Play the Game! Part 22

I'm a son of a son of a son of a gun of a son of a Gambolier,

sang Jimsy King. He looked at every one but Honor.

Like every honest fellow, I love my lager beer----

--"And my 'skee!" he patted the decanter.

Madeline King put her arms about Honor. "Come away, my dear," she said.

"Come upstairs."

"No," Jimsy protested. "Don' go 'way. Got somep'n tell you. Shee this fool Injun here? Know wha' he's goin' do? Goin' slide out'n creep down to ol' well. Says _insur_--_insur-rectos_ all pretty drunk now ...

pretty sleepy.... Fool Injun's goin' take three--four--'leven canteens ... bring water back for you. Not f' me! _I_ got somep'n better. 'Sides, he'll get killed ... nice'n dead ... _fancy_ dead ... cut ears off ...

cut tongue out firs'! Not f' me! _I'm_ goin' sleep pret' soon. Firs'

I'll shing you lil' more!" Again the rasping travesty of melody:

Some die of drinkin' whisky, Some die of drinkin' beer!

Some die of diabetes, An' some----

"Shut up, you drunken fool!" said Carter, furiously.

"Oh," said Jimsy, blinking his eyes rapidly, bowing deeply. "Ladies present. I shee. My mishtake. My mishtake, ladies! Well, guesh I go sleep now. Come on. Yac', put me to bed 'fore you go. Give you lil'

treat. All work'n no play makes Yac' a dull boy!" He roared over his own wit. The Indian, his face impa.s.sive, had risen to his feet and now Jimsy cast himself into his arms and insisted on kissing him good-night, clinging all the while to the decanter with its half inch of whisky.

Carter wrenched it away from him. "You'll kill yourself," he said, in cold disgust.

"Well," said his friend, reasonably, "ishn't that the big idea? Wouldn'

you razzer drink yourself to death'n die of thirst?"

They were making for the door now in a zigzag course, and when they pa.s.sed Honor, Jimsy stayed their progress. He held out his hand and spoke to her, but he did not meet her eyes. "Gimme ring," he said, crossly.

"What do you mean?" said Honor.

"Gimme back ring ... busted word ... busted engagement ... want ring _anyway_ ... maybe nozzer girl ... _you_ can't tell!" His hoa.r.s.e voice rose querulously. "Gimme ring, I shay!"

Honor shrank back from him against Mrs. King. "Jimsy," she said, "when the boy that gave me this ring comes and asks me for it, he can have it.

_You_ can't!"

His legs seemed to give way beneath him, at that, and Yaqui Juan half led, half dragged him out of the room.

Mrs. King wept again but Honor's eyes were dry. Carter started to speak to her but she stopped him. "Please, Carter ... I can't ... talk. I think I'd like to be alone."

"Oh, my dear, please come up with me," Mrs. King begged, "it's so cold here, and----"

"I have to be alone," said Honor in her worn voice.

"Then you must have this," said the older woman, finding comfort in wrapping her in her own _serape_. It was a gay thing, striped in red and white and green, the Mexican colors; it looked as if it had been made to wear in happy days.

They went away and left her alone in the _sala_. She didn't know how long she had sat there when she saw a m.u.f.fled figure crawling across the veranda. She opened the door and stepped out, nodding to the _peon_ on guard there, leaning on his gun. "Juan?" she called softly.

The crouching, cringing figure hesitated. "Si," came the soft whisper.

He kept his head shrouded. She knew that he was sick with shame for the lad he had worshiped; he did not want to meet her gaze. She could understand that. It did not seem to her that she could ever meet any one's eyes again--kind Mrs. King's, Carter's--her dear Stepper's.

Suddenly it came to her with a positive sense of relief and escape that perhaps there would be no need for facing any one after to-night....

Perhaps this was to be the last night of all nights. It might well be, when Jimsy King slept in a drunken stupor and a Yaqui Indian slave went out with his life in his hands to help them. She crossed the veranda and leaned down and laid her hand on the covered head. Her throat was so swollen now that she could hardly make herself heard. "_Tu es amigo leal, Juan_," she said. "Good friend; good friend!" Then in her careful Spanish--"Go with G.o.d!"

He had been always an impa.s.sive creature, Yaqui Juan, his own personal sufferings added to the native stoicism of his race, but he made an odd, smothered sound now, and caught up the trailing end of her bright _serape_ and pressed his face against it for an instant. Then he crept away into the soft blackness of the tropic night and Honor went back into the empty _sala_. She wished that she had seen his face; she was mournfully sure she would never see it again. It did not seem humanly possible for any one to go into the very midst of their besiegers encamped about the well, fill the canteens and return alive, but it was a gallant and splendid try, and she would have liked a memory of his grave face. It would have blotted out the look of Jimsy King's face, singing his tipsy song. She thought she would keep on seeing that as long as she lived, and that made it less terrible to think that she might not live many more hours.

CHAPTER XV

They would not leave her alone. Carter came to stay with her and she sent him away, and then Madeline King came, her very blue eyes red rimmed and deep with understanding, but Honor could not talk with her nor listen to her. She went away, shaking her head, and Josita came in her place. Honor did not mind the little Mexican serving woman. She did not try to talk to her. She just crouched on the floor at her feet and prayers slipped from her tongue and her fingers:

_Padre Nuestra qui estas en los cielos--_

and presently:

_Santa Maria--_

Honor found herself listening a little scornfully. Was there indeed a Father in the heavens or anywhere else who concerned Himself about things like this? Josita seemed to think so. She was in terror, but she was clinging to something ... somewhere.... Honor decided that she did not mind the murmur of her voice; she could go on with her thinking just the same. _Jimsy._ _Jimsy King_--Jimsy--"Wild"--King. What was she going to do? What had she promised Stepper that day on the way to the train?

It all came back to her like a scene on the screen--the busy streets--the feel of the wheel in her hands again--Stepper's slow voice--"But, if the worst should be true, if the boy really has gone to pieces, you won't marry him?" And her own words--"No; if Jimsy should be--like his father--I wouldn't marry him, Stepper. There shouldn't be any _more_ 'Wild Kings.'"

That was her promise to her stepfather, her best friend. But what had been her promise to Jimsy, that day on the sh.o.r.e below the Malibou Ranch when they sat in the little pocket of rocks and sand and sun, and he had given her the ring with the clasped hands? Hadn't she said--"I do believe you, Jimsy. I'll never stop believing you!" Yes, but how was she to go on believing that he would not do the thing she saw him do? How compa.s.s that? Her love and loyalty began to fling themselves against that solid wall of ugly fact and to fall back, bruised, breathless.

Jimsy King of the hard muscles and winged heels, the essence of strength and sunny power; Jimsy King, collapsed in the arms of Yaqui Juan, failing her in the hour of her direst need. Jimsy, her lover, who had promised her she should never go alive into those dark and terrible hands ... Jimsy, who could not lift a finger now to defend her, or to put her beyond their grasp. It became intolerable to sit still. She sprang up and began to walk swiftly from wall to wall of the big room, her heels tapping sharply on the smooth red tiles. Josita lifted mournful eyes to stare at her for an instant and then returned to her beads. Honor paused and looked out of the window. She could see nothing through the inky blackness. Perhaps Yaqui Juan was creeping back to them now, the canteens of precious water hung about his neck,--and perhaps he was dead. There had been no shots, but they would not necessarily shoot him. There were other ... awfuller ways. And Jimsy King was asleep. What would he be like when he wakened, when he came to himself again? Could he ever face her? Would he _live_?... And suppose she cast him off,--then, what? She would go back to Italy, to the mountainous _Signorina_. She would embrace her warmly and there would emanate from her the faint odor of expensive soap and rare and costly scents, and she would pat her with a puffy hand and say--"So, my good small one? The sun has set, no? Ah, then, it does not signify whether one feel joy or sorrow, so long as one feels. To feel ... that is to live, and to live is to sing!" And she would go to work again, and sing in concert, and take the place offered to her in the opera. And some day, when she went for a holiday to Switzerland (she supposed she would still go on holidays; people did, no matter what had happened to them) she would meet Ethel Bruce-Drummond, hale and frank as the wind off the snow, and she would say--"But where's your boy? I say, you haven't thrown him over, have you?"

Well, could you throw over what fell away from you? Could you? She realized that she was gripping the old ring with the thumb and fingers of her right hand, literally "holding hard." Was this what James King had meant? Had Jeanie King, Jimsy's firm-chinned Scotch mother who so nearly saved her man, had she held on in times like this? Surely no "Wild King" had ever failed his woman as Jimsy had failed her, in the face of such hideous danger. But did that absolve her? After all (her love and loyalty flung themselves again against the wall and it seemed to give, to sway) _was_ it Jimsy who had failed her? Wasn't it the taint in his blood, the dead hands reaching up out of the grave, the cruel certainty that had hemmed him in all his days,--the bitter man-made law that he must follow in the unsteady footsteps of his forbears?

It wasn't Jimsy! Not _himself_; not the real boy, not the real man. It was the pitiful counterpart of him. The real Jimsy was there, underneath, buried for the moment,--buried forever unless she stood by!

(The wall was swaying now, giving way, crumbling.) Her pride in him was gone, perhaps, and something of her triumphant faith, but her loyalty was there and her love was there, bruised and battered and breathless; not the rosy, untried, laughing love of that far-away day in the sand and sun; a grave love, scarred, weary, argus-eyed. (The wall was down now, a heap of stones and mortar.) She went upstairs to Jimsy's room and knocked on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again, and after an instant she tried to open it. It was locked, and she could not rouse him, and a sense of bodily sickness overcame her for the moment.

Madeline King came out of her husband's room and hurried to her. "Ah, I wouldn't, my dear," she said. "Wait until he--wait a little while." She put her arm about her and pulled her gently away.

"I'll wait," said Honor in her rasping whisper. "I'll wait for him, no matter how long it is."

The Englishwoman's eyes filled. "My dear!" she said. "Do you mind sitting with Richard a few moments? I find it steadies me to move about a bit."

"Of course I'll sit with him," said Honor, docilely, "but I'll always be waiting for Jimsy." She sat down beside Richard King and took up the fan.