The Three Sapphires Part 38

"You must get it from my father."

"I don't like dot; some one is a liar!"

The girl's silence at this brutality but increased Boelke's ugliness.

"Your fadder don't trust me. Being a thief himself, und a traitor, he pays me der same compliment--he refuse to deliver der paper till der money is paid. Here is der rupees, und I vant der paper." His heavy knuckles beat upon the table.

"You must wait, then, till he comes."

"He toldt me you had der paper still--for fear he might be robbed, I suppose. Vhere is it?"

"It is hidden."

"Get it; der rajah vaits."

The girl sat with no movement of response. Finnerty could see her face draw into a cast of resolve. Both he and Foley felt that it would be better to wait for the girl to leave the room before they rushed upon Boelke; there might be shooting.

The doctor's rage increased. "If your fadder is traitor to me--if der paper is not produced in five minutes, I vill send out word that he be shot on sight, und between you two ve vill find der paper." Boelke sat back in his chair with a snorting growl.

"Listen to me, Herr Boelke," the girl said in a voice clean cutting as a steel tool that rips iron. "My father is acting loyal to you, though he is a traitor to his own government. He stole that paper because he faced what he called dishonour over gambling debts, and I was blamed for taking it. I was the one who faced dishonour, and, through me, Lord Gilfain. I escaped and made my way to India under false names, not to help, as you thought, but to recover that paper and give it back to the government or destroy it."

"Haf you destroyed it?"

"You will never get it, Herr Boelke. I have to tell you this--that you may know my father did not act the traitor to you."

"Ha, ha! You are as mad as your fadder. If der paper is not here in five minutes do you know vat vill happen you?"

"I am not afraid; I took all these risks when I came here to clear my name."

"Here is der money--my time is short."

Twice Foley had laid a hand on Finnerty's arm in restraint.

"Never! I swear it. I am not afraid."

"No; like your fadder you haf not fear or sense. But vait. You do not fear for your own life--I know dot--but vill you trade dot paper for der life of der man you love--Major Finnerty?" The listeners heard a gasp.

"I mean dot. He und der udder fool, Svinton, is below in a cell--caught dere as spies--und to-morrow dey vill be shot as spies. Dey took care dot n.o.body see dem go in, und I vill take care dot n.o.body see dem come out."

A ghastly silence followed, only broken by the sound of the girl's breathing.

Boelke waited to let this filter through her brain to her heart.

Then she said in a voice that carried no convincing force: "You are lying to frighten me."

"I vill prove it to yourself. You haf on der riding habit, und now I know you haf been riding to deliver dot paper to der major; but you did not meet him because he is a prisoner below."

Again there was the hush of a debate in the girl's mind; then she said: "If you will bring Major Finnerty and Captain Swinton from below, through that door, and let them go as free men, and will swear to not pursue them, I will give--get the paper, and----"

"_Ach, Gott!_ You haf der paper! You put your hand to your breast!"

The girl cried out, startled, frightened, as Boelke's gorilla form flung his chair back. He saw the rush of Finnerty and threw back the drawer of his desk; it was empty--Foley had taken the Mauser.

"If you open your mouth, you're a dead man!" Finnerty declared; then adding, for relief: "You hound!"

The girl, who had backed to the wall, dropped to a chair, burying her face in an arm on the desk, swept by a flood of confusion and relief.

Foley transferred the packages of rupee notes to his pockets, saying: "I've delivered the paper in Darpore, and am taking my fee," while Boelke sat blinking into a pistol that stared at him four feet away.

Finnerty said: "We're going to gag and bind you, so make no outcry."

When this little matter was attended to, the doctor was dumped into a big closet and the door locked.

"I'll have a look at the outside, major," Foley said. "Fancy I heard some one prowling."

When the curtain slipped back to place, blotting out Foley, Finnerty gave an inward gasp; he was left alone with the girl whom he had heard offer to barter her more than life--her reputation--for his life. A dew of perspiration stood out on his forehead; he trembled; the shyness that had been a curse to him from his boyhood made him a veritable coward. He was alone with the girl in an atmosphere of love--the most dreaded word in the whole English lexicon.

Marie held the paper in her hand, looking upon it as though she were crystal gazing, using it as a magnet to focus her own mult.i.tudinous emotions. Before her stood a man that was like a Greek G.o.d--the man who had twice saved her life; though the saving of her life, while it would have wakened feelings of deep grat.i.tude, could not have filled her soul with the pa.s.sionate yearning that was there--the surging soul warmth that submerges everything.

The man was like a child. Words utterly failed to shape themselves into a fitting coherence for utterance. He stepped to the wall and swung the little Ganesha panel, peering vacantly into the dark pa.s.sage. He came back and gazed out into the hall.

"I want to tell you something----" The girl's voice startled him as though he had been struck; his nerves were frightful. "I want to tell you," she said again, a wan smile striving to master her trembling lips, "why I didn't give up this paper on the trail to-day."

"I understand," he interrupted; "it would not have cleared you."

"No; Captain Swinton would have thought that I had given it up under compulsion. But if I had lost it, all I have gone through would have been for nothing. That's what frightened me so when Doctor Boelke discovered I had it. I did wrong in keeping it; I was selfish."

The girl's tensed nerves were being slacked by her words; expression was easing the tightened coils as the striking of a clock unwinds the spring; the relief was loosening tears; they flooded the great dark eyes, and one had fallen on the paper, for an instant like a pearl before it was absorbed.

This trivial thing was a power that swept away the bondage of shyness that held the giant. He put his hand on the girl's shoulder; his voice was trembling. "Marie," he said, "I must speak--something. Don't mind, colleen, if you can't understand what I say, for I feel just like a boy at home in Ireland. I'm just mad with love for you; I can't live without you. All my life I've been alone. I love beautiful things--birds and trees and flowers and animals--and I've starved here, where all is treachery and work--nothing but just work."

It was a torrent, words trembling from the lips of a man whose soul was on fire, and the blue eyes had turned deep like rich sapphires.

The girl rose from her chair and stood against the wall, holding up her hand as if she would repel him, crying: "You mustn't say that; you must not! Oh, my G.o.d! Why didn't you let me die--why did you save my life, that I might now know the bitterness of living!"

Finnerty recoiled. His hand caught the corner of the desk; his voice was husky, full of despair: "You don't--don't--I'm too late? Is it Lord Victor that----"

"There is no one!" The girl's voice was almost fierce.

"What is it, then? Am I not worthy----"

"It is I who am not worthy. _You_ not worthy? And you heard, standing behind the curtain, that I bargained my all for your life."

"Yes, I heard that. Then how are you not worthy of the love of a man if he were a hundred times better than I am?"

"You could not marry me. My father was a traitor, a gambler--we are the same blood."

Finnerty took a step forward and grasped the girl's wrist. The touch steadied him. "Hush, colleen; don't say that. Your father was just a brave, generous Irishman when I knew him before the gambling got into his blood. Fear he did not know. He didn't know how to do a mean act; he'd give away his last penny--the gambling got into his blood. Wasn't that what got him into this? It was India that scorched and seared his soul--the life here. The others had money, and here they lavish it, throw it about, gamble. He tried to keep his end up, for he was game. He was unlucky--it was a second name for him in the service--'Unlucky'

Foley. I tell you it got into his blood, the wild Irish blood that boils so easily--that is not cold and sluggish from dilution from the essence of self."