His nature being simple and without vanity, the ludicrous had no terrors for him. When, for example, Tiva and Ioia made for him a garland of flowers, he wore it with as little concern as he would have worn a hat, and met the cheerful chaff of Hilda or the doctor quite unperturbed. He took a paternal interest in Tiva and Ioia, but after one trial relinquished any attempt to instruct them in Christianity. Their readiness to make any declaration which they thought was wanted, without the slightest regard to its basis in fact, baffled him, and their unintentional irreverence appalled him. He had to admit that his knowledge of the native mind was insufficient for his purpose. Hefound himself at times regarding these pleasant, brown, graceful, unthinking creatures rather as some new kind of pet animal than as human beings; and, finding himself in this attitude, repented of it. He and Hilda learned from them a native game, a sort of “knuckle-bones.” It is doubtful whether Tiva or Ioia cheated the more shamelessly at it; when detected, they laughed cheerfully. In return he taught them to avoid a frequent use of the word “damn” as a simple intensive, and answered so far as he could their many questions about Queen Victoria and the British method of executing murderers. He was equally ready to instruct them about tube railways and telephones. But when he spoke of such things they became very polite but asked no questions; they did not believe a word he said on those subjects and were not interested.
It was a time of relief after danger—danger to his own life and to Hilda’s. And of any further danger that threatened Lechworthy knew little or nothing. But the patrol at the King’s house got plenty of shooting-practice under the direction of the King himself; and the King wore the air of a man who was watching and listening, always listening.
Lechworthy, instructed by Dr Soames Pryce, caught fishes with names like music and colours like the rainbow. Also, instructed by Dr Soames Pryce, he mastered the management of his simple snap-shot camera and learned developing and printing. Every day he was busy with King Smith in working out the details of the scheme for a native Faloo and preparing draft statements to advocate it in England. “My holiday!” he exclaimed to Hilda. “Why, I’ve never had so much to do in my life. And I like it.”
Hilda, on the other hand, did very little. She had been since her illness quieter and gentler. She was listless and at times a little melancholy. She let her management of her uncle slip through her fingers, and even ceased to manage herself; she was ready for anything that Tiva or Ioia suggested, unless, of course, it happened to be something that she thought Dr Pryce would not like. Her uncle, vaguely conscious of the change in her, said that shewas still a little weakened by her illness. Hilda put it all down to the enervating climate. Tiva and Ioia, who had their own ideas, produced for her a new music—songs in the native tongue that spoke also in the universal tongue. They sang one moonlit night on the verandah outside Hilda’s room, when she had just gone to bed. It was the music of ecstasy and surrender. Hilda, in her night-gown, stepped bare-footed across the room and pushed the plaited blind aside. “Tell me what the words of that mean,” said Hilda.
Tiva hesitated. She threw her head back and her dark poetical eyes looked up to the golden moon. “He mean,” she said in a voice that was like a caress, “he mean ‘I love you pretty dam much.’”
“You darlings!” said Hilda. “Sing it all through once more, please.”
“Thank you so much,” she called when the music stopped, and gave one long sigh. These island nights, she thought, were beyond words, too beautiful, overpowering.
On the following morning Mr Lechworthy desired to speak with Dr Pryce, and the two men walked in the garden together.
“Doctor,” said Lechworthy, “I’ve saidvery little so far about all you’ve done for us. You haven’t let me,” he added plaintively.
“You see, Lechworthy,” said Pryce, “you do exaggerate the thing so. If a bricklayer who had nothing to do came and laid a few bricks for you, you wouldn’t think it anything to make a fuss about—especially if he did it because he liked it. If an unemployed doctor does a little doctoring for you, and enjoys doing it, that’s the same thing. It’s what he’s there for. Really, Hilda’s case gave me some new and valuable experience, and I’m very glad to have had it.”
The transition from Miss Auriol to Hilda had come at one point of Hilda’s illness; it had come by natural evolution from the circumstances. Afterwards, when Pryce resumed the “Miss Auriol,” Hilda wanted to know if he was angry with her about anything, and the “Miss Auriol” was then definitely abandoned.
“Well,” said Lechworthy, “that’s your way of looking at it. But you must see my way of looking at it too. Now I don’t want to think about the financial side.”
“There is none and can be none.”
“So you have decided, and I’ve submitted to it. But I tell you this—if any doctor inLondon had done as much for me, my conscience would not have let me sleep until I had paid him a very big fee indeed; and even then I should have felt indebted to him every day of my life. If I can pass over that financial side it’s because even in the very few days that I have known you I have come to regard you as a friend. I do not make friends easily. In questions of politics, and even, I fear, in questions of faith, we are as far apart as the poles. But I—I’ve formed a very high opinion of you, doctor, and I want your friendship.”
“Well,” said Pryce, “you force my hand. I thought it would come to it. Before you say anything further, Lechworthy, there is something you ought to be told. Sit down here, won’t you? At one time, to save the men of the Exiles’ Club, I was ready and eager to murder you and many others.”
“You meant,” said Lechworthy, “to sink theSnowflake?”
“I did.”
Lechworthy did not look shocked, nor even surprised. “Well,” he said, “the King warned me not to give you a passage. We speak in confidence, you and I; you will notlet him know that I told you this and will not show any resentment.”
Pryce smiled. “Of course not.”
“Now at first, doctor, I said to myself that you must be a very wicked man. I was horrified. And then—I thank God for it—I heard the voice of conscience. That voice said, ‘Before you judge others, look at yourself, Lechworthy.’ Now I’m going to tell you. Some years ago a candidate for Parliament, a man not of my colour, asked permission to address the men at my works in their dinner-hour. I ought to have refused him altogether, or to have seen to it that he had a fair hearing. I could have done either, and either would have been right. I did what was wrong. I said that if he addressed them it must be at his own risk, well knowing that he would take the risk. And then I dropped a hint here and a hint there that if intruders said that they would chance rough handling they could hardly grumble if they got it. That was enough. The candidate turned up and was fool enough to bring his wife with him. Stones were thrown, and the woman was seriously injured; it was a chance that she was not killed. There’s a well-known saying, doctor,‘qui facit per alium facit per se.’ It’s true too. If that woman had died it would have been I—and not the man who threw the stone—who would have been in the sight of God her murderer. Some of my men went to prison over that affair; when they came out I did what I could to make up to them for it—because they had been punished for my fault. That incident did me harm in my business and in my political career, and that I could stand; but it also gave the enemy their opening, and injured the good cause that I was trying to help. It’s terribly easy to be misled by one’s political passions; when one is doing evil that good may come one forgets that one is doing evil. That was one of the things I had to keep in my mind when Smith gave me that warning about you. But there were others. You won’t mind if I put it plainly.”
“By all means,” said Pryce, rolling a cigarette.
“I thought about the Exiles’ Club. Here are these poor chaps, I thought to myself, who have found a corner of the world to hide in. They no longer constitute a danger to Society. They ask nothing but to be left alone—to be hunted no longer. Can it be wondered at thatthey thought my coming meant the loss of their liberty or their lives? I am no hunter of men, but they didn’t know that. And if they thought that, can it be wondered at that they were ready to take any step, however desperately wicked, to get rid of the informer and save themselves? Ah! and I thought something else, doctor, and it turned out to be right too.”
“And what was that?”
“I thought to myself, the man who is to sink theSnowflakemust face an almost absolute certainty of his own death. He must sacrifice himself—body and soul—to help the others. If ever I see him I shall see the finest man on the island.”
Pryce laughed. “This is becoming grotesque, Lechworthy. If you can understand the line I took, and can forgive it because you understand it, that’s far more than I have any right to expect, and I’m grateful. But for goodness sake don’t try to put me upon a pedestal. It—it won’t wash, you know.”
“Listen to me a bit, Pryce. Hilda fell ill. The King told me you were the only man here who could save her—otherwise she would die. But he pointed out that it gave you a chance—that there would be a great risk.”
“That was nonsense. Smith’s a barbarian and doesn’t understand things. I came to you as a doctor.”
“Anyhow, you came, and I saw you and talked to you. I’ve come across many men in my life, doctor, and I make up my mind about them quickly now. If Hilda had died I should still have been quite sure that you had done your very best for her, and would have seen to it that the King took the same view. But you saved her. Now I’ll tell you something else; if Hilda had not fallen ill, and we had disregarded the King’s warning and taken you aboard theSnowflake—well, I don’t know what you would have done.”
“Don’t know myself,” said Pryce.
“But I do know that Hilda and I would have been safe. You would not have carried out your intentions.”
“Possibly not.”
“And for telling me of those intentions, which you were not bound to do, I respect you the more. You may have meant to be my enemy, but you have been indeed my friend. And that brings me to what I wanted to say. You’ve done more for me than I can say. Now then, what will you let me do foryou? Out of friendship tell me. I set no limit.”
“You’re a good man, Lechworthy,” said Pryce, “and you set no limit. But though I’m not a good man, I do. I accept your friendship gladly and I’m proud to have it, but we’d better let the rest go.”
“Well,” said Lechworthy, “I had an idea, but it’s rather difficult to tell about it because I don’t want to put impertinent questions to you. You might fairly tell me that your private history is no concern of mine.”
“Yes,” said Pryce, “up at the club it is not etiquette to speak about what happened before we came here. The chaps there have never shown any curiosity as to my story, and they have never been told it. I think I know what they imagine—something quite unspeakable and having, as it happens, no basis in fact. It has never mattered to me. They don’t care, and I don’t. And what was your idea?”
“I want to take you back to England with us. I believe in you, and I can’t bear to see you wasting your life here. I don’t know what you’ve done, but I can’t believe it is anything which can’t be cleared up and putright. Anything that my influence and persistent exertions could do for you would be done. Now, is there any reason against it?”
“As I said before, you’re a good man, Lechworthy. But, unfortunately, there is every reason against it. It would be quite impossible. Look here, I’ll tell you the story. There was a woman who had been married for ten years. They had been for her ten years of hell—a peculiar and special hell that you know nothing about. And then her husband fell ill, and I attended him. He was rather loathsome, but I did what I could for him and he began to recover. One day I was called to the house and was told that he was dead; I went up, satisfied myself as to the cause of death, and said nothing. I never told the woman that I knew what she had done, let her believe that I was deceived, and gave a certificate that the man had died from his illness. You see, she was a good woman by nature, but had been driven near to madness by ten years of—well, only a doctor could appreciate it. I was a very young man, and I was heartily sorry for her; her husband was better dead anyway. Three months later this woman, being a woman, broke down and confessedeverything. Exhumation and discovery followed—arsenic was a stupid thing to have used. There was my ruin ready-made.”
“So you came to Faloo?”
“Not then. It was not fear, but disgust, that drove me to Faloo. I settled my little account with the law. They gave me a year in the second division, and it was considered that I had been let off lightly. When I came out, I found of course that I had been turned out of my profession. Two stories were confidently believed about me, and both were false. The first was that I had conspired with the woman to kill the man—that had been distinctly disproved, but it made no difference. The second was equally false but less easy to disprove. It was the corollary that the knowing young-man-of-the-world always puts to such a case—that the woman had been my mistress. The only reason why I was not turned out of my clubs was because I had forestalled them by resigning. Some old friends cut me, but I had expected that. The old friends who did not cut me were more difficult to bear—I could not stand the duffer who failed to hide that he was proudly conscious of being merciful. I happened to hear fromone of these men that a desk-waiter at one of my old clubs had cut and run with a deal of the club’s money. I remembered that waiter, and in many ways he wasn’t a bad chap—he’s our head-waiter at the Exiles’ Club to-day. I hunted out his wife, thinking she might need some help. I saw her through a bad illness and gave her money, and she was grateful. She told me about Faloo, and I decided that moment to come here. The good people wouldn’t have me, so I thought I’d try the wicked. I’ve been here ever since—and, by God, I’ve suffered less from the sins of Faloo than I did from the virtues of my own country. It’s over now. The exiles must leave this place, of course, and they know it. They are probably making their plans now. The only plan I’ve got is never to set foot in England again—never, never!”
It was in vain that Lechworthy argued. He did not pretend to condone what the doctor had done. But he pointed out that after all it was done under circumstances which would arouse some sympathy. The punishment, apart from the legal punishment, had been slanderous, vindictive and shameful; it might, if it were put before the public in the properlight, produce a strong reaction in the doctor’s favour. He might be reinstated in his profession.
“Lechworthy,” said Pryce, with rather grim good-humour, “when I was a little boy I did not like to have my head patted. And nowadays I don’t think I should like to be defended and excused; it doesn’t seem to me to be the treatment for a grown-up man.”
“You’re too proud, doctor,” said Lechworthy. “Think of my position. If I’d never come here you could have gone on undisturbed. I must go on with the King’s great scheme. I’ve put my hand to the plough and I can’t look back. The saving of a race is a grand thing, and I feel called to do my utmost to help. It’s work almost comparable to the work of Wilberforce, whose name I bear. But if it succeeds, then I drive you from the island which you have made your refuge, and scatter the men whom you have made your friends.”
“You may make your mind easy, Lechworthy. I’ve thought the thing over at length now, and I don’t take quite the view that I did at first. There are too many people in England to-day who know of Faloo, therefore, sooner or later, the police would get to know of it. Faloo may be an independent nation having no extradition or other treaties, but in practice that would not amount to a row of beans. You do these poor devils who have been my companions for the last few years no disservice; if you put them on the run again, you at anyrate give them a good start. You do me no disservice either, for I’ve grown pretty restless of late and pretty sick of things. I shall be glad to start wandering again.”
“Then there’s one thing you must let me do. When Hilda and I reach Tahiti we must part from theSnowflake. We’ve got fond of her, and we don’t want to sell her. We’d sooner a friend had her. You can well afford to keep her. I shall send her back to Faloo, doctor, and in future she will be yours. You will start your wanderings in her.”
Pryce reflected a moment. “Very well,” he said. “I shall sail in the boat I meant to sink, but I don’t know that it matters. Thank you very much, Lechworthy. I shall be glad to take theSnowflakeand to let you be disproportionately generous to me.”
They shook hands on it.
The meeting of the committee of the Exiles’Club had been fixed for the following day, but Pryce decided after all not to be present at it. He wrote a short note to Sweetling telling him that he would agree with any arrangements made for winding up the club, and that there was no further news. He added that a general meeting would of course be called and all the members informed.
That night, as on several previous nights, the King and Lechworthy went to their work directly after dinner, and Hilda and Pryce were left alone together. The air seemed hot and heavy, the smoke from the doctor’s cigarette hung in lifeless coils.
“Hilda,” said the doctor, “it ought to be pleasant down by the pool to-night. Shall we go there?”
“Yes,” said Hilda. “I should like that.”
The sky was powdered with stars. The falling water made an unending melody, and here by the pool the air seemed cooler and fresher.
Hilda, lying at full length on the mat that had been spread for her, spoke drowsily.
“To-night,” she said, “nothing that happened before is real or matters a bit. I’ve always been here, lying by the pool and listening to the water—here at the world’s end, out of all the trouble. Is there really a place called London?”
“Wonder what’s going on there just now?” said Pryce. “Dawn perhaps. Did you often see the dawn in London, Hilda?”
“Yes, driving back from dances, with the violin music still swinging in my head, tired out and feeling as if I should never sleep again. The dawn seems cruel somehow then. But you know.”
“It’s long since I was there, but I remember a dawn down by the river. Spots of light were dotted across it where the bridges come. Then the sky turned pale, without a touch of colour, and the lights on the bridges went out. A mass of black in the Embankment gardens began to sort itself out into shrubs and plants. About twenty minutes later you could see the blue of the gardener’s lobelias. I hate lobelias.”
“So do I,” echoed Hilda. “So do I.”
“It was an anæmic, civilised dawn, different to the rush of glory we get here. And the tattered derelicts that one met, trying to snatch sleep on the seats, or wandering about and cursing God for having made them anotherday. That was before I had ever heard of Faloo, but I remember thinking even then that there ought to be a place somewhere for the chaps who have gone under—a refuge for the people for whom civilisation has been too much.”
“I want you to know,” said Hilda, “that I’ve heard your story. My uncle told me. I made him.”
“My very disreputable story,” said Pryce, grimly. “Well, it’s better not to sail under false colours, isn’t it?”
Her hand stole out and pressed his arm gently. “You must come back to England with us,” she said, speaking quickly. “It’s too horrible that you should have been wronged like this—punished and tortured and maligned for an act of mercy. That’s a thing that must be put right. These blind fools must be made to see. Oh, when I think about it, there are people that I could kill.”
“You’re splendid, Hilda. But it can’t be. One must take the world as one finds it. If doctors who gave false death-certificates were not severely punished, that would open the door—‘open the door’ is the recognised phrase, I think—to all manner of crime. You see it has to be. And though you might makea few kind people forgive what I did wrongly, you could never make the world forgive me for having been in prison. I should never get back to where I was. But it doesn’t matter much, you know. Somewhere in these islands I shall find my place. And if I’m ever inclined to feel sore about it I can always remember that I’ve met you, and what you thought and said, bless you!”
“You won’t come back to England?”
“Can’t, Hilda.”
She sat up now. She plucked a leaf, and pressed its cool surface to her warm lips, and flung it aside. Then she looked steadily into his eyes and spoke deliberately.
“Then I too ... am not going back.”
“What are you saying, Hilda?”
Her eyes closed. “Don’t you know? I know, though you have never told me—said no word of it. I know that you love me just as surely as I love you, dear. I know, too, why you have not told. It’s because you saved my life, and because you think that if we went back to England and you married me you would ruin it.”
“I should not have let you know; I’ve not played the game,” said Pryce. “True?Why, it’s the only truth in my life. I love you, Hilda. I worship you. I adore you. I know now that I could never have let you go without telling you. But I know, too, that I am not even worthy to speak to you—to kiss the hem of your garment.”
“Come to me,” she murmured almost inaudibly, and swayed towards him.
They lay side by side now, his arms about her, his lips on hers. For a while neither spoke.
“Three more days,” he said at last. “Three more days in Paradise, dearest.”
“Not only three more days, but all our lives,” she whispered.
“Hanson,” said Sir John Sweetling, “you are leaving to me all arrangements for the removal of Smith.”
“I am,” said Hanson. “In fact, I would sooner know nothing about it.”
“Well, the time’s getting very near.”
“It is.”
“In connection with the—er—removal of Smith, I should like to take Mast fully into our confidence. We have the committee this morning, and Pryce won’t be there. I’ve heard from him. It is my belief that you are right, and that Pryce cares for nothing but Hilda Auriol, and won’t come here again. You and Mast and myself will make a solid triumvirate.”
“Very well,” said Hanson. “I don’t think there’ll be any harm in it.”
So Sir John Sweetling unfolded this scheme to Mast, and outlined the horrible part which Mast himself would be expected to play in it. But he put the best appearance on it, as he did upon everything.
“Smith is a traitor,” said Sir John, sternly. “He owes everything to us. Before we came, he owned practically nothing but unsaleable land. Now he is established as a trader, and is doing really well. Suddenly he throws us over. Why? Simply because he thinks that with Lechworthy as a partner he will be able to screw a little more money out of it for himself. He betrays us all to Lechworthy, and I consider even now that disaster may come of it. For that crime—there is no other word for it—the punishment is death, and it will be for you to administer the punishment. It’s rough-and-ready justice perhaps, but it is justice. When a coloured native race and a white race live together on an island, the natives must be made to take their proper position; the penalty for treachery must be sharp and sudden if it is to act as a deterrent. I’m speaking of principles which are tried and sound—principles that have helped to build up the Empire. Hanson is fully with me. The lesson must be given, if only as a salutary warning to the other natives.”
“I’m to do this?” asked Mast, staring stupidly. “That was what you meant—that I was to kill Smith?”
“Precisely. The work of a public executioner is unpleasant work, though of course no moral responsibility attaches to it. The responsibility rests with Hanson and myself, who discussed the man’s case and decided what was to be done with him. Of course if you find yourself too shaky and nervous, we must get another man for the work. But you’ve made a good many protestations, Mast. Precisely because it is unpleasant work, you ought to accept it and to be glad of a chance of repairing the injury you have done to the members of this club.”
“I shall do it,” said Mast, doggedly. “But I don’t see how it repairs anything. I don’t see how it helps us at all.”
It was only then that Sir John spoke of the certainty that a disputed succession would follow upon the death of Smith, and of the use that the exiles would be able to make of it. It was so much better to represent Smith’s death as a punishment for a past crime than as a murder for a future advantage.
Mast remained spiritless and rather sullen. He was a little stunned at finding what was required of him. He had liked Smith—had been rather intimate with him at one time.
“There’s no other way?” he asked.
Sir John became a little impatient. “That’s all been talked out. Look here, Mast, if your promises were so much hot air, and you’re too frightened to do what you said you would, own up at once and waste no more of our time.”
Mast scowled. “On the day that Lechworthy leaves Faloo the King will die,” he said. “I shall kill him. Does that satisfy you?”
“Quite.”
“Well, I want to think it over. I needn’t wait for this damned committee meeting, need I?”
“Of course you must wait. Pryce is away, and we must have three for the look of the thing. It won’t take twenty minutes.”
At the meeting Sir John read out Soames Pryce’s brief letter. “Well, now,” he said, “what do you think, Hanson?”
“Nothing to be done,” said Hanson, stolidly. “Read and noted, that’s all. In Pryce’s absence we needn’t go through a farce of winding-up. We can’t call a general meeting of the members yet, because we can’t yet put before them the alternative scheme (of which Pryce knows nothing) to which the majority of the committee are agreed.”
“That is so,” said Sir John. Mast nodded assent.
There was a meeting of three other men on the island that morning. The King and Lechworthy had walked out together just beyond the garden of the King’s house, when a little man came running along the road towards them. The King recognised him at once as the new member of the Exiles’ Club. Pentwin had been presented to the King on landing. Now members of the Exiles’ Club knew that they were not wanted in the neighbourhood of the King’s house; moreover, the King reflected that one of these men had already attempted Lechworthy’s life. The King was suspicious.
Pentwin took off his hat and bowed profoundly to the King. Might he be permitted? He wished to speak privately with Mr Lechworthy. He had business of importance with him.
“I think you haven’t,” said the King, bluntly. Lechworthy looked from one to the other with mild surprise.
The little man was not in the least offended. “Oh, but I can prove that to Mr Lechworthy’s satisfaction,” he said smiling, and dived one hand into his pocket.
In a flash the King’s revolver was out, and covering him. “No, you don’t,” said the King.
Pentwin stepped back a pace. “It’s all right, sir,” he said apologetically, “it’s only papers.”
He drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Lechworthy. Smith toyed pensively with his revolver.
From the envelope Lechworthy drew a visiting-card printed in blue. It bore the name of Mr Henry Parget. On the left-hand corner was printed “Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard.” The envelope contained two other papers, and Lechworthy glanced quickly through them.
“Quite correct apparently,” he said. “I don’t think, sir, there is anything to fear. This gentleman really has business with me, and I shall be glad to talk it over with him.”
“You may assure yourself that I carry no weapons of any kind,” added the man from Scotland Yard who had passed as Pentwin.
The King did assure himself thoroughly—he had searched men before. “You must understand,” he said, “why I am so careful, Mr Pentwin. My friend, Mr Lechworthy, hasalready been shot at by one of the white men here; the man who did it is dead.”
“Quite natural that you should be careful, sir,” said Parget, smiling. “And now may I get on to my business?”
“Certainly. You will take him up to the house, Mr Lechworthy? That’s right. And send one of the boys with him when he goes, will you? You see, Mr Pentwin, a stranger wandering alone there would be shot at once; I am careful for you as well as for Mr Lechworthy.”
The King strode off down the road with a rapid and yet graceful gait.
“Now, then, Mr Parget,” said Lechworthy, “keep close to me and you’ll be all right.”
They turned and entered the garden.
“Grand place this, sir,” said Parget, looking round him. “I’ve seen nothing like it in my life before. The King of this island seems a pretty active man—bit suspicious too.”
“You mustn’t mind that, Mr Parget.”
“I don’t,” said Mr Parget, “I’d sooner be suspected wrongly than rightly any day. I suppose, sir, you have very little difficulty in guessing why I am here.”
“None,” said Mr Lechworthy, “but I amwondering a little how it was that Scotland Yard came to send you.”
“Well, sir, to tell the truth, it was a bit of luck. You may have heard of Pentwin’s Popular Bank.”
“I’ve seen his advertisements; we’ve always refused them in my paper.”
“And quite right too; the thing was obvious. Well, this chap Pentwin seems to have realised that he’d come to the end of it, and he made his preparations for leaving. But he had to skip before the preparations were quite finished; in fact our men were into his house only twenty minutes after he’d left. A batch of letters came for Pentwin, and we took the liberty of opening and reading them. One was from a Mrs Wyse, widow of a man whom we wanted and never got. It seems he came out here and committed suicide here. Well, Mrs Wyse was a friend of Pentwin’s—a friend and perhaps a bit more. That letter was full of references to the Exiles’ Club, mentioned Sweetling’s name, told Pentwin how to make his application and send his subscription, and gave him his route to the island. There was another letter of introduction enclosed. If those letters had come one post earlier, there’s nota doubt that Pentwin would have been safe in Faloo by now, and Scotland Yard would have been none the wiser.”
They had reached the house, and Lechworthy pushed forward a deck-chair. “Sit down, won’t you?” he said.
“Not sorry to,” said Parget. “I’ve been on my feet for three hours, waiting for the chance to have a word with you. Well, as I was saying, it was thought worth while to look into this Exiles’ Club, if only on Sweetling’s account. We’ve wanted Sweetling for years and wanted him badly. He was the Hazeley Cement swindle, as you may remember, and the Tarlton Building Company, and a lot more.”
“I do. In fact I wrote about him.”
“And I daresay you were pretty severe with us for letting him get away—no matter, we bear no malice. The public says nothing when we hit, but it makes a lot of fuss when we miss. Well, I was told off for this job. I’d got Mrs Wyse’s letter. I’d only got to call myself Pentwin, and follow her instructions, and it was all plain sailing. And a pretty haul I’ve made. There’s Sweetling my-lording it over everybody; Hanson, who killed hisgirl; Mast—a nasty case; Fellowes, who sold the secret explosive; Lord Charles Baringstoke, who forged his uncle’s name. Trimmer, of the Cornish coal fraud—a whole lot of back numbers nicely bound together.”
“It’s all very well,” said Lechworthy, “it’s all very well, but you can’t touch those men. Faloo is independent, and has no extradition treaty with Great Britain.”
“Very likely,” said Parget, with a laugh. “I’m not going to touch them. All I’ve got to do is to report. I’m only a subordinate officer at present. The rest will be for my chiefs to settle, and if they don’t find some way of dealing with this cock-sparrow of an island, I’m a Dutchman.”
“Now to come to the point; what do you want with me, Mr Parget?”
“I require you to assist an officer in the execution of his duty. I’m in a hole. They made all the arrangements for me to get here, but they left it to me to get away again the best way I could. Now if I tried for a passage on Smith’s schooner, it wouldn’t do. I’ve paid my subscription, and if I were Pentwin, Faloo would be the only place for me. Why should I want to go? They’d smell a rat.That man Hanson isn’t any too satisfied with me; he tried a bit of cross-examination last night, and though I kept my end up I don’t like it. What I’ve got to do is to disappear. There’s been a case of that before. There was a chap called Duncombe who got too fond of a native girl that was already—well—appropriated. He went out one fine night and he didn’t come back. Everybody at the club knows that he was killed. So I talk a deal about the native girls up at the club. I’ve the reputation of a Lothario. Sir John Sweetling has given me a good dressing-down about it already. As a matter of fact I’ve had nothing to do with these wenches. I’ve got a girl at home and wish I was safe back again with her. But that’s where it is, you know. If I go out one night, and don’t come back, and leave all my luggage behind me, including two or three letters to Pentwin and Pentwin’s pocket-knife with his name and address on it, then even Hanson will have no doubt that I was Pentwin, and that I have been speared or knived by a jealous man.”
“Very likely. But what will you do really, Mr Parget? How does my help come in?”
“The night I disappear will be the nightafter theSnowflakehas come back. You’ll send a note privately to the skipper that I shall be coming aboard. I’ve learned to work a native canoe all right. On theSnowflakeI shall lie low until you’re ready to sail. Nobody but the King knows that I’ve spoken with you, for at the club I’ve always professed to be scared of going near the King’s house, and I gather that the King has nothing more to do with men from the club nowadays. Besides, I fancy a word from you would keep him quiet. And then—well, I should ask you to lend me some clothes, take me to Tahiti, and say nothing to anybody. I pay for what I have, of course, and after Tahiti I can manage for myself.”
“Very well. I’ll do all that for you.”
“Thank you very much. And I’m sorry to give so much trouble. The luck’s with me to find a gentleman like you touring these islands just now.”
“That’s all right. But I doubt if you’ll make as big a scoop out of it as you think.”
“You mean the extradition? Oh, that will be arranged somehow.”
Mr Lechworthy was not thinking of extradition at all. He was thinking that owingto his participation in the King’s scheme of a native Faloo the exiles already had their warning, and long before Scotland Yard had got its gun to its shoulder the birds would have flown far out of range. But he said nothing of this to Parget at present; it might possibly make a yarn for a dull evening on theSnowflake.
“Of course,” added Parget, “I needn’t remind you, sir, that all I’ve said has been said in confidence. Not oneword—”
“I assure you, Mr Parget, that I have no inclination to say a word. I shall not even mention the matter to my niece until we are all aboard theSnowflake. Your instructions to me will be carried out absolutely.”
“And when does the boat get in?”
“The King thinks that with luck it might be here to-morrow or the day after.”
“I’ll keep a look-out. Thank you again, sir.”
Lechworthy himself escorted the little man back to the garden entrance. Parget saw the natives with their rifles and seemed a little puzzled. “What does the King want all those men up here for? Where’s the danger? What’s he afraid of?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Lechworthy. “In fact, I don’t know. But I have noticed that theKing never does anything without a reason, and it is generally a pretty good reason.”
“Well,” said Parget, “they’re the finest set of natives I’ve seen yet anywhere. I shan’t be round here again. We meet on theSnowflake.Au revoir, Mr Lechworthy.”
“Au revoir,” echoed Lechworthy, mechanically.
There is a kind of insolence inau revoir, a confidence in the future. Neither man ever saw the other again.
Lechworthy wandered back to the house. He was deep in thought. From the dark hidden pool, where Tiva and Ioia were bathing together, came a burst of musical laughter. On the verandah he found Hilda, with the wreath of white flowers that Ioia had brought her in her dark hair; Soames Pryce stood on the steps below looking up at her, saying something in a low voice to which she listened with happiness.
Lechworthy’s mind was preoccupied, not only with his dream of a native Faloo, but with this Parget, this scrap of London that met him suddenly in the Southern Seas. He admired the courage and resource of the man, as much as he hated his profession—necessary ofcourse, lamentably necessary, but scarcely ennobling and foreign to that way in which Lechworthy had come to regard all sinners. Obviously Parget had heard nothing of the impending dissolution of the club, and Lechworthy, who did not know that this was a secret reserved for the committee, was rather puzzled that Parget had not heard. On theSnowflakehe would expound to Parget the scheme for a native Faloo, and his fears that the members of the club had got to hear of it and would now disperse. Of course Scotland Yard might still be able to close its hand on them—or might not. Lechworthy smiled placidly. Those fibres of his being which had made him a great Christian were curiously interwoven with those other fibres which had made him a successful man of business.
Not only was Lechworthy’s mind preoccupied. There was another reason why he could not read the story in Hilda’s eyes. He was absolutely blind to all sex romance. Every engagement among his wide circle of friends and acquaintances came to him as a surprise, though it were a foregone conclusion to the rest of the circle. He had found many interests in life and absorbing interests outsidethe realm of sex romance. Hilda, doubtless, would be married one day, but the day was always very vague and very far away. Hilda had determined that her uncle was to be told nothing at present. On theSnowflakeshe would tell him all, and slowly win him over. She would make him see that her happiness was here with her lover—not in Europe without him. At Tahiti she expected to part from her uncle, and to remain there until theSnowflakebrought Pryce to her.
“You see, dear,” she said, “just at the beginning of things one wants to shut out all the rest of the world, even one’s nearest relatives and people to whom one is devoted. In London that can never be. If our engagement had been the normal product of a London season, you would have had to take me to see people, and I should have had to take you to see others, and it would have been all congratulations, and interference, and horrors of that kind. Here, thank heaven, that can be avoided. We will avoid it.”
To everything Pryce agreed. “It isn’t that I don’t know, Hilda. I do. I know I have no right to accept such a sacrifice as you make. I know that nobody can think thatI’ve been straight about this. It can’t be helped. It doesn’t matter. Since last night, down by the pool, it’s seemed to me as if since the world began only one thing has ever mattered. Oh, it’s too good—too good to happen. Your uncle will insist on carrying you off to England, and he will be right too.”
“He would try to do that if he were an ordinary man with a conventional set of views. He would not succeed, because I am of age and in this—in this alone—I will not be controlled at all. But he is not an ordinary man. He is as broad in some of his views as he is narrow in others. He has little respect for social conventions, and he is losing some of his respect for the law. He thinks nobody beyond reclamation—except the ritualists and a few politicians. He has had the courage of his opinions all his life; whatever his convictions have been, right or wrong, he has always acted on them. Then, again, he trusts me as well as he loves me. If I tell him that I know where my happiness is, he will believe me, and he loves me too much to refuse it.”
They talked a long time together that morning. Yet still, when all was said, Pryce was haunted by the same thought. It was likea dream of unearthly beauty, such as before he had never even imagined, a dream to which the awakening must come.
That evening the wind fell absolutely. TheSnowflakewould undoubtedly be delayed. The air was hot and still, and over the pool in the garden there hung a steamy vapour. All living things in the island were strangely silent. The night before the flying-foxes had screamed and squabbled round the house. But to-night everything was silent, as if waiting peacefully for some event.
When they all came out on the verandah after dinner, the silence seemed to oppress them so that they spoke in lower tones than usual. The King, as if to break the spell, ordered Tiva and Ioia to make music, but their song had a wild sorrow in it.
“What music is that, Tiva?” asked Hilda, who sat deep in the shadow.
Tiva answered abstractedly in her native tongue. The King translated, a little impatiently: “She says that it is the music of this night. She talks much nonsense.”
There were a few moments of silence and then Lechworthy took his briar pipe from his mouth and fired a calm point-blank question.
“Doctor, what was it like, living with all those bad men at the club?”
“With some of them,” said Pryce, meditatively, “one forgot that they were bad men at all. Some were weak rotters, but I’ve found men just as weak against whom, thanks to their circumstances, the law had never a word to say. I suppose the fact is that the bad are not always bad and the good are not always good; and for the sake of society the law has to make a distinction which sometimes has no basis in fact.”
“You do not surprise me,” said Lechworthy. “You rediscover an old truth, that we are all sinners—God forgive us.” He sucked diligently at his pipe for a few seconds, and resumed: “It’s struck me sometimes that, even from the point of view of society, a man with habitual bad temper, or a man who drinks hard, or a man who won’t work, or a man who gambles with money that his family needs, may, though the law lets him go free, do more harm than some who have robbed or even murdered.”
Pryce, who had gone to bed earlier than usual that night, had been asleep for an hour when he was awakened by a touch on the shoulder.
“Come outside,” said the voice of King Smith. “Quietly—as quickly as you can.”
Pryce did not wait to dress. Thrusting his feet into a pair of slippers, he hurried into the garden. There on the terrace the King stood, pointing downward and seaward. But there was no need to point.
Far below, amid the dark of the trees, a giant flame leaped hungry and quivering into the air. A column of smoke rose vertically, the head of the column spreading out in all directions against a grey sky; it looked like some monstrous swaying mushroom.
“Good God!” said Pryce. “It’s the club.”
“Scarcely fifteen minutes ago; and now look. I’m going down there directly, taking all the men here with me.” The King spoke in a quiet, even voice.
Pryce shook his head. “No good,” he said. “You can save nobody. The men who are not out of that place already are dead. The whole show will be burned to the ground in less than half-an-hour—you know how it’s built.Wonder what started it. Some careless boozer, I suppose.”
The King put one hand on his arm. “No,” he said. “The fire started in two places at once, at either end of the building. It has come at last—the rising of my people.”
From below came faintly the sound of a crash, and for a moment the stalk of that swaying mushroom was spangled high with a million sparks.
“I had seen signs, but I thought I held them still. The leaders I know—three brothers—menwho—”
A shrill cry came up from the dark trees by the burning house, followed by a roar of voices; and then, short and sharp, the bark of the revolvers. For a moment the King lost all his self-possession. He wrung his hands. He flung his arms wide. “O my people, my people!” he cried.
“Yes,” said Pryce, grimly, “your people seem to have left you out of this bean-feast. They’ve forgotten you, Smith.”
The King turned on him savagely. “And they must be made to remember. That is why I go. If need be, of ten men nine must die, that the tenth may remember for ever.”
“If that was Hanson shooting just now, you’ll find some of the nine dead already. But you’re taking all the patrol with you—well, what’s left for this place?”
“This place is taboo. They dare not come.”
“Yesterday you would have told me that they dare not burn down the club and murder the white men. There’s liquor in the club, any amount of it, and you may bet your life your precious people have looted it. They respect the taboo when they’re sober, but they’ll respect nothing when they’re mad with drink.”
“What am I to do? As it is, I have only seventy-five men against many hundreds.”
“But they’re the only seventy-five who have rifles and can use them. There’s your own prestige too, and all the hocus-pocus and mummery that you know how to work on them.”
“I need all. I must win to-night and at once. If I fail, the prestige is gone and we are all dead men to-morrow. Besides, I shall be between this house and the rebels. How many of them will get past me? Very few. And you shoot well, Pryce.”
“Oh, I’m not going to shoot any worse thanI can help. But I can’t be at fifty different points at once.”
“Well, yes,” the King admitted, “there is a risk. And, whatever happens, I cannot lose Lechworthy.”
“I shouldn’t,” said Pryce. “Valuable man, Lechworthy.”
“Look here, Pryce. I cannot stay another moment. I leave you six men with rifles. You must do the best you can.”
Pryce shrugged his shoulders. Six were not enough, he thought, not nearly enough. But he could see that the King was right. Unless the rebels were overawed and crushed at once, all would be lost.
“Very well,” he said. “Pick out six that can shoot better than they can run.”
“You shall have six good men. You’ll see Lechworthy and put as good a face on it as you can. Ah, they’re bringing my horse. Good-bye, Pryce.”
“Good-bye and luck to you,” said Pryce, and turned back to the house. As he dressed, he could hear voices in the big room at the front of the house, and was not surprised; the noise had been enough to waken anybody. The sound of firing had ceased now, but thatvague tumultuous roar of voices went on continuously, mingling with the sound of the surf.
He was rolling a cigarette as he entered the big room. It had struck him that white drill might be inconveniently conspicuous and he wore a suit of dark flannel. He carried no weapon, and his movements were rather slower and more leisurely than usual.
Tiva and Ioia cowered in a corner and wept. Hilda, in a dressing-gown with her hair loose, sat on the table and nursed a morocco-covered case. Pryce knew what was in it. They had practised shooting together. Lechworthy, fully dressed, paced the room, his hands locked behind him.
“Noisy crowd down there, ain’t they?” said Pryce, cheerily.
“What on earth is happening, Pryce?” asked Lechworthy. “It’s—it’s terrific.”
“Some of the natives seem to have turned a bit unruly—started bonfires and crackers, and little jokes of that kind. Disgraceful behaviour. Smith has gone down with the patrol to check their enthusiasm. They’ll all be quiet enough presently. They’re in a mortal funk of the King.”
“I’ve been out on the verandah,” saidLechworthy, “and it seemed much worse than you say. There was the sound of firing quite undoubtedly.”
“Very likely,” said Pryce. “Some of these chaps are fond of loosing off their guns when they get excited. I daresay it looked and sounded far worse than it really is. By the way, Hilda, I thought your medical attendant told you to go to bed not later than half-past ten.”
“So I did,” said Hilda. “I—I was disturbed.”
“Well, this little picnic won’t last long, and really it’s not worth sitting up for. You ought to be in bed, you know.”
“You don’t think there’s any chance the rioters will come this way?” asked Lechworthy.
“No,” said Pryce, boldly. “We’re taboo. The ordinary native would sooner stand up and be shot at than set foot inside this garden. Besides, Smith will hold them. And if by any chance a few should be lucky enough to get through and mad enough to come this way, Smith has not taken all the men; he’s left a small army to protect this place with myself as their general, and I wonder what funny job I shall take on next. Come, I don’t want tohurry anybody. But you can all sleep peacefully in your beds, and the sooner you go to them the sooner I can look after my chaps.”
Lechworthy seemed quite reassured. He said good-night to Pryce and Hilda, and went off, taking Hilda with him.
Pryce turned on Tiva and Ioia. He laughed heartily at them. He made comic imitations of their wailing and lament. They ceased to weep, and became very angry. And suddenly Dr Pryce became very serious. He spoke to them in the native tongue. He gave them various instructions. There were some simple things which he wanted them to do, but they were things that might make a good deal of difference. They were quick to understand. They had great faith in Dr Pryce, even if he sometimes made them very angry. As he sent them off, Hilda came back into the room again.
“What were you saying to them?” she asked.
“Oh—telling them not to be silly.”
She clutched his arm. “I want to come with you, dear. Let me. You know that I can shoot.”
He was very gentle with her. “Yes,” he said, as he caressed her hair, “you’re a goodshot, and this is splendid of you. Well, it will only be waiting and watching for a long, long time yet. And if you were there, I’m afraid I should be watching you most of the time, instead of—other things. Most probably there’ll be nothing happening at all, and you’d be up all night to no purpose, and I should feel bad about it. But if the very worst did happen, and one of these idiots did get past me and up to the house, it would be a great comfort to know that there was a revolver there waiting for him, and waiting where he would least expect it.”
He managed to persuade her that it was in the house that she would be of the greatest help. “I wish you could get to sleep,” he said.
She shook her head. “I would if I could,” she said simply. “I like to do everything you say.”
“Well, lie down at any rate.”
“I will. You know my window. You might come there sometimes, if you get a chance, to tell me how things are going.”
“Right. I expect there’ll be nothing to tell. Good-night, darling.” For one moment he held her in his arms and kissed her, and then hurried out, picking up his revolvers as he went.
He found his six men waiting for him. One of them held a torch, and Pryce made him put it out at once. Then he stationed his men at the different points from which they were to keep a look-out, not far from one another, along the hedge-crowned bank at the foot of the garden. Of course an attack from some other direction was quite possible, but the place was too large and the men at his disposal too few to keep a watch all round. It would have been impossible, even if he had made use of the boys who acted as house-servants, and he had decided not to use them for this purpose at all. They had no training and too much temperament; they would have been certain to see what was not there, and to make a noise at the critical moment when silence was essential. He kept them within the house, where under the direction of Tiva and Ioia they filled buckets and soaked blankets in order that they might deal at once with any attempt to fire the place. This being done, Tiva and Ioia, as Pryce had directed, extinguished every light in the house.
On the whole, Pryce was not ill-satisfied. The rebels, he could see now, had lit torches; a hundred points of light circled among thedark trees below him. If they came carrying torches, they would be a clear mark. Also, if they came at all, they would be mad with liquor, and the strategy of the drunken is not to be feared. They would take the shortest and nearest road, and make a frontal attack at the point where Pryce’s men kept watch. Here between the high bank and the plantations beyond was a broad belt clear of cover, and there was plenty of reflected light at present; it seemed unlikely that any party of the rebels could get across the clearing without being seen. Pryce was pleased, too, with the six men that Smith had left him. They were very keen, and they were quick to understand what was expected of them.
Going off by himself to see that all was right at the back of the house, Pryce was a little surprised to encounter Lechworthy, wearing his semi-clerical felt hat and calmly enjoying his briar pipe.
“Hullo!” said Pryce. “Thought you were in bed.”
“No,” said Lechworthy. “You don’t mind, do you? I said nothing just now, because I didn’t want to make Hilda nervous, but I should like to be in this. I can’t shoot,but I can keep a look-out for you. My eyesight’s good and I can do what I’m told.”
“Right,” said Pryce. “I’m glad to have you. I was just thinking that I could do with another man. Come along with me and I’ll place you. By the way, you might knock that pipe out. There’s a breath of wind got up and those beggars have keen noses. You see, my idea is that if they do come they shall think we are quite unprepared—all in bed and asleep, trusting to Smith and the men with him. Gives us a better chance, eh?”
Lechworthy’s pipe was already back in his pocket. “I see,” he said. “Quite sound, I think. Is this my place?”
“Yes. You watch the road. Neither to right nor to left—just the road. If they come at all, I hope they’ll come by the road. It’ll mean they’re being pretty careless. If you see anything on the road, don’t shout. Move along the bank to your left till you come to one of the men of the patrol, and tell him; he knows what to do. It’s rather dull work, but don’t go to sleep; the thing one’s looking for generally comes ten seconds after one has stopped looking.”
“Quite so,” said Lechworthy. “I do not think I shall go to sleep.”
The rebels constituted about three-quarters of the native male population of Faloo. But, as the three brothers who led them were well aware, they were very little to be depended on. And for this reason the leaders had not dared to disclose the whole of their plan. The Exiles’ Club was to be burned down, and those who escaped from the flames were to be slaughtered. The leaders found it expedient to declare that no attack on the King or the King’s property was intended, and that although in this destruction of the white men they would be disobeying the King’s orders, they would really be carrying out his secret wishes, and would readily be forgiven. The feeling against the men of the Exiles’ Club was immensely strong, and so far the leaders felt confident.
The second part of their plan they did not venture yet to disclose, for only in the excitement induced by victory and by liquor looted from the club could they hope to find followers to take part in its execution. It was proposed then to attack the King’s house; the two white men there were to be killed, and anexact vengeance was to be taken on the white woman. The King’s safety was to depend on the terms that he would make with the rebels. Now the taboo was a real thing to the natives, and equally real was their loyalty to the King and their superstitious fear of his powers; even their hatred of the men of the Exiles’ Club would not have led them to enter upon its attack at all, if they had known what sequel to it was intended.
The first part of the plan was not well executed, and with prompt action it is probable that many of the members of the club would have escaped. Had any precautions against fire been taken, it is possible that even the club-house, in spite of the inflammable material used in its construction, might have been saved. The task of firing the club-house had been entrusted to natives who were club-servants, and in their eagerness they started the two fires at least an hour before the time agreed upon, and before the cordon of armed natives had closed round the club-grounds. Several of the members had not yet gone to bed and were still in the card-room; Sir John Sweetling and Hanson were among the number. But though the fires were discoveredalmost immediately, there was no fire-extinguishing apparatus and no adequate water-supply. The attempts made to beat out the fire failed completely and only wasted time. With such rapidity did the flames spread that, although the alarm was given at once, there were still men in the bedrooms when the sheet of fire swept up the flimsy staircase. Most of them made a jump from the windows and escaped. One, a little man who had passed by the name of Pentwin, broke his leg in his fall and lay fainting with agony in the long grass at the back of the house.
Those who had escaped wasted much time in saving such furniture and stores as they could, dragging it on to the lawn. And there they stood around it stupidly, wondering what would happen next. Half of them did not know how the fire had originated, and did not realise that the native rising, so long talked of, had taken place at last. Mast knew perhaps, but he was demented and useless. Sir John and Hanson knew, but they were chiefly concerned in seeing that all had escaped safely from the fire.
It was bright as day on the lawn. There was a card-table, brought out just as it was, with loose cards and used glasses on it. Therewere heaps of Standard oil-tins. There were casks of spirits and rows of bottles with gold-foil round their necks. There was a jumble of bent-wood chairs and lounges, with legs shot cataleptically outwards and cushions shed abroad. There were piles of table-linen and full plate-baskets, mirrors in gold frames and a mezzotint of “The Soul’s Awakening.” Lord Charles Baringstoke went from one man to another, displaying a small square box of plaited grass with some exultation. “See that?” he said. “That’s my lizard. I saved the little beggar. He lost me half a quid only last night, but I saved him—damn him.” Nobody took much notice of him. Most of them stood quite still, without word or movement, staring at the fire as if under a spell. Some were bare-footed and in pyjamas, just as they had come from their beds.
They were equally unmoved when Mast, his eyes blazing with insanity, climbed up on a chair, flung his arms wide and raved. “The judgment of God is upon us,” he shouted, “the judgment of God! This is the day of Tyre and Sidon. Not with hyssop but with fire must we be made clean of our sins—this is the commandment revealed to me. Come thento the baptism of fire!” He stepped down and would have thrown himself into the burning building, but Sir John flung him roughly to the ground, and he lay there weeping. Sir John had a club-list in his hand and Hanson at his shoulder. Together they checked the list to see if any were missing. A little distance away the parrot jumped and fluttered on its perch, rattling its chain furiously, drawing innumerable corks.
“Five not here,” said Hanson, “and all men who slept in the house. I’ll run round to the back to see if I can find any of them.”
There he found a little man with a broken leg, moaning with pain. A canvas envelope had jerked out of the man’s pocket as he fell. It lay on the grass with the contents half out of it. Amongst them was a visiting-card printed in blue, and by the light of the fire Hanson read it. The maimed man made a clutch for the other papers but it was Hanson who got them. He glanced through them quickly, neglecting those that were written in cypher, and then flung them into the fire.
“You’ve not played a bad game,” he said, “Mr Parget of the C.I.D.”
Parget lay still now with closed eyes, breathing hard.
“You might have won,” said Hanson, “or again you might not, for I had my doubts about you. Anyhow, our friends have pitched the board over, and it can’t be played out. I bear no malice. We can’t take you with us with that broken leg, and I don’t like to leave you to the natives. Better put you to sleep, eh?”
Parget nodded his head twice. There was blood on his lower lip, as he bit hard on it.
“Keep your eyes shut,” said Hanson. He took his revolver from his pocket and shot the man through the head. The crash of a falling floor drowned the sound of the shot. A volley of sparks flew skyward.
Hanson rejoined Sir John. “Only one man there, and he’s dead—Pentwin. We’d better get together, go round to the back and make a dash for it. We might be able to get through.”
A few minutes before, this might have been done, but it was too late now. The fire had given the signal, and the whole place was surrounded. Before Hanson and Sir John could get their men together, there was one loud yell and then an answering roar of voices, as from all sides out of the dark of the trees the natives poured in upon the white men.
Some of the natives had antiquated firearms, but the greater number were armed with knives and spears. They were without discipline; they fired almost at random, and in consequence native killed native. Rotten barrels burst at the first shot. But numbers prevailed; a few revolvers could do little against this great tide of maddened humanity.
Yet, with no chance for their lives, the exiles fought desperately. Hanson, who had dropped on one knee behind a barrel, emptied his revolver twice and effectively before he went down, stabbed from behind in the neck. Sir John had already fallen, passing his weapon as he fell to an unarmed man behind him. Lord Charles Baringstoke was the last to go, and for a few minutes he seemed to bear a charmed life. He stood erect and smiling, his eyes alert and watchful; he never wasted a shot, and never missed a chance to reload. Possibly for the first time in his life he had realised his situation; certainly there was a nobility in his bearing that none had seen there before. His personal degradation seemed to have slipped from him, leaving only an ancestral inheritance of quiet and courage in the face of death. He was quick, quick aslight; three times he swung round rapidly and dropped the native whose knife was almost on him. Then all around him came a gleam of white teeth and lean brown arms dragging at him. He was surrounded and went down. His smoke-grimed hands clutched hard at the ground. “How could I help it?” he gurgled as he died, and spoke maybe his fitting epitaph.