The Crushed Flower and Other Stories Part 28

ABBOT--Robber! Give us back the money. You will rob more for yourself, but give this money to us. You are young yet, you will rob some more yet--

HAGGART--You are insane! There's a man--he will drive the devil himself to despair! Listen, priest, I am shouting to you: You have simply lost your mind!

The abbot, still kneeling, continues:

"Perhaps, I have--by G.o.d, I don't know. Robber, dearest, what is this to you? Give us this money. I feel sorry for them, for the scoundrels!

They rejoiced so much, the scoundrels. They blossomed forth like an old blackthorn which has nothing but thorns and a ragged bark. They are sinners. But am I imploring G.o.d for their sake? I am imploring you.

Robber, dearest--"

Mariet looks now at Haggart, now at the priest. Haggart is hesitating.

The abbot keeps muttering:

"Robber, do you want me to call you son? Well, then--son--it makes no difference now--I will never see you again. It's all the same! Like an old blackthorn, they bloomed--oh, Lord, those scoundrels, those old scoundrels!"

"No," Haggart replied sternly.

"Then you are the devil, that's who you are. You are the devil," mutters the abbot, rising heavily from the ground. Haggart shows his teeth, enraged.

"Do you wish to sell your soul to the devil? Yes? Eh, abbot--don't you know yet that the devil always pays with spurious money? Let me have a torch, sailor!"

He seizes a torch and lifts it high over his head--he covers his terrible face with fire and smoke.

"Look, here I am! Do you see? Now ask me, if you dare!"

He flings the torch away. What does the abbot dream in this land full of monstrous dreams? Terrified, his heavy frame trembling, helplessly pushing the people aside with his hands, he retreats. He turns around.

Now he sees the glitter of the metal, the dark and terrible faces; he hears the angry splashing of the waters--and he covers his head with his hands and walks off quickly. Then Khorre jumps up and strikes him with a knife in his back.

"Why have you done it?"--the abbot clutches the hand that struck him down.

"Just so--for nothing!"

The abbot falls to the ground and dies.

"Why have you done it?" cries Mariet.

"Why have you done it?" roars Haggart.

And a strange voice, coming from some unknown depths, answers with Khorre's lips:

"You commanded me to do it."

Haggart looks around and sees the stern, dark faces, the quivering glitter of the metal, the motionless body; he hears the mysterious, merry dashing of the waves. And he clasps his head in a fit of terror.

"Who commanded? It was the roaring of the sea. I did not want to kill him--no, no!"

Sombre voices answer:

"You commanded. We heard it. You commanded."

Haggart listens, his head thrown back. Suddenly he bursts into loud laughter:

"Oh, devils, devils! Do you think that I have two ears in order that you may lie in each one? Go down on your knees, rascal!"

He hurls Khorre to the ground.

"String him up with a rope! I would have crushed your venomous head myself--but let them do it. Oh, devils, devils! String him up with a rope."

Khorre whines harshly:

"Me, Captain! I was your nurse, Noni."

"Silence! Rascal!"

"I? Noni! Your nurse? You squealed like a little pig in the cook's room.

Have you forgotten it, Noni?" mutters the sailor plaintively.

"Eh," shouts Haggart to the stern crowd. "Take him!"

Several men advance to him. Khorre rises.

"If you do it to me, to your own nurse--then you have recovered, Noni!

Eh, obey the captain! Take me! I'll make you cry enough, Tommy! You are always the mischief-maker!"

Grim laughter. Several sailors surround Khorre as Haggart watches them sternly. A dissatisfied voice says:

"There is no place where to hang him here. There isn't a single tree around."

"Let us wait till we get aboard ship! Let him die honestly on the mast."

"I know of a tree around here, but I won't tell you," roars Khorre hoa.r.s.ely. "Look for it yourself! Well, you have astonished me, Noni. How you shouted, 'String him up with a rope!' Exactly like your father--he almost hanged me, too. Good-bye, Noni, now I understand your actions.

Eh, gin! and then--on the rope!"

Khorre goes off. No one dares approach Haggart; still enraged, he paces back and forth with long strides. He pauses, glances at the body and paces again. Then he calls:

"Flerio! Did you hear me give orders to kill this man?"

"No, Captain."

"You may go."

He paces back and forth again, and then calls:

"Flerio! Have you ever heard the sea lying?"

"No."

"If they can't find a tree, order them to choke him with their hands."