CHAPTER XVI

ABOU

For a few days I was so happy that I believe I had even forgotten my father. The Captain was immensely amused at the decided way in which I had established myself as one of the household, and when I told him I had no intention of returning to Rancey Bridge he chuckled delightedly to himself as though at some secret joke, and then in a whisper confided to me that he too had run away from school, nodding his head at me and winking shrewdly.

But I wasn't allowed unlimited freedom, for Jenny and I had to sit at a table for a couple of hours every morning reading and writing, or listening to the Captain's instructions in geography or history, or whatever it was that he happened to pitch on. And when the big hand of the clock drew round to the second hour we weren't too eager to run away, for the Captain's teaching was more like story-telling than the kind of stuff I had been used to at Rancey Bridge. I think it was effective enough in its own way; for though I wasn't his pupil for very long, yet in those few days I began to get a definite picture of the course of English history and the ways of the world beyond the seas. With a longer course I dare say I should have grown wise enough in matters of international trade, and the bearing of geographical conditions on the life of the world; for these were the Captain's favourite themes.

Still, interesting as I found all this, when once free of the class-room and out among the ruins with Jenny I didn't give much thought to what I had learnt. My whole soul was absorbed in play. And pretending to be investigating, rather than guiding, I took Jenny to every nook and corner of the old place, except indeed into the secret passage; for as a matter of fact I hadn't yet learnt how to open the door, though remembering Abou's long key I could guess that one of the little holes in the pitted surface of the wall was the entrance to the lock. All this, I say, had to be done as though everything were a fresh discovery to me, for I knew I mustn't let Jenny or her father know that I had lived there before. Anything which might conceivably involve my father had to be avoided, though I didn't imagine for one minute that the Captain's fate and my father's were in any manner interwoven; except indeed that they both seemed to be under the shadow of an invisible foe, and sometimes I wondered whether it was the same enemy that was pursuing them so ruthlessly.

I soon found that Jenny had a fierce little heart; indeed I had discovered that on the first afternoon. But the days I now spent with her revealed her to me more and more vividly. Her fierceness was of a type that I appreciated and even admired. She never sulked when she couldn't have her own way. Her anger was the anger of an antagonist, not of a spoilt darling. We played our games indeed as though our whole strength and cunning were pitted against each other. We didn't play for the mere fun of the thing, but to win; and neither gave nor expected quarter. This was the sort of play I relished. There was a sting and a fervour in it that so far I had never known; for my father of course had always outmatched me, and if ever I outwitted him it seemed as a sort of concession to my weakness. But now we were both on our mettle; and the evenings found us weary to exhaustion with the exertions of our unending struggle.

It was during one of these games that I suddenly came across Worthing. He caught a flying glimpse of me as I was diving for shelter into a bush, and called severely, "Tommy, come here."

"Hush!" I whispered, creeping out.

"I want to speak to you," he went on sharply.

"Go to the haunted room," I said, and slipped away, making a circuit to avoid Jenny who was stalking me.

At length I reached the haunted room, and found Worthing awaiting me. I remembered then that I hadn't given a thought to my friend all these days. "Worthing!" I cried, and would have taken his hands in mine, but he clasped them firmly behind his back.

"What sort of a little fool do you think you're making of yourself?" he asked me coldly.

I explained rather confusedly that I had left school.

"That story won't do for the officers," he replied.

"The officers?" I questioned blankly.

"They're after you. You might have guessed that. And you know the penalty of running away."

"I know most of the penalties," I replied with unusual bitterness for me.

"Well, then, you'd better come back quickly," he said.

"They'll need wild horses to get me there," I declared.

For a while he surveyed me pityingly, then turned on his heel and made for the door, saying, "Well, I give you up."

"Worthing," I cried, catching him by the arm, "don't go like this."

He merely swung round and faced me.

"Look here," I went on, "you're my friend, aren't you? Well, come and live here with me. It's simply splendid, I tell you."

He gave a short little laugh, and said, "Thanks; no." And again he was going. But at the door he turned, and in a more relenting tone added, "Tommy, your heart's in the right place, but it's too big; and there's no room for brains."

And just then Jenny came leaping into the room, and collided with him full tilt.

He fell back a step and looked at her, while for her part she stood motionless gazing at him, much as she had done at her first meeting with me.

"Jenny, this is Worthing," I said.

"Worthing?" she enquired.

"He's my friend, Worthing Bright," I explained.

"I don't like him," she said.

Worthing stood silent, and I couldn't read what was passing in his mind; but he looked stiff and scornful. I was troubled, and said, "But you must like him, Jenny; he's my friend."

"I won't like him," she declared with emphasis.

"But, Jenny!" I protested.

Worthing cut in coldly, "I don't see the need at all." And turning to Jenny he went on, "If you don't like me, perhaps you may learn to fear me."

"If I could fear you," she answered defiantly, "I should like you too."

They gazed fiercely at each other, and I stood helpless; for I seemed to be between two elemental forces. Their eyes were electric in their intensity of antagonism. The combat passed beyond me. My nature was too lax and mild for such a strain of hate.

Then Worthing turned to me, and his words cut me like a bitter wind. "So, Tommy!" he said. "Already!... These creatures lure us from our duty soon enough. It's to be expected. But already!... I can't even wish you joy."

Now all this was an enigma to me, but the tone of his voice and the look of his eyes were worse than a whip.

"Worthing!" I exclaimed, conscious that somehow I had roused his scorn as well as his anger. "What is it? Why will you quarrel with me like this? I want to be friends."

"You'd better keep your Jenny," he threw at me; and was gone.

We were left alone.

Jenny said emphatically, "That boy hates me. He wants to take you from me. But I won't let you go."

"Of course not," I said mazedly.

We were soon back at our game; but for a time my heart was heavy. I couldn't understand Worthing's bitter rebuke. After all he was three years my senior, he had been to London; he had had some experience of the world and the world's literature beyond the romantic diet I had been fed on.

I must have played with only half my heart, for Jenny frequently chided me, and at last ran off in a huff declaring I wanted to leave her and join my friend. She stressed the word contemptuously, and told me to go. I was troubled, for this was the first real quarrel we had had. Other tiffs had merely been incident to the antagonism of our games. I followed her, but she would have none of me, and locked herself in her room. I sat down moodily and wondered what to do. For a while I felt angry at her unreasonableness, and once rose half intending to obey her and return to school. But the knowledge that if I did so I should be saying good-bye to Sunset Towers for many a long day came as a check to my peevish anger. Moreover, I half expected to receive a message from my father; for the first signs of summer were on the trees, and summer without a spell at the _Dolphin_ was unthinkable. So I mustn't get myself imprisoned at Rancey Bridge. Now above all times freedom was essential. The thought that if my father did reappear and signal for me there would be a stormy parting from Jenny gave me a momentary pang. But I dismissed it as an unwelcome consideration.

Presently I was aware of some one approaching, and looking up saw Abou standing above me. This was almost the first time I had seen him since that first eventful afternoon; and it was certainly the first time I had seen him so close at hand. Occasionally I caught a fleeting glimpse of him moving like a shadow about the house, but usually he was nowhere to be seen, and I thought of him cloistered in the secret room ministering to the strange malady of the Captain. He wasn't needed to attend our table at meals, for a woman came from the village each day to do the necessary cooking and cleaning.

He stood quietly before me, waiting, it seemed, for me to speak. But as I hadn't sent for him and didn't know in the least what he wanted, I remained silent, looking at him.

His face seemed wonderfully peaceful. His eyes indeed were like deep pools, very still and quiet. But little of his features could be seen because of his huge black beard and whiskers. I noticed he was dusky, and wondered of what nationality he was; but I couldn't decide. There was something Eastern in his hovering deference, still waiting for me to speak; but I couldn't think he was Indian, nor Malay, and certainly not Chinese.

At last I said, "Well, Abou?"

That was all he needed. I suppose it wouldn't have been respectful had he spoken before being addressed.

"Miss Jenny sent me," he said in that wonderful soft voice I had heard once before. "She say, Master Tommy may speak with her if he wish." There was more than a suggestion of a foreign accent in his words, but he seemed to have mastered the language exceptionally well.

"Oh, thank you, Abou," I cried, springing up; and would have been off. But he said, "Master Tommy, big boy must forgive little girl. She very sorry, I think; but she not say so. Master Tommy will forgive her, yes?"

"Oh, yes, Abou, yes," I called out to him as I ran off.

And that was not the only time his mediation was of use to us. For sometimes it was my turn to hunt him out and send him on an embassy of reconciliation to Jenny; and always he would tell me in his gentle way, till at last the words began to sink into my heart like a memory, "Big boy forgive little girl, Master Tommy," or "How silly, now, when all should be happy, to say unkind thing." Indeed Abou filled a unique corner in my heart, and I loved the strange mysterious peacemaker whose voice was so kind and soothing; and I thought I understood how it was that the Captain found him of comfort in the dark moods that occasionally swooped down upon him.

For I soon found I had fallen into a strange family. The Captain was as kind to me as my own father, and I could see his affection glow from his eyes as they rested broodingly upon me, though always there was that little twinkle of amusement playing about them even at their solemnest. Yet I never felt quite at ease, for again and again I saw the shadow creep up, and thought the storm would sweep over him; and I knew that only a terrible power of will was restraining him from yielding to some mad frenzy of fancy such as I had witnessed at our first meeting. Then, too, there was the crying I heard at night, when it seemed to me that the frenzy was too strong for him. There was a fear at his heart. And I couldn't help comparing him with my father, who also, with a fear at his heart, always faced it with a smile. But one man's courage is not another's, as I had seen put to the proof in the case of Worthing and myself.

If it hadn't been for the Captain's insistence that the crying by night wasn't of this earth, and Jenny's contrary declarations that it was her father's voice we could hear echoing so piteously through the building, though I noticed she never let fall a word to that effect before her father, if it hadn't been for these hints I might have been deceived into thinking it merely the old wailing I had been used to hearing, and which now in my wisdom I ascribed entirely to the wind in the secret passage when the door was open. For in that twisting corridor the least breath could play like the note of an organ.

But once the madness did break out. It was one evening when the wind had risen more tempestuously than usual. I was kneeling in front of the fire telling Jenny a story, or rather weaving into a disconnected tale the wailing and sobbing of the wind as it hung in lingering eddies about odd corners of the ruined dwelling. Each gust that came racing over the moors was another voice from the world of spirits, and I interpreted its message of woe and lamentation much as my father had used to do. "Hark now!" I said, "that's a soldier. He was killed in battle shouting out his war-cry. And there! that's a hunter. Hear him; 'Hallooo! Hallooo!' And there's a mother calling to her baby. They stole it from her, and she heard it sobbing, sobbing, because it wanted her. And she reached her hands out for it, but they thrust her away. You hear her crying: 'Awaay! Awaay!' And, ah! listen! Two, three, four, five; all howling together. They're chasing some one. Listen! On, on, on! He's crying for mercy. Their hands are at his throat. He feels their breath behind him. And how they're laughing: 'Ahaa! Ahaa!'... Oh, Jenny!..."

I broke off, for at that moment, as though the clamouring wind had burst into the very room, there was a fearful howl of insane laughter, and the Captain sprang at me and seized me about the throat, shaking me like a rat.

"Laughing, are they?" he shouted frenziedly. "Laughing! Ahaa! And they've caught him, have they? Yes, by God, caught him!" And with that he flung me away from him, crouching back from me like an animal preparing to spring.

I was terrified, and half choked. As I looked at his blazing eyes I felt a cold horror at my heart, for his face was distorted into a frightful grimace of imbecile hatred and fury. I picked myself up slowly, for I feared a quick movement would bring him upon me. But he still crouched menacingly, and I could see his body quivering with insane malice. I felt about in my mind for some way of escape. The window? The door? But suddenly he was at me, and I sprang away behind the table. There followed a terrible chase, round and round, and my nimbleness stood me in good stead; for three times he was foiled as I swung a chair in his path, and he crashed to the floor, sprawling, and hissing out threats and curses. But I couldn't get to the window or the door. He was cunning enough to guard my escape, and I began to wonder how the chase would end.

Again he crouched away from me, with the table between us, while I kept my eyes fixed steadily on his. He was jabbering to himself like an angry ape, but with a menace too terrifying to describe. Then with a bound he cleared the table, and only my quickness in dropping flat to the floor saved me from his clutch. With a scramble I was under the table, and again facing him across it. But he lay moaning to himself, holding his head, and I felt a sudden pity swell up in my heart. He must have hurt himself, and foolishly enough I wanted to comfort him. I took a step or two round the table, and yet he lay still. I advanced but he made no movement. "Sir," I said, "it's only me. It's Tommy."

"Tommy? Tommy?" he repeated vacantly; then suddenly broke out with a sob, "Oh, forgive me, Tommy!"

With that I ran boldly up to him and knelt down beside him, but with a hideous cackle he gripped me by the shoulders, and I realized I had been duped. But I wasn't to be taken so. I remembered my pistol, and as my hands were free I drew it easily enough, and cried, "Let me go, Captain, or I'll shoot you."

I was amazed at the success of my manœuvre, for he fell back holding up his hands and gazing at me in horror.

I began to retreat to the door, but just then it opened, and Jenny, whom I hadn't missed till now, returned, and behind her Abou. He went straight to the Captain and said, "Come, my master," in that smooth voice of his which fell like a charm on the terrible scene. And like a lamb the Captain followed his servant from the room.