A Galahad Of The Creeks; The Widow Lamport Part 7

CHAPTER X.

AN ATONEMENT.

_Ruys_.--Can I give back? Well, then I will restore.

Death pays all debts.

_Maraffa: A Tragedy_.

In a solitary room of his house, shut out from the light of day, Hawkshawe was drinking himself to madness and to death. The weary weeks dragged themselves on, one after the other, in connection with his case, and yet nothing was done beyond the order which kept him under judgment. The government had not as yet even decided what steps they were to take in the matter. Called upon for an explanation, Hawkshawe had sent up a long memorial, full, as memorials always are, of points that did not bear on the question. He clutched at any straw to save himself, and there was without doubt a good record of good work done by him. Practically, however, he was already condemned, and the governor had made up his mind almost as soon as he heard of the case. He was a man whose muscular morality could endure no backsliding, and the taint of the old days still hung around Burma. He had sworn to purify it, and he meant to keep his word. "These are the men," he said, referring to Hawkshawe, "that we want to get rid of, and any excuse should be seized upon, for they have dragged the name of Englishmen in the mud; of course, however, Mr. Hawkshawe must have every opportunity of defending himself."

The head of the police, to whom these words were spoken, went away with misgivings in his heart about Hawkshawe. "He'll get over the bribery and corruption part of the affair," he said to a confidential friend--in other words, to his wife. "There's no real proof except the statements of those dismissed scoundrels and half a dozen other blackguards; but the other thing will smash him, and, with all his faults, he is very nearly my best man."

"And he ought to be turned out," said the lady. "I have no pity for men like Mr. Hawkshawe."

The chief remained silent, knowing that here argument was unavailing, but nevertheless he still regretted Hawkshawe's fate. And from this it will be inferred that a long connection with the seamy side of mankind had more or less blunted the fine edge of his susceptibilities, and that he was prepared to use any tools if they served his business, which was the suppression and detection of crime; and perhaps he was right.

In the meantime Alban Hawkshawe slipped down with frightful rapidity.

He was like a man sliding down a snowy slope beneath which yawned a precipice, and he was reaching the abyss at a frightful pace. He would have killed himself had he dared; once he had almost done so, but the little hole in the muzzle of the revolver he held to his mouth looked so pitiless that he drew it back shrinking. His nerves were weakened, and there was a terrible bodily fear of that death which he felt could alone be his release. It was open to him to have left Pazobin and run the chance of arrest; but the very attempt at flight would establish his guilt, and he was quick-witted enough to see that his only chance was to fight, and, although the waters were over him, yet his arm was stretched out to grasp the one little straw in which there might be safety. Strange as it may seem, he began to feel an injured man. There was the shame and indignity of being kept a prisoner at large, to feel that every one around him knew of his fall, to know that they knew him guilty, to know that they who crouched before him formerly were laughing over their opium pipes at his downfall. The very servants knew it. He saw this in their faces. These thoughts drove him faster and faster on his course, and he vainly tried to flee from himself in the stupor of drink. And then the time came when drink did not produce forgetfulness. But Ma Mie clung to him with the affection of a dog.

She endured his abuse and his blows, for Hawkshawe had reached a stage when he was no longer restrained from violence because the object was a woman. The poor creature tried to keep him from his besetting vice; she brought out all her little arts which were once wont to please and to beguile, but to no purpose. Hawkshawe insisted on having her about him, but it was not to console; it was because he wanted some one upon whom to work off the fits of semi-madness that came on him. His servants fled in terror, and after a time he began to feel that he could not bear to be alone. His excited brain conjured up strange images about him, and finally the wild beast within the man awoke in its full strength, and he was no longer a human being, but had gone back to that early time when man was as savage as a tiger is now. It seemed as if the soul had flitted from him while he still lived. He had now got out of hand entirely, and Ma Mie dared not approach him, but she hung around trying to antic.i.p.ate his wants and watching his progress with a sickening heart. Finally the time came when she went mad also, for one night Hawkshawe put a fearful insult on her. She drew her dagger to kill him, but he had strength to wrench it from her grasp and flung her to the corner of the room, where she lay stunned and bleeding. After a time she picked herself up and stepped out of the room without a look at the wretched Hawkshawe and his still more vile companion.

"Order her to come back," said the woman who was with Hawkshawe; "I want her to attend on me."

"So she shall," was the brutal reply. "Here, Ma Mie!" he shouted, but there was no answer. He got up and staggered to her room. It was empty, but from the open window he saw her figure as it flitted down the road, and a wailing sob reached his ears. "By G.o.d, she shall come back!" he yelled, and, bareheaded as he was, reeled out of the house, followed by the mocking laughter of the she-devil within.

They had just dined, and Peregrine, leaning back in his chair, was listening to a plaintive little melody played by Phipson on his fiddle. Phipson fiddled; he did not play the violin, but his fiddling was very sweet and good to hear. He finished his little air with a flourish, and, resting the instrument lightly on the table before him, said, "I wonder you don't play something or other; it is a great distraction!"

Jackson had no time to answer; almost as the words left Phipson they heard footsteps rushing up the stairs, and Ah-Geelong's voice raised in expostulation. The next moment Ma Mie burst into the room. She held in her hand a bundle of papers, which she flung before Jackson.

"There," she half screamed, "I give him up; he is a double traitor! O Hawkshawe, Hawkshawe!"

"Yes, Hawkshawe, Hawkshawe!" answered a mocking voice, and Hawkshawe stepped in, holding Ah-Geelong out at arm's length before him with a grip of iron. He shook the Chinaman like a rat, and, flinging him behind him, sprang straight at Ma Mie and struck a terrible blow at her. It was well that Phipson saw what was coming and hit up Hawkshawe's arm. The next moment the madman had flung himself on him, and the two rolled over together. "He's choking me, Jackson!" and Peregrine woke up as from a dream. With the a.s.sistance of Ah-Geelong he managed to free Phipson, but it took the united efforts of all three to hold the maniac down. Hawkshawe, when he found that he was overpowered, lay perfectly still for a moment, a white foam round his lips and his eyes shifting nervously about in their deep sockets like those of an ape. He then said quite quietly, "Let me up; the game is played out. I can do no more." Ah-Geelong gave a warning glance, and whispered to Jackson, "Plenty dlunk." But both Peregrine and Phipson felt that he would attempt no more violence, and, ordering the Chinaman to stand back, helped him to rise, which he did slowly, and then glared round him with his restless, fiery eyes. "Where is my wife?" he asked, and then they saw for the first time that Ma Mie had gone. The thought that she had escaped him seemed to rouse him to fury again. "Devil!" he shrieked, and made a dash for the door. Peregrine and Phipson were before him, however. "For G.o.d's sake, sit still and pull yourself together, Hawkshawe!" said Phipson. He looked at them and, throwing his head back, laughed, and his voice was as the howl of a beast. "Sit still! How can I sit still? There is something broken in my head; there are the fires of h.e.l.l in my heart. A devil is ever leaning over my shoulder, and---- Ma Mie, you traitress, where are you? Let me pa.s.s," he shouted, "or I will---- Ugh! there it is!" He turned and, glancing over his shoulder, saw Ah-Geelong moving softly toward him, and then with a bitter curse sprang backward out into the veranda, and the next moment there was a dull thud below, and all was very still. They picked him up gently and bore him to Jackson's own room. Phipson ran for Smalley, and when Habakkuk came he looked at the man carefully. "I will do what I can," he said, "but no human art can save him; he is most fearfully injured. I doubt if he will live through until the morning." But when the morning came Hawkshawe was still alive, and when the sun sank he was not dead. There was one who came and took her place by the sick-bed as if it was her right, and neither of the three men had the heart to forbid Ma Mie. All through the long hours she never left him, and they were her hands that lifted his head as the last breath came and Alban Hawkshawe pa.s.sed away. He never once regained consciousness, and it was only his extraordinary muscular vitality that kept him living for so long a time.

When it was all over and Smalley had gone, promising to come again with the morning, Phipson and Peregrine went back downstairs to the dining-room and there sat up together. Sleep was impossible, and to both of them death like this was a new and terrible thing. It was then that Ah-Geelong came in softly and brought a message from Ma Mie to say that she wished to see them. "Ask her to come in," said Peregrine, and she came. She held in her hands a small inlaid casket, which she placed on the shining woodwork of the table. Her eyes were tearless, but her voice trembled as she spoke. "See," she said, "what was my husband is lying dead above, and dead in dishonour. I have come to make his memory clean and to restore----" With a quick movement of her hands she opened the casket and scattered its contents on the table.

It was full of precious stones, and above them all coiled the ruby bracelet, and the evil light of the gems seemed to blaze and sputter through the night. "I restore, as he would have restored if G.o.d did not make him mad; here they are, jewels for which he sold his honour and I my soul. And now good-bye. You were good to him, and you saved my life. Ma Mie will never forget."

They let her go without a word, and she pa.s.sed out into the darkness forever from their sight.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PATIENCE OF HABAKKUK SMALLEY.

To-night I pa.s.s the narrow straits Which lead unto the Unknown Sea.

G.o.d, who knoweth the hearts of man, Make Thou my pathway clear to me!

_Voyage of the Tobias_.

Ruys's repentant fit soon began to pa.s.s away, and there seemed every prospect of an aftermath of backsliding. She had honestly and soulfully tried to mend, and for a few weeks everything went smoothly--at least outwardly--for there was a hard struggle going on within. Then she began to think the air was getting too pure for her to live in, and then in her desperation she again opened up the subject of the removal to Dagon, and to her surprise and joy found her husband met her more than halfway in this. She had no very definite object in urging the move beyond that it would enable her to flee an ever-present temptation. It would have been well for Smalley if he had seen what was going on, but Habakkuk had never gauged that wayward heart. With all his love for her, he had never been able to understand his wife. It was a mystery to him how she had ever come to marry him, how he had ever come to ask her to share his lot. She had accepted the offer in one of those capricious moods in which women of her nature do absolutely anything, and she was, in fact, nothing more or less than a refined and educated Ma Mie, without, perhaps, the rugged n.o.bleness of the Burman woman. When she first knew Habakkuk he had just thrown aside a lucrative practice as a physician to enter the ministry with a view to going on the Eastern mission. This in itself was sufficient to attract an emotional woman, and there was something also in the innate n.o.bleness of soul within his ungainly frame that drew her toward him.

She had one of her "good" fits on. Here was something so very different from the smart young men of her set who worshipped the almighty dollar, and dreamed of the almighty dollar, whose one idea was to ama.s.s a fortune, and to whom a business operation which successfully brought a friend perhaps to ruin was a creditable thing.

She felt that marriage with such an one was a moral abas.e.m.e.nt, and so she signalled, in that silent way that women know, to the strong and loving nature that was hovering near her, and he came at her call.

Something within him, he knew not what, prompted him to speak, and he simply told her of his love, and turned to go. It never for one moment crossed him that he would meet anything but a refusal, and when she softly called him back and put her hand in his, he was unable at first to realize that his apparently absurd ambition had been crowned with success. They were married, and almost immediately left for the East, and almost as immediately Ruys began to repent of the step she had taken and wished herself back again. Those smart young men who worshipped the almighty dollar--after all, they were not so bad. She began to contrast them with her husband, and then she began to be miserable. Habakkuk saw this much, that she was miserable, and put it down to seasickness. By the time he reached Burma he reflected that his wife had about fifty different characters, and could slip on one as easily as she slipped on a dress. He was a sensible man and resigned himself to his fate, and then she trampled upon him because he yielded, and he bore it all with a silent misery eating at his heart. Then after a time his love seemed to sleep into a kind of intimate friendship; but Ruys saw this, and would fan it all up again, and, as soon as she succeeded, relapse into an icy dullness that made life almost unendurable. It was their last evening at Pazobin; the parsonage had been practically dismantled of its ornaments, and Ruys, with a straw hat in her hand, stood in what was once her very pretty drawing-room. Habakkuk stepped in with his slouching gait.

"I wish," said she, "you wouldn't stoop so. Why don't you hold yourself up? There!" and she straightened him; "if you always carry yourself like that it would be so different."

"I'll try," said Habakkuk. "I must enroll myself as chaplain to the Pazobin Volunteers. There are six men in the regiment, but I'll get drilled. Will that suit?"

She was in a gay mood, and laughed blithely. "Yes, it will do very well, and I shall have to work some colours and give it to the gallant regiment. But you are not to go with them when they go fighting dacoits," and she came close up to him. Habakkuk for once plucked up courage, and, putting his arm round his wife's waist, kissed her, and to his surprise the caress was returned. He could hardly believe it, but she disengaged herself from his arm and said, "I want you to go down to the boats and see that everything is ready, like a dear; then you can come back for me, and take me on board."

Habakkuk felt that he could have gone to the end of the world. He was off in a moment, and went away holding himself very erect.

His wife looked after him with a strange smile on her face. "I have got him away for a good hour, at any rate," she said to herself, and stepping out into the garden walked slowly down to the ruined temple, and when she reached there she looked around as if expecting some one.

"I wonder if he will come?" she said, and almost as the words escaped her Peregrine walked quickly across the side and came straight up to her. "I only got your note this minute, Mrs. Smalley," he said; "of course I was coming to see you off. It will be a great disappointment to Phipson. There was news which took him out this afternoon. Our friends the dacoits are to the fore again."

"I thought you would come this way," she said, "and walked up here to meet you. Dr. Smalley will be back soon; he has gone down to the boats to see after things."

"I wish I could have persuaded you not to go," said Peregrine. "You don't know what a loss you will be to us." The young man had won a great victory as he thought. Within the last few weeks Ruys's own attempts at escape had helped him. He had seen the struggle, and as he now stood over her his eyes were fearless with the strong light of power and resolve. Her knight--he had sworn to be her knight, and was wearing her token next to his heart. His hand should be the last to drag her down, and therefore his voice was kind and courteous, but nothing more, as he expressed his civil regrets at her departure.

With Ruys it was different. She had taken a hasty resolve to have one more interview with Jackson, and then to say good-bye forever. She had determined to meet him here and ask him never to see her again, and now that the opportunity which she herself had foolishly made had come she was unable to speak, and her lips whitened as she stood still before him; and then he saw that she was crying, and took her gently by the hand.

"Mrs. Smalley--Ruys," he said, "be brave. See, you are my sister; I will look to you for help and counsel, and will be as a brother to you. Be brave."

And even as she spoke the floodgates were opened, and all the pa.s.sionate woman spoke: "I love you! I love you! How can I be your sister? Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" And she burst into hysterical sobs, and the next moment was in Peregrine's arms, with her soft cheek resting against his shoulder and her heart to his.

For one wild moment Peregrine forgot all. "My queen! my queen!" he said, and kissed her unresisting lips and held her to him.

He put her from him, and as she stood with downcast eyes and trembling limbs before him, he spoke: "Good-bye; it must be good-bye forever now."

She made no answer, but looked after his retreating figure with sad, dreamy eyes, and then with a white face and aching heart turned and walked backward to the house.

"_My G.o.d, thou hast forsaken me!_" Never did cry more bitter come from the soul of the prophet than came from the heart of Habakkuk Smalley from the spot where he had watched the whole meeting and seen the parting of the two. He had been a witness to it all from start to finish, and only perhaps a priest could have restrained himself as well as he had done up to now. It seemed as if his life had crumbled away. He now knew what he had never expected, and like an inspiration the motives of his wife in forcing him to leave the place flashed upon him. After all, the temptation had been resisted, and who was he to judge. He thought of the lesson his Master had taught in a case of terrible reality, and was he, a priest of the Gospel, to stop at less than this? He kneeled down on the turf, and, holding up his arms to heaven, prayed. "G.o.d," he cried, "thou hast hunted me like a deer on the mountain side, and I am sorely wounded----" He could say no more, but gasped out "Strength! strength!" and then after a while a peace came upon him and he arose and followed the footsteps of his wife. He found her sitting in their now cheerless room, and her features seemed pinched and drawn. Never a word did Habakkuk speak of what he knew, but his voice was as kind and gentle as ever. "Everything is ready,"

he said; "shall we go?"

Now Ruys made no answer, but simply rose, and they went forth together.

CHAPTER XII.