Mrs. Falchion Part 13

But Mrs. Callendar timidly said she would rather Miss Treherne went without her; and so it was. While Miss Treherne was comforting the bereaved girl, I talked to Mrs. Callendar. I fear that Mrs. Callendar was but a shallow woman; for, after a moment of excitable interest in Justine, she rather naively turned the talk upon the charms of Europe.

And, I fear, not without some slight cynicism, I followed her where she led; for, as I said to myself, it did not matter what direction our idle tongues took, so long as I kept my mind upon the two beside that grave: but it gave my speech a spice of malice. I dwelt upon Mrs. Callendar's return to her native heath--that is, the pavements of Bond Street and Piccadilly, although I knew that she was a native of Tasmania. At this she smiled egregiously.

At length Miss Treherne came to us and said that Justine insisted she was well enough to go back to the vessel alone, and wished not to be accompanied. So we left her there.

A score of times I have stopped when preparing my notes for this tale from my diary and those of Mrs. Falchion and Galt Roscoe, to think how, all through the events recorded here, and many others omitted, Justine Caron was like those devoted and, often, beautiful attendants of the heroes and heroines of tragedy, who, when all is over, close the eyes, compose the bodies, and cover the faces of the dead, p.r.o.nouncing with just lips the benediction, fittest in their mouths. Their loves, their deeds, their lives, however good and worthy, were clothed in modesty and kept far up the stage, to be, even when everything was over, not always given the privilege to die as did their masters, but, like Horatio, bade to live and be still the loyal servant:

"But in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story."

There was no reason why we should go to the ship immediately, and I proposed that we should first explore the port-town, and then visit the city of Aden--five miles away beyond the hills--and the Tanks. To this the ladies consented.

Somauli policemen patrolled the streets; Somauli, Arab, and Turkish guides impeded the way; Arabs in plain white, Arab sheikhs in blue and white, and gold, lounged languidly about, or drank their coffee in the shade of the bazaars. Children of the desert, nearly naked, sprinkled water before the doors of the bazaars and stores and upon the hot thoroughfare, from long leather bottles; caravans of camels, with dusty stride, swung up the hillside and beyond into the desert; the Jewish water-carrier with his donkey trudged down the pa.s.s from the cool fountains in the volcanic hills; a guard of eunuchs marched by with the harem of a Mohammedan; in the doorways of the houses goats and donkeys fed. Jews, with greasy faces, red-hemmed skirt, and hungry look, moved about, offering ostrich feathers for sale, everywhere treated worse than the Chinaman in Oregon or at Port Darwin. We saw English and Australian pa.s.sengers of the 'Fulvia' pelting the miserable members of a despised race with green fruit about the streets, and afterwards from the deck of the ship. A number of these raised their hats to us as they pa.s.sed; but Belle Treherne's acknowledgment was chilly.

"It is hard to be polite to cowards," she said.

After having made some ruinous bargains in fezes, Turkish cloths and perfume, I engaged a trap, and we started for Aden. The journey was not one of beauty, but it had singular interest. Every turn of the wheels carried us farther and farther away from a familiar world to one of yesterday. White-robed warriors of the desert, with lances, bent their brows upon us as they rode away towards the endless sands, and vagabonds of Egypt begged for alms. In about three-quarters of an hour we had pa.s.sed the lofty barriers of Jebel Shamsan and its comrades, and were making clouds of dust in the streets of Aden. In spite of the cantonments, the British Government House, and the European Church, it was an Oriental town pure and simple, where the slow-footed hours wandered by, leaving apathy in their train; where sloth and surfeit sat in the market-places; idle women gossiped in their doorways; and naked children rolled in the sun. Yet how, in the most unfamiliar places, does one wake suddenly to hear or see some most familiar thing, and learn again that the ways of all people and nations are not, after all, so far apart! Here three naked youths, with trays upon their heads, cried aloud at each doorway what, interpreted, was: "Pies! Hot pies! Pies all hot!"

or, "Crum-pet! Crumpet! Won't you buy-uy a crum-pet!"

One sees the same thing in Kandy, in Calcutta, in Tokio, in Istamboul, in Teheran, in Queensland, in London.

To us the great Tanks overlooking the place were more interesting than the town itself, and we drove thither. At Government House and here were the only bits of green that we had seen; they were, in fact, the only spots of verdure on the peninsula of Aden. It was a very sickly green, from which wan and dusty fig trees rose. In their scant shadow, or in the shelter of an overhanging ledge of rock, Arabs offered us draughts of cool water, and oranges. There were people in the sickly gardens, and others were inspecting the Tanks. Pa.s.sengers from the ship had brought luncheon-baskets to this sad oasis.

As we stood at the edge of one of the Tanks, Miss Treherne remarked with astonishment that they were empty. I explained to her that Aden did not have the benefits conferred even on the land of the seven fat and seven lean kine--that there had not been rain there for years, and that when it did come it was neither prolonged nor plentiful. Then came questions as to how long ago the Tanks were built.

"Thirteen hundred years!" she exclaimed. "How strange to feel it so! It is like looking at old graves. And how high the walls are, closing up the gorge between the hills."

At that moment Mrs. Callendar drew our attention to Mrs. Falchion and a party from the ship. Mrs. Falchion was but a few paces from us, smiling agreeably as she acknowledged our greetings. Presently two of her party came to us and asked us to share their lunch. I would have objected, and I am certain Belle Treherne would gladly have done so, but Mrs.

Callendar was anxious to accept, therefore we expressed our grat.i.tude and joined the group. On second thoughts I was glad that we did so, because, otherwise, my party must have been without refreshments until they returned to the ship--the restaurants at Aden are not to be trusted. To me Mrs. Falchion was pleasantly impersonal, to Miss Treherne delicately and actively personal. At the time I had a kind of fear of her interest in the girl, but I know now that it was quite sincere, though it began with a motive not very lofty--to make Belle Treherne her friend, and so annoy me, and also to study, as would an anatomist, the girl's life.

We all moved into the illusive shade of the fig and magnolia trees, and lunch was soon spread. As we ate, conversation turned upon the annoying persistency of Eastern guides, and reference was made to the exciting circ.u.mstances attending the engagement of Amshar, the guide of Mrs.

Falchion's party. Among a score of claimants, Amshar had had one particular opponent--a personal enemy--who would not desist even when the choice had been made. He, indeed, had been the first to solicit the party, and was rejected because of his disagreeable looks. He had even followed the trap from the Port of Aden. As one of the gentlemen was remarking on the muttered anger of the disappointed Arab, Mrs. Falchion.

said: "There he is now at the gate of the garden."

His look was sullenly turned upon our party. Blackburn, the Queenslander said, "Amshar, the other fellow is following up the game," and pointed to the gate.

Amshar understood the gesture at least, and though he gave a toss of the head, I noticed that his hand trembled as he handed me a cup of water, and that he kept his eyes turned on his opponent.

"One always feels unsafe with these cut-throat races," said Colonel Ryder, "as some of us know, who have had to deal with the n.i.g.g.e.r of South America. They think no more of killing a man--"

"Than an Australian squatter does of dispersing a mob of aboriginals or kangaroos," said Clovelly.

Here Mrs. Callendar spoke up briskly. "I don't know what you mean by 'dispersing.'"

"You know what a kangaroo battue is, don't you?"

"But that is killing, slaughtering kangaroos by the hundred."

"Well, and that is aboriginal dispersion," said the novelist. "That is the aristocratic method of legislating the native out of existence."

Blackburn here vigorously protested. "Yes, it's very like a novelist, on the hunt for picturesque events, to spend his forensic soul upon 'the poor native,'--upon the dirty n.i.g.g.e.r, I choose to call him: the meanest, cruellest, most cowardly, and murderous--by Jove, what a lot of adjectives!--of native races. But we fellows, who have lost some of the best friends we ever had--chums with whom we've shared blanket and tucker--by the crack of a nulla-nulla in the dark, or a spear from the scrub, can't find a place for Exeter Hall and its 'poor native' in our hard hearts. We stand in such a case for justice. It is a new country.

Not once in fifty times would law reach them. Reprisal and dispersion were the only things possible to men whose friends had been ma.s.sacred, and--well, they punished tribes for the acts of individuals."

Mrs. Falchion here interposed. "That is just what England does. A British trader is killed. She sweeps a native town out of existence with Hotchkiss guns--leaves it naked and dead. That is dispersion too; I have seen it, and I know how far n.i.g.g.e.rs as a race can be trusted, and how much they deserve sympathy. I agree with Mr. Blackburn."

Blackburn raised his gla.s.s. "Mrs. Falchion," he said, "I need no further evidence to prove my case. Experience is the best teacher."

"As I wish to join the chorus to so notable a compliment, will somebody pa.s.s the claret?" said Colonel Ryder, shaking the crumbs of a pate from his coat-collar. When his gla.s.s was filled, he turned towards Mrs.

Falchion, and continued: "I drink to the health of the best teacher."

And every one laughingly responded. This impromptu toast would have been drunk with more warmth, if we could have foreseen an immediate event.

Not less peculiar were Mrs. Falchion's words to Hungerford the evening before, recorded in the last sentence of the preceding chapter.

Cigars were pa.s.sed, and the men rose and strolled away. We wandered outside the gardens, pa.s.sing the rejected guide as we did so. "I don't like the look in his eye," said Clovelly.

Colonel Ryder laughed. "You've always got a fine vision for the dramatic."

We pa.s.sed on. I suppose about twenty minutes had gone when, as we were entering the garden again, we heard loud cries. Hurrying forward towards the Tanks, we saw a strange sight.

There, on a narrow wall dividing two great tanks, were three people--Mrs. Falchion, Amshar, and the rejected Arab guide. Amshar was crouching behind Mrs. Falchion, and clinging to her skirts in abject fear. The Arab threatened with a knife. He could not get at Amshar without thrusting Mrs. Falchion aside, and, as I said, the wall was narrow. He was bent like a tiger about to spring.

Seeing Mrs. Falchion and Amshar apart from the others,--Mrs. Falchion having insisted on crossing this narrow and precipitous wall,--he had suddenly rushed after them. As he did so, Miss Treherne saw him, and cried out. Mrs. Falchion faced round swiftly, and then came this tragic situation.

Some one must die.

Seeing that Mrs. Falchion made no effort to dislodge Amshar from her skirts, the Arab presently leaped forward. Mrs. Falchion's arms went out suddenly, and she caught the wrist that held the dagger. Then there was an instant's struggle. It was Mrs. Falchion's life now, as well as Amshar's. They swayed. They hung on the edge of the rocky chasm. Then we lost the gleam of the knife, and the Arab shivered, and toppled over.

Mrs. Falchion would have gone with him, but Amshar caught her about the waist, and saved her from the fall which would have killed her as certainly as it killed the Arab lying at the bottom of the tank. She had managed to turn the knife in the Arab's hand against his own breast, and then suddenly pressed her body against it; but the impulse of the act came near carrying her over also.

Amshar was kneeling at her feet, and kissing her gown gratefully. She pushed him away with her foot, and, coolly turning aside, began to arrange her hair. As I approached her, she glanced down at the Arab.

"Horrible! horrible!" she said. I remembered that these were her words when her husband was lifted from the sea to the 'Fulvia'.

Not ungently, she refused my hand or any a.s.sistance, and came down among the rest of the party. I could not but feel a strange wonder at the powerful side of her character just shown--her courage, her cool daring.

In her face now there was a look of annoyance, and possibly disgust, as well as of triumph--so natural in cases of physical prowess. Everybody offered congratulations, but she only showed real pleasure, and that mutely, at those of Miss Treherne. To the rest of us she said: "One had to save one's self, and Amshar was a coward."

And so this woman, whose hardness of heart and excessive cruelty Hungerford and I were keeping from the world, was now made into a heroine, around whom a halo of romance would settle whenever her name should be mentioned. Now, men, eligible and ineligible, would increase their homage. It seemed as if the stars had stopped in their courses to give her special fortune.

That morning I had thought her appearance at this luncheon-party was little less than scandalous, for she knew, if others did not, who Boyd Madras was. After the occurrence with the Arab, the other event was certainly much less prominent, and here, after many years, I can see that the act was less in her than it would have been in others. For, behind her outward hardness, there was a sort of justice working, an iron thing, but still not unnatural in her.

Belle Treherne awakened also to a new perception of her character, and a kind of awe possessed her, so masculine seemed her courage, yet so womanly and feminine her manner. Mrs. Callendar was loud in her exclamations of delight and wonder at Mrs. Falchion's coolness; and the bookmaker, with his usual impetuosity, offered to take bets at four to one that we should all be detained to give evidence in the matter.

Clovelly was silent. He occasionally adjusted his gla.s.ses, and looked at Mrs. Falchion as if he had suddenly come to a full stop in his opinions regarding her. This, I think, was noticed by her, and enjoyed too, for she doubtless remembered her conversation with me, in which she had said that Clovelly thought he understood her perfectly. Colonel Ryder, who was loyal at all times, said she had the nerve of a woman from Kentucky.

Moreover, he had presence of mind, for he had immediately sent off a native to inform the authorities of what had occurred; so that before we had got half-way to the town we were met by policemen running towards us, followed by a small detachment of Indian soldiers. The officer in command of the detachment stopped us, and said that the governor would be glad if we would come to Government House for an hour, while an inquiry was being held.

To this we cheerfully consented, of course; and, in a room where punkahs waved and cool claret-cup awaited us, we were received by the governor, who was full of admiration of Mrs. Falchion. It was plain, however, that he was surprised at her present equanimity. Had she no nerves at all?

"I can only regret exceedingly," said the governor, "that your visit to Aden has had such a tragical interruption; but since it has occurred, I am glad to have the privilege of meeting a lady so brave as Mrs.

Falchion."--The bookmaker had introduced us all with a naivete that, I am sure, amused the governor, as it certainly did his aide-de-camp. "We should not need to fear the natives if we had soldiers as fearless," his excellency continued.

At this point the inquiry began, and, after it was over, the governor said that there the matter ended so far as we were concerned, and then he remarked gallantly that the Government of Aden would always remain Mrs. Falchion's debtor. She replied that it was a debt she would be glad to preserve unsettled for ever. After this pretty exchange of compliments, the governor smiled, and offered her his arm to the door, where our 'char a bans' awaited us.

So impressed was the bookmaker with the hospitable reception the governor had given us, that he offered him his cigar-case with its contents, said he hoped they would meet again, and asked his excellency if he thought of coming to Australia. The governor declined the cigars graciously, ignored the hoped-for pleasure of another meeting, and trusted that it might fall to his lot to visit Australia some day.