Lord John in New York Part 25

My heart gave a bound, and then missed a beat, as if my life had come to an end. I sprang on the man from behind, and the beggar king with his band followed my lead. Just what happened next I could hardly tell: I was too busy fighting. Down on the ground we two went together. Essain--whom I knew as Rameses--fought like a lion.

Surprised as he was, he flashed out a knife somehow, and I felt its point bite between my ribs, before I got a chance to shoot. Even then, I shot at random, and it was only the sudden start and collapse of the body writhing under mine which told me that my bullet had found its billet. The man lay still. I jumped up, released from his hold. His face I could not see, but when I shook him he was limp as a marionette.

"Dead!" I said to myself. "Well, it's all to the good!" and wasted no more time on him.

The four negroes were down: they had shown no fight; and already Haroun had begun with a great knife to prise open the coffin-shaped box. It lay on the ground in the moonlight and I saw that it was the mummy-case I had seen last in Maida's shrine in New York. There was no doubt--no hope, then! I had come too late!

Like a madman I s.n.a.t.c.hed the knife from Haroun, and finished the work he had begun. There she lay--my darling--where the mummy had lain so long. But I was not too late after all. As the air touched her she gasped and opened her eyes.

There, you would say, with the girl I loved coming to life in my arms, the story of my fight against her enemies might end. But it was not to be so. There was still the one supreme struggle to come. For Essain, alias Rameses, was not dead. He had feigned death to save himself, and while we forgot him he crept away.

EPISODE IX

THE BELL BUOY

A white yacht steamed slowly through calm water silvered by the moon.

Maida and I were the only pa.s.sengers. We had been married that day, and the yacht _Lily Maid_ was ours for the honeymoon, lent by Maida's newly found cousins, Sir Robert and Lady Annesley.

"Look," I said, as pa.s.sing through the Downs I caught sight of two dark towers showing above a cloud of trees on the Kentish coast. "Those towers are my brother's house. To-morrow I shall be there making him eat humble pie--and my sister-in-law too."

"I don't want you to make them eat humble pie!" laughed Maida.

"Well, they shall eat whatever you like. But would you care to anchor now? It's nearly midnight."

"Let's go on a little further," she decided. "It's so heavenly."

It was. I felt that I had come almost as near heaven as I could hope to get. Maida was my wife at last, and she was happy. I believed that she was safe.

We went on, and the throb of the yacht's heart was like the throbbing of my own. Close together we stood, she and I, my arm clasping her.

So we kept silence for a few moments, and my thoughts trailed back as the moonlit water trailed behind us. I remembered many things: but above all I remembered that other night of moonlight far away in Egypt, in a secret orange garden where men had dug a grave.

Why, yes, of course Maida was safe! One of her two enemies had died that night--the woman. Exactly how she died we did not know, but I and the "king of the beggars" had found her lying, face downward, in the marble basin of a great fountain, dead in water not a foot deep. The fountain was in a room whence, from one latticed window, the orange garden and the fight there could have been seen. That window was open.

Doubtless Essain's sister had believed her twin brother captured or dead. She had thought that, for herself, the end of all things had come with his downfall: punishment, failure and humiliation worse than death. So she had chosen death. But the man had escaped and disappeared. The treasure hidden for thousands of years in the mummy--treasure which the Head Sister boasted to Maida had been found by Doctor Rameses--had disappeared with him.

The girl Hateb who had cared for Maida through her illness cared for her again that night, while Haroun and I guarded the shut door of their room. The next day Maida was able to start for Cairo, and Hateb (both veiled, and in Egyptian dress) acted as her maid. Had it not been for Haroun's testimony and the respect felt by the authorities for the rich beggar, the happenings of that night and the woman's death might have detained me at Hathor Set; but thanks to Haroun I was able to get Maida away. Thanks again partly to him and what he could tell (with what Maida had been told by the Head Sister) the girl's past was no longer a mystery. We knew the name of her people: and luckily it was a name to conjure with just then in Cairo. Colonel Sir Robert Annesley was stationed there. He was popular and important; and I blessed all my stars because I had met him in England.

I wanted Maida to marry me in Cairo, with her cousin Sir Robert to give her away: but the blow my brother had struck long ago had hurt her sensitive soul to the quick. She said that she could not be my wife until Lord Haslemere and Lady Haslemere were willing to welcome her.

She wanted no revenge, but she did want satisfaction.

I had to yield, since a man can't marry a girl by force nowadays, even when she admits that she's in love. Sir Robert found her a chaperon, going to England, and I was allowed to sail on the same ship. Maida was invited to stay with Lady Annesley until the wedding could be arranged on the bride's own "terms"; but Fate was more eloquent than I: she induced Maida to change her mind.

Lady Annesley was as brave (for herself and her husband) as a soldier's wife must be; but she had three children. For them, she was a coward.

Maida had not been two days at the Annesley's Devonshire place, and I hadn't yet been able to tackle Haslemere, when an anonymous letter arrived for the girl's hostess. It said that, if Lady Annesley wished her three little boys to see their father come home, she would turn out of her house the enemy of a n.o.ble family whose vendetta was not complete. At first, the recipient of the letter was at a loss what to make of it. Frightened and puzzled, she handed the doc.u.ment to Maida (this was at breakfast) and Maida was only too well able to explain.

The letter had a London postmark: and the girl knew then, with a shock of fear, that "Dr. Rameses" was in England--had perhaps reached there before her. An hour later I knew also--having motored from the hotel where I was stopping in Exeter. The question was, why did the enemy want to get the girl out of her cousin's house?--for that desire alone could have inspired the anonymous warning. Without it, he might have attempted a surprise stroke: but of his own accord, he had for some reason eliminated the element of surprise.

As for me, I was thankful. Not because Essain, alias Rameses, had come to England, but because he was throwing Maida into my arms. This result might be intended by him; but naturally I felt confident that she would be safe under my protection. I argued that she couldn't expose Lady Annesley and the children to danger; the Annesleys had suffered enough for a sin of generations ago: and if she gave up the shelter of her cousin's house she must come to me. What mattered it, in such circ.u.mstances, whether the family welcome came before or after the wedding? I guaranteed that it would come. And so--owing to the anonymous letter, and its visible effect upon Lady Annesley, Maida abandoned the dream she had cherished. We were married by special licence: and now, on the Annesley's yacht--too small to be needed for war-service by the Admiralty--we stood on our wedding night.

"Nothing can ever separate us again, my darling!" I broke out suddenly, speaking my thought aloud.

"No, not even death," Maida said, softly, almost in a whisper.

"Don't think of death, my dearest!" I cut her short.

"I'll try not," she said. "But it seems so wonderful to dare be happy--after all. And the memory of that man--the thought of him--I won't call it fear, or let it be fear--is like a black spot in the brightness. It's like that big floating black shape, moving just enough to show it is there, in the silver water. Do you see?" and she pointed. "Does that sound we hear, come from it--like a bell--a funeral bell tolling?"

"That's a bell buoy," I explained. "I remember it well. You know, when I was a boy I spent holidays with my brother at Hasletowers; and I loved this old buoy. I've imagined a hundred stories about it; and--by Jove--I wonder what that chap can be up to!"

The "chap" whose manoeuvres had caused me to break off and forget my next sentence, was too far away to be made out distinctly. But he was in a boat which I took to be a motor-boat, as it had skimmed along the bright water like a bird. He had stopped close to the bell buoy, and was fitting a large round object over his head. Apparently it was a diver's helmet. In the boat I could see another figure, slimmer and smaller, which might be that of a boy; and this companion gave a.s.sistance when the helmeted one descended into the water over the side of the boat. For an instant I saw--or fancied that I saw--that he had something queer in his hand--something resembling a big bird-cage.

Then he plunged under the surface, and was gone.

We were steaming slowly enough, however, for me to observe in retrospect, that the huge round head bobbed up a minute later, and that the black figure climbed back into the boat. But the cage-like object was no longer visible.

"Some repairs to the buoy, perhaps," I said, as the yacht took us on.

But it seemed odd, I couldn't put the episode out of my mind. By and by I asked the yacht's captain to turn, and let us anchor not too far from the landing at Hasletowers, for me to go ash.o.r.e comfortably when I wished to do so next day. The boat with the two figures had vanished.

The bell buoy swayed back and forth, sending out its tolling notes; and the _Lily Maid_ was the only other thing to be seen on the water's silver.

At three o'clock the following afternoon I rowed myself ash.o.r.e, and from the private landing walked up to my brother's house. I hadn't seen him or my sister-in-law since the day when I ran--or rather limped--away from Violet's London nursing home with its crowding flowers and sentimental ladies. But I had written. I had told them that I intended to marry Miss Madeleine Odell, the girl whom they had driven from England, shamed and humiliated. I had told them who she really was, and something of her romantic history. I had added that they should learn more when they were ready to apologise and welcome her. Later, I had wired that we were being married unexpectedly soon, and that we should be pleased to have them at the wedding if they wished. Haslemere had wired back that they would be prevented by business of importance from leaving home, but their absence was not to be misunderstood. He invited me to call at Hasletowers and talk matters over. On this, I telegraphed, making an appointment for the day after my marriage; because to "talk things over" was what I wanted to do--though perhaps not in precisely the way meant by Haslemere.

If I'd expected my arrival to be considered an event of importance, I should have been disappointed. Haslemere and Violet had the air of forgetting that months had pa.s.sed since we met, that I'd been through adventures, and that this was the day after my wedding. If we had parted half an hour before, they could hardly have been more casual!

I was shown into the library, where Haslemere (a big, gaunt fellow of thirty-eight, looking ten years older, and with the red hair of our Scottish ancestors) and Violet (of no particular age and much conscious charm) were pa.s.sionately occupied in reading a telegram. I thought it might have been mine (delayed), but in this I was soon undeceived.

"h.e.l.lo, Jack!" said Haslemere. "How are you, dear boy?" said Violet: and then both began to pour out what was in their hearts. It had not the remotest connection with Maida or me. It concerned themselves and the great charity sale of historic jewels which, it seemed, Violet was organising. What? I hadn't heard of it? They were astounded.

England was talking of nothing else. Well, there was the war, of course! But this subject and the war were practically one. The sale was for the benefit of mutilated officers. n.o.body else had ever thought of doing anything practical for _them_, only for the soldiers.

Violet had started by giving the Douglas-heart ring which had come down to her from an ancestress made even more famous than she would have been otherwise, by Sir Walter Scott. This splendid example of generosity had set the ball rolling. Violet had only to ask and to have. All her friends had answered her call, and lots of outsiders who hoped thereby to become her friends. Any number of _nouveaux riches_ creatures had actually _bought_ gorgeous antique jewels in order to lay them at Violet's shrine--and, incidentally, that of the Mutilated Officers.

"Nearly a hundred thousand pounds' worth of jewels is here, in this room, at this moment," my sister-in-law went on impressively, "but it won't be here many moments longer, I'm thankful to say! The responsibility has been too great for us both, this last week, while the collection grew, and we had to look after it. Now the whole lot is being sent to Christie's this afternoon, and the sale by auction will begin to-morrow. It's the event of the season, bar nothing! We hope to clear a quarter of a million if the bidding goes as we think. You _must_ bring your bride, and make her buy something. If she's one of the _right_ Annesleys, she must be aw'fly rich!"

"She is one of the right Annesleys," I managed to break in. "But, as I wrote you and Haslemere, she has always been known as Madeleine Odell.

You and he----"

"Oh, never mind that!" Haslemere cut me short. "You have married her without consulting us. If you'd asked my advice, I should certainly--but we won't stir up the past! Let sleeping dogs lie, and bygones be bygones, and so on."

"Yes, we'll try and do our best for your wife," Violet added hastily, with an absent-minded eye. "When the sale is over, and we have time to breathe, you must bring her here, and----"

"You both seem to misunderstand the situation, although I thought I'd made things clear in my letter," I said. "You cruelly misjudged Maida.

You believed lies about her, and put a public shame upon the innocent child. Do you think I'd ever bring her into my brother's house until he and his wife had begged her forgiveness, and atoned as far as in their power?"

"Good heavens, Jack, you must be mad!" Haslemere exclaimed. "I'd forgotten the affair until you revived it in my mind by announcing that you intended to marry a girl whose presentation I'd caused to be cancelled. Then I remembered. I acted at the time only as it was my duty to act, according to information received. An American acquaintance of Violet's--a widow of good birth whose word could not be doubted, told us a tragic story in which Miss Odell had played--well, to put it mildly, in consideration for you--had played an unfortunate part."

"The name of this American widow was Granville," I cut in, "and the tragedy was that of her son."

"It was. I see you know."