Part 3

‘Major,’ he said, ‘I’m going to have some talk with you, and you’ll pardon me if I deliver a little exordi_um_’--he pronounced it with an ominous emphasis on the ‘um.’ ‘I reckon the moon won’t be full up for another half hour, so we’ve considerable time.’

‘What’s the moon got to do with it, and what the devil is it you want? Fire away and come to the point,’ said Massinger, twisting the ends of his moustache, and endeavouring to conceal his now genuine alarm under a boisterous bluffness. Mr Denver smiled a quaint little smile, as though his spirits were rising.

‘Things will begin to move right along about the time the moon’s overhead,’ he said, consulting his watch. ‘Now, see here, Major, I don’t want to bore you, but I’ve got to say you’re kind of the worst specimen of a man I’ve had the luck to meet’--a smothered curse from Massinger. ‘Keep cool, Major; you’ll want all your language before I’m through; guess I’ve brought you here,--at your own request, you know,’--he smiled,--‘just to explain to you a little idea of mine, which I reckon you’ll appreciate.’ Mr Denver’s resemblance to a cat at this moment was not reassuring to the mouse. For a moment he paused, changing his attitude, and leaning back against the wall with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed. Massinger had taken out his revolver, and fingered it nervously.

‘Nice little iron,’ said Mr Denver, approvingly; ‘you’re a good shot, too, Major, I know.’

‘Pretty fair,’ said the latter, grimly.

‘So much the better. We--ell now, I’ve been thinking a good deal ’bout you since I’ve had the honour of making your acquaintance, and--now don’t be wild, Major--you really are--as you Britishers say--a great cad.’

A furious oath and a sudden movement forward from Massinger was as suddenly checked by the appearance of a little shining tube held straight at his head, and the imperturbable drawl resumed,--

‘Guess I see you, and go one better; presently, my dear sir, you’ll have _your_ chance, but just now I must beg you to sit still and hear my little exordi_um_.’ A pause.

‘Four years ago you married the present Mrs Massinger.’

‘You blackguard, how dare you mention my wife’s name?’

For the first time Dick Denver’s face betrayed emotion; his mouth twitched, and a sullen fire burned slowly up into his deep-set eyes, but his voice was none the less impassive as he continued:

‘I guess I’ve as much show; I’m a good bit fitter to talk of your wife than you are, you--you hound.’ The words in the slow drawl were maddening, and this time it was Massinger’s revolver that was levelled, but Mr Denver sat idly as ever, looking full at his companion, and presently the latter dropped his arm.

‘Malūa, Major, Malūa! even _you_ won’t commit murder, you see.’--A longer hiss from the inky depth in the centre, and a thin jet of water spurted up a foot or two above the level of the ground. Mr Denver took out his watch and looked at the opening above.

‘The show’s beginning,’ he said. Massinger was wiping some drops of water off his trousers.

‘I say,’ he said excitedly, ‘that water was boilin’; will it come any higher?’

‘Don’t alarm yourself, Major, the moon’ll be up before the next demonstration.’

‘What in the fiend’s name has the moon got to do with it? If you think I’m goin’ to stay here to be boiled for you or any other madman, I’m not takin’ any, I can tell you.’

‘No? Well, I guess you’re _going_ to stay here some, while I finish what I’ve got to say.--Four years ago you married the present Mrs Massinger; and I guess you’ve led her the life of a dog.’

‘You’re a liar! a d----d liar! I’ve never ill-used her.’

‘You’ve never struck or kicked her, you mean, but by God, in every other way you’ve been a brute to her, and I reckon you’ve spoilt her life.’

He held the other with his look, and went on rapidly.

‘I know you, Major; you’re a mean, sullen, sordid cur, not fit to live with any woman, much less with _her_. We--ell! so--o I guess I’ve fixed up a little idea which I’m going to explain to you right along.’ Another low, soft hiss from the bottomless pit. The rays from the moon were now striking almost vertically into the cavern, on Massinger sitting motionless in an angry but half-cowed amazement, on Mr Denver again consulting his watch. He returned it to his pocket and said:

‘In ten minutes from that first jet, there’ll be a geyser, and if we’re here I calculate we’ll be boiled and carried down that hole,--I know its little ways. There’s just upon six minutes left, but in three the moon’ll be right above, and there’ll be considerable light in the shooting gallery.’

Massinger opened his mouth, but Mr Denver went on sharply and distinctly:

‘You see, Major, my idea’s just this, _one_ of us has got to stay right here. Now its likely you’ll prefer being shot to being boiled; when I say the words “one, two, _three_,” we shall both of us fire, and if you pass out over my body you are to be congratul_at_ed. I shall shoot you if I can, because’--he paused, then very slowly, ‘I guess Mrs Massinger has no kind of use for you. It’s a fair and square business, Major, and you bet’--he pointed with his pistol to the bubbling, hissing chasm--‘the devil’ll take the hind-most.’

Dick Denver smiled grimly as he finished his exordium--his composure was devilish; he rose, looked once up at the opening above, through which the moon was now visible directly overhead, and then stood immovable, watching his companion. The full horror of his position had at last dawned on Massinger; he was on his feet now, leaning irresolutely against the wall, with staring eyes fixed alternately upon the awful chasm between them and his opponent’s set face.

‘My God!’ he said; ‘you must be mad,--for heaven’s sake, let’s end this fooling.’ But his ashen face showed that he knew it was no fooling, but a grim reality.

‘Time’s up. I shall say “one, two, _three_”; at three we fire.’

The words acted like a cold douche on Massinger; he shivered all over, then braced himself against the rock and set his teeth.

‘D----n you,’ he muttered, ‘I’ll pass out over your body yet.’ Turning to bay with a wolfish glare in his eyes, he lifted his pistol.

The angry water, greedy of its prey, was hissing louder and louder between them.

‘One--two--_three_!--’ a double report and a hoarse, stifled cry. Mr Denver staggered back, and his hat, pierced through and through, fell from his head. Recovering himself, he threw one look over the pit to where Massinger lay motionless on his face, shot through the heart; the devil’s water creeping up and brimming over the edge, nearly touched his rigid body.

‘Wonder if the cuss is dead? Can’t leave him to be boiled alive.’ Dick sprang over the brimming, hissing gulf, and lifted the head.

‘As mutton,’ he said, dropping the lifeless mass. With a leap backwards, he gained the entrance, and, passing through, dashed down the hill. Once he paused, and looking back, saw a smoking jet shoot high into the moonlit sky. Some drops of boiling spray fell with a hiss on his face and hands,--Dick shivered and went on his way.

AN AFTERTHOUGHT

The first streaks of dawn were showing in the east. The long, low, white-verandahed hotel surrounded by a group of palms that wavered unsteadily in the half-light, like a group of ghostly sentinels, was still undisturbed by the coming day. A man standing back in the shadow muttered to himself, as, glancing over his shoulder, he caught the first glow of light on the horizon. Advancing softly, with a spring, he grasped the roof of the verandah, and swung himself up lightly and noiselessly. Climbing the balcony rails, he looked for a moment along the line of French windows opening outwards, then, creeping forward, he passed through one of them into a small empty room, with a larger one adjoining it. Pausing inside, he glanced through the open door into the other room. The night had been stiflingly hot, the windows were open, and from the bed standing in the far corner the mosquito-curtains were thrown back. As his eyes fell upon the bed, Dick Denver shivered, and stood thinking.

‘Better not’ he said to himself; ‘it’s kind of a skeery tale.’ He took a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘No one saw us go up,’ he muttered, and grimly, ‘I guess no one saw us come down.’ He ran his eye over the paper.

‘“I bet Mr Dick Denver the sum of £200 that I visit with him a condemned hole called ‘La boîte du diable,’ and stay there as long or longer than he does.

‘“ Play or pay.

‘“Albert Massinger, October 9th, 188--. Dick Denver.”’

So it ran. With a pencil he scribbled a line underneath:

‘Lost and paid. A. M. stays there for ever. Burn this.--D. D.’

He took out of his pocket a bundle of notes, then stole gently forward and pinned them both to the pillow of the bed where a white figure lay sleeping. Then he stood back and gazed with a wistful, yearning look in his eyes. The white-robed figure moved restlessly in its sleep, and a sigh that went straight to Dick’s heart came stealing across the room. The window faced east, and the dawning light fell softly on the sweet face resting on a bare white arm, and on the fair hair trailing across the pillow. A tiny puff of sea-air floated in, and ruffled the lace falling back from the delicate throat. A mad longing seized upon Dick; he took two steps forward, then stopped irresolutely and staggered back against the wall, as a far-off mountain cry of beast or bird was wafted in at the window, sounding in his ears like that other cry heard not long ago. It steadied him, and with a noiseless step he moved swiftly to the bed, and stooping, pressed his lips lightly to one fair tress that fell softly over neck and bosom; then he raised himself as swiftly. Without another look he passed through the window, and swinging himself over the rail, walked hurriedly through the morning mist in the direction of the pier.

Two hours afterwards, Mr Dick Denver leant against the side of the French packet ‘Belle Ile’ as she made steady way from the port of St Martin. His eyes were fixed on a fast-vanishing white building.

‘I’m best with a new hand; there was nothing _to_ that racket. But it just licks creation how I made tracks; it wasn’t in the programme, anyway. Why did I? Dick, my son, why did you?... We--ell, ’pears to me somehow I remembered a saying: “Ye cannot get figs from thistles”; I guess that’s right so,--and,’ exceeding bitterly, ‘who am I that I should lift my face to hers?’

ASHES

To the Inexorable, what need of incense-burning, when from the ashes of human life is ever rising a measured stream of smoke?

I, Paul Marylski, outcast and rolling stone, am sitting in my old arm-chair on this accursed English day of yours, the year of little grace 189-. Forty years have I rolled, and have gathered no moss. Body and soul am I like unto the battered old friend I sit in. In sooth, I think as I crouch here over my fire, that I am but as the dead, man without hope, without desire, without a future, without a present--can he live? Yes; for he is sitting here to-night like an old dog, with the same folds in the cheeks, and the same yearning in the eyes. A thousand curses on the Congo and its deathly fever!--but for that might I still be man with future before me, but who can stand against this devil’s gnawing that never ceases?--not I, for one. I have some friends, a sweet country family, such as you have in England; they interest themselves in me, in _me_. I am grateful. The ‘mother’ tells me--‘Cheer up; this life is but a stage; it will soon pass--then, think of the future, the glorious after-life.’ She believes in this firmly--why not? Temperament, dear lady, all temperament! I can no more believe it than I can still this clawing at my vitals. Why do I live? _Pardieu_, I know not, having had my day--and what a day! Do they not say, ‘Every dog must have his day’? _Tiens_, this dog has had his, and it is that, and that alone, which keeps him alive. Even now, as I sit watching the dying embers, what pictures can I not see through the smoke that wreathes from my cigarette.

Hark! What’s that? ‘Carmen!’ as I live, a battered hulk; ‘Carmen,’ and on a barrel-organ! Ah, ha! Good, for your dingy London streets--they help the picture for once.

* * * * *

I see a room, warm and light; the green blinds are drawn, the polished floor reflects the softly-shaded lights; in the centre a table loaded with things loved of the soul, and--is it the same thing, perhaps?--the palate; empty bottles--ay, even an _empty_ bottle was lovely then--betoken the end of a feast. Round the table, men, only men; but look well--ay, and look again, ye callow youths, and livers of the life of every day--not one but has his _future_ or his _past_--most have both. Look at him well who rises, glass in hand, to address the company. Did ye ever see such a born leader of men, a giant, slim and tall, with eye that flashes, and drooping black moustache? He waves his hand to the waiters to leave the room, and speaks:--‘_Messieurs_,’ he says--in French, for is he not Christophe de Barsac, first smuggler in Marseille (or out of it, for that matter)?--‘_Messieurs, le jeu est fait_,’ and he drains his glass to the dregs, everyone following suit. ‘It now only remains, _Messieurs_, to reckon the cost,’ and he sits down. A groan goes up from around the table. There rises a tall, fat--ah! fat--man, with the invincible smile of a Russian of the Russians. As such, I, the Pole, sitting opposite, hate him--but also, you know, I love him as a brother.

‘_Monsieur le President_, and gentlemen,’ he goes on in English, which his soul loves as only does the soul of the man who speaks it as badly. ‘We ’ave ’ad ze good time, ze time of ze own devil, as says our good friend Kerr--r;’ he rolls the r’s indefinitely, and indicates with his cigar a lean, sunburnt man on his left. ‘I ver’ moch regret ’zat I ’ave no more money to ’ave anoyzer time of ze own devil, and zat also you ’ave none to lend me, _mais, que voulez vous, vive Monte Carlo_!’ and he, too, sits down, with a supremely fatalistic shrug of those vast shoulders, and the still invincible smile. Only three men out of those nine understand English, yet a murmur of applause shows the appreciation felt for the speaker, and the sentiments conveyed in that vast and comprehensive shrug. When the applause has subsided, his neighbour, the sunburnt southerner and knight-errant, rises abruptly and says:

‘That’s all very well, but I guess this dinner’s got to be toted up and paid for. Le’ssee how this pans out,’ and he turns the contents of his pockets on to the table,--one franc twenty-five centimes. He drops them into a wine-glass, and passes it to his neighbour. Then follows a scene curious--nine men of good presence in evening dress, turning out the innermost recesses of their apparel into a wine-glass--and see, the result is handed to the President, who counts it anxiously, after adding his own mite of two sous--‘Six francs seventy-five centimes.’

At the least the dinner has cost fifteen louis. Another groan from the table.

‘_Tenez_,’ says the President, ‘_J’ai une idée: le petit n’a jamais joué; eh bien! Je donnerai les cinq francs au petit, et il jouera._’ Evidently _bonne idée_, for the room resounds as _le petit_ is surrounded and forced forward with many an encouraging pat.

_Bon Dieu!_ That was I! That beardless youth with the bright eyes and black hair, enjoying life as none but a Pole can enjoy, before his country has laid her curse of melancholy upon him. Twenty years is a good span of time, but it seems more than twenty hundred since De Barsac pressed those five francs into my indifferent hand, and bade me go forth and seek the price of that feast, eaten not wisely but too well. Yet even now is Gortchakow’s pat heavy upon my back.

Ah, well, there he goes! passing dreamily out of the busy café, with its garish lights and constant hum, into the ‘Place’--the immortal ‘Place.’ How well I remember it! Did not _her_ windows look on it? Every feature, graven on my brain, rises now before me. The living stream ever flowing from its four sides into those inexorable doors, the sweet scents wafted from the gardens on the left, the fantastic shadows of the palms, the strains of ‘Carmen’ from the band playing in the verandah, the feverish throb of humanity under those quiet and starry heavens. Who does not know the ‘Place’? and, once knowing, who forgets?

There he goes, dreamily threading his solitary way across to the rooms; yet are his thoughts not with those five poor francs; they are, with his eyes, fixed on a certain window in the hotel opposite, and wondering what is the earliest hour _she_ can be ‘_de retour_.’

But, heigh-ho! the portals are reached, and lo! one must think of that dinner. What is one five-franc piece? Truly not much, yet something in maiden hands. The rooms are full; it is the gambler’s noon. _Le petit_ finds himself wedged in between a swarthy Roumanian Jew, who is sowing louis broadcast ‘_en plein_’ and ‘_à cheval_,’ and an English lady, of undetermined age but determined spirit, who is shedding her weekly bill in five-franc pieces. The Roumanian soweth, but he reapeth not, and he rises with a scowl and a shrug, and _le petit_ slips into his seat.

He is _sitting_ down with one five-franc piece. _Mon petit!_ truly thou art--what one calls--very green. Yet he has watched the game before, this young bantling.

‘_Quatre premier_,’ he cries, and manfully throws down the fateful piece. The little white ball is already spinning with its merry rattle of life and death--it stops. ‘_Deux, noir, paire et manque._’ The ever-busy rake pushes over to him two louis. And now

‘_Trente-quatre, trente-six, deux louis, sil vous plait._’

The obliging croupier places them--once again the merry rattle.

‘_Trente-six_,’ says the sing-song voice.

‘Bravo, _mon petit_, here is the price of the dinner with interest.’ Prudence personified, he places fifteen louis out of the twenty-four in an inner pocket and prepares to do or die with the rest. Yes, yes, how well I remember the tall Englishman behind saying to his friend, ‘Sportsman, that young beggar! I shall follow him.’

_Le petit’s_ English has been picked up on a Straits Settlements trader, but the tall Englishman he understands and appreciates. He is playing on _rouge_ now. A run of four; already by his side are piled the louis mountains high.

‘_Messieurs, faites le jeu._’

‘_Cent louis, rouge._’

‘_Le jeu est fait--rouge_;’ again and again, and yet again comes red, and each time _le petit_ wins.

Now he is staking the limit, and winning still, the multitude wondering, with that rising murmur of praise and plaint that ever attends a big winner’s fortunes. Suddenly he looks up. Standing opposite to him is a tall woman with dark eyes, lovely to behold, and she is watching him with a curious look, not of pity, not of contempt, not of passion, yet with something of all three. He starts, half rising, and makes a motion to leave the table.

‘_Messieurs, faites le jeu_,’--the murmur grows.

‘Follow the run up; play your luck out, sir,’ says the big Englishman. _Le petit_ hurriedly counts out the limit and pushes it on to _rouge_--the ball stops. ‘_Noir_,’ drawls the croupier, in a triumphant sing-song; the run is broken, but _le petit_, sweeping the remains of his winnings into his pocket, is no longer in his seat.

Between two goddesses can no man stand, not even the maiden wooer of the great goddess Chance, when a greater than she has claimed him.

The woman with the dark eyes moved away, but _le petit_ is beside her.

‘’Léna, how long the day has been! But the night comes, ah, the night comes--at twelve?’ She gives him one look from unfathomable eyes, that provoke, yet answer, and passes on to a seat at the next table. _Le petit_, with bowed head and unsteady step, but with a flame in his eyes, passes out into the air to render an account of his stewardship.

* * * * *

Once more the softly-lighted room. The ghost of the feast has his clutches now upon the band of revellers; yea, a gloom is upon them; even wanes the smile of Gortchakow, prince of Russian philosophers.

‘_Enfin!_’ says the President, and at his voice all turn, to see _le petit_ come in at a side door, and stand silent in the shadow. All eyes are upon him--surely he looks depressed.

‘Zey ’ave plucked ’im, my children, zey ’ave plucked ’is one leetle feazer,’ is Gortchakow’s sorrowful but smiling comment.

‘What luck, my son?’ says the President, gravely. For answer, _le petit_ opens his coat, and before nine pairs of hungry eyes he pours forth what seems a never-ending stream of gold and notes on to the table. A howl of amaze and delight bursts forth, and _le petit_ is enveloped in several pairs of arms, until he wriggles out, and dives under the table, where he sits in comparative security, while the President pays the bill, divides the spoil, and delivers a homily upon ‘_le chance_,’ rendered palatable by bumpers of champagne.

Great God! And is it only twenty years since I sat under that table?--only twenty!!

* * * * *

Once more the ‘Place,’ but now the hum and throb has given place to the passion-fraught stillness of the Southern night. Closed are the rooms and the cafés; the last strains of the band have died away; the croak of belated frogs, an occasional laugh, and the snatch of a song from belated humans, are the only sounds that come to the ears of _le petit_ as he wends his cautious way to the longed-for meeting. A French window opening on to a balcony, ten feet from the ground,--what is this to a sailor, under cover of the night? Now he is up, and gazing with all his eyes through the half-open window into a dimly-lighted room.

Sights fair and horrible, many, have I seen in my tempest-driven life, ay, many, but never, by the gods, have I seen sight fairer, and yet more horrible, than that which met _le petit’s_ fascinated gaze through those half-drawn blinds.

The figure of the loved one is stretched on the couch, dreaming, with look of expectation and delight in the half-closed eyes.

Dark with all the passions, scowling malignant, a face glares from a shrouded corner of the room upon that white-robed form. Passionate love, passionate hate, passionate jealousy--who shall say what is in that face? Enough surely to bind _le petit_ with the spell of a nameless terror.