Part 14

"Listen," urged Scott, wiping his forehead. "I've got a--er--I've got a girl. You say I'm scared. Well, I am scared; every time I think of her in this plague-rotten place, I go cold to the bone. Is it more money you want? You can have it. But there's no time to lose; I'm not the only one that knows about the boat."

"A girl." The other repeated the word, and then stood silent.

"Curse it!" cried Scott, "can't you say the word? Will you come, man?"

"It wouldn't do," said the sheeted man slowly. "You're fond of her, eh? Ay, but it wouldn't do. Any other man 'u'd suit ye better, me lad."

"There's no other man," said Scott angrily. "In all this blasted town there's no man but you. I've been through it like a terrier under a rick. And I'll tell you what." He took a step nearer; in his pocket his hand was on his knife. "You can have a hundred and fifty," he said, "and the boat, if you'll come. An' if you won't, by the Holy Iron, I'll cut your bloomin' throat here where you stand."

The other did not flinch from him. "Ay, an' you'll do that?" he said. "I like to hear you talk. Lad, do you know what fashion o' men it is that serve the dead-carts? Do ye know?" he demanded, seeming to clear his voice with an effort of the obstacle that hampered his speech.

"What d'you mean?" cried Scott.

"Look at me," bade the man, and drew back the sheet from his face. The starlight showed him clear.

Scott looked, while his heart slowed down within him, and bowed his head.

"And shall I steer your girl to Delagoa Bay?" the other asked.

"Yes," said Scott, after a pause. "There's nobody else, leper or not."

"Ah, well," said the leper, with a sigh, "so be it."

Scott fought with himself for mastery of the horror that rose in him like a tide of fever, and when the leper had put back the sheet and stood again a figure of the grave, he told him of the boat and how others knew of it besides himself. In quick, panting sentences he bade him get forthwith to the creek where the boat lay, directing him to it through the paths of the night with the sure precision of a man trained to the trek. He himself would go and fetch Incarnacion and beat up some provisions, and thus they might get afloat before the Italian and his mate came on the scene.

"It's every step of six miles," Scott explained. "Are you sure you can walk it?"

The leper nodded under his hood. "I'll do it," he said. "And if there's to be a fight, I'm not so far gone but what--" He broke off with a short spurt of laughter. "It'll be something to feel deck-planks under me again," he said.

"Then let's be gone," cried Scott.

"Wait." The captain that had been stayed him. "There's just this, matey. Have a shawl or the like on your girl's shoulders. They wear 'em, you know. An' then, when you come in sight o' me, you can rig it over her head an' all. For it's--it's truth, no woman should set eyes on the like o' me."

"I'll do it," said Scott. "You're a man, Captain, anyhow."

"I was," said the other, and turned away.

Scott had a dozen things to do in no more than a pair of hours. They were not to be done, but he did them. A couple of donkeys were procured without difficulty; he knew of a stable with a flimsy door. A revolver, his own small odds and ends, all his money, and such food as he could lay hands on--by rousing reluctant storekeepers with outcries and expediting commerce with violence--were got together. Then Incarnacion must be fetched. She came at once, smiling drowsily, with a flush of sleep on her little ardent face and all her belongings in a bundle no bigger than a hat-box. But, with all his urgency, the eastern sky was stained with dawn before he was clear of the town, bludgeoning the donkeys before him, with the gear on one and Incarnacion laughing and crooning on the other.

The beach stretched in a yellow bow on either hand, fringed with bush and palms, receding to where the ultimate jaws of the bay stood black and thin against the sunrise. Once upon it, they could be seen by whoever should look from the town, and there was peremptory occasion for haste. Scott had counted on forcing the journey into a little over an hour, but he was not prepared for the eccentricities of a pack adjusted on a donkey's back by an amateur. There is no art in the world more arbitrary than that of tying a package on a beast. It must be done just so, with just such a hitch and such an adjustment of the burden, or one's rope might as well be of sand. These refinements were outside Scott's knowledge, and he had not gone far before he saw his bags and bundles clear themselves and tumble apart. There was a halt while he picked them up and lashed them on the ass anew. Again and again it happened, till his patience was raw; and all the time the steady sun swarmed up the sky and day grew into full being.

Incarnacion sat serenely in her place while these troubles occupied him, smoking her cigarette and looking about her. He was involved in an effort to jam the pack and the donkey securely in one overwhelming intricacy of knots when she called to him.

"Jock," she said.

"Yes, what's up?" he grunted, hauling remorselessly on a line with a knee against the ass's circumference.

"A man," she said placidly. "He come along, too, behin' us."

"Eh? Where?" he demanded, putting a last knot to the tedious structure.

Incarnacion pointed to the bush. "I see him poke out hees head two times," she explained.

Scott passed his hand behind him to his revolver, and stared with narrow eyes along the green frontier at the bush. He could see nothing.

"A big man, 'Carnacion?" he asked. "Mustaches? Black hair?"

She nodded and lit another cigarette. "You know him, Jock?"

"I know him," he answered, and drove the donkeys on, thwacking the pack-ass cautiously for the sake of the load.

It was an anxious passage then, on the open beach. The men who followed had the cover of the shrubs; theirs was the advantage to choose the moment of collision. They could shoot at him from their concealment and flick his brains out comfortably before he could set eyes on them; or they could shoot the donkeys down, or put a bullet into Incarnacion where she rode, quiet and regardless of all. He flogged the beasts on to a trot with a hail of blows, and ran up into the bush to take an observation.

His foot was barely off the sand of the beach when a shot sounded, and the wind of the bullet made his eyes smart. Invention was automatic in his mind. At the noise, he fell forthwith on his face, crashing across a bush, so that his head was up and his pistol in reach of his hand. Thus he lay, not moving, but searching through half-closed eyes the maze of green before him. He heard the rustle of grass, and prepared for action, every nerve taut; and there came into sight the big Italian, smiling broadly, a Winchester in his hand.

In Scott's brain some nucleus of motion gave the signal. With a single movement, his knee crooked under him and he swung the heavy revolver forward. A howl answered the shot, and he saw the Italian blunder against a palm, drop his rifle, and scamper out of sight. Firing again, Scott dashed forward and picked up the Winchester, while from in front of him the Italian or his companion sent bullet after bullet about his ears. It was enough of a victory to carry on with, for Incarnacion would have heard the shots and might come back to him; so he turned and ran again, and caught her just as she was dismounting.

It was a race now. He silenced the girl's questions sharply, and thumped the donkeys to a canter, running doggedly behind them with his stick busy. In the bush, too, there was the noise of hurry; he heard the crash of feet running, and twice they shot at him. Then Incarnacion gasped, and held up her cloak to show him a hole through it; but she was not touched. He swore, but did not cease to flog and run. The strain told on him; his legs were water, and the sweat stood on his face in great gouts; and, to embitter the labor, suddenly there was a shout from ahead. The men had passed him, and he saw the Italian show himself with a gesture of derision, and disappear again before he could aim.

"They'll kill the leper," he thought, "and they'll get the boat. But they'll not get out. I'll be on my belly in the bush then, with this." And he patted the stock of the Winchester.

"You bin shoot a man, Jock?" asked Incarnacion, as the desperate pace flagged.

"Not yet," he answered grimly; "but there's time yet, 'Carnacion."

Already he could see, through the slim palms, the straight mast of the boat against the sky, with its gear about it, not a mile away. He cocked his ear for the shot that should announce its capture and the end of the leper.

"Ai, hear that!" exclaimed Incarnacion.

It was a sound of screams--cries of men in stress, traveling thinly over the distance. Scott checked at it as a horse checks at a snake in the road, for the cries had a note of wild terror that daunted him.

"You frightened, Jockie?" crooned Incarnacion. "See," she said, lifting her hand over him, "I make the cross on you."

"It's the confounded mysteriousness that gets me," said Scott, wiping his forehead. "Here, get on, you beasts. We'll have to take a look at 'em, anyhow."

He strode on between the animals, the rifle in the crook of his arm, ready for use, and all his senses alert and vivacious. Day was broad above them now and bitter with the forenoon heat. At their side the bay was rippled with a capricious breeze, and in all the far prospect of earth and sea none moved save themselves, detached in a haunting significance of solitude.

"Ah!" He stopped short and jerked the rifle forward. In the bush ahead there was a movement; for an instant he saw something white flash among the palms, and then the Italian burst forth and came toward them, running all at large, with head down and jolting elbows. He ran like a man hunted by crazy fears, and did not see Scott till he was within twenty yards.

"Halt, there, Dago," ordered Scott, and brought the butt to his shoulder.

The Italian gasped and blundered to his knees, turning on Scott a glazed and twitching face.

"For peety, for peety!" he quavered.

"Draw that shawl over your face, 'Carnacion," said Scott, without turning his head. "Can you see now?"

"No," she answered.

He fired, and the Italian sprawled forward on his face, plowing up the sand with clutching hands.

"Keep the shawl over your eyes, 'Carnacion," directed Scott, and soon they came round a palm-bunch and were on the bank of the creek, where a fifteen-ton cutter lay on the mud. A plank lay between her deck and the shore, and, as they came to it, the captain hailed them from the cockpit.

"Come aboard," he said. "All's ready."

Scott picked Incarnacion up in his arms, wound another fold of the shawl about her face, and carried her aboard. He set her down on the settee in the cabin, released her head, and kissed her fervently. "Now make yourself comfy here, little 'un," he said; "for here you stay till we make Delagoa."

He helped her to dispose herself in the cabin, showed her its arrangements, and saw her curious delight in the little space-saving contrivances. Then he went out, closing the door behind him. It did not occur to him to render her any explanations; what Scott did was always sufficient for Incarnacion.

Again on deck, he found the swathed leper busy, and started when he saw, along the banks of the creek, a gang of shrouded figures at work with a hawser.

"My crew," said the captain. "They're to haul us off the mud."

"Then," said Scott, "it was them----"

The leper laughed. "Ay, they ran from us," he said. "They ran from the lazaretto-hands. The one we caught, we put him overside for the crocodiles; an' you got the other."

"They chased him?" asked Scott, trembling with the thought.

"Ay," said the leper; "they uncovered their faces and they chased. Ye heard the squealing?"

He broke off to oversee his gang. "Make fast on that stump!" he called. In spite of the disease that blurred his speech, there was the authority of the quarter-deck in his voice. "Now, all hands tally on and walk her down." And the silent lepers in their grave-clothes ranged themselves on the rope like the ghosts of drowned seamen.

When the mainsail filled and the cutter heeled to the breeze, pointing fair for the bar, the leper looked back. Scott followed his glance. On the spit by the mouth of the creek stood the white figures in a little group, lonely and voiceless, and over them the palms floated against the sky like tethered birds.

"There was some that was almost Christians," said the captain; "they'll miss me, they will." And after a pause he added: "And I'll be missing them, too; for they was my mates."

There were six days of sailing ere the captain made his landfall, and they stood off till evening. Then he put in to where the sea shelved easily on a beach four or five miles south of the town, and it was time to part.

"You can wade ashore," said the leper.

Scott opened the doors of the little cabin. On the settee Incarnacion lay asleep, her dark hair tumbled about her warm face. He was about to wake her, but stayed his hand and drew back. "You can look," he said to the leper in a whisper.

The shrouded man bent and looked in; Scott marked that he held his breath. For a full minute he stared in silence, his shoulders blocking the little door; then he drew back.

"Ay," he murmured, "it's like that they are, lad; and it's grand to be a man--it's grand to be a man!"

Scott closed the doors gently. "If ever there was a man," he began, but choked and stopped. "What will you do now?" he asked.

"Oh, I'll just be gettin' back," said the leper. "You see, there's them lads--my crew. It was me made a crew of 'em in that lazaretto. They was just stinking heathen till I come. An' I sort of miss 'em, I do."

"Will you shake hands?" said Scott, torn by a storm of emotions.

The leper shook his head. "You've the girl to think of," he said. "But good luck to the pair of ye. Ye'll make a fine team."

Half an hour later Scott and Incarnacion stood together on the beach and watched the cutter's lights as she stood on a bowline to seaward.

"Kiss your hand to it, darling," said Scott.

"I bin done it," answered Incarnacion.

[Illustration: The Audrey Arms Oxbridge Middlesex

Miss Terry's country cottage from 1887 to 1890]

"OLIVIA" AND "FAUST" AT THE LYCEUM[41]

BY ELLEN TERRY

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND FROM DRAWINGS BY ERIC PAPE AND HARRY FENN

The first night of "Olivia" at the Lyceum was about the only _comfortable_ first night that I have ever had! I was familiar with the part, and two of the cast, Terriss and Norman Forbes, were the same as at the Court, which made me feel all the more at home. Henry left a great deal of the stage-management to us, for he knew that he could not improve on Mr. Hare's production. Only he insisted on altering the last act, and made a bad matter worse. The division into two scenes wasted time, and nothing was gained by it. _Never_ obstinate, Henry saw his mistake and restored the original end after a time. It was weak and unsatisfactory, but not pretentious and bad, like the last act he presented at the first performance.

We took the play too slowly at the Lyceum. That was often a fault there. Because Henry was slow, the others took their time from him, and the result was bad.

The lovely scene of the vicarage parlour, in which we used a harpsichord, and were accused of pedantry for our pains, did not look so well at the Lyceum as at the Court. The stage was too big for it.

The critics said that I played Olivia better at the Lyceum, but I did not feel this myself.

At first Henry did not rehearse the Vicar at all well. One day, when he was stamping his foot very much as if he were Mathias in "The Bells," my little Edy, who was a terrible child _and_ a wonderful critic, said:

"Don't go on like that, Henry. Why don't you talk as you do to me and Teddy? At home you _are_ the Vicar."

The child's frankness did not offend Henry, because it was illuminating. A blind man had changed his Shylock; a little child changed his Vicar. When the first night came, he gave a simple, lovable performance. Many people now understood and liked him as they had never done before. One of the things I most admired in it was his sense of the period.

[Illustration: ELLEN TERRY AS "OLIVIA"

FROM A DRAWING BY ERIC PAPE]

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

ELLEN TERRY AS OLIVIA]

In this, as in other plays, he used to make his entrance in the _skin_ of the part. No need for him to rattle a ladder at the side to get up excitement and illusion, as another actor is said to have done. He walked on and was the simple-minded old clergyman, just as he had walked on a prince in "Hamlet" and a king in "Charles I."

A very handsome woman, descended from Mrs. Siddons and looking exactly like her, played the Gipsy in "Olivia." The likeness was of no use, because the possessor of it had no talent. What a pity!

_"Olivia" a Family Play_

"Olivia" has always been a family play. Edy and Ted walked on the stage for the first time in the Court "Olivia." In later years Ted played Moses, and Edy made her first appearance in a speaking part as Polly Flamborough, and has since played both Sophia and the Gipsy. My brother Charlie's little girl, Beatrice, made her first appearance as Bill, a part which her sister Minnie had already played; my sister Floss played Olivia on a provincial tour, and my sister Marion played it at the Lyceum when I was ill.

I saw Floss in the part, and took from her a lovely and sincere bit of "business." In the third act, where the Vicar has found his erring daughter and has come to take her away from the inn, I always hesitated at my entrance, as if I were not quite sure what reception my father would give me after what had happened. Floss, in the same situation, came running in and went straight to her father, quite sure of his love, if not of his forgiveness.

I did _not_ take some business which Marion did on Terriss' suggestion. Where Thornhill tells Olivia that she is not his wife, I used to thrust him away with both hands as I said "Devil!"

"It's very good, Nell, very fine," said Terriss to me, "but, believe me, you miss a great effect there. You play it grandly, of course, but at that moment you miss it. As you say 'Devil!' you ought to strike me full in the face."

"Oh, don't be silly, Terriss," I said. "Olivia is not a pugilist."

Of course I saw, apart from what was dramatically fit, what would happen!

However, Marion, very young, very earnest, very dutiful, anxious to please Terriss, listened eagerly to the suggestion during an understudy rehearsal.

[Illustration: _Copyrighted by Window & Grove_

HENRY IRVING AS THE VICAR]

"No one could play this part better than your sister Nell," said Terriss to the attentive Marion, "but, as I always tell her, she does miss one great effect. When you say 'Devil! hit me bang in the face."

"Thank you for telling me," said Marion gratefully.

"It will be much more effective," said Terriss.

It _was_. When the night came for Marion to play the part, she struck out, and Terriss had to play the rest of the scene with a handkerchief held to his bleeding nose!

_Ellen Terry and Eleanora Duse_

I think it was as Olivia that Eleanora Duse first saw me act. She had thought of playing the part herself sometime, but she said: "_Never_ now!" No letter about my acting ever gave me the same pleasure as this from her:

"MADAME: With Olivia you have given me pleasure and pain. _Pleasure_ by your noble and sincere art--_pain_ because I feel sad at heart when I see a beautiful and generous woman give her soul to art--as you do--when it is life itself, your heart itself, that speaks tenderly, sorrowfully, nobly beneath your acting. I cannot rid myself of a certain melancholy when I see artists as noble and distinguished as you and Mr. Irving. Although you are strong enough (with continual labor) to make life subservient to art, I, from my standpoint, regard you as forces of nature itself, which should have the right to exist for themselves instead of for the crowd. I would not venture to disturb you, Madame, and moreover I have so much to do that it is impossible for me to tell you personally all the great pleasure you have given me, because I have felt your heart. Will you believe, dear Madame, in mine, which asks no more at this moment than to admire you and to tell you so in any manner whatsoever.

"Always yours, "E. Duse."[42]

It was worth having lived to get that letter!

[Illustration: _From a drawing by the Marchioness of Granby_

H. BEERBOHM TREE WHO PLAYED WITH ELLEN TERRY IN "THE AMBER HEART"]

"_Faust_"

A claptrappy play "Faust" was, no doubt, but Margaret was the part I liked better than any other--outside Shakespeare. I played it beautifully sometimes. The language was often very commonplace, not nearly as poetic or dramatic as that of "Charles I.," but the character was all right--simple, touching, sublime. The Garden Scene I know was a _bourgeois_ affair. It was a bad, weak love-scene, but George Alexander as Faust played it admirably. Indeed, he always acted like an angel with me; he was so malleable, ready to do anything. He was launched into the part at very short notice, after H. B. Conway's failure on the first night. Poor Conway! It was Coghlan as Shylock all over again.

[Illustration: ELEANORA DUSE WITH LENBACH'S CHILD

FROM THE PAINTING BY FRANZ VON LENBACH]