Phroso Part 45

'Half as near as they were before.'

'Look round the sea. Are there any boats anywhere? Look all round.'

'There's nothing anywhere, my lord.'

'Then the game's up,' said I; and I rested on my oars and began to pant. I was not in training for a race.

The boat containing the soldiers drew near. Our boat, now motionless, awaited their coming. Phroso sank on the seat and sat with a despairing look in her eyes. But my mood was not the same. Mouraki was dead. I knew the change his death made was great. Mouraki was dead. I did not believe that there was another man in Neopalia who would dare to take any extreme step against me. For why had they not fired? They did not fire now, when they could have shot me through the head without difficulty and without danger.

Their boat came alongside of ours. I leant forward and touched Phroso's hand; she looked up.

'Courage,' said I. 'The braver we look the better we shall come off.'

Then I turned to the pursuers and regarded them steadily, waiting for them to speak. The first communication was in dumb show. The man who was steering--he appeared to be a subordinate officer--covered me with his barrel.

'I'm absolutely unarmed,' I said. 'You know that. You took my revolver away from me.'

'You're trying to escape,' said he, not shifting his aim.

'Where's your warrant for stopping me?' I demanded.

'The Pasha--'

'The Pasha's dead. Be careful what you do. I am an Englishman, and in my country I am as great a man as your Pasha was.' This a.s.sertion perhaps was on, or beyond, the confines of strict truth; it had considerable effect, however.

'You were our prisoner, my lord,' said the officer more civilly. 'We cannot allow you to escape. And this lady was a prisoner also. She is not English; she is of the island. And one of the islanders has slain the Pasha. She must answer for it.'

'What can she have had to do with it?'

'It may have been planned between her and the a.s.sa.s.sin.'

'Oh, and between me and the a.s.sa.s.sin too, perhaps?'

'Perhaps, my lord. It is not my place to inquire into that.'

I shrugged my shoulders with an appearance of mingled carelessness and impatience.

'Well, what do you want of us?' I asked.

'You must accompany us back to Neopalia.'

'Well, where did you suppose I was going? Is this a boat to go for a voyage in? Can I row a hundred miles to Rhodes? Come, you're a silly fellow!'

He was rather embarra.s.sed by my tone. He did not know whether to believe in my sincerity or not. Phroso caught the cue well enough to keep her tongue between her pretty lips, and her lids low over her wondering eyes.

'But,' I pursued in a tone of ironical remonstrance, 'are you going to leave the Pasha there? The other is a rogue and a murderer' (it rather went to my heart to describe the useful, if unscrupulous, Demetri in these terms); 'let him be. But does it suit the dignity of Mouraki Pasha to lie untended on the sh.o.r.e, while his men row off to the harbour? It will look as though you had loved him little. You, four of you, allow one man to kill him, and then you leave his body as if it were the body of a dog!'

I had no definite reason for wishing them to return and take up Mouraki's body; but every moment gained was something. Neopalia had bred in me a constant hope of new chances, of fresh turns, of a smile from fortune following quick on a frown. So I urged on them anything which would give a respite. My appeal was not wasted. The officer held a hurried whispered consultation with the soldier who sat on the seat next to him. Then he said:

'It is true, my lord. It is more fitting that we should carry the body back; but you must return with us.'

'With all my heart,' said I, taking up my sculls with alacrity.

The officer responded to this move of mine by laying his rifle in readiness across his knees; both boats turned, and we set out again for the beach. As soon as we reached it three of them went up the slope. I saw them kick Demetri's body out of the way; for he had fallen so that his arm was over the breast of his victim. Then they raised Mouraki and began to carry him down. Phroso hid her face in her hands. My eyes were on Mouraki's face; I watched him carried down to the boat, meditating on the strange toss-up which had allotted to him the fate which he had with such ruthless cunning prepared for me.

Suddenly I sprang up, leapt out of the boat, and began to walk up the slope. I pa.s.sed the soldiers who bore Mouraki. They paused in surprise and uneasiness. I walked briskly by, taking no notice of them, and came where Demetri's body lay. I knelt for a moment by him, and closed his eyes with my hand. Then I took off the silk scarf I was wearing and spread it over his face, and I rose to my feet again. Somehow I felt that I owed to Demetri some such small office of friendship as this that I was paying; and I found myself hoping that there had been good in the man, and that He who sees all of the heart would see good even in the wild desperate soul of Demetri of Neopalia. So I arranged the scarf carefully, and, turning, walked down the slope to the boats again, glad to be able to tell the girl Panayiota that somebody had closed her lover's eyes. Thus I left the friend that I knew not of.

Looking into my own heart, I did not judge him harshly. I had let the thing be done.

When I reached the beach, the soldiers were about to lay Mouraki's body in the larger of the two boats; but having nothing to cover his body with they proceeded to remove his undress frock coat and left it lying for an instant on the shingle while they lifted him in. Seeing that they were ready, I picked up the coat and handed it to them. They took it and arranged it over the trunk and head. Two of them got into the boat in which Phroso sat and signed to me to jump in. I was about to obey when I perceived a pocket-book lying on the shingle. It was not mine. Neither Demetri nor any of the soldiers was likely to carry a handsome morocco-leather case; it must have belonged to Mouraki and have fallen from his coat as I lifted it. It lay opened now, face upwards. I stooped for it, intending to give it to the officer. But an instant later it was in my pocket; and I, under the screen of a most innocent expression, was covertly watching my guards, to see whether they had detected my action. The two who rowed Mouraki had already started; the others had been taking their seats in the boat and had not perceived the swift motion with which I picked up the book. I walked past them and sat down behind them in the bows. Phroso was in the stern. One of them asked her, with a considerable show of respect, if she would steer. She a.s.sented with a nod. I crouched down low in the bows behind the backs of the soldiers; there I took out Mouraki's pocket-book and opened it. My action seemed, no doubt, not far removed from theft. But as the book lay open on the sh.o.r.e, I had seen in it something which belonged to me, something which was inalienably mine, of which no schemes or violence could deprive me: this was nothing else than my name.

Very quietly and stealthily I drew out a slip of paper; behind that was another slip, and again a third. They were cuttings from a Greek newspaper. Neither the name of the paper, nor the dates, nor the place of publication, appeared: the extracts were merely three short paragraphs. My name headed each of them. I had not been aware that any chronicle of my somewhat unexpected fortunes had reached the outer world; and I set myself to read with much interest. Great men may become indifferent as to what the papers say about them; I had never attained to this exalted state of mind.

'Let's have a look,' said I to myself, after a cautious glance over my shoulder at the other boat, which was several yards ahead.

The first paragraph ran thus: 'We regret to hear that Lord Wheatley, the English n.o.bleman who has recently purchased the island of Neopalia and taken up his residence there, is suffering from a severe attack of the fever which is at the present time prevalent in the island.'

'Now that's very curious,' I thought, for I had never enjoyed better health than during my sojourn in Neopalia. I turned with increased interest to the second cutting. I wanted to see what progress I had made in my serious sickness. Naturally I was interested.

'We greatly regret to announce that Lord Wheatley's condition is critical. The fever has abated, but the patient is dangerously prostrate.'

'It would be even more interesting if one had the dates,' thought I.

The last paragraph was extremely brief. 'Lord Wheatley died at seven o'clock yesterday morning.'

I lay back in the bows of the boat, holding these remarkable little slips of paper in my hand. They gave occasion for some thought. Then I replaced them in the pocket-book, and I had, I regret to say, the curiosity to explore further. I lifted the outer flap of leather and looked in the inner compartment. It held only a single piece of paper.

On the paper were four or five lines, not in print this time but in handwriting, and the handwriting looked very much like what I had seen over Mouraki's name.

'Report of Lord Wheatley's death unfounded. Reason to suspect intended foul play on the part of the islanders. The Governor is making inquiries. Lord Wheatley is carefully guarded, as attempts on his life are feared. Feeling in the island is much exasperated, the sale to Lord Wheatley being very unpopular.'

'There's another compartment yet,' said I to myself, and I turned to it eagerly. Alas, I was disappointed! There was a sheet of paper in it, but the paper was a blank. Yet I looked at the blank piece of paper with even greater interest; for I had little doubt that it had been intended to carry another message, a message which was true and no lie, which was to have been written this very morning by the dagger of Demetri. Something like this it would have run, would it not, in the terse style of my friend Mouraki Pasha? 'Lord Wheatley a.s.sa.s.sinated this morning. a.s.sa.s.sin killed by Governor's guards.

Governor is taking severe measures.'

Mouraki, Mouraki, in your life you loved irony, and in your death you were not divided from it! For while you lay a corpse in the stern of your boat, I lived to read those unwritten words on the blank paper in your pocket-book. At first Constantine had killed me--so I interpreted the matter--by fever; but later on that story would not serve, since Denny and Hogvardt and faithful Watkins knew that it was a lie.

Therefore the lie was declared a lie and you set yourself to prove again that truth is better than a lie--especially when a man can manufacture it to his own order. Yet, surely, Mouraki, if you can look now into this world, your smile will be a wry one! For, cunning as you were and full of twists, more cunning still and richer in expedients is the thing called fate; and the dagger of Demetri wrote another message to fill the blank sheet that your provident notebook carried!

Thinking thus, I put the book in my pocket, and looked round with a smile on my lips. I wished the man were alive that I might mock him. I grudged him the sudden death which fenced him from my triumphant raillery.

Suddenly, there in the bows of the boat, I laughed aloud, so that the soldiers turned startled faces over their shoulders and Phroso looked at me in wonder.

'It's nothing,' said I. 'Since I'm alive I may laugh, I suppose?'

Mouraki Pasha was not alive.

My reading and my meditation had pa.s.sed the time. Now we were round the point which had lain between us and the harbour, and were heading straight for the gunboat that was anch.o.r.ed just across the head of the jetty. Phroso's eyes met mine in an appeal. I could give her no hope of escape. There was nothing for it: we must go on, we and Mouraki together. But my heart was buoyant within me and I exulted in the favours of fortune as a lover in his mistress's smiles. Was not Mouraki lying dead in the stern of the boat and was not I alive?

We drew near to the gunboat. Now I perceived that her steam launch lay by her side and smoke poured from its funnel. Evidently the launch was ready for a voyage. Whither? Could it be to Rhodes? And did the pocket-book that I felt against my ribs by any chance contain the cargo which was to have been speeded on its way to-day? I laughed again as our boat came alongside, and a movement of excitement and interest rose from the deck of gunboat and launch alike.

The officer went on board the gunboat; for an hour or more we sat where we were, sheltered by the side of the vessel from the heat of the sun, for it was now noon. What was happening on board I could not tell, but there was stir and bustle. The excitement seemed to grow.

Presently it spread from the vessel to the sh.o.r.e and groups of islanders began to collect. I saw men point at Phroso, at me, at the stiffened figure under the coat. They spoke also, and freely; more boldly than I had heard them since Mouraki had landed and his presence turned their fierce pride to meekness. It was as though a weight had been lifted off them. I knew, from my own mind, the relief that came to them by the death of the hard man and the removal of the ruthless arm. Presently a boat put off and began to pull round the promontory.

The soldiers did not interfere, but watched it go in idle toleration.

I guessed its errand: it went to take up the corpse of Demetri, and (I was much afraid) to give it a patriot's funeral.