The Wages of Virtue Part 22

CHAPTER VII

THE SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING

Legionnaire John Bull sat on the edge of his cot at the hour of _astiquage_. Though his body was in the _chambree_ of the Seventh Company, his mind, as usual, was in England, and his thoughts, as usual, played around the woman whom he knew as Marguerite, and the world as Lady Huntingten.

What _could_ he do next year when his third and last period of Legion service expired? Where could he possibly hide in such inviolable anonymity that there was no possible chance of any rumour arising that the dead Sir Montague Merline was in the land of the living? ... How had it happened that he had survived the wounds and disease that he had suffered in Tonkin, Madagascar, Dahomey, and the Sahara--the stake-trap pit into which he had fallen at Nha-Nam--the bullet in his neck from the Malagasy rifle--the hack from the _coupe-coupe_ which had split his collar-bone in that ghastly West African jungle--the lance-thrust that had torn his arm from elbow to shoulder at Elsefra?

It was an absolute and undeniable fact that the man who desired to die in battle could never do it; while he who had everything to live for, was among the first to fall. If they went South again to-morrow and were cut up in a sudden Arab _razzia_, he would be the sole survivor.

But if a letter arrived on the previous day, stating that Lord Huntingten was dead leaving no children, and that Lady Huntingten had just heard of his survival and longed for his return--would he survive that fight? Most certainly not.

What to do at the end of the fifteenth year of his service? His face had been far too well known among the cla.s.s of people who pa.s.sed through Ma.r.s.eilles to India and elsewhere--who winter on the Riviera, who golf at Biarritz, who recuperate at Vichy or Aix, who go to Paris in the Spring; and who, in short, are to be found in various parts of France at various times of the year--for him to dream of using the Legion's free pa.s.s to any part of France. The risk might be infinitesimal, but it existed, and he would run no risk of ruining Marguerite's life, after more than twenty-five years.

She must be over forty-five now.... Had time dealt kindly with her?

Was she as beautiful as ever? Sure to be. Marguerite was of the type that would ripen, mature, and improve until well on into middle life.

Who was the eminent man who said that a woman was not interesting until she was forty?...

What would he not give for a sight of Marguerite? It would be easy enough, next year. Only next year--and it was a thousand to one, a million to one, against anyone recognising him if he were well disguised and thoroughly careful. Just one sight of Marguerite--after more than twenty-five years! Had he not made sacrifices enough? Might he not take _that_ much reward for half a lifetime of life in death--a lifetime which his body dragged wretchedly and wearily along among the dregs of the earth, while his mind haunted the home of his wife, a home in which another man was lord and master. Was it much to ask--one glimpse of his wife after twenty-seven years of renunciation?

"Miserable, selfish cur!" he murmured aloud as he melted a piece of wax in the flame of a match. "You would risk the happiness of your wife, your old friend, and their children--all absolutely innocent of wrong--for the sake of a minute's self-indulgence.... Be ashamed of yourself, you whining weakling...."

It had become a habit of Legionnaire John Bull to talk to himself aloud, when alone--a habit he endeavoured to check as he had recently, on more than one occasion, found himself talking aloud in the company of others.

Having finished the polishing of his leather-work, he took his Lebel rifle from the rack and commenced to clean it. As he threw open the chamber, he paused, the bolt in his right hand, the rifle balanced in his left. Someone was running with great speed along the corridor toward the room. What was up? Was it a case of _Faites le sac_? Would the head of an excited and delighted Legionary be thrust in at the door with a yell of--"_Aux armes! Faites le sac_"?

The door burst open and in rushed Mikhail Kyrilovitch, bare-headed, coatless, with staring eyes and blanched cheeks.

"Save me, save me, Monsieur," he shrieked, rushing towards the old Legionary. "Save me--_I am a woman_...."

"Good G.o.d!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Legionary John Bull, involuntarily glancing from the face to the flat chest of the speaker.

"I am a girl," sobbed the _soi-disant_ Mikhail.... "I am a girl.... And that loathsome beast Luigi Rivoli has found me out.... He's coming....

He chased me.... What shall I do? What _shall_ I do? Poor Feodor...."

As Legionnaire Luigi Rivoli entered the room, panting slightly with his unwonted exertions, the girl crouched behind John Bull, her face in her hands, her body shaken by deep sobs. It had all happened so quickly that John Bull found himself standing with his gun balanced, still in the att.i.tude into which he had frozen on hearing the running feet without.

So it had come, had it--and he was to try conclusions with Luigi Rivoli at last? Well, it should be no inconclusive rough-and-tumble. Perhaps this was the solution of his problem, and might settle, once and for all, the question of his future?

"Ho-ho! Ho-ho!" roared the Neapolitan, "she's your girl, is she, you _aristocratico Inglese_? Ho-ho! You are _faisant Suisse_ are you?

Ho-ho! Your own private girl in the very _chambree_! Corpo di Bacco!

You shall learn the penalty for breaking the Legion's first law of share-and-share-alike. Get out of my way, _cane Inglese_."

John Bull closed the breech of his rifle, and pointed the weapon at Rivoli's broad breast.

"Stand back," he said quietly. "Stand back, you foul-mouthed sc.u.m of Naples, or I'll blow your dirty little soul out of your greasy carcase."

He raised his voice slightly. "Stand back, you dog, do you hear?" he added, advancing slightly towards his opponent.

Luigi Rivoli gave ground. The rifle might be loaded. You never knew with these cursed, quiet Northerners, with their cold, pale eyes....

The rifle might be loaded.... Rivoli was well aware that every Legionary makes it his business to steal a cartridge sooner or later, and keeps it by him for emergencies, be they of suicide, murder, self-defence, or desertion.... The Englishman had been standing in the att.i.tude of one who loads a rifle at the moment of his entrance.

Perhaps his girl had told him of the discovery and a.s.sault, and he had been loading the rifle to avenge her.

"Listen to me, Luigi Rivoli," said John Bull, still holding the rifle within a foot of the Italian's breast. "Listen, and I'll tell you what you are. Then I will tell the Section what you are, when they come in.... Then I will tell the whole Company.... Then I will stand on a table in the Canteen and shout it, night after night.... This is what you are. You are a coward. A _coward_, d'you hear?--a miserable, shrinking, frightened coward, who dare not fight...."

"Fight! _Iddio_! _Fight_! Put down that rifle and I'll tear you limb from limb. Come down into the square and I will break your back. Come down now--and fight for the girl."

"... A trembling, frightened coward who dare not fight, and who calls punching, and hugging and kicking 'fighting.' I challenge you to fight, Luigi Rivoli, with rifles--at one hundred yards and no cover; or with revolvers, at ten paces; or with swords of any sort or kind--if it's only sword-bayonets. Will you fight, or will you be known as _Rivoli the Coward_ throughout both Battalions of the Legion?"

Rivoli half-crouched for a spring, and straightway the rifle sprang to the Englishman's shoulder, as his eyes blazed and his fingers fell round the trigger. Rivoli recoiled.

"I don't want to shoot you, unarmed, Coward," he said quietly. "I am going to shoot you, or stab you, or slash you, in fair fight--or else you shall kneel and be christened _Rivoli the Coward_ on the barrack square.... I've had enough of you, and so has everybody--unless it's your gang of pimps.... Now go. Go on--get out.... Go on--before I lose patience. Clear out--and make up your mind whether you will fight or be christened."

"Oh, I'll fight you--you mangy old cur. You are brave enough with a loaded rifle, eh? Mother of Christ! I'll send you where the birds won't trouble you.... Shoot me in the back as I go, Brave Man with a Gun"--and Luigi Rivoli departed, in a state of horrid doubt and perturbation.... This cursed Englishman meant what he said....

Legionary John Bull lowered his rifle with a laugh, and became aware of the fact that the Russian girl was hugging his leg in a way which would have effectually hampered him in the event of a struggle, and which made him feel supremely ridiculous.

"Get up, _pet.i.te_," he said bending over her, as she lay moaning and weeping. "It's all right--he's gone. He won't trouble you again, for I am going to kill him. Come and lie on your bed and tell me all about it.... We must make up our minds as to what will be the best thing to do.... Rivoli will tell everybody."

He helped the girl to her feet, partly led and partly carried her to her bed, and laid her on it.

Holding his lean brown hand between her little ones, in a voice broken and choked with sobs, she told him something of her story--a sad little story all too common.

The listener gathered that the two were children of a prominent revolutionary who had disappeared into Siberia, after what they considered a travesty of a trial. They had been students at the University of Moscow, and had followed in their father's political footsteps from the age of sixteen. Their youth and inexperience, their fanatical enthusiasm, and their unselfish courage, had, in a few years, brought them to a point at which they must choose between death or the horrors of prison and Siberia on the one hand, and immediate flight, and most complete and utter evanishment on the other. When his beloved twin sister had been chosen by the Society as an "instrument," Feodor's heart had failed him. He had disobeyed the orders of the Central Committee; he had coerced the girl; he had made disclosures.

They had escaped to Paris. Before long it had been a question as to whether they were in more imminent and terrible danger from the secret agents of the Russian police or from those of the Nihilists. The sight of the notice, "_Bureau de recruitment. Engagements volontaires_," over the door of a dirty little house in the Rue St. Dominique had suggested the Legion Etrangere, and a possible means of escape and five years'

safety.

But the Medical Examination? ...

Accompanied by a fellow-fugitive who was on his way to America, Feodor had gone to the Bureau and they had enlisted, pa.s.sed the doctor, and received railway-pa.s.ses to Ma.r.s.eilles, made out in the names of Feodor and Mikhail Kyrilovitch; sustenance money; and orders to proceed by the night train from the Gare de Lyons and report at Fort St. Jean in the morning, if not met at the station by a Sergeant of the Legion. Their compatriot had handed his travelling warrant to the girl (dressed in a suit of Feodor's) ind had seen the twins off at the Gare de Lyons with his blessing....

Monsieur Jean Boule knew the rest, and but for this hateful, b.e.s.t.i.a.l Luigi Rivoli, all might have been well, for she was very strong, and had meant to be very brave. Now, what should she do; what _should_ she do?

... And what would poor Feodor say when he came in from corvee and found that she had let herself get caught like this at last? ... What could they do?

And indeed, Sir Montague Merline did not know what a lady could do when discovered in a _chambree_ of a _caserne_ of the French Foreign Legion in Sidi-bel-Abbes. He did not know in the least. There was first the att.i.tude of the authorities to consider, and then that of the men.

Would a Court Martial hold that, having behaved as a man, she should be treated as one, and kept to her bargain, or sent to join the Zephyrs?

Would they imprison her for fraud? Would they repatriate her? Would they communicate with the Russian police? Or would they just fling her out of the barrack-gate and let her go? There was probably no precedent, whatever, to go upon.

And supposing the matter were hushed up in the _chambree_, and the authorities never knew--would life be livable for the girl? Could he, and Rupert, the Bucking Bronco, Herbert Higgins, Feodor, and perhaps one or two of the more decent foreigners, such as Hans Djoolte, and old Tant-de-Soif, ensure her a decent life, free from molestation and annoyance? No, it couldn't be done. Life would be rendered utterly impossible for her by gross animals of the type of Rivoli, Malvin, the _Apache_, Hirsch, Bauer, Borges, and the rest of Rivoli's sycophants.

It was sufficiently ghastly, and almost unthinkable, to imagine a woman in that sink when n.o.body dreamed she was anything but what she seemed.

How could one contemplate a woman, who was _known_ to be a woman, living her life, waking and sleeping, in such a situation? The more devotedly her bodyguard shielded and protected her, the more venomously determined would the others be to annoy, insult and injure her in a thousand different ways. It would be insupportable, impossible.... But of course it could not be kept from the authorities for a week. What was to be done?

As he did his utmost to soothe the weeping girl, clumsily patting her back, stroking her hands, and murmuring words of comfort and promises of protection, Merline longed for the arrival of Rupert. He wanted to take counsel with another English gentleman as to the best thing to be done for this unfortunate woman. He dared not leave her weeping there alone.

Anybody might enter at any moment. Rivoli might return with the choicest scoundrels of his gang.... Why did not the Bucking Bronco turn up?

When he and Rupert arrived there would be an accession of brawn and of brains that would be truly welcome.