What! Collusion with rebellion. Humph! Got his bill. Yes. But the Mayor's got him. Never forgive. Never!'
“'Irish!' said Sadler. 'Proclamations nothing! Irish never got up an insurrection.'
“'Did too,' said Dorcas, diving into his coat. 'Here. Got a copy. See here!'
“'He must have run into Chepa,' said Sadler. 'Chepa used to have sand, and he's Kirby's foreman, now, ain't he? We heard so. Him and Irish used to be with each other like a man and his pug dog, and each of 'em thought the other was the pug dog. That's a proper international relation, ain't it? Wrath of God!' says Sadler. 'Look here! Chepa never did this by his lonesome.'
“He read aloud the proclamation:
“'Citizens, rise! The Mayor tyrant has arrested the electric lights! The Mayor, betrayer of the people, has put in jail Kirby, friend of the people! The Mayor thief has stolen the people's taxes to buy gilt furniture! The Mayor pig eats the people's taxes! Therefore is he fat and shaped like an egg which within is bad. Kirby, friend of the people, is desolate because he cannot buy more electricity, because the Mayor sneak will give him no money which the people gave him! Release Kirby or Down with the Mayor! Shall Portate be darkened forever? Citizens, are you slaves? Citizens, be not deceived! Citizens, rise!'
“'Chepa nor Irish didn't do that!' said Sadler.
“'Peppery, ain't it!' said Dorcas. 'Red hot. Who did it! Don' know. Kirby, maybe. Don' know! Done for himself now. Sure.'
“'Mr. Dorcas,' I said, 'why shouldn't Kirby sail with us to-night?'
“'Maybe he won't. Likely not. Here's Jamison.'
“Jamison came up deliberately. He said there were some men tending the furnaces and dynamos who thought either Kirby or Chepa would be back before midnight. Senor Kirby had said he was going to visit a foreign vessel in the harbour. They knew no more.
“Jamison thought he would go back to the plant, and so said farewell.
“'Why, there!' I said; 'He's on theViolettaalready. But undoubtedly there will arise a point of duty, of responsibility. But you are a responsible man, Mr. Dorcas. You may be playing a game of your own, but my impression is it will be, on the whole, a decent game. I'm willing to be convinced it is, however it may look not over friendly. At any rate, Kirby knows you, if I do not.'
“'Knows me!' Dorcas said. 'Knows me! You're right. Point's this: He's done for himself.Persona non grata. Poison to the Mayor. Spoiled the Mayor's face. I'll see to property. Cable Union Electric. Send another man. Tell 'em he did well. All considered. Overdid it some, maybe. Bad hole. No good here now. Cats and dogs. Fines. Thirty thousand up the spout again. Damages. Anything. Queer country. Got to play it, you know. Same as a trout. Better clear out.'
“I said, 'But in that case what are we doing here? He'll want to come here to pack up, and as we leave before daybreak, he'll have no time to spare.'
“Dorcas shook his head.
“'Better not. Things happening now. City Hall. Pretty likely. Military here most any time. Despatches to Beteta. Despatches from Beteta. Gunboat after your boat. Don't know. Point's this: Whose a burglar? I am. Pack up for him. Why not?'
“Sadler said, i don't know Kirby, but I'll take the liberty of busting his window, if that's all. Looks to me as if one had been busted here already.'
“He put his hand through the broken window pane and unfastened the window, and we entered, leaving Dorcas with his horses.
“Our selections from your apparel and other properties, Kit, I trust you'll find to have been judicious.
“Dorcas drove us to the north side of the bay and routed out the men who rowed us here. They are, I believe, employés of The Transport Company. Dorcas refused to come with us.
“'Better not,' he said. 'Point's this: tell the Mayor I haven't seen him. No collusion. Mayor's friend. You tell Kirby. Write me letter. I'll wait here. Send it back. Power of attorney. Take charge. Responsible. I say so. Tell him. Goodbye, gentlemen. Glad to've known you. Good-bye.'
“Having arrived then,” concluded Dr. Ulswater, “it remains to inquire if we've done well. If not, the boatmen are waiting, but if we have——” Here Dr. Ulswater leaned forward, and put his hand on my knee.
“My dear boy, I believe I speak for Mrs. Ulswater too. We've been the round of the world, missing you.”
As I thought it over, it seemed to me plain that Dorcas was right. He and Jamison were very decent sort of men. If Dorcas took the responsibility, the property would be safer with him than with me, supposing I was in jail. Could I serve The Union Electric better, under the circumstances, than by running away, as a sort of scapegoat, carrying off The Union Electric's ill-odour with the Mayor, along with the thirty thousand? The Company ought to be satisfied. I didn't like running away. I longed for another crack at the Mayor. I looked at Mrs. Ulswater, at the doctor, at Susannah.
I supposed Dorcas was right about the ultimatum too, if the doctor had reported his jerky hints correctly. He had lived in the country almost as long as I was old, and was clever and wise. I had felt proud of that ultimatum. It was new and bold and spectacular. But Dorcas had put his finger on the flaw in it, the injury to the Mayor's prestige, by which nothing was gained and much was lost. He might have pardoned being held up, if it could have been done behind the door, though I didn't see how it could have been done. He might even have pardoned the ultimatum, but there were Chepa's proclamation, whose blasting rhetoric was Susannah's—Susannah's genius and Chepa's idiom—and Mrs. Ulswater's insurrection in general, and my taking advantage of it—why, Dorcas was right there, at least. The Mayor had a whip-hand now, for the Government would back him up now with a case for international argument. The riot was bad business. It looked as if Mrs. Ulswater were not so infallible as the doctor thought. I wasn't altogether a success either. The Union Electric might or might not think me all right, but Dorcas was right, and The Transport Company had won a point over us by having elderly wisdom to manage its affairs in Portate, instead of a young one whose nerve was longer than his head. Anyhow, the milk was spilt.
“I'll write to Dorcas,” I said, getting up. “I seem to have run through my usefulness.” While I was writing in the cabin I could hear the chain and wheel where the crew was hauling in anchor. The hands of the cabin clock pointed to one o'clock.
Had Mrs. Ulswater contracted a habit ofcoups-d'état?Certainly her riot didn't look like workings of infallible good sense.
IF Mrs. Ulswater, then, had planned her riot in order to make my position in Portate untenable—as a sort of explosion of blasting powder to loosen me from South America, it seemed reckless. It was not like her to make a mess of a man's business in order to please only a notion of hers to have him in her floating asylum. She had had, as I remembered her, a curious awe of business. It was implanted in her, I supposed, by Mr. Mink of Ohio. One would say offhand, of course, that she had meant, by these incendiary proclamations, merely to frighten the Mayor into releasing me, and had not seen beyond that. Of course, that might be the case.
But when I asked her just what was the extent of her plan, she seemed reserved, and wanted to talk of settling somewhere in the States again. She thought Portate a past issue. She wouldn't say whether or not her conscience was clear about the riot, but she didn't seem to be troubled. She was figuring about what kind of place would interest Dr. Ulswater to live in.
We were to go first to San Francisco, where the doctor meant to ship Hannah Atkins to the Eastern museum for which he collected. She asked my advice about a place to settle in. Doctor Ulswater was fond of unsettled travelling and might be hard to satisfy. She didn't find my advice of much use. I judge there were too many rolling waves of moonlit imagination in it. Something seemed to be lacking, but she wouldn't say what the flaw was. I suspected she wasn't precisely stating the nature of her aim and purpose. She began to consult Sadler instead of me, and I took to running down Hannah Atkins to Dr. Ulswater, so as to induce his eloquence, calling her obsolete and stolid, or criticising the way she'd been laid out rather hunched up; and he would pour out South-American archaeology till everybody took a new interest in life. All you had to do to start him, like a spring flood in a thirsty land, was to begin something like this:
“Of course,” you'd say, “I'm not real well acquainted with mummies, and I'll take your word Hannah's a good specimen of her kind, only I'd call her laying out pretty economic and bunchy; and of course she's not in it with an Egyptian mummy for a minute, but we won't quarrel about that, though on the outside she's pretty much like a bag of meal, and when opened up, the difference is all in favour of the bag of meal; but that isn't the point—-” and so on. Give him an opening, and he'd shed knowledge like rain off a roof, till you felt glad to be alive.
Or else I would go off with Susannah and help her write her poem on me. That poetry was so candid that it got away from me. It soared off on the wings of truth, and dealt too much with pure facts. My nose not being straight, it stated the fact, not brutally, but simply. Any weakness I had, and there was a rhyme for it, down it went, and if there wasn't a rhyme, she just planted it in the beginning of the line instead of at the end. Technical difficulties never balked her of that. There were one thousand, two hundred and fourteen lines before we got to California. I wouldn't take a fortune for that poem. It was more than a photograph. It fitted me like the skin of a snake. But that's not its main value.
“Kit Kirby was an engineer,”
it began.
“ So handsome and so debonair.”
“Handsome!” I said, feeling interested. Susannah took an observation.
“Some.”
“Then you oughtn't to say 'so' when you mean 'some.'”
She scratched out and wrote:
“Some handsome in respect to him.”
But I was new at literary criticism or I wouldn't have made that mistake. It went on:
“But very crooked in his nose,
And very vain about his clothes!”
I objected:
“Not at all, Susannah! Neat and cleanly!”
She corrected:
“And neat and cleanly in his clothes,”
which shows the value of literary criticism.
Then the poem went through with the circumstances of the Portate Ultimatum, the Hannah Atkins plot, and the sequel of those complications.
“And everything was in a muss,
And so he ran away with us.”
Now, from that point on, it went along something like a diary. It recorded daily incidents, reflections, comments, the shades and modifications of Susannah's opinion of me. It was minute, microscopic, and detailed. It went into unsuspected corners, and hauled things out, and delivered judgments on them. If the book of the Recording Angel is put together on that model, it's surely a good model. Perhaps the first sight of the record and analysis will make a man squirm. But I wouldn't ask for a better Recording Angel than Susannah, or a judge on the whole more just. But that is not the main value of the poem to me. It began to strike me in a new light when I discovered that Susannah had my sins on her conscience.
There were entries like these:
“June fifth.
“The night is dark as it can be,
The rain is falling on the sea,
And every one of us is gay.
Kit was very good all day.
“ June tenth.
“ Georgiana Tupper died,
I cried a lot, and then I cried
Because Kit did not care a fly,
But said he did, and told a lie,”
This was a kind of light to stand in, not only searching, but one that manufactures repentance faster than a man can dispose of the goods.
Two things began to dawn on me: first, that, although, as the subject of Susannah's poem it was natural I should be all around in it, on the other hand, looking at the poem as a diary, I was more ubiquitous than seemed reasonable: second, that the diary was getting on my nerves. In fact, passing time was becoming a sort of running commentary on Susannah. It dawned upon me that Susannah and I had fallen into the habit of occupying each other's horizons. Then said to myself, “I'm in for it. It's the way the world is made.” This was toward the end of June. TheViolettawas in sight of the California coast, and the blue mountains of the Coast Range were a fringe along the eastern skyline by day.
One night I sat with Sadler, looking across the water toward where our native land lay in the darkness, he twankling on his banjo and I thinking of the condition of being a running commentary with an occupied horizon. By and by he began to mutter and grumble into a sort of tune whose joints didn't fit. On the whole, as a tune, it was an offence to music, and didn't agree with my idea of what is morally right. But it surely suited him. He began to sing to it, and the words didn't suit me either.
“When first I kissed Susannah—
The facts I state precise—
The forty million little stars
They winked their little eyes,
They seemed to say, 'You dassn't'—
I guessed the same was true,—
They seemed to say, 'I reckon things
Will happen if you do';
When first I kissed Susannah.
“When first I kissed Susannah,
I wondered if I dared;
I see some little stars go out,
Implying they was scared;
I see a porpoise lift his head
And pop his eyes and drool;
And all the sea lay flat and prayed,
'Lord help this poor damn fool!'
When first I kissed Susannah.
“When first I kissed Susannah—
The facts I state 'em free—
She never done a single thing
To knock the head off me.
She melted like a snowflake,
That's crystal, keen and white,
That turns a drop of water,
That glimmers in the night,
When first I kissed Susannah.”
There was a long silence.
“Of course,” I said at last, “I might be mistaken, for though you're some stiff maybe with ancientness, still you've got weight and experience, and accident and foreordination ought to be allowed for.”
“Sure they ought. You're right, sonny. That there's a good balance of facts.”
“Allowing for all that then, still I'd like to remark that if you kiss Susannah again, I'll knock the head off you myself.”
Sadler twankled on peacefully.
“Is them sentiments genuine?” he asked, “Which I wish to inquire if they're the offspring of wrath.”
“They are!”
“Well,” he said, “it's this way. Scrapping is roses and raptures to me, but the facts don't allow it. The facts of that poem ain't in my experience but yours, which is why I'm weeping to the moon.”
“They're not in mine either.”
“Theyain't!Well, why ain't they?” Then he swore in a slow, plaintive manner.
“They ain't! Well, why ain't they? That's what I want to know.”
He went off leaving me reflecting about all the things a man misses. Then I thought about the way things are linked together, one thing happening because of another.
For if the King of Lua hadn't roused Mrs. Ulswater's wrath so that she had to carry him off, she wouldn't have carried off Sadler too; and if Sadler hadn't been a poet, probably Susannah wouldn't have been either; and if Susannah hadn't begun a poem on me, it wouldn't have turned into a semipublic diary; and if I hadn't seen her diary, and seen it grow from day to day, I wouldn't have got into that tumultuous condition. Susannah saw through me, as if I were a window pane, but the window, through which I saw into Susannah's secrecy, was her diary.
At last I got up and went down into the cabin. Susannah was not there, but the doctor was reading to Mrs. Ulswater.
“Mrs. Ulswater,” I said, “is Susannah too young to be kissed; that is, by me?”
“Don't you mean too old?” she asked quietly, without looking up.
“No, I mean too young.”
Mrs. Ulswater was silent a moment.
“I suppose she is. But not too young for us to make plans.”
“Did you have a plan, Mrs. Ulswater?” I asked after a while.
“You needn't pretend you didn't know what it was.”
“I suspected it when it began to succeed.”
Dr. Ulswater took off his glasses and pointed them vaguely at me.
“As to the date of your suspicions,” he said, “you are an authority, but as to the date of the success of Mrs. Ulswater's plan, you are in error, in error. Mrs. Ulswater's plans begin to succeed when she begins to make them. The beginning of the end is coincident with the beginning of the beginning. She has an arrangement with destiny. She i——”
“Stuff!” said Mrs. Ulswater.
“Not at all! Not at all!” he cried. “I'll bet Hannah Atkins to a fresh infant that Mrs. Ulswater laid the lines of your future a year and a half ago, and started for a predestined Island of Clementina, and collected a foreordinate orphan whom she had spotted from the description of the late Mr. Tupper. 'Susannah,' she said to herself, 'will do for Kit. We'll go to Clementina.' Pundits, prime ministers, and reigning monarchs she picked up by way—populations rioted as she found convenient—mere incidental details to a further end. Through helplessly remonstrant oceans, through a universe undisciplined and disorderly, she pursued the judicious tenor of her way. Here and there she altered the trend of history. It was nothing. Missions! Not at all. Her purpose was to make a match. The feminine mind——”
“Fiddlesticks!” said Mrs. Ulswater.