The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Derelict, by Bertram Mitford

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Title: The Red Derelict

Author: Bertram Mitford

Release Date: July 3, 2011 [EBook #36588]

Language: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RED DERELICT ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Red Derelict
By Bertram Mitford
Published by Methuen and Co. London.
This edition dated 1904.
The Red Derelict, by Bertram Mitford.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
THE RED DERELICT, BY BERTRAM MITFORD.



CHAPTER ONE.

THE EPISODE OF THE BRINDLED GNU.

"Mine!"

The word was breathed rather than uttered, and its intonation conveyed a
sense of the most perfect, even ecstatic, contentment.  The vivid green
of early summer woods piled as it were in great cloud masses to the
clear, unbroken blue, rolling up from the sheen and glory of golden seas
of buttercups which flooded every rich meadow surface.  Hawthorn hedges
distilled their sweetness from snowy clusters crowding each other in
their profusion, a busy working ground for myriad bees whose murmur made
music in low waves of tone upon the sweet evening glow.  And yonder,
behind him who is contemplating all this, the slant of the westering sun
touches the tall chimney stalks of the old house, just visible among
masses of feathery elms loud with cawing clamour from black armies of
homing rooks.  Again the glance swept round upon this wealth of English
summer loveliness and again the uttered thought, with all its original
exaltation, escaped the lips.

"Mine!"

Wagram Gerard Wagram strolled leisurely on, drinking in the golden glory
of the surroundings as though suffering it to saturate his whole being.
As for the second time he half-unconsciously enunciated that single
possessive it was with almost a misgiving, an uncomfortable stirring as
of unreality.  Would he awaken directly, as he had more than once
awakened before, to find this vision of Paradise, as it were, dispelled
in the cold and sunless grey of a mere existence, blank alike of aim or
prospect--illusions dead, life all behind, in front--nothing?

With these conditions he was well acquainted--only too well.  The seamy
side of life had indeed been his--failure, straitened means,
disappointment in every form, and worse.  Years of bitter and
heart-wearing experiences had planted the iron in his soul--but this was
all over now, never to return.  To him, suddenly, startling in its
unexpectedness, had come the change, and with it, peace.

A perfect chorus of bird harmony filled the air.  Thrushes innumerable
poured forth their song, whose sweet and liquid notes gurgled upon the
ear as though through organ pipes.  Robins, too, and blackbirds were not
slow to join in, and then the soft amorous coo of wood-pigeons, and
through all--thrown as it were from copse to copse--the blithe and
gladsome shout of answering cuckoos.

Wagram opened a gate noiselessly, and with equally noiseless tread moved
along one of the "rides" of a wood.  On his shoulder was a rabbit
rifle--one of some power and driving capacity--with which he was wont to
practise long shots at outlying but uncommonly suspicious and wideawake
Bunny.  Things rustled in the undergrowth and brambles on either side,
as though stealthily creeping away.  A slight stirring of the grass
caught his eye, and, as he bent over it, an adder contracted itself into
a letter S, with its heart-shaped head somewhat lifted, alert,
defensive.  He raised the rifle so as to bring down the butt upon the
snake--then seemed to think better of it.

"Poor little brute.  The chances are ten thousand to one against it ever
damaging anybody in a place like this, and those chances it can have the
benefit of."

He touched it with the muzzle of the gun, amused by the impotent wrath
wherewith the small reptile struck at the cold iron.  Then he went on
his way.

He reached a gate and peered over.  Two or three rabbits were out
feeding, but they darted like lightning into cover before he had time so
much as to raise the piece.  Passing out of the gate he crossed the open
meadow.

In front a gleam of water, and beyond it the skipping forms of young
lambs, whose shrill bleat harmonised with the multitudinous bird voices,
and the green loveliness of the picture.  Leaning lazily on the parapet
of an old stone bridge which spanned the river, Wagram watched the
ripple here and there of a rising trout, or the perky flirtings of a
pair of water-ouzels, whose nest clung, excrescence-like, against one of
the stone piers.  Away down stream the roof of a picturesque old mill,
its wheel for the nonce still and silent, and beyond, pointing above
more woods, the spire of a distant church.

Again that well-nigh ecstatic sense of possession--of ownership--came
over him, and now, giving himself up to it, he fairly revelled in it.
The utter solitude of the spot constituted, in his eyes, one of its
greatest charms.  He could wander at will without meeting a human being,
and though here the bridge carried on a public thoroughfare it was a
lonely road at any time.  But one side of such solitude was that
thoughts of the past would arise, would obtrude, and such he steadily
put from him.  For he hated the past.  Not one day of it would he
willingly live over again--to no single incident of it would he
willingly let his mind revert.  It was a very nightmare.

Leaving the bridge he strolled up the tree-shaded road intending to
return home.  But no chances did he get of practising marksmanship, for
the rabbits seemed unaccountably shy.  Ah--at last.  There was one.
Nearly a hundred yards' range, too.  Yes, it would do.

But before he could draw trigger he lowered the piece and threw up his
head listening.  A sound--a strange sound--had caught his ear.  Yet it
was not so much the nature of the sound, as the quarter from which it
came that had startled him.  No further thought of the rabbit now, as he
listened for its repetition.

It came--louder, nearer, this time--a strange, harsh, raucous bellow.
Again and again he heard it, each time nearer still.  And with it now
blended another sound--a loud shrill scream for help.

Wagram's blood thrilled as already he foresaw a tragedy.  It happened
that a portion of the park was set apart for several varieties of the
larger African antelopes, which they were trying to acclimatise, and one
of these must, by some means or other, have escaped from its paddock.

It is a fact that the shyest and wariest of wild creatures in their
natural state, when captured and placed in confinement, as they become
accustomed to the sight of the human form divine, soon develop an
aggressive ferocity in exactly opposite proportion to their former
shyness.  No better instance is furnished of familiarity thus breeding
contempt than in the case of the male ostrich.  In his wild state the
sky-line is hardly a sufficiently respectable distance for him to keep
between you and him--incidentally he never does hide his head in the
sand, a ridiculous fable probably originating with the old Portuguese
explorers, in whom the waggishly disposed natives would find fair game.
"Camped off" or enclosed, there is no limit to his absolutely fearless
truculence.  Even the graceful little springbok, half tamed, and shut up
alone in a paddock, we have known to give a full-grown man all the rough
and tumble he wants before getting out of that paddock unscathed.  And
these, we repeat, were of the largest variety of antelope, and now here
was one of them at large and pursuing somebody--from the scream,
evidently a woman.

Even while thinking, Wagram was at the same time acting, for he had
rushed forward and literally torn himself through a high thick hedge
which interposed between himself and what was transpiring.  And this is
what he saw.

A girl on a bicycle was skimming the broad white road which banded the
level sward.  Close in pursuit coursed a strange looking beast, utterly
out of keeping with the peaceful and conventional beauty of an English
park--a slate-coloured beast, with the head of an exaggerated he-goat,
and bearded withal; the horns of a miniature buffalo, the mane of a
horse and almost the tail of one.  It was in fact a fair specimen of the
brindled gnu, commonly known as the blue wildebeeste.

Fortunately the creature did not seem able to make up its mind to
charge; for now it would range up alongside of the bicycle and its
rider, prancing and whisking around, and uttering its raucous bellow,
then it would drop back, and rush forward again with horns lowered, to
pull up and proceed to play the fool as before.  All this Wagram took
in, as he hurried up, and, taking it in, knew the peril to be great and
dual.  If the beast were to charge home, why then--those meat-hook like
horns would do their deadly work in a moment.  If the rider kept up, or
increased her pace any further to speak of, why then this road ended in
a gate giving admission to the high road, and this gate was shut.  There
was only one thing to be done, and he did it.

He rushed towards this strange chase, shouting furiously, even
grotesquely, anything to draw the attention of the dangerous brute.  But
at that moment, whether the girl had lost her head, or was as startled
at this new diversion as her pursuer ought to have been, the bicycle
wheel managed to get into a dry rut, skidded, and shot the rider clean
off on to the turf.  A half-strangled scream went up, and she lay still.

It is possible that the accident saved the situation so far as she was
concerned, for the gnu held straight on and, lowering his head, with a
savage drive sent his horns clean through the fabric of the machine
lying in the road, then throwing up his head flung the shattered
fragments of metal whirling about in every direction, but the remainder,
entangled in the horns, still hung about his forehead and eyes.

Wagram summed up the peril in a flash.  There lay the girl, helpless if
not unconscious, the gate a quarter of a mile away--even the hedge he
had come through considerably over a hundred yards.  Not so much as a
tree was there to dodge behind, and there was the infuriated beast
shaking its head and bellowing savagely in frantic attempts to disengage
itself of the clinging remains of the bicycle.  The rifle, he decided,
was of no use; the bullet, too diminutive to kill or disable, would only
avail to madden the animal still more.  And even then it succeeded in
flinging the last remnant of the shattered machine from its horns.  It
stood for a second, staring, snorting, stamping its hoofs, then charged.

Wagram levelled the piece and pressed the trigger.  The hammer fell with
a mere click, and as he remembered how he had fired in the air while
rushing to the rescue, in the hope that the report might scare the
beast, the shock of the onrush sent him to earth, knocking the weapon
from his grasp.

For a second he lay, half stunned.  Fortunately, he had managed to dodge
partially aside so as to escape the full shock, and the impetus had
carried his assailant on a little way.  Would the brute leave them, he
wondered, if they both lay still.  But no.  It faced round, stamped,
shook its head, bellowed, then came on again--this time straight for the
prostrate girl.

Wagram rose to his feet with a shout--a loud, pealing, quavering shout.
He had no clear idea as to what he was going to do, but the first thing
was to get between the maddened beast and its intended victim.

Even at that moment, so strange are the workings of the human mind,
there flashed across Wagram's brain the irony of it all.  The ecstasy of
possession had culminated thus: that a sudden and violent death should
overtake him in the midst of his possessions, and through the agency of
one of them.  The gnu, diverted from its original purpose, or preferring
an erect enemy to a recumbent one, once more charged him.  Then he
literally "took the bull by the horns" and gripped them as in a vice.
Throwing up its head the struggling, pushing beast strove to tear itself
free, but those sinewy hands held on.  Then it reared on its hind legs,
and tall man as he was, Wagram felt himself pulled off the ground.
Though considerably past his first youth, he was wiry and hard of
condition, and still he held on, but it could not continue.  He must
relax his grip, then he would be gored, trampled, mangled out of all
recognition.  Already one of the pointed hoofs, pawing wildly downward,
had ripped his waistcoat open, gashing the skin, when--he was
somersaulting through the air, to fall heavily half-a-dozen yards away,
at the same time that the sharp crack of firearms almost at his very ear
seemed to point to a miracle in his swiftly revolving brain.

He raised his head.  His late enemy was lying on the turf, a faint
quiver shuddering through its frame, and, standing contemplating it,
erect, unhurt, the form of her he had nearly lost his life to rescue,
and in her hand, the smoke still curling from the muzzle, a rifle--his
rifle.



CHAPTER TWO.

AFTERWARDS.

"How did you do it?" he asked, panting violently after his recent
exertion and shock.  "How?"

"I saw the cartridges fall out of your pocket while you fought the
brute," she answered.  "That suggested it.  I put one in the rifle and
aimed just behind the shoulder, as I had read of people doing when
shooting things of that sort.  Thank Heaven it was the right aim.  Do
you know, I felt it would be--knew it somehow."

She spoke quickly, excitedly, her breast heaving, and the colour
mantling in her cheeks, as she turned her large eyes upon his face.

"It was splendid--splendid," he repeated, rising, though somewhat
stiffly, for he was very bruised and shaken.

"I don't know about that," she answered with a laugh.  "I expect the old
Squire will be of a different opinion.  Why I--I mean you and I between
us--have killed one of his African animals.  And they say he's no end
proud of them."

"Yes, and you have saved my life."

"Have I?  I rather think the boot's on the wrong foot," she answered.
"Where would I have been with that beast chevying me if you hadn't come
on the scene.  But--oh, Mr Wagram, are you much hurt?  I was
forgetting."

"No, I am not hurt, beyond a bit of a shaking-up.  And you?"

"Same here.  I suppose the excitement and unexpectedness of the toss
saved me.  I was in an awful funk, though--er--I mean I was awfully
scared.  You see it was all so unexpected.  I didn't know these things
ever attacked people."

"They are apt to be dangerous in a half-tame condition, but ours are
shut up in a separate part of the park.  I have yet to find out how this
one got loose."

"What would I have done if you hadn't come up?" she repeated.  "I should
certainly have been killed."

Wagram thought that such would very likely have been the case, but he
answered:

"I think you might have been considerably injured.  You see, when you
got to the gate over there, you would have had to slow down and jump
off."

"Rather.  And--oh, my poor bike!  It's past praying for, utterly."

"Well, it's past mending, that's certain.  But--er--of course, you must
allow us to make good the loss.  As a matter of hard law you need have
no scruple about this.  It was destroyed on our property by an animal
belonging to us, and on a public road."

"A public road!" she echoed.  "Then I was not trespassing?"

"No.  This is a right-of-way, though I don't mind admitting that we have
often wished it wasn't," he added with a smile.

Inwardly he was puzzling as to who this girl could be.  She was aware of
his own identity, for she had addressed him by name; but he was
absolutely convinced he had never seen her before.  She was a handsome
girl, too, very handsome.  She had a clear, brunette skin, through which
the colour would mantle as she grew animated, fine eyes of a light
hazel, and an exceedingly attractive smile.  In build she was square
shouldered and of full outline, and though not exactly tall was of a
good height for a woman.  She was plainly dressed, but well, in a light
blouse and grey bicycle skirt, and her manner was natural and
unaffected.  Yet with all these attractions Wagram decided that she was
just not quite in the same social scale.  Who could she be?

"Oh, but, Mr Wagram, I'm sure you must be hurt," she broke in, as he
rose from dusting down her bicycle skirt--she had sustained wonderfully
little damage, even outwardly, from her fall.  "Why, what is this?"
catching sight of his ripped waistcoat.  "Blood, too!  Good heavens!
Did it strike you with its horns?  Oh, you must get it seen to at once.
I have read somewhere that the wound from an animal's horn is
frightfully dangerous."

"Well, it wasn't the horn this time, it was the hoof.  But I assure you
the thing is a mere scratch; I daresay it might have been worse but for
the waistcoat.  As it is, it's nothing."

"Really?  Seriously, mind?"

"Seriously.  But if you always turn your reading to such practical
account as you did just now, it'll be good for other people all along
the line.  It was even better than plucky, for it showed a quickness and
readiness of resource rare among women, and by no means so widely
distributed among men as we like to imagine."

"How good of you to say so," she answered, colouring up with pleasure.
"But--oh, what a pity to have had to kill such a curious animal.  Will
the old Squire be very angry, do you think, Mr Wagram?"

"He will be sorry; but you must credit him with a higher estimate of the
sanctity of human life for anger to enter his mind in this connection.
I am sure he will feel only too thankful that a most disastrous accident
has been averted."

"Oh, I am relieved.  Poor thing," she broke off, standing over the dead
gnu with a little shudder at the pool of blood which had trickled from
the small hole made by the bullet.  "It is very ugly, though."

"Yes; it's a sort of combination of goat and buffalo, and horse and
donkey, to all outward appearance.  Ah, here's someone at last," as two
men approached.  "Here, Perrin," to the foremost, "how on earth did this
fellow break out of the west park?  Are the palings broken down
anywhere?"

"Not as I knows on, sir," replied the man, who was an under keeper.  "I
was round there myself this morning, and 'twas all right then.  Reckon
he must ha' jumped.  Them things do jump terrible high at times.  Be you
hurt, sir?" with a look at the other's torn clothing.

"No; only a scratch.  But this young lady might have been killed.  You'd
better go to the village at once and let Bowles know there's a
butchering job here for him, and the sooner he sets about it the better,
or the light won't last.  Oh, and on the way tell Hood to go over now
and make sure there are no gaps or weak places in the palings, or we
shall have more of the things getting out I should never have believed
one would have taken that leap."

"Very good, sir," replied the keeper, turning away to carry out his
orders.

The girl, meanwhile, was watching Wagram with a whole-souled but
half-furtive admiration, not undashed with a little awe.  The fact of
her rescue by this man in a moment of ghastly peril, and at considerable
risk to himself, appealed to her less than did the cool, matter-of-fact
way in which he stood there issuing his orders, as though no
life-and-death struggle between himself and a powerful and infuriated
animal had just taken place.  Moreover, there was something in the way
in which he gave his orders--as it were, the way of one to whom such
direction was bound as by right to belong--that impressed her, and that
vividly.  Perhaps, too, the unconscious refinement of the man--a natural
refinement characterising not only his appearance, but his manner, the
tone of his voice, his every word--came especially home to her, possibly
by virtue of contrast.  Anyhow, it was there, and she hardly had time to
disguise the growing admiration in her eyes as he turned to her again.

"Will you walk on with me to the Court and have a rest and some tea?  We
can send you home in the brougham."

For a moment she hesitated.  The invitation was wholly alluring, but to
herself a perfectly unaccountable resolve came over her to decline it.
It is just possible that the one word "send" had turned the scale.  Had
he offered to accompany her home she would probably have accepted with
an alacrity needing some disguise.

"Oh no, thanks; I could not think of intruding upon you like that," she
answered.  "I live just outside Bassingham, and a mere three-mile walk
is nothing on a lovely evening like this."

"Are you sure you are doing what you would prefer?" he urged.

"Quite.  Oh, Mr Wagram, how can I thank you enough?  Why, but for you I
should be in as many pieces as my poor bicycle."

"And but for you, possibly, so should I," he laughed.

"Yes; only you would not have been there at all but for me, so that I am
still all on the debtor's side," she rejoined, flashing up at him a very
winning smile.

"Will you favour me with your address--here," holding out a pocket-book
open at a blank leaf.  "And--er--you seem to have the advantage of me as
to name."

"Have I?  Why, so I have," (writing).  Then handing it back he read:

"Delia Calmour, Siege House, Bassingham."

"Oh, you live in Bassingham, then?" he said, in a tone which seemed to
her to express surprise at never having seen her before.

"Yes; but I have been away for two years," she answered in implied
explanation which was certainly not accidental.  "I have only just come
home."

She hoped he would question her further; but he did not.

"Good-bye, Mr Wagram," putting forth her hand with a bright smile.  "I
shall return by the main road.  It's much shorter--besides, I've had
enough adventure for one afternoon."

"Well, if you won't reconsider my suggestion."

"Thanks, no; I had really better get back."

"And," he supplemented, "again let me remind you that the utter wreck of
your bicycle is our affair.  Oh, and by the way--er--in case you are put
out by the want of it even for a day or two in this splendid weather,
Warren, in Bassingham, keeps very good machines on hire--you understand,
our affair of course.  I will send him in word the first thing in the
morning."

"Now, Mr Wagram, you are really too good," she protested with real
warmth.  "I don't know whether I ought even to think of taking you at
your word."

"Ought?  But of course you must.  It's a matter, as I said before, of
hard, dry law, and damage.  Good-bye."

They had reached the gate by this time, and closing it behind her,
Wagram raised his hat and turned back to where lay the dead gnu.  Then,
as the men he had sent for had arrived, and he had given directions as
to the careful preserving of the head, he moved homeward.

The air seemed positively to thrill with the gush of bird-song as the
last rays of dazzling gold swept over the vivid greenery, ere the final
set of sun.  Passing the chapel, a Gothic gem, set in an embowering of
foliage, Wagram espied the family chaplain seated in front of his
rose-grown cottage, reading.

"Evening, Father," he called out.

The priest jumped up and came to the gate.  He was a man about Wagram's
own age, or a shade older, a cultured man, and possessed of a fund of
strong practical common sense, together with a keen sense of humour.
The two were great friends.

"Come in, come in, and help a lonely man through a lonely half hour, or
as many half-hours as you can spare; though I suppose it's getting too
near your dinner time for that."

"Why don't you stroll up with me and join us?" said Wagram, subsiding
into a cane chair.

"Thanks, but I can't to-night, and that for more reasons than one.  Now,
what'll you be taking?"

"Nothing, thanks, just now," answered Wagram, filling his pipe.  "I've
got a mighty unpleasant job sticking out if ever there was one.  Went
out to knock over a rabbit or two, and knocked over one of the blue
wildebeeste instead.  How's that?"

The priest gave a whistle.

"I wouldn't like to be the man to break the news to the old Squire," he
said, "unless the man happened to be yourself.  Did you kill it?"

"Dead as a herring, or rather, the girl did."

"The girl did!  What girl?"

"Why, the one the brute was chevying.  Of course I had to get between,
don't you see?"

"I don't.  You omitted the trifling detail that the said brute was
chevying anybody.  Now, begin at the beginning."

Wagram laughed.  This sort of banter was frequent between the two.  The
priest reached down for the half-smoked pipe he had let fall, relit it,
and listened as Wagram gave him the narrative, concise to baldness.

"Who was the girl?" he said, when Wagram had done.

"That's just the point.  First of all, do you know any people in
Bassingham named Calmour?"

"M'yes.  That is to say, I know _of_ them."

"What do they consist of?"

"One parent--male.  I believe three daughters.  Sons unlimited."

"What sort of people are they?"

"Ask the old Squire."

"That's good enough answer," laughed Wagram.  "You're not going to give
them a bad character, so you won't give them any.  All right.  I'll go
and ask him now, and, by Jove," looking at his watch, "it's time I did.
Good-night."

Father Gayle returned from the wicket, thinking.

"So that was the girl!" he said to himself.  "The eldest, from the
description.  I hope she won't make trouble."

For, as it happened, he had heard rather more about Delia Calmour and
her powers of attractiveness than Wagram had; moreover, he knew that
men, even those above the average, were very human.  Wagram, in his
opinion, was very much above the average, yet he did not want to foresee
any entanglement or complication that could not but be disastrous--
absolutely and irrevocably disastrous.



CHAPTER THREE.

FATHER AND SON.

The exclamation possessive which had escaped Wagram as he contemplated
Hilversea Court and its fair and goodly appurtenances, was, as a matter
of hard fact, somewhat "previous," in that these enviable belongings
would not be actually and entirely his until the death of his father; an
eventuality which he devoutly hoped might be delayed for many and many a
long year.  Yet, practically, the place might as well have been his own;
for since the motor car accident which had, comparatively speaking,
recently cut short the life of his elder brother, and he had taken up
his quarters at Hilversea, the old Squire had turned over to him the
whole management, even to the smallest detail.  And he had grown to love
the place with a love that was well-nigh ecstatic.  Every stick and
stone upon it, every leaf and blade of grass seemed different somehow to
the like products as existing beyond the boundary; and there were times
when the bare consciousness that he was destined to pass the remaining
half of his life here, was intoxicating, stupefying--too good indeed to
last.  It seemed too much happiness for a world whose joys are
notoriously fleeting.

While hurriedly dressing for dinner Wagram's mind reverted to the recent
adventure.  The old Squire had procured the African antelopes at
considerable trouble and expense; in fact, had made a hobby of it.  He
would certainly not be pleased at the outcome of the said adventure; and
the duty of breaking distasteful news to anybody was not a palatable one
to himself.  And the girl?  She seemed a nice enough girl, and
unmistakably an attractive one; and at the thought of her Wagram got out
a telegraph form and indited a hasty "wire" to the London agency of a
well-known cycle firm.  Then he went down, a little late, to find his
father ready and waiting.

The old Squire was a tall man of very refined appearance, and carried
his stature, in spite of his fourscore years, without stoop or bend, and
this, with his iron-grey moustache, would cause strangers to set him
down as a fine specimen of an old soldier--which was incorrect, for he
had spent the working period of his life in the Diplomatic Service.

"Well, Wagram, and what have you been doing with yourself?" he said, as
they passed into a gem of a panelled room looking out upon a lovely
picture of smooth sward and feathery elms.  It was the smaller
dining-room, always used when father and son were alone together.

"Oh, I crept around with the rabbit rifle--a sort of combination of
keeping my hand in, and at the same time admiring the evening effects."

"Did you get any good shots?"

"H'm, rather," thought Wagram to himself drily.  Then aloud, "Do you
know anybody in Bassingham, father, by name Calmour?"

"Calmour?  Calmour?" repeated the old man dubiously.  "I seem to know
the name too, but for the life of me I can't fit it with an owner.
Rundle," as the butler entered, "do I know any Calmour in Bassingham?"

"Well, sir, it's Major Calmour.  Lives at Siege House, just this side of
the bridge, sir."  And Wagram thought to detect a subtle grin drooping
the corners of the man's well-trained mouth as he filled the Squire's
glass.

"To be sure, to be sure.  Now it all comes back.  Major Calmour!  Ho--
ho--ho!  Wagram, that's the man right enough.  Why?  Has he been writing
to you about anything?"

"No.  But--who is he, anyway?"

"He is a retired army veterinary surgeon, addicted to strong drink, and
a wholly unnecessarily lurid way of expressing himself."

"I know the species.  What sort of a crowd are his descendants?"

"His descendants?  I believe they are many.  Their female parent was,
they say, even more partial to _aqua vita_ than their male; indeed,
report sayeth that she died thereof.  One, by the way, obtained large
damages from Vance's eldest fool in an action for breach of promise.  I
believe the family has been living on it ever since."

"Which of them was that?" said Wagram carelessly, wondering if it was
the heroine of the afternoon's adventure.

"I don't remember.  Which of them was it, Rundle?"

"I believe it was the second of the young ladies, sir," supplied the
butler, who, being an old and privileged and, withal, discreet family
servant, was often consulted by the Squire as to local and personal
matters when memory proved defective.  The answer, no name having been
mentioned, of course conveyed no information to Wagram.  So the heroine
of the adventure was the daughter of a tippling and disreputable ex-Army
vet.  Well, she was not lacking in pluck and readiness of resource, at
any rate.

"I made the acquaintance of one of the girls this afternoon, father, and
that in rather a queer way," he said.

"Ah, really; and how was that?"

Then Wagram told the story, told it graphically, too.  The Squire,
listening, was taken quite out of himself.

"Why didn't you shoot the brute, Wagram?  You had the rifle."

"Oh, I didn't want to do that as long as it could possibly be avoided.
It couldn't in the long run.  But the girl shot him instead.  Had to."

"The girl shot him?"

"Yes!  I'm coming to that."  And then as he narrated the progress of his
hand-to-hand struggle, and the relief just in the nick of time, the
Squire burst forth with:

"Splendid!  Splendid!  There's nerve for you.  You'd certainly have been
killed Wagram.  Why, man, did you think you were a match for the beast
by sheer force of strength?  Why, you might as well have tried the same
thing on with a bull.  Ah well, it's a pity, but it's lucky it was no
worse.  Lucky too, you were about, or that poor girl would have been
killed or, at best, seriously injured.  But how did the thing get out?
This is within Hood's responsibility."

"I sent him at once to see," answered Wagram.  "Perrin opined that it
jumped the palisade, and that's not impossible.  I gave them particular
instructions about the head.  It's worth keeping.  We'd better send it
to Rowland Ward's to be set up."

"Yes."  And then the old squire became rather grave and absent-minded,
and both men ate their dinner for a while in silence.  In the mind of
the elder was running the thought of what an awful thing had been
avoided.  His son might easily have met his death--this son from whom he
had been estranged for years, and from whom now, he wondered how he
could have spent those years of his old age apart.  His glance wandered
furtively to a portrait upon the wall.  It was that of another son--a
younger one--Wagram's half-brother; a handsome, reckless face, but there
was a shifty look in the narrowness between the eyes, that even the
travesty of the portrait painter's art could not altogether hide.  For
years past this one's whereabouts had been a mystery; even his fate--
even were he alive or dead.  He had left home in a hurry and in anger,
had left perforce to avoid a great scandal and disgrace, wherein,
moreover, a question of felony was involved.  This had befallen more
than ten years earlier, and almost ever since nothing had been heard of
the exile.  When last heard of he was in Australia, then to all
inquiries there was a blank, and as time went on, more and more did
those he had left assume that he was dead.

For the wanderer's own sake, the old squire in his heart of hearts could
almost have brought himself to hope so.  For of Everard Wagram the best
description had been "a bad lot"--an all round bad lot, and for years
his father and brother had lived in secret dread of any day hearing he
had come to a bad end.  Now gazing at the portrait, the old man was
furtively making comparison between its original and Wagram; wondering,
too, for the hundredth time, not that there should be any difference
between them, but that their characters should be so entirely and
completely divergent.  But they were of different mothers, and behind
this fact lay a good deal.  They had both had the same chances, but
different mothers, and the younger man had gone utterly to the bad.

"Did you say the young lady's bicycle was smashed, Wagram?" said the
Squire at last, reverting to the adventure.

"All to smithereens.  But I've drawn up a wire to Gee and Vincent to
send her the latest thing up to date, and that sharp.  I've also written
Warren to let her have one on hire until it comes."

"Yes, that's quite right.  But I doubt if it'll end there.  Calmour's
quite capable of threatening an action for damages with a view to
compromise.  He's a most astonishing cad, and chronically hard up."

"Poor devil.  In the latter line he has my sympathy," said Wagram.  "But
it wasn't he who got damaged, it was the girl."

"That's just it, and that's where he'll score.  If she's put in the box,
from your description of her the conscientious and respectable British
jury that won't give her damages doesn't exist."

"I can hardly think she'd be a party to anything of that sort," rejoined
Wagram.  "She seemed to me a nice sort of a girl; too nice, in fact, to
lend herself to that kind of thing."

The Squire's head shot up quickly, and for a moment he looked at his son
with grave concern.  The two were alone together now.

"Don't you know lovely woman better than that even by this time,
Wagram?" he said.

"Well, I ought to," was the answer, beneath the tone of which lurked a
bitterness of rancour, such as seldom indeed escaped this man, normally
so equable and self-possessed with regard to the things, so tolerant and
considerate towards the persons, about him.

"I should say so," assented the Squire; "and I'll bet you five guineas
your acquaintance with this one doesn't end where it begun."

"I don't see how it can.  If it hadn't been for her I should almost
certainly have lost my life."

"If it hadn't been for her your life would not have been in danger, so
the situation is even all round."

Wagram laughed.

"There's something in that, father.  But you say these are absolutely
impossible people?"

"Absolutely and entirely--dangerous as well.  Didn't I tell you just now
about one of them and Vance's eldest idiot?  Why, for all we know, it
may have been your heroine of to-day."

"It may, of course.  Still I have an instinct that it was probably one
of the others.  Wouldn't it be the right thing if I were to call and
inquire after the girl, make sure she's none the worse for her spill.
It would be only civil, you know."

"Civil but risky.  If you did that it wouldn't be long before Calmour
and some of them returned it.  They'd jump at the opportunity.  A
Calmour at Hilversea!  Phew!  It would be about as much in place as a
cow in a church."

"That makes it awkward certainly."

"Doesn't it?  Besides, I don't see that what you suggest is in the least
necessary.  The girl on your own showing, wasn't hurt.  Her bicycle got
smashed, and we are sending her a new one, probably ten times as good as
the one she had before.  Moreover we've lost one of our African
antelopes.  Upon my word I think the house of Calmour is far more
indebted to us than we are to it.  Just shut that window, Wagram.  It's
beginning to get a little chilly."

The sweet, distilling air of meadow and closing flower greeted Wagram's
nostrils as he lingered while obeying, and from the gloaming woodlands
came the weird, musical hooting of owls, and again he felt that intense,
ecstatic thrill of possession sweep through his being.  And as he turned
from the window, he heard the Squire repeat, this time half to himself:

"A Calmour at Hilversea!  Pho!"



CHAPTER FOUR.

SIEGE HOUSE AND ITS WAYS.

"Oh, what a perfect beauty!  Look, Bob.  Free wheel, Bowden brakes,
everything."

The hall of Siege House was littered with wrappings and twine, in the
midst of which stood Delia Calmour, in a fervour of delight and
admiration, while her brother Bob extracted from its crate a brand new
bicycle which had just been delivered by railway van.

"Rather!  Gee and Vincent, tip-top maker," pronounced the said Bob,
wheeling her machine clear of the litter and surveying it critically.
"You're in luck's way this time, Delia.  First chop new bike for a
beginning, and now what about the damages?  I'm only wondering whether
five hundred would be starting too low."

"Damages!  What are you talking about?" said Delia shortly.

"Why, you got a toss, didn't you--a bad one too--and owing to Wagram's
wild beast.  There you are.  First-rate grounds for action.  Damages a
dead cert.  The only question is how much."

"Oh Bob, don't be such a beastly young cad," retorted Delia, with a
heightened colour and a flash in her eyes, plain speaking being the
custom at Siege House.  "But then I forgot," she continued, coldly
ironical.  "It's your trade to scent out plunder, or will be when you've
learnt it.  Good boy, Bob.  Stick to biz, and never miss a chance."

The point of which remark was that its object was in the employ of a
firm of solicitors.  Incidentally, he was a loose hung, pale faced
youth, who was won't to turn on an exaggerated raffishness out of office
hours, under the impression that it was sporting.

"I should think not," retorted Bob angrily.  "And I don't see any sense
in jumping down my throat because I want to do you a good turn."

"What are you kicking up such a row about Bob, and how the devil am I
going to get through my typing in the middle of all this jaw?"

The above, uttered in a sweet and fluty voice, proceeded from an
exceedingly handsome girl who now appeared from an adjoining door.  She
had straight regular features of the classical order, and a pair of
large limpid blue eyes, the soulful innocence of whose expression
imparted an air of spirituality to the whole face.  Yet never was
expression more entirely deceptive.

"Oh, keep your hair on, Clytie.  I'm only telling Delia how to get five
hundred damages out of Wagram.  You'd never have got your cool thou, out
of Vance if it hadn't been for me.  It's her turn now," sneered Bob.

"You mean I'd never have got what your precious firm chose to pass on to
me out of it," retorted the girl serenely.  Her brother grinned.

"Biz is biz and costs are costs.  We don't want work for nothing in the
law," he added.

"We!  M'yes.  Grandiloquent, very.  So that's the new bike?" going over
to examine it.  "It is a ripper.  D'you think there are any more African
wild beasts loose at Hilversea, Delia?  I could do with a new bike
myself."

Delia, listening, was simply incapable of reply lest she should reveal
the lurid anger which was simmering beneath.  Her long absence from home
and its incidents had gone far towards refining away the cynical
vulgarity of mind and speech which was the prevailing tone in her family
circle, from her father downwards.  Not this alone, however, was at the
back of her present indignation.  A week had elapsed since her
adventure, and the recollection of the acquaintanceship to which it had
led--matter of a few minutes as such had been--glowed fresh in her mind,
as indeed it had done ever since; though not for worlds would she have
let drop word or hint to those about her that such was the case.  She
was by no means deficient in assurance and self-esteem, yet that day in
the presence of Wagram she had felt inferior.  He had seemed to her as a
different order of being, this man whose prompt courage and readiness,
and the exercise thereof, had glided so naturally into the calm
considerate kindness whose first thought had been to make good her loss.
The refinement of his aspect and manner, the utter absence of even any
passing instinct to improve the situation, so different to those among
whom she lived and moved, had completed the spell of magnetism he had
all unconsciously cast over her, and in that short space her mind had
undergone a complete transformation.  Had the case been put before her
as that of somebody else, Delia would unhesitatingly have pronounced it
as one of falling over head and ears in love.  Being her own it took on
the aspect of a conversion to a sublime and compelling creed, the deity
whereof was Wagram.  And this was the man against whom her brother was
suggesting a low and vulgar scheme of plunder--legal plunder, it was
true, but still plunder.

"Bob," she said at last.  "If ever you propose such a thing again, from
that moment you and I are no longer on speaking terms.  I never heard a
more unutterably caddish suggestion, and I've heard more than one as you
know," she added witheringly.

"Don't see it at all.  Damage to person pursuing lawful way along a
public road--dangerous animal--property of `coiny' swells.  Coiny swells
able to pay.  Make 'em.  What's the law for, I'd like to know?"

"To swindle and fleece respectable people.  To fatten a pack of
bloodsucking thieves," answered Delia, with trembling lips and flashing
eyes.  "In this instance I'd rather hang myself than have anything to do
with it.  Law, indeed!"

"Would you?" growled Bob.  "Well, then, you won't get any choice,
because the old man'll take it up, and then you'll have to come forward.
And he'll collar the damages instead of you."

"He'll get none.  I'll refuse to appear."

"Ha--ha.  You'll have to.  You'll be subpoenaed."

"See here, my sucking Blackstone," struck in Clytie, answering for her
sister.  "You remind one of the old chestnut about the judge who was
nicknamed Necessity, because he knew no law.  You haven't even begun to
know any.  Delia's of full age, and therefore no one could sue but her.
The old man's counted out."

"You seemed to know more than enough that time you were under
cross-examination," jeered the exasperated Bob.

"Yes, I didn't do badly," acquiesced Clytie, her serenity quite
unruffled.  "But you know, Bob, you're an awful juggins--yes, an out and
out juggins."

"I suppose so.  May I ask why?"

"Certainly.  Here you are putting Delia up to a scheme which is like
being content with one silver spoon when you could collar the whole
swag."  (The speaker was in course of typing a detective story.) "Now--
d'you see?"

"Hanged if I do," snorted Bob.  "There's nothing in it either.  These
Wagrams are rolling in coin, but you mustn't pitch your claim too high.
There's such a thing as `excessive' damages, appeal, and so forth.
How's that, old female Solomon?  You see I do know a little about things
after all."

"Not anything--not anything," came the reply, sweetly smiling.  "Who's
talking about damages?  That's not the plum at all."

"What is, then?"

"Capture the man.  See?  It's quite simple.  Capture the man.  Yes?
Does that make your chin rap the toes of your boots?"

For Bob was standing open-mouthed.  The cool audacity of the scheme had
struck him dazed, breathless.

"Fudge!" he snorted.  "It can't be done."

"Why not?"

"Why not?  Because these Wagrams are tip-top swells--regular high
flyers.  I don't mean only that they've got pots of money, and just
about everything else.  But, hang it all, look at them, look at us!  No
fear.  That cock won't fight, I tell you--no, not for half-an-hour."

"Not, eh?  Bob, as I said before, you're a juggins; a juggins of the
first water," retorted Clytie, sweetly.  "A man is always--a man.  No
matter how tip-top, and so forth, he may be, there's no getting away
from that."

"Bosh!  You've been reading too many of these high-falutin' novels they
give you to type.  That sort of thing doesn't happen in real life, I
tell you."

"Your knowledge and experience of real life being exhaustive," was the
unruffled reply.  "Let me tell you that sort of thing does happen in
real life, happens every day.  It only wants working."

"Does it?  I say, Clytie, why don't you take on the job yourself, as
Delia doesn't seem over sweet on it?" said Bob, with a guffaw.  "That
heavenly expression of yours ought to carry all before it.  It only
wants working.  Ha--ha!"

"I'm scratched for that running," she answered serenely.  "It's not for
nothing all the surrounding whelps--of your kidney, Bob, and others--
have labelled me `Damages.'  But Delia--well she's, so to say, fresh on
the scene, and then, the adventure business gives her a first-rate send
off.  I think this job might be worked.  Now, Delia, let's have your
opinion on it for a change.  I'm tired of Bob's."

"My opinion is that never in my life have I wasted half-an-hour
listening to such perfectly unutterable bosh as you two have been
talking--no, never," was the reply, short and emphatic; "and I don't
want to hear any more of it."

Clytie pursed up her very pretty lips and whistled meditatively.  The
while she eyed her sister narrowly and read her like a book.  As a
matter of fact the latter had not been so indifferent to their
conversation as she would have had them believe.  Listening, her heart
had thrilled to a strange, wild venture of a hope, only to drop it, a
dead weight, as she thought of her relatives.  Had they but met in a new
country far away from all such associations--well, who knew.  To do her
justice, it was of the man she thought, the man entirely, and apart from
his circumstances and surroundings; indeed, she almost hated these, as
constituting an insurmountable barrier.

"As for saying `look at them and look at us,'" pursued Clytie, "why,
from all accounts, Mrs Wagram Wagram Number One was no very great
shakes."

"All the more reason why the said W.W. isn't going to be such a fool as
to repeat the experiment," said Bob.  "By the way, didn't she shoot
herself in mistake for him, or something?"

"No; took too much morphia by mistake, and died.  It was the only good
thing she ever did for him, for she used to lead him the very devil of a
life.  She was a holy terror, from all accounts."

"And so you think he'll be such an ass as to risk it again, do you?"

"Certainly, my dear Bob.  As I said before, a man is always--a man--
otherwise an ass.  The thing stares you in the face every day."

"P'raps it does.  Well, chip in, Delia.  Chip in for all you know how.
We'll help you for all we do.  By George, though, you'll have to begin
by turning Papist!"

"Hilversea Court's worth turning anything for," murmured Clytie.

"Oh, and there's the ready-made step-son," went on the odious Bob.
"We're forgetting him.  How old is the young 'un, Clytie?  About twelve,
isn't he?"

The query ended _staccato_.  The ways of Siege House were strange and
summary, wherefore Delia, exasperated beyond endurance, had picked up a
heavy rubber golosh, one of a pair that stood in the hall, and had
launched it full and straight at the head of the offending youth, who
barely escaped by a prompt dive.  In the midst of which sounded a ring
of the front gate bell.

"Now, who the very deuce can that be?" remarked Clytie.

"Maybe the old man's come in `fresh,' and can't fit his key," jeered
Bob.

"'Tisn't him.  He wouldn't ring, he'd batter--especially if he's
`full,'" rejoined Clytie, whose knowledge of the paternal habits was
exhaustive.  "One of us'll have to go to the door.  Emily's out.  Wait;
let's make sure first who it is."

She passed into a room whose windows afforded a view of the front gate,
only to reappear immediately in a state of suppressed excitement, a very
unusual thing for her.

"`Talk of the devil,'" she quoted.  "Why, it's him."

"Who?  The devil?" said Bob.

"No, you ass; Wagram Wagram himself!  Now, Delia, you and I'll worry out
this tangle.  Go in there," pushing her through a door.  "And you, Bob,
make yourself scarce.  You're not to appear, see?"

"Why not?  Where do I come in?"

"Nowhere.  We don't want you at all.  You'd give away the whole show.
Come, git!"

Grumbling, Bob "got."  He could not afford to run direct contrary to his
sisters' wishes when decidedly expressed; he was too much dependent on
their good offices in more ways than one.  In abolishing him on this
occasion Clytie's judgment was sound.  The descendants male of the
ex-army vet were a great deal less presentable than the descendants
female--and this she knew.



CHAPTER FIVE.

A SURPRISE VISIT.

Clytie opened the gate with the little half-startled look of
astonishment in her face which she had so quickly yet carefully planned.
The countenance of the visitor, on the other hand, was not free from a
reciprocating surprise.  He had not bargained on this admission at the
hands of one of the daughters of the house--and an uncommonly attractive
looking one at that.

"Er--my name is Wagram," he began, raising his hat.  "One of your
sisters met with something of an accident on our place a few days back,
and I thought it would be a satisfaction to know she was none the worse
for it.  Is Major Calmour at home?"

The semi-puzzled look which had rested on Clytie's face during this
speech gave way to a carefully planned light up at its conclusion.

"Oh, yes, of course.  We heard about that, and your part in it, Mr
Wagram.  But won't you come in?  My father is somewhere at the back, and
will be delighted to thank you in person."  And having uttered this
shocking tarradiddle, she ushered him into the drawing-room.

Delia rose as he entered, having spent the intervening period in making
superhuman efforts to recover her wonted composure.  A volume of
effusive thanks on the subject of the bicycle aided her efforts still
further.

"Oh, Mr Wagram, what a lovely machine it is!" she began.  "Why, it's
simply perfection.  A free wheel, too.  I've always longed for a free
wheel.  No, it's too lovely.  When we unpacked it just now, why, I
thought I must be dreaming."

"Just now," she had said.  Wagram looked up astonished, and feeling
somewhat uncomfortable, fearing lest his arrival at that inopportune
moment should wear an appearance as though he had come to be thanked.

"Has it only just come?" he said.  "Why, it ought to have been delivered
nearly a week ago.  Gee and Vincent are not usually such dilatory
people.  I must row them up over it."

"Oh, please don't," said Delia.  "Why should you take any further
trouble about it?  You have been too kind already."

"No, no," he laughed.  "By the way, it was just as Perrin said.  The gnu
must have jumped the palings of the west park.  There was no gap or
breakdown anywhere."

"Really?  But--tell me.  Was the Squire very angry?"

"Not he.  He was relieved to hear you had escaped uninjured.  You are
none the worse, are you?  It was to ascertain that that I took the
liberty of calling."

"How kind of you again," she answered, with a lustrous softness in her
eyes that was not studied, and wonderfully attractive.  "No; I am not
one atom the worse."

"Another thing has been on my conscience ever since, Miss Calmour; and
that is, that I should have allowed you to walk all that way home.  I
ought to have insisted upon your coming on to the Court with me and
driving back."

"Oh, but you did try and persuade me, remember; it wasn't your fault at
all.  Shall I tell you something, Mr Wagram?  I believe the secret of my
holding out was that I was more than a little afraid to face the Squire
after what had happened."

As a matter of fact, Delia had repented her refusal ever since.  Such an
opportunity might never recur; and, apart from that, it would have been
so much more time to look back to and dwell upon.

"You needn't have been.  It was a pity," he answered.

"Yes.  And I hear you have some beautiful things at the Court, Mr
Wagram--pictures and old relics and all that," she added half shyly, as
the consciousness flashed in upon her that he would take her remark as a
direct "fishing" for an invite to come and see them--a misgiving which
would not have afflicted her in the slightest degree had he been anybody
else in the world.  But at that moment the door opened, admitting
Clytie, who had returned from a fictitious search for her parent,
combined with a renewed command to the retired Bob on no account to show
himself, on pain of such disabilities as it was within her power to
place him under.

"I can't find father anywhere," she said.  "He must have gone out
without telling us.  But he may be back any moment now.  Oh, that's my
typing work, Mr Wagram," following his glance.  "I'm afraid you'll think
us very untidy.  It really has no business littering about in here, but
I brought it in because the light is better."

As a matter of fact, she had hurriedly brought it in before going to
answer his ring--and that with a purpose.

"Ah yes.  Ladies have taken to that sort of thing a good deal, I'm told.
Do you do much of it?"

"Not so much as I should like; only as much as I can get," laughed
Clytie.  "We have to do these things--and it all helps."

"And very right and plucky it is of you to do it," he answered.

"That sounds nice.  Oh, and, Mr Wagram, if you should know of anybody
who wants anything done in that line you might mention me.  There are so
many people in these days who write, or try to.  And, as I said before,
it all helps."

Wagram, of course, promised accordingly, at the same time thinking it
would be hard if he could not put something in her way.  He had known
straitened circumstances himself, and the fact of this girl turning her
hand to a means of adding to a small income sent her up in his opinion,
as she had guessed it would.  But Clytie was honestly scheming for Delia
this time, and for her she judged it the moment to put in a word.

"But Delia is the one who works the hardest," she said.  "My typing is
mere child's play compared with all she does.  She has been away a
couple of years, and had to come home for a rest."

"Really?" he answered, turning to Delia.  "Well, that is plucky of you,
Miss Calmour."  And both thought to read in the high approval expressed
in his look and tone a shade of regret that she should be exposed to the
necessity of being overworked at all.

They talked on, and soon their visitor became acquainted with all the
family doings--of the third sister, who was away also working; of Bob
and another brother in Canada, and three more at school; then of other
things, and Wagram was surprised to note how well they talked.  He had
made up his mind to pay this call from a sense of duty, and had
approached it with considerable misgiving.  One girl he had already
seen, and she had impressed him favourably, yet how would she show up
under the circumstances of a surprise visit?  For the others he had
expected to find very second-rate types, possibly overdressed, certainly
underbred; forward and gushing or awkwardly shy.  But in these two, each
more than ordinarily attractive after her different type, he had found
nothing of the kind.  There was an ease of manner and entire freedom
from affectation about them that fairly astonished him, remembering the
repute in which the family was apparently held; and, realising it, they
went up in his estimation accordingly.  Both were at their best, and
knew it.

But through it all came the recollection of that action for breach of
promise.  Which of them was concerned in it, he wondered; or was it the
absent one?  Well, there was no finding out now.  Yet somehow, he did
not think it could be Delia.  If it were either of these two he would
rather think it was Clytie; and then, suddenly, it occurred to him to
wonder why on earth he was troubling his head about it at all.  He had
paid his duty call, and there was an end of the whole matter.  But--was
there?

"_So_ sorry father was out, Mr Wagram," said Clytie as he rose to take
his leave, "and so will he be.  But, perhaps, if you are in Bassingham
again and are inclined to drop in for a cup of tea, I know he'll be
delighted."

Wagram, as in duty bound, declared that the pleasure would be mutual.
It was strange, he said, that he did not even know Major Calmour by
sight; but he was so seldom in Bassingham, and had not been very long at
the Court, for the matter of that.

"We pulled that off well, Delia," said Clytie as they returned from
seeing their visitor to the gate.  "He's gone away thinking no small
beer of us.  He had heard all sorts of beastly things said about us, and
came to see if they were true, and has come to the conclusion they are
not."

"Why do you think that?"

Clytie smiled pityingly.

"My dear child, I never saw the man yet I couldn't read like a book,
even in matters far more complicated than that, and not often a woman.
Never mind.  I'll back you up all I know how if you'll go on playing up
to me as you did just now.  Oh, good Lord! there's the old man, and--
he's `fresh.'"

For a volley of raucous profanity had swamped her last words, and over
the top of the front gate a face was visible--a very red face indeed,
surmounted by a hat awry.  The profanity was evoked by its utterer's
natural inability to open a locked gate by the simple process of pushing
and battering against the same.  Delia looked troubled.

"Do you think _he_ saw him?" she said.  "He's only just this second gone
out."

"Depends which way the old man came.  But `he', if you remember, said
he'd never set eyes on him."

"Yes; but that's not to say he never will.  And then, on top of that
recognition, he'll be in no lively hurry to wend our way again."

"Leave all that to the future, and chance," returned Clytie.  "Oh,
bother!  The old man's blaring away like a calf that has lost its cow.
We'd better let him in sharp or he'll draw a crowd."

The two walked leisurely back to the gate, against which their parent
was raining kicks--and curses.

"Go easy, dad," said Clytie.  "How the deuce can a fellow open the gate
from this side what time you're banging it in from that?  There!  Now,
come along."

"How the deuce?  Look here, you minx, that's nice sort of feminine
language to use to your father, isn't it?  Or to anyone," he repeated as
he walked stiffly and with an ominous swaying gait up the garden path.

"And that's nice sort of masculine language to use to your daughters--
and the gate, and things in general, as you were doing just now, isn't
it?" laughed Clytie serenely.  "Unless you can plead, with the
proverbial Scotchman, that you were only swearing `at large.'"

"Ha-ha!  What a girl it is!" chuckled the old man, with the suspicion of
a hiccough.  "You ought to go on the stage, dear; you'd make your
fortune."

"No doubt.  But I've got to get there first.  I say, dad, who d'you
think has just gone?"

"Dunno, don't care; only that I'm devilish glad they have gone.  Now I
can have a `peg.'"

"No, you can't."

"Can't!  What the devil do you mean, Clytie?"

"What I say.  You've had enough of a `peg' to last you till to-night.
What you want now is some strong coffee, so come right in and have it."

He grumbled something about not being master in his own house, and a
good deal more.  But in the end he submitted; for Clytie was the one who
ruled him, and, to do her justice, ruled him tactfully and for his good,
so far as it lay within her power; whereas Delia was somewhat intolerant
of this phase of her parent's weakness, and adopted towards it a
scornful attitude.

"Well, dad, you haven't guessed who has just gone," went on Clytie.

"How the blazes should I know--or care?" snapped the old man.  "Some
spark of yours, I suppose."

"Haven't got any just now.  Everyone seems `off' me.  Delia's putting my
nose clean out of joint," was the placid reply.  "Well, what d'you think
of Wagram?"

"What?" roared old Calmour, who was just in the quarrelsome stage and
was glad of an object whereon to vent it.  "He?  If I'd been here I'd
have kicked him out of the house."

"No, you wouldn't," said Delia quickly.  "You couldn't, to begin with."

"What the--what the--?"  And as the old man, purple with rage, let off a
string of unstudied profanity, both girls put their fingers to their
ears.

"Let's know when you've blown off steam, dad," said Clytie, "then we'll
listen to you again."

At last old Calmour, seeing no fun in cursing without an audience, and
being, moreover, quite blown, desisted, the resumed thread of his wrath
taking the shape of rumbling growls.  He would teach that blanked,
stuck-up jackanapes--keeping wild beasts to attack his girls on a public
road.  He didn't care this or that for any blanked Wagram, even if they
owned half the county.  He'd knock a thousand pounds damages out of them
for that little job.  He'd put it in his solicitors' hands at once, he
would, by so and so.

"You'll do nothing of the sort, dad," said Clytie.  "We've got a much
better plan than that."

"Oh, you have, have you?  And what is it?"

"Not going to tell you--not yet.  Leave it to me, and--keep quiet."

Again he grumbled and swore, but Clytie's equanimity was proof against
such little amenities.  She was not going to let her father into their
scheme only to have him giving it away in his cups, in this or that
saloon bar about the place, not she.  At last, drowsy with the combined
warmth of the day, his own vehemence, and, incidentally, the liquor he
had imbibed, he subsided on a sofa, and snored.

He did not look lovely as he lay there, open-mouthed and breathing
stertorously, his grey hair all touzled about his red and bloated face.
It was hard to realise that he could be the father of these two very
attractive girls, yet in his younger days he had been a good-looking man
enough.  But the effects of poverty and domestic worry, and drink taken
to drown the care inseparable therefrom, had made him--well, what he
was.



CHAPTER SIX.

A SOLEMNITY.

The chapel belonging to Hilversea Court stood a little back from the
main avenue, and was so embowered in fine old trees as to be invisible
in summer-time from the main road which skirted the park wall on the
outside.

From the west front of it, at right angles to the main avenue, there
opened out a second avenue, of a good width, and shaded by rows of tall
limes extending some four hundred yards, and terminating in a sculptured
stone Calvary of sufficient size and proportions as to be plainly
discernible even at a distance.  This avenue was known as the Priest's
Walk.

The origin of the name was by no means clear.  Some said it was because
successive family chaplains for generations had been in the habit of
pacing this avenue while saying their office, or for purposes of
combining exercise with meditation; others that tradition had it that in
the reign of Elizabeth a refugee priest was arrested there, and being,
of course, subsequently martyred, was said to revisit the scene at
midnight on the anniversary of his martyrdom, and pace up and down--
incidentally, headless.  None, however, could say for certain.  But the
name had stuck--had been there, indeed, beyond the memory of the
grandfather of the oldest inhabitant.

On this cloudless June afternoon, however, there was nothing reminiscent
of tragedy or special manifestation.  Quite a throng of people lined the
avenue on either side, quiet and expectant, talking but little, and then
in subdued tones.  Overhead, at intervals, drapings of crimson and white
and gold spanned the avenue, as though for the passage of royalty; for
it was the octave day of the Feast of Corpus Christi, and the procession
customary on that solemnity was about to take place.

The occasion was a gala one at Hilversea.  As far as possible the day
was observed on the estate as a general holiday, and so great was the
popularity of the old Squire and his son that even those among their
tenants who differed with them in creed would willingly meet their
wishes in this respect.  Moreover, there was an abundant spread laid out
in several large marquees, to which all belonging to the place were
welcome, whether they attended the religious observances or not; and
this held good of a sprinkling of people from outside, even though drawn
thither by no more exalted a motive than that of witnessing a
picturesque sight.

That it was all this there could be no room for two opinions as the
chapel doors were thrown wide and the procession emerged.  Headed by the
cross-bearer and acolytes came a long double file of white-clothed
children wearing veil and wreath, girls from a neighbouring convent
school, and a number of choir boys in lace-trimmed cottas and scarlet
cassocks, which showed in bright contrast to the more sober black ones
of the lay singers; several priests in cassock and cotta, all holding
lighted candles; then, preceded by torch-bearers and thurifers, and
walking beneath a golden canopy, came the celebrant bearing the Sacred
Host in a gleaming sun-shaped monstrance, and attended by deacon and
subdeacon, all three richly vested.  Several banners, borne aloft at
intervals, added a final stroke of picturesqueness to the moving
pageant.

The demeanour of the onlookers varied only in degrees of reverence, for
of the opposite there was none.  Headed by the old Squire and such of
the house party not officially assisting in the ceremony many fell in
behind and followed on.  So still was the summer air that the flame of
the numerous tapers burned without a flicker, and when a pause occurred
in the chanting a perfect chorus of thrush-song from the adjoining woods
mingled with the musical clash of censer chains and the tinkle of the
canopy bells.

Wagram, in cassock and cotta, was acting as master of ceremonies,
keeping a careful eye on the line of march with a view to rectifying any
tendency to crowding up on the one hand or "gappiness" on the other.

"A little quicker, please," he whispered to a tall, beautiful girl of
sixteen, with hair that shone like a flowing golden mantle over her
white dress.  She was supporting a large banner, and was flanked by two
wee tots, similarly attired, holding the tassels.  With a nod of the
head she complied, and then Wagram, stepping back a pace or two to
beckon the others on, brushed against somebody kneeling.  Turning to
offer a whispered apology he beheld Delia Calmour, who, giving him a
little smile and reassuring nod, was occupied in resettling her hat.
For a moment he found himself wondering that she should be there at all,
then the discharge of his duties drove all thought of her out of his
mind.

At the far end of the avenue a _reposoir_ had been erected--a temporary
throne, abundantly decked with lights and flowers--and here all knelt
while the _Tantum ergo_ was sung; and the white Host, framed in the
flashing sun rays of the jewelled monstrance, gleamed on high as
Benediction was given.  Then, reforming, the procession, returning,
moved forward once more upon its rose-strewn way, singing now the Litany
of Loreto, which, being, of course, well known to most of those present,
was taken up on all sides, and chorused forth in one great and hearty
volume of rhythm.

Delia Calmour rose from her knees and joined the increased numbers of
those who were following.  What had moved her she could not for the life
of her have told, but she had found herself bowing down in reverence as
low as those around her as the Sacred Host was borne past.  Now she
followed with the rest.  She could not get into the chapel, but in this
she fared no worse than nine-tenths of those in whose midst she was.
But through the open doors she could distinguish the starry glitter of
many lights on or about the high altar, as, in a dead hush, between
thunderous waves of organ and chant, the final Benediction of the
Blessed Sacrament was given.

The throng outside began to break up and those from within to come out.
The convent children were marshalled forth, two by two, in charge of
their attendant nuns, and still Delia lingered.  She longed for an
opportunity of having a little talk with Wagram, if it were only for a
few minutes.  She went into the chapel, thick and fragrant with incense.
Two acolytes were extinguishing the numerous candles, and her pulse
quickened as she saw Wagram, now divested of his cassock and cotta,
standing by the sacristy door, pointing out the architectural and
ornamental beauties of the interior to a couple of priests, presumably
strangers.  It was of no use, she decided, and, going outside, she
wandered up the decorated avenue again.  But before she had gone far she
stopped short, striving to curb the thrill of her pulses, to repress the
tell-tale rush of colour to her cheeks.  A step behind her--and a voice.
That was all.

"How do you do, Miss Calmour?  How quickly you walk.  So you have found
your way over to our solemnity?"

Delia turned at the voice.  As they clasped hands she was conscious of
an utterly unwonted trepidation.  She had just given up all hope of
speaking with him.  He would be too busy with other things and people to
trouble to find her out, even if he had remembered noticing her among
the attendance at all, she argued.

"Yes; but I had to screw up my courage very considerably to do so," she
returned, flashing up at him a very winning smile.  "You see, I had
heard that anybody might come."

"Of course.  But what were you afraid of?  That you would be spirited
away and privately burnt at the stake?  Or only thumb-screwed?"

"No, no--of course not.  Don't chaff me, Mr Wagram; it's unkind.  You
ought rather to pity my ignorance.  Do you often have a ceremony like
that?"

"Only once a year hitherto.  This ought, strictly speaking, to have been
held last Thursday, or Sunday, but we couldn't make it anything like as
imposing on either day.  We couldn't have got the convent school for one
thing, nor such a muster of clergy.  They can't conveniently leave their
own missions on those days.  Now come up to the house.  There's `cup'
and all sorts of things going; tea, too, if you prefer it--and I can't
allow you to break away as you did last time.  Where did you leave your
bicycle?"--with a glance at her skirt.

"I stood it against the chapel railing.  Will it be safe there?"

"We'd better take it along to make sure."

She would not let him get it for her.  Someone might detain him if once
he left her side.  Indeed, she could hardly realise that she was awake
and not dreaming.  In saying that she had screwed up her courage to come
she was speaking the literal truth, and even then would have given up at
the last moment but for Clytie, whom, feebly, she had besought to
accompany her.

"Not I, my dear child," had been the decisive response.  "If I were to
get into that crowd some kind soul would be safe to pass the word:
`Hullo!  There's Damages.'  Then what sort of show would Damages' little
sister have?  No, no; you must play this innings off your own bat."

But Delia, to do her justice, had resolved in no way to second her
sister's great and audacious scheme.  It made her feel mean to realise
that she had even heard it mooted.  Her presence there to-day was not
due to any wish to further it, but to a legitimate desire not to let
slip so good an opportunity of furthering the acquaintance so strangely
begun.

"I have never seen a more picturesque sight," she went on as they walked
towards the house.  "The effect was perfect--the procession moving
between these great tree trunks--the avenue all strewn with roses--and
all that flash as of gold here and there, and the scarlet and white of
the choir boys.  And how well they seemed to do it--no fuss or
blundering.  Did you organise it all, Mr Wagram?  You seemed here,
there, and everywhere at once."

"I generally do master of ceremonies--a very much needed official, I
assure you, on these occasions."

"So I should imagine.  And all those little tots in muslin and white
wreaths--even the plainest of them looked pretty.  Tell me, Mr Wagram,
who was that lovely girl who carried one of the banners?  She didn't
look as if she belonged to that convent school."

"Yvonne Haldane.  No, she doesn't."

"Is she French?"

"There's nothing French about her but her name, unless that she speaks
it uncommonly well.  She's staying with us--she and her father.  The
peculiarity about them is that they are rarely seen apart."

"Really?  How nice.  You don't often find that."  And the speaker's
thoughts reverted to another sort of parent, abusive or maudlin,
red-faced, and semi or wholly intoxicated.  "But, Mr Wagram, who is the
priest who seemed to do all the principal part?  Such a fine-looking old
man!"

"Monsignor Culham.  He and my father have known each other all their
lives.  Ah, here they all are," as the tall forms of the prelate and his
host appeared round the end of the house.  With them was a sprinkling of
black coats.

"I believe I'm a little afraid," said Delia hesitatingly.

"You needn't be.  They are very good-natured men.  They wouldn't wish to
burn you for the world.  They prefer the `Stakes of Smithfield' with the
`e' transposed."

"Now you're chaffing me again.  But, really, I'm always a little shy of
`the cloth.'  I never know what to talk about."

"Make your mind easy.  We shall find the lay element abundantly
represented on the lawn, never fear.  But first come and say a word or
two to my father."

Remembering the episode of the gnu, Delia was a little shy of meeting
the old Squire.  But she need not have been, for his denunciation of the
house of Calmour notwithstanding, his greeting of this scion thereof was
all that was kind and cordial.

"So this is the famous big game slayer?" he said after a word or two of
welcome.  "What do you think of that, Monsignor?  You don't meet every
day with a young lady who can boast of having shot big game--dropped a
fine specimen of the brindled gnu dead in his tracks."

"No, indeed.  In South Africa, I suppose?"

"South Africa?  No.  Here--right here.  But it was to save someone from
being badly gored."

"Which is one more instance to show that pluck and readiness of resource
are not prerogatives of our sex entirely," said the prelate, quick to
notice the look of embarrassment which had come over the girl's face.

It was even as Wagram had said, the lay element was represented on the
lawn, as a fair sprinkling of sunshades and vari-coloured light summer
dresses and hats bore token.  Likewise refreshment, and while in process
of procuring some for his charge Wagram felt a pull at his sleeve.

"Who's that you've got there, Wagram?  Is Damages here too?"

"Eh?  Oh, by the way, Haldane, which of them is Damages?"

"Not this one; a sister; the tall one: Clytie, I think they call her."

"Oh!  Well, this one isn't responsible for her sister, and she's a very
nice sort of girl.  She's the heroine of the gnu adventure, you know,
and I want Yvonne to go and talk to her a little."

"Of course I will," said Yvonne, moving off with that intent.

"Look at her!" exclaimed Haldane as they watched this tall child cross
the lawn; straight, erect, gait utterly free and unstudied, the great
golden mantle of her hair rippling below her waist.  "Just look at her,
Wagram!  Did you ever see such a child in your life?  And they talk
about `the awkward age.'  Yvonne never had an awkward age."

"I should think not," assented Wagram, who ran her father very close in
his admiration for the beautiful child.

"How many girls of her age," went on Haldane, "would unhesitatingly go
and talk to an entire stranger like that?  They'd kick against it,
object that they didn't know what to say, that someone else had better
undertake the job, and so on.  Yet look at her; she's as self-possessed
as a woman of fifty, and as devoid of self-consciousness as a savage,
and she's talking to the other girl as if she's known her all her life."

And such, indeed, was the case.  So entranced was Delia with the charm
of this child-woman that she almost forgot to do justice to the
strawberries and champagne cup which Wagram had procured for her, almost
forgot furtively to watch Wagram himself as he moved here and there
attending to other guests; forgot entirely any little _gene_ she might
have felt, remembering that, after all, this was not her world, that she
was in a sort of fish-out-of-water state.  They talked of bicycling,
then of post-card collecting, then of the solemnity they had just
witnessed, and here especially the blue eyes would kindle and the whole
face light up, and Yvonne would describe graphically and well other and
similar ceremonies she had witnessed in some of the great cathedrals of
the world.  Her listener thought she could have sat there for ever in
that atmosphere of refinement and ease; and this lovely child, who had
drawn her with such a magnetic fascination--they would probably never
hold converse together again.  How could they, belonging as they did to
different worlds, and in this connection the thought of the atmosphere
of Siege House caused her very much of a mental shudder.

"Has this little girl been boring you a lot, Miss Calmour?"  And Haldane
laid an arm round the sunny tresses upon his child's shoulders.

"Boring me!  Why, I never was so interested in my life!  You and your
daughter seem to have been everywhere, Mr Haldane.  Boring me!"  And
with a little, instinctively affectionate impulse she dropped her hand
on to that of Yvonne, as though to plead: "Don't leave me yet."

"We've been having a post-card discussion, father; Miss Calmour has a
splendid collection.  But she holds that post-cards are no good unless
they've been through the post.  I hold they're no good if they have,
because the picture is all spoilt."

"Why not cut the knot of the difficulty by collecting both?" suggested
Delia.

"Don't you give her any such pernicious advice, Miss Calmour," laughed
Haldane.  "The craze is quite ruinous enough to me as it is.  I find
myself gently but firmly impelled within a post-card shop every other
day or so--sort of metaphorically taken by the ear, don't you know--on
the ground that just one or two are wanted to fill up a vacant space in
the corner of a given page.  But seldom, if ever, do I quit that shop
without becoming liable for one or two dozen."

Delia laughed at this, but Yvonne merely smiled complacently, as though
to convey that her parent might think himself lucky at being let down so
easily.  The latter went on:

"Now you are inducing her to do that which makes me fairly quake, for if
she adopts the course you recommend she'll buy the cards at a greater
rate than before, and ruin me in postage over and above for the purpose
of posting them to herself."

"All safe, father; all safe this time.  I wouldn't have them if they had
been through the post."

"Would you care to bring your collection over and compare notes with
Yvonne, Miss Calmour?  Let me see, we are going back home on Monday.
Why not come over to lunch on Tuesday?  You have a bicycle--but I
forgot, you can hardly carry a lot of post-card books on a bicycle."

"Easily.  I have a carrier on the back wheel which has often held a far
greater weight," answered the girl, hardly able to conceal her delight.

"Very well, then, that's settled.  But--don't stop to shoot any more
blue wildebeeste on the way."

"Oh, that wretched creature!  Am I never to hear the last of it?"
laughed Delia, merrily rueful.

Two considerations had moved Haldane in the issuing of this invitation--
the spontaneous and whole-souled admiration evinced by this girl for
Yvonne, and the wistful look on the face of the latter at the
propinquity of a good post-card collection which she might not see.  He
prided himself upon his knowledge of character, too, and watching Delia
closely was inclined to endorse Wagram's opinion.  The house of Calmour
was manifestly and flagrantly impossible; but this seemed a nice sort of
girl, entirely different to the others.  Moreover, Yvonne seemed to like
her, and Yvonne's instincts were singularly accurate for her age.

"Well, I must be moving," said Delia, with something like a sinking of
the heart.  Wagram had disappeared for some time, and the groups on the
lawn were thinning out fast.  "But I don't see Mr Wagram anywhere."

"He's probably in the big tent making them a speech or something," said
Haldane.  "There, I thought so," as a sound of lusty cheering arose at
no great distance.  "He's sure to be there.  Yvonne will pilot you there
if you want to find him.  It's an institution I fight rather shy of," he
added, with a laugh.

But a strange repugnance to mingling in a crowd took hold of Delia just
then.  Would Mr Haldane kindly make her adieux for her?  And then,
having taken leave of them, she went round to where she had left her
bicycle, and was in the act of mounting when--

"Hallo, Miss Calmour, are you off already?  I've been rather remiss, I
fear, but you've no notion how one gets pulled this way and that way on
an occasion of this kind.  I hope Yvonne took care of you."

"She did indeed, Mr Wagram.  What a perfectly sweet child she is!  Do
you know, I am to lunch there next week, and compare post-card
collections."

"That'll be very jolly."

"Won't it?  Well now, Mr Wagram, I don't know when I have enjoyed myself
so much.  Oh, but there is one thing I wanted to ask you," relapsing
into shyness.  "Might I--er--are people allowed--to attend your chapel
here on Sundays?  Now and then, I mean."

"Certainly, if there's room for them," he answered, looking rather
astonished.  "It won't hold a great many, as you might have seen
to-day--oh, and, of course, you won't see anything like the ceremonial
you saw to-day."

"I know.  Still, I should like to attend occasionally.  Then--I may?"

"Why, of course.  Meanwhile I must look out a pair of thumbscrews that's
likely to fit you.  Good-bye."

In the midst of the mutual laugh evoked by this parting jest Delia
mounted her bicycle and glided away.  She passed groups in the avenue,
some, like herself, awheel.  Gaining the high road, there was the white
gate opening on to the by-road through the park, the scene of the gnu
adventure.  Then, as by sudden magic, the spell of serenity and peace
which had been upon her was removed.  She felt restlessly unhappy, in
tumultuous revolt.  She thought of home, when she should get there; of
Bob's vulgarity, of Clytie's soft-toned and brutal cynicisms, of her
father, thick-voiced and reeling.  Worse still, she would probably find
him in an even further advanced stage of intoxication, and more or less
foul of speech in consequence, and--this is exactly what she eventually
did find.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

CONCERNING A DERELICT.

"So that was your heroine of the adventure, Wagram?" said the old Squire
as they sat at breakfast the following morning.

"Yes.  What did you think of her?"

"Poor girl."

"Poor girl?  Why?" asked Monsignor Culham.

"Spells Calmour."

There was a laugh at this.

"He is a holy terror, Monsignor," explained Haldane.  "Sort of paints
the town red at intervals.  The whole lot of them are impossible, yet
this girl seems an exception.  She's been away from home a long time, I
believe, and, of course, that may account for it."

"Possibly," said the prelate.  "I noticed her yesterday, and she seemed
very devout.  Are these people Catholics?"

"Not they.  I don't suppose they're anything at all," answered Haldane.

"Old Calmour was very `sky blue' that day I called there," said Wagram.
"He groped right past me, and I was thankful he didn't know me from
Adam.  He was certainly `talking' when he couldn't batter his own gate
in."

"They say the girls have to stop their ears tight when he's `fresh,'"
said Haldane; "and yet Damages can do a little `talking' off her own
from all accounts."

"You wouldn't think it to look at her," said Wagram.

"That's just it.  But I believe it's a fact, all the same."

"Well, then, what about this other one?" pursued Wagram mischievously.
"She may be just as deceptive, and yet you've booked her to lunch at
your place next week."

"I rather pride myself on being a student of character," said Haldane,
"and I don't, somehow, think this case will prove me wrong."

"No; I don't think so either," assented Wagram.

"I formed a favourable impression of her, too--the mere glimpse I had of
her when we met," said Monsignor Culham.  "She certainly is a very
pretty girl, and I should think a good one.  It might even be that in
the fulness of time she should prove the means of salvaging the rest of
the family."

"Her brother Bob would take a great deal of salvaging," said Haldane
drily.  "Hallo, the child's late," he added, with a glance at the clock.
"Said she'd be in before this."

"In!  Why, I thought she might be sleeping off the effects of her
efforts yesterday," said the Squire.

"Not she.  She's adding to them.  She's gone down with Hood to try and
capture an early trout."

"Really!" exclaimed Monsignor.  "Is she generally successful, Mr
Haldane?"

"She's a very fair hand at throwing a fly.  Really, though, Monsignor,
I'm afraid you'll think me a doting sort of a driveller on that subject.
The fact is, we all spoil her shockingly among us.  Wagram doesn't come
far behind me in that line, and the Squire too."

"I'm not surprised," answered the prelate.  "I think she is without
exception the dearest child I have ever seen, and the proof of it is she
remains unspoiled through it all.  Why, there she is."

On the lawn she was standing, just handing her trout rod to the old head
keeper, who could not refrain from turning his head with a smile of
admiration as he walked away.  Then she danced up to the window, the
pink flush of health in her cheeks, the blue eyes alight with a
mischievous challenge.

"Well?  What luck, Sunbeam?" said Haldane, who was already at the open
window.

"Ah--ah!  I wasn't to get any, was I?" she cried ostentatiously, holding
down the lid of her creel.  "Well--look."

She exhibited a brace of beautiful trout, each something over a pound,
but in first-rate condition.

"Did you get them yourself?" said Wagram, who liked to tease her
occasionally.

"Mr Wagram!  I shall not speak to you for the whole of to-day--no--half
of it."

"I thought possibly Hood might have captured them," he explained.  "Did
you say one or both?"

"Now it will be the whole of the day."

"Well done, little one.  Did they fight much?" said Haldane.  "You shall
tell us about it presently.  Cut away now and titivate, because Wagram
was threatening to polish off all the strawberries if you weren't soon
in, and I want you to have some."

"He'd better; that's all," was the answer as she danced away, knowing
perfectly well that the offender designate would get through the
intervening time picking out all the largest and most faultless--looking
for her especial delectation.  Whereby it is manifest that her father
had stated no more than bare fact in asserting that they all combined to
spoil her.  Equally true, it should be added, was Monsignor Culham's
dictum that they had not succeeded.

"Are my censures removed?" said Wagram as Yvonne entered.  "Look at all
I have been doing for you," holding up the plate of strawberries.

"I don't know.  Perhaps they ought to be.  I said I wouldn't speak to
you for the whole day.  Well, we'll make it half the day.  I'll begin at
lunch-time."

"Then we'll say half the strawberries.  You shall have the other half at
lunch-time."

"Look at that!" she cried.  "Claiming pardon by a threat!  You can't do
that, can he, Monsignor?"

"Certainly not," answered the prelate, entering thoroughly into the fun
of the thing; "not for a moment."

"_Roma locuta--causa finita_," pronounced Wagram with mock solemnity,
handing her the plate.  "Of course, I bow."

"In that case I must treat you with generosity, and will talk to you
now, especially as you are dying to know where and how I got my trout.
I got them both, then, within fifty yards of each other; one in the hole
below Syndham Bridge, the other at the tail of the hole; one with a
Wickham's Fancy, the other with a small Zulu--"

"Didn't Hood play them for--?"

"Ssh-h-h!  You'll get into trouble again," interrupted Yvonne.  "You're
repeating the offence, mind."

"_Peccavi_."

"I'll forgive you again on one condition: I'm just spoiling for a
bicycle ride.  You shall take me for one this afternoon."

"Won't the whole day be enough for you?"

"Not quite.  The afternoon will, though."

"Well, that'll suit me to a hair.  We'll make a round, and I'll look in
at Pritchett's farm; I want to see him about something.  What do you
think, Haldane?  Are you on?"

"Very much off, I'm afraid.  I sent my machine in to Warren's to be
overhauled.  He promised it for yesterday morning, but the traditions of
the great British tradesman must be kept up.  Wherefore it is not yet
here.  But you take the child all the same."

At first Yvonne declared she didn't want to go under the circumstances,
but was overruled.

"I've got to go into Fulkston on business, Sunbeam," said her father,
"so I shall be out of mischief, anyhow.  I'll borrow one of the Squire's
gees, if I may."

"Why, of course," said the Squire.  "You know them all, Haldane.  Tell
Thompson which you'd rather ride."

Then the conversation turned to matters ecclesiastical, also, as between
the two old gentlemen, reminiscent.  They had been schoolfellows in
their boyhood, but the clean-shaven, clear-cut face of Monsignor Culham,
and the white hair, worn rather long, gave him a much older look than
the other; yet there was hardly a year's difference between them.  Both
had in common the same tall, straight figure, together with the same
kindly geniality of expression.

"I think I shall invite myself this time next year, Grantley," said the
prelate.  "It is really a privilege to take part in such a solemnity as
we held yesterday.  It makes one anticipate time--very much time, I
fear--when such is more the rule throughout the country than an isolated
and, of course, doubly valued privilege."

"My dear old friend, I hope you will.  Only you must pardon my reminding
you that it is for no want of asking on my part that ages have elapsed
since you were here.  And they have."

"Well, it certainly wasn't yesterday, and I concede being in the wrong,"
rejoined Monsignor Culham.  "But I have been in more than one cathedral
church where the solemnities were nothing like so carefully and
accurately performed.  It was a rare pleasure to take part in these."

"Here, Wagram, get up and return thanks," laughed Haldane.  "If it
weren't breakfast-time one would have said that Monsignor was proposing
your health."

"The lion's share of the kudos is due to Father Gayle," said Wagram.
"He and I between us managed to knock together a fairly decent choir for
a country place, which includes Haldane, a host in himself, and,
incidentally, Yvonne.  The rest is easy."

"`Incidentally Yvonne!'" repeated that young person with mock
resentment.

"I don't know about easy," declared Monsignor Culham.  "The fact remains
you had got together an outside crowd who weren't accustomed to singing
with each other--over and above your own people."

"Yes; but we sent word to the convent asking them to practise their
children in what we were going to sing--and to practise them out of
doors, too.  For the rest of those who helped us we trusted to their
intuitive gumption."

"Ah, that's a good plan," said the prelate; "there's too little care
given to that sort of thing.  Singers on such an occasion are left to
sort themselves.  Result: discord--hitches innumerable."

"I know," said Haldane.  "I was on the sanctuary once in a strange
church.  They were going to have the _Te Deum_ solemnly sung for an
occasion.  I asked for a book with the square notation score.  They had
no such thing in their possession, and the consequence was everyone was
dividing up the syllables at his own sweet will.  It was neither
harmonious nor jubilant."

"I should think not," assented Wagram emphatically.  "Now, there is
hardly an outdoor function I have been present at which hasn't
represented to my mind everything that outdoor singing ought not to be.
Unaccompanied singing is too apt to sound thin, and if backed up with
brass instruments it sounds thinner still.  So we dispense with them
here, and our oft-repeated and especially final injunction to all hands
is: `Sing up!'"

"Well, it certainly was effective with your singers, Wagram," pronounced
Monsignor Culham, "and I shall cite it as an instance whenever
opportunity offers."

"That's good, Monsignor," returned Wagram.  "We want all round to make
everything as solemn and dignified and attractive as possible, as far as
our opportunities here allow, especially to those outside; and we have
reason to know that good results have followed."

"In conversions?"

"Yes.  We throw open the grounds to all comers on these occasions, and
in the result some who come merely to see a picturesque pageant are
impressed, and--inquire further."

"I wonder what proportion of the said `all comers' confine their sense
of the picturesque to the tables in the marquee," remarked Haldane, who
was of a cynical bent.

"Well, you know the old saying, Haldane--that one of the ways to reach a
man's soul is through his stomach," laughed the Squire.  "Anything in
that paper, by the way?"

"N-no," answered Haldane, who had been skimming the local morning paper,
while keeping one ear open for the general conversation.  "Wait,
though--yes, this is rather interesting--if only that it reminds me of a
bad quarter of an hour once owing to a similar cause.  Listen to this:
`The R.M.S. _Rhodesian_, which arrived at Southampton yesterday evening,
reports passing a derelict in latitude 10 degrees 5 minutes north,
longitude 16 degrees 36 minutes West.  The hull was a dull rusty red,
and apparently of about 900 or 1000 tons burthen.  The vessel was partly
submerged, the forecastle and poop being above water.  About eight feet
of iron foremast was standing, and rather more of mizzen-mast, with some
rigging trailing from it.  No name was visible, and the hulk, which had
apparently been a long time in the water, was lying dangerously in the
track of steamers to and from the Cape.'  I should think so indeed,"
continued Haldane with some warmth.  "It was just such a derelict that
scraped past us one black night when I was coming home in the
_Manchurian_ on that very line.  It was about midnight, and everybody
had turned in, but the skipper and I were having a parting yarn on the
hurricane deck.  We were so close to the thing that the flare of our
lights showed it up barely ten yards from us; then it was gone.  I asked
the skipper what would have happened if we'd hit it straight and square,
and he said he was no good at conundrums, but would almost rather have
run full speed on against the face of a cliff."

"I suppose there was great excitement in the morning?" said the Squire.

"Not any; for the simple reason that nobody knew anything about it.  The
occurrence was logged, of course, but the skipper asked me not to blab,
and I didn't.  Most of the passengers were scary enough over the risks
they knew about, he said, and if you told them a lot more that they
didn't many of them would die."

"They oughtn't to leave a thing like that," said Wagram.  "Why didn't
your captain stop and blow it up, Haldane?"

"I asked him, and he said his company didn't contract for hulk-hunting
on dark nights; it contracted to carry Her Majesty's mails.  Probably
the skipper of the _Rhodesian_ reasoned in exactly the same way about
this one."

"It's as bad as an infernal machine."

"It _is_ an infernal machine," said Haldane.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

RETRIBUTION--SHARP AND SORE.

"Now I'll race you, Mr Wagram."

"You'll do nothing of the sort.  When I consented to take charge of
you--a weighty responsibility in itself--I did so on condition that it
was at your own risk.  In short, the average railway company couldn't
have contracted itself out of its liabilities more completely."

They were skimming along at the rate of about ten miles an hour, and
that on an ideal road, smooth, dustless, and shaded by overhanging
woods.  Yvonne was trying how far she could ride with both hands off the
handlebars, and performing various reckless feats, to the no small
anxiety of her escort.

"Slow down here," said the latter.  "This pace isn't safe; too many
rabbits."

"Too many rabbits?" echoed the girl.  Then she gave forth a peal of
laughter.

"Yes; it's a screaming joke, isn't it?  But it may surprise you to hear
that I've known of more than one bad spill caused by a fool of a rabbit
dodging under the wheel, especially at night."

"Really?  You're not stuffing me?"

"Well, can't you see for yourself how easily the thing might happen?
They're crossing the road in gangs in both directions, and a rabbit is
sometimes as great a fool as a human being in crossing a road, in that
it is liable to change its mind and run back again.  Result in either
case, a bad spill for the bicyclist.  You needn't go far for an
instance.  Saunders, the chemist's assistant in Bassingham, was nearly
killed that way.  He was coasting down Swanton Hill in the moonlight,
and a rabbit ran under his wheel.  He was chucked off, and got
concussion of the brain."

"Fancy being killed by a rabbit!"

"Yes.  Sounds funny, doesn't it?  Here's Pritchett's."

They had emerged from the woods into an open road, beside which stood a
large farmhouse.  The farmer was somewhere about the place; he couldn't
be very far off, they were informed.  His wife was away, but might be
back any minute.  Should Mr Pritchett be sent for?

"No, no," said Wagram; "just find a boy to show me where he is.  I'll go
to him.  Yvonne, you'd better wait here for me; a rest will do you no
harm."

"All safe.  Don't be longer than you can help."

But Yvonne could not sit still for long, being of a restless
temperament.  She was soon outside again, and, promptly tiring of the
ducks and fowls, she wandered down the shady road they had just come
along.

Not far along this she came to a five-barred gate, opening into a broad
green lane with high hedges, leading into the wood at right angles to
the main road.  In these hedges several whitish objects caught her
glance.

"Honeysuckles," she said to herself.  "Beauties, too, if only I can
reach them."

In a moment she had opened the gate and was in the lane.  But the
coveted blossoms grew high, badly needing the aid of a hooked stick.
She looked around for something approximating to one and found it.  Then
followed a good deal of scrambling, and at last, hot and flushed and a
little scratched, Yvonne made her way back to the gate, trying to reduce
into portable size and shape the redundant stems of the fragrant
creeper.  Being thus intent she did not look up until she had reached
the gate, and then with a slight start, for she discovered that she was
no longer alone.

Standing on the other side of the gate, but facing her, with both elbows
lounged over the top bar, was a pasty-faced, loosely-hung youth, clad in
a bicycle suit of cheap build and loud design.  This precious product
nodded to her with a familiar grin but made no attempt to move.

"Will you make way for me, please?  I wish to pass," she said crisply.

This time the fellow winked.

"Not until you've paid toll, dear," he said, with nauseous significance.

It was well for him that Yvonne's hands held nothing more formidable
than a couple of bunches of honeysuckle.  Had they held a whip or a
switch it is possible that the pasty face of this cowardly cur might
have been wealed in such wise as to last him for quite an indefinite
time.

"Will you stand away from that gate, please?  I repeat that I want to
pass," she said in even more staccato tone than before.  Her blue eyes
had grown steely, and there was a red flush in the centre of each cheek.
She glanced furtively on the ground; if even she could find a stone for
a weapon of defence; but the lane was soft and grassy, and stones there
were none.  But all the fellow did was to drop his elbows farther down
over the top bar, so as to hold the gate more effectually.

"Not until you've paid toll, dear," he repeated.  "Come, now, don't be
disagreeable.  It's the rule of the road to take toll of a pretty girl
when you let her through a gate.  You're only a kid, too, and I won't
give it away.  Ooh--hah--hah!"

It would be impossible to convey an idea of the combined terror and
anguish conveyed in the above shout.  Equally impossible would it be, we
fear, to convey the attitude struck, in sudden and swift transition, by
him who uttered it.  He bounded back from the gate like an india-rubber
ball thrown against it, and with like velocity, for a tough and supple
ground-ash stick had descended upon that part of his person which his
forward lounge over the gate had left peculiarly suggestive of the
purpose; and with lightning-like swiftness again the stick came down,
conveying to the recipient some such sensation as that of being cut in
half by a red-hot bar.  One appalled glimpse of Wagram's face, blazing
with white wrath above him, and the terrified bounder, ducking just in
time to avoid being seized by the collar, turned and fled down the road,
quite regardless, in his blind panic, of abandoning his bicycle, which
leaned against the hedge a few yards from the gate.

But for himself no more disastrous plan could he have conceived.  Wagram
had no intention of letting him down so easily, and sprang in pursuit,
with the result that in about a moment he was flogging his victim along
the road at the best pace that either could by any possibility put
forward.  At last the fellow lay down, and howled for mercy.

Giving him one final, pitiless, cutting "swish" as he rolled over,
Wagram ceased.

"You crawling cur," he said, still white with anger, and rather
breathless with his exertion, "I won't even give you the privilege of
apologising.  That is one reserved for some slight semblance of a man;
but for a thing like you--Faugh!"

The thought seemed to sting him to such a degree of renewed ferocity
that his face changed again.  Fearing a renewal of the chastisement the
cringing one fairly whimpered.

"You've nearly killed me," he groaned.  "I didn't mean any harm, sir; it
was only a bit of fun."

"Fun!"  Wagram turned away.  He could not trust himself until he had put
a dozen yards between them.  Then he turned again.

"Get your bicycle, and take yourself off," he said--"if you _can_ still
sit on it, that is."  Then he returned to Yvonne.

"I am not pleased with you," he said.  "You should not have gone
wandering off on your own account like that.  And I'm responsible for
you to your father.  What'll he say?  The only bright side to it is that
I was in time to thrash that unutterable young brute within an inch of
his life.  No, though; I didn't give him half enough," with a vicious
swish of the ground-ash through the air.

"Don't be angry with me, Mr Wagram," she answered, and the sweet,
fearless blue eyes were wet as she slipped her hand pleadingly through
his arm; "I'm so sorry."

There was no resisting this, and he thawed at once.

"Well, we'll think no more about it, dear.  There, now, don't cry."

"No, I won't."  She dashed away her tears with a smile.  She thought so
much of Wagram that a displeased word from him was more to this happy,
sunny-hearted, spirited child than the occasion seemed to warrant.  Then
a shout behind caused them both to turn.

They had strolled about a hundred yards from the gate, and now they saw
that the fellow had regained his bicycle.  He was standing in the middle
of the road ready to mount, but at a safe distance.

"I'll have the law of you for this," he shouted, "you great, bullying
coward.  I'd like to see you hit a man your own size.  I'll have a
thousand pounds out of you for this job.  You've committed a savage
assault on me, and you shall pay for it, by God!  I know who you are, my
fine fellow, and you'll hear more about this; no blooming fear!"

"Oh, you haven't had enough?" called out Wagram.  "All right.  My bike's
just close by; I'll get it and come after you, then you shall have some
more," holding up the ground-ash.  "Go on; I'll soon catch you up."

This was a new aspect of the affair.  The fellow seemed cowed, for he
forthwith mounted his machine with some alacrity, and made off at a pace
which must have caused him agonies in the light of the raw state to
which his seating properties had just been reduced.

This is how the situation had come about.  When Wagram returned to the
house with the farmer he found that Yvonne, tired of waiting, had
strolled off down the road, intending to pick wild flowers, or otherwise
amuse herself.  Without a thought of anything untoward he had followed
her.  The gate at which the affair began stood back from the road, and
was concealed by the jutting of the hedge from anyone approaching.  But
the girl's indignant voice, clear as a bell, fell upon his ear, and
simultaneously he had caught sight of the objectionable cad's nether
extremities, as their owner, leaned over the gate.  The idea suggested,
to open his knife, and in a couple of quick, noiseless slashes to cut
one of the fine, serviceable ground-ash plants growing on the bank, was
the work of a moment.  It was the work of another moment to step
noiselessly behind the fellow just as he was delivering himself of his
second insult.  The rest we know.

"Well, child, we shall have a lovely ride back," he said.  "I believe
Mrs Pritchett has got some rather good strawberries and cream for you
before we start, to say nothing of some very inviting-looking home-made
bread and butter.  She has come in, you know."

They had reached the farmhouse by now, and the farmer and his wife were
waiting for them in the porch.

"Come in miss, do," said the latter.  "I know you'll like this."  And
she beamed proudly, with a look at the spotless white tablecloth, and
the set-out of blushing strawberries and snowy cream, and the thin,
tempting slices of brown bread and butter.  "I've made you a nice cup of
tea, too, Mr Wagram, sir.  I don't know that you'll take a fancy to such
things," added the good dame ruefully.

"I'll take an immense fancy to a glass or two of your husband's
excellent home-brewed, Mrs Pritchett.  Why, you're forgetting how I've
enjoyed it before to-day."

"Why, of course I am, sir," was the reply, immensely pleased; and in a
trice the farmer returned with a foam-capped jug and a glass.

"What's this?" said Wagram, with reference to the latter.  "Why,
certainly you're going to keep me company, Pritchett."

"Well, sir, I shall be proud," was the answer, and the omission was
promptly rectified.

"Here are your healths," said Wagram, raising his glass.  "I didn't see
you yesterday, Mrs Pritchett.  Weren't you able to get over?  Of course,
I don't mean necessarily for the service," he added quickly; "but you
ought to know by this time that all our friends are heartily welcome,
irrespective of their creed."

"Well, sir, you see it was this way," began the good woman with some
slight embarrassment.

"That's all right," interrupted Wagram genially.  "Well, you'll know it
next time, I'm sure."

"That I shall, sir."

After a little more pleasant conversation they shook hands heartily with
the worthy couple and took their leave.

Just before the dressing-bell rang Haldane burst in upon Wagram in a
wholly unwonted state of excitement.

"What's this my little girl has been telling me, Wagram?" he said.  "I
must go and kill the scoundrel at once.  I'll borrow the Squire's
biggest hunting-crop."

"You can't, Haldane, if only that we haven't the remotest idea who the
said scoundrel is.  It's probably some miserable counter-jumper doing a
bike round.  But, sit tight; he's got enough to last him for many a long
day."

"Did you cut him to ribbons?  Did you?"

"I cut his small-clothes to ribbons.  By George, he'll have to launch
out in a new biking suit.  No; great as the offence was, even I think he
got something like adequate compensation for it," added Wagram grimly,
as he called to mind the fellow's insults--and their object.

And with this assurance Haldane had perforce to remain satisfied.



CHAPTER NINE.

"WE GET NO SHOW."

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Clytie Calmour as a vehement ring sounded at
the front gate, obviously produced by the owner of the large red head
which surmounted that portal.  "Great Scott! but whoever called this
shebang Siege House named it well.  Here's our last butcher pestering
for his account for the seventh time.  Now, dad, shell out."

"Don't talk rot, Clytie.  You know I haven't got a stiver.  He'll have
to wait till next quarter-day.  Tell him that, and let him go to the
devil."

"Yes, yes; that's all right.  But meanwhile we shall have to be
vegetarians."

"This infernal dunning gets on a man's nerves.  It oughtn't to be
allowed," grumbled old Calmour, who, it being only breakfast-time, was
not sufficiently drunk to philosophise.

"No, it oughtn't," cut in Bob; "but this time tell him we'll square with
him next week to a dead cert, Clytie, and deal with him ever after.  You
know, dad.  You were forgetting," with a significant wink.

"I wonder what nefarious plan you're hatching between you," said Delia.
"But I'd be sorry for Wells if he depended upon it for getting his
money."

"Oh, shut up," snarled Bob.  "You weren't so blazing straight-laced and
sanctimonious until you got taken up by the nobs, either.  By Jove, I
believe Clytie's got round him after all.  What a girl she is!"

For the exasperated tradesman, who had been delivering himself of all
sorts of uncomplimentary sayings, on the appearance of Clytie on the
scene had evidently thawed with a suddenness which was quite miraculous,
and was seen to salute quite respectfully as he turned away.

"I've fixed him," she said serenely as she entered.  "He'll send round.
We shan't have to vegetate to-day."

This sort of incident was common at Siege House, which, by the way, had
really been so named by a former owner who had taken part in the siege
of Delhi.  Indeed, it was a mystery how they lived.  Old Calmour's
pension was not large, and generally forestalled, yet somehow they
managed to rub along.

"When are you going to start for Haldane's, Delia?" went on Bob, who was
inclined to make himself disagreeable.

"Soon."

"Soon?  Can't be too soon, eh?  It's surprising how these old widowers
freeze on to you.  First Wagram, now Haldane," jeered Bob.

But there came a look into the face of his would-be victim that he did
not like.  Delia had a temper, both quick and hot when roused, as he had
more than once had reason to know, wherefore now his asinine guffaw
seemed to dwindle.  Clytie intervened.

"Shut your head, Bob," she said decisively.  "You open it a great deal
too much, and generally at the wrong time.  Likewise clear; we've had
enough of you.  Besides, you're late.  Pownall and Skreet must be
absolutely languishing for you and your valuable services.  Do you hear?
Clear."

Whatever hold the speaker had upon Bob it was obviously a tight one, for
he never failed in his obedience.  Such was rendered grumblingly,
indeed, but rendered it was.  Now he retreated to the door, grunting a
surly "All right."

"What are those two up to, do you think, Clytie?" said Delia.  "The old
man's going to Pownall and Skreet's as well as Bob."

The last named at this juncture put his head in at the door to shout
out:

"Which is the one, Delia?  Wagram or Haldane?" and withdrew it in a
hurry lest a well-aimed missile might considerably damage it--for of
such were the ways of Siege House.

"I don't know.  There may be a judgment summons out against him that we
know nothing about--or anything," answered Clytie with a tinge of
anxiety.

"You don't think they're up to any mischief with regard to that wretched
gnu affair?" said Delia anxiously.

"No--no; I've put my foot on that.  And Pownall and Skreet are infernal
thieves.  Look how they fleeced me.  They couldn't let Charlie Vance's
thousand pass through their hands without sticking to a lot of it.
Called it costs!  Why, they ought to have got those from the other side.
Well, that's all gone, and I don't know how we're going to raise the
wind.  A cool thou, wouldn't come in badly just now.  By the way, Delia,
supposing my scheme fell through, how would it be to bring off something
of that kind--on the principle of `half-an-egg'?  And it would be a
dashed sight more than a cool thou, this time, for the Wagrams are
Croesus compared with the Vances."

"Oh, that'll do, Clytie.  I suppose, as Bob says, I must have become
straitlaced and sanctimonious; but I hate to look upon it in that light.
I'm not meaning to reflect on you, mind; but, rather than do the other
thing, I'd starve."

"So might we.  Oh, I don't mind," was the serene answer.  "Only, look
here, Delia, and see where we come in.  It's like having first-rate
teeth but nothing to eat with them.  Here we are, two devilish
good-looking girls, each in our own way, yet we get no show.  What's the
use of our looks if they're to be nothing more than an instrument for
cajoling a red-headed butcher into giving us further `tick'--as in the
present case?"

"What's the use?  None at all," said Delia bitterly--"nor ever will be.
We don't seem to `get there,' and it's my belief we never shall."

"We've a margin left yet, thank the Lord; and you never know your luck.
Well, Delia, you've a ripping day before you, at any rate.  If I were
you I should start early and ride slow.  You never look your best coming
in hot and blown.  And make all you can and half as much again of your
chances, for, as I said, you never know your luck."

What Clytie had stated, in her characteristically slangy way, was rather
under the truth.  These two, possessed of exceptional powers of
attractiveness, had, as she put it, "no show."  Nor did their relative
attractions clash.  The one, with her limpid blue eyes, Grecian profile,
and tall serenity of carriage, made an effective contrast to the
rounder, more voluptuous outlines of the other, with her dark, clear
skin and mantling complexion, bright hazel eyes and full, ruddy lips.
But their circumstances and surroundings were all against them; and,
handicapped by tippling, disreputable old Calmour as a parent, those
they would have had to do with fought shy of them, and those they would
not--well, they would not.

"There's the second post," said Delia with a sigh.  "More duns, I
suppose."

She went to the door just as the postman rapped his double knock, and
returned immediately with two letters.

"Both for me, but--I don't know the first at all."

"It's Haldane, putting you off, of course."

"Oh, Clytie, don't," quickly answered Delia, to whom such an eventuality
would have constituted the keenest of disappointments.  "No; it's all
right," tremulously tearing open both envelopes.  "But--they're not for
me at all, they're for you.  They're about typing, but they're both
directed `Miss Calmour.'"

"Let's see."  Then reading: "`Madam,--you have been mentioned to me by
Mr Wagram Wagram--' Ah, that's all right."  And she went on with the
letter, which ran to the effect that the writer wanted the MS of a novel
of 80,000 words typed, asking her terms, and throwing out a promise
that, if such were satisfactory, he would be happy to entrust her with
all his work.  The name was a fairly well-known one.

"Now, what shall I ask him?  If I say a shilling a thousand, there's a
four-pound job.  But, then, he may answer he can get it done for
tenpence, which is quite true.  If he had _seen_ me I'd ask him fifteen
pence."

"Do it anyhow.  You can always come down."

"No fear; not through the post.  Well, I'll ask him a bob, and chance
it."

"He could well afford it.  He must be making pots of money, according to
the newspapers."

"M--yes--according to the newspapers.  Now, then, Delia, here we are.
`Mr Wagram Wagram' again.  It's a she this time, and starts on tenpence.
Knows her way about evidently; hints at ninepence because of the
inconvenience of postage, and it's only two short stories of 4000
apiece.  Well, I'll take her on, too, at tenpence.  You can't haggle up
our own sweet sex.  Well done, Wagram Wagram.  It's brickish of him; and
I'd just begun to think he'd forgotten what he said, or had only said it
for something to say.  Four quid, and a trifle over; that'll help stave
off Wells.  Just in the nick of time too."

"Yes; isn't it good of him?"

"Who?  Wells?  Oh, Wagram.  Yes.  Quite so.  It is rather.  Good job you
went over to Hilversea the other day, Delia; it may have reminded him."

"I don't think he'd ever have forgotten.  Oh, but it was lovely there--
the whole thing.  It was like being in another atmosphere, another
world."

Clytie, the shrewd, the practical, put her head a little to one side as
she scrutinised her sister.

"Make it one then, dear; make it yours.  You've got some sort of show at
last, if you only work it right.  I'm sorry, though, we let Bob into the
scheme.  What asses we were, or rather I was.  One oughtn't so much as
to have mentioned a thing of that sort in his hearing."

"No, indeed.  But the idea is too ridiculous for anything."

"Because he is Wagram Wagram of Hilversea.  Supposing he were Wagram
Wagram of nowhere?  What then, Delia?"

"Ah!"

Clytie shook her pretty head slightly and smiled to herself.  The quick
eagerness of the exclamation, the soft look that came into her sister's
eyes, told her all there was to tell.

"You're handicapped," she said.  "You can't play the part.  You're
handicapped by genuineness.  Never mind; even that may count as an
advantage."



CHAPTER TEN.

AT HALDANE'S.

Delia was a quick and graceful cyclist, and now on her beautiful new
machine she seemed to fly as she skimmed the level and well-kept roads;
and although she covered the eleven miles intervening between Bassingham
and Haldane's house--a pleasant country box--in a little over the hour
she was neither hot nor blown.  Yvonne was strolling on the lawn, and
greeted her with great cordiality.

"Is that your post-card collection?" she said as she helped to unstrap
three large albums from the carrier.  "Why, it must be as big as mine.
I am longing to see it.  We'll overhaul it after lunch down there,"
indicating a spreading tree by the stream which gave forth abundant
shade.

"What a lovely kitten," cried Delia.

"Isn't it?" said Yvonne, picking it up.  "Only it isn't a kitten; it's
full-grown.  It's a kind that never grows large--do you, Poogie?" she
added lovingly, stroking the beautiful little animal, which nestled to
her, purring contentedly.  It was of the Angora type, with small,
lynxlike ears, thick, rich fur with regular markings, and a spreading
tail.  "We got it in Switzerland.  I wasn't going to lose the chance.
You might go all your life and never see another like it, so I made
father buy it for me.  It follows me like a dog.  If I walk up and down
it walks up and down with me.  Look."

"How sweet," said Delia, watching the little creature as, with tail
erect, it paced daintily beside them.  "I do love them like that."

"So do I, and so does father.  I believe if anything happened to Poogie
he'd be as sick about it as I would."

"I don't wonder."  And, all unconsciously, the speaker had more
completely won Yvonne's heart.

Even the shyest--and Delia was not addicted to shyness--would have felt
at ease as they sat down, a party of three.  Haldane had a frank, easy
way with him towards those he did not dislike, calculated to make them
feel at home, especially in the case of a bright, pretty, and
intelligent girl, and soon all three were chatting and laughing as if
they had known each other all their lives.  Delia was at her best, and
talked intelligently and well, as she could do when temporarily
emancipated from the depressing atmosphere of Siege House.

"What a beautiful place Hilversea Court is, Mr Haldane," she said
presently.

"Yes.  Too big for me.  Very good as a show place; but for living in
give me a box like this."

The said "box" at that moment looked out upon a wondrously lovely bit of
summer landscape--great clouds of vivid foliage against the blue sky;
intervening seas of meadow, golden with spangling buttercups; and in the
immediate foreground a stretch of green lawn, flower-bedded, and tuneful
with the murmur of bees, blending with the plash of the stream beyond.
Within, all was correspondingly bright and cheerful.

"Father says Hilversea Court exists for the sole purpose of framing old
Mr Wagram," said Yvonne.  "That Grandisonian, old-world look about him
wouldn't be in keeping with anything more modern."

"No, it wouldn't," assented Haldane.  "But, as I said before--never to
the Wagrams, though--the place is much too big to live in."

"I suppose they are passionately attached to it?" asked Delia.

"That's the word.  If they have a weakness it is a conviction that the
world revolves round Hilversea, and this conviction Wagram holds, if
possible, a trifle more firmly than the old Squire."

"Really?"

"Yes; but he acts in keeping with the idea.  There isn't a better looked
after place--well, in the world, I may safely say.  All the people on it
simply idolise him, especially since the old Squire turned over the
whole management to him."

"How perfectly delightful," pronounced Delia.  "I can well imagine it,
for a more kind and considerate man can hardly exist.  Fancy, that
splendid new bicycle I'm riding he insisted on sending me in place of
mine that got smashed up by the gnu--an old rattle-trap of a thing that
would hardly have fetched its value in old iron."

"Yes; that's just the sort of thing he would do," said Yvonne.

Then Delia went on to tell about the typewriting work he had been
instrumental in procuring for her sister; and they talked Wagram for
some time longer, in such wise as should have put the heir-apparent of
Hilversea to the painful blush could he have overheard them.

"What I object to about him, though," said Haldane, "is that he shirks
his duties on the Bench.  I suppose if it weren't that he can hardly
help being on the commission of the peace he'd resign."

"I'm sure he would," declared Yvonne.  "You know, Miss Calmour, he says
it doesn't seem his mission to to be punishing other people."

"Ho--ho--ho!" laughed Haldane.  "Decidedly, then, he had forgotten that
principle when he caned that cad for you the other day, Sunbeam.  He
seems to have waled the fellow within an inch of his life."

"Why?  What was that?" asked Delia, looking up with quick interest.  And
then the story came out.

"The brute deserved all he got," she exclaimed with heat, and there was
something like adoration in the glance she sent at Yvonne.  This lovely
child-woman, in her exquisite refinement, to be insulted by a common or
roadside cad!

"And he deserved all he's going to get if ever I have the pleasure of
beholding him," supplemented Haldane grimly.

"No, he isn't, father, for I don't believe I should know him again from
Adam, in the first place.  In the second, I shouldn't point him out to
you if I did.  Thirdly and lastly, I think the poor beast got quite
enough that day."

"He couldn't.  Don't you agree with me, Miss Calmour?"

"Most decidedly," said Delia, looking again at Yvonne.  The latter
laughed.

"The thing isn't worth making any more fuss about," she said, with a
shake of her golden head.  "And, if we have all done, it's time to look
at the post-cards; I'm longing to see them."

Now, through all this conversation Delia was conscious that she had
never enjoyed a more excellent lunch.  Haldane was fond of the good
things of life, and his Moselle was irreproachable--so, too, was Yvonne
as a hostess--and, being gifted with a fine, healthy appetite, begotten
of youth and a bicycle ride, their guest was in a position to appreciate
it nicely.

The two girls adjourned to the shade of the big tree that Yvonne had
pointed out, and there for long did they compare notes and look over
each other's collections.

Delia had been on the point of selling hers--everything was considered
in the light of an asset at Siege House--and had only refrained by
reason of the inadequacy of the offers made.  Now she rejoiced that she
had not since it constituted the peg whereon hung the initiation of this
acquaintance.  Yet she wished she had thought of weeding it a little,
for some of the specimens, looked at in recent lights, struck her as
tawdry and vulgar.  Yvonne's collection, on the other hand, seemed to
represent every town, village, cathedral, and picturesque spot in
Europe, with famed works of art and a sprinkling of celebrities.

"Why, what's this?" cried Delia as several loose cards fluttered out of
the books.  "It's yourself!"

"Yes.  Father had it done to send to people as a Christmas card."

"But you must let me have one of these.  Why, they are charming
portraits.  Do!  Will you?"

"Certainly, if you care about it.  Shall I post it to you?"

"Not for the world.  They'd stamp it all over, perhaps right across the
face."

"Ah--ah!" mischievously.  "Now you see why I don't like them through the
post.  All these places are like portraits to me; they remind me of good
times."

"They must indeed," said the other, thinking under what glowing
circumstances this happy child's life had been passed.

"Here's one of Poogie.  I had that done.  Would you like it too?  Come
here, Poogie, and strike the same attitude, and let's see if it's good."

"I should rather think I would like it," answered Delia, who was
stroking the beautiful little creature.  And so the afternoon fled, for
one of them only too quickly; and presently Haldane joined them, smoking
a pipe, and they strolled about a little till it was time for the
inevitable tea, and soon after for a homeward move.

"You must come and see us again, Miss Calmour, if you have not found it
too slow," Haldane said as they exchanged farewells.

"Slow!  Why, Mr Haldane, I have never enjoyed myself so much in my
life."

"I'm so glad," Yvonne interposed in her frank, sunny way.  Then they had
parted.

"She seems a nice, pleasant, straightforward sort of girl, with no
nonsense about her," was Haldane's comment as they strolled back from
the gate.  "Pity she comes of that rotten brood.  I wouldn't have one of
the others inside my door on any account.  But I've always stood out
against holding the individual responsible for the defects of its
relatives, and here, I fancy, is a case in point.  Let's go and try for
a trout, Sunbeam."

Their late guest, speeding along in the sweet June sunshine was going
over the day's events in her mind, and into the same there shot a sudden
idea.  If only she could be wanted as "companion" for Yvonne.  She had
held a post of the kind before, and had found it, not through her own
fault, intolerable.  But here it would be like Paradise, such was the
spell this sunny child-woman, with the pretty little foreign ways
contracted during a large Continental experience, had woven upon her.
It needed Clytie to point out to her that a hale, middle-aged man such
as Haldane, if in want of that functionary at all, must perforce employ
a very Gorgon, which, of course, he could never dream of doing; and her
musings kept her so busy that she nearly dropped off her bicycle in the
start she gave on finding herself almost face to face with Wagram.

He was advancing towards her, evidently making for a gate that led into
the ride of a wood.  He had a rabbit rifle in his hand, the same weapon
that had figured in the adventure.  She was on her feet in a moment.

"Oh, Mr Wagram, how good of you!" she began in her impulsive way.
"Clytie has just had two orders--both through your recommendation."

"I am always pleased to be of use to anybody when it is within my
power."

What was this?  Had the very heavens fallen?  His tone was icy.  He had
just formally touched her outstretched hand--no more than the barest
courtesy demanded.

"It was very, very good of you all the same," she pursued lamely.

"Pray don't mention it," he replied, lifting his hat with a movement as
though to resume his way, which she could not ignore.

She remounted her bicycle, and well, indeed, was it for her that the
road was clear, as she whirled along mechanically with pale face and
choking a sob in her throat.  What did it mean?  What had she done?
What could she have done?  The god at whose shrine she worshipped was
displeased--sorely and grievously displeased.  Yet why, why?  To this
she could find no answer--no, none.

And the sunshine had gone out of the day.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

CONCERNING TWO CLAIMS.

"God bless my soul!" ejaculated the old Squire in a startled tone.  Then
relapsing into mirth: "Is it meant for a joke?"

"What?" asked Wagram, who was engaged in the same occupation--
investigating letters which had just come by the afternoon post.

"This," said the Squire, handing across the letter he had been reading.
"Why, it's too comical.  I never heard of such preposterous impudence in
my life."  And he began to pace up and down the hall.

Wagram took the letter, and the first glance down it was enough to make
him thoroughly agree with his father, except that he felt moved to even
greater anger.  For the heading showed that it emanated from the office
of Pownall and Skreet, Solicitors, Bassingham, and its burden was to
claim the sum of one thousand pounds damages "on behalf of our client,
Miss Delia Calmour, by reason of certain severe bodily injuries received
by her from a certain ferocious and dangerous animal, your property,
suffered to be at large at such and such a time and place, the latter a
public highway."  And so on.

"Is it a joke, Wagram?" repeated the old Squire.

"If so, it's an uncommonly bad one," was the answer; "in fact, rotten.
No, I wouldn't have believed it of the girl--really, I wouldn't."

His father smiled slightly, but refrained from retorting: "What did I
tell you?"

"And yet the other day," he pursued, "she came in among us all, and we
treated her as one of ourselves.  Yet all the time she was scheming a
plan of vulgar and most outrageous blackmail."

"That's the worst part of it," said Wagram with some bitterness.  "See
what comes of thinking oneself too knowing.  I could have sworn the girl
was a good girl and honest; she had honest eyes."

"Honest!  You can't mention the word in connection with that low-down,
scheming, blackmailing brood."

"Well, there you have me, father, I admit," answered Wagram.  "You
advised me against them, and I took my own line.  I sing small."

"Oh, that's no matter.  The question is: What are we going to do?  Take
no notice?"

"I should send her the money."

"What!  Why, Wagram, it's preposterous.  Why, on your own showing the
girl wasn't hurt at all.  A thousand pounds?"

"Still, I should send it.  We shouldn't feel it.  I expect these people
are in desperate straits, and I've known that enviable condition
myself."

"Send it?  Great heavens, Wagram!  A thousand pounds for that old sot to
soak on?"

"No, no.  Send it so that nobody has the handling of it but the girl
herself.  She behaved very pluckily, remember.  I'm almost sure she
saved my life."

"Yes; but if you hadn't come to her rescue it wouldn't have been in
danger, as I said before," replied the Squire somewhat testily.

"Well, perhaps not; but the situation was inevitable.  I couldn't slink
away and leave her to be hacked to death by the brute."

"All right.  I'll leave it to you, Wagram.  Do as you think fit."

"Very well," was the answer as he busied himself again with his letters.
Then he repressed a quick whistle of astonishment.

"Pownall and Skreet again.  Another thousand pounds!" he mentally
ejaculated.  And, in fact, it was just that; and this time the claim was
made on himself on behalf of "our client, Mr Robert Calmour, by reason
of injuries sustained in the unprovoked savage and brutal assault
committed by you upon him, on the public highway," at such and such a
time and place.

"Pownall and Skreet are having a merry innings," he thought to himself;
and then he laughed, for a recollection of the said Mr Robert Calmour's
frantic rebound from the gate when that worthy first came in contact
with the ground-ash rushed overwhelmingly upon him.  But astonishment
underlay.  So that was the identity of the fellow he had thrashed!
Could it be Delia's brother?  Why, it must be; and then he remembered
the running epitome as to their family and its habits which Clytie had
given him on the occasion of his call at Siege House.  Well, the
Calmours were on the war-path this time, and no mistake.

"What's the joke, Wagram?" said the old Squire, who was looking out of
the window and had his back turned.

"Something reminded me of the cad I whacked the other day, and it was
funny."  He decided not to let his father into a knowledge of this other
impudent demand.  It he would know how to deal with himself.  "Who are
Pownall and Skreet?"

"Two rascally solicitors in Bassingham."

"All right.  You've left it to me now, father.  Don't you worry any more
about the affair; it's out of your hands."

"Oh, I shan't bother about it."

Soon after Wagram took up the rabbit rifle and strolled forth to try a
long-distance shot or two; but his mind was full of the demand they had
just received--that on behalf of Delia: to Bob's affair he did not give
a further thought.  He had felt interested in the girl; had thought to
discern a great deal of good in her; had even been wondering what he
could do to help her.  He owned himself astonished--astonished and
disgusted.  Had it been the other the result would not have surprised
him.  Looking back, too, he thought to discern a potential slyness
beneath Clytie's open ingenuousness; but as to this one he was
disappointed.

Then he remembered that he had, in a way, taken her up, and through him
Haldane.  She was no fit companion for Yvonne, and at this thought his
disgust deepened.  Well, it would be easy to let Haldane judge for
himself, and at sight of the lawyer's letter he knew what Haldane's
judgment would be.  Then, too, he recalled her demeanour on the occasion
of last week's solemnity: how she had affected an interest in it, and so
on.  All acting, of course; possibly due to the acquiring of a cheap
honour and glory among her own set as having been seen among the party
at Hilversea Court.  Innately very much of a misogynist, Wagram's
bitterness in a matter of this kind needed no spur, no stimulant.  He
felt very bitter towards this girl with the straightforward eyes and
appealing ways who had so effectually bamboozled him.  It was no
question of the amount--that, as he had said, they would not feel--it
was the way in which the thing had been done.  And, having arrived at
this conclusion, he looked up, and there, skimming towards him on her
bicycle, was the object of his cogitations.  The method of that brief
interview we know.

Thereafter Wagram resumed his way.  It was only natural, he argued, that
she should affect ignorance, utter innocence, as to what had transpired.
Another bit of acting.  He hoped he had not been manifestly
discourteous, but he could not have trusted himself to prolong the
meeting.  Now he would dismiss the matter from his mind.  He had made a
grievous error of judgment, and when the affair became known he would
become something of a laughing-stock.  For that, however, he cared
nothing.

Delia, for her part, felt as if she had just received a blow on the head
as she wheeled homeward in a semi-dazed condition.  The sight of Bob in
the doorway--Bob, perky, expansive, more raffish than usual--did not
tend to soothe her either.

"Hullo!  What's the row?" he cried as she pushed past him.  "You're
looking like a boiled owl.  Too much of Haldane's champagne, eh?"  For
he delighted to tease Delia, did this amiable youth; she was putting on
too much side of late, and wanted taking down a peg, he declared.  With
Clytie he had to mind his P's and Q's, as we have seen.  Now the latter
appeared to the rescue.

"Clear out, Bob," she said.  "What a young cur you are!  A jolly good
licking would do you all the good in the world, and I wonder every day
that someone or other doesn't give you one; only I suppose you keep your
currishness for us."

"Oh, do you?" snarled Bob, in whom the words awoke a perfectly agonising
recollection.  "Who the deuce cares what you think or don't think?" he
added, the sting of the allusion rendering him oblivious of the five
shillings he had been intending to "borrow" from the--for the present--
earning one of the family.  Besides, he would be flush enough directly,
then he would be in a position to round upon Clytie for the domineering
way in which she had been treating him of late.  When he got his
thousand pounds, or even half of it, he had a good mind to chuck his
berth with Pownall and Skreet and clear off to South Africa, or
somewhere, and make his fortune.  When he got it!

Paying no further attention to him, both girls made straight for their
room.

"I've got a ghastly headache," said Delia, throwing herself upon the
bed.  "I believe I got a touch of the sun."

"Yes; it's been infernally hot--is still.  Well, did you have a good
time of it otherwise?"

"Perfect; yes, perfect," she answered, with a bitterness begotten of a
strong instinct that it was the last she would have of any good times of
that sort.  "Do you know, Clytie, the contrast is too awful.  It's
brought home to one so, and it hurts.  I think I shall try and get some
work again that'll take me away, and keep me at it from morning till
night--that'll be the only thing."

Clytie knew better than to question her further at that time.

"You turn in and get to sleep," she said, "and I'll bring you something
that'll send you off like a humming-top.  Don't go down again; and if
that rascal Bob does anything to disturb you I'll--I'll--well, he'd
seriously better not."

She had her good points, you see, this handsome, slang-affecting,
cold-blooded schemer.

Throughout the whole of the next day Delia was very miserable and
depressed; only now did she realise what an obsession this secret cultus
had become.  What had she done to offend its object?  Had any of her
belongings done so, her father, perhaps, or Bob?  She questioned Clytie
as to this, but on that head could get no satisfaction.

"Let me think it out," said the latter.  "I'll keep my ears open too.
It's a thousand pities my scheme should fall through.  But, Delia, you
must buck up.  It's of no use going about looking, as Bob said, like a
boiled owl.  Buck up."

While she was dressing the following morning there came a whole-hearted
bang at Delia's door, coupled with the somewhat raucous voice of Bob.

"Here, I say, Delia; here's a registered letter for you.  Oof, of
course.  Well, I claim my commission for bringing it."

"`Costs' shouldn't it be?" she answered.  "Well, push it under the
door."

"There's the receipt too.  You must sign it, and shove it back again.
Postman's waiting."

This was done, and Delia looked at the registered envelope, wondering.
Nobody owed her money, nor was there anyone in the wide world who would
be in the least likely to give her any.  There was a certain amount of
excitement about the conjecture--something like the solving of an
interesting conundrum.  Then she cut open the envelope.

It contained a letter written on stiff, blue-grey, lawyer-like paper.
Over this was the turned down end of a cheque.  She looked at the cheque
before the letter, and then--Great heavens! what did it mean?  For the
characters on the oblong slip danced before her amazed eyes.

  "_Pay Miss Delia Calmour one thousand pounds_.

  "Grantley Wagram."

One thousand pounds?  Grantley Wagram?  What did it mean?  In Heaven's
name, what did it mean?  With trembling hands she spread out the letter.
But it was not to herself.  It was, in fact, the letter of demand which
we have already seen the old Squire receive.

What did it mean?  Delia was simply dumfoundered.  She had never
instructed anybody to claim damages in her life, either from the Wagrams
or anyone else.  Pownall and Skreet!  Ah-h!  They were Bob's employers.
Now she saw light.  Her father and Bob had put up this between them.
She remembered her suspicions with regard to them, or at any rate her
father, two mornings ago.  All now stood explained.

With eager hands she looked once more into the envelope, but it
contained no further communication, no line or word addressed to
herself, no explanation.  There was the letter of demand, and the
tangible evidence of compliance therewith in full.  The sender had
clearly deemed further explanation unnecessary.

How she completed her dressing Delia hardly knew, so consumed was she
with a burning longing to get at those who had placed her in this
shameful position.  No wonder Wagram's demeanour had been what it had
when the girl to whom he had shown kindness had revealed herself as a
mere blackmailing adventuress--a gainer of money under false pretences.
Heavens! it would not bear thinking upon.  Well, first to give the
schemers a piece of her mind, then to rectify in so far as it lay within
her power the shameful wrong they had done her.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

CONCERNING TWO CLAIMANTS.

"Well, Delia, how much was it?" was Bob's first greeting.

"A thousand pounds."

The effect of this announcement was electrical and diverse.  Old Calmour
dropped his knife and fork--they were at table--and stared.  Even Clytie
could not repress a gasp; while as for Bob, he hoorayed aloud.

"Then Wagram has stumped up!  Did he send it straight to you?"

"Look!  There's the cheque," holding it up.

"Phew!" whistled Bob.  "It ought to have come to you through our people,
though."

"Good thing it didn't," said Clytie significantly.

"Rather!" assented Bob briskly.  "All the more for us.  Now we need only
pay for the letter of demand.  Well done, Delia.  I say, dad, we ought
to have a jolly good dinner to-night on the strength of it, and some
fizz to drink Delia's health."

"So we will, so we will," snuffled the old man.  "It's like a blessed
gift of Providence coming as it does just now, for the devil only knows
how we should have managed to get on much longer."

"Buck up, old girl," cried Bob, boisterously affectionate on the
strength of this sudden accession to wealth.  "Buck up.  You're looking
sort of white about the gills, and pulling a face as long as a fiddle,
instead of hooraying like mad.  Why, you've got your thousand--a cool
thou--and no costs charged, and no delay, and you don't seem a bit
happy."

Then Delia spoke.

"Happy!  I feel as if I could never look anybody in the face again.  A
mean, extortionate, blackmailing swindle has been perpetrated in my
name, and I shall not lose a moment in putting it right, and explaining
that I had no part in it.  I am going to return this cheque."

"Wh-at?" bellowed Bob.

"Going to re--" gasped old Calmour, who had fallen back in his chair,
wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

"Is she mad?" snorted Bob, who had gone as white as the girl herself.
"Gets a cool thou, sent her--a cool thou, by the Lord Harry!--and then
says `No, thanks; I'd rather not.  Take it back again.'  It oughtn't to
be allowed."

"And would rather see her old father starve," yelped old Calmour.
"Here, take it from her, Bob.  We'll keep it for her till she comes to a
better frame of mind."

"You dare to lay a hand on me," said Delia; and there was that in her
livid face and blazing eyes that caused the move Bob had made to rise in
his chair to subside again.  "Besides, you couldn't take it from me
without tearing it to pieces, nor could you cash it without my
endorsement--which you would never get.  How's that, Lawyer Bob?"

"Damnable tommy-rot.  Oh, hang it, Clytie, can't you knock some sense
into her silly noddle?  You haven't said anything."

"How can one when you're all bellowing at once?  Well, I may as well
tell you both that you've made a thundering silly mess of the whole
thing.  My beautiful scheme, which was becoming simpler and simpler
every day, is now irrevocably knocked on the head--"

"Beautiful scheme!  Tommy-rot!" interrupted Bob.  "A cool thou, in the
hand's worth twenty `beautiful schemes' in your head."

"--But as you have knocked it out," went on Clytie, ignoring the
interruption, "I say stick to the thousand."

"Hear, hear!" cried Bob.

"My mind is quite made up," replied Delia.  "I am going to return it.
Why, we could never hold up our heads in the place again."

"We don't hold them extra tall as it is," laughed Clytie, "yet we manage
to rub along somehow.  A cool thou, doesn't tumble our way every day,
wherefore don't be in a hurry about the thing, Delia; give it, say, till
to-morrow.  Think it well over."

"It won't bear thinking about, much less thinking over.  I am going to
Hilversea as fast as my bicycle will carry me; now, immediately."

Then her father and brother began upon her again.  Ingratitude for what
they had done for her, callous indifference to her father's declining
old age and increasing wants, general selfishness--these were but few of
the crimes laid to her charge.  But she was adamant.

"You'll have to get your bike to carry you first," snarled Bob, giving
up the contest.  Hardly had he flung himself from the room than the
meaning of his words flashed upon Delia.  She flew to the door.  Too
late.  Her bicycle stood in the front hall, and Bob, with a nasty grin
on his face, was in the act of replacing a pin in his waistcoat.  He had
punctured both wheels in two or three places, and, to make assurance
doubly sure, had treated Clytie's machine in like manner.

"You cur!" she gasped.  "Never mind; I'll hire one at Warren's."

"Wagram won't pay the bill this time.  Ta-ta!  _Bong voyadge_!"  And the
abominable cub took himself off.

"How could you do such a thing?" she flashed out, turning on her father.
"You have disgraced me for ever.  A downright blackmailing fraud!"

"Fraud be damned?" snarled old Calmour.  "What are you talking about,
girl?  That sort of talk is dangerous.  A highly respectable firm like
Pownall and Skreet don't deal in frauds."

"What sort of firm did you say, dad?" said Clytie sweetly.

The old man whirled round upon her.

"What have you got to say to it, I'd like to know?  You just mind your
own blanked business.  Are you backing that idiot up in her lunacy?  And
look here, my lady Delia.  You've grown too big for your boots of late.
If we're not good enough for you, and our ways don't suit your ladyship,
you'd better go and look out for yourself.  See then how much your
swagger friends will do for you."

"Yes; I will go," said the girl, "but not until I've put this matter
right.  Your `highly respectable firm' ought to be struck off the rolls
for this job.  Faugh! it's scandalous!" she flashed out, as angry as he
was.

"Here, Delia, come away," said Clytie.  "We've all let off quite enough
steam, and we don't want to go on nagging all day."  And she dragged her
sister from the room almost by main force.

The while Bob, heading for the offices of the said "highly respectable
firm," though hugely incensed at his sister's decision, yet through it
discerned a silver lining to that cloud.  If Wagram _pere_ had been so
quick to respond to her claim--or rather to the spurious claim that he
and his father had put forth--and that to the uttermost farthing, by
parity of reasoning would not Wagram _fils_ be equally ready to meet his
own, issued simultaneously with the other?  Clearly these people had a
horror of litigation, and already he saw himself master of a thousand
pounds, all his own, or at any rate of the result of a substantial
compromise.  Consequently, when he entered the office--incidentally a
little late--it was with a jaunty, rakish air, as though, if he chose,
he could buy up the whole concern.

"Pownall wants you, Calmour," said one of the clerks at once.

"Ha, does he?  I thought he would," answered Bob lightly.  Already he
saw himself in possession.  The reply had come.  The only thing now to
be reckoned with was that Pownall should not make an undue deduction for
costs.  Yet, somehow, as he knocked and entered, there was something in
Pownall's veined and scrubby-bearded face that was not propitious.  And
Pownall was not inclined to waste valuable time.

"Look here, Calmour," he began, "when you brought me this claim of yours
I told you I didn't think there was the slightest chance of your getting
anything.  Here's the answer."

"Do they refuse, sir?"

"Absolutely and uncompromisingly.  Here, read it yourself," chucking an
open letter across to his discomfited clerk, who took it and read:

"Hilversea Court,

"_23rd June_ 1897.

"Sirs,--I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of yesterday's date,
demanding from me the sum of a thousand pounds as compensation to one
Robert Calmour, for assaulting him.  If this person is the blackguard I
chastised last week on the Swanton Road for grossly insulting a young
lady under my charge, I may mention incidentally that he is very
ill-advised in revealing his identity, for the young lady's father, on
learning it, is not only prepared, but eager, to repeat the infliction,
and that with very considerable exaggeration of the punishment he
received at my hands.  To come to the main point, I flatly refuse to pay
one farthing; indeed, so impossible is it for me to treat this claim as
a serious one that I have not even deemed it worth while to refer the
matter to my solicitors.--Yours faithfully,

"Wagram Gerard Wagram.

"Messrs Pownall and Skreet."

Bob had gone very pale during the perusal of this letter.  Not only had
his house of cards gone down with a flutter--for he could read no
compromise here--but he was threatened with the summary vengeance of an
unknown and vindictive parent.  The stripes that Wagram had laid upon
him, now turned to yellow and red bruises, seemed to tingle afresh.

"Is it no good pressing him further, sir?" he stammered.  "This may be
bluff."

"Ours was bluff," sneered Pownall.  "I thought it just worth trying on,
but only just.  Now I see it isn't.  No jury in England would find for
you, and we can't afford to take up such a case."

"But they paid my sister, sir, almost by return."

"What?" shouted Pownall, jumping from his chair.  "What?  Paid in full?"

"Yes.  Sent her a cheque for a thousand."

"But this ought to have gone through us.  It's irregular, damned
irregular."

"So it is, sir.  And what's more irregular, she's going to return it."

"Going to return it?"

"Yes; swears she won't accept it; calls it blackmail, and so forth."

"Does she?  Well, see here, Calmour, I'm sick of all your family
grievances, and am devilish sorry I ever took them up.  If it hadn't
been that your father's a very old friend of mine I wouldn't have
touched them with the tip of the tongs.  Now you'd better get back to
the office."

"One minute, sir," stammered Bob.  "Er--who is the person referred to in
the letter as--er--threatening me with further violence?"

"I shrewdly conjecture it's Haldane--and, if so, you'd better give him a
wide, wide berth.  He just about worships that girl of his, and he has
knocked about in rough, wild parts.  Hang it! couldn't you tell the
difference between a lady--a thoroughbred--and a village wench if you
must get playing the fool by roadsides, you silly young rip?  Now get
back to your job.  I haven't taken anything by either of you," added the
lawyer disgustedly as he resumed his work.

If ever anybody found himself in an utterly abject state of mind,
assuredly that individual was Bob Calmour as he slunk out of his
principal's room, and as he took his place at his own desk he felt as if
he could have blown his brains out, only he lacked the courage.  He
cursed Pownall, he cursed Delia, he cursed everything and everybody, but
more than all did he curse Wagram.  Should he take his claim to some
other solicitor?  That would be useless, for he felt pretty sure that
nobody but his principal would have touched it.  Furthermore, the hint
thrown out by Wagram with regard to his identity becoming known
commanded his whole-hearted respect, and he grew green with scare at the
thought that Haldane might be looking for him even at that moment.
Heavens! what if Delia had let drop anything that might give him away
when she was spending the day there?  Hardly likely; and again he
congratulated himself on his sound policy in keeping the thing a fast
secret between himself and his principal.  One comfort was that Haldane
rarely came to Bassingham, his county town being Fulkston, away in the
other direction; still, Bob Calmour was destined to expiate his act of
Yahooism very fully, in the shape of a chronic apprehension, which
rendered life a nightmare to him for some time thenceforward.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

CONCERNING ONE CLAIM.

"A matter of urgent importance," read the Squire again from a card just
handed him by a servant, and which bore the inscription: "Miss Calmour."

"What on earth can the girl want next?  She's got her money--far more
than any court would have awarded her.  What the deuce is she bothering
us further for?"

"I can't imagine.  Still, I'll see her, if you like."

"I wish you would, Wagram.  The fact is, I'm sick of the very sound of
the name."

It was the middle of the afternoon, and the two were strolling together
in the shrubbery.  Both were, not unnaturally, somewhat annoyed.

"The young lady's in the morning room, sir," said the footman.  "I put
her in there, sir, because she said she'd come on a matter of business,
and hoped no one else would come in."

"Quite right," said Wagram.

Delia rose as he entered.  She did not put forth her hand, and did not
seem to expect him to.  She was busying herself extracting something
from an envelope, and he noticed that her hands shook.

"I would have been over about this the first thing this morning," she
began, speaking quickly, "but my tyres were punctured.  I did not want
to lose a moment.  But"--looking up--"it was not you I came to see, it
was your father."

"Won't I do as well, Miss Calmour?  Any matter of business is all within
my province."

"Well, then, it is about this," exhibiting the letter of demand and the
cheque.  Wagram felt himself growing grim.

"Has any mistake been made in the drawing of it?" he asked, bending over
to look at it.  She caught at the word.

"Mistake?  The whole thing is a mistake, and worse.  Mr Wagram, will you
believe me when I assure you upon my honour that until I received these
two enclosures this morning I knew no more about this than--than, well--
than if I had never been born?"

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

"Don't you?  Oh, you do make it hard," with a little stamp of the foot.
"Well, then, this claim was never made by me--never--and until this
morning I did not know it had been made at all."

"Well, but--if you were hurt that time why not accept a little--er--
compensation?"

"Hurt that time?  I would be hurt now, if I were not too ashamed, that
you should think me capable of such a thing.  Even if I had been half
killed I would not have--have--done--what has been done.  Compensation!
Look!"

She tore the cheque twice across, and laid the fragments on the table
before him, together with the letter of demand.

"Now, will you believe that my hands are entirely clean in the matter?
The moment I received this I never had a moment's doubt as to the course
I should pursue.  That is the outcome."  And she pointed to the torn
cheque.

She looked very pretty standing there--her breast heaving in her
excitement, her eyes brightened, and the colour coming and going in her
face--very pretty and appealing.

"Certainly I believe you," said Wagram, who now, as by an inspiration,
saw through the whole sordid affair; "and I don't think you need go to
the trouble of explaining it any further, for I can quite see how it
happened."

"But I must explain a little.  Oh, Mr Wagram, my father is not well, not
always quite responsible.  His health is weak, and he has had a great
deal of trouble, and might do what he would never have dreamed of doing
when he was a younger and stronger man; and the temptation, I suppose,
was too great."

Her voice tailed off into a sob, and Wagram felt a great wave of pity
overwhelm him as he looked at this girl, who now more than ever struck
him as far too good for her sordid surroundings.  Her laboured apology
for her rascally old parent, too, had sent her up a hundred per cent, in
his estimation, but as an excuse for the old sot it weighed not with him
at all.  The attempted blackmailing had been too flagrant, too
outrageous, but to find that Delia was entirely innocent of it afforded
him more satisfaction than he could have believed.

"Sit down, sit down.  Why have you been standing all this time?" he said
gently; and the tone was too much for poor Delia, who broke down
utterly, and wept.

"There, there, now.  Don't give way over nothing," he went on.  "A
mistake has been made, and put right again, that's all.  Meanwhile you
must accept my sincere apologies for my side of it."

"Apologies!  Mr Wagram, don't.  Apologies!  Why, I have been feeling as
if I could never look you in the face again."

"But you don't feel that any more, of course not.  Now, I know my father
would like to see you, so I will let him know you are here, if you will
excuse me for a minute or two."

As the door closed on him Delia brushed away her tears, and then did an
inexplicable, a foolish thing.  She rose and pressed her lips to the
table, on the spot where his hand had rested during the interview.

"And they would have had me extort money from him, blackmail him!" she
said to herself.  "Faugh! what a horrible word.  But the whole thing was
horrible, shameful.  Oh, but the tactfulness of him!  It was wonderful.
No wonder such people seem to reckon themselves a separate order of
being.  They are."

Meanwhile Wagram had found the old Squire in the library.

"The poor girl had no hand in it after all," he said.  "It appears she
knew nothing about it until this morning, when she received the cheque.
The whole thing was got up by her rascally father without her
knowledge."

"Of course.  But now that it's within her knowledge she won't find a
thousand pounds come in badly," was the somewhat testy answer.

"She tore up the cheque of her own accord under my eyes."

"What?  Did she?  That looks genuine, Wagram.  By George, that looks
genuine.  Fancy anything Calmour refusing a thousand pounds--or even a
hundred!  Good heavens! is the world coming to an end?"

"Well, she's done it anyhow.  I want you to come in and see her, father,
and put her at her ease.  She's genuinely distressed that we should have
thought so badly of her, and all that."

"By the way, does she know of the trouncing you gave that precious
blackguard of a brother of hers?"

"I haven't told her.  If she knows I expect she thinks he richly
deserved it.  I fancy she's that sort of girl."

The blend of the courtly and the paternal in the old Squire's manner was
charming, and soon Delia was quite at ease with herself and her
surroundings.  Then they showed her over the historic parts of the
house, and she gazed with awed delight at the great staircase with its
twisted stone banister and the gallery hung with family portraits and
old war trophies.

"Oh, but this is perfection," cried the girl as she leaned out of one of
the high windows to gaze upon the panorama unfolded beneath.  Miles and
miles of it lay outspread in the sunlight--green meadow and dark fir
covert, cloud-like masses of feathery elms and hawthorn hedgerows, with
here and there a gleam of silver, as a winding of the river broke into
view.  Then, from far and near, a chorus of song thrushes and the joyous
sound of a cuckoo lent the finishing touch to this fairest of English
landscapes.

"That spire away there beyond the dark line is Fulkston, near Haldane's
place," went on Wagram, in the course of pointing out to her the various
landmarks.

"Is it?  What a delightful day that was.  Isn't Miss Haldane perfectly
sweet?  By the way, Mr Wagram, I enjoyed hearing how you thrashed a cad
for insulting her."

If the faintest gleam of mirth came into the other's eyes Delia missed
its point.

"Oh, I'm not proud of it, I assure you.  If he had been impudent only to
me I wouldn't have touched him, for he was no match for me.  If it had
been any other girl I should have thought I had given the poor devil too
much, but it being Yvonne Haldane he insulted it seemed as if he
couldn't have enough."

"I most heartily agree," said Delia, and again that curious gleam passed
across Wagram's face.

"Would you like to see a secret chamber?" he said.

"Wouldn't I?  Is it a real secret chamber, opening with a sliding panel,
and all that sort of thing?"

"You shall see."

He led the way to a high gallery in an unused part of the house, a
trifle gloomy by reason of the few and narrow windows that lighted it
from one side.  The old Squire had left them early in the investigation,
declaring that he did not feel equal to going up and down so many
stairs.  The girl's nerves were athrill with the delightful air of
mystery suggested by the surroundings.

"You haven't asked as to the family ghosts yet," he said, "and it seems
strange."

"Strange?  Why?"

"Because you are the first within my knowledge to be shown over the
house who has not asked about them long before this.  Were you keeping
it till we got down again?"

"No.  I wouldn't have asked such a question.  How could I tell but that
it might be an unwelcome one?"

It was a small thing, but somehow it seemed to Wagram to argue an
uncommon thoughtfulness and delicacy of mind on the part of this girl--
this daughter of a drunken, blackmailing, old ex-army vet.

"I won't insist on blindfolding you, Miss Calmour," he said, with a
smile, "but I'll ask you just to look out of that window for a minute."

"Certainly," she said.  "Why, this is more than interesting."

"That'll do.  Thanks."

"Can I look?"

"Yes."

The inner wall of the gallery was patterned faintly in large squares
diagonally divided, so that you might see in them squares or triangles
according to the caprice of the eye.  Now, where one of these squares
had been Delia saw a dark aperture easily large enough to admit the body
of a man.  It was about a yard and a half from the ground.

"What was it used for?" she said, as her eyes becoming more accustomed
to the gloom she made out a narrow, oblong chamber, or rather closet,
about eight feet by four, and running parallel with the wall.

"A priest's hiding-place.  There is still a sprinkling of them to be
seen in our old country houses, more or less perfect still."

"This one seems perfect.  But how did they get light and air?"

"They didn't get much of the first.  For the last, there's a small
winding shaft that opens under the roof."

"And did they spend days in here?  It must have been dreadful."

"Not to them, because their mission was in its highest sense the reverse
of dreadful.  But there was a dreadful side to it, for at that time
every one of them who came to this country came with the quartering
block and boiling pitch before his eyes, as, sooner or later, his
certain end.  You can imagine, then, that to such men there would be
nothing very dreadful in spending a few days in a place like this."

"Of course not.  What a stupid remark of mine."

"As a matter of fact, the last to use this place met with just that
fate.  He was a relation, and was captured in that avenue which was the
route of the procession this day last week."

"How terrible," said Delia, gazing with renewed awe into the gloomy
chamber.  "How you must venerate this place, Mr Wagram."

"Well, you can imagine we do; in fact, it isn't often shown."

"Oh, then I do feel honoured--I mean it seriously."

He smiled.

"Have you seen enough? because if so we'll shut it up again."

"One minute.  How does it open and shut?  Why, it isn't a mere panel,
it's a solid block of stone."

"Ah, that's the secret of it.  It is easily opened from within if you
know how; but from without--well, it has never been discovered.  The
secret has been handed down among ourselves.  It is always known to
three persons, of which, needless to say, I am one."

"How interesting!  But if I were in there, and you and the other two
were not get-at-able, what then?"

"You might as well be buried alive.  Now, oblige me by looking out of
that window once more."

"If I mayn't look, may I listen?"

"Certainly.  Now you may turn again.  Well, what did you hear?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?  Well, see if you can tell which of the squares it was that
opened."

"This one.  No; it doesn't sound hollow.  None of them do.  I give it
up."

"We'll be going down again, then.  You'll be glad of tea."

She protested that such a thing was beyond her thoughts amid the wonder
and delight of all she had seen.  On the way he pointed out a few of the
more prominent family portraits.

"That is our martyr relative."

A cry of surprise escaped Delia.

"That!  Why, Mr Wagram, it might be yourself."

The portrait was quite a small one, and in a massive frame of stained
oak.  It represented a man of about the same age, with the same
thoughtful dark eyes, the same shaped face, and the same close-trimmed,
pointed beard.  The figure was gowned in black, and the head crowned
with a Spanish biretta with high-pointed corners.  Attached to the frame
was a Latin inscription.

"People do remark a likeness," he said; "but you can guess how we value
that portrait for its own sake.  It was painted at Salamanca just before
he left for St Omer to start on the English mission."

"Is there any Spanish blood in your family, Mr Wagram?"

"A strain; but it dates rather far back.  Aren't you more than ever
afraid of coming to our services now?" he added slily.  "The
Inquisition, you know."

"Afraid?  If I didn't know you were chaffing me I would say that I was
the more attracted after what you have shown and told me to-day."

The old Squire was waiting for them in the great hall, where they had
tea, and Delia, having now recovered her spirits completely, was
chatting away as though the matter which had brought her there was but
the recollection of a half-faded nightmare--a very note of interest and
admiration concerning all she had just seen.  Then, imperceptibly to
her, they drew her on to talk about herself, and one point in the plain
tale of real, plucky, hard work, which had come within her experiences
of late, Wagram made a mental note of for future use.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE SEA AND HER DEAD.

The old Squire was skimming the morning paper, without much show of
interest, however.  Of politics he declared himself sick, and there was
not much of any interest all round.  He felt himself wishing that all
newspapers were only issued weekly.

He was about to throw the paper aside when a paragraph caught his eye.
It was headed: "A Terrible Tale of the Sea," and set forth the picking
up of an open boat, a small dinghy, in fact, containing three men in the
last stage of starvation and exhaustion, survivors--probably the sole
survivors--of the passengers and crew of the steamship _Carboceer_,
homeward bound from West Africa.  The steamer, according to the
narrative of these, had run at full speed ahead on to a huge floating
hulk in black midnight, and had gone down in less than five minutes they
estimated, and that amid a scene of terrible panic.

"But," continued the paragraph, "the survivors, consisting of two seamen
and a passenger, seem unable to agree as to the cause of the disaster.
The sailors pronounce the obstruction to be a derelict, and are emphatic
on this point.  On the other hand, the passenger, Mr Develin Hunt, is
equally positive that he saw at any rate one man on board of it, which
points to the possibility of another lamentable catastrophe due to the
carelessness of those in charge of a certain type of windjammer in
neglecting to show lights."

The paragraph went on to a little more detail, mainly conjectural, but
of this Grantley Wagram took no heed.  He had dropped the paper, and sat
staring into space, with the look upon his face of a man who has met
with a shock, as violent as it is unexpected--as one who had seen an
apparition from beyond the grave.

"Develin Hunt!" he repeated.  "Good God! it can't be.  Yet--there can't
be two Develin Hunts."

He snatched up the paper again, with something of a tremble as he
grasped it, and once more scanned the paragraph.  Then he turned eagerly
to several other morning dailies which lay on the table.  More detail
might be set forth in each--but no.  Either too hurriedly did he turn
over each close-printed sheet, or the item of news had been overlooked,
but nothing further could he find concerning the tragedy.  At last,
stuck away in a corner of a different sheet, he found another paragraph:
"The only surviving passenger of this ghastly marine tragedy," it
concluded, "proves to be a West African trader who has spent many years
far up country--an elderly gentleman of some sixty years, named Develin
Hunt."

Grantley Wagram's face lost none of its set greyness.

"Of some sixty years?" he repeated--"that would be about the age.  No;
he'd be more than that.  There can't be two Develin Hunts!  The sea has
given up her dead."

He looked years older as he sat there, still grasping the paper, and for
it he had reason; for should his conjectural identification of this man
prove an accurate one, why, then, it meant that the ruin of his house
would be fixed, and, humanly speaking, beyond his power to avert.

For long he sat, motionless as a stone figure.  Through the open window
came in the joyous sounds of the summer morning--the rustle of the great
elms in a light breeze, the caw of rooks, and the distant clicking of a
mowing-machine, and, with all, the scent of flowers upon a groundwork
fragrance of new-mown hay.  Every nerve and sense was alive to these.
No wonder that he should look grey and stony.  What if all should end
with him?

What if his son--?  And then from without came the voice of his son,
together with that of another, and both were inquiring as to his
whereabouts.  The voices from outside acted as a tonic; and, pulling
himself together, the old Squire got up and went to meet their owners--
his son and the family chaplain.  Wagram had been serving the latter's
Mass, and had brought him in to breakfast.

"Looking fit?  Oh, well, I suppose so.  I haven't begun to feel my years
as yet," was the easy answer of the old diplomat to the fresh, cheery
greeting of the priest.  But the latter was not altogether deceived.
His keen observational faculty did not fail to detect a certain drawn
and anxious look, differing from the ordinarily suave expression of his
host's face.  "Wagram, tell Rundle to get us out a bottle or so of that
dry, sparkling hock.  You know, the 13 bin.  I believe that's better
than anything else on a warm morning like this."

"Upon my word, Squire, you've missed you're vocation," laughed Father
Gayle.  "You ought to have been a crack physician, for certainly no one
answering to that qualification could have been guilty of a more
salutary prescription."

"Any news?" said Wagram, picking up the paper.  Then, as they sat down:
"Why, this is a queer yarn, these three chaps being picked up in a
boat."  Then, after briefly skimming it: "Why, by George!  I wonder if
that's the hulk we were reading about the other day when Haldane was
here?  I shouldn't be surprised.  It must be very much in the same part
of the world."

"You forget, Wagram," said the chaplain quizzically, "that so far we
none of us know what the mischief it is you are talking about, save that
it concerns three men in a boat, a yarn, and Haldane.  Now, even in my
childhood, I was never good at piecing together puzzles.  I can't answer
for the Squire."

"Here you are; read it for yourself," said Wagram, pushing the paper
across the table.  "It's a ghastly thing to figure out, though, if these
are the sole survivors.  Develin Hunt!  That's a rum name!  How
perfectly sick that fellow must have got all through boyhood, youth, and
middle age of being--banteringly or the reverse--told he had the Develin
him."

They laughed at this--none more heartily than that finished old diplomat
Grantley Wagram.  Laughed--in his bright, genial, humorous way, and yet
all the time he was thinking how Wagram was, figuratively speaking,
cracking jokes over his own open grave.  Laughed--even as he might have
laughed a few minutes earlier, before this dreadful bolt out of the blue
had fallen.  Laughed--as Wagram, sitting there in his blissful
ignorance, was laughing.  Why, the thing was so sudden, so unlooked-for,
and withal so disastrous, that it seemed like a dream.  Yet Grantley
Wagram could laugh.  But within his mind still hummed in mocking refrain
his first ejaculation: "There can't be two Develin Hunts."

They talked on of various matters--the prospects of grouse on the
Twelfth, and when Wagram's boy would be home for the holidays, and so
forth.  Then the priest said:

"By the way, Squire, that's a most astonishing thing Wagram has been
telling me about that Miss Calmour and the claim made against you."

"Yes; I told Father Gayle because he seemed to have rather a--well,
unexalted opinion of the poor girl when we first talked about her,"
explained Wagram.

"Oh, come; I didn't say so."

"No.  Still, I thought it only fair to show the other side of her."

"No one could have been more astonished than I was myself," said the
Squire.  "She certainly behaved most honourably."

"I should think so," declared Wagram.  "Her people are chronically hard
up, and, that being so, to tear up a cheque for a thousand pounds
deliberately was in her case rather heroic."

"Probably the rest of them will lead her a terrible life on the strength
of it," said the Squire.  "Poor child! she seemed a good deal better
than her belongings.  We must see if we can't do something for her."

"Yes, we must," agreed Wagram.  "This is a morning to tempt one out.  I
think I shall jump on the bicycle and rip over to Haldane's--unless you
want me for anything, father."

"No, no.  I've a thing or two to think over, but nothing that you need
bother about," answered the Squire, adding to himself--"as yet."

Soon after breakfast Father Gayle took his leave, and the Squire his
usual morning stroll round the gardens and shrubbery.  But he did wrong
to be alone, for, try as he would, the one idea clung to his mind in a
veritable obsession: "There can't be two Develin Hunts."

The while Wagram, skimming along the smooth, well-kept roads, was again
thrilled with the intense joy of possession as he revelled in the cool
shade of over-arching trees; in the moist depths of a bosky wood,
echoing forth its bird-song, with now and again the joyous crow of a
cock pheasant; in the green and gold of the spangled meadows and the
purl of the stream beneath the old bridge.  Surely life was too good--
surely such an idyllic state could not be meant to last, was the
misgiving that sometimes beset him; for he had known the reverse side of
all this--had known it bitterly, and for long years.

Haldane and Yvonne were pacing up and down one of the garden walks, the
former smoking a pipe and dividing his attention between the morning
paper and the lovely child beside him.  Just behind the latter, stepping
daintily, and turning when they turned, was the beautiful little Angora
cat.

"Did you see this, Wagram?" said Haldane, the first greeting over,
holding out the newspaper.  "Well, you remember that confounded stray
hulk we were reading about over at your place?  It's my belief that it's
the very one that's sent this boat to the bottom.  Did you read about
it?"

"Yes."

Yvonne's face was now the picture of blue-eyed mischief.

"Well, this chump that was picked up, did you notice what a devilish odd
name they've given him?"

"Develin Hunt, isn't it?"

"Yes.  Well, now, think of his life spent in being told he had the
Develin him."

A peal of laughter went up from Yvonne--and it was good to hear that
child laugh--such a clear, merry, hearty trill.

"I've been waiting for that," she cried.  "Mr Wagram, you're a perfect
godsend.  Father has inflicted it upon every available being up till
now.  Briggs, the gardener, was gurgling to such an extent that he had
to stop digging.  He even stopped old Finlay, driving by to Swanton, and
fired it off on him."

"Sunbeam, you are getting insufferably impudent," said her father.  "I
shall really have to cane you."

With mock gravity she held out a hand that was a very model, with its
long, tapering fingers, which closed upon those which descended upon it
in a playful little slap.

"He isn't the only sinner in that respect, Sunbeam," said Wagram.  "I
myself was inflicting it upon our crowd at just about the same time."

"And are not ashamed of yourself?  I've a great mind not to show you
where I took out a two-pounder the other evening."

"Did you get it out yourself?"

"That's stale.  I sha'n't even answer it.  Come."

She had taken an arm of each, in the way of one who ruled both of them.
But Haldane hung back.

"Take him alone, dear.  I must get two confounded letters behind my
back, or they'll never get done.  I'll come on after you if I'm done in
time."

"All safe.  Poogie, I think I won't take _you_," picking up the
beautiful little animal.  "Some obnoxious cur might skoff you."

"Why not chuck her in the river for a swim?" said Wagram mischievously.
The look Yvonne gave him was beautiful to behold.

"_Now_, I've a great mind not to take _you_," she said severely.  "Well,
come along, then."

For nearly an hour they wandered by the stream that ran below the
garden, talking trout generally, and peering cautiously over into this
or that deep hole where big trout were wont to lie.  Then, recrossing
the plank bridge, with its rather insecure handrail, they started to
return.

The field footpath was a right-of-way, and now along it came a somewhat
ragged figure, dusty and tired-looking.  It was that of a swarthy,
middle-aged woman, with beady, black eyes.  Instantly Yvonne's interest
awoke.

"She can't be English," she declared.  "Wait, I'll try her."

She opened in fluent Italian, but met with no response.  A change to
Spanish and French was equally without result.

"It ain't no good, young lady," said the tramp; "I don't understand none
of them languages.  And yet I ain't exactly English, neither, as you was
saying just now."

"What!  You heard that?" cried Yvonne, astonished.  "You _are_ able to
hear far."

"Ay; and able to see far too.  Would you like to know what I can see for
you, my sweet young lady?" she went on, dropping into the wheedling
whine of the professional fortune-teller.

"It would be fun to have my fortune told," said the girl rather
wistfully.

"Yvonne, I'm surprised at you," said Wagram, with somewhat of an
approach to sternness.  "Don't you know that all that sort of thing is
forbidden, child, and very wisely so, too?"

"I know; but I don't mean seriously--only just for the fun of the
thing."

"No--no.  Not `only just for' anything; it's not to be thought of."

"It's 'ard to live," whined the woman, "and me that's tramped without
bite or sup since yesterday.  And I'm that 'ungry!"

She certainly looked her words.  Wagram softened in a moment.

"Here," he said; "and now take my advice and get on your way.  We don't
want any fortune-tellers round here."

The tramp spat gleefully--for luck--on the half-crown which lay in her
surprised palm.

"Thankee, sir, and good luck to you, sir, and to the sweet young lady.
I'll move on, never fear.  You're a genelman, you are."

"What are you up to, Wagram?" said Haldane, joining them.  "Encouraging
vagrancy--as usual?  Good line that for a county magistrate."

"Oh, I can't see those poor devils looking so woebegone and turn them
away.  The principle's quite wrong, I know, but--there it is."

"Quite wrong.  They're generally lying."

"More than likely.  Still, there it is."

He was thinking of his meditations as he had ridden over--of the
contrast between his life now and formerly, of the intense joy of
possession, which he hoped did not come within the definition of "the
pride of life."  Of the ragged tramp he had just relieved he had no
further thought.  Yet it might be that even she would cross his path
again.  It might be, too, when that befell, little enough of "the pride
of life" would then be his.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

MORE SIEGE HOUSE AMENITIES.

In conjecturing that Delia Calmour's honourable renunciation was
probably made at the cost of her peace at home the Squire proved himself
a true prophet, for the poor girl's life became anything but a bed of
roses.  When he heard that she had irrevocably carried out her intention
old Calmour grew savage, first abusing her in the most scandalous
manner, and, being half drunk, fell to whining about the ingratitude of
children, deliberately allowing their parents to starve in their old age
for the sake of gratifying a selfish whim.  Then he got wholly drunk, so
violently, indeed, that even Clytie, the resolute, the level-headed,
found it all that she could do to keep her nerve, while the intrepid Bob
promptly skulked off out of harm's way.

The said Bob, too, contributed his share of mean and petty annoyance.
He would insinuate that he did not believe she had really returned the
cheque.  She wanted to keep it all for herself, and leave them out.  He
went further, like the mean and despicable cad he was, insinuating that
there was plenty more where that came from, that Wagram knew a pretty
girl when he saw one, and so forth; in short, behaving in such wise as
would formerly, according to the ways of Siege House, have drawn upon
himself some sudden and violent form of retaliation.  But a change had
come over the sister he was persecuting, and the ways of Siege House
were no longer her ways, hence the abominable Bob took heart of grace,
and his behaviour and insinuations became more and more scandalous.
Even Clytie could no longer restrain him.  But his turn was to come.

Throughout all this Delia never regretted the decision she had arrived
at, never for a single moment.  She would act in exactly the same way
were the occasion to come over again--were it to come over again a
hundred times, she declared, goaded beyond endurance by her father's
alternate maudlin reproaches or vehement abuse.  And he had retorted
that the sooner she got outside his door and never set foot inside it
again the better he would be pleased.  This she would have done but for
Clytie and--one other consideration.

Clytie at first had been a little cool with her, but had come round,
declaring that, on thinking it over, perhaps, on the principle of a
sprat to catch a herring, what had happened was the best thing that
could have happened, if only they played their cards well now.  Then
Delia had rounded on her.

"Don't talk in that beastly way, Clytie; I'm not going to play any cards
at all, as you put it.  Even if I were inclined to, look at us--_us_,
mind," she added, with a bitter sneer, and a nod of the head in the
direction of the other room, where their father and brother were audibly
wrangling and swearing--the former, as usual, half drunk.

"Pooh! that wouldn't count," was the equable reply.  "You don't suppose
you'd have that hamper lumbering around once you'd won the game, do you?
I'd take care of that."

"Well, I shall go; he's always telling me to."

"No, you won't.  Let him tell--and go on telling.  I can do some telling
too, if it comes to that--telling him that if you go I go too, and we
know well enough how he'd take that.  No; you stop and face it out.
You'll be jolly glad you did one of these days."

Poor Delia within her heart of hearts was glad already.  A month ago
less than a tenth of what she had had to undergo would have started her
off independent, to do for herself.  Now all the strength seemed to have
gone out of her, and the idea of leaving Bassingham and its
neighbourhood struck her with a blank dismay that she preferred not to
let her mind dwell upon.  Now she broke down.

"I wish it had been me, instead of the bicycle, that had been knocked to
pieces," she sobbed.  "I wish to Heaven the brute had killed me that
day."

"But you should not wish that, my dear child," mocked Bob, who, passing
the door, had overheard.  "You should not wish that.  It's very wicked,
as your Papist friends would say."  Then he took himself off with a
yahooing laugh.

Now, it befell that on the following morning, while moving her post-card
albums, Delia dropped several loose cards.  Upon these pounced Bob, with
no intention of picking them up for her, we may be sure, possibly in the
hope of causing her some passing annoyance by scattering them still
more; but hardly had he bent down with that amiable object than he
started back, as though he had been about to pick up a snake unawares.
"What--why?  Who the deuce is that?" he cried.  One of the cards was
lying with the picture face upwards.  This he now picked up.  "Who is
it?" he stammered, staring wildly at it.  "Don't you recognise it, or
does it bring back painful recollections?" retorted Delia as she watched
him blankly gaping at the portrait card which Yvonne had given her.  For
upon her a new light had dawned.  "Don't you?  You should have good
reason to," she went on mercilessly, her eyes full upon his face.
"Isn't it Miss Haldane?  You know--and I know--who it was that insulted
her on the Swanton road one day, but Mr Haldane doesn't know--_as yet_."
Bob's face had gone white.

"Hang it all, Delia," he gasped, "you wouldn't give your own brother
away, surely?"

"My own brother has just given himself away," was the sneering reply.
"Brother!  Yes.  You have been very brotherly to me of late, haven't
you--trying to drive me from the house, and making all sorts of
perfectly scandalous insinuations!  Very brotherly?  Eh?"

"Oh, well, perhaps I said a good deal more than I meant," grumbled Bob
shamefacedly.

"And you'd have gone on doing the same if it hadn't been for finding
that card," she pursued, not in the least deceived by an apology
extorted through sheer scare.  "Well, please yourself as to whether you
do so or not, now."

Thus the abominable Bob's turn had come, and so far as he was concerned
Delia was henceforward left in peace.  Bob, then, being reduced Clytie
judged the time ripe for reducing her father also.

"See here, dad," she began one day when the old man was grumbling at his
eldest daughter, and suggesting for the twentieth time that she had
better clear out and do something for herself, "don't you think we have
had about enough nagging over that cheque business?--because if you
don't, I do."

"Oh, you do, do you, Miss Hoity Toity?"

"Rather.  And I move that we have no more of it--that the matter be
allowed to drop, as they say in the House."

"What the devil d'you mean, you impudent baggage?" snarled her father.

"What the devil I say--no more--no less," was the imperturbable reply.
"Two or three times a day you tell Delia to clear, and we're tired of
it."

"Are you?" he returned, coldly sarcastic.  "Well, I wonder she requires
so much telling."

"Well, you needn't tell her any more--it's waste of trouble.  She isn't
going to clear, not until she wants to, anyway; except on these terms--
if she clears I clear too.  How's that?"

Thereupon old Calmour went into a petulant kind of rage, and choked and
spluttered, and swore that he'd be master in his own house, that they
were a pair of impudent, ungrateful baggages, that they might both go to
the devil for all he cared, and the sooner they got there the better.
Unfortunately, however, he rather neutralised the effect of his
peroration by tailing off into the maudlin, and allusions to the
wickedness and ingratitude of children who thought nothing of deserting
their only parent in his old age, and so forth--to all of which Clytie
listened with unruffled composure.

"All right, dad," she rejoined cheerfully.  "Now you've blown off steam
and are more comfortable again let's say no more about it.  What has
been done can't be undone, that's certain; in fact, I've an instinct
that it may have been all for the best after all, so let's all be jolly
together again as before.  I've got a lot more orders for typing--in
fact, almost more than I can do--and if they go on at this rate I shall
have to get another machine, and take Delia into partnership--she has an
idea of working it already."

"Well, well, there's something in that," said the old man, mollified by
this brightening of prospects.  "I must have a glass of grog on the
strength of it."

Clytie looked at him for a moment, shook her pretty head, and then got
out a bottle.  He was quite sober, and it was the first that day.

"Only one," she said.  "No more, mind."

She did not think it necessary to tell him that this increase of
material prosperity was due to the good offices of Wagram.  The latter
was not the one to do things by halves, and had never forgotten the
promise he had made on the occasion of his call at Siege House.

"There you are, Delia!" she triumphantly declared as the orders came
pouring in.  "You never know what you lose through want of asking.  If I
hadn't put it point-blank to him I shouldn't have got all these--and it
makes a difference, I can tell you.  What a devil of a good chap he must
be!"

A few days later a surprise came for Delia in the shape of a letter from
the editor of a particularly smart and up-to-date pictorial, requesting
her to contribute to its illustrated series of articles on old country
seats, so many words of letterpress and so many photographs of Hilversea
Court, and quoting a very liberal rate of remuneration if the
contribution proved to be to the editor's satisfaction.  The girl was
radiant.

"It's too good to be true, Clytie.  How can they have heard of me?" she
exclaimed.  "Surely no one has been playing a practical joke on me.  I
can hardly believe it."

Clytie scanned the letter "It's genuine right enough," she pronounced.
"Wagram again."

"What?  But--no--it can't be this time.  Why, don't you see what it
says: `Provided you can obtain the permission of Mr Grantley Wagram'?
So, you see, it's apart from them entirely."

"That's only a red herring.  I'll bet you five bob he's at the back of
it.  Are you on?"

"N-no," answered Delia, upon whom a recollection was dawning of things
she had let fall on that memorable occasion of her last visit to
Hilversea.  She had prattled on about herself, and her experiences,
among which had been a little journalism of a very poorly-paid order.

"I believe you are right, Clytie," she went on slowly.  "I remember
letting go that I had done that sort of thing in a small way, and even
that I would be glad to do it again in a large one if only I got the
chance, but I never dreamt of anything coming of it--never for a
moment."

"No?  Well, you're in luck's way this time, dear.  Probably this editor
is a friend of his; and then, apart from that, a man in the position of
Wagram of Hilversea can exercise almost unlimited influence in pretty
near any direction he chooses--by Jove, he can."

Delia did not at once reply, and, noting a certain look upon her
meditative face, Clytie smiled to herself, and forebore to make any
allusion to her cherished scheme, which, in her own mind, she decided
was growing more promising than ever.



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

"A CALMOUR AT HILVERSEA."

Wagram's private study, or "den," where he was wont to do all his
business thinking and writing, and which was absolutely sacred to
himself and his papers and general litter, was a snug room overlooking
the drive; and thence, as he sat with his after-breakfast pipe in his
mouth and some business papers relating to the estate before him on the
morning following the incidents just recorded, he was--well, not
altogether surprised at seeing a girl on a bicycle skimming up to the
front door.

"Poor child!" he said to himself.  "She looks positively radiant.  I
used to think, in those awful days, if I were in the position I am in
now--by the grace of God--what a great deal I could do for others, and
yet, and yet, it's little enough one seems to be able to do."

He need not have disparaged himself.  There were not a few, among them
some who had shown him kindness in "those awful days," who now had
reason to bless his name as long as they lived, and their children's
children after them.

"Come in.  Yes; I'll be down in a minute or two," he said in response to
the announcement that Miss Calmour had called on a matter of business,
and very much wished to see him.  He smiled to himself as he remembered
the occasion of her last call--also "on a matter of business."  Then he
made a note as to where to resume the work in which he had been
interrupted, laid down his pipe, and went downstairs.

"And now," he said merrily when they had shaken hands, "what is this
`matter of business'?"

Delia was looking radiant, and, consequently, very pretty.  She had that
dark warmth of complexion which suffuses, and her hazel eyes were soft
and velvety.

"This will explain," she said, holding out the editor's letter; "and, Mr
Wagram, it would be affectation for me to pretend that I did not know
whom I had to thank for it."

"Of course.  As far as I can see it is the editor of _The Old Country
Side_.  But editors don't want thanking; they are hard, cold-blooded men
of business, as I have had ample reason to discover in my old struggling
days."

She made no comment on this last remark.  She had heard that this man's
life had not been always a bed of roses.

"Yet, how could this one have heard of me?" she said.  "No; I don't know
how to thank you enough for this--and Clytie too.  She has almost more
work than she can do, all thanks to your introductions.  You are too
good to us."

"My dear child, haven't you learnt yet that we must all help each other
in this world as far as lies in our power?  The difficulty sometimes
lies in how to do it in the right way.  By-the-by, this letter, I
observe, makes it a condition that you should obtain my father's
permission.  How, then, could we possibly have had anything to do with
instigating the offer?"

Delia smiled, remembering her sister's dictum: "That's only a red
herring."  However, she had sufficient tact not to press the point.

"I see they want six photographic views," he went on.  "Now, if I might
suggest, do two of the house, from different points of view--outside;
one of the hall and staircase; two of the chapel, outside and in; and
one of the lake.  That makes it."

"But, Mr Wagram, you are forgetting the African animals.  I must have
those; they are such a feature."

"Why, of course.  Well, then, now I think of it, we will delete the
interior of the chapel.  To the crowd it would only look like any other
interior.  What is your camera, by the way?"

"Only a Kodak.  Bull's-eye Number 2.  But I understand time exposures,
and it takes very sharp and clear."

"And shorthand writing too.  You are a clever girl, and should be able
to turn your accomplishments to useful account."

Again Delia smiled, for she remembered having let out that she was a
ready shorthand writer during that former conversation.

"Well, now, what I suggest is this: I have rather a pressing matter of
business to finish off this morning, so, if you will excuse me, I
propose to turn you over to Rundle.  He will show you every hole and
corner of the house; he knows it like a book.  We only looked at it
cursorily last time you were here.  That will take you all the morning.
After lunch--we lunch at one--I can take you over the outside part of
the job myself.  _The Old Country Side_ is a first-rate pictorial, and
we must do justice to Hilversea in it, mustn't we?"

Delia professed herself delighted, as indeed she was.  Then Rundle,
having appeared in response to a ring, Wagram proceeded to direct him
accordingly.

"Show Miss Calmour all there is to see, Rundle," he said, "and work the
light for her so as to get everything from the best point of view for
photography.  I showed her the priest's hiding-place the other day, so
you needn't; besides, you don't know the secret of it."

"No, sir; and it'd have been a good job if some others hadn't known
there was such a thing," said the old butler in historic allusion.
"This way, miss."

Delia appeared at lunch radiant and sparkling.  Rundle had proved a most
efficient cicerone, she declared; indeed, so much had there been to see
and hear that she wondered how on earth she was going to compress her
notes into the required limit.  Wagram was in a state of covert
amusement, for he knew that his father was not forgetting his former
dictum.

"A Calmour at Hilversea!  Pho! it'd be about as much in place as a cow
in a church!"

And yet, here was this bright, pretty girl, who talked so intelligently
and well--why, she might have been anybody else as far as keeping the
old Squire interested and amused was concerned.

"Now, Miss Calmour, which shall we take first--the animals or the
chapel?" said Wagram as they rose from table.

"The animals, I think, because it may take some time, and the sun is not
as reliable as it might be.  The chapel I can get much easier with a
time exposure, if necessary."

"Right.  I'll tell them to get my tyres pumped up, and we can bike down
there."

Their way took them over the very road where the adventure had befallen,
then a turn to the left, where the riding was rough.  Here, under the
trees, a shed of tarred planks came into view.

"We'll leave our machines here," said Wagram, dismounting.  "They'll be
quite safe; still, I'll chain them together, as a matter of precaution."

"What a perfectly lovely place this is," said the girl as they walked on
beneath great over-arching oaks, which let in the sunlight in a network
on the cool sward.  "Tell me, Mr Wagram, don't you sometimes find life
too good to be real?"

He looked at her a trifle gravely.  There was something very taking in
her genuineness and spontaneity.  In the present instance she had voiced
what was often in his mind.

"Yes, indeed I do," he said; "so much so that at times it is almost
startling."

It did not occur to him how he was giving vent to some of the most
solemn side of his meditations for the benefit of this girl--this
daughter of the drunken, disreputable, old ex-army vet, any other member
of whose family he would not willingly have had there at all.  But had
he known her better--that is, had he known her before that eventful
day--he would have reason to marvel at the great and wondrous change
that had come over her within that short space of time.  Her former
slanginess, and other amenities and ideas begotten of Siege House, were
to her now quite of the past, so effective had been recent influences to
refine and soften her.

"Look there, we are in luck's way so far," he said.  "Have you got an
exposure ready?"

They had reached a high paling with the upper part bent over inward.  In
front was a step-ladder giving access to a small wooden platform at the
top of this.

"Don't show too suddenly," he whispered as he helped her up this;
"you've a fine chance."

Delia could hardly restrain a cry of delight.  About twenty yards away a
couple of white-tailed gnus were feeding, and just beyond three more of
the larger and brindled kind, and a little apart from these a fine
specimen of the sable antelope.  It was as if some fortunate freak of
Nature had grouped and focussed the lot for her own especial benefit.

"Got 'em," she whispered, clicking the trigger.

Up went every head.  The white-tailed gnus, their wild eyes staring out
of fierce-looking, whiskered countenances surmounted by sharp
meat-hook-like horns, began to snort and prance round and round.  Those
of the other kind drew nearer, uttering a raucous bellow.

"Now, snap them again," whispered Wagram; "you'll never get a better
chance."

"There; that'll be perfect.  Are there any more, Mr Wagram?"

"None worth taking.  Some of the smaller kinds of antelope; but we hope
to get some more specimens.  Haldane got these for us.  He's been an
up-country sportsman in his time, and shot lots of them."

"How picturesque they look; but they are very ugly."

"Not the sable antelope?"

"Oh no; the others.  They look as if Nature had started to make a goat,
then changed her mind, and manufactured a bad attempt at a buffalo, with
a dash of the camel thrown in."

"Good description," laughed Wagram.  The creatures, excited by the
sound, snorted and bellowed, pawing the ground or capering in absurd
antics, while two had got up a sham fight on their own account.

"Supposing we were to go down into the enclosure?" she said.

"Hadn't you a specimen of what that would mean the other day?  We have
notices posted everywhere warning people against venturing in; but this
part of the park is right away from any public road, and we don't
encourage trippers.  Hallo!"--looking up--"it's lucky you got your
snapshots.  It has started to rain."

Big drops were pattering down.  The sky had become quickly overcast, and
an ominous boom from a black, inky background of cloud told that a
summer shower was upon them with characteristic suddenness.  They
regained the shed where they had left their bicycles only in the nick of
time, as, with a roar and a rush, the rain whirled upon them in a
tremendous downpour.  Then the vivid sheeting of blue electricity,
almost simultaneously with the sharp thunder-crack.  The girl gave a
little start.

"Are you afraid of thunder?" asked Wagram, with a smile.

"Not now.  Sometimes when I am alone I get rather nervous, but now I
don't mind it a bit."

She spoke no more than the truth.  She would have welcomed another hour
of the most appalling thunderstorm that ever raged to sit here as she
was doing now, and spend it in this man's society.  Yet a wooden shed,
open in front, and overhung by tall, spreading oaks, is not perhaps, the
safest refuge in the world under all the circumstances.  But the thunder
and lightning soon passed over, although it continued to rain smartly.

"Mr Wagram, there is something I would like to talk to you about," began
the girl, rather constrainedly, after a quite unwonted interval of
silence--for her.  "I have been thinking of late that I would like to be
a Catholic."

Wagram looked up keenly.

"Have you given the question careful study?" he said.

"I have thought it over a great deal.  I am fairly at home in the
Catholic services.  You see, I was travelling on the Continent as
companion for a time, and then we always attended them, so I do know
something about it."

"To know `something' isn't sufficient; you must know everything."

"Tell me, then.  What should I do?"

"First, be sure that you are thoroughly in earnest; then you must
undergo instruction."

Delia's face brightened.

"I will," she said.  "But--tell me how."

"There is a mission in Bassingham.  Go and consult the priest there."

Delia tried all she knew to keep her face from falling.  She had hoped,
in her ignorance, that Wagram would have accepted the post of
instructor.

"Father Sonnenbloem!" she said.  "But, he's a German."

"Well, what then?  My dear child, the Catholic Church is the Church of
the World, and is above nationality in that it embraces all nations--
hence its name.  As it happens, Father Sonnenbloem is one of the most
kind-hearted and saintly men who ever lived.  He is learned, too.  If
you are in earnest you could go to no one better."

Delia declared that she would; and, the rain having ceased, they went
forth just as a bright shaft of sunlight, darting through the cloud,
which it was fast dispelling, converted the rain drippings from the
leaves into a shower of glittering diamonds, and the moist, ferny,
woodland scents after the shower were delicious.

"We shall have a splashy ride back, I'm afraid," said Wagram as they
regained the road.  "No; it has run off rather than soaked in.  It won't
hurt us; and you'll have the sun for your remaining shots."

After she had taken the chapel and the Priest's Walk--she must take
that, she said--Delia asked, somewhat diffidently, if she could see the
ornaments.

"Certainly," answered Wagram; "only we must get hold of Father Gayle for
that, because he has got the keys of all the best things."

The chaplain was at home, and soon found.

"Been taking our private Zoo, I hear, Miss Calmour," he said genially as
he joined them.  "Your second sight of it is not quite so startling as
your first, eh?"

In the sacristy--for they did not do things by halves at Hilversea--
Delia was lost in wonder and delight at the beauty of the vestments and
ornaments, rich and exquisite in texture and design, and she almost had
to shade her eyes to look at the great sun-shaped monstrance, blazing
with precious stones; but what interested her no less, perhaps, was a
splendid old chasuble of Flemish make, rich and full, and displaying a
perfect chronicle of symbolism in every detail of its embroidery, which
Wagram pronounced to have been almost certainly worn by their martyred
relative.

"From that to my boy's things is something of a skip," he went on, half
opening a drawer, in which lay an acolyte's dress of scarlet and lace;
"only the rascal isn't over-keen on getting inside them when he's here--
eh, Father?  Says he has enough of that sort of thing to do at school."

"Oh, well, we mustn't expect a boy to be too pious," laughed the priest.
"I know I was anything but that at his age."

Delia was interested.  It was the first time she had heard Wagram refer
to his son, and she was about to question him on the subject when the
sound of a door opening, and of voices inside the chapel, caught their
attention.

"It's Haldane and Yvonne," pronounced Wagram.  "Perhaps they've come to
have a practice."

His conjecture proved correct, as in a minute or two the new arrivals
joined them in the sacristy.  They wanted to try over a few things, they
said, and now the organist was nowhere to be found.  Wagram couldn't
play and sing at the same time, and the same held good of Yvonne, while
Haldane couldn't play at all.  What on earth was to be done?

"Could I be of any use, Mr Haldane?" said Delia with some diffidence.
"I have some knowledge of accompaniment, and am used to the organ; in
fact, I can sing _and_ play at the same time without difficulty."

"The very thing!" cried Haldane.  "What a friend in need you are, Miss
Calmour."

They adjourned to the choir-loft over the west door, and Delia took her
seat at the organ.  It was small, but a perfect little instrument for
the size of the building--here again Hilversea did not do things by
halves--and had an automatic blower.

"This is a treat," said the girl as she ran her fingers over the
keyboard.  "Why, the instrument is perfect.  What shall we start upon?"

"Arcadelt," said Yvonne.  "Can you take soprano, Miss Calmour?"

"Yes."

"All safe.  Then we are set up.  Mr Wagram, you take tenor, and father
will take bass, though he's not as good as he might be at it.  Now, are
you ready?"

And then Arcadelt's _Ave Maria_, than which, probably, no more beautiful
composition of its kind was ever wrought, in its solemn and plaintive
melody and exquisite interpretation of light and shade, went forth from
the four voices, cultured voices too, swelling up to the high-pitched
roof in all its richness of sound, and softening into tender petition.

"Lovely, lovely!" whispered Delia, half to herself, as it ended.

"It is, isn't it?" said Yvonne.  "Do let's have it on Sunday, Mr
Wagram."

"Shall we?"

"Oh, do, Mr Wagram," echoed Delia enthusiastically.  "I'll ride over,
wet or fine, if only to hear it."

"Very well, then, we will; but won't you not only hear it but help us in
it?"

"May I?  Oh, I shall be delighted."

They tried over a few more things, including a gem or two of Gounod,
then adjourned to the house for tea.

"What a universal genius that little girl is, Wagram," said Haldane as
they walked thither, the two girls being in front.

"Yes; she's a clever child--seems able to turn her hand to anything."
And then he told of the day's doings.

"Good, and good again," said Haldane.  "We must tell everyone to get
that number of _The Old Country Side_.  Then they may give her another
job."

"I think they very likely will," said Wagram, with a twinkle in his eyes
that escaped his friend.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

BLACKMAIL?

Grantley Wagram sat alone in his library--thinking.

When a man thus sits, with an open letter in front of him, at which he
gazes from time to time, with a contraction of the brows, it is safe to
assume that his thoughts are hardly pleasant; and such, indeed,
represented the state of the old Squire's mind.

The correspondence which troubled him was not quite recent--that is to
say, it was some days old.  But, great Heaven! the issue it involved if
the statements therein set forth were true!  It speaks volumes for the
old man's marvellous self-control that he should have gone through that
period evincing no sign whatever that anything had occurred to threaten
his normal urbanity--no, not even to his son; and yet, day and night,
awake, and even asleep, the matter had been uppermost in his thoughts.
Now, those thoughts for the hundredth time seemed to voice the two
words: Only Blackmail!  And yet--and yet--he knew that it was blackmail
from which there would be no escape.

He took up the letter and scanned it, then let it fall again with a
weary sigh.  There was a genuine ring about the tone of the
communication.  No; there could hardly be two Develin Hunts.

Well, a few moments would decide, for the letter which troubled him was
subscribed with that name, and the writer promised to call that very
morning--in fact, might arrive any moment.

Even then there came a tap at the door, and the servant who entered
announced the arrival of a stranger.

"Show him up here," said the Squire.

The first thing the new-comer did was to look deliberately around,
return to the door, open it, and look outside.  Then, closing it, he
came back, seated himself opposite the Squire, and said:

"Don't you know me?"

"No."

"Look again.  You know me right enough, though we've neither of us grown
any younger."

"Not from Adam."  And Grantley Wagram leaned back in his chair, as if
there were no more to be said.

"Never heard my name before, eh?" said the stranger sneeringly.

"N-no.  Wait.  Let's see.  Now I remember I read it in connection with
some shipwreck.  Are you the person referred to?"

"That I am.  And a hell of a time I had of it.  By the Lord, we all
had."

"I can quite believe that," said the Squire.  "That castaway business
must be one of the most ghastly situations imaginable."

"Quite right, Squire.  Come, now, I believe you're not half a bad sort
after all.  I believe we are going to understand each other."

The old diplomat made no immediate reply as he leaned back in his chair
and watched the other.  He saw before him a tallish man, somewhat
loosely hung, but conveying an idea of wiriness and strengths.  The
face, tanned a red brown, might very well have been good-looking at one
time; now somewhat bloodshot eyes and an indescribable something told
that its owner had lived hard and wildly, and that in wild, hard places.

"Yes; I believe you're not half a bad sort, Squire," repeated the
stranger, pulling at his short white beard--"far too good a sort not to
have _forgotten_ that a man might have a thirst after a walk on a hot
morning; for I walked over here, mind."

"To be sure, I had forgotten," said the Squire, with a pleasant laugh,
as he touched an electric button on the table.  "What do you fancy?  A
glass of wine?"

"Wine?  No, thanks.  Scotch is good enough for me, especially good
Scotch--and it's bound to be that here," with a comprehensive sweep of
the hand round the library.

A servant appearing, the whisky was ordered and brought, Grantley Wagram
the while uneasily hoping that it would not have the effect of making
his unwelcome visitor uproarious.

"Soda?  No, thanks," said the latter emphatically; "that'll do for those
stay-at-home popinjays who loaf about clubs, not for a man who's lived.
Ah!  That's real good," swallowing at a gulp half the four-finger
measure he had poured out for himself.  "Soft, mellow as milk.  Squire,
you're not with me."

"Not--?"

"Not with me.  It isn't usual in places I've been for one man to drink
and another to look on."

"Oh, I see.  I must ask you to take the will for the deed.  This is the
wrong end of the day with me for that sort of thing."

"Oh, but--it'll never do," returned the other in an injured tone,
gulping down the remains of his glass.  "We shall never get to business
that way."

"Perhaps even better," said the Squire pleasantly.  "Well, now--what is
your business?"

At this--put point-blank--the stranger stared, and the decanter which he
had reached for, to fill up again, was held arrested in mid-air.

"Well, I'll get to it," he said, following out his immediate purpose,
and tossing off a good half of the same.  "I've been knocking about all
my life--and it _has_ been a life, mind you--and now I want to squat.
Some nice, bright, pleasant neighbourhood where there's good company and
a bit of sport to be had; like this, for instance."

"Quite natural," said the Squire pleasantly.  "Made your pile, I
suppose, and want to settle down and enjoy it."

The other winked.

"Not much `pile,'" he said.  "For the rest you're right.  I do want to
enjoy it--if by `it' you mean life--and it strikes me this is just the
corner of this little island to do it in."  And down went the remainder
of the glass.

The Squire was relieved to find that the liquor had no effect upon the
man whatever, for though he had lowered practically a tumbler of it
neat, and within a very short interval of time, he talked with the same
easy, confident drawl, nor did his speech show any signs of thickening.
The said speech, by the way, was correct, and not by any means that of
an uneducated person.

"And--the business?"

"That's it, Squire.  I want a nice snug little box, where I can smoke my
pipe in peace and stable a horse or two, and have a day's shooting now
and again, and throw a fly when I want.  That's reasonable, isn't it?"

"Quite.  But, then--I'm not a house agent."

"Ha--ha--ha!  Capital joke--capital!  Well, for once in your life you
shall be one--"

"Eh?"

"--And find me exactly what I want.  I think the terms are easy.  Only
there is another trifling detail I forgot.  You were mentioning a `pile'
just now.  Well, I haven't made any pile--rather the other way on.  Now,
that modest establishment I suggest will want a little keeping up--a
banking account, you understand."

"Yes; it would want that."

"Well, then, you could arrange all that for me too," rejoined the
stranger airily, though at heart somewhat disconcerted by the old
diplomat's coolness.  "Come, now; the terms are not hard.  What do you
think?"

"Shall I tell you what I think?"

"Do."

"I think you must be an escaped lunatic."

"Ah, you think that, do you?  Well, I'm not going to lose my temper with
you, Squire; in fact, I admire your gameness.  But it's of no use.  I
like this part of the country, and I'm here to stay.  When I've
prospected around a little more I'll tell you which place I'll take, and
how much it will require to keep up."

"Yes?  Pray be modest when you do."

The other laughed.  The mild sarcasm tickled him, and he felt so sure of
his ground.

"I think I am, all things considered," he said.  "Of course, we can
break off the deal--right now.  You are all right for your life, but
what price when your son Wagram has to pack up and go, as, of course, he
will?  You have another son?"

"No."

"What?  Oh, Squire!  Ah, I see.  You don't own him, and all that sort of
thing.  Well, I'm not surprised, and I don't blame you, for he's a hard
case.  Upon my word, he's a devilish hard case--one of the hardest cases
I've ever struck, and that's saying a gaudy good deal.  Well, now, I
know exactly where to put my finger on him, and when Wagram has to pack,
why, then, the other one--Everard--comes in.  It'll all be his then, and
won't he make things hum!"

"I should think he most probably would, unless he's vastly changed since
I last saw him," smiled the old man, as if his visitor had just vented
some pleasant witticism.

"Well, he hasn't--not for the better at any rate, from your point of
view.  You may take it from me, he won't refuse me what I am asking
you--ay, and a great deal more besides.  In fact, he daren't."

"In that case, why did you come to me at all if you could get so much
more from him?"

"Don't you see, Squire, that would be a waiting game, and I don't prefer
that if it can be avoided, for, of course, he couldn't touch a thing
during your time."

"No; he couldn't--and certainly shouldn't."

"Very well, then.  There's one motive, and here's another.  What if I
have a hankering--a genuine one--after respectability?  What if I would
rather settle down as a highly respectable neighbour of yours--you would
find me all that, I promise you--than help `blue' the whole show with
Everard?  No; don't smile so incredulously.  A man with your cool
reasoning faculties, which I have been admiring all along, ought to know
human nature better."

"Now, look here, Mr Develin Hunt, or whatever you choose to call
yourself," said the Squire, rising in his chair, as a hint to terminate
the interview, and speaking in a crisp, decisive tone.  "Do you really
imagine that this precious concoction of yours is going to frighten or
influence me in the slightest degree--because, if so, you don't know me
at all--as, indeed, how should you?  But I warn you that personation and
blackmail are felonies in this country, and not only very severely
punishable but generally very severely punished.  So now I'll say
good-bye; only lay my warning to heart, and don't come here with any
more of these flimsy attempts to obtain money or I shall know next time
how to treat them."

"Blackmail!  Felony!  Ugly words both," said the stranger cheerfully as
he, too, rose.  "Well, I'm not much afraid; only, let me echo your
words: `I shall know what to do next time' if you refuse to see me, and
that will be to place the matter before your son Wagram.  He'll think
twice before allowing all the good you and he have done here--I have
been taking observations, you see--to be wrecked at the sweet will of as
cut-throat and piratical a `tough' as ever escaped hanging, even though
it be his own brother.  Good-morning, Squire.  Shall see you again in a
few days.  Looks as if we were going to have rain, doesn't it?
Good-morning."

He passed through the door, which was being held open for him, for the
Squire had already rung, and went down the stairs with jaunty step.
Then, as he heard the front door shut, Grantley Wagram sank back into
his chair.

The sting of the whole interview lay in the parting words.  About the
man's identity he had no doubt, and that his other and missing son
should be the instrument for undoing all that had been done, and
bringing the family to utter ruin!  It was terrible!  He could not so
much as sit still to think about it.  He felt cornered and trapped.

He went to the open window.  The June sunshine was flooding over the
richness of the foliage tossing in mountainous masses against the
cloudless blue.  A perfect gurgle of bird voices in sweet harmony
blended in unceasing song, and that clear, pure fragrance which you will
only find in the open country came up with every waft of the summer air.
Red roofs nestling among the trees, near and far, where farm or tiny
hamlet formed a cluster of dwellings--all the people represented by
these looked up to him, and to him who should come after him, and the
reflection only served to add bitterness to Grantley Wagram's
meditations.  He had striven to do his best for all these, in the truest
and best sense of the word, and had no reason to believe his high aims
had met with failure; indeed, it would have been false modesty to
pretend to himself that the very reverse was not the case.  Wagram had
ably and whole-heartedly seconded him, and would continue to do so after
his time.  Yet now, if this would-be blackmailer could but furnish
convincing proof of his identity--ah, surely high Heaven would never
permit such an undoing of its own work!



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

FURTHER COUNSELS.

"Monsignor Culham, sir," announced a servant, throwing open the library
door.

The Squire advanced with outstretched hand.  "Ah, my dear old friend, I
never was more glad to see you in my life."

"And how are you, Grantley?  Upon my word, in spite of whatever it is
that's bothering you, you are looking younger than ever."

"That'll soon remedy itself, unless we can devise some way out of this
abominable tangle."

"Supposing, now, you let me in behind this same abominable tangle--for,
of course, I have as yet no idea as to its nature."

A week had gone by since the visit of the African adventurer, but
nothing further had been heard of or from that worthy.  Clearly he was
not going to hurry his victim unduly, but that he had given up his
predatory scheme the said victim could not bring himself to believe.

In a matter involving weighty issues even the most shrewd and secretive
of us may be excused for doubting his own judgment, or, at any rate,
desiring to take counsel of another mind.  Thus the situation, as laid
down by the would-be blackmailer, had got upon even the cool nerves of
the old diplomat; and upon whose judgment could he rely as he could upon
that of his old friend?

"But you are only just off a journey," he now replied.  "You must rest
and refresh first."

"Neither, thanks; and the journey wasn't a long one.  Now, begin."

"It's a tale soon told.  My first wife--Wagram's mother--was married
before.  She honestly believed her husband to be dead; in fact, if
certificates and all that sort of thing count as proof, she was
justified in believing it.  Afterwards he turned up, and tried
blackmailing us."

"Was that before Wagram was born?"

"No; after.  Not that it made any difference either way, because, of
course, the marriage was void."

"You have no doubt whatever that he was her real husband?"

"She had no doubt.  Poor thing! it killed her."

"And what became of the man?"

"I made it worth his while to leave the country, and on the way to New
Zealand or Australia--I forget which--he was washed overboard, and never
seen again.  I was justified in believing him drowned, if only that he
never troubled me again, which he would certainly have done otherwise."

"And he wasn't?"

"So he says.  Read this," handing him the newspaper cutting narrating
the rescue of the three castaways.

"And is this the man--Develin Hunt?"

The Squire nodded.  "Funny, isn't it, that he should reappear in the
same way as he went?  Well, he has been here to blackmail me."  And he
told of the recent visitor and the proposed terms.

"People change a good deal in a matter of thirty years or so," said the
prelate.  "And you had no doubt as to this man's identity?"

"Unfortunately, none.  I didn't let him know that, though.  I treated
him politely, and as if I thought him a fraud of the first water, but it
didn't seem to disconcert him.  He has a trump card to throw down, for
it is not merely a case of Wagram going out but--of who do you think
coming in?  Everard!"

"What?"

"Everard.  He professes to know his whereabouts, declares that he has
gone utterly to the bad.  The fellow even dwelt upon the utter wreck
that wretched boy would make of everything here in the event of
establishing his claim."

To listen to the old man telling his tale in his easy, light, cynical
tones you would have thought it concerned him not at all.  But his
friend saw deeper down than that; he knew that if this thing were to
befall Grantley Wagram's days were numbered.  Heavens! it was too awful!
And Wagram, whose love for his heritage was an obsession, and who was
such a perfect steward of the great wealth entrusted to him--what would
be the effect on him when he learnt that such heritage was reft from him
at one blow--that he had no right even to the name he bore, nor his son
after him?  The prelate's face wore as gloomy a look as that of his
friend.

"Of course, you must insist on this man furnishing you with every proof
of his identity," he said.  "He can do that, of course?"

"The worst of it is I'm convinced in my heart of hearts as to his
identity.  There was something out of the way about the fellow that even
the lapse of time hasn't affected.  I don't know quite what it is.
Perhaps it's his way of talking.  Anyway, I'm sure of him."

"You can be sure of nothing in this world, Grantley--nothing that isn't
a matter of faith, which, of course, sounds paradoxical.  But in mundane
matters such as this it isn't a question of faith but of hard, dry
evidence, which for present purposes may be taken to mean: Can this man
prove that he was validly and legally married to your first wife before
you went through what we will, provisionally, and for the sake of
argument, call the form of marriage with her?"

"And supposing he can't?"

"Then there's an end of the whole affair."

"Even if I am morally certain?" persisted the Squire, smiling sadly to
himself as he remembered how, when they were youths at college together,
he had delighted in putting every form of difficult and intricate case
of conscience he could think of to the budding priest, who, for his
part, had never shirked the challenge.

"Everything is to be ruled upon its own merits.  Moral certainty in such
a matter as this is nothing, and counts for nothing.  We must have
clear, authenticated, documentary proof."

"I have often wondered," went on Grantley Wagram slowly, "how Everard
could really be my son; there was a total absence about him of every
sort of seeming relationship or affinity.  Well, well, it is too late to
dwell upon that now.  Yet I gave him every chance, and he threw it from
him.  Did I not give him every chance?"

"You did indeed; you have nothing to reproach yourself with under that
head."

"Then, as a matter of conscience, I am justified in resisting the claim
_de haut en bas_?  And I don't know who could be a better authority in
that department than you, old friend."

"Absolutely and entirely you are.  You can't as a juror conscientiously
hang a man on moral certainty, you must have legal certainty--otherwise
clear evidence.  It's the same here.  When you consider the enormous
stake involved the principle of `the benefit of the doubt' holds good
more than ever."

"Knowing what I knew," resumed the Squire after a brief pause--"knew, or
at any rate was morally certain of--I reckoned it my duty to make a
second marriage, to obviate all possibility of Hilversea passing to a
distant and apostate branch of the family, which stands in no sort of
need of it, by the way, being as well endowed with this world's goods as
I am myself.  How disadvantageous that second marriage turned out--well,
you, old friend, will remember.  And the only result spells--Everard.
Why, it might even be better for everything to go to the other branch
than to him."

"So far as we have got it doesn't follow that it need go to either.  You
were saying something just now, Grantley, about your first wife being in
possession of certificates proving this man's, Develin Hunt's, death.
Now, did you ever see anything of the sort attesting his marriage to
her?"

"No; I never thought of it.  No; I never saw any such certificate.  The
poor thing admitted that it had taken place; and that was enough for me,
for it was a painful business, so I made it worth his while to clear
out."

"You committed an error of judgment, Grantley, not only in failing to
require such a certificate and establishing its genuineness, but also in
omitting to institute a thorough and searching inquiry into the
antecedents of this Develin Hunt prior to the alleged marriage."

"You think, then, that such may not have been valid?"

"I am not in a position to think; I only know--we both know--that such
things have happened.  This man, you say, has led an adventurous life in
various parts of the world.  Who knows what experiences it may hold, any
one of which would invalidate this alleged marriage, thereby rendering
yours valid?"

"Ah-h!"

Grantley Wagram drew a long breath as he straightened himself up in his
chair; his face lightened.

"In that case Wagram would be safe," he said.

"Safe as yourself; but it doesn't do to build too much on such an
uncertain foundation.  Still, what I should do in your place would be to
take steps immediately to have this man's past traced.  Of course, the
lapse of years will have added enormously to the difficulties of the
search, but by sparing no expense, and setting the right people to work,
the thing ought to be feasible, I imagine."

"I had thought of some such plan myself; but two heads are better than
one--by Jove, they are!  I'll set to work about it directly; but
meanwhile this fellow threatens to call round for his price."

"When?"

"In a few days, he said, whatever that may mean; and it's about a week
ago now."

"Wait till he does call, then.  But, of course, you won't pay him any
`price.'  Give him rope instead--and plenty of it."

"Yes; I shall require the certificate of his marriage, and it will be
easy to verify it, unless, of course, it took place out of England--then
it will be more difficult."

"Not necessarily.  It will take more time, and I don't know that that's
altogether an unmixed evil--the gaining of time in an important and
critical matter seldom is.  By the way--er--I suppose Mrs Wagram never
informed you where it had taken place?"

"No.  You see, the whole thing came as more than something of a shock,
and we agreed never to refer to it.  Heavens! my working life was spent
in defeating the wiles of the potential enemies of my country, and when
it became a question of my own nearest affairs I seem to have acted the
part of a very complete and unsophisticated idiot."

"Not an uncommon thing, my dear Grantley.  I seem to remember more than
one instance of an eminent judge or counsel whose will, drawn by
himself, was productive of a fruitful crop of lawsuits.  But now you
have not got to let yourself get flurried or out of hand in the matter.
This man, from your account of him, seems to be a singularly confident
and level-headed type of adventurer.  If his position is as secure as he
would have you believe, why, then, he can afford to play a waiting game,
and will be too much of a man of the world to spoil his own play by
hurrying yours.  If he shows an unwillingness to play the said waiting
game, why, then, I think he will be giving away his own hand, which in
that case is sure to be weak."

"That's sound wisdom," said the Squire, "and I'll act upon it.  I'll put
it to him straight that, until I've had time to have inquiries made,
I'll do nothing for him."

"Meanwhile don't give him a shilling."

"Oh no; certainly not.  In any case I should never dream of embarking on
that idiocy over again."

"I suppose you have let drop no hint of that matter to Wagram?"

"No hint.  If anything comes of it, why, he'll know soon enough--if
nothing, why disturb him?  And--Wagram is so ultra conscientious.  He'd
never have done for the Diplomatic Service."

Both laughed, but it was somewhat mirthlessly.

"There is Wagram," went on the Squire as a step and a whistled bar or
two sounded outside; and then the door opened.

"Ah! how are you, Monsignor?  They told me you had arrived."

The old prelate's keen, kindly glance took in the man before him as they
shook hands, and there was sadness in his heart, though sign thereof did
not appear.  Yes; he took in the tall, straight form and the refined,
thoughtful face, and realised what a blow hung over their owner.  Should
it fall, how would he take it?  How?  He thought he knew.  But--it would
be terrible, disastrous, ruinous.  Heaven in mercy avert it!

"What do you think, father?" said Wagram as they were seated at lunch.
"You remember that fellow who escaped from that wreck we were reading
about the other day--the fellow with the quaint name--Develin
Something--ah, Hunt--that was it?  Well, he's staying in Bassingham.
Charlie Vance pointed him out to me.  Says he's stopping at the Golden
Crown.  Funny, isn't it?"

"Very.  That's the man at whose expense you perpetrated that infamous
pun, isn't it, Wagram?" answered the Squire, with a twinkle of the eyes,
and as complete an _insouciance_ as though the man's very existence were
not a matter of life and death to them.

"Well, I wasn't as bad as Haldane.  I only fired it off once; but
Haldane--you know, Monsignor, Haldane spent the rest of the day
suggesting to everyone within hail that a chap named Develin Hunt must
have had a bad time throughout life in that he would be continually in
the way of being told that he had the Develin him."

"Capital--capital!" said Monsignor Culham, with a hearty laugh.  "I read
the case in the papers at the time.  And what sort of a fellow did this
shipwrecked mariner strike you as being, Wagram?"

"Oh, he looked a hard-bitten, unscrupulous sort of pirate.  They say
he's been a West African back-country trader--a life, I imagine, likely
to turn a man that way."

The prelate laughed again, so did the Squire.  Thus admirably did they
keep their own counsel these two finished old diplomats.  But--beneath!



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

INTERIM--PEACE!

One glowing summer morning saw Delia Calmour spinning her bicycle along
at a great rate up the Hilversea drive.  It was Sunday, and she had come
to attend the chapel, a thing she had done more than once of late, since
the time she had given efficient musical aid on a certain informal
occasion we wot of.  Some weeks had gone by since then, and now it was
golden August.  The beautiful landscape lay in a shimmer of heat, but
the glad shout of the cuckoo echoed no more, and the chorus of bird
voices had undergone considerable abatement, but the stillness and the
glowing richness of the summer haze shed a peace around as of the peace
of heaven.

She was late; yes, as she alighted and chained her bicycle to the
railings she heard the roll of the organ within.  She was late, but not
very.  Mass had hardly begun, she decided, as her ears caught the
opening bars of the _Kyrie_ in Mozart Number 1.  She hesitated a moment
whether to do so or not, then went up to the choir-loft.  Two things
struck her as Yvonne handed her the score: one, that the choir was in
less strength than usual; the other, that Wagram was at the organ.  He
half turned, astonished, as the full, rich soprano sounded forth among,
if not slightly above, the rest, then settled down to his work with
renewed satisfaction.  She was doubly glad that she had come, for she
knew that her musical talent was of genuine practical assistance, and as
such was thoroughly appreciated.

"Take the organ for this," whispered Wagram just before the offertory.
"You can sing and play at the same time; I can't.  We are going to have
Arcadelt--your favourite."

She complied, and was astonished at herself and the tone and expression
she managed to get out of the instrument, while not in the least
drowning the voices, among which her own led, clear and rich.  So were
others, for more than one head turned round inquiringly towards the
choir-loft, among them that of the old Squire.

"No--no; keep it all through," whispered Wagram, as she would have got
up.  "I shall be free to make one more to sing then."

Again she obeyed, and threw her best into it, and her best was very good
indeed.  The music at Hilversea was above the average, but to-day it had
surpassed itself.

"Well done, Miss Calmour," said Haldane enthusiastically as they met
outside after the service.  "What degree in music have you taken, may I
ask?"

"None, Mr Haldane.  But I know you're only chaffing me."

"'Pon my honour, I'm not.  If you haven't, you ought, to have.  They
ought to make you a Mus. Doc. at least.  Oughtn't they, Wagram?"

"Of course," said the latter, joining them.  "Thanks so much for your
help, Miss Calmour.  If you had come a bit earlier I would have asked
you to play from the very first.  Our regular organist's away, and
someone had to take his place, so I threw myself--rather heroically, I
think--into the breach.  He'd have been jealous, though, if he'd heard
you."

"I'm afraid you'll make me very conceited, Mr Wagram," laughed the girl
rather deprecatingly.  "But I am so glad if I have really been of any
use."

"By Jove!"  Haldane was saying to himself.  "By Jove! but she is a
pretty girl."

Nor was he overstating matters.  Delia was dressed, plainly as usual, in
cool white, which suited well her clear, mantling complexion and light
hazel eyes, the latter bright with animation.  She looked her best here
now in the hot August sun, and what has been said of her musical
accomplishment applies equally to her physical aspect--her best was very
good indeed.

"You'll come up and lunch with us, Miss Calmour?" said Wagram.  "It's
much too hot to ride back all the way to Bassingham in the middle of the
day, especially after all your exertions on our behalf."

Delia accepted, hoping she was not betraying too much delight by her
tone.  Sunday at Siege House was the least tolerable day in the week,
and now she wondered if she were going to have a day of heaven.

"Here, Gerard," called out Wagram, as two boys came up, accompanied by
Yvonne, with whom one of them at any rate seemed to be engaged in
altercation.  "Miss Calmour, this is my rascal," he explained genially.
"The other has a parent of his own to give him a character, so I won't."

Both were straightly-built, handsome boys of fourteen, a complete
contrast to each other, though both of the same height--one dark, the
other golden-haired and blue-eyed.  The first, however, moved Delia's
interest the most as they came up and shook hands.  So this was Wagram's
son!  The other was Haldane's.  The two were sworn pals, and were at the
same school.

"Why didn't you go and serve Mass, you scamps?" went on Wagram.

"Oh, we do that enough at Hillside, pater," answered Gerard, hanging on
to his father's arm in a sort of insinuating and conciliatory way;
"besides, we got in--er--a little late."

Delia, listening, remembered Wagram's remark when they had come upon the
speaker's acolyte dress in the sacristy the day that she had first tried
her hand at the organ.  He was an exact replica of his father, she
decided--just what Wagram might have been at his age.

"Reggie's just as bad, Mr Wagram," struck in Yvonne, who deemed it her
mission to "round up" her brother in matters of the kind.  "He slipped
away from me when we were talking to old Mrs Clancy, and I believe he
was at the bottom of it."

"Oh, well, as it's the beginning of the holidays, I suppose they must be
allowed some law," rejoined Wagram.

"Give me your key, Miss Calmour, and I'll unlock your bike and wheel it
up to the house," said Gerard.

"That will be good of you," answered Delia, with a smile that won the
boy's heart there and then.  She was mentally contrasting him with the
raw, uncleanly, unlicked cub, which mainly constituted her experience of
the animal hight `boy' of the same age.  Yet about this one on the other
hand there was nothing priggish, nothing self-conscious.  He was purely
and entirely natural.

During lunch the old Squire congratulated her on her playing, and also
on the excellence of her illustrated article in _The Old Country Side_,
which had appeared that week.

"We were wondering how in the world you managed to say so much in so
limited a space," he observed, "and to say just the right thing, too.
What a memory you must have, child!"

Delia was thinking that, whatever else might slip her memory, no single
detail about Hilversea Court was likely to do so.

"And the illustrations were excellent," went on the Squire--"excellent."

"Rather," assented Haldane.  "I wish my box were not too insignificant
for _The Old Country Side_, Miss Calmour, then you could scare up an
illustrated interview with it."

"And bring in Poogie," said Yvonne.  "Oh, and--incidentally--father."

"Where do I come in?" hazarded her brother.

"To spoil the picture, of course."

"Thanks," answered the boy, with a good-humoured laugh.  Yvonne looked
at him and shook her golden head.

"Do you know, Miss Calmour, Reggie is the most provoking child.  It's
simply impossible to tease him.  I'm always trying, and you've just got
a sample of how I succeed.  Is he the same at Hillside, Gerard?"

"Can't tell tales out of school."

Then Yvonne retorted, and the banter went on fast and furious, but
always good-tempered, and sometimes really humorous, until it finally
merged into plans for fishing on the morrow.

"They are threatening to take us all down to the west park presently,
Miss Calmour," said Wagram soon after lunch.  "Do you feel up to that
amount of exertion?"

Delia replied that she would have been delighted, only it was time to
think of getting back.

"Of getting back?" repeated Wagram.  "Are you obliged to?  Because if
not, won't you stay and play for us again this evening?  It would be a
great help."

"Yes; do stay, Miss Calmour," urged Yvonne, cordially impulsive.

"There will be a bright moon to ride back by, and I can offer you my
escort."

"Can I go too, pater?" said Gerard, eagerly scenting the fun of a
moonlight bicycle ride.

"Certainly.  You wouldn't leave your venerated dad to return over three
miles of lonely road unprotected, would you?"

"Then I shall be very pleased to stay," answered the girl, her whole
face lighting up.  Days such as this constituted to her everything that
was worth living for, and now there was more of it before her than
behind.

The old Squire had withdrawn, laughingly explaining that he could not do
without his forty winks on a hot Sunday afternoon.  The workings of
Fate, or Providence, are indeed strange.  Some such working it must have
been that moved Haldane to declare that he too felt drowsy, and it was
much too hot for exercise.  In a word, he resisted all persuasion to
join in the walk; had he yielded the subsequent events of this our
history might have turned out very differently.

They reached the paddock, and the great sable antelope, which was
inclined to be tame, condescended to stalk up in a lordly manner and be
fed with some crusts they had brought for the purpose.  The gnus,
however, kept their distance away in the middle, whisking their tails,
and prancing, and shaking their fierce-looking heads.  Suddenly Wagram,
chancing to look round, became aware of the propinquity of a stranger.
He was a little distance off along the fence, and with the aid of a
bough had managed to climb up, and was holding on, watching the animals.

"That's a cool customer," he said after watching him for a few minutes.
"I must go and talk to him."

"Going to turn him away, pater?" asked Gerard.

"No, I won't do that; but I'll drop him a friendly hint that he mustn't
make this the scene of his daily walks.  You remain here."

The stranger was not in the least confused or apologetic as Wagram
accosted him.  The latter recognised with some interest the
weather-beaten, white-bearded face of the man who had been pointed out
to him as Develin Hunt.

"Good specimens these," he said approvingly.  "I've shot many of them,
so I ought to know."

"Yes.  They'd be dangerous if they weren't shut in," said Wagram.

"Very likely.  Wild animals enclosed generally do get that way."

"Now you're here you're welcome to look at them," said Wagram
pleasantly, "but I thought I'd just mention that this is private
ground."

The man dropped from his perch with a cat-like nimbleness, rather
noticeable in one of his apparent years.

"Meaning I'm trespassing?" he said shortly.

"That's the word," laughed Wagram.  "But, as I said before, as you are
here pray see all you came to see; I have no wish that you should hurry
away.  Good-afternoon."

The stranger stood gazing after him.

"So that's Wagram Wagram!" he said to himself.  "Why, chalk from cheese
isn't in it in the difference between him and that bright boy Everard.
Lord, Lord! it's a rum world.  To think that now he should be turning me
off, and soon I shall be turning him off--bag and baggage.  But I hope
it won't come to that.  No; somehow or other I don't think it will.  He
has every inducement to be reasonable--oh, and I hope he will.  He's a
fine fellow, but--necessity knows no law."

"I say, pater, that chap's got some cheek," said Gerard as his father
rejoined them.  "Look, he hasn't moved.  Didn't you tell him to clear?"

"No; I told him he needn't hurry as he was here."

And, indeed, the stranger seemed to have taken Wagram literally at his
word, for he had climbed up again to his former position, and was
placidly puffing at a pipe.

"Look at those three, Miss Calmour," said Wagram presently, referring to
the children, who had started some romping game; "they can no more keep
quiet for half-an-hour when they get together than a lot of kittens.
Yvonne is generally the one who sets it going.  Look at her now--issuing
her commands as usual."

The tall, beautiful child was standing erect, her blue eyes sparkling,
and cheeks flushed with the glow of health and exercise, tossing back
the golden flash of her flowing hair.  There was grace in each unstudied
gesticulation, music in the high, sweet key in which she was
expostulating rapidly with her playfellows.

"She is too sweet," murmured Delia.

"Isn't she?  By the way, you haven't told me yet what you think of my
son and heir--"

Breaking off, the speaker turned.  It was only the trespassing stranger,
who raised his hat and passed on his way.

"--Though, really, it's hardly a fair question, as coming from me."

"I think he's one of the best-looking and best-mannered boys I've ever
seen; Mr Haldane's son is the other."

"You do us proud," laughed Wagram.  "But Hilversea is a dullish place
for one boy to get through his holidays in, shut up with two old fogeys,
so he's generally over at Haldane's, or Haldane's boy is over here.
They divide it up between them, and get all the fun they want."

Delia was about to reply that she could not imagine the word "dull" in
connection with Hilversea under any circumstances whatever; but it
struck her that the remark would sound banal, and she refrained.

"We shall be going North on Thursday for the grouse," he went on.
"Haldane and I always `split' a moor.  Then these young scamps will be
in clover.  We're going to let them take out a gun this time, and
they're about half mad with anticipation."

"I expect so," said Delia, to whom, however, the whole of this
announcement brought a heart-sinking.  She knew enough by this time of
the manners and customs of Hilversea to be aware that such a move was
probable; but somehow, now that it was on the eve of becoming an
accomplished fact--well, she felt depressed.  "Does old Mr Wagram
shoot?"

"Doesn't he!  If he isn't quite so good at right and left now as a few
years back, even yet he can hold his own with the great majority.  We
must round up those riotous children now and begin strolling homeward."

Of late something had occurred to Wagram and set him wondering, and
to-day it struck him more than ever.  This was a certain unaccountable
change which had come over this girl.  She seemed of late to have
acquired a subtle and unconscious refinement, not only in speech and
manner but also in look, which certainly was not there when he had first
made her acquaintance under dramatic circumstances; indeed, were that
acquaintance to be made over again, and now, assuredly one dictum in
which he had summed her up would be omitted.  The fact was there, but
there was no explaining it.  It puzzled him.  To one other this change
had become manifest, and her it did not puzzle at all.  That one was
Clytie; and, going over things in her mind, that extremely attractive
schemer nodded her plotting head complacently and smiled to herself.

The westering sunlight flooded down upon the vernal sheen of tossing oak
foliage and smoothly undulating grass with a richness of glow that was
well-nigh unearthly in the sensuous stillness of the August evening.
One of this group sauntering there it thrilled through and through.  The
children, excited with their game, were laughing and chattering--
frequently all at once.  But Delia, while bearing her part as brightly
and intelligibly as ever in conversation with her host, was conscious of
an absorbing _arriere-pensee_--that, if there were such a thing as a day
of paradise, she was going through just that.  The while a yet further
back and subtle thread of thought kept crying aloud that the paradise
was a fool's paradise.



CHAPTER TWENTY.

A FORCED HAND.

"Now then, old josser, where are you coming to? have you bought the
whole room or only half, eh?"

The time was the middle of the morning, the place the saloon bar of the
Golden Crown in Bassingham, and the speaker Bob Calmour, who had been
indulging in more John Walker than was good for him, incidentally at the
expense of an opportune friend.  The man thus unceremoniously
expostulated with was a tallish man with a weather-beaten face and a
white beard, who had committed the grave indiscretion of being there
what time the unsteady Bob had lurched backward, thus cannoning against
him.  We have seen him twice before for a short space--once at Hilversea
Court and once in Hilversea park.

"See here, young man," was the answer, drily given, "I think it's time
you went home."

"See here, old cock, when I want to know what you _think_ I'll ask; till
then I'll trouble you to keep it to yourself."

And the tone was particularly aggressive and insulting.

"If you don't keep a civil tongue in your head I shall be under the
necessity of starting you on the first homeward stage by firing you into
the street," said the stranger with the most provoking tranquillity.

That white beard proved Bob's undoing.  He associated it with age, and
age with decrepitude.

"Will you?" he yelped.  "You couldn't do it--no, nor three of you."

"Not, eh?" said the stranger; and then Bob Calmour hardly knew what had
happened, except that some irresistible force had got him by the scruff
of the neck and was propelling him rapidly towards the swing doors.  The
latter swung, and Bob shot down the steps outside, and would have fallen
bang on his nose but that he cannoned into a passing stranger just in
time.

"Here!  Hi!  Hold up!  Why the devil don't you look where you're going,
you silly young ass!" cried the latter angrily as he collared him.  All
the swagger and bounce had evaporated from the luckless Bob.  The
whimpered apology died away into a sort of yelp of terror, and his pasty
face went ashy white as he realised that he had run bang into no less
formidable a person than Haldane.  And in the hand of the latter was a
riding-crop.  Visions of the ghastly thrashing he had deserved at that
individual's hands, and would certainly receive, finished him off, and
he dropped limply on to the pavement in a sitting posture, half
fainting.

"Awfully sorry, sir," he was just able to whine; "but I've been
violently assaulted by a ruffian in there, and--er--couldn't see where
I--I--was going."

Haldane looked at him with a sort of good-natured contempt, seeing
before him just an ordinary raffish young pup who had probably got
quarrelsome in his cups and come off worst.

"Well, you'd better go away home," he said shortly, and passed on,
leaving the unspeakable Bob to pick himself up with feelings akin to
those of a criminal reprieved on the very drop itself, then as one
condemned afresh as he saw Wagram cross the road and join Haldane.  The
two stood talking together, then, turning, they looked at him.  Of
course, Wagram was giving him away, decided the terror-stricken Bob,
whose every instinct now was flight--headlong flight; wherefore, having
shuffled rapidly round a friendly corner, he sprinted for cover all he
knew, nor stopped till he found himself, panting, within the--for once
welcome because protective--offices of Pownall and Skreet.  Nor did he
more than half hear the acrid jobation to which Pownall, who had seen
him arrive, treated him by reason of having taken so long about the
business upon which he had been sent out.

Here again came in the strange, mysterious workings of Fate--or
Providence.  Had the African adventurer been a little more roused to ire
it is conceivable that, not content with throwing the offensive Bob into
the street, he might even have kicked him along a section of the same,
which, of course, would have befallen exactly what time Haldane was
passing.  In which event the whole course of this history might have
been changed; in fact, we will go as far as to say that it certainly
would have been.  And it has been recorded that Haldane seldom came to
Bassingham.

"Hope I haven't been the means of spoiling custom," said Develin Hunt
pleasantly as he returned to where he had been standing, "because, if
so, I hope that all here will put a name to theirs and join me by doing
something to make up for it."

"Oh, that's all right, Mr Hunt," said the landlord, who, attracted by
the scuffle, short as it was, had come in.  "Not much `custom' about
that young waster."

"Who is he?"

"Young Calmour, a clerk at Pownall and Skreet's.  I only wonder they
haven't given him the sack long ago."

"I must say he brought it upon himself," said the man who had been
"standing" him.  "Bob can be pretty abusive when he's got anything on
board.  Mine?  Oh, thanks; another Scotch, I think.  Here's luck."

The landlord's answer had given Develin Hunt food for thought, not for
astonishment; he had seen too many queer phases of life to be astonished
at anything.  So this egregious young pup stood in the relationship of
brother to the exceedingly pretty and even refined-looking girl he had
seen with Wagram and his party in Hilversea park some Sundays ago!  It
seemed hardly credible, but then, as we have said, he was astonished at
nothing.

He had not spent all the intervening time in Bassingham, where at the
Golden Crown he was very popular, and instrumental in an increase of
custom; for he was open-handed in setting up "rounds," and could tell
strange, wild stories of strange, wild lands and stranger, wilder
people, and this led to an increasing roll up of the good citizens of
Bassingham of an evening.  But he had not as yet made acquaintance with
old Calmour, for the very good reason that that worthy had transferred
his custom elsewhere, from motives that may be readily divined.

Now, although Haldane had not seen Develin Hunt the latter had seen
Haldane.  It was a mere glimpse snatched between the swing doors as they
let out the obnoxious Bob; but in the school which had afforded the
African adventurer his life training a mere glimpse to him was as good
as half-an-hour's scrutiny to most men, and to this one and his plans it
now made all the difference in the world.

"Who was the man I shot that young pup against?" he said.  "Tallish man,
sunburnt face, and riding-gaiters?"

"Squire Haldane, worse luck!" answered the landlord.

"Why `worse luck'?"

"He's a magistrate.  He don't often show up in Bassingham, and now, when
he does, get's nearly knocked down by a chump fired out of my bar in the
middle of the morning.  Maybe he'll have a word to say, when licensing
day comes round, that I keep my house rowdy."

"Shouldn't think he'd do that, Smith, he looks too much of a sportsman.
I'll bet drinks all round that man has been in countries where firing
anyone out doesn't constitute the liveliest side of a bar worry."

"I won't take you, then, because he has," replied Smith.  "But what made
you think so?"

"Quite simple.  He never got painted that colour by any sun that only
shone over the British Isles."

"Here, I say, sir, excuse me," struck in the young man who had brought
in Bob, "you're not Sherlock Holmes, are you?"

"No.  Who's he?"

"Who's he?  Never heard of Sherlock Holmes?"

"Now you're trying to get at me, young man.  I suppose you're going to
answer he was a chap who'd forgotten that everybody's glass had been
empty too long.  All right.  Set 'em up again, Smith, for all hands."

There was a big laugh at this, and three persons started in to explain
at once.

"Come to think of it, I had heard of the party, but I'd forgotten," said
Hunt with his usual easy good humour.  "But about this one, the one we
were talking about--where did you say he'd been, Smith?"

"Squire Haldane?  Oh, everywhere.  Mostly in South Africa, I believe.
He lives out Fulkston way--a goodish step from here."

Assimilating this piece of information, which, from the point of view of
his purposes, was satisfactory, the adventurer easily and imperceptibly
switched the conversation on to other matters, and shortly retired to
his own quarters.

He sat down to think.  He had made an important discovery that day--
important to the last degree.  Haldane in the neighbourhood, and a
resident at that!  Heavens! what a near thing it had been that they had
not run right into each other!  The adventurer's hard face grew quite
moist at the thought of it, and of what a volcano he had been sitting
over during his sojournings in Bassingham the last few weeks.  This
discovery had clean altered his plans, and now in their altered stage he
must proceed to put them into operation without a moment of unnecessary
delay.

And yet throughout that day, until after dark, Develin Hunt never
ventured outside the doors of the Golden Crown.



CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE BOLT.

"Well, Squire, I've called to settle up that little matter that has been
outstanding," said Develin Hunt pleasantly as he took the seat indicated
to him--exactly the same seat, by the way, that he had occupied during
that first interview in which we made his personal acquaintance.

"Yes?"

"Yes.  But first of all you'll admit that I haven't hurried you any over
the inquiries you've been making; in fact, have afforded you every
facility I could in the making of them."

"Yes; I'll admit that."

"And it's a case of `as you were.'  Well, it's satisfactory to both of
us, because now there's no room for any little mistake.  I have enjoyed
my stay in this charming neighbourhood.  By the way, I hope you enjoyed
yours at the moors, Squire, and had good sport.  Well, now, I've got a
modification of my former proposal to put to you.  I've decided that
this part of the country, delightful as it is, won't suit me for more
than one reason; so, instead of becoming a neighbour of yours, I would
suggest some comfortable little arrangement in hard cash."

"Yes.  May I ask what would meet your requirements?  Don't be too
modest, pray."

The adventurer's face brightened.  The easy tone, the satiric banter was
only the other's philosophical and courtly manner of making the best of
a bad job.  He had won the game at last.

"What do you say to thirty thou?  Not all at once; I would be prepared
to accept a cheque for twenty-five thou, down, and the rest six months
later."

"That would be very considerate of you," laughed the Squire.  "I begged
you not to be too moderate."

"And I haven't met your wishes, Squire.  Thirty thou, is a substantial
figure, but it is a mere half-crown to the Wagrams of Hilversea.  It's
surprising how much I know about the family and its circumstances, you
see.  Nearly ruined in fines for persistent recusancy under the penal
laws, a lucky speculation or two in building-land and coal mines made it
a millionaire over and over again.  That's correct, I think, Squire?"

"Nearly."

"And all this for the benefit of Everard--`Butcher Ned,' we used to call
him--never mind why.  Well, I'm truly glad it needn't go to him after
all.  So we'll consider my terms accepted, eh, Squire?"

"Not so fast--not quite so fast.  You don't seem to realise, Mr Develin
Hunt, what an exceedingly perilous position you have placed yourself in.
How do you know, for instance, that there are not those present, unseen
by you, who have been taking down every word of our conversation?"

The adventurer laughed easily.

"Oh, as to that, I know it; because Grantley Wagram of Hilversea is
considerably too complete a gentleman to admit the secret presence of a
third party at a confidential conversation."

In spite of the momentous issues at stake the consummate assurance of
this man tickled the old Squire's diplomatic soul.

"I don't know.  There is such a thing as fighting the devil with fire--
no play on your somewhat peculiar name intended, Mr Hunt," he
parenthesised, with a smile.  "And the fact remains that you have been
demanding money from me--a large sum--very civilly, I admit,"--with a
courtly wave of the hand--"but still demanding it by a threat.  That, as
I reminded you on the occasion of our first meeting, means in this
country a long term of penal servitude."

"For me?"

"For whom else?"

"For Everard."

Even the cool old diplomat felt his cheeks go waxen, nor could he
repress a slight gasp.  He remembered the other's assertion on a former
occasion--to the effect that he had a hold upon Everard--and, bearing in
mind Everard and his propensities, he thought it very likely to be true.

"For Everard," repeated the adventurer.  "Every year that it would mean
for me it would mean two for Everard; indeed, it is possible--I don't
say certain, mind--that it might result in something shorter, sharper,
and much quicker over, but--more irrevocable."

The other felt himself growing paler still.  A hopeless, beaten feeling
came upon him now.  Curiously enough, he was not without a consciousness
of appreciation of the courteous way in which this man urged his
demands.  There was nothing of the common, bullying insolence of the
blackmailer about him.  He might almost have been a disinterested friend
urging a certain course for the good of the family.

"Do you mind opening that window a little, Mr Hunt?" he said.  "I do
believe I really am getting old."

"Delighted, Squire," said the adventurer with alacrity.  "Getting old!"
as he returned to his seat, "why, you are not even beginning to get old;
or, if you are, all I can say is that many a much younger man would be
glad to do so on the same terms.  But, in any case, why add another
anxiety--a totally unnecessary anxiety--to your afternoon of life, and
all for a paltry thirty thousand pounds, which, as I said before, can
only be, relatively, a mere half-crown to you?"

"That's all very well; but what guarantee have I that it would end
there?"

"I would give you an undertaking, cautiously worded, of course, to make
no further demand upon you, nor upon anybody after you, for another
farthing."

"Legally, not worth the paper it's written on," said the Squire.

"I'm afraid that's so; still, it would make a very strong piece of
presumptive evidence against me if I did fail to keep my word.  You may
trust me this time.  I don't profess to be a saint or angel, I own to
having done some pretty tough things in my time, but one thing I never
have done, and that is to go back on a fair, square, and honest deal.
Think of your son, Squire--Wagram, I mean--I have seen him more than
once, not always when he has seen me.  By the way, he turned me off here
once when I was trespassing, but he did it in such a nice way, as
between one gentleman and another.  He's a fine fellow--a splendid
fellow--and I've heard a good deal more about him than I've seen.  Well,
isn't it a thousand pities that life should be ruined for him, and his
son after him--I have seen him too, by-the-by--and all because you can't
bring yourself to look at things from my standpoint, which is that
necessity has no law?"

There was silence for a few moments.  In saying that he had seen more of
Wagram than the latter knew Develin Hunt was speaking no more than the
truth.  He had noted the quiet happiness of the man's flawless life, had
gleaned some idea of his intense joy of possession, and had done so with
considerable satisfaction in that it would all go to further his own
plans.  No man living, he argued, would think twice as to what his
action would be when called upon to choose between paying down what was,
relatively speaking, an inconsiderable sum and throwing up his
possessions and his name, and the name of his son after him--and to the
case of this one was added an almost unlimited power for good.  To do so
would be the action of a stark, staring, raving lunatic, and it was
abundantly certain Wagram was not that.

"Well, Squire, now is the time to make up your mind.  It is important
that I should go up to London to-night, and unless I take your cheque
for twenty-five thousand with me I shall be under the necessity of
postponing my departure for a day or two and applying to your son
Wagram.  I believe he would gladly give double the amount.  Think! it is
to save his name--his name, mind--and his son's after him."

The old man felt beaten.  It was not the money value that afflicted him;
he would cheerfully have parted with double the amount if by so doing he
could close the other's mouth for ever, but he doubted whether in any
case he could do this for long.  Sooner or later Hunt would come down
upon him for more--it was the way of blackmailers for all time--nor did
he in the least believe this one would keep his undertaking to make no
further demand.  And this disreputable adventurer had the power to hold
a sword over Wagram's head indefinitely.  He remembered as a far-off
thing his agreement with Monsignor Culham--here in this very room--not
to give this man another shilling.  Yet now matters looked differently;
he felt himself cornered beyond all hope of deliverance.

"Give me the undertaking you mentioned just now," he said at last.  "Sit
down there and draw it up," pointing to another writing-table.

"No need, Squire, I have it here all ready; I knew we should come to
terms.  Here it is, and you may rely upon my adhering to it rigidly."

He produced a paper with some writing on it as the Squire, slowly
unlocking a drawer, produced his chequebook.  A moment more and the
adventurer could hardly contain his exultation.  A cheque for 25,000
pounds was in his hand.

"It will be a satisfaction for you to see me sign this yourself,
Squire," and stooping over the writing-table he affixed his signature.
As he did so the door opened, admitting Wagram.

Even had the latter no other reason for coming in, then one glance at
his father's face would have told him that something was very wrong
indeed.  The Squire seemed to have aged by twenty years.

"Ah, good-morning, Mr Wagram," said the adventurer cheerily, looking up.
"Your father and I have just been getting through a little piece of
business together, and we have got through it with complete satisfaction
to both parties.  Yes; to both parties," he repeated emphatically.

"May I ask its nature?  My father's business affairs are mine in there
days."

"Ah, but not this one--no, not this one.  It's an exception, believe
me," was the answer, accompanied by a pleasant laugh.  "And now I think
I will say good-bye."

"One moment, Mr Develin Hunt," said Wagram, "but I fear I must detain
you a little longer, there is something that needs explanation."

The other looked at the tall form, literally barring his way, and a
ghastly misgiving was upon him.  The cheque for 25,000 pounds--would he
be forced to disgorge?  But he replied, easily, pleasantly:

"Quite a mistake.  No explanation needed.  Is there, Squire?"

Wagram looked sharply at his father, whose only answer was a
feebly-assenting headshake.

"Ah, but there is," he resumed.  "For instance, there is one remark you
made just now to the effect that I would gladly give double the amount
to save my name, and that of my son after me.  Now, that remark does
emphatically need explaining."

"You heard that?" said the adventurer shortly.

"Couldn't help it.  This room is only one storey from ground.  Given an
open window and still autumn air, and--"

Develin Hunt mentally ground his teeth and cursed.  So it was with a
purpose the Squire had asked him to open the window!  As a matter of
real fact, this was not the case.  Oh, the old fox, with all his
blandness and soft sawder!  He felt vicious.

"That all you heard?" he said shortly.

"Enough, wasn't it?  Now, will you kindly tell me in what way my name
needs saving; for, looking back, though I have been through hard times,
I cannot--thank God--call to mind any instance of having ever disgraced
it."

The adventurer felt a wave of intense relief.  This was how Wagram had
read his words!  Well, he would reassure him on that point; perhaps he
might even yet save the situation.

"No! no! no!" he said emphatically.  "Great Scott!  Mr Wagram, but
you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick there.  Why, your name
stands on a pedestal all around here, and, if you will allow me to say
so, it thoroughly deserves to.  Now, be advised by me.  Leave this
affair alone.  It is between myself and your father, and reflects
discredit upon nobody named Wagram--take my word for that."

You see, he was plausible, almost persuasive, this rough-and-tumble West
African adventurer.  But Wagram shook his head.

"Not satisfactory," he said.  "I still demand to know in what way my
name needs `saving'--and that of my son after me, you added."

"You demand?"

"Yes."

Develin Hunt looked at the man standing over him very stern and
straight, then he looked at the Squire.  He would have given anything to
have avoided this, but since his hand had been forced it was, perhaps,
as well that Wagram should know all--should know where he stood.
Perhaps the Squire thought the same, for he said no word, gave no sign.

"In the name of God, leave things where they are, man!" conjured the
adventurer in a real outburst of feeling.  He was not all bad.  He had
got his price, and he felt an intense respect and pity for the man
before him.  He would make one more effort.  "I tell you nobody's
discredit is involved here.  We can't always _know_ everything--it isn't
good for us.  As for me, I have pledged my solemn word you shall never
be troubled by me again.  Now, let me go."

Still Wagram did not move.  He had heard of this man's former visit, but
as his father had not mentioned it to him he himself had kept silence on
the subject.  But he had put two and two together, and had connected it
with days of depression under which the old Squire had suffered.
Moreover, it struck him that his father had undergone a subtle change,
had not been quite the same ever since.  Now he had come in and found
him in a state of collapse after another interview with this man.  His
own name, too, had been brought up, and in such a manner.

"No," he answered; "not yet.  This mystery must be cleared up before you
leave this room.  I repeat my former question: In what way does my name
require `saving'?"

"Oh, if you will be so obstinate!" answered Develin Hunt excitedly, "you
have only yourself to blame.  I've done all I could for you.  Since you
_will_ have it, your name--well, it isn't your name."

"Not my name?" repeated Wagram in a strange voice.  "Man, are you mad,
or only drunk?"

"Neither," returned the adventurer doggedly.  "Well, then, your mother
was married to me before she married your father.  She was not to blame.
She thought I was dead.  If you don't believe me ask the Squire here."

There was no need to ask the Squire.  The old man nodded assent; he was
incapable of speech just then.

"Are you--trying--to make me believe, then, that _you_ are, my father?"
said Wagram in a dry, hardly articulate kind of voice.

"No, no--not for a moment.  But, of course, the second marriage was
invalid.  Now, do you take in the position?"

"Yes."

Wagram's face had gone livid and his tall form seemed to sway.  No
further word would come.  But for the set, gleaming stare of the eyes he
might have been a corpse trying to stand upright.  The sight was awful,
indescribably so.  Even the hard, unscrupulous adventurer was moved to
concern and compunction.

"For God's sake, don't take it like this," he adjured.  "Pull yourself
together, man.  The thing is a secret between us three, and need never
be anything else.  Send for a big tot of brandy, or something to steady
your nerves.  It's a facer, but nothing need come of it."

For answer Wagram only shook his head, and moved unsteadily to the open
window, where he stood, looking out.  There was nothing to prevent
Develin Hunt walking out of the house with his 25,000 pound cheque in
his pocket; and, to do him justice, it was not the thought that this
might be stopped by telegram that restrained him.  Yet he did not so
walk out.



CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

"NOBODY OF NOWHERE."

Had Wagram been a sufferer from weakness of heart it is highly probable
that he would have fallen down dead there and then.

The shock was sudden and complete.  As he stood gazing out through the
open window its full meaning swept over his mind as in a very flash of
blasting flame.  He, Wagram of Hilversea, whose intense pride in and
love of his noble inheritance and the almost illimitable opportunity for
good which the position entailed upon him were as the very breath of
life, now learned, all in a moment of time, that he was in reality
Nobody of Nowhere--that he had not even a name.  It seemed as though the
very heavens had fallen upon him, crushing him to the dust.

"Not a soul need ever be one atom the wiser.  It's strictly between
ourselves."

It was the adventurer's voice that had broken the awful silence.  Wagram
turned, wearily.

"You have proof of what you advance, I take it--sufficient and
convincing proof?" he said.

"Oh yes; abundant.  Look at this," exhibiting a marriage certificate of
many years back.  "You can go down and compare notes with the original
parish register; it isn't a very long journey from here.  Besides, your
father will bear out what I say."

Again the old man nodded feebly.  He seemed incapable of speech.

Wagram took the certificate and examined it earnestly.  It was from the
register of a parish in a small county town.  Then he handed it back.

"What have you received as hush-money over this business?" he said.

"Not a farthing until to-day.  But the Squire has been very liberal, and
has behaved like a thorough gentleman.  You may rely upon it that no
word will ever pass my lips."

"May I see the cheque?"

"Certainly."

Develin Hunt produced the cheque, intending to keep a firm hold of it
while the other scanned its contents; but, marvellous to relate, he
actually and deliberately placed it in Wagram's outstretched hand.  The
latter looked at it.

"Twenty-five thousand pounds!" he said.  "I suppose you are greatly in
need of money?"

"Greatly isn't the word for it," answered the adventurer quickly.  "I'm
stony broke--and the worst of it is, I'm too old to be able to make any
more."

"Destroy it, Wagram, destroy it!" burst from the old Squire.  "He's
broken his side of the contract already."

The adventurer was conscious of a tense and anxious moment.  He was
fully aware, as we have said above, that the payment could be stopped by
wire; still, while he actually held the document itself, he seemed to be
holding something substantial.  Wagram handed it back unhesitatingly.

"No, father," he said; "it has been given, and we can't take back a
gift; and if anyone is the loser it will be me."

"No, it will not," declared the adventurer with vehemence.  "No,
certainly not.  And--pardon me, Squire, for reminding you that I have
_not_ broken my side of the compact.  Your son forced the information
from me--very unfortunately, but still he did.  But nobody else ever
will if only you could bring yourselves to believe it.  Come.  Remember
how, for all these years, I have kept absolute silence, even to
Everard--though I have been seeing him day after day--in fact, for a
devilish sight more days than I wanted to.  Well, then, why should I
begin to wag my tongue now?"

"Only to Everard?" repeated Wagram.  "Then you've seen him?"

"Seen him?  Rather!  Seen a great deal too much of him.  I don't mind
admitting that, if I hadn't been a sight smarter man for my age than he
reckoned, I should have had six inches of his knife between my ribs one
time."

"Where is he?" said Wagram.

"Ah-h!  Now you're asking for some information it wouldn't be a bit good
for you to have, so I think I'll withhold it in your own interest--
purely in your own interest, mind."

Wagram was about to reply, but did not.  The adventurer went on:

"Don't let this knowledge make any difference to you.  I give you my
word of honour--though, I daresay, you won't think much of that--that
this secret shall die with me.  You have both treated me handsomely and
fairly and squarely in this matter, and, so help me God!  I'll do the
same by you.  Wagram Wagram, you might have torn up that cheque when I
put it into your hand, as the Squire there advised you, though I know he
was speaking without thought when he did.  But it was with the knowledge
that no more honourable man treads this green and blue world than
yourself that I did put it there.  Well, then, I swear to you that what
I told the Squire on a former occasion is absolutely true.  I have a
hankering to end up my days decently and respectably, and, perhaps, in
the long run this will turn out not the least amount of good of all the
good you have done in your time, and I have some sort of inkling what
that is.  Now I'll go, and once more I say you'll never hear of me
again."

He rose, and, with a bow to both, walked to the door.  No attempt was
made to detain him this time.

"I'll just see this gentleman out, father," said Wagram.  "I won't be a
moment."  The Squire nodded.

But Wagram had something further in his mind than merely seeing an
exceedingly unwelcome visitor off the premises.  He made a commonplace
remark or two until they were clear of the house; then, once fairly in
the avenue, where the ground was open around, and no chance of being
overheard, he said again:

"Where is he?  Where is my brother?"

The adventurer's answer was the same.

"You had better not know," he said.

"But--I must."

"But--why?  Have you gained anything by being too curious before?
Didn't I warn you to leave it alone--that there might be things it were
better that you should not know?  This is another of them.  Leave it
alone, I say.  `Where ignorance is bliss,' you know.  Well, in this case
it is, believe me."

"That is impossible.  What sort of ease of mind, let alone happiness,
could ever travel my way again while every moment of my life was spent
in the consciousness that I was keeping somebody else out of his
rights?"

"His rights!  Good Lord!  His rights!  Now, do you really mean to tell
me that you would abdicate, would turn over all this"--with a sweep of
the hand around--"to Butcher Ned--er--I mean Everard?  Why, to begin
with, it would kill your father."

"No; because he could have no rights here--at least not in the sense we
mean--during my father's lifetime.  After that, well--"

"After that--well, you would put him in here--would install him in
possession.  Good Lord!  Wagram Wagram, I can only suppose you don't
know your--er--brother one little bit."

"Not lately, of course.  But that doesn't touch the principle of the
thing anyhow."

"Not touch the principle of the thing, eh?  Have you reflected what
would be the result of putting Everard in possession here?  No; of
course, you haven't.  Well, then, you may take it from me that hell let
loose would be a merry little joke compared with Hilversea six months
after that sucking lamb had got his finger on it.  I tell you it would
be a by-word for--well, for everything that you, and all decent people,
would rather it were not."

"Have you some grudge against him?" said Wagram.

"Grudge?  No; not an atom of a grudge.  But, honestly, I'd be sorry--
more than sorry--to see him in your place.  I haven't any grudge against
him; but--I _know_ him, and I don't think you do."

"Possibly not.  But if he is all you imply, all the more reason for
finding him out.  No one is utterly irreclaimable, you know."

"Pardon me.  I don't I would say I know the exact contrary; only that is
a point on which we should certainly disagree.  And the first instance I
should cite in proof of that contrary would be your half-brother.  Now,
this time be advised by me--you would not before--and leave Everard--
well, exactly wherever he may happen to be."

"No; I cannot do that.  We had thought him dead, having heard nothing of
him for years.  Now we know he is alive it is--well, my duty to find
him, in view of his future rights and great responsibilities.  Now, Mr
Hunt you owned just now that you had been well treated by us, so I put
it to you to make some little return; therefore tell me where Everard is
to be found."

"The return you mention is to bury what I know as surely as if I were
dead, and that you seem determined to prevent me from doing."

"No.  Nothing need be known of--of--the other matter any the more.  But
Everard must be restored to his rights."

The adventurer stood stock still and stared at Wagram.  His experience
had been wide and diverse, yet here was a man who stood clean outside
it.  Why, he must be mad; yet as his puzzled glance took in the tall,
straight form and the strong, thoroughbred face, still showing traces of
the recent shock, he shook his head, puzzled, and decided that the man
was as sane as himself, only clean outside his own experience.

"Look here," he said shortly, "supposing in refusing you this
information I am trying to protect myself against myself--oh, not from
Everard, don't think that.  He couldn't harm me; the boot, if anything,
is rather on the other foot.  Now, I've made a compact with you and your
father, and I mean to keep it, but I've made no compact with Everard.
Yet, I'm only human, and what if you let him in here and I felt moved to
take advantage of it?  I have a considerable hold over him, remember,
and might easily be tempted to turn it to account."

"In that case you `might easily be tempted' to turn this other knowledge
to further account as regards ourselves," said Wagram, with a dry, wan
smile.

"No, no; the cases are entirely different," rejoined the adventurer
quickly, and with some vehemence.  "Look here.  Like yourself, I, too,
have a son, of about the same age as yours.  Well, it is for him--to
keep him as far apart as the poles from becoming what Everard and I, and
others, have been--that I am so urgently in need of this money.  Now I
can do it, and if I could have done it without your forcing this secret
from me Heaven knows I would have been far more glad."

Wagram softened.  "It could not be helped," he said wearily.  "And now,
in return, tell me where to find my brother.  I don't say I am going to
rush up to him with the good news--for him--all at once; but he must be
found."

The adventurer stood for a moment or two in silence.

"Well, then," he said at last, "since you are so death on finding him,
this is the best--or the worst--I can do for you.  Go to Lourenco
Marques and make a few inquiries there--not from the police, of course.
Then, if that's no good, work over the Lebombo into Swaziland, and get
into touch with some of the tougher samples of white traders there--and
there are some tough ones.  Then go to work delicately and carefully to
obtain tidings of Butcher Ned--that's how he's known in those parts--
never mind why, as I told the Squire just now.  Only be very careful how
you work your inquiries, for he'll be engaged on the most ticklish and
infernally risky game in the gun-running and general information line
for the benefit of the Transvaal Government, unless he's changed his
mind since I saw him last, and I don't think he has.  And, honestly, I
hope you won't succeed in finding him, in which case even your scruples,
I should think, would be set at rest.  And, perhaps, you won't, for I
certainly can't give you any information that's more explicit; and it's
more than a year old, for I took a look in on the West Coast on my way
back from that part, and it lasted me a year."

"Thanks," said Wagram, again with that dry, wan smile, as he made a note
or two in a pocket-book.

"Now I will go," said Develin Hunt, "and my best wish is that you will
be unsuccessful in your search."

Then he paused, and a strange look--almost a wistful look--came over his
hard, bronzed face.

"Look here, Wagram Wagram," he blurted out, "I've done you a devilish
ill turn, but I needn't have done that if you hadn't been so infernally
persistent.  I still hope nothing will come of it; but, hang it all, I
want to tell you before I go that I've never seen a man like you in all
my experience, and it isn't small.  I'm going to ask you a great
favour--no, not money this time--and I know you're going to refuse it.
I want to ask you to let me shake hands with you."

Instinctively Wagram started, partly with astonishment.  This man, as he
had said, had indeed done him an ill turn.  He had, by a word, deprived
him of his possessions and of his very name.  He had come as a
blackmailer, and had obtained his blackmail--his price.  He had
spoiled--nay, ruined--his very life.  And yet, and yet, but for the
grace of God he himself might have been such as he, was the reflection
that ran swiftly through his mind.  Who was he to set himself up in
judgment?

"No.  You will not?" said the other, noting his hesitation.  "Of course,
I ought to have known."

"But I will," said Wagram, putting forth his hand.

The adventurer clasped it in a strong, hard grip.  Then without another
word he turned and strode away down the avenue at a most astonishing
pace for one of his apparent years.



CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

AFTER THE BLOW.

Facing round to return to the house the sight of the latter met Wagram
as with a blow.  The last time he had looked upon it from outside,
barely half-an-hour ago, it had been with the love of it and everything
about it--that pride of possession which had become unconsciously a part
of his very life.  Now all was swept away.  He passed his hand over his
eyes as though dazzled; even his walk seemed swaying and unsteady, as
that of a man recovering from a stunning shock.  But not of himself must
he think just then.  He must do what he could to mitigate the stroke as
regarded his father, he told himself; afterwards he might indulge in the
"luxury" of self-pity.

The old Squire was sitting in the library just where he had left him,
and as many years seemed to have gone over his head as minutes during
the time intervening.

"Well, father, this is rather a facer," he began.  "The next thing is to
consider what's to be done."

"There's nothing to be done," answered the old man wearily.  "Do you
think that scoundrel means to keep his word?"

"To do him justice, I think he means to at present; but whether his good
intentions will evaporate with the lapse of time, and the temptation to
try and extract more plunder, is another matter."

There was silence for a few moments between them.  Then Wagram said:

"Father, would you mind telling me all the ins and outs of this while we
are on the subject?  We shall get it over that way, and then we need
never refer to it again."

"Yes; perhaps it is better," said the Squire, with a sigh.

And then he set forth the whole story, which, with some additional but
immaterial detail, was the same as that which we heard him narrate to
Monsignor Culham.

"You know, this man has just been telling me where I can find Everard,"
said Wagram when he had done.

The Squire started.

"Where you can find Everard!" he echoed.  "But--Wagram, you will never
be so mad as to try?"

"How can I do otherwise?  Every hour that I am here I am keeping him out
of his rights."

Smiling somewhat feebly the old diplomat asserted himself.

"Hardly, my dear boy.  At least not at present--for during my lifetime
Everard has no rights.  After--"

Wagram looked up quickly, but the old man paused.  Then he went on:

"Your first duty is to me; and, that being so, are you contemplating
leaving me alone in my old age--my very old age, some might call it--
while you scour the world in search of a wastrel who, if you find him,
will lay himself out to ruin within six months all that it has taken
me--and you--a lifetime to build up?  You cannot do it, Wagram.  I have
not very much longer to live, but as sure as you leave me it will hasten
my death.  Now, are you anxious to start upon this search?"

"No, father.  While you are here--and may that be for many years to
come--I will not leave you."

"Promise me that."

"Solemnly I promise it."

The old man's face brightened as they clasped hands.  Then he went on:

"This is no conscious wrong I have done you, Wagram--God knows.  We had
every reason--legal and otherwise--for supposing this man to be dead.
We acted in perfect good faith, but--can one be sure of anything?  And
now give me your attention.  Even if the worst comes to the very worst,
and that--that other claim should come to be established, I have already
effected my utmost to repair the wrong I have, accidentally, done you.
The very day of that blackmailer's first visit to me I sent instructions
for an entirely new will to be drawn up, and under it, after my death,
you take the whole of my personalty absolutely.  That alone will
constitute you what some would call a rich man.  But--as for Hilversea,
well--"

Earlier in this narrative we heard Haldane remark that its present
occupants cherished a conviction that the world revolved round
Hilversea, and being, perhaps, the most intimate friend of the said
occupants he ought to be in a position to judge.  Further, he had
observed that, if possible, Wagram held that conviction rather more
firmly than his father.  It was a figure of speech, of course, but that
both were wrapped up in the place and its interests, far beyond the
ordinary, we have abundantly shown.  And now one of them would be called
upon to surrender it.

"I have left nothing to chance, Wagram," went on the Squire.  "The will
is signed and sealed and most carefully drawn.  And now observe: it
seems to me a sort of inspiration that caused me to have you christened
Wagram; but, to make everything doubly safe, the terms run: `To my son
Wagram Gerard, known as Wagram Gerard Wagram.'  But I want you to go up
to town in a day or two and tell Simcox and Yaxley to let you see it.
You can then satisfy yourself."

Wagram nodded assent, and the Squire went on:

"This has come upon us--upon you at any rate--in a hurry, and for that
very reason we must not allow ourselves to do or say anything in a
hurry.  Meanwhile we are in possession, which is a strong point.  So
what we--what you--have got to do is to go on exactly as if this
revelation had never been made.  There is no telling what Time may work,
so give Time his chance.  Morally, you are just in the position you
would actually have been in--morally, for I repeat again the whole
affair was a sheer accident for which nobody is to blame--no, not
anybody.  And, Wagram, if you distrust my advice as possibly too
interested, why not take other advice?  There is Monsignor Culham, for
instance--no one is more competent to advise you."

"Monsignor Culham?  Does he know about this, father?"

"Yes; I laid it before him when this blackmailer first approached me."

"And his opinion?"

"Substantially what I have been telling you.  He was not in favour of
your knowing anything about the matter.  Unfortunately, you forced the
blackmailer's hand--as he said himself.  Morally, and in the sight of
God," went on the old Squire, lapsing into what was, for him,
extraordinary vehemence, "your position is just what it would have been
but for this--accident.  There is no doubt about it.  You are the one
selected to hold this place in trust, with its many cares and
responsibilities and opportunities, so, for God's sake, Wagram, bear
that in mind, and do nothing sudden or rash, either now or after my
time."

"I will bear it in mind, father; but it is a position which requires a
great deal of thinking out, and that can't be done in a day or a week or
a month where such issues are at stake."

"Quite true; leave it at that, then.  And now, Wagram, all this has
exhausted me more than I can say.  I think I will lie down for a bit and
try to get a little sleep.  Tell them I am on no account to be
disturbed."

"Mine!"

No longer the ecstatic intonation of the entrancing possessive, as
Wagram, strolling forth to wrestle out alone the blank and deadening
revelation he had heard that day, gazed upon the surroundings which had
called forth that intensity of self-gratulation on the occasion of our
first making his acquaintance.  He was now but a mere temporary
pensioner.  He realised that he was here but for his father's lifetime,
for he knew that when left to himself, whatever might be the after
consequences, he would leave no stone unturned till he should find his
half-brother, and then--

He turned into a seldom-used path in the thick of the shrubbery.  The
Gothic roof of the chapel rose among the trees at no great distance, and
the sight was productive of another heart-tightening.  All his pride and
joy in the beautiful little sanctuary--and soon it, too, would know him
no more.  He felt as though about to be cast out of Paradise.  But with
the thought came another, and it was a wholesome one.  What right had he
to look upon life as a broken thing simply because one side of its joys
had been reft from him?  It was not even as though he were about to be
thrown forth penniless, or on a meagre, scraping, starvation pittance,
which is, perhaps, hardly better, as he had had ample occasion to know
during long years of his earlier life.  As his father had said, he would
be what some would call a rich man in any case; and as an object in life
had he not his son's future to secure and his present to watch over?
And then there recurred to his mind a question which Delia Calmour had
put to him on a former occasion as to whether he did not find life too
good to be real--and his answer to it.  There was something prophetic
about both.  Of late years he had, indeed, found life too good to be
real, and was that a state altogether healthy for anybody in this world
of probation?  He had made an idol of Hilversea.

It was late autumn, and the woodland scents were moist and earthy.
Brown leaves, crimped and curled, clustered clingingly upon the oak
boughs, and the ground was already carpeted with them.  He had followed
the most secluded paths, sacred, indeed, to himself and the gamekeepers.
The white scut of a rabbit darting across a ride; the rustle of
pheasants scuttling away in the undergrowth, or the vast flap-flap of
wood-pigeon's wings--now gathered in flocks--detonating in the deep
silence of the covert as they fled disturbed from their intended roost;
a couple of squirrels chattering angrily at the intruder from the high
security of a fir limb--constituted the only sights and sounds.  In a
day or two these woods would echo and re-echo the crack of guns, and now
he thought how he had been looking forward with keen enjoyment to the
best shooting party of the year.  His guests would go as they had come,
thinking--as they had often thought before--that Wagram was about the
luckiest and most-to-be-envied man on earth; and, up till this morning,
would he not cordially have agreed with such opinion!  Would he not?
The "pride of life!"

Now a sound of voices struck upon his ear.  The path he was following
ended in a gate, beyond which was the road--a lonely woodland road,
intersecting the coverts.  As he laid his hand upon this gate to open it
he recognised one of the voices--a sweet, full soprano that by this time
he had come to know fairly well.  The other was strong, harsh, common,
but also feminine.  Not feeling at all inclined to talk to anybody just
then he would have turned back, but--it was too late.

Delia Calmour gave a little cry of astonishment as he opened the gate.

"Why, Mr Wagram, who'd have thought of meeting you here?"

The little flush of surprise, perhaps of something else, which mantled
her cheeks as she put out a hand, half shyly, lent an additional sparkle
to her eyes, making a whole that was very alluring.  She was in
semi-winter garb, with a touch of fur, and her bicycle stood against the
hedge.  The other was a dark, beady-eyed, gipsy-looking woman.

"Such fun!" rattled the girl.  "I've been having my fortune told; only I
can't make head or tail of it."

Here the other, with a half-knowing leer--for, of course, she had at
once decided that this meeting was no accidental one--opened on Wagram
with the stock professional whine.

"I'll tell yours too, sir, and it's sure to be bright--and--"

Then she stopped.  Wagram's gaze was fixed sternly upon her.

"Go away," he said.  "I've seen you before, and I've warned you before
that we had no use for such as you in this neighbourhood.  You had
better leave it at once, for I shall send word to the police at
Bassingham to pay you some very particular attention."

The tramp, seeing he was in earnest, and that there was nothing more to
be got out of him, waxed bold and defiant.

"You'd do that, would you Squire?" she snarled.  "All right.  Maybe
there's them as knows more about your little game than you thinks of.
Maybe you'll not be finding everything as easy always; no, and I 'opes
yer won't--tramplin' upon a pore woman who's tryin' to make a honest
livin'."  And, cursing and growling, the hag shuffled off down the road.

In his then frame of mind the words were startling to Wagram.  What on
earth--was his altered position already common property? was his first
thought, as he read into the malevolent words the very last meaning that
the mind of their utterer could have held.

"I am surprised at you, Miss Calmour," he said gravely, "listening to
the pestiferous humbug of the commonest type of hedge-side charlatan.
Really, I had a better opinion of you."

"And--has it fled?" answered the girl, with a pretty pleading penitence
that was not wholly mock.  "I only let her tell my fortune for the fun
of the thing--and she said some very queer things--not at all after the
pattern of stock bosh which I had expected.  In fact, they were rather
weird--about green seas, smooth and oily, and a battered ship--and
terrors--and perhaps death, but if not death, then great happiness.
Yes; really it was quite creepy; strange too, for what on earth can I
ever have to do with battered ships or green seas--or great happiness
either?" she added to herself mournfully.  Then again, aloud: "But do
you think there may be anything in these people's powers of prediction?"

"No, I do not," he answered decisively, and with some sternness.
"Certainly not.  The knowledge of the future is in other hands than
those of a common wayside impostor, whom, if I were doing my duty, I
ought to have at once had arrested and locked up on a former occasion
when she tried to play that humbugging game in my presence."

"Oh yes; she got into the wrong corner this time," laughed Delia.  "You
are a magistrate, are you not, Mr Wagram?"

"I have seen this particular fraud before, and gave her a trifle, as she
seemed really in want," he answered.  "In strict duty I ought to have
had her locked up, but strict duty is rather a hard thing to carry out
always.  But anything that encourages superstition is to me especially
abhorrent.  The greatest harm these impostors do is not merely in
obtaining hard-earned silver from ignorant people but in keeping alive
the idea that they can possess any supernatural power--let alone
wisdom--at all."

The girl looked at him with a covert smile.

"Be merciful to one of those `ignorant people,'" she said softly.
"Though, really, I did not believe in any supernatural power about the
affair; I only let her do it for the fun of the thing."

"I should hope not.  With your talents and education I could not have
believed it of you.  And yet--you hardly know where to draw the line.
When you find people, whose upbringing and education, and everything
else, ought to put them miles above anything of the kind, steeped over
head and ears in such puerile superstitions as throwing spilled salt
over the shoulder, scared of having a peacock's feather brought into
their houses, or of getting up first of thirteen from the table, or of
walking under a ladder--really it makes one--well, cynical."

"But--walking under a ladder is unlucky sometimes, Mr Wagram."

"_Very_ likely to be, if you don't first ascertain whether there's a
journeyman painter up it with a paint pot--not otherwise."

Then they both laughed--for Wagram the first laugh he had indulged in
since the bolt had fallen.  Well, he could still laugh; yet but now it
had seemed to him that he never would laugh again.

"But--you'll admit there are people who can tell you strange--and even
startling--things about yourself that they can't possibly have got at by
any ordinary means."

"I'll admit nothing of the kind.  I know the old stock business--I have
had it thrown at me too often.  Some fool--usually some feminine fool--
goes to one of these impostors--not the hedge-side type of fraud but the
fashionable ditto--and pays down her guineas to be told such and such.
She is told such and such, and it amazes her.  Then, in retailing it,
she invariably ends up with: `But, how do you account for it?'  I always
answer I can't account for it, any more than I can account for how the
clever card conjurer takes ace and king and queen out of the top of the
head of the baldest man in the audience; but he does it, and nobody
dreams of associating the supernatural with the process.  It's the same
thing here.  It's part of the system to find out things; and they do it.
If you were let into the secret you'd probably laugh at the simplicity
with which it's done.  No; really, I've no patience with that sort of
absurdity; it's too childish."

"Looked at in that light it is.  You do put things straight, Mr Wagram."

"Well, but--isn't it so?  I have even heard people attribute that sort
of quackery to satanic influence, which has almost struck me, if one may
say so, as insulting to the intelligence of the devil.  But it is
getting rather dusk.  You will want your lamp before you get home.  Is
it in good lighting order?"

If a momentary temptation beset Delia to pretend it was not, so as to
afford a pretext for accompanying him to the house, which was not very
far distant, she heroically stifled it; so between them they lighted the
lamp.

"Good-bye, Mr Wagram.  Thanks so much.  I promise you I won't dabble in
the black art again," she said as they shook hands; and mounting she
skimmed away down the now shadowy road, going over in her mind every
word, every tone of the, in hard fact, utterly unmomentous interview.
And he, striking into a woodland path on the other side, continued his
walk in the deepening gloom, to the accompaniment of the ghostly hooting
of owls.  It was strange that he should have fallen in with this girl
just then, and in his then frame of mind it seemed to him that her
glance and tone and demeanour were very sweet, very soothing, very
sympathetic.  And then--he ceased to give her another thought.



CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

"REQUIEM AETERNAM..."

Though beloved by their tenantry and dependents the Wagrams were not
exactly popular with the county--as spelt with a capital C.  This saw
reason, or thought it did, to regard them as exclusive and eccentric.
To begin with, they seldom entertained, and then not on anything like
the scale it was reckoned they ought.  A few shooting parties in the
season, and those mostly men, though such of the latter as owned wives
and daughters brought them; or an occasional gathering, such as we have
seen, mainly of ecclesiastical interest.  It was a crying shame,
declared the county, that a splendid place like Hilversea Court should
be thrown away on two solemn old widowers; and it was the duty of one of
them--Wagram at any rate--to marry again.  But Wagram showed not the
slightest inclination to do anything of the kind.

Not through lack of opportunity--inducement.  He was angled for, more or
less deftly--not always with a mercenary motive; but, though courteous
and considerate to the aspiring fair, by no art or wile could he be
drawn any further--no, not even into the faintest shadow of a
flirtation.  It was exasperating, but there was no help for it, so he
had been given up as hopeless.  He might have recognised the duty but
for the existence of his son.  Hilversea would have its heir after him--
that was sufficient.

He was eccentric, estimated his acquaintances, in that he worked hard at
matters that most people leave to an agent; but this was a duty, he
held--a sacred trust--to look into things personally; the result we have
referred to elsewhere.  As for entertaining, well, neither he nor the
old Squire cared much about it.  On the other hand, they were careful
that many a day's sport, with gun or rod--but mostly the latter--should
come in the way of not a few who seldom had an opportunity of enjoying
such.

But now of late there had befallen that which caused the county
aforesaid to rub its eyes, and this was the manner in which the Wagrams
seemed to have "taken up" Delia Calmour.  It was not surprised that a
brazen, impudent baggage like that should have pushed herself upon them
on the strength of the gnu incident, the marvel was that she should have
succeeded--have succeeded in getting round not only Wagram but the old
Squire as well, and the county resented it.  Once when she was at
Hilversea some callers, of course, of her own sex, took an opportunity
of testifying their disapproval by being markedly rude to the girl.
This Wagram had noticed, and had there and then paid her extra attention
by way of protest.  And Haldane too--he who thought the whole world was
hardly good enough to have the honour of containing that girl of his,
and yet he allowed her to associate with a daughter of tippling,
disreputable old Calmour!  What next, and what next!

But if the Wagrams were eccentric they could afford to be, and that for
a dual reason: in the first place, they were "big" enough; in the next,
they cared literally and absolutely not one straw for the opinion of the
county.  If a given line commended itself to their approbation they took
it, completely regardless of what the county or anybody else might
choose to say or think--and this held equally good of father and son--
which was as well, for, as time went by, on this matter it "said"
plenty.

A wafting of it reached Wagram one day, at the mouth of Clytie's
_quondam_ victim--"Vance's eldest fool," as the old Squire had, with
cynical aptitude, defined that much plucked youth.

"Take a tip from me, Wagram," remarked the latter one day.  "You're
making a mistake having too much to do with that lot.  They're
dangerous, and you'll have to pay up smartly for your fun one of these
days."

The other did not retort that the speaker had reason to be an authority
on the point, nor did he get angry; he only answered:

"I don't like that kind of remark, Vance.  I suppose because I'm not in
the habit of taking anybody's `tips' I always take my own line.  Sounds
conceited, perhaps, but it's true."

"Oh, I didn't mean anything, Wagram," was the reply, given rather
shamefacedly.

But the time had now come when this reputation for reticence, for
eccentricity, stood Wagram in good stead.  If he had become graver, more
aloof than ever under the influence of this new and overwhelming blow,
his surroundings hardly noticed it.  In anybody else it would have been
at once remarked on; in him it was a mere development of his former and
normal demeanour.  One or two opined that he contemplated entering a
monastery, but the general run gave the matter no further thought; and,
the very vaguest, faintest inkling of the real state of things struck
nobody at all.

There was one, however, whose quick woman's wit had not been slow to
arrive at the fact that something had gone wrong--in some absolutely
not-to-be-guessed-at and unaccountable way, but still gone wrong--and
that was Delia herself.  The county need not bother its opaque head any
further as to how and why the Wagrams had "taken her up," for the said
Wagrams seemed to have dropped her with equal capriciousness.  And the
girl herself?

No more of these pleasant informal invites to Hilversea when she cycled
over to the chapel services on Sundays or other days.  Wagram and the
old Squire were as courteous and kindly in their bearing as ever, but--
there it ended; and, strange to say, remembering her upbringing, or want
of it rather, this daughter of tippling, disreputable old Calmour did
not, even in her heart of hearts, feel hurt or resentful.  For, as we
have said, by some quick-witted instinct of her own she realised that
some great trouble, secret and, therefore, infinitely the greater, was
sapping the peace of this house, to the members of which she looked up
with a feeling little short of adoration.  She saw this, but nobody else
did as yet.

Delia had carried out the intention we heard her express to Wagram on
the occasion of one of those visits which had constituted the bright
days of her life.  She had placed herself under the instruction of the
old priest in Bassingham whose German nationality had first aroused her
insular disapproval, and had been received into the Catholic Church; but
in the result she had learned that a love of beautiful music and
imposing and picturesque ceremonies was not the be-all and end-all of
the matter by a long way; wherefore the change had put the coping-stone
to the refining process which had been going on unconsciously within
her, and the former undisciplined and inconsequent daughter of rackety,
happy-go-lucky Siege House had become a self-contained and
self-disciplined woman.  As to this something of a test was put upon her
when one day, on one of the rare occasions now when she had an
opportunity of talking confidentially with Wagram, the latter remarked:

"Talking of `duties,' Miss Calmour, I wonder if you will resent what I
am going to say?  It seems ungracious after the great help you have
given us here from time to time--musically, I mean.  Well, then, you
have a beautiful voice and great musical talent.  Now, don't you think
you ought to turn that to account nearer home?  The mission at
Bassingham is a poor one.  With your talents, if you threw yourself into
helping to improve its choir, and musical arrangements generally, what a
difference that might work in rendering it more attractive to outside
people as well as to those within.  Of course, music like many other
accessories, is a mere spiritual luxury, not an essential, but it is
often a powerful factor in the first instance, in attracting those
without, and therefore, like any lawful agency in that direction, by no
means to be despised.  How if this is a talent entrusted to you to be
turned to account?  But there--I have no constituted right to set myself
up as your adviser, and I suppose you are only setting me down as a
solemn old bore intent on preaching you a sermon," he concluded, with a
smile--a sad one, she decided to herself, as his somewhat rare smiles
were in these days.

The natural human in Delia was represented by a feeling of blank dismay.
Those rides over to Hilversea, and her part in the musical arrangements
of its exquisite chapel, had been to her as something to live for.  And
now even this was to be denied her.  But the self-discipline had become
an accomplished fact.

"I am setting you down as nothing of the sort, Mr Wagram," she answered
steadily, "nor do I know anybody in this world more competent to advise
me or anyone else.  Yes; you are right; I will follow your advice.  But
I may come up to Hilversea, and help occasionally when I am not wanted
in Bassingham, mayn't I?"

"My dear child, of course; we are only too glad.  You know, I was not
putting it to you in your own personal interest.  In such a matter
nothing personal comes in, or ought to.  But there--I seem to be
preaching again."

The step Delia had taken involved upon her far less of a trial from
those among whom she moved than she had expected.  Old Calmour had been
nasty and jeering on the subject, and in his cups had been wont to make
exceedingly objectionable remarks and vulgar insinuations; but such to
the girl were as mere pin-pricks now.  Moreover, Clytie had on every
occasion quelled, not to say flattened, him with all her serene but
effective decisiveness; and the egregious Bob was in a state of complete
subjection, as we have shown.  To Clytie herself the whole thing was a
matter of entire satisfaction, for she regarded it as a step, and a very
important one, in the direction of furthering her own darling scheme;
which scheme, by the way, did not seem to progress with the rapidity she
would have wished.

"You must force the pace Delia," she said.  "The thing's hanging a
little more than I like.  You've got a first-rate cut in, and you ought
to be able to capture the trick.  Force the pace a little more; you're
not making the most of your opportunities."

"You're wasting a deal of capacity for intrigue, Clytie," was the
answer.  "There's nothing `hanging,' no pace to force, and no trick to
capture, as I've told you before."

The other looked at her, shook her pretty head, and--being at times
inclined towards vulgarity--winked.

And then upon Hilversea and its surroundings and dependents fell another
bolt--swift, sudden, consternating.  The old Squire was dead.

He had passed away in his sleep, peacefully and painlessly, for the
expression of his fine old face was absolutely placid and almost
smiling; and from Wagram downwards the bolt shot hard and grievous
through many a heart.  Not only of those belonging to the immediate
neighbourhood did this hold, for in the crowd which thronged the
approaches to the chapel what time the solemn High Mass of _Requiem_--
sung by the dead man's lifelong friend, Monsignor Culham--was
proceeding, not a few strange faces might have been discerned; faces of
those whom Grantley Wagram and his son had benefited--in some instances
even to the saving of life, where, but for such benefit, the means of
preserving life by affording the requisite conditions would have been
lacking.

Very different, too, to the _cortege_ which we saw issue from these
doors a few months back is this which now comes forth to lay the dead
man in his last resting-place in the little consecrated graveyard
beneath the east window of the chapel, but no less solemn.  The glow and
splendour of light and colour, the mellow flooding of the summer
sunshine are no longer here, and the gurgling song of full-throated
thrushes is hushed.  Instead, the frost and stillness of a winter noon,
and an occasional sob as the coffin is lowered into the grave, while the
chant of the _Benedictus_ rolls forth mournful and grand upon the crisp
air, so still that the lights borne on each side of the great crucifix
burn with scarce a flicker, and the celebrant, vested in a black and
silver cope of some richness, sprinkles--for the last time with holy
water the remains of Grantley Wagram, now laid to his final rest.

      "Requiem aeternam dona, ei Domine,
      Et lux perpetua luceat ei.

      "Anima ejus, et animae omnium
  fidelium defunctorum per misericordiam
  Dei requiescant in pace."

The words find echo in many a heart as the sad solemnity ends.  The
crowd melts away, the mourners withdraw--all save one, who stands
motionless, with bowed head, looking down into the closing grave--and
that one the dead man's son.



CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE RED DERELICT.

"What would happen if we went ashore here?  Why, we'd very likely be
eaten."

"Eaten!  Oh, captain, you can't really mean that.  In these days too!"

"But I do mean it.  Yonder's a pretty bad coast.  As for `in these
days,' we haven't yet captured quite all the earth, only the greater
part of it.  There are still some rum places left."

"Oh!"  And the inquiring lady passenger stared, round-eyed, to eastward,
where, however, no sign of any coast was visible, nor yet in any other
quarter.

The steamship _Baleka_ was shearing her way through the smooth satiny
folds of the tropical swell, and the light breeze which stirred the
surface combined with the air the ship was making to render life quite
tolerable beneath the grateful shade of the awnings.  Otherwise it was
hot--unequivocably hot; and where the glisten of brasswork was exposed
to the overhead noonday sun the inadvertent contact of the bare hand
with the said brasswork was sufficient to make the owner jump.  So
completely alone on this shoreless sea was the steamer that the plumes
of smoke from her great white funnels seemed as though they had no
business to taint this free, pure air with their black abominations--
seemed, in fact, an outrage on the blue and golden solitude.  Yet the
said solitude was by no means devoid of life.  Flying-fish skimming
above the liquid plain singly or in flights like silvery birds, or a
school of porpoises keeping pace with the ship for miles in graceful
leaps, as their sportive way is, constituted only hints as to the
teeming life of the waters in common with the earth and air; or here and
there a triangular fin moving dark and oily above the surface in
scarcely perceptible glide.  The sight started the inquiring lady
passenger off afresh.

"Look, there's another shark; what a number we've seen within the last
day or two, captain.  Is there any truth in that idea that a shark
following a ship means that there's going to be a death on board?"

"But this one isn't following the ship; he's going very nearly clean in
the contrary direction."

"Yes, I know.  But do you think there's anything in the idea?"

"Why, I think that if somebody died every time a shark followed a ship
there'd soon be none of us left to go to sea at all.  What the joker's
really smelling after is the stuff that's thrown overboard from the
cook's galley from time to time."

"Really?  Well, there goes another weird legend of the sea--weird but
romantic."

"It'd be a good thing if a few more of them went overboard," laughed the
matter-of-fact captain.  "They soon will, too--a good many have already.
In the old `windjammer,' days when you had nothing to do half the
voyage but sit and whistle for a breeze, these yarns got into Jack's
head and stuck there.  Now with steam and quick voyages, and a rattling
spell of work in stowing cargo every few days or so, Jack hasn't got
time to bother about that sort of thing."

"Then sailors aren't superstitious any more?"

"No more than shore folk.  I've seen landsmen both on board ship and
ashore who could give points in that line to the scarriest old Jack-tar
who ever munched salt horse, and knock him hollow at that."

"Then you've no superstitions of your own, captain--you, a sailor?"

"Not one; I don't believe any such nonsense."

A solitary passenger, passing at the time in his walk up and down,
overhearing, smiled and nodded approval.

The _Baleka_ was steering north by north-west, every eleven or eleven
and a half knots that her nose managed to shove through the water that
creamed back from her straight stem bringing her an hour nearer England.
She was not a mail steamer, or even a regular passenger boat, being one
of a private venture embarked in with the object of cheapening freight
between England and the South African ports.  But besides a full cargo
she carried a limited complement of passengers and a quite unlimited
ditto of cockroaches; otherwise she was an exceedingly comfortable boat,
and combined good catering with a considerable reduction on current
rates of passage money by the ordinary lines, all of which was a
consideration with those to whom a few days more or less at sea mattered
nothing.

The smoking-room amidships was a snug apartment with roomy chairs and
well-cushioned lounges.  In one corner three or four of the male
passengers were hard at work capturing the Transvaal--a form of
amusement widely prevailing at that time, although the war had not yet
been started; rather should we have omitted the transition
qualification, for they had already conquered and annexed the obnoxious
republic, and that with surprisingly little loss or difficulty.  Then
the discussion waxed lively and warm, for the justifiability of the
proposed annexation had come up; meanwhile others had dropped in.

"I maintain it would be utterly unjustifiable," said one.  "It's all
very well to urge that it would be for the good of civilisation and
numbers, and all that sort of thing, but we can't do evil that good may
come of it.  That's a hard and fast rule."

"There's no such thing as a hard and fast rule, or oughtn't to be,"
retorted with some heat he who had borne the main part of the argument;
"but if there is, why, `the greatest good for the greatest number' is a
fairly safe one.  What do you think sir?" turning to a man who was
seated in another corner reading, but who had paid no attention to the
discussion at all.

"Think?  Oh, I don't know.  I haven't been in that part long enough to
have formed an opinion," was the answer.

"But you don't agree with our friend there that there should be a hard
and fast rule for everything?  Surely you are of opinion that every
question should be decided on its own merits?"

"Certainly," replied the other politely, though inwardly bored at being
dragged into a crude and threadbare discussion upon a subject in which
he felt no interest whatever.  "That's a sound principle all the world
over, and a safe one."

"There you are," cried the first speaker triumphantly, turning upon his
antagonist.  "What did I tell you?  This gentleman agrees with me
entirely, as any sensible man would on such a point as that."

"We can't do evil that good may come of it," reiterated the said
antagonist.  "That's a hard and fast rule."

"Hard and fast rule be blowed!  You might as well apply that to the
Valpy case," naming a somewhat prominent lawsuit then going forward, and
relating to a disputed succession.  "If the Valpy in possession weren't
justified in sticking to possession when he knew the real heir was a
congenital idiot, and a homicidal one at that--why, there's no such
thing as any law of common sense."

"What were the facts?" asked the man who had been appealed to from
outside.  "I have not been much in the way of reading the papers of
late."

They told him--several of them at once, as the way of a smoking-room
gathering is.  By judicious winnowing down he managed to elicit that a
vast deal of property had been in dispute, that the holder had been an
exemplary landlord, and, in short, a sort of Providence to all dependent
on him; whereas the man who had successfully established his own claim,
and thereby had ousted him, was one of those subjects for whom a few
minutes in a lethal chamber would have constituted the only appropriate
and adequate treatment.  Indeed, the only matter of debate was as to
whether the former holder, knowing that he was not legally entitled to
remain in possession, was justified in retaining the same.  Those here
present were of opinion that he was.

"I don't agree with you at all," said the uncompromising man.  "We can't
do evil that good may come of it.  That's the divine law, and--"

"Hallo!  What's the excitement?" interrupted somebody, as several
persons hurried by the open door, some with binoculars in their hands.

"Oh, we've only sighted some ship, I suppose," said the leader on the
other side.  "What I was going to say is--"

But ever so little to break the sea and sky monotony of a voyage will
avail to raise a modicum of excitement; wherefore, what the speaker "was
going to say" remained perforce unknown, for the group incontinently
melted away in order to see what little there was to be seen.

That little was little enough.  A solitary speck away towards the
sky-line; to those who had binoculars, and soon to those who had not,
taking shape--that shape the hull of a ship.  Little enough in all
conscience.

But--was it?  The submerged hull of a ship and no more, save for two
stumps of mast of uneven length sticking out of her.  The poop and
forecastle were above water, and in the wash of the increasing evening
swell part of the bulwarks heaved up as the hulk rolled lazily, her
rusty red sides, glistening and wet, showing a line of encrusting
barnacles.  This was what met the eager gaze of the passengers of the
_Baleka_ in the lurid, smoky glare of the tropical sunset as the steamer
swept up to, and slowed down to pass, the sad relic; and there may have
been some among them who noticed that the long, straight path of her
foamy wake has undergone an abrupt deviation behind her--for the
derelict had been lying right in her course.

Right in her course!  An hour later and it would have been dark--very
dark--and then!

There was quite a buzz of interest among the passengers; the man who had
been to sea a great deal advancing, of course, all sorts of wild and
impossible theories with regard to the wreck.  But though glasses were
strained upon her no trace was visible as to her name or nationality.

"By George!  I'm blest if it isn't the Red Derelict herself!" exclaimed
the fourth officer, lowering his binoculars.  Instantly he became the
centre of an inquiring group, chiefly ladies.

"The Red Derelict?  What's that, Mr Ransome?" came the eager query.

"Haven't you heard of her?" said the other, who was little more than a
merry-faced boy.  "Why, she's a sort of Flying Dutchman.  She's been
cruising around in these waters some time now, and they say it isn't
lucky to sight her."

"Luckier than not to sight her--and an hour later we shouldn't have
sighted her--in the dark."

The rejoinder was significant, and it came from the quiet passenger who
had been appealed to for his opinion during the smoke-room discussion.
The fourth officer looked not at all pleased at this encroachment on his
own privileges as oracle.  But he was destined to look less pleased
still.

"Mr Ransome," interrupted the captain's voice from the bridge overhead,
"just send me the second quartermaster here.  After that I want you here
yourself."  And the captain's tone was crisp, and his face was grim--and
the merry-faced boy looked no longer merry, for he knew a wigging was in
store.

"Right, sir," he answered, starting off with alacrity.

"Powis, d'you hear that blighted young fool blithering away about Red
Derelicts and Flying Dutchmen?" said the captain in an undertone to the
chief officer.  "As if passengers ain't a skeery enough crowd without
filling 'em up with all sorts of sick old sea lies into the bargain.  He
ought to be sent back to school again and well swished.  Well, log the
derelict."

The bugle rang out its second dinner summons to the strains of "The
Roast Beef of Old England," and there was something of a scurry among
the passengers, who had ignored the first in their eagerness to watch
the derelict.  A few, however, remained, gazing after the ghastly
eloquence of the deserted hulk, now black and indistinct in the dusk,
for in the tropical seas darkness comes down with a rush.

"Wonder if there's anything in Ransome's yarn about that beauty," said
one man, shutting his binoculars.  "Hang it!  I'm not superstitious,
but, all the same, I wish we'd never sighted her."



CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

AN OMEN.

There was the usual clatter of knives and forks, and chinking of
glasses, and scurrying of stewards in the well-lighted saloon, and
during dinner the derelict they had just passed took up a large
proportion of the conversation.  As to this the captain's table
constituted no exception.

"What sort of ship would she have been, Captain Lawes--English?"  The
speaker was the lady passenger we heard making inquiries as to sea
superstitions.  She was a bright, rather taking woman of about thirty,
making the homeward voyage with one child, a sweetly-pretty little girl,
who was made a great pet of among the passengers--indeed, a great deal
more than was good for her.

"Can't say for certain, but am inclined to think so.  She must have been
a timber ship or she'd hardly have kept afloat for so long."

"How long do you think she's been like that?"

"Can't say either for certain.  She may have been months, and, from the
look of her, a good few of them.  Or she may have been years."

"And do you think there's anyone on board?"  The captain stared.

"Anyone on board?" he echoed.  "Well, not anyone living, of course.  But
it's hardly likely anyone would have remained on board.  The fact of her
being still afloat shows that they had plenty of time when they
abandoned her."

"But if there is?  What a ghastly idea it seems, that old ship floating
about for ever in those oily seas, a floating coffin for some poor
wretches imprisoned within her!  Ugh! it's horrible!"

"You've got a lively imagination, Mrs Colville," said the captain drily.
"You're not a novelist, are you?"

"Oh no; I wish I were.  But isn't a half-sunk ship like that, right in
our way, rather dangerous to navigation?"

"That's exactly the wording of our log-book when we report the
occurrence: `Dangerous to navigation.'"

"But why don't you sink her, then, and get her out of the way?"

The captain stole a quick, comical glance at the passenger on his other
side.

"In the first place, as the American lady said when she was asked why
she didn't get married: `I guess I haven't time.'  You see, I don't own
this boat, Mrs Colville, nor yet her cargo.  What would my owners say if
I spent half the night hanging around trying to sink every derelict one
passes at sea?  We're behind time as it is, thanks to the barnacles
we've accumulated.  Again, she may be worth salvaging, though I don't
think so."

"Mr Ransome was saying she had been around here quite a long while.  He
called her the Red Derelict; said she was a sort of Flying Dutchman, and
it was unlucky to sight her."

"I know he did," answered the captain grimly, with a complacent
recollection of the savage wigging that rash youth had received at his
hands.  The other passenger struck in:

"I told him it would have been still more unlucky if we hadn't sighted
her till--say, an hour later.  She was right bang in our course."

The captain looked not altogether pleased at this remark, but the
speaker was a personage of some consideration on board.

"We keep a look out, you know, Mr Wagram," he said.

"Of course.  But I always notice that the first hour of these tropical
nights is the darkest, perhaps because of the suddenness with which it
rushes down.  Now, a hulk like that, flush with the surface and showing
no lights, would it be discernible until too late?"

The captain knew that the chances were twenty to one it wouldn't, but
for expediency's sake he was not going to own as much.  As he had said
before, passengers were a skeery crowd, and didn't want any extra
frightening.

"Chances are it would," he answered, "especially in a smooth sea like
this.  There's always a disturbance on the surface as the thing rises
and falls, an extra gleam of phosphorus, or something that the lookout
man on the forecastle can't miss."

"That's satisfactory," rejoined the lady.  "Do you believe in luck, Mr
Wagram?"

"In the sense in which we are going to be unlucky because we've seen a
dismantled hulk--decidedly not.  The idea is too puerile even for
discussion."

"Oh, I wish I were as strong-minded!  Do you know, I'm terribly
superstitious."

"Really?  Well, I believe many people are," he answered politely, with a
faint dash of banter.

"Mrs Colville was trying to get at me on that very subject this
afternoon," laughed the captain.  "She thought all sailor-men were born
fetish-men."

"It's all very well, no doubt," she answered.  "You may laugh, and all
that, but, all the same, I wish we hadn't seen that Flying Dutchman of
yours.  I'm sure it'll bring us ill luck."

Hardly were the words uttered than a hush fell upon the saloon.  To the
clatter of knives and forks, the chink of glasses, and the loud hum of
voices--at this stage of the dinner at its highest--had succeeded a dead
silence.  It had seemed compulsory, for it had begun without.  The
regular, monotonous thrashing of the propeller--which had become almost
a necessity, so habitual was it by now--had ceased.  The ship lay still
upon the smooth, oily waters.  The engines had stopped.

Those who have experience of sea voyages will be familiar with the
effect produced by such an occurrence.  So thoroughly has the churning
beat of the propeller become a part of one's existence that the sudden
cessation thereof is enough to awaken the soundest sleeper, and when it
befalls during waking hours, and in mid-ocean, why, then, it is not the
constitutionally timid alone who can plead guilty to a misgiving, and
the conjuring up of a disabled ship rolling helplessly on the swell, and
waiting for assistance that may be long enough in coming.

Such was the prevailing state of mind among the passengers of the
_Baleka_ at that moment.  The timid decided that it was a case of
breakdown; those not timid hoped it was not.  Tongues began to wag
again, but not so briskly, and immediately a steward came in and
reported something to the chief engineer, who presided at another table
in the saloon.  The latter went out.

"What has gone wrong, captain?" said Mrs Colville, not without a dash of
anxiety.  "Have the engines broken down?"

"I haven't been down to the engine-room to see yet," was the bland
reply.  "McAndrew has just gone out, so we shall know directly."

"Ah!  There now, Mr Wagram, look at that!" she exclaimed.  "Didn't I say
that wretched derelict would bring us ill luck?  And just as I was
saying so we stop."

"Is that ill luck?" said Wagram, with a smile.  He himself had made no
comment whatever on the occurrence, but was going on with his dinner as
if nothing had happened.  "It is no uncommon event at sea for the
engines to stop for a few minutes for various intelligible and harmless
reasons.  Am I right, Captain Lawes?"

"Perfectly."

"But why don't they send up to let you know what's gone wrong, captain?"
persisted the lady.  "I should have thought that's the first thing
they'd do."

"The fact that they don't shows that there's nothing the matter.
McAndrew knows better than to set up a scare among the passengers by
sending despatches into the saloon in the middle of dinner."

And the speaker, like Wagram, continued tranquilly to ply his knife and
fork.  At heart he felt annoyed at the turn events had taken.  He knew--
while despising it--the depths of asininity to which the average human
understanding will plunge in the matter of "luck" and "ill luck," and
such a coincidence as that which had befallen was sufficient to start
some idiot among the passengers getting it into the newspapers on
arrival in England.  Moreover, he knew, of course, that a merchant
captain is by no means the almighty little tin god that most landsmen
think him, even while at sea, and that in the eyes of owners he is of
fairly small account.  And, strange as it may seem to the enlightened
mind, the reputation of an "unlucky ship" is easier gained than lost.
So when, a minute or two later, a note was brought to him from the
engine-room he at once stood up and addressed the saloon.

There was no cause whatever for alarm, he explained.  The stoppage was
due to something wrong with the machinery, but of a trifling nature, and
which was even then nearly repaired.  Any minute they might be under way
again.

There was clapping of hands at this, and cries of "Hear, hear!"
Reassured tongues began to wag again, and the lowered voices and murmurs
of misgiving were heard no more.  And lo! even before dinner was done,
there came a pulsation through the fabric of the ship, gentle at first,
then increasing.  The beat of the propeller was heard as well as felt.
They were on the move again, and now a marked increase of hilarity was
significant of reaction after the recent depression of alarm.

"The world is very full of prize idiots, Mr Wagram," observed the
captain when the bulk of the passengers had gone out, including the lady
at his right.  He had purposely sat on longer than usual.

"Yes.  You could scrape together a considerable fool show out of it,"
laughed the other, filling his glass.  "But between ourselves, now that
we are alone, why don't the naval people send out a gunboat to look for
this confounded hulk and sink her?  They can't have so much to do on
this West Coast Station, and she must be infernally dangerous to
shipping."

"So she is really.  But at sea we have to take a lot of chances--a sight
more than you landsmen would dream of, I don't mind telling _you_."

"So I should imagine.  Look at this."  From a notecase he extracted a
newspaper cutting and handed it to the captain.  It was the identical
account of the appearance of the derelict which Haldane had read out
that happy summer morning at dear old Hilversea, and something of a sigh
escaped him at the recollection.  "Think it's the same?"

"`The _Rhodesian_...  Latitude 10 degrees 5 minutes North, longitude 16
degrees 38 minutes West... about 900 or 1000 tons'" ... went on the
captain, skimming the report.  "H'm, h'm--it's rum, certainly, but it
might easily be.  The description seems to tally exactly.  Why, it's
quite a long while ago too.  And the latitude isn't far out with our
present position.  Yes; it's rum."

"But how the deuce can the thing stick about in one place?  Seems as if
it were bound to drift away, Heaven knows where--perhaps on shore and
get broken up."

"Ever heard of circular currents, Mr Wagram?  It's that that forms the
Maelstrom.  There are some queer currents hereabouts too, which may
account for the thing hanging around here till the crack of doom.  I
knew she'd been a long time in the water by the look of her.  But may I
ask, without being curious, what made you keep that cutting--let alone
carry it about with you?"

"That's more than I can tell you, for I hardly know myself.  I suppose
the circumstance struck me as an out-of-the-way strange one, so when all
at once I made up my mind for a voyage or two it came back to my mind,
and so I hunted up the number it was in and cut it out."

"Yes; it's a rum thing, very," repeated the captain, glancing again
through the newspaper cutting.  "`About eight feet of iron foremast
standing, and rather more of mizzen-mast, with some rigging trailing
from it.'  That's exactly the description of the hooker we've just
passed, except that there was no rigging trailing from it.  But that may
have carried away or been knocked off."

"Well, it's behind _us_, at any rate," said Wagram, rising.  "Let's hope
it'll soon go to the bottom of its own accord.  I suppose the thing can
hardly keep afloat for ever."

To his fellow-passengers Wagram was a sealed book, in that all
conjectures as to his identity and his circumstance failed.  He was very
reticent, and this they were at first inclined to resent; but a certain
charm of manner and a never-failing courtesy to all quickly dispelled
any idea that "side" might be the underlying motive of such reticence.
The fact that he had paid extra for the privilege of having a cabin to
himself, and that nearly the best on the ship, seemed to throw some
light upon his circumstances.  Though reticent, however, about himself
he could not exactly be called unsociable, for he would spend his
evenings in the smoke-room, entering into the current chat over a pipe
or so.  But who he was, and where from--that nobody knew.

Not much inclined for sociability was he to-night.  The incident of the
derelict had brought back the past--the old happy past--and again he
seemed to live through those bright sunny days at Hilversea, surrounded
by all that made life joyous, and, underlying all, the ecstatic sense of
possession.  But now--!  Well, his quest was ended.  He had carried it
out conscientiously, energetically, and--nothing had come of it.

No; nothing whatever.  He had followed out Develin Hunt's directions to
the letter--sparing not himself.  He had betaken himself, always with
care and absence of ostentation, to the locality in which that worthy
had pronounced his half-brother to be, but of the latter he could learn
nothing.  Once he had lighted on what seemed a clue, but it had ended in
smoke.  Then, acting upon another, he had taken ship for Australia, and
had followed it up, with like result.  Once more he had returned to
South Africa, to meet again with no reward to his efforts.  At last,
baffled at every turn, he had concluded he might legitimately abandon
the search, and so here we find him again on his way homeward.

His wanderings, although he had spared no expense towards the attainment
of his object, had been undertaken on no luxurious lines.  He had
roughed it in strange wild places, had undergone real hardships, and on
occasions real peril, and the experience had hardened him.  He was in
splendid condition, dark, sunburnt, and as hard as nails.  But now had
come upon him a great home-sickness, and he was regretting the
easy-going lack of foresight which had moved him to take passage on
board the _Baleka_ instead of upon one of the more crowded but swifter
steamships of the regular mail line.

Pacing the deck in the tropical starlight he recapitulated to himself
the whole situation.  All had gone below now, but he remained, as his
custom was; the swirl of the phosphorescent lines from the stem of the
ship; the muffled clank of the engines; the weird, long-drawn cry of the
lookout on the forecastle as the bells were struck every half hour--the
sole accompaniment to his meditations.  It all came back--the weeks of
blank desolation following upon his father's death, and how the voice of
conscience, proving stronger than that of his advisers, had spurred him
forth upon his fruitless quest.  Well, it had proved fruitless, which
seemed to point to the certainty that his advisers had been right.

It all came back.  The wrench of that uprooting--of tearing himself away
from Hilversea, and all it involved; the farewells, too, though he had
avoided these as much as possible--in cowardly fashion he now told
himself.  Haldane's hearty regrets and expectation to see him soon
again; Yvonne's blue eyes brimming with tears, which the affectionate
child was at no pains to conceal; the genuine grief of his humbler
friends; the last Mass in the chapel; and the final shutting out of
everything behind him as the carriage whirled him off to Bassingham
station in the murk of the winter day.  Delia Calmour, too, whom he
could not but think that he and his father and the indirect influences
of their surroundings had been incidental, under Heaven, in guiding into
the way of light.  Poor child!  He knew she would miss him, as he
recalled the brave effort she had made to subdue all manifestation of
the extent of her regret when he had bidden her good-bye; and he smiled
to himself as he remembered certain arrangements which he had made with
his solicitors providing that, in the event of anything happening to
him, this girl whom he and his father had befriended should never be
thrown upon the world to combat that uncompromising enemy with her own
unaided resources.

Yes; Hilversea rose up before him now, fair, pleasant, restful in its
sunshine as the very plains of heaven.  Soon he would be within it
again.  He had trampled all considerations of self under foot and had
followed the voice of conscience--and the result had been "As you were!"
Surely he had done enough.  Clearly his stewardship was his still, and,
Heaven help him, he would endeavour to fulfil it to the utmost of his
power, and would teach his son to do the same after him.  Gerard?  He
must have grown quite tall, he reflected.  What a splendid-looking
fellow he would be.

Pacing up and down, hour after hour, Wagram's thoughts ran too fast for
his mind--and ever the silence, the swirl of the sea, and the streaking
fall of a star in the murky tropical zenith.  Then came a sudden jar,
and a crash that shivered the ship from stem to stern.  For a few
moments this horrible jarring vibration continued, then the whole fabric
gave a convulsive kind of heave, and the tremor ceased.  All was still--
but the thrash of the propeller was no longer felt, no longer heard.
The throbbing of the engines had ceased--again.



CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

A SACRIFICE IN VAIN.

The solitary watcher realised instinctively that this time something was
wrong.  So, too, did the residue of his fellow-passengers, for in an
incredibly short space of time they came swarming up from below in
various stages of dress and undress--mostly the latter--and many and
eager were the inquiries heard on every side, and anxiety was depicted
on every face; while on others there was a look which spelt downright
scare--these, too, by no means exclusively the property of the
ornamental sex.

There was some excuse for it; for to find oneself started out of one's
sleep by a jarring shock, to realise that the vessel is no longer
moving, to rush up on deck only to find her lying helpless on the black
midnight sea, the hurried gait and speech of officers and crew, to the
accompaniment of the hoarse roaring of the steam pipes--all this is well
calculated to try the nerves of the ordinary passenger; to conjure up
visions of collision, or running on a rock, and the swift and sudden
foundering with all hands.

"What is it?  Are we ashore?  Have we collided?" were some of the
questions uttered on every side, and from the more fearful: "Are we
going to the bottom?"

"Going to the bottom?  Of course not," snapped the chief officer, who
had come up in time to catch this last query.  "There's no cause for
alarm.  The propeller shaft has snapped, and we shall have to lie to and
signal for assistance.  Soon get it too; we're in the line of steamers.
Look! here goes the first."

The sharp hiss of a rocket rent the air as the fiery streak shot up high
into the heavens, exploding with a reverberating boom.  It was followed
immediately by another.

"I came to tell you," he went on, "that the captain's orders are that
all the passengers go below.  Wine and refreshments will be served in
the saloon immediately."

"Then we _are_ going to the bottom," pronounced one fool.  Upon him the
"chief" turned.

"Grub would be a rum sort of preparation for that, wouldn't it?" he said
scathingly.  And there was a laugh, though, truth to tell, somewhat of a
hollow one.

In the saloon the grateful popping of corks was already audible, and on
the tables the stewards were setting out bottles of champagne and
glasses, while others were bringing in the materials for a cold supper.
When well through this the ship's surgeon announced that those who were
not dressed had better get into all their clothing, and also collect any
valuables they might possess, but that absolutely no luggage of any kind
would be allowed.  At the sound of the bugle all were to repair on deck.
No; there was no occasion for panic of any kind.  Ample time would be
afforded--"only, of course, they mustn't make it till next week,"
appended the doctor, by way of raising a laugh.

"That means the boats," pronounced one man decidedly.

"Well, I'm for another go of `the boy,'" reaching over for the nearest
champagne bottle.  "It may be long enough before we get another look
in."

"It's all that damned derelict," said another.  "I'm not superstitious,
but I wish to the Lord we'd never sighted her.  I said so this
afternoon."

"This afternoon?  Why, it hasn't come yet," retorted the first.  "Man,
you might as well have said to-morrow."

Again there was a laugh--not much of a one--but the more they could
laugh the better.

"Mr Wagram, I am dreadfully frightened," said Mrs Colville, to whose
wants he had been attending.  "Is there really much danger, do you
think?"

"No.  There's plenty of boat room--that's where we score off the
overcrowded mail steamer.  Why, it'll be quite an adventure to look back
upon after we are picked up.  Now, I think you had better collect
whatever you may want to take--valuables, papers, anything of that kind.
And, it's time to dress the child."

"Oh, that won't take a minute.  I've let her sleep as long as possible.
For the rest, I've hardly anything worth collecting.  But you?  You
haven't been to bed, have you?"

"No; I was doing my usual midnight tramp on deck when the smash came.
Like yourself, I've nothing much to collect either."

She stole a look at him, and it was one of admiration--evoked not only
by the tall, straight form and dark, refined, pensive face.  His
consummate coolness under the stress was what appealed to her now.  Not
one among the others but had shown some slight sign of flurry, or at any
rate excitement beyond the ordinary.  This one had not.  Had they been
planning a trip on shore at some port of call his tone and demeanour
could hardly have been more even, more thoroughly composed.

"Are you a fatalist, Mr Wagram?" she said.  "You treat all this as a
matter of course."

"I am no sort of `ist,'" he answered, with a smile.  "Well--what?"

"Great heavens!  I was forgetting," she said.  "We won't be able to land
anywhere.  The captain told me if we were to go ashore anywhere off here
we'd very likely be eaten--by savages.  He was telling me only this
afternoon.  Good heavens! what is to become of us?"

"The quarter you have just invoked twice will take care of that--never
fear.  Now go and waken Lily.  I'll wait for you here."

Hardly had she left him than the bugle rang out.  Its notes, almost like
the trump of doom to some of the more frightened, came pealing down the
companion-way, and immediately the saloon was filled with a scuffling
crowd making for the upper air.  Now more distant, in different quarters
of the ship, its blast sounded again and again.  Still Wagram sat
motionless in his chair.

"Hallo! ain't you going up?" cried one of the last, thus seeing him.
"Man, but the bugle's gone again and again."

"I know it has," said Wagram calmly, finishing off his glass; "I'm
waiting for Mrs Colville."

The other went his way without another word.  Wagram, thinking it about
time to hurry up his _protege_, started in the direction of her cabin,
and as he did so a pealing shriek of utter and complete despair brought
his pulses to a momentary standstill.

The while, on deck, the more or less scared passengers were quickly
lined up in rows--the women and children apart.  They, for their part,
noticed two things: that the surface of the sea was much nearer than it
had been the last time they had stood here--in fact, appallingly near;
and that beside each boat stood its crew, just as they had seen them at
ordinary Saturday afternoon fire drill.  A thick, sickly murk had
settled overhead, shutting out the stars--and by the glare of the
lanterns it might be seen that the ship was very low down in the stern
indeed.  The roaring of the steam had now ceased, and the great funnels
towered above, white and ghostly.  And now what had actually happened
began to be whispered around.  The propeller rod had snapped, and in
snapping had fallen through the keel, ripping away plates, and tearing
open a tremendous leak, through which the water had rushed with alarming
rapidity.  Then it was found that the watertight bulkheads were of no
use.  The doors had somehow got jammed, and would not close.  During all
the time that the coolness and forethought of the captain and officers
had utilised by sending the passengers below for some final refreshment
the ship had been slowly settling.

The expedient had been a good one.  To that degree invigorated, the
passengers, lined up there, were less susceptible to panic, and the work
of loading the boats and lowering went on with clockwork regularity and
order.

That shriek had the effect upon Wagram of the lash on a racehorse.  He
sprang in the direction whence it proceeded.  Mrs Colville's cabin was
at the end of a long passage out of which other cabins opened, and now
he found her standing in the doorway of hers with an awful look upon her
ashy face.

"Lily.  My little one.  She's gone!" she screamed at sight of him.

"Gone?"

"Yes.  She isn't here.  Oh, God!  Oh, God!  Where is she?"

"Keep cool.  We'll find her," urged Wagram.  "She may be on deck.  Go up
there and see.  I'll search here meanwhile."

But the frantic woman refused.  She dashed into each cabin along the
passage, searching everywhere, screaming aloud the little one's name.

"Go up--go up," repeated Wagram.  "I'll bring her to you if she's below,
but she can't be."

The noise above--the trampling and the hauling--increased.  The lowering
of the boats had already begun.

"I won't," she screamed.  "Oh, my Lily--my little one!  Where are you?
Oh, God--where are you?"

She turned to dash along the passage.  As she did so the ship gave a
sudden lurch, flinging open a cabin door with some violence.  It came in
full contact with the forehead of the frenzied woman, and sent her
stunned into Wagram's arms.

"Better so," he said to himself as he lifted her.

The last boat was lowered and ready--in the settling state of the ship,
not far below her taffrail.  As she lay alongside a man rushed up from
the companion-way bearing a limp, unconscious figure.

"It's Mrs Colville," said Wagram quickly as he handed over his burden.
"Her child's lost below; I'm going to look for it."

"Into the boat with you, sir," ordered the captain decisively.  "Not a
moment to lose."

But Wagram's answer was to make a dart for the companion-way.  He
disappeared within it.

"Shove off!" cried the captain.  "I'm not going to sacrifice a lot of
lives for that of one splendid fool.  Shove off!"

"Ay, ay, sir."  And at the words, with sudden and cat-like rapidity, two
of the boat's crew sprang upon the captain, who was standing at the
rail, and in a trice he was tumbled into the boat, and still securely
held while quick, long pulling strokes increased her distance from the
sinking ship.

"No, you don't, sir," said the men, restraining with difficulty their
commander's furious struggles.  "The old hooker can go down without you
for once.  Get back to her?  No, you don't.  For shame, sir.  You've got
a missis and kiddies waiting at Southampton, remember."

The captain fumed and swore, and called them every kind of damned
mutineer, and worse--in fact, a great deal worse--so much worse that
they had to remind him respectfully that the boats containing the women
and children must be within easy earshot.  Why should he go down with
his ship, they pointed out to him, instead of remaining above water to
command another?  Not the last man to leave her did he say?  Well, that
couldn't be helped--if a passenger were such a lunatic as to go below
just as she was taking her last plunge.

There was no bombast about Captain Lawes' intention.  While there was a
man on board he would not have left her, and in this case he would not
have, even though that man, being a passenger, had ignored his
authority.  But his crew had taken the matter into their own hands.

The steamy sea murk was thickening, and came rolling in from seaward in
damp, hot miasmatic puffs.  But the settling hull of the _Baleka_ was
still discernible with tolerable plainness.  To her many a hail was sent
_but--front_ her, to their straining ears, none was returned.

"I think, sir," said young Ransome, the fourth officer, slyly, "that I
didn't quite deserve all you--well, all I got for saying that infernal
_Red Derelict_ was unlucky to sight."

"You damned, impudent, mutinous young dog!" growled the exasperated and
captive skipper.  "Shut your blasted head.  As it is, I'll log you for
mutiny and insubordination and general incompetence.  I'll bust you, out
of this service at any rate.  See if I don't, my man."

The fourth grinned to himself, and said nothing.  He was not greatly
concerned.  He knew his skipper well enough, you see.

"She's goin'!  There she goes!" sang out one of the men.

All eyes were bent on the ship.  Her row of lights gave a great heave
up, then rapidly disappeared.  A heavy, booming cavernous plunge, and
then a great volume of white water shot upward in the dimness.

The _Baleka_ had disappeared; but the lives of those on board her were
saved so far--all but one.

All but one, we repeat, for the other life which that one had been
sacrificed to save was safe too, for at that moment the missing child
was being transferred from the boat into which it had been handed in the
scurry to the one which contained its still unconscious mother.



CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

THE RUSTED PISTOL.

Down--down into the far depths, the weight of a world of water pressing
ever down; suffocation, the bursting of myriad stars in a black, roaring
sky; then upward, as though hurled by some giant catapult--and--air once
more!

Wagram found himself instinctively battling for life amid the tumultuous
eddyings that met and swirled above the spot where the hapless _Baleka_
had taken her last plunge.

It was dark--darker than it had been, for the sea mist had deepened,
shutting out the stars, shutting out everything around, shutting out in
turn the sight of an exhausted man battling for life with the whole
immensity of a vast ocean, keeping afloat by mere mechanical instinctive
effort.

It seemed ages since he was sucked down by the sinking ship; in reality,
it was hardly a minute.  Providentially he had returned on deck before
the last plunge, and, seeing that it was now or never, had leaped into
the water, and struck out for all he knew how.  Thus he had not come
within the inner vortex, and so had risen to the surface in due course.
He had refrained from shouting when he took his leap, lest one of the
boats should return to his rescue and be sucked under herself.

Now he lifted up his voice, but the result was a hoarse whisper.
Semi-suffocation, sea water, and exhaustion had done their work, and he
was speechless.  The boats would certainly lie around in the faint,
forlorn hope that he might have got clear of the wreck.  One hail might
reach them, yet he was speechless.  Aid was at hand--yet, O God! he must
drown like a dog in the midst of the black, oily, midnight sea.

Then he felt contact with something, and instinctively he grasped it.
It was a deck-chair, a large, closely-woven wicker chair; and, though it
would not support his weight, at any rate it would serve to lighten it,
to ease the strain upon his sole unaided efforts.  He looked around for
more substantial wreckage, but the mist and the darkness combined
rendered it impossible to have descried even a boat, had such been
within a few yards of him.  But even for this miserable support he felt
thankful.

Yet who may imagine the horror of those awful hours to the waif floating
there in the silent, midnight sea--the solitude, the hopelessness, the
consciousness that every hour was but prolonging his agony?  The
tropical water was warm, or numbness would have supervened, and claimed
its victim long before the day should dawn upon the face of the deep;
and, realising this too, again he felt thankful.

But now came the terror of another thought.  The tropical waters, if
warm, abounded in sharks.  The unutterable horror of it!  Here he was as
completely at the mercy of the ravenous monsters as a worm thrown into a
stream is at the mercy of the first fish that comes along.  Death was
one thing--such a loathsome and agonising form of it as this was
another.  Against it--in spite of his faith, which was great--all that
was human in the man cried out in dread and recoil.

So the dark hours wore on, and as they did so a merciful lethargy came
upon his mind and imaginings; and, with his frail support, but the
smallest and most mechanical of efforts sufficed to keep him afloat on
the salt, buoyant surface of the tropical sea.

Day dawned--yet what hope did it bring?  Soon the fire rays of a furious
tropical sun would beat down upon his unprotected head, burning his
brain into molten pitch.  With the dawning the mist had thinned, and
though it still lay in hot, steamy folds yet a greater area of the
surface was visible.  And now to the waif was vouchsafed the first gleam
of a great hope.  Athwart the shadowy dimness an object was visible--an
object long, low, and substantial.  A ship!

Again he essayed his voice.  This time his efforts were able to compass
a feeble raucous shout.  Help at last!  Rescue!  Oh, he _would_ make
them hear this time.

The sight sent new life through him.  Mustering all his strength he
struck out, yet not abandoning his frail support, ever with hopeful gaze
strained upon that blessed ark of refuge--and then--and then--

The mist curtain rolled back farther, and it was as though some demon
had been mocking him.  There lay the ship, but she was nigh flush with
the surface as she lay log-like upon the water, still and lifeless.  Two
jagged stumps of masts arose from her, and tattered fragments of rusty
ratlines scraped her rusty sides.  The unutterable stillness of her was
the unearthly eloquent silence of a dead ship upon a dead sea.  _It was
the Red Derelict again_.

How had they come together once more?  But a few hours ago he and others
had gazed with curiosity upon this dead hulk from the deck of the
bounding powerful steamship pulsating with life as she swept past.  Now
the live steamship was gone for ever to the utmost extremity of the far
depths; but the dead hulk rode on, riding, as it were, throughout
eternity upon a dead sea.

For the first few moments of this revelation the revulsion of feeling
was so great, so overwhelming to the despairing waif, that he was
tempted to cast away his frail support, and, abandoning all further
effort, let himself sink for ever.  One brief struggle, then rest--at
least, so he trusted, so he ventured to hope.  But to that some
mysteriously conscious voice of good counsel seemed to reply that the
gift of life was not to be voluntarily relinquished even then, that he
had been brought back from the very depths of the sea, that a means of
support, frail though it was, had been literally thrust into his hand,
and now here was an even more substantial form of temporary safety.  He
remembered, too, how this wreck had been drifting for years, and was
occasionally sighted by passing vessels; who could tell but what it
might be the means of safety for himself, desperate and, humanly
speaking, hopeless, as his plight now was?  He decided that he would get
on board the derelict; and no sooner had he come to this decision than
he saw that the sooner he should carry it into effect the better, and
that for reasons very weighty, very imminent indeed.

A dark, glistening object was moving above the surface, and well he knew
what it represented.  It was the dorsal fin of a shark.

As yet it was some little way off, moving slowly, and not coming in his
direction.  This was something; but as he strained every effort now to
reach the derelict it seemed that even that weird refuge was a
Heaven-sent one.  But it seemed, too, that the hulk was receding from
him as fast as he was approaching it.  He remembered the captain's
dictum as to the strange action of currents.  What if a current were
moving it faster than he could move?  He looked round.  The glistening
fin seemed almost stationary, but--it was nearer.  Yes; he felt sure it
looked larger.

Often from the deck of a ship he had looked down upon the grim monsters
of the deep with an interest enhanced by a sense of absolute security.
Now, here he was, floating helplessly in their natural element.  Small
wonder that his whole being should recoil, his flesh creep at the
realisation of his utter helplessness.

There was no mistake about it now.  The thing was coming straight
towards him, and--the hulk was quite twenty yards away.  What, too, if
there were more of them?

Nearer, nearer, came that cruel glide, and still he could make but slow
headway.  He would have abandoned the deck-chair, and so got along
faster, but for an inspiration that, perhaps, the strange appearance of
it might scare the sea-tiger, suggesting possibly to its instinct the
idea of a trap.  The beast was very near now.

Wagram began splashing mightily, at the same time uttering as loud a
shout as he could compass--and that was not very loud.  It seemed to
answer, though.  The gliding triangular fin became motionless; then, as
if the great fish had altered its course, it turned broadside on, as
though concluding to manoeuvre a little further before closing.

Now the hulk was almost within grasp.  Two or three strokes, and the
waif was about to seize the taffrail, when he was conscious of a swirl
beneath him.  Rising from under the keel of the derelict came into view
a monstrous shape.  It stamped itself upon his brain--the gleaming white
belly, the snake-like writhe of the tail, the great open mouth with its
rows of awful teeth, and then--those teeth closed with a snap upon the
deck-chair, which Wagram had, with rare quickness and presence of mind,
thrust down where his legs had been when the rush was made, and, before
the sound of the crunching of wood and wicker was stilled, by a mighty
effort he had hoisted himself on board the hulk.

It was a near thing.  He stood for a moment chest-deep on the submerged
main deck, then clambered up to the poop and looked forth.  The dark,
glistening fin which had first alarmed him was still moving lazily at
about the same distance off; but immediately beneath, the fragments of
the deck-chair and the lashings and soundings of the monster that had
tried to seize him made him vividly realise the awful peril from which
he had escaped.  It seemed as if the evil beast had indeed bitten off
more than it could chew, for it darted to and fro, and sank and rose
again in quite an abnormal way, as though seriously uneasy within.

The first feeling produced in Wagram by the sight was one of intense
thankfulness, and yet his position was still desperate enough in all
conscience.  Here he was, on board a waterlogged hulk in mid-ocean
without a scrap of food or a drop of water.  He had a brandy flask which
he had filled and put in his pocket with an eye to emergencies on the
occasion of the first alarm, but that was all.  Still, he would not by
any means abandon hope.  The idea uppermost in his mind was less that he
had escaped so far than that he had been preserved--and if he had been
preserved it was with some good reason.  So far, too, he felt neither
hunger nor thirst--his immunity from the latter perhaps due to his
prolonged submersion.  The poop deck was dry--in fact, very dry--and if
he wanted to reach the forecastle he had only to wade along the main
deck.

He glanced around seaward.  The mist had completely disappeared, and
from sky-line to sky-line the sea was open--open and blank; not a speck,
not a sail.  The hope which had sprung up within him that when the mist
lifted some or all of the _Baleka's_ boats might be in sight was
dispelled.  He was alone.

Turning, he glanced down.  Some loose rusty iron lay at his feet,
remnants of the old rigging.  This he was turning idly over when an
object attracted his attention.  Stooping, he picked it up.  It was a
pistol, a five-chambered revolver, but the woodwork of the stock had all
but rotted away, and even as he held it something came off it and fell
on the deck.  Picking this up he examined it, then nearly dropped it
again.  The thing was of metal, and had come loose from the rotting
wood.  It, like the rest of the metal, was red with rust; but now, as
Wagram stood staring at it, he thought he must be dreaming.  It was a
nameplate which had been let into the stock of the weapon, and through
the rust there stood forth two letters--"E.W."

Half dazed, he stared at the thing; rubbed his eyes, and stared again.
Then he examined the pistol itself.  No; there could be no mistake about
it.  The weapon had belonged to his brother.  He ought to know it, if
anybody ought, for it had been a present from himself when Everard had
first left home years ago, and he himself had specially designed the
fashioning of the initials on the nameplate--"E.W."  It was a
five-chambered weapon, too, and five-shooters were not so common as six.
And now--and now here it was, here it came into his hands again, on
board a battered and abandoned hulk which seafaring authority had
pronounced to have been afloat in its battered and derelict condition
for years.  What mystery--what awful mystery of the deep lay behind
this?

For long he stood gazing at the relic in his hand.  It had been a
powerful weapon, one of large and heavy calibre.  Did its presence here
bear silent witness to an unseen and buried tragedy; to a grim fight for
life here on this ghostly craft before she had been abandoned to her
endless driftings?  What ghastly remnants of such might even then be
lying below within her hull, perhaps even of the man to search for whom
he had travelled over half the world--sepulchred for ever beneath the
water which precluded any further exploration of the fabric?  Again, was
it for this that he himself had been so wonderfully preserved--that he
might light upon this long-forgotten object to serve as a clue in his
further search?  Who might say?

Now a great drowsiness came over him--the drowsiness of exhaustion--and,
almost without knowing it, he sank down upon the deck.  One thing he did
half instinctively, half mechanically, and well was it for him he did
so.  That was to divest himself of his coat, and with it shelter his
head from the fierce sun rays.  Then he fell into a profound sleep--the
slumber of exhaustion.

The red sun sank like a great globe in the smoky offing of the tropical
sky.  The intense heat of the day was about to give place to the dews of
night, which, however, served to abate but little of the sultriness;
though relief from the burning rays was something to be thankful for,
thought those in the boats.  But before the rush of night should settle
down with its accustomed rapidity an incident was in store for them.  A
dark object lay outlined against the lurid sky-line.  Quickly, eagerly
glasses were brought to bear.  Those who had not got glasses hung no
less eagerly on the result.  A ship?

But more than a smothered curse broke from those who saw.

"It's only that derelict again," burst from young Ransome, the fourth
officer, wearily.  "Only that derelict--that damned Red Derelict.  We've
seen enough of _her_."

And the boats of the _Baleka_, with their castaway freight, held on
their course, running before a light breeze which had sprung up with
sunset, leaving behind them the Red Derelict with its one human
passenger--the missing one from among themselves who had thrown away his
own life to save that of a child who was already safe.  And he lay,
still fast asleep, with his coat over his head, drifting away with the
grim hulk--away, away, over the pathless plain of the vast lonely sea.



CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

A BREAK-UP AT BASSINGHAM.

We have hinted that Wagram's departure on his self-imposed quest had
taken place quite quietly; nevertheless, after it he was very greatly
missed, by none more so, perhaps, than the Haldanes.  To Haldane,
indeed, he had confided some inkling of his strange mission--not the
whole of it--but had bound him to secrecy: for the benefit of the
neighbourhood at large, certain family and business matters had
necessitated the undertaking, and with this the neighbourhood must
perforce rest content.  Then, as time wore on, and nearly each few and
far between letter, instead of announcing the wanderer's early return,
only notified a fresh start farther afield and in a contrary direction,
Haldane grew puzzled.

"Confound the fellow!  Why the deuce can't he come back instead of
wasting time and energy over some wild-goose chase?" he would say on
such occasions.  "It isn't that he's fond of travel, and all that sort
of thing.  I believe at bottom he hates it."

"I'm sure he does, father," chimed in Yvonne.  "Every day away from
Hilversea is a day not lived, according to him.  And the place looks so
dismal all shut up.  I vote we go away for a change ourselves."

"Wrong time, Sunbeam.  The weather's exceptionally beastly abroad, from
what the papers say.  And the Continent in vile weather is--well, unfit
for publication."

"I'd have liked to take Delia Calmour with us," went on the girl.
"She's so companionable and intelligent, and takes such interest in
everything; never talks the silly idiotic bosh most girls do.  She'd
have enjoyed it so much, too."

"Poor girl!" said Haldane.  "It's a thousand pities she's so
confoundedly handicapped.  She'll never get a show now on the strength
of those awful relatives.  Yes; it's a thousand pities."

In saying that the absent Squire of Hilversea was missed by none more
than by the Haldanes we should have recorded an exception, and it was
named Delia Calmour.  To her it seemed that the light of day had gone
out.  And yet, why?  It had been seldom enough she had seen him of late
before his departure; and even on such occasions, a little ordinary
conversation in his quiet genial way.  That was all.  And yet--and yet--
the girl would cheerfully have yielded up life itself to have heard once
more the sound of his voice in just one of those ordinary conversations.
To such a pass had things come.

But she kept her own counsel heroically.  Never by word or look did she
betray herself.  Even Clytie was puzzled.  She had read through her up
to a certain point, but had failed to credit her sister with the
secretiveness and self-control to the highest point of which the latter
had nearly attained.  So she was puzzled.

To her dying day Delia would never forget the announcement of that
departure.  It had been made to her one Sunday when she had cycled over
to Hilversea by Wagram himself, in his pleasant easy manner, and she had
received it with a frank natural regret, that came from her well.  Not
all at once did she realise that she had received a blow between the
eyes.

"Be missed?" he had repeated, echoing her words.  "Well, I am selfish
enough to hope I shall be missed a little.  One thing is certain: I
sha'n't stop away any longer than I can help.  I'm not going for fun,
anyhow."

Then he had invited her in for lunch.  The Haldanes were there, and
Father Gayle, and on this occasion four or five other people; in fact,
it was a sort of "send-off" affair, for he was to start early on the
following morning.

"I shan't stay away any longer than I can help," had been the words,
uttered in an easy natural way.  Yet he who uttered them knew that in
the event of his quest proving successful he would stay away--for ever.
But there he sat, chatting with his guests easily, smilingly, as though
his very heart were not half broken over the thought of what was about
to pass away from him and his for ever.  And the girl?  She too was
chatting, outwardly light-hearted, with her immediate neighbours, or
joining in the general conversation, and the while she, too, in her
innermost heart was thinking what an awful blank this man's departure
would leave in her life; in it, moreover, as long as it should last.
Here was an instance of the extraordinary freaks which may run through
life's tragedies.  Who would have thought of the ghastly canker which
lay behind Wagram's easy gaiety?  Who would have guessed at the yearning
ache which underlay Delia Calmour's ready conversational flow?

"Who is that Miss Calmour?" one of the guests had remarked to Yvonne
after they had left the table.  "Such a pretty girl, and talks so well
and brightly.  So nice-mannered and refined.  Does she belong to this
neighbourhood?"

And Yvonne had replied evasively, though not seeming to do so, that she
did, and that she was all the other had said; that the dear old Squire
had taken to her wonderfully shortly before his death, and that she
herself had grown very fond of her.  Then she let drop that Delia was a
recent convert, which at once prepossessed the inquirer in her favour,
as she intended it should.

The acquaintance of the two girls had grown into friendship, then
intimacy, the difference between their ages and bringing up
notwithstanding.  It had still further brought out all that was good in
Delia; and what was good in the eldest daughter of disreputable,
tippling old Calmour was, strange to say, very good indeed; and, as is
not infrequently the case, a certain amount of knowledge of the seamier
side of life rendered her all the more safe and useful a companion to
the younger girl, every day of whose existence had been spent in
sunshine.  She had the tact not to push her standpoint unduly--indeed,
more than once Yvonne wanted to half quarrel with her because she would
hardly ever come over to see them without a distinct invitation.  But
when she did come she always entered so thoroughly into the child's
studies and pursuits--painting or music, or whatever it might be,
especially the latter, and the organ in the chapel at Hilversea
underwent a good deal of work in those days, for the girls would delight
to cycle over, and enjoy a long quiet practice all to themselves.
Frequently Haldane would make the third of the party, for he had a fine
voice, and was fond of music.

Then Wagram had gone, announcing his departure suddenly; and the only
mitigating gleam of sunshine which flashed into Delia's life was on
occasions when she was over at the Haldanes and they talked about him.
This they did pretty frequently, and the burden of their remarks ought
to have rendered the absent man uncomfortably conceited could he have
heard them.

The two boys, too, when home for the holidays, for Gerard always spent
his at Haldane's now his home was shut up, took to her wonderfully.  She
would enter into all their interests and school experiences as though
she were an elder sister, and was full of life and fun when and wherever
they were concerned.

"That Miss Calmour _is_ a jolly girl, Yvonne," Gerard would pronounce.
"No humbug or bosh about her.  No; and she never lectures us either, as
some people do.  I say, get her here a lot before we go back; she's no
end fun."

And Reggie would duly second the proposal.  Delia had, in fact, won both
their hearts, but the one nearest to her own was Gerard.  She would,
too, subtly get him to talk about his father, but not too often.

"You know, Miss Calmour," he said on one occasion, "people don't half
understand the pater.  They think him no end cold and stand-offish and
all that, but I can tell you he isn't.  Why, what d'you think?  I was
asked once if I weren't awfully afraid of him.  Fancy that!  Did you
ever hear such bosh?"

"Bosh, indeed, Gerard."

"Rather.  They seem to think that because he isn't always talking at the
top of his voice, and laying down the law, and all that sort of thing,
that he's stiff and starched.  Is he, though!  I can tell you there's no
one I can more jolly well get on with--and would rather be with--not
even among any of the fellows at school.  I wish he'd come back, don't
you?"

"Of course.  I should think everybody who knew Mr Wagram would wish
that.  You miss him a lot, then?"

"Rather.  I'm having a ripping time here, of course--always do have--but
I miss the dear old pater no end.  I don't see any too much of him as it
is."  And the boy had turned away his head to hide the tears that had
welled to his eyes.

It was all Delia could do to keep herself from following suit, but she
did, with an effort.

"Your father is one of the best and noblest men that ever lived,
Gerard," she answered.  "It is a privilege to have known him."

There were times when she would take herself to task.  What right had
she to indulge in such feelings?  Ought she not rather to crush them?
Yet why?  Their influence upon her was wholly for good, never for evil.
Were her days dark--what would he have had her do?  This she thought she
knew, and did it accordingly.  He had known dark days himself, she had
gathered in course of some of their conversations, very dark days, yet
look at him now--a man ideally perfect in her adoring estimation.  Yes;
it was good for her this obsession--doubly good.  If she had passed
through the fire it was a refining one.

And, strange to say, the helping hand of the absent man seemed stretched
over her still.  From several quarters came in orders for newspaper work
akin to her illustrated venture at Hilversea Court, for articles
descriptive of country life and scenery.  Clytie, too, found herself
receiving almost more typing orders than she could execute.  The joint
income of Siege House was beginning to look up.

"By Jove, but Wagram is a good chap!" exclaimed Clytie one day with
characteristic outspokenness.  "This is all his doing, of course.  I
tell you what it is, Delia, if you don't bring off my scheme within a
reasonable time of his return I'm blest if I don't cut in myself."

"Why do you think it's his doing, Clytie?" had been the answer, ignoring
the last threat.

"It wasn't for nothing he came down here pumping us that day.  Well, he
is one in a good many thousands, as I shall tell him some day when he's
my bro--"

"Oh, shut up, Clytie.  You know I hate that sort of chaff," interrupted
Delia testily, for the remark jarred upon her hideously.

"Right oh!" cried the other, with a good-humoured laugh.  "Keep your
hair on, dear.  You can, too, for it's all your own, and a jolly good
lot of it too--that's where you dark ones score over us--though I don't
come far behind.  Let's shut up shop now and go for a bike ride.  We
shall skim over these frost-bound roads; only we'll get jolly red noses.
We can ride to Fulkston, and back through Hilversea--and adore the
empty Court in the distance," she added slyly.

They made an attractive pair as they skimmed along, both sitting
gracefully and well; the serene classical features of the one, and the
more rich and sparkling brunette beauty of the other, together with the
well-formed, graceful figures of both, constituted a picture which
caused more than one male head to come round in admiration as its owner
half halted.

"The Calmour girls! oh yes, pretty--devilish pretty--but--" constituting
the comment, either uttered or thought.  But the fourteen-mile ride out,
and rather more back, added to the glow of health which mantled each
very attractive face.

"There's the old Court, all shut up," commented Clytie as the pile rose
clear against its background of now naked trees in the bright frosty
moonlight.  "What a sin to own a place like that and leave it shut up.
I wouldn't."

"Wouldn't you!  You'd vote it slow in a month, and start off for town,
if I know anything of you," answered Delia, starting out of a brown
study; for they were just passing the very point in the road where
Wagram had surprised her while having her fortune told by the gipsy.  A
little farther, and they came to the scene of the gnu incident.  There
was the white gate gleaming in the moonlight; but the slumbrous wealth
of foliage had given place to bare boughs, forming a frosted network
against the winter sky.  And with that day there came back to her
another--a golden, glowing August day--that Sunday, the last long day of
interrupted sunshine--when they had surprised the mysterious stranger
and trespasser.  Somehow from that day the rising of the cloud had
seemed to date, but of this she said nothing to Clytie.

On arrival home they were met by Bob, looking more than scared.

"About time you came," he grunted.  "Don't know what's up with the old
man."

"Oh dear.  The usual thing," said Delia, not scornful now, for she had
undergone something of a change in every way.

"No, it isn't," returned Bob quickly.  "He's not `fresh' this time, but
he's devilish queer."

Old Calmour was lying on the sofa, breathing stertorously, and looking,
as Bob had said, "devilish queer."

"Get on your bike, Bob, and go and fetch Thorpe," commanded Clytie the
capable, at the same time loosening her father's shirt collar.

"Can't; it's punctured."

"Take mine, then.  Only--go."

"Good Lord, Clytie!  But it's not serious, eh?"

"Go--d'you hear, you jackass," she repeated, with a stamp of the foot.
"And bring him back with you.  None of his--`look round directly.'
Bring him back with you."

The old man lay, staring up at them, his red and bloated face showing no
sign of recognition; and on the prompt arrival of the doctor they were
not long in learning that it never would again, for in less than an hour
old Calmour was dead.  Stroke, greatly accelerated by intemperate
habits, was the medical verdict.

"What's to be done now, Delia?" remarked Clytie a day or two after the
funeral, while she and her sister were holding a serious council of
war--or rather of ways and means.  "What the very devil is to be done?
We can't go on running Siege House at our rates of pay, and the poor old
dad didn't leave a cent."

This was a fact.  The sale of the furniture would not put them in funds
to any great extent.  Old Calmour's pension had died with him, and there
were three boys to keep at school.  Well, this, of course, was out of
the question.  Bob would have to live on the by no means princely salary
he received from Pownall and Skreet, and very blue did the said Bob look
over the prospect.  One thing was certain: the household would have to
be broken up.

The funeral, as may be imagined, had not been largely attended; in fact,
except the dead man's family, hardly anybody had been present One of
these exceptions had been Haldane, and the circumstances had appealed to
the girls with a very real sense of appreciation.

"I expect he turned up on your account, Delia," Clytie had remarked.
"But it was brickish of him, all the same.  By the way, I suppose
there's a sort of freemasonry among your people.  If you hadn't joined
them he wouldn't have shown up."

"I don't know about that; it may have been on account of our
acquaintance.  But it was just the sort of thing Mr Haldane would do,"
answered Delia.

Incidentally, we may remark that, whatever the motive, it was not the
last thing that Haldane did for this unfortunate family, now reduced to
real straits, after it had been decided to give up Bassingham and remove
to the metropolis--that universal, and frequently illusory, refuge for
those who "have their way to make."



CHAPTER THIRTY.

CONCERNING A TERROR.

A dark, comparatively cool, and restful retreat--a blaze of outside
sunshine glimpsed through the aperture of a low doorway.  A sense of
awaking to yet another phase of passage through the shades; of a weird
kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria which represents a wholly or partially
suspended consciousness of days or even weeks; of the stirred, uneasy
rest of supposed death--such were the first gropings of the mind of him
who lay there.

Where was he?  A recollection of the battered hulk, heaving to the oily
swell; of hunger and thirst--especially thirst; of a furious sun pouring
its rays down upon him in molten streams; of a fierce, maddening desire
for shade--almost equal to that for cool, liquid drink; for blessed
shade, to shut out, if even for one moment, that awful blinding glare--
these were the recollections that came upon his mind with the first
glimmerings of returning consciousness.

Others followed--a sense of movement, of being borne helplessly onward,
through mysterious tracts, to the accompaniment of strange, mysterious
voices, and glimpses of weird, dark shapes.  Then oblivion--again to be
followed by fitful awakenings--but ever to sink again into the same
lethargy, the same utter indifference to all things that ever had been,
that ever would be--in short, to life itself.  And now--and now--Where
was he?

He stared upward.  A large cockroach dropped from the palmetto ceiling,
and scurried away, almost over his face; but he heeded it not.  He
stared around.  The circular wall of the place was uneven and rough.  As
his eyes grew accustomed to the light, or rather the gloom, he made out
that it was the interior of a large hut constructed of grass and withes.
Two poles supported the centre, and on these were hung sundry
implements of fantastic make and appearance--such as he had seen in
museums and private collections representing barbaric trophies of
far-off lands.  A hum of voices--utterly unintelligible--came from
without; and there was that in the very tones which savoured of the
scarcely human--at any rate to one whose lines had been cast hitherto
exclusively within those of civilisation.

He tried to rise, tottered, and then fell back.  He was very weak, far
too weak to rise unaided.  Things grew dizzy around him.  Then the sun
strip which cut the gloom was darkened.  Somebody had entered; and then
he became aware of the presence of two beings--black, and of ferocious
aspect, with wool standing out from their heads in stiff, rolled-out
spikes, and the white of their eyeballs glistened when the ray of light
coming in through the low doorway fell upon it.  They bent over him; and
having peered into his face for a moment one of them raised his head
with no gentle touch, while the other put a calabash to his lips and
poured its contents into his mouth.  This at any rate was not an
unacceptable operation.  The stuff was cool, and had a combination of
sweet and acid taste.  What it was he had no notion, but he drank
gratefully.

"That's good," he ejaculated faintly.

For answer they uttered a clucking sound, and grinned; but the grin was
not a genial one--it was hideous, ghastly, showing rows of filed teeth.
It reminded him of the shark which had risen to seize him, and had
seized the deck-chair instead.  As they stood over him, watching him, he
took them in--their appearance, their demeanour, their stature.  The
latter was tall and muscular.  For the rest, they looked a pair of about
the most ferocious and bloodthirsty savages the imagination could by any
possibility conjure up.  And yet--they had just been engaged in a
distinct work of mercy.

Wagram's brain power began to return.  How he had got off--or been got
off--the derelict he had not the faintest conception; but obviously he
had, since here he was.  Then came back to him the captain's
pronouncement as to what would happen to anybody unfortunate enough to
be stranded on the coast they were then off.  "We'd very likely be
eaten," had been the dictum.  So this "work of mercy" was, in reality,
nothing of the sort.  It was equivalent to that of doctoring an ailing
ox or sheep.  He was being brought back into fitting condition for
butchery.  He was to supply the material for a cannibal feast.  And
these two ruffians looked the part--every inch.

They had squatted down on the floor, and were watching him, keeping up
the while a subdued conversation in a kind of guttural hum.  One carried
a formidable-looking native axe, and both had big, broad-bladed knives,
with a curious crook inward, on the edge side, towards the point.  The
demoniacal aspect of the pair--the hungry expression of their revolting
countenances, as they sat like a pair of evil beasts watching their
expected prey--was too much for Wagram's nerves, all defenceless as he
was, and absolutely in their power.  He tried asking them questions,
but, of course, they did not understand one word he said.  They did not
even shake their heads, but sat staring at him as before.  So he gave it
up, and made signs that he wanted to go to sleep.  This seemed
intelligible, and they rose, and with an evil, snarling chuckle left the
place.

This was a relief at any rate.  Where was he? speculated the castaway.
Where was he, and how far from the sea-coast?  What would be his fate--
alone, unarmed, helpless, in the power of such as these?  Even if he
were not to be butchered immediately--all sorts of visions rose before
his mind, of lifelong slavery in the interior, or figuring prominently
in some ghastly and hideous human sacrifice on a gigantic scale.  Heaven
help him!  And then Heaven did help him to this extent.  Whether due to
the effects of the potion that had been administered to him, or to the
weakness following upon all that he had gone through, a lassitude came
over him, and, forgetful of surroundings--of present or future peril--he
fell fast asleep.

While he slept, in another part of the native town things were
happening.  The two who had entered the hut were haranguing others of
their kind--all of similarly hideous aspect; but, on the other hand, it
might have been observed that this race, whatever it was, Nature had
exceptionally favoured in thews and stature.  Low howls, and beast-like,
of savage delight greeted the words, echoed more shrilly by women
hanging on to the outskirts of the gathering.  These began to produce
knives and examine the edges; then the whole rout moved with one consent
towards a hut rather larger and more important-looking than the rest on
the outskirts of the town.  Into this one of the number entered--one of
the two, it may be remarked, who had just come away from "tending"
Wagram on his awaking to consciousness.

But if he entered he could not have remained there long, and his method
of egress must have been artificially hastened, for in a moment he shot
forth again, half stumbling, half running.  Behind him, beneath the low
verandah, now appeared another man.

From this man's lips there rolled forth thick and fast a very torrent of
imprecation, and that in about six of the different dialects understood
in those parts.  Anyhow, it was intelligible to these, for they shrank
back for the moment quiet and abashed.  And, in truth, this was not
without justification, for there was something in the man's aspect that
was absolutely terrific as he stood there confronting the savage mob
with the aspect of a slave-master, whip in hand, standing over a mob of
cowering slaves.  Yet these were not cowering, far from it.  He was very
tall and athletic.  His face, strong and hawk-like, half covered by a
heavy beard, was working with passion; but it was in his eyes, bright
and piercing beneath the shaggy brows, that the charm seemed to lie.
They were absolutely snake-like in their flash of demoniacal cruelty--
eyes of one who delighted to look upon all that against which human
nature revolts; eyes that, when moved to wrath, blasted; eyes of a very
fiend, in short.  Yet among those who crowded before him were eyes every
whit as cruel, among those before him were frames every whit as sinewy
and athletic--and all these were armed, and he to all appearance was
not.  But--he was a white man.

They stood sullenly while he invoked every mysterious and terrible
imprecation of sorcery upon themselves and their fathers and mothers,
upon their children unto the third and fourth generations--dooming them
to awful and mysterious forms of dissolution for daring to invade his
privacy and disturb his rest.  They waited through it all; for quite a
new and unwonted form of hideous enjoyment lay now before them.  Then
their clamour broke forth afresh.

This white stranger they had taken from the water, whom they had borne
carefully over this weary distance in order to bring to life again.  He
was alive again, and could see and hear and talk.  Him now they must
have.  The feast to which they had been looking forward must now begin.

And the ghastly proposal was confirmed with a roar, whose vibrating
savagery was sufficient to have appalled the most iron-nerved who should
set himself to withstand this clamouring of fiends.

This one, however, must have been iron-nerved beyond the ordinary, for
he did set himself to withstand it and that deliberately.  He laughed--
an evil, sneering, yet wholly mirthful laugh.  What?  Did they not know
him yet, to think that they were in a position to come and lay commands
upon him?  Upon him?  The stranger was not to be touched--for the
present; no, not until he should give the word--and death should fall
upon whoever laid a hand upon him; yes, and upon the whole town for that
matter.

They hesitated.  Perhaps the qualification "for the present" may have
had something to do with determining their attitude.  It was only a joy
postponed, then.  But their awful appetites had been whetted, and needed
some appeasing.  A murmur--soon growing to a shout--arose among the
group.  Atonement ought to be made for the feast they were not to have.
He who refused it to them had plenty of slaves; he would give them one
of them.  And then they named one of his favourite female slaves.

He, for answer, looked at them, and laughed again--the same sneering,
contemptuous laugh.  Then he called aloud a name.

In a moment there came hurrying round from the back of the palisades a
woman--a young woman, tall and finely formed, with rather a pleasing
countenance, and lighter in colour than those here.  She stood in an
attitude of obeisance.  Then the man--the white man--said:

"Take her."

A howl went up; ferocious, beast-like, as the howl of a pack of wolves.
The crowd surged forward, and a score of hands were laid upon the
wretched creature.  She struggled and screamed at sight of the
fiend-like faces and brandished knives, wailing forth despairing
entreaties to her master, who, not one whit less fiend-like than these
black barbarians, looked stolidly on, finally repeating "Take her."
Then he turned and re-entered the hut, to fling himself down and resume
in a moment his disturbed sleep.

The sun was dipping lower and lower, flooding the tree tops with his
hot, steamy, but golden light.  One wretched victim would behold it no
more--one more wretched victim whom human-shaped demons were dragging
off to the accustomed shambles to furnish them with one more awful,
indescribable feast.



CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

A DARK PLACE OF THE EARTH.

Wagram awoke, feeling strangely strong and well, considering all he had
gone through.  Moreover, he felt hungry.  The stuff that had been
administered to him must have worked wonders, for to it he attributed
his sudden cure.  He must have slept more than the whole round of the
clock, for now there was no mistaking the feeling of early morning.

He rose and looked outside.  The sun had not yet risen, and there was a
freshness in the atmosphere not to be missed even in the most torrid
climate just at the hour of dawn.  He stepped forth and looked around.
The town seemed wrapped in slumber, and now he was able to take in
something like its extent.  There seemed no end to the palmetto huts,
not only filling a large open space but straggling into the surrounding
foliage--the whole not devoid of a certain picturesqueness, but utterly,
unqualifiedly, savage.  A shadow fell between himself and the now rising
sun.

He turned, to behold a tall, evil-looking barbarian armed with a
formidable axe.  In him he thought to recognise one of the two who had
visited him the day before, and now he strove to convey by signs that he
wanted water for a wash.  Clearly he was understood, for the other
lifted up his voice in a harsh guttural shout.  Immediately there
appeared a woman, an ugly, brutal-looking creature, whose countenance
bore no more human an expression than that of the male.  She, in
obedience to an order, withdrew, soon to reappear with a big calabash
bowl of cloudy water.  Into this he gratefully plunged his head, and
managed to indulge in a fairly invigorating splash; the while the pair
stood watching him with wooden indifference.  Then he made signs that
food would be acceptable.  These, too, were understood, for presently a
big platter of cooked grain was brought.  This he attacked with an
avidity surprising even to himself; and, while thus engaged, more and
more collected, standing round, eyeing him with the same indifference,
the while exchanging a few remarks among themselves, whose burden, could
he have understood, would have utterly put to flight his new-born
appetite there and then.  But he did not, and as the said appetite began
to experience satiety he found himself taking in with considerable
interest the outward characteristics of his hosts or captors, or
whatever they might be.

But the result was not encouraging; in fact, it was depressing.  All
were much of the same type as the first he had seen--large, fine
specimens physically, but in type of countenance bestial.  Young or old,
male or female, there was not a single pleasing countenance among the
lot.  They were utter animals, and evil-looking animals at that.

The hut he had occupied had, in common with the others, a sort of
extended porch or verandah running all round.  Seated in the shade of
this he fell to ruminating over his position.  The savages soon grew
tired of watching him, and dispersed.  Yet others who happened to pass
all glanced at him with a stare of curiosity.  First of all, where was
he, and how soon could he effect a return to civilisation?  That he
would be able to do this hope now began to tell him.  After all, these
people, though unprepossessing, had treated him with a certain rough
hospitality.  No doubt a promise of substantial reward would induce some
of them to guide him to some post inhabited by his fellow-countrymen, or
at any rate by Europeans.  But how was he to convey such promise to
their intelligence?  You can make signs that you want food or drink, but
when it comes to effecting a negotiation of that sort, why, the matter
takes on a totally different aspect.  Where was he?  He assumed that he
had been cast ashore somewhere on the west coast of Africa; but, then,
that was a sufficiently vague, not to say wide, limitation.  Again, was
he on the mainland or on an island--and in any case, how far from the
sea?  He had absolutely no idea at all as to the time which had been
consumed in bringing him hither, or even whether he had been taken off
the submerged hulk by these natives in their canoes, or whether the
derelict had actually gone ashore with him, and they had found him
there.

With the thought of the negotiations he put a hand into an inner pocket
in search of his notecase.  It was not there.  Hurriedly, eagerly he
searched his other pockets--with like results.  It was gone, and with it
all means of purchasing anything, for it had contained his stock of
ready money for the voyage, and something beyond; in fact, a
considerable sum in bank notes.  It could not have got lost in the
water, for he remembered placing it in a thoroughly secure inner pocket;
and this had been nearly the extent of his preparation when it became
known they would have to take to the boats.  Clearly he had been
relieved of it since, and during his unconsciousness, and yet--and yet--
what attraction could bank notes--mere slips of uncoloured paper--have
for these savages, who seemed to have not the slightest glimmering of
civilisation among the lot?  With gold it might have been different.
However, it was gone, and the consciousness of this was unpleasant, for
a penniless man is akin to an unarmed man--helpless--and, however remote
from civilisation he may be, the lack of the power of the purse counts
for something.

Slowly, wearily, the heat of the day passed, and night drew down once
more.  To the captive--or guest, whichever he might be--the day was one
of intense and depressing monotony.  The natives were no more
communicative than before; certainly no more friendly.  He would have
given a great deal for one companion in adversity--no matter whom--even
the lowest sample of the forecastle or stoke-hole of the _Baleka_.  He
would likewise have given a great deal to have been among the castaways
which constituted her boatloads; yet here he was, in comparative safety,
on dry land, while they even now might be suffering the last extremities
of starvation and thirst.  Night drew down, but brought with it no
restfulness; instead it brought forth innumerable cockroaches of large
size, which scurried around and over him in the darkness; for, of
course, there was no means of lighting the interior of the hut, short of
making a fire, and for this it was too hot already.

With the dawn of day he arose--unrested and unrefreshed.  His physical
wants were cared for, but all efforts to make the people about him
understand his anxiety to return to those of his own colour, and his
willingness to pay, and pay liberally, for those who should be
instrumental in thus returning him, were futile.  They could not or
would not understand.  Utterly weary of sitting still he made up his
mind, unless actively opposed, to seek some diversion in a little
exploration around on his own account.

He was not opposed, somewhat to his own surprise, and set forth.  He
passed through the town openly, and making no attempt at concealment.
The inhabitants looked up to stare at him as he went by, then went on
with what they were doing, this, in most cases, being nothing.  Thus he
reached the solitude of the surrounding forest.

This was not thick.  Clusters of undergrowth here and there, but for the
most part it was open below.  Strange trees of a species unknown to him
afforded an intermittent shade, and here and there an open space,
growing tall grass nearly his own height, had to be crossed.  He moved
carefully, always keeping the sun on one shoulder, always being careful
to note any peculiarity of bough or stem, for he had no mind to lose
himself.  Then suddenly the whole aspect of the vegetation changed.

Only a ridge had effected the sharp demarcation of this change, a low
ridge surmounted by a few rocks, yet affording no extent of view on
either hand.  But here in front the vegetation was thick and profuse,
and in parts tangled.  Cool and shady, however, and altogether inviting
it looked, and Wagram made up his mind to penetrate it, though not to
any great depth.

With his wandering a sense of freedom seemed to return to him.  It was a
relief at any rate to get a change from that gruesome, depressing,
savage town, with its repulsive and scowling inhabitants.  Here at any
rate he was alone with Nature--and there was a certain soothing
solemnity in the thought.  Then for the first time he noticed an utter
absence of life.  Nothing moved; no insects flew humming by; no birds
piped.  Turn his glance which way he would no movement met or distracted
it.  He was in a dead forest to all intents and purposes, as far as its
accompaniment of animal or bird or even insect life was concerned.  It
began to look a little eerie.

Still, with many a glance back, to make sure of being able to retrace
his steps at will, he moved on.  Some irresistible influence seemed to
be drawing him on, and with every step a consciousness came upon him of
that.  Moreover, it seemed that he was no longer alone.  Could it be
that he was being followed--watched--that the freedom with which he had
been allowed to come hence was no freedom at all, but that spying eyes
had been upon him all the time, that stealthy steps had dogged his own?
And yet, looking back, there was no sign of anything living, let alone
anything human, and, stranger still, the sense of a haunting presence
was in front rather than behind--a presence drawing him on.

A wave of recoil swept over his being, and he would have returned; yet,
strong-minded and of a robust faith as he was, such return under such
circumstances, it seemed to Wagram, would be nothing less than a
concession to the promptings of a vague superstition wholly contrary to
his nature and his creed.  He had been ill, he reminded himself, and his
vitality lowered, otherwise no such foolish imaginings could have held
his mind for one single instant.  To be scared of a place because it was
silent, and in broad daylight, or at any other time for that matter--
why, the thing was too absurd.  He resumed his way.

And yet it was not altogether broad daylight either, for now with every
few yards the overhanging trees became thicker and thicker, and all
beneath lay shrouded in a semi-gloom that was anything but the broad
light of day.  An overpowering scent of strange tropical plants filled
the air--fragrant, yet not altogether, for it seemed charged with a
sense of earthiness and decay; and ever above, around, the same deadness
of silence, the same weightiness of oppression, as though he were more
and more getting outside the world.

He had gone far enough; it was time to turn back.  Instinctively he
sought his watch, then remembered that it had stopped during his long
immersion.  Curiously enough, the savages had refrained from robbing him
of it, although a glittering bauble should have been far more likely to
appeal to their cupidity than a mere collection of apparently useless
and utterly unattractive bits of paper.  He was about to turn back,
accordingly, when something in front attracted and held his gaze.

Two straight rocks about twice his own height stood close together,
forming, as it were, a gate--a door, rather--for spanning the aperture
thus formed was a beam, and from it dangled a row of human skulls.
Facing outward they faced him, and seemed to take on a forced and
painful grin, as though still wearing the expression of an agonised
death.  Motionless they hung--some touching each other, some apart,
looking ghastly enough in the drear silence of the forest.  Wagram
glanced at them with some disgust but no great awe.  This, he decided,
was the entrance to some shrine of devil-worship, and he would have
turned away, rather contemptuous than impressed, but a motive, not
altogether one of curiosity, moved him to enter that grim portal.

Once within he gazed around with an increased curiosity.  He was in an
oval space barely a hundred yards in length.  The centre was open, and
constituted an amphitheatre, the sides sloping steeply upward, and grown
with thick bush.  Above this he could see a rough but strong stockade,
and surrounding it, disposed at intervals, were more human skulls.  He
crossed the open space to the farther end of the enclosure cautiously,
but there was nothing in the shape of an altar of sacrifice or any
implement of death or destruction.  At the farther end was a large flat
stone, flush with the ground.  That might be worth examining.

And now curiosity began to awaken vividly within him.  This place was
obviously a temple--a court, rather--used for the heathenish and
idolatrous rites of this tribe--whatever it might be.  He bent over the
stone.  It was rudely hewn into something of an oblong, and was covered
with a dark and greasy coating which might have been dried blood.  Yes;
it looked like that, and he straightened himself up again, nauseated by
the idea.

And then something like a deep, soft sigh fell upon his ears.  It came
from right in front, and seemed within scarce a yard of him.  He looked
up, startled, then resisted an impulse to turn and flee.  Before him the
bush, thick and green, was as an impenetrable wall.  Could the sound
have proceeded thence?  He started again.  In the dim recesses formed by
the interlacing fronds two eyes were staring at him--two large beady
eyes--not shining, but dull and black, and yet more full, more
penetrating, than if they had glared.

Every instinct of self-preservation moved him to fall back.  The same
instinct moved him to keep his own eyes fixed upon that dull,
penetrating, fiend-like stare as he did so.  What on earth was the
thing? he asked himself.  A reptile?  No; for the eyes were larger than
those of the largest serpent known to zoology.  Human?  No; not that
either.  He was conscious of a ghastly chilling of the blood within him
as he met that horrible stare fixed upon him within the mysterious
darkness of the bush screen.  He was conscious of something more--that
his first instinct of retreat had left him, and was now succeeded by an
impulse that compelled him forward, that constrained him to look closer
into those awful eyes; and then that same soft, heavy sigh was repeated.

He moved a step forward.  One foot was on the flat stone.  In a moment
the other would have followed it--drawn, impelled by an irresistible
force--when a strange humming noise behind him--low, but growing louder
and louder--made him pause.  Someone was approaching, and that by the
way he had come.  A quick instinct warned him that it would not be well
to be found here prying into what was doubtless some sacred if ghastly
temple of mystery held in awe by a race of devil-worshippers.  The spell
was broken.  Withdrawing his one foot from the stone he looked back,
then quickly took cover within the thick bush that lined the slopes of
the amphitheatre.

His conjecture proved correct.  Hardly was he in hiding than a man
appeared, entering through the same opening which had admitted himself--
a tall, black man, yet not altogether wearing the same appearance as
those among whom his own lot seemed cast.  The new arrival scarce
glanced from left to right, and, still humming his strange, weird croon,
advanced straight to the stone even as he himself had done.  Then he
halted.

In his place of concealment Wagram was no more than a dozen yards from
the new-comer, whose every movement and every expression he could
distinguish.  The man was unarmed, and nearly naked--a fine, well-built,
stalwart savage.  He seemed to be gazing before him in expectation
mingled with disappointment.  Then to the hidden watcher's ears came
again that soft, weird sigh.

He in the open heard it too, for a change came over his face and
bearing.  Uttering a deep-breathed "Ah!" he straightened himself up,
then bent forward, and seemed gazing upon exactly the place where those
dreadful eyes had appeared.  Then his behaviour was strange.  Once more
he rose erect, and withdrew his foot from the stone, and passed one
black hand over his own eyes, as though to shut out those others.  Then
he moved unsteadily to right and to left, and half turned away--but no.
It seemed that some compelling force was upon him too, precluding
retreat.  Back he would come to the centre again and peer forward, then
break away as before.  This was repeated several times; then, all at
once, he stood motionless.  His foot was again raised and placed on the
stone, his gaze again bent in eager fascination upon that which lay
beyond--then the other foot followed.  One step forward--then two--and
then--

Something darted forward with lightning-like glance from the bush
screen--something long and steel-like and gleaming.  It transfixed the
dazed savage as he stood, then withdrew almost before the heavy thud of
his body sounded on the hard stone surface.  There it lay, the limbs
twitching in muscular spasms.  A final shudder and all was still, except
the drip, drip of the life-blood falling upon the surface of the stone.

The spectator's own blood froze within him as he looked.  The sight was
ghastly and horrifying enough in any case, but looked at in the light of
his own circumstances it was doubly so; added to which he now knew the
fate from which he himself had escaped.  As he took his way out of this
hell-pit of horror and cruelty, taking care to keep well within the
shelter of the bushes until he should gain the gruesome door by which he
had entered, he was wondering what hideous rite of devil-worship he had
just witnessed, and recalled with a shudder the weird fascination that
had well-nigh compelled him to stand in the other's place.

"The dark places of the earth are full of cruelty," he recalled as he
hurried through the sombre gloom of the silent forest--a hundred times
more sombre now--and the air itself seemed weighed down with a scent of
blood.  In very truth he was in one of "the dark places of the earth."
How, and when, would he find deliverance therefrom?



CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

THE OPEN DOOR.

Those who have fallen among barbarians have seldom been without the
experience of their detainers desiring to hold some kind of converse
with them, however hostile the burden of such might be.  Wagram,
however, was absolutely without this experience, for these people were
not only totally unable to communicate with him by word of mouth but
showed absolutely no inclination to do so.

He had tried to communicate with them by signs, but found that he might
as well have been signalling to the surrounding trees.  They stared at
him but made no sort of response.  His physical wants were mechanically
attended to, and that was all.  They eyed him with stony indifference,
not as another human being out of whom they might or might not extract
material advantage, but simply as an ox being fattened for the shambles.
This, however, fortunately, he did not know.

The night following upon the horrible event he had witnessed in the
forest was one of the most fearful experiences he had ever known.
Closer and more miasmatic than ever the atmosphere seemed to weigh him
down; and alone in the darkness of the hut, with loathsome insects
scurrying around and over him, the whole scene came back in all its
vivid ghastliness, and again he saw those dreadful eyes glowering at
him, the quick, sudden stab out of nowhere, and the limbs of the
stricken savage quivering and contorting on the stone which was
spattered with his blood.  He groped his way to the door and went
outside.  Anything would be better than this consciousness of being
penned up with these awful memories, to say nothing of the long-legged
horrors which rendered rest impossible.  He drank in the outer air--
heavy, fever-laden as it was--with infinite relief, but not for long.
Clouds of stinging insects, mosquitoes and others, soon found him out,
and forced him to the conclusion that the legged horrors within, being
harmless, were at any rate more tolerable.  But it was a wearied wreck
of a man, indeed, upon which the second morning dawned.

He was about to set forth upon another round of exploration--no matter
what he might discover anything was better than the fearful mental
strain involved by sitting still--when he became conscious of an unusual
stir among those around, as near akin to excitement as those morose,
repellent savages seemed able to reach.  A man was coming towards him;
and now every fibre of his being thrilled with joy, with an
indescribable sense of relief.  It was a white man!

A white man, a European!  No matter what low outcast from his colour
this might be he was a white man--and already Wagram looked upon him as
a brother.  And yet--and yet--as the man came up Wagram could not but
realise that his first estimate of him was likely to be the true one,
and his hopes sank somewhat.

They sank still more--in fact, to zero--as the new-comer stood
confronting him.  He was a tall man, as tall as himself, but his hard,
bearded face was repellent in the extreme, and the fierce glare of his
rolling eyes did not inspire confidence.

"Well, pard, are they making you comfortable here?" he began shortly.

"I don't know about comfortable; but if it's a little rough I've no
cause for complaint," answered Wagram pleasantly.  "At any rate I've
escaped with life--though how I got off that waterlogged hulk I haven't
the faintest idea."

"I know all about that," interrupted the other roughly.  "What I want to
know is, how did you get on to her?  Eh?  How the devil did you get on
to her?"

The fierce eyes played upon Wagram's face as though they would penetrate
his brain.  Decidedly this man was a rough customer--very; still, he was
a white man, and might not be so bad at bottom.  At any rate he would be
susceptible to a very substantial reward.  So he told the story of the
wreck of the _Baleka_, and how he himself had nearly gone down with the
ship in trying to save a child that had been lost below.

"Serves you devilish well right for interfering in what doesn't concern
you," was the reassuring comment on this piece of information.  "Look
here.  Have you the remotest sort of notion as to where you are?"

"A very faint one: somewhere on the west coast of Africa, I take it."

The other laughed harshly.

"That's near enough," he said.  "Let me tell you this, then.  You're
among the most devilish set of cannibal niggers this world ever
produced.  You'd have been eaten body and bones before this if--it
hadn't been for me."

"In that case I cannot be too grateful for your interference; and, as a
fellow-countryman, I am going to make further demands upon your kindness
by entreating you to show me the way out, to facilitate my return to
civilisation.  And, I assure you, you will not find me ungrateful."

These last words he pronounced with some diffidence.  In the man's very
ferocity of roughness Wagram's ear had not been slow to detect a refined
accent of speech.  Whatever the other might have come to he was certain
that he was of gentle birth, and therefore hesitated to offer him
material reward.  The next words convinced him that he need have felt no
such misgiving.

"What'll you make it worth my while to land you--say at Sierra Leone,
this day month?"

"Anything in reason.  You shall name your own price."

"Suppose I say ten thousand pounds, not a shilling less?  How's that?"

It was an enormous sum, remembering the resources probably at the
stranger's command; yet if Wagram hesitated momentarily it was less on
that account than because a misgiving shot across his mind that if he
agreed too readily this desperado, from whom he inwardly recoiled more
and more, once he had reason to believe he was dealing with a rich man,
would hold him captive until he had drained him to the bottom of even
his resources; so he answered:

"It's a stiff figure--very stiff; still, I think I might even promise
that."

"You think, do you?  Well, come this way."

He turned abruptly, Wagram following.  As they passed between the
palmetto huts the forbidding inhabitants raised their heads to stare for
a moment, then dropped them stolidly again.  They walked on in dead
silence, for the stranger uttered no further word.  They passed into the
forest, still quite close on the outskirts of the town, and came
suddenly upon a strong stockade.  Before the gate of this several
savages stood as though mounting guard.  They were fully armed with
large, wicked-looking spears, axes, and great curved-bladed knives.

"I don't allow them any rotten gaspipe guns," said the stranger grimly;
"only things they know how to use.  And they do know how to use these,
by God!  Look there."

Wagram looked.  They had reached the gate by this time.  Within the
enclosure were clustered a number of human beings chained together in
couples by the leg.  The place was in a state of indescribable filth,
and the personal appearance of its occupants recalled to Wagram that of
the wretched victim of yesterday.

"Prisoners?" he said.

The other nodded, then led the way on again.  Soon a hum of voices
greeted Wagram's ears, and at the same time a horrible acrid odour
assailed his nostrils.

"Takes a little getting used to, doesn't it?" said his guide.  "Look!"

Wagram looked, and then felt as if he must be sick.  They had reached an
open space; in it several men were at work--at work on the most
congenial occupation of all to savages--that of butchery.

"This is their slaughter-house," went on the stranger.  "What's the
matter?"

For, with an exclamation of horror and disgust, Wagram had turned away,
had turned his back upon what he had momentarily glimpsed.  No mere
glimpse of an ordinary slaughter-house had this been, repulsive and
revolting as such a sight might be.  In this case the victims were
human.

"Good heavens!" he ejaculated, glaring at the other with loathing.  "And
you allow this--you--a white man?"

"I'm not going to interfere with the harmless little customs of my
people--not likely," was the reply, accompanied by a hideous laugh.
"Well, if it's too much for your weak nerves, come away.  But--what do
you say to my offer now?"

"I'll take it.  I don't care how soon I leave this place; in fact, I'll
even increase the figure if you get me out at once."

"I thought so.  Well, it'll be worth your while.  You may take that from
me--and the sooner the better.  Shall we say fifteen thousand if you
start to-morrow?"

"Yes; but you know you will have to trust me.  I have no means of
identification nearer than England."

The other nodded.

"Seems strange, doesn't it?" he said, "but I felt I could do that from
the very first.  I've had no fool of an experience in my time, you see,
and I know one man from another when I see him.  Now, I knew you weren't
a liar directly I clapped eyes on you; I knew, too, you were a coiny
chap, never mind how--there's something I can read these things by.  See
here, I don't want to rush you through this business; think it over.
I'll look round at sundown, and then we'll draw up our little
agreement."

This sounded well.  If he were rough the man seemed not without a sense
of fair dealing.  Wagram was duly impressed; yet he need not have been,
for the stranger's real motive was a very different one.  He had
purposely taken Wagram to see one of "the sights" of the place which he
knew would revolt and horrify him; now his object was to give him time
to think about it; time and solitude could not fail to work the horror
deeper into his system--so would his own terms meet with readier
acceptation.

At the hut Wagram had occupied the stranger left him; and now, alone
once more, the revulsion of feeling was well-nigh oppressive.  He would
soon be away from here, would soon be back in the home that he loved,
and among those who loved him.  This horrible experience--well, it,
coming as the culminating point to his wanderings, had effected a
certain sort of mental cure.  Looking back, it seemed as if he had
needed a mental shaking-up and--he had got it.  Yes; he had been making
an idol of "the pride of life," and that pride had received a sudden,
perhaps necessary, fall.  What act of thanksgiving could he make for
this unlooked-for deliverance? was his first thought as he found himself
alone once more.  The dank shades of the tropical forest, the repulsive
picturesqueness of the savage town, the acrid odour of blood which still
seemed to hang upon the air--all had faded now--had given way to the
hawthorn hedges and running streams around Hilversea Court, as the
splendid old pile arose against its background of embowering elms; the
wholesome, clear English sunlight instead of the sickly tropical glare;
the scent of innumerable wild flowers and the glad shout of the cuckoo,
and, with it all, deeper and holier thoughts, enshrined amid the
associations of the dearly-loved place; and then--he started wide awake.

"Here I am!" was saying the strong, harsh voice of the stranger.  "Been
asleep?  Well, you'll feel the better for it."

"I believe I have," said Wagram, sitting up.  "Well, have you brought
the draft of our agreement?"

"Ay, ay! here it is.  Look through it and see if it's all ship-shape."

Wagram read the document carefully.  It was short, even to conciseness,
and set forward how the undersigned was to pay the bearer the sum of
fifteen thousand pounds, within fifteen days of being landed at Sierra
Leone, in consideration of having been landed there within one month
from date.

"You have a code cable with your solicitors, of course?" said the
stranger.  "You can have the cash cabled there?"

"Yes; I have a code cable.  But you say `the bearer.'  Why not have it
paid in to your own name?"

"That's my business," was the answer.  "For the rest, is it all
ship-shape?"

"Certainly.  But it's only fair to warn you that I doubt if it's
particularly sound from a legal point of view.  It isn't witnessed, for
one thing."

"Legal point of view be damned.  Didn't I tell you you don't look like a
liar--and I know men?  It'll be good enough if you sign it."

"Thanks," said Wagram pleasantly.  "You won't find yourself far out in
that deduction."

"Got a wife perhaps, who's anxious about you, eh?"

"No; I haven't got a wife--not now."

"Ah! had, then.  Family you want to get back to?"

"Only one son--a boy at school.  But he won't have heard of the wreck,
and if he did wouldn't connect it with me fortunately.  I took passage
in the _Baleka_ at the last moment, and didn't even cable it home.  By
the way, some of these amiable people have relieved me of my
pocket-book, and there were some notes in it.  I don't know whether they
can be persuaded to disgorge."

"Perhaps.  But if we start from here to-morrow there'll hardly be time."

"No; I suppose not.  Never mind, then," was the easy answer, for the
starting to-morrow had a soothing ring, beside which the loss was a mere
trifle.  But the speaker little thought how his listener had already
made up his mind to have those notes in his own possession before the
dawning of another day--incidentally, it might be, at the cost of a life
or two.

The smoky rays of the sinking tropical sun shot in through the open
doorway, illumining the gloomy interior.  The stranger had brought a pen
and ink with him--strange accessories of civilisation in that remote
haunt of barbarous man-eaters.  A wooden native stool did duty as a
desk, and Wagram, squatted on the floor, proceeded to affix his
signature: "Wagram Gerard Wagram."

"Will that do?" he said, glancing up.  Then he started in amazement, not
undashed with alarm; for the other, who had been standing over him,
emitted a sort of gasp.  His face seemed to contract, then harden as he
glared at the paper, then at the man who held it.

"That your name?" he said, and his voice took on a sort of growl.

"Yes; of course," was the wondering answer.

"That's your name--your real name?" repeated the stranger, and the growl
in his voice and the stare of his eyes seemed full of menace and hate.

"Yes; that's my name, and there it is," answered Wagram firmly, yet not
without a dire foreboding over the extraordinary effect it seemed to
produce.

"Yes--of course.  Ho-ho!  That's your name--Wagram Gerard Wagram!  Of
course it is--of course.  Ho-ho!"  And, snatching up the paper, the
other went out of the hut, leaving behind him the echo of his mocking
tones and savage, sneering laughter.



CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

THE CLOSED DOOR.

The stranger walked slowly across to his own quarters in a frame of mind
very unwonted with him.  Something had moved him--moved him powerfully.
A new vista opened before him, and what a promise of the good things of
life did he behold.  The past, too, came before him, but it he put aside
with sneering and bitterness.

Two female slaves greeted him with subservient smiles.  They were not of
this race, but had been brought from much farther inland.  They were
much lighter in colour, physically fine symmetrical specimens, and not
without good looks.  Their smiles he returned with a frown that made
them cower.

"No more of these," he muttered in English, staring at them.  "White--
red and white--white and gold--golden hair--volumes of it--every kind.
Aha!  No more of this soot."

They cowered still more before his stare, wondering which of their
recent or further back delinquencies had come to his knowledge or what
their fate would be.  But now he ordered them to begone, and, while
trying not to show their relief, they lost no time in obeying.

He got out a bottle of rum and poured out a strong, stiff measure.  This
he tossed off like water.  The beginning of a debauch?  Oh no.  This man
knew better than that.  He was never seen intoxicated--he valued his
influence too much--and were he once seen in a state of incapacity he
knew full well that his influence would be gone; further, that it would
not be long before his life followed.  There were times, however, when
he had taken enough liquor to have sent two ordinary hard-headed men to
the ground, and at such times the black savages among whom he dwelt were
careful to give this white savage a very wide berth indeed.  That was
all.

His private quarters were in no way ringed off from the rest of the
town, in which was reason.  No combination could thus be formed against
him, or any hostile plan unknown to himself be carried out, as might be
the case were he more shut away.  But his huts were better and more
spacious than the rest, that mostly occupied by himself attaining almost
to the dignity of a bungalow--and, indeed, in such dread was this place
held that his possessions were as sacred as though guarded by iron
safes.  For the acquisitive savage had found it unhealthy to pilfer from
this his white brother.  At first he had tried it.  One attempt had been
met by a wholly unlooked-for shot, killing the offender.  On another
occasion a large and heavy knife had fallen unexpectedly from nowhere,
penetrating the brain of the would-be thief, with similar result.  This
was the more singular in that at the time of both attempts he whom they
would have plundered was about fifty miles away, so that it needed not
many recurrences of further disaster--in each case mysterious, and
taking a varying form--to render this man's goods absolutely safe.

The secret of the extraordinary ascendency of this white savage over the
black, apart from the fact that he never interfered in the slightest
degree with their manners and customs, especially when he had led them
personally in some sanguinary and victorious raid, may have lain in the
fact that he tolerated no opposition.  If he considered his subordinate
devils had a real grievance he would listen to it and redress it, and of
this we have seen at least one gruesome instance.  Otherwise he simply
rose up and killed the offender--killed him with his own hand.

Now he went outside his house, called a name, and issued an order.  In
the result, about three quarters of an hour saw him in possession of
Wagram's pocket-book.  This he proceeded to investigate with quite
unwonted hurry.  A few visiting cards and the notes Wagram had mentioned
were all it contained.  The latter he put aside.  Cash was always--cash.

For Wagram himself another long, trying, well-nigh sleepless night was
in store--a night of wearing suspense, and the certainty of a most
dreadful disappointment.  For he could not disguise from himself the
consciousness that something had gone suddenly wrong--that the train of
the negotiation had, at a certain point, left the rails--for what
otherwise could be the meaning of the sudden change of tone and manner
on the part of the stranger directly the agreement was completed?  Had
he merely been fooling him with promises of escape until he had put his
name to a document binding him to pay down a very large sum?  At first
blush it looked like this, but further reflection served to show that,
failing his own co-operation, the document was useless for the purpose
of obtaining one single shilling--in a word, was utterly unnegotiable.
Could it be that the man was touched in the brain, and subject to sudden
and dangerous impulses--hence his unlooked-for change of manner--or was
he a renegade, who had, perhaps, undergone the penalty of former crime
and hated those of his own blood and colour in consequence?  Anyway the
whole affair was a mystery, which the morning might solve; and that it
would solve it in a way that was speedily favourable to himself he
devoutly hoped and prayed.

He fell into an uneasy sleep; and it seemed he had hardly done so when
he was aroused by a touch.  He opened his eyes, to meet those of a
savage who was standing over him, and a shudder of loathing ran through
him; and this not entirely due to the strong musky odour wherewith the
new-comer seemed to be poisoning the air--the fact being that, since the
scene he had yesterday witnessed, these were no longer human beings in
his eyes but so many horrible ghouls.  This one, however, beckoned him
to get up and go with him.

Wagram obeyed.  He had no immediate fears for his personal safety, in
view of the presence of a fellow white man in that nest of demons; and
as he followed his repulsive guide he glanced around upon the life of
the place--the morose, evil-looking inhabitants, fiend-like with their
long spikes of plaited wool sticking up from their heads, and their
round, black progeny tumbling about like so many sooty imps.  There was
no trace of the light-hearted, careless good humour of the negro among
these.  He had never seen one of them laugh, for instance; and their
grin had something malevolent about it--something that was more than
half a snarl.  Could it be that their awful unnatural appetite affected
them mentally too, and that by feeding on the bodies of their
fellow-demons the spirit of the latter entered into theirs?  But his
speculation on this head was cut short.  He and his guide had arrived at
a much larger hut than the others, and there, seated on a native stool
in front of it, was the strange white man.

"Well, I've got back that pocket-book of yours," began the latter
unceremoniously.  "Here it is; only I'm sorry to say the notes are no
longer in it.  Rum thing that these devils should have any idea of the
value of money, especially paper money."

He broke off, and emitted a shrill whistle.  A slave girl appeared.  A
monosyllabic order, and she reappeared, bearing a bottle and two
glasses.

"Have a tot," he said.  "You don't look over-bobbish, and it'll pick you
up.  None of your poisonous trade rum this, but real old Jamaica."

"Thanks; it may.  I've had another sleepless night, and can do with a
little picking up."

In fact, he felt the better for it.  And what he was about to witness
required some stimulating, for now the other uttered a loud, peremptory
call.

It was answered with amazing and startling celerity.  A number of
spiky-haired blacks came crowding up in front of the place.  Wagram,
watching his strange host, saw the latter draw himself up to his full
stature as, with a scowl that was perfectly demoniacal, he harangued
them for some minutes, working himself up to a perfect paroxysm of fury.
His eyes glared, and his deep tones took on the thunderous roar of an
angry mastiff.  Immediately a man was thrust to the forefront of the
group.  The white man walked down off his verandah and stood confronting
this fellow, whose brutal face blenched and lowered before the scathing,
stare.  Then he seized a great spear from one of the lookers-on, and,
half hurling, half stabbing, he drove the blade clean through the body
of the ugly, cowering savage, who sank to the earth, pouring forth his
life-blood in torrents.

Wagram felt himself growing pale.  The slayer, not content with his
swift and sudden vengeance, had withdrawn the formidable weapon, and,
his eyes rolling and bloodshot, was brandishing it over the staring
black crowd, literally foaming at the mouth as he roared forth his
deep-toned imprecations.  The assembly seemed turned to stone as those
fierce eyes swept over it, lighting first on one and then on the other,
while the great spear twirled and quivered in that sinewy grip.  Each
thought that he might be the next victim; and, indeed, it seemed so, for
that towering form looked as though endowed with the strength and
malevolence of a fiend.  Then with a last fierce and frenzied shout he
bade them begone, and they, for their part, did not wait to be told
twice.

"What was it all about?" said Wagram, hardly able to conceal the disgust
and horror which he felt.

The other turned on him his restless, bloodshot eyes.  "Your lost
pocket-book.  It ought to have been brought to me, and wasn't.  See?"

"Good God!  And you killed a man for that!"  The tones of disgust and
reproach seemed to sting the other.

"Killed a man for that!" he repeated with a beast-like growl.--"Rather!
And I've killed a dozen men for far less--if you call these cannibal
swine men.  And I'll do it again.  No; you know, all these sickening old
canting ideas you were raised in don't count with me--not a straw.  I'm
God here, you understand--and I mean to be."

"Steady.  Don't be blasphemous," said Wagram.  "Oh, it's you who are
going to give me orders, is it!" said the other, not loudly, but in a
tone of deadly, quiet resentment.  "Well, we shall see; and, by way of
beginning, I may as well tell you I've changed my mind since yesterday.
In a word, I'd like the pleasure of your company here a little longer."

"But--our agreement?"

"Our agreement?  Oh, here it is.  That for it!" tearing in several
fragments the paper he had just produced.  "I don't get the advantage of
the improving society of such a good and holy man as you every day, and
now I've got it I mean to profit by it--for a time.  See?"

Wagram was simply nonplussed.  What did it all mean?  Was this a madman?
It seemed like it.  The document under which he stood to obtain a
really splendid sum he had torn up in a fit of gusty rage.  But the
fearful look on the man's face as he stood glaring down on him was
something to reckon with--and the jeering tones.  He began to conceive
for him an even greater repulsion than for the black, cannibal savages
themselves.

"We can easily rewrite it," he said in a conciliatory tone.  "Think
again.  It will be to both our interests; and if there is any service I
can render you I will willingly do so."

"Service be damned!" said the other roughly.  "I rather think the boot's
on the other foot, since it entirely depends upon me, Wagram Gerard
Wagram, whether you ever see home again, or furnish beefsteaks for the
noble image of God you see around here.  Upon me, do you hear?  Upon me
only."

"Well, of course, it does," answered Wagram, realising that the man was
going through a sort of paroxysm of blind, well-nigh delirious rage.
"But I should think you would hardly hand over a fellow-countryman to
the mercy of a lot of cannibal savages.  I have a better opinion of you
than that."

"Have you?  Then keep your damned opinion for where it's wanted.  Now,
come with me."

Thinking it best to humour him Wagram did not hesitate.  The other led
the way through the outskirts of the town.  One thing struck Wagram
during their progress.  The inhabitants hardly noticed them.  All seemed
to be hurrying towards one point.  Soon the same acrid, horrible odour
fell upon his nostrils as that which had sickened him on arriving at the
human shambles.  He stopped.

"I won't go any further, thanks," he said.  "I don't want to see that
place again."

"But you must," replied the other in a tone that was perfectly fiendish
in its menace.  "You've no choice.  I'm God here, remember."

What could he do?  He was unarmed; therefore, to that extent, at
everybody's mercy.  He had others to think of beside himself--one other
especially.  So he steeled himself.

The dreadful place of slaughter was thronged, it seemed, with the whole
population of the town.  Through these a word from his guide cleared a
prompt way.  Several wooden blocks were let into the ground, and upon
one of these a victim was being bound down in such wise that the body,
turned face upwards, formed an arc, the head being fixed so as to draw
the upturned throat to the fullest tension.  And the horrified,
blood-chilled spectator observed that the victim was a large stalwart
black very much akin in aspect to the one he had seen struck down by the
mysterious blow in that eerie temple of devil-worship within the heart
of the forest.

"I've let them have a little compensation for killing one of themselves
just now," broke in his companion's voice with hideous callousness.  "It
was a biggish man among them--as far as I allow any of them to be big.
So I've stood them a feed.  These belong to another breed, and they like
them, and I can get plenty more.  See?"

"But, you'll never allow this?" cried Wagram.  "Stop it, do you hear?
Stop it, man--devil--or whatever you are.  Stop it, or I will."

Without waiting for any reply he sprang forward.  A tall black fiend
armed with a great curved knife had stepped to the side of the victim,
whose agonised, livid, terror-stricken face was sufficient to haunt
Wagram to his dying day.  It was done in a moment.  Quick as thought
Wagram had snatched the murderous implement from the grasp of the
savage, at the same time dealing him a straight-out blow behind the ear
which sent him staggering, and had cut through the bonds which held the
wretched victim, who rolled heavily to the ground.  A howl, as of a pack
of famished wolves balked of its prey, arose from the crowd.  A rush was
made.  But somehow the sight of this man--who had never shed human blood
in his life--standing there at bay, a new and entirely whole-hearted
Berserk rage blazing from his eyes as he rolled them around, holding the
formidable weapon ready, seemed to tell, and they hesitated, still
mouthing and yelling like hell let loose.  Then great, heavy-hafted
spears were raised, ready for casting.  But a word from the other white
man checked the decisive throw, though still unwillingly.  They growled
and muttered like dogs, looking from one to the other.

"Give me your promise that he shall be spared," cried Wagram.
"Otherwise not a man comes near him while I am alive."

"You fool.  Are you prepared to stand there for the rest of the day?"
was the answer.  "After you are dead, will it be any the better for
anybody else?"

"I shall die while doing my duty at any rate.  As for you--why, the most
loathsome savage here is not so loathsome as you."

"Ha--ha!  That's all gas.  Well, it doesn't suit me that your life shall
be taken, Wagram--at least not until I choose.  So I'll give you my
promise.  Like yourself, I'm not a liar, whatever I may be."

He harangued the assembled fiends, and in the result the wretched man,
still livid with the fears of death, was allowed to slip away, while the
crowd sullenly dispersed--Wagram, of course, being totally unaware that
he was promising them another victim, whom they might despatch and feast
upon at their leisure, when there should be nobody present to interrupt.
Thus his promise was kept--in the letter.

"I thought I'd just let you see where I come in," he said as they walked
away together.  "Man, you think you have done something blasted heroic,
don't you?--but let me tell you that a word from me would have seen you
strapped down to one of those blocks too.  You don't suppose you could
have kept them off with that knife for many minutes, do you?"

Wagram did not answer.  His disgust and repulsion for the other had
reached such a pitch that he did not deem it advisable to speak, for
fear of betraying it.

"You'd better hug your own quarters for a day or two after this," went
on the latter.  "None too safe to be prowling around.  You understand?"

"Yes; I understand."

Hope, raised once more, had fallen to the ground.  For some reason or
other this white savage had seen fit to detain him prisoner--probably
with the object of extracting more in the way of ransom.  Indeed, now it
dawned upon him that in forcing him to behold all the more horrible side
of the life of these barbarians the other was working to bring his mind
up to such a pitch that he would be glad to purchase emancipation at any
price, however great.



CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

THE ALTERNATIVE.

"Well?  And have you now come round to a sweet and reasonable frame of
mind?"

Wagram looked his persecutor steadily in the face.  He was not secured,
but two stalwart blacks stood on each side, ready to anticipate any
aggressive movement on his part.

"You've not, eh?  That'll come; only the longer you hold out the more
personal inconvenience you'll lay yourself open to.  I give you fair
warning."

"You intend to murder me, I suppose," answered Wagram.  "Why not do it
at once?  I won't agree to your perfectly outrageous proposal."

"Outrageous?" sneered the white fiend.  "Let's go over the ground again.
A month ago I invited you to make a protracted stay with me.  I further
asked you to send for your son, thinking that a little wild bush life
would make a wholesome change for a schoolboy, and we would have been as
jolly as sandboys together.  You began to make excuses.  Now, I don't
like excuses.  I'm not accustomed to them, as you must have learnt since
you've been here.  Then you refused point-blank, saying this was no
place to bring a boy to.  You yourself couldn't refuse my hospitality,
which I'm afraid I shall have to extend to you for an indefinite time.
But your son and heir--I'm dying to make his acquaintance.  See?"

"Yes; I see.  And I give you the answer straight: I have no intention
that you should make his acquaintance or he yours.  Now--is that
straight enough?"

"Oh, quite.  Only have you reflected that in that case you yourself will
never set eyes on him again?  Hasn't that struck you?"

"As a possibility, not as a probability.  Look here! you are a white
man, not a savage.  For some purpose you are trying to frighten me.
What is it?  Is it that you want a larger price?  If so, name it."

"Trying to frighten you?  Why, I haven't even begun to frighten you yet.
You told me one day you thought I must be the devil.  Well, I am--for
all purposes as far as you are concerned.  Make up your mind to that."

There was no great eagerness in Wagram's mind to dispute this statement.
He had spent a month in the power of this fiend, and scarcely a day had
passed without some proof that if he were not already within the
infernal regions he was at any rate well within the antechamber thereto.
Apart from the fact that the conditions of his captivity had been more
and more those of every conceivable harshness, he had been compelled to
witness the most ghastly and horrifying sights, of which the blood
tragedies of the cannibal slaughter-yard were not the worst.  Other
fiendish rites, hideous and obscene--hardly imaginable, in fact--he had
been thrust into the very midst of; and now within that brief month it
seemed that he must have lived for years in hell, and all at the bidding
of this devil--his fellow-countryman.  His health had suffered, his mind
and spirit alike were becoming broken, and every moment he besieged high
Heaven with supplications that deliverance--even through the gate of
death--might be granted him.  So far his tormentor had confined his
malice to tortures that were mainly mental.  He had been careful, too,
to afford him no clue whatever as to the locality in which he was, or
even as to the very name of this savage race.  His own identity, of
course, was undivulged.

"You have the whole situation in your own hands," went on the latter.
"You have only to place in mine the necessary letters that will bring
your son and heir here.  I'll take care of the way of doing it, never
fear, once I have your indisputable authority.  Now--are you going to
give it me?"

Something of the martyr's resolution shone in Wagram's face.  Even the
brutal savages who guarded him were struck by it, and uneasily stirred.
They thought to descry some strange resemblance at that moment between
the faces of the two men, between their dreaded oppressor and his--and
their--helpless captive.

"No; I am not--not now, nor ever," came the steadfast answer.  "I will
die first."

Then that glaring paroxysm of rage swept over the other's features, and
his eyes seemed to start from his purpling face as he bent down and
hissed rather than whispered:

"Then you shall.  By God, you shall!"  At a sign the two savages pounced
upon their prisoner, and flung him face downwards upon the ground.  They
were muscular ruffians, and he was weakened by ill-treatment and
anxiety.  Others flocked into the hut in obedience to a call, and in a
moment he was pinioned with thongs, his feet being left free enough to
enable him to walk with short steps.  They dragged him forth into the
open, and he found himself staggering along in their midst.  Then he
realised what his doom was to be.  He had travelled this way before, to
his horror and sorrow.  They were taking him to the human
slaughter-yard.

There was the palisade, the stunted trees, and the horrible heads
impaled upon them.  The effluvium was acrid, sickening.  Many hands
gripped him, and before he could offer the slightest resistance he was
bound down upon one of the blood-stained blocks, with throat upturned,
distended, ready for the murderous knife.

In that terrible moment, expecting death amid every circumstance of
agony and ignominy, a vista of his past life opened to his brain--opened
with a quick flash.  This, then, was what his quest had brought him to--
his quest which, following the strong voice of conscience, he had
undertaken and had prosecuted to his own detriment.  Well, what mattered
it?  His son--his only son--had been left in strong and careful hands.
He would carry on his life duties as he himself would have had him do.
Then more sacred thoughts succeeded.  He trusted he was ready.

A black fiend stood over him, and had already raised the horrible
crooked knife; already he seemed to feel it shearing through nerve and
artery.  But it was stayed.

"One more chance," cried the voice of his arch-tormentor.  "Will you do
what you have no option but to do?  Remember, this is no swift death--no
beheading at one blow--as you have seen.  A nasty sort of butchering
death for a man of your birth and breeding to end up with, eh?"

"Do your butcher work; my mind is unchanged."

At a sign the demon with the knife lowered it.  Wagram felt a slash upon
his throat, and the blood flowed.  In reality it was but a skin cut.
The black fiend, instructed by the white arch-fiend, was but playing
with him; yet the mind acting upon the strained nerves rendered the
torture actual, horrible.  Except a quick gasp no sound escaped the
sufferer.  In the concentration of the suspense every detail was stamped
upon the retina of his brain--the bestial, black faces, staring and
bloodthirsty; the scarcely less repulsive countenance of his--
fellow-countryman, and a strange, vivid scar round the outside of the
right eye defacing this.  Detail is curiously to the front in moments of
extreme tensity.  The willing executioner looked again at his superior
for the final signal.  After a moment of deathly silence--to the
sufferer a very lifetime of suspense--it came.

But, what was this?  He had been quickly unbound, and rolled to the
ground, and as he lay there, dazed with the sudden revulsion, the voice
of his arch-tormentor fell once more upon his ears.

"That'll do for to-day, Wagram.  You've gone through hell--yes, hell--in
the last few minutes, but it's nothing to what's sticking out for you.
You thought you'd have been in heaven by now, but, no fear.  Moreover,
you'll never get there, for before I've done with you you're going to
blaspheme Heaven in such a manner that even it'll have nothing to do
with you at the end, in spite of your life of piety and
sanctimoniousness.  Wait a bit.  You haven't felt any real pain yet--
don't know what it is.  To-morrow you shall begin.  A little roasting,
you understand; not too much--enough to keep you wriggling for an hour
or so.  You shall have the whole night to think of it."

"You are wrong, devil," was the answer.  "Whatever might escape me
through weakness under your hellish treatment will not count, rest
assured.  And the Heaven which you blaspheme has a longer arm than you
think."

"All right.  It can't reach as far as this," returned the other, with a
hideous laugh.

The sufferer was roughly seized, jerked to his feet, and dragged back to
the hut; but even this gloomy prison-house was no longer to be his
undisturbed, for now the two black horrors entered it with him, and
disposed themselves in such wise as to render it evident they meant to
spend the night there.  He himself was secured by thongs in such wise as
to render any attempt at escape impossible.

And there in the black darkness--with loathsome insects creeping over
him, the close, stuffy air rendered absolutely poisonous by the rancid
stench exhaling from the musky bodies of his guards--Wagram underwent to
the full all the trials of the martyrs destined for the Coliseum of old.
He had passed through, as it were, the very extremity of death that
day, and had been put back that he might die many deaths.  He knew that
the words of the white savage had been no empty threat, for among the
awful sights he had been forced to witness in that hell-centre had been
that of a human being done to death over a slow fire in exactly the
manner that had been promised for himself.  Well, if that were so, and
he were called upon to suffer the fiery ordeal, he trusted that strength
might be given him as to the martyrs of old, the prayers of all of whom
he fervently invoked, including those of his martyred relative--the
recollection of whom turned back his thoughts to Hilversea, and those he
had left there; and it was with deep thankfulness that he realised that
no flaw existed in the provisions he had made before leaving in the
event of accident to himself.  These had been effected with
business-like foresight and accuracy.  All who had claims upon him had
been remembered, and Gerard had been left under the joint guardianship
of Haldane and the family solicitor.  Even Delia Calmour he had not
omitted to provide for, by reason of the interest he and his father had
taken in the girl, and the disadvantages under which she was placed.
Perhaps she would bless his memory and pray for him, and the
recollection of her bright young beauty was pleasant now in the gloomy
hour of his bondage and the horrible fate which impended.  Yvonne, too--
she would not forget him, and the prayers of the young and the pure
seemed as though they must be tenfold precious and efficacious.

Hour by hour his thoughts ran on, interluded by snatches of sleep,
begotten of sheer mental exhaustion, haunted, however, by gusty,
disturbing dreams, in which the horrors he had witnessed and gone
through would rise up to mock and distress him, as though instigated by
the malice of the powers of hell.  The same sun which would rise upon
Hilversea, and its joyous, peaceful English life, would rise upon him
and the drear abode of blood-stained heathendom; would witness his death
amid horrible torment, and that not at the word of merciless, ruthless
barbarians but at the bidding of a fellow-countryman--a white man.  The
situation seemed so impossible, so grotesque, as to wear the aspect of a
veritable nightmare.  It was incredible.

With the thought came another.  Why had this devil in human shape laid
such stress on getting Gerard into his power, even to the length of
torturing him--Wagram--to induce him to send for the boy?  Why had he
repudiated his agreement to enlarge him for what was really a princely
ransom, and that all in a moment?  There was something behind it all--
but what?  And then upon the deepest darkness of his thoughts one
thought flashed in.  This man had known Everard--had possibly murdered
him.  He designed to personate him and claim Hilversea, but in order to
do this he must first cut off the present occupant and his heir.  That
was why he had striven to get Gerard into his power.  Yes; the whole
thing now stood explained: the _effect_ the name had had upon him--
everything.  He had got at Everard's history, and now rejoiced that
another Wagram--the reigning one--had fallen into his hands.  Develin
Hunt, too, had come from somewhere about this part.  What if the
adventurer had lied to him, had sent him off to South Africa on a fool's
errand when it should have been West Africa?  What if his threat to
produce Everard had referred to this spurious adventurer?  And yet--and
yet--how was Develin Hunt ever to guess that he himself should come to
be wrecked and cast away on that identical coast?  The puzzle was a
tangled one, and at the moment beyond his unravelling.  One thing,
however, held his mind--a resolve that, come what might, he would defeat
this ferocious villain's schemes by the sacrifice of himself if need be.

Hour followed hour, and that dread, suffocating, tropical night seemed
to embody a lifetime of haunting fear.  Yes; fear, for all the human in
this man shrank from the fearful ordeal he would be called upon to
undergo.  There was no escape--no, none--for did he succeed even in
breaking away into the wilderness he had not the remotest notion what
direction to take in his flight, or of any aim or objective on which to
direct that flight.  He recalled the rough, brutal treatment he had
already undergone; and what made it worse was his absolute inability to
offer any resistance whatever to such indignity as his proud, sensitive
nature could never have conceived it possible he should be called upon
to undergo.  Then, once more, that uneasy slumber came upon him--for how
long he knew not--until it was broken in upon by strange, muffled sounds
and mysterious vibrations--together with something that sounded like a
smothered groan.  He started up, and instinctively put forth a hand.  It
encountered something warm and wet and clammy--in the black darkness
causing him to shudder.  The ground was soaked with it; and he detected
that acrid odour he had learnt to know only too well of late.



CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

ROUT.

Instinctively he put forth a hand.  But--he was bound?  Not so.  He was
bound no longer, which was one strange side of the new development to
force itself upon his returning senses.  What had happened?  His
strained ears had caught a sound as of something or somebody crawling
along the ground, together with that of subdued breathing.  That some
beast of prey had crept in and had seized and slain his guards was his
first thought, and now it was about to pounce upon him in the darkness;
but the horror of this apprehension gave way to a feeling of reassurance
as he remembered that no beast of prey, or any other animal, could, at
the same time, have relieved him of his bonds.

Then he heard whispers, and someone touched him.  He could not
understand the burden of what was said, but that he was being pushed
towards the door was unmistakable.  In a moment he was outside, and the
thrill of a great hope shot through him, with the thought that for some
reason or other somebody was contriving his escape.

The black night air was heavy and still, but delicious after the foetid
interior of the hut.  The hand kept a firm grasp of his arm, and he
yielded unquestioningly to its guidance.  He would have given much to
have understood the import of the whispered words, but that he was
expected to do something was obvious.

In this strange way he moved onward through the darkness.  He felt,
rather than heard, that other presences were moving with him besides
that of his unseen guide; then a nauseous taint upon the close air
revealed, as in a flash, his whereabouts--they were close to the
dreadful slaughter-yard.

What new horror was this?  Was it some fresh act of devilry on the part
of his tormentor that he should be brought to this ghastly place in the
dead of night; and, when he should reach it--what then?  To this
thought, however, again succeeded reassurance.  In that event he would
not have been unbound.  Then happened that which was more reassuring
still.  Something was thrust into his hand, something hard and cold.
Great heavens! it was a revolver.  He was armed now, and with the
thought his broken spirits left him.  He was armed, and free.  But
through what agency--and to whom the debt?

The guiding hand now had brought him to a standstill.  Listening
intently, his ears detected the very same sounds which had alarmed him
in the darkness of the hut.  Then, advancing once more, he stumbled over
something, and almost fell.  The trees had thinned out here, and now his
eyes, accustomed to the gloom, discovered the nature of the obstruction.
It was a human body, just slain, and hardly lifeless yet.  Then, in a
flash, something of the situation dawned upon him.

He saw now that he had arrived in front of the stockaded enclosure in
which the captives had been secured.  The guards had been surprised and
silently slain, even as those who custodied him in the hut must have
been, he decided.  And--the stockade was now empty.  All this he made
out in the darkness; but to what end had he himself been released--
released and armed?  He was soon to know.

The first faint suspicion of dawn was lying upon the darkened world.
Wagram made out that he was in the midst of quite a numerous band--a
formidable one, too.  These savages had not quite the stature and
physique of his former enemies, and were less brutal-looking.  They were
armed in similar manner--with large spears, axes, and great crooked
knives--and now by very graphic signs they proceeded to foreshow their
intentions.  This they did with surprising quickness and lucidity.

They were going to rush the town directly it was light enough, and put
every living being within it to the spear.  The white leader,
especially, was to be slain, and to that end this other white man had
been released and armed.  The chances would be equal thus, or bettered,
if anything; for they had the advantage slightly in numbers, in taking
their enemies by surprise, and also in having a white man fighting on
their side too.  All this was explained to Wagram in less time than it
has taken us to set it down, and then the whole force moved stealthily
forward to take up its prearranged position.

While waiting for the signal to begin, the comic element of the
situation came home to Wagram's mind, and that comic element struck him
suddenly as very comic indeed.  Here was he--a man of peace if ever
there was one--Wagram of Hilversea, a highly respectable country squire,
whose main object in life had been effectively to steward his family
possessions in such wise as to safeguard and ensure the happiness and
welfare of those dependent on him--a man who had never seen a shot fired
in anger nor, until he came here, a life taken--now to find himself with
the honours of generalship thrust upon him without a moment's warning--
called upon to lead a pack of utterly merciless savages, of whose very
numbers he had no actual idea, and not one word of whose speech he could
understand--to lead them in the surprise and indiscriminate butchery of
another pack of savages, if possible more bloodthirsty, and,
incidentally, a fellow-countryman.  Of a truth the complete
topsy-turveydom of the eternal fitness of things involved by the
arrangement struck him as positively Gilbertian.  But there was no
alternative, for, did he refuse, he knew that he himself would
constitute the first victim; and he was tired of the role of victim; he
had begun to realise that he had played it long enough.  So he did not
refuse; he asked, by signs, for more cartridges instead.

These, after some difficulty, were found him.  The revolver was a large
and thoroughly business-like weapon, but very rusty.  He hoped it was in
working order; and even then the worst of it was he had not had much
experience of revolvers, and would have greatly preferred a
double-barrelled shot gun.  Then he insisted, by signs, in being further
armed with one of their axes and a large knife.

He was under no hesitation as to his course.  He would fight, and fight
his uttermost, for the freedom which Heaven had restored to him, and,
incidentally, on behalf of those who, all unconsciously, had been
Heaven's instruments in such restoration.  His captivity, and the
revolting circumstances and sights almost daily attendant on it, had
changed him in some way--had certainly hardened him.  These people, for
whom and with whom he was to fight, had a cause, for as it grew lighter
he recognised among them several of the captives he had seen fastened up
within the stockade, while all were of the type of the man he himself
had freed from the slaughter-block at the imminent risk of his own life;
whereas, on the other hand, these cannibal murderers were a type of
humanity of which the earth might well be rid.  And the white man--his
fellow-countryman, his arch-tormentor--what of him?  Well, him, too, he
would kill without hesitation if they met in fight; for he was far worse
than the black fiends over whom he exercised ascendency.  If ever a
murderer deserved death it was this white renegade, who boasted that the
lives which he himself had seen him take were as nothing beside those
which he had taken, and that under every circumstance of more than
barbarian atrocity.  Yes; he would kill him in self-defence if they met.

At this tense, psychological moment this man of refinement and
philanthropic instincts found time to marvel at his own complete
reversion to first principles.  Here, surrounded by savages, he seemed
to have gone back to the savage too in the longing and eagerness for
battle which had come upon him.  How much more of the experience which
had been his of late would suffice to turn him into as complete a savage
as the renegade yonder?

Then of what followed his mind grasped but the smallest conception.  A
series of ear-splitting whistles, a roar and a rush, and he was within
the town, borne onward with the rest.  The attack was made absolutely
without method or order, and no pretence to generalship.  It was the
onslaught of a wild animal--a surprise and a spring.  He saw the black,
naked, spiky-headed forms surge from the huts, to be received upon the
broad spears of the assailants.  In this way quite half the inhabitants
were destroyed before they had time to realise that they had been
attacked.

So eager and engrossed were the said assailants with slaughter that they
seemed hardly to remember his presence.  The vibration of whoops and
yells was deafening, stunning, in the pearly dawn.  But the scenes of
butchery and bloodshed oppressed Wagram's senses no longer.  For now he
was in the thick of the fight, and every nerve was strained to take care
of himself.  What if his "followers" ruthlessly slaughtered every living
thing that showed?--here was he, with a cloud of spiky-headed fiends
driving at him with their broad-headed spears.  Down they went, three of
them, one after another, for in the heat of battle the coolness of
discernment had come upon him, and he was consistently holding his
weapon straight and aiming low.  Then he whirled round just in time to
down a large and nimble cannibal who was within an ace of transfixing
him between the shoulders with a broad spear.  But still they closed
up--and yet, and yet, could not quite.  There was a look on this man's
face now which reminded them of him up there, and before it--and his
pistol--they at heart quailed.

Still reserving his last fire, knowing he would have no time to reload,
he uttered a loud shout, and with axe uplifted he charged forward to cut
his way through the opposing horde.  It was death--to all appearance;
but here again the very hopelessness of it saved the situation, for the
moral effect of the terrific appearance of this man of peace forced into
action, his tall stature and irresistible Berserk rage, was too much.
They gave way before it, before him and the whirling weapon, but--in
giving way one more fell.

He had reached his allies now, not before some of them, taking him in
the heat of the turmoil for the white renegade, had narrowly missed
spearing him.  Upon the latter's quarters was the main attack now
directed.

It had been a singularly silent conflict, silent because, except for the
few shots he had discharged, the crash of firearms was absent.  Of
whooping and whistling, of the death shriek, and yelling appeals to the
slayers there had been plenty, and now the assailed in a mad rush had
fallen back upon the white man's quarters.  There, if anywhere, would
safety lie, reasoned the doomed wretches, quite two-thirds of whose
numbers had been slain.  Upon them, pressing them hard, came their
ruthless and avenging foes, encouraged, invigorated by the utter absence
of any sign of the terrible white man.  And they were now almost upon
his house.  Could it be that he was away?  Already they gloated in
imagination upon the rich spoils they would find there.  His slaves they
would massacre as some sort of revenge for his repeated and ruthless
raids upon them, when--what was this?

"Pop-pop-pop!  Pop-pop-pop!"

A rapid, knocking sound.  Half-a-dozen of their foremost went down.
Again that ugly knocking.  Down went more.  The terror-stricken
barbarians halted, dazed.  Glaring up at the stockade they could just
discern something flash as it moved to and fro, could see a little jet
of smoke with each knocking detonation; but what they could not see was
the terrible face behind the Maxim as its owner worked his deadly means
of defence, grinning in cold and devilish glee.  They could not see
this, but they could see their own numbers falling like grass before the
scythe with every deadly "pop-pop-pop" of this awful unseen power.
Their exultation had turned into blind panic now, and with yells of
dismay they broke and fled.

He within laughed.  Then, not leaving his weapon, he called to his own
followers to start in pursuit, and to bring in as many as they could
capture alive.

But before this order could be carried out dense volumes of smoke came
rolling across the open, together with the roar and crackle of flames.
By some means or other the town had been fired; and, indeed, therein lay
safety for the panic-stricken runaways.  But for the delay thus caused
not one would have escaped.

Their flight was now simply headlong, and for anybody but himself not
one of them had a thought.  As during the fight there had been no
system, nothing organised, so now there was no attempt at rally, nobody
to give any order.  Owing to the same lack of system Wagram had not been
able to make his way to the forefront of the attack, and well, indeed,
for him that he had not.  Now, seeing his "followers" whirl by in a
wild, headlong panic, he quickly decided that it was time to go too.  He
might stand some chance that way, but by remaining here he was doomed.
So, taking advantage of the rolling smoke clouds, he, though not without
difficulty, at length gained the adjoining forest in the direction taken
by his late allies.

But of them there was no sign.  He looked around eagerly, wildly almost,
but bootlessly.  There was no sound save that of the recent turmoil,
growing fainter and fainter behind as he continued his flight--no sign
of any human presence.  He was in an utterly unknown and trackless
wilderness--alone.

Alone, without food or water, and no knowledge how or where to procure
either, no knowledge, even, of what direction to take; in truth, the
fugitive was in pitiable case.

The one redeeming feature of the situation lay in the fact that he was
no longer unarmed.  He had a revolver and several cartridges, a large
knife and an axe, the bloodstains on which latter proved that he had
well known how to use it, and woe-betide whoever should attempt his
recapture.  He would sell his life, if necessary, and die fighting.

But in the silent gloom of the trees no sign of human enemy reached eye
or ear.  The real enemy was likely to prove hunger or thirst--and
against such weapons were powerless.  Instinct moved him to continue his
flight as far as possible from the scene of his recent trials; and
further, on no account to lose his head and wander wildly, as so many
have been known to do when the full sense of being lost, and the full
weight of the awful solitude, is borne in upon them.  When he could see
it he pitched his course by the sun, and travelled due west; too often,
however, he could not see it, for the tall tree tops met overhead, and
trailing masses of undergrowth shut out everything.

And, indeed, there was everything in the situation to render it
appalling, particularly to an imaginative man.  The silence and the
semi-gloom, the very tree trunks and boughs taking on weird and
fantastic shapes, the sense of being shut in, the sudden quiver of a
network of close foliage, as though some beast of prey or colossal
serpent were about to rush upon him from behind it.  At such times, too,
he would recall the devil-sacrifice he had witnessed within the fetish
enclosure, when the victim had been drawn by an irresistible fascination
to his doom, and would start back in horror, as though to avoid the
mysterious weapon flashing forth to transfix him.

Night would soon be here.  All the long day he had travelled on, and now
thirst had more than begun to assert itself--hunger had not troubled him
much.  He sank to the ground exhausted--only to spring up again.  The
ground was alive with black ants of a peculiarly vicious kind.  No rest
even there--and the incident reminded him as to his possible fate in the
event of succumbing to exhaustion.  He stood a good chance of being
devoured alive by clouds of venomous and voracious insects.

And yet, and yet--he could not stagger on for ever.

Suddenly an instinct of danger started him on the alert, causing him to
forget his exhaustion for a time.  Something--somebody--was following
him.

There was no doubt about it.  Turning quickly, a dark shadow glided,
then disappeared behind a tree trunk.

Facing this he thought, and thought hard.  He was certain that it was
the figure of a man--that probably meant danger.  On the other hand, the
native might prove friendly; and certain it was that unless he fell in
with somebody who could show him where to obtain the barest necessaries
of life, and that within the next few hours, his own doom was sealed.
Accordingly he called out, making vehement signs of peace by
ostentatiously laying down his weapons on the ground in front, though
holding himself in readiness to snatch them up again if necessary.  It
answered.  The unknown stepped from his place of concealment and
advanced with something like a grin on his face.  He began talking
volubly, then drew a hand across his throat, at the same time pointing
back over his shoulder; and Wagram stared, then stared again.  Yes; he
was certain now.  He had thought to recognise the other somewhat, and
now he was sure.  It was the man he had rescued from the block in the
cannibal slaughter-yard.



CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

ON THE GREAT DEEP.

A flaming sun and a flaming sky; an oily sea, rippled up ever and anon
by the skimming rush of a flight of flying-fish; a shark fin or two here
and there gliding above the surface.  In the far distance a low
foreshore with broad palms just distinguishable; and out here, alone on
the wide waters, a man in a canoe--fishing.

To be strictly accurate, however, he is not fishing now, though he came
out with that intent.  He has a line over the side, but seems to be
heading out to sea, as though purposing to cross the ocean itself.  The
line is of native make, likewise the hooks; the canoe ditto, and the
paddles.  The man is clothed almost entirely with lightly-woven native
attire, but otherwise there is nothing of the negro, or even negroid,
about the sunburnt face and the thick, dark beard.  He is a white man
technically, though long exposure to tropical heat in all its changes
has rendered him as swarthy as an Arab.  The expression of his face is
one of profound melancholy, as that of a man condemned to lifelong and
hopeless exile.  And such, in fact, he is, not through the justice or
malevolence of his fellow-man, but through sheer force of circumstances.
That distant palm-plumed foreshore is his home, and at the same time
his prison.  He cannot get away from it.

Now he sends the canoe over the water with each long sweep of his
powerful arm--hard and brown and sinewy--regardless of heat or toil, as
though the boundless freedom of the liquid plain inspired him with a new
life; to those who had made the canoe and its gear the said liquid plain
was merely a place where you could catch fish--but they were not
imaginative people.  Glancing back shoreward an eager then a startled
look comes into the man's face.  Between the shore and him, in the far,
far distance, are several black specks.  You or I could not have seen
them; but he can, and, with the sight, he puts the canoe straight out to
sea with renewed resolve, intending to remain there until dark; for he
knows those tiny distant specks to be other canoes--and that spells
foes.

The last time we saw this man was on the occasion of his meeting with
another man--a savage--in the lonely silence of the forest after the
battle and rout.  Then had followed weeks, during which he and the
savage had led the lives of hunted beasts, and their narrow escapes from
other and hostile bands were many and wonderful.  Added to such the
perils of the wilderness--of weeks threading the sluggish channels of
some great, mysterious river, the gloom and awesome silence of it only
broken by the weird blowing of gigantic hippopotami or the splash of
ugly crocodiles, the thick foliage reaching over the black, smooth
waterway rendering their path as though threading some never-ending
cavern--and all in a very cranky canoe, which the native had managed to
steal at the risk of both their lives from an unwary village.  At last
they had gained the coast.  For days before they had done so the river
seemed to branch off into innumerable deltas, forming islands.  Here
animal life was plentiful, but of human inhabitants, however barbarous,
was no sign.  It seemed an utterly wild, unexplored, untrodden region,
clean outside any of the known world.

It was a strange companionship that between these two, if only that
neither understood a word of the other's speech--and by no possibility
did either seem able to impart it.  Sometimes while they were resting
Wagram would endeavour to instruct his companion by making drawings on
the ground with a bit of stick, but hardly any of them were understood.
A tree or an animal or a man was recognised, but all attempt to
establish any sequence of ideas by dint of such pictorial instruction
proved hopeless.  But he himself soon became proficient in the sign
language, and the two would talk quite rapidly therein; only the
subject-matter must fall within the sphere of the latter's experience,
or he was hopelessly fogged.  He was absolutely lacking in imagination.

Often Wagram had found himself wondering as to the other's motive in
sticking to him thus closely.  It could hardly be all gratitude; and
every attempt to convey that his own restoration to civilisation would
result in considerable reward to the other seemed to fail, for on
reaching the coast the native had squatted down, as though quite content
to spend the rest of his life there.  Or, from his barbarous and heathen
point of view, the man might have come to regard him as a great
magician, and one whose magic was immeasurably greater than that of the
only other white man he had ever seen.  As to this, he would often
beguile the time by singing, a great deal of such being echoes of the
choir-loft at Hilversea, and the dusky barbarian would listen,
entranced, open-mouthed.  It was possible that a belief in his
supernatural powers had something to do with this fidelity.

Even as the companionship so had the experience been a strange one.  The
frequency and variety of peril had inspired in the man thus reft from
the peaceful ease of a stately English home, if not a contempt for it,
at any rate an indifference to danger.  In the matter of food he had
long since learned that a native could live in luxury for a month where
he would have starved in three days.  The whole experience had hardened
him into magnificent physical form; but as weeks grew into months, and
months multiplied, a great depression grew and deepened upon him.  He
would already have been given up for dead, when the loss of the _Baleka_
became known, especially on the report of her survivors.  Poor Gerard
would be in a terrible state of grief, and Haldane and Yvonne--it would
be a blow to them, and to others perhaps.  And at the thought of
Hilversea his depression would take the form of a great bitterness,
which it would tax all his robust faith to overcome.

Something of this depression is upon him now as he sends his little
craft skimming over the oily sea, a mere speck at this great distance
out.  Once before, he and his companion had been visited from outside,
but had been able to hide in the thickest recesses of their island home
in time--a glance at the ferocious-looking savages who constituted the
intruders having convinced them that they might as well fall again into
the hands of those from whom they had originally fled as into the power
of such as these.

Soon hardly the fringe of palms upon the coast he has left is visible
above the mirage-like horizon; the shore itself no longer is.  Yet to
him this matters nothing.  He is at home on this blue, mysterious sea.
Even the triangular shark fins gliding here and there make no appeal to
his imagination.  They are just so many incidents, and that is all, for
he is thoroughly accustomed to that sort of thing by this time.

And now the sun is drooping, and the cloudless sky takes on that molten,
sickly murk so frequently attendant on the sunset in tropical seas.
Night will be here directly, with a sudden rush; but that concerns him
in no wise, for he has a supply of water, well covered with wet matting,
within his canoe, also food of a kind--and he has learnt to do with very
little food of late.  There is no need to exert himself with further
paddling.

With a dewy rush the night falls, and alone beneath the misty stars,
alone on the great deep, its silence only broken by the splash and
hollow "sough" of some sea-monster, his thoughts wing themselves back to
the home which, in all likelihood, he will never see again, and with the
idea comes another as though in a flash.  This living death prolonged
for years--why not end it now?  Not in yielding up life--oh no--but only
in risking it.  Gravely risking it, true; but still, is not some risk,
even grave risk justifiable under the circumstances?  Why not keep on
his way, paddle straight out to sea, on the off chance of falling in
with a passing ship?  How far he would have to paddle he had no idea.
He had been thrown upon the coast in an unconscious state, but it could
not have been very distant if his captors had pulled him off the hulk in
their canoes--and the hulk had been in the path of shipping.  But was it
the same part of the coast as that from which he had now put forth, or
was it, perhaps, some hundreds of miles farther off, and, in the trend
of the coast-line, standing out much farther into the ocean?  Anyhow, he
made up his mind to chance it.  His canoe was a mere cockleshell, out
here in the ocean waste; but, then, the seas were placid, and, beyond a
ripple, only too smooth.

What of his companion, apparently deserted?  Even though a savage, would
not that companion feel his loss?  No.  The utter lack of imagination of
the savage would not allow room for sentimental qualms; while, as for
the loss of the canoe, that could be remedied in half a day.  So, his
resolution fixed, he started forth--truly in the very sublimity of
desperation--for, should he fail, death was the alternative, grim death
from hunger and thirst amid the awful solitude of the boundless sea.

Hour followed upon hour, and still in the darkness this man urges his
craft forward in search of his one chance of life, well knowing that
against that one chance there are a hundred--nay, a thousand.  Still, he
takes it.

He feels neither hunger nor thirst.  The heavy moisture of the night
dews are effective against the latter; while, as for the first, the hard
training he has been through has got him into the way of doing with very
little.  As hour after hour goes by he begins to strain his eyes over
the pathless deep for a distant light, his ears for the throb of an
approaching propeller.  Then drowsiness overtakes him and he falls
asleep, and the canoe drifts at the mercy of the currents--drifts
farther and farther away from land.

Now he dreams, and his dreaming is strange.  He is at Hilversea once
more, at dear old Hilversea, amid the waving of summer woods and rustle
of ripening corn, and all the glad sights and sounds of the fairest of
English landscapes, and all is as it has been.  Yes; all as it has been.
This fearful experience is as a thing of the past--a nightmare out of
which he has awakened; and yet--and yet--there is still a want--a
strange, uneasy, restless want of something, or somebody, which is not
altogether sad, or, if sad, is leavened by a confused sweetness.  The
dream fades into more confusion, then blank.  Then the dreamer awakes,
and--Great Heaven!

Half of the great lurid orb of day has lifted itself above the horizon,
gleaming along the smooth folds of the waste of waters, and on these he
is no longer alone.  About a quarter of a mile distant lies a ship.

A ship?  A wreck.  Two jagged stumps of masts rise from the submerged
hull, over whose main bulwarks the water is lazily washing, leaving the
poop and the forecastle but a few feet above the surface.  He has seen
it before--not once, but twice.  Great Heaven! it is the Red Derelict--
the Red Derelict again.

He stares, then rubs his eyes, then stares again.  Is he still dreaming?
No; there the thing lies, this ghost of a vessel, just as it had lain
when it had afforded him timely refuge from imminent peril.  A
mysterious inner prompting moves him once more to board the hulk--acting
upon which not long does it take him to shoot his canoe alongside, and,
making her fast with the stout woven grass rope which does duty for a
painter, he climbs on to the dry, glistening deck of the poop.

His glance takes in the long length of the ship.  Swift, keen as that of
the wild creatures of earth and air is that glance now, and it falls
upon an object lying under water on the submerged main deck--the
skeleton of a pistol.  In a moment it is in his hand.  A further glance
shows it to be the same rusted weapon he had held in his hand before.
The nameplate, bearing the letters E.W., is still lying near at hand.
The letters seem to stand out at him.

Thoughts many and various come crowding into his mind as he stares at
the thing.  All his experiences of blood and horror, since last he stood
upon this deserted deck arise.  The savage demoniac of his own race and
colour, in whose power he had been, who was he?  More than ever some
strange instinct convinces him that the man is the murderer of his
brother.  This hulk seems to have drifted about these seas within a very
circumscribed compass for years.  What if it had been the scene of a
bloody fight, a mutiny perhaps, wherein Everard had been slain, and the
white savage, with others, had escaped to the mainland?  And with the
thought comes another.  What if the body of his brother is lying below--
shut up, with the bodies of others, here in its floating tomb, beneath
his feet?  Strange, indeed, if his quest should end here.

Three times he has sighted this sad derelict, twice stood on board her.
Has this been ordered with a purpose?  Yet--why not?  And with the
thought he flings off his upper garment of woven grass.  He is going to
explore the interior of the ship--so far as he is able.

On the former occasion of his standing here he would have shrank from
such an attempt, not only on account of the possible horrors that he
might find, but because doubting his power to carry out so hazardous a
venture.  Now it is different.  Good swimmer as he was before, now he is
as thoroughly at home in the water as the barbarous inhabitants of
yonder coast--that is to say, as thoroughly at home as in his natural
element.  He gazes down into the gaping pit of the companion-way, then,
drawing a long breath, dives down into the blackness within.

At first he can see little enough as he gropes his way around, then by
the sickly green light through the glass ports, and also that coming
down the companion-way, he is able to make out the interior of the
cuddy.  A few small fish, imprisoned, dart hither and thither, but of
human bodies there is no sign.  Then, unable to hold his breath any
longer, he shoots up once more into outer air.

Shading his eyes, so that the glare may not impede his vision for his
next descent, he sits for a few minutes taking in the air, then, feeling
rested, dives down once more into the heart of the waterlogged ship.

Now he can see better, can distinguish some sodden litter lying about,
but still no human bodies.  Then, just as he is about to give up all
further exploration, his hand encounters something hard.

It is lying in one of the bunks--a small box or case of some sort.
Grasping it firmly he makes for the companion-way again and rises to the
surface, and on arriving there the fit of gasping, and a desire to
vomit, shows that he has been under water long enough.  His find is a
flat, oblong, tin case of about eight inches by four, and it is
hermetically sealed.

He examines it with vivid curiosity--the outside, that is--for he
quickly decides that this is no time for investigating its contents.
But it is time for a little frugal refreshment; wherefore, hauling in
his canoe by the painter, he proceeds to hand up the requisites for a
sparing meal.  While he does so a great shark rises from beneath the
hulk--it might have been the identical one that had so nearly gripped
him before--but it inspires in him no particular horror now; in fact,
scarcely any attention.  A mere shark is a mere nothing to the dwellers
on those coasts.

Having taken off the edge of his appetite he leans back against the
ragged stump of the mainmast, and for the first time for long,
experiences a craving for tobacco.  Perhaps the yearning is brought
about by feeling the deck of a ship under him, for he has long since
learnt to do without it.  Looking idly at the tin case the thought comes
over him that it may contain some clue with regard to his brother or to
his brother's fate, and acting upon the idea he stows it away carefully,
together with the skeleton of the pistol, within the skin pouch which is
slung round his neck by way of a pocket.  Then a drowsiness comes over
him, and he falls asleep.

The sun flames hot above him, but this causes him no inconvenience now.
He slumbers on, and a light breeze rises, rippling the oily surface of
the sea--blowing off shore.  It winnows in a grateful coolness about
him, lulling into deeper slumber, and--the derelict drifts on.

The red rim of the sun touches the sea, seeming to meet the molten water
as with a hiss, for the slight breeze has died down with evening, and
the last light floods redly over the ghastly hulk with its single human
occupant--this man with the attire and colour of a savage and the
straight refined features of a European.  The sudden, twilightless
tropical night falls, falls blackly, and the sleeper sleeps on.

Crash!  Whirr!  Splash!  The hulk starts, shivers from stem to stern,
and a great wave comes roaring over her, sweeping the poop by several
feet.  Half stunned by the concussion the sleeper starts up, to be
knocked half senseless by violent contact with the stump of the
mainmast; yet even then instinct moves him to grip hold of something
firm and hang on for all he knows, and well for him that it is so, or he
would have been whirled into the sea in a moment by the volume of water
sweeping over him.  An immense blaze of lights flashes before his dazed
gaze, together with a very babel of voices and a wild roaring and a rush
of white foam--then another wave rolls over him.  Half stunned, half
choked, he strives to lift up his voice, but it refuses its office.  At
last he succeeds in effecting a hoarse attempt at a shout.

But the receding lights away there in the black gloom are receding
farther and farther, the receding babel of voices too, and amid these
and the roar of steam how shall his hoarse-throated, feeble shout find
its way across the intervening waste?  It cannot.  Instinctively he
springs for his canoe, with a wild idea of overtaking his one chance of
rescue by sheer strength of arm.  But of it there is no sign--except the
frayed end of the painter rope by which it had been made fast.  Swamped,
crushed by the weight of water which had swirled over the hulk, it has
gone to the bottom, and with it his slender stock of provisions.  And
the tiers of lights are now far distant, and he is left here, as one
before him was left--alone on this ghastly hulk--left to die, with his
one chance of rescue gliding away in demoniacal mockery upon the black
midnight sea.



CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

THE ECHO OF A PROPHECY.

"Let me pass.  Quick!  I want to see the captain."

"But you can't go on the bridge, miss; it's against orders."  And the
stalwart quartermaster barred with his substantial form the steps
leading up to the bridge.

"But I must see the captain, and I will.  Do you hear?  Let me pass,"
with a quick stamp of the foot.

Seen by the electric lights the speaker was a well-formed, beautiful
girl, her face pale, and her eyes glowing with excitement and purpose.
Behind her, a little in the background, buzzed a throng of excited
passengers.

"Very sorry, miss, but it can't be done," reaffirmed the quartermaster,
not without misgivings, for the speaker was a favourite on board, and
not a little so with the captain himself, a grizzled and, withal, crusty
salt, of whom those under him stood considerably in awe.  "If there were
any message now, miss, I might make so bold as to take it," he added
conciliatorily.

"Message?  Message?  No; I must tell him myself," came the quick
rejoinder, accompanied by another stamp of the foot.  "Let me up!  Man,
man, a life--lives--depend on it--at any rate one."

The seaman gave way, resigning himself to a "logging," and, perchance,
other pains and penalties.  In a moment the girl had gained the bridge.
The captain and two of the officers turned in anger, which subsided on
the part of the latter as they saw the identity of the intruder.  The
first still looked grim.

"Well, young lady?" he began in a voice that would have sent most of the
other passengers down double quick with a stuttered apology, but with
this one it went for nothing.

"Captain, that ship we just ran into--there was someone on board."

The captain looked grimmer still.  "Just ran into" had a
characteristically ugly sound in his ears.

"Humph!" he snorted.  "Just ran into!  Just ran into!  That infernal old
blasted derelict hulk, whose owners ought to be--" And then he
remembered the sex and identity of the speaker, and with a gulp went on.
"Now, how the--how the--well, how d'you make out there's anyone on
board her?" he rapped out in a sort of subdued hurricane blast of a
voice.

"Because I saw.  I saw a man lying on her deck as plainly as I see you
and Mr Gibson now.  Do turn back and see--quick--or you may never find
her again in the dark.  I saw him, mind you--I swear to God I saw him--
by the deck lights as we crashed past.  You can't leave him alone to
die.  You can't!"

"Saw him?  Saw a mare's nest," grumbled the captain.  "Let me tell you,
young lady, it's not my business to start overhauling derelict hulks at
midnight--brutes that might have sent us to the bottom.  Fortunately, we
only scraped this one.  Well, well," he appended sourly, "we're ahead of
our time, so we might as well make sure of this.  Put her round,
Gibson."

"Ah!  I thought sailors were always ready to help each other," said the
girl triumphantly.

An order was given, and, in the result, the _Runic_ changed her course,
and was bearing round, going dead slow, so as to head for the late
dangerous obstruction.  The excitement was intense among the passengers,
who thronged the bulwarks at every coign of vantage, eagerly scanning
the dark, silent sea.  Suddenly the engines stopped, and a boat was
lowered.

"Where is she?  Can you see her?" were among the buzzed, eager comments
as the boat's lantern receded into the gloom.  Soon came a hail and the
sound of gruff voices over the water.  The light of the lantern grew
larger and larger.  The boat was returning.

Heavens! what was this?  With the boat's crew there stepped aboard a
tall, bearded man burned almost to the copper hue of a savage and
wearing what looked like the attire of one.  Thus he appeared in the
electric lights to the eyes of the excited throng.

"Who are you, my man, and what's your ship?" began the captain
brusquely.

"Thank God, I'm going home at last!" exclaimed the stranger, gazing
around in a weary and dazed sort of way.

"Yes--yes; but--who are you?" repeated the captain more crisply.

"Why--it's Mr Wagram!"

The interruption or answer proceeded from the girl who had been the
cause of the search.  The castaway turned, looking more puzzled than
ever.

"Yes; that's my name," he answered.  "But--I ought to know that voice,
and yet--and yet--"

"Of course you ought," and, casting all conventionality to the winds,
the girl sprang forward, seizing one of his hands in both of hers.  "Oh,
how thankful I am that we have been the means of saving you!  What must
you have been through!  Welcome--a thousand times welcome!"

"Miss Calmour, surely?  Why, of course it is.  How glad I am to see you
again."  And in the face of this sun-tanned and unkempt-looking savage
here under the ship's lights Delia could detect the same look as that
which had glanced down upon her in the park at Hilversea that glowing
summer afternoon after the life-and-death struggle with the escaped
beast.  "I was a passenger on the _Baleka_, captain," he went on to
explain.

"Passenger on the _Baleka_ were you?  Then, my good sir, it's lucky
we're homeward bound, because your people will be just about beginning
to go to law over your leavings," returned the captain, who was of a
cynical bent.  "The only passenger missing from her was given up as
lost.  But--you haven't been aboard that old hooker ever since, I take
it?"

"No; indeed.  I've had some strange experiences--can hardly believe I'm
not dreaming now.  What ship's this?"

"The _Runic_.  White Torpedo line, bound for London from Australian
ports."

"And what of the _Baleka's_ people?  Were they found?"

"Yes; all picked up, some here, some there."

"Captain," interrupted that same clear, sweet, fluty voice, "I'm
surprised at you.  Here's a shipwrecked mariner been thrown on board,
and instead of doing all you can for him you keep him standing here all
night answering questions."

"By Jove! you're right, Miss Calmour," was the bluff reply.  "Gibson,"
turning to the chief, "take the gentleman to the saloon, and tell the
stewards to get him all he wants."

"I don't want much at present, thanks," answered Wagram.  "A barber, and
some clothes are my most urgent needs; but I suppose we can compass
something in that line to-morrow."

"Why, of course," said Delia; "but don't throw away that picturesque
costume.  Come along below, now.  I'm going to take care of you this
evening."

And she did--laying her commands upon the stewards for this and for that
as if the whole ship belonged to her.  Then she sat and talked to him as
he ate some supper, forestalling every possible want, pressing this and
that upon him, and yet without ostentatious fuss.  And the castaway, who
for months had beheld no woman's face save those of brutal, debased
blacks, wondered uneasily whether he were dreaming, as this beautiful
girl sat there attending to his wants with an almost loving assiduity.
Yes; he decided, she certainly was beautiful.  Time, change, the
conditions of a new life, had put the last touches to the sufficiency of
her attractiveness as he remembered her.

"By Jove!" exclaimed the chief officer, who had dropped in to hear some
of the castaway's story, "you've had some pretty rough ups and downs,
and no mistake; and you might as well have tumbled into the boats with
the rest after all, for the kid was all right and not left below at
all."

"Is that a fact?" said Wagram eagerly.

"Rather.  You were throwing away your life going below at such a time in
any case, and in this instance it was all for nothing."

Delia had been wishing the chief officer anywhere.  She wanted Wagram to
herself, and here Gibson sat prosing his tiresome old sea yarns.  Now,
however, she brisked up, and insisted upon hearing the whole story.  She
had been quite out of the way of newspapers of late, and had not even
heard of the loss of the _Baleka_, or that the man sitting here before
her had been given up as lost, a victim to his own heroic act.

"By George!  I must go," said the chief.  "Mind you ask for anything you
want, Mr Wagram, for I conclude you've come aboard in a state of
temporary and complete destitution."

"That's just my case," laughed Wagram.  "Funny, isn't it?" turning to
the girl in time to catch the look in her eyes called there by the story
she had just heard.  "And now tell me about yourself, and how they all
are in Bassingham."

"We've left Bassingham, you know, Mr Wagram.  My father died soon after
you went, and we couldn't stop on at Siege House.  So we went up to
London, and--well, things were not easy."

"I didn't know; I have had no news from Hilversea for a long, long
time--have been so on the move, you know."

"How you must long to get back.  Dear old, beautiful Hilversea!"

The bright spirits and former lightheartedness seemed to have left her.
Her voice was sad.  The other made a mental note of it, and deduced that
they had fallen upon hard times.  Well, that he would certainly do his
best to remedy by some means or other.  Then she told him about herself;
how her other sister--not Clytie--had married in Australia, married very
fairly well, too, and had got her out there on a visit.  But they had
not got on--she did not tell him that the other had conceived a jealousy
of her from the very first--and so she was returning to England.

They talked on until even the other passengers, who, by twos and threes,
had been passing through the saloon in quite unusual numbers to catch
another glimpse of the castaway, had disappeared, and the stewards were
rolling up the carpets.

"Good-night, Mr Wagram," said the girl as they parted.  "I can't tell
you how glad I am to see you again, and what a happiness it is to think
that the ship I was on board of was the one to rescue you.  To-morrow
you must tell me your adventures in full.  You will--won't you?"

He promised, with some reservations, and they parted.  But Delia found
that sleep utterly refused to come her way--and she wanted to sleep,
wanted to look her best in the morning.  Her cabin mate, an elderly
lady, was fast asleep, but she herself seemed doomed to night-long
wakefulness.  The scuttle was open and she lay with her face to it,
watching the dark sky with its twinkle of misty stars, half lulled by
the rush and "sough" of smooth water from the sides of the liner.  What
wonderful workings of Fate had thrown this man here?  And he would not
have been here but for her.  But for her persistence he would have been
miles and miles behind, left to perish miserably on the lonely deep.
The other passengers had treated her statement with good-humoured
ridicule; the captain himself would hardly be persuaded to put back--and
what if he had not?  But he had--and it had been entirely due to her
that he had.  She had saved Wagram's life--as surely as any life ever
had been saved--she and she alone.

The sweetness of the thought began to soothe her, and sleep seemed to be
coming at last.  Then, through it, something--perhaps the sight of the
smooth sea through which the great liner was rushing on even keel--
brought back to her mind certain words uttered on a woodland road in the
dusk of a winter afternoon; weird words about green seas, smooth and
oily, and a battered ship, and terrors--and, perhaps, death, but, if not
death, then great happiness.  The croakings of the old gipsy came back
now--and, good heavens! what coincidence was this?  Here were all the
conditions--the smooth seas and the battered hulk--the terror gone
through--terrors of every kind, up to that of being left on the
derelict--the agony of seeing this ark of safety recede from reach of
call.  "Perhaps death?"  He had been snatched from death at that moment,
snatched from it by her, as surely as though by her own hand.  "But, if
not death, then great happiness."  In the hot, thick stillness of the
night Delia's brain was busy.  The prediction had been directed to
herself, not to him.  And then it seemed to merge into a joint
prediction, but--great happiness?  Well, was it not?  She had rescued
him from death--she alone.  Was not that a great happiness?  Further, it
would be nearly a fortnight ere they reached England, and during that
time she would see him daily, talk with him, under conditions of which a
week was equivalent to a year under the old state of things.  Would not
that be "great happiness?"

And then she remembered not only the prediction, but the scorn and
contempt with which he had treated both it and its utterer, extending
just an overflow ripple of it to her.  And with a smile at the
recollection she fell into a quiet sleep.  Nearly a whole fortnight of
happiness--great happiness--lay before her.

In the event so it proved.  From the next morning, when they met--he
clothed and barbered, and looking exactly as she remembered him in the
dear old days of yore--"clothed, and in his right mind" as he smilingly
told her in his old, dry, humorous way--pacing the deck in the cool
hours, or seated in some snug, shady corner in roomy deck-chairs,
talking about home--they two were nearly always together; and the
home-sick wanderer felt at home already, and the girl forgot for the
time her own dreary prospects, with the struggle for life all opening
out before her, to be begun and gone through again.  He would go back to
luxury and his high estate, while she--?  Yet even this she forgot in
those sweet, dreamy, sunny days which would soon--only too soon--be
over.

There were others on board, though, to whom this change was not so
welcome, and who--for human nature is human after all--fervently wished
this picked-up castaway--well--back again on the hulk from which he had
been picked up.  For Delia Calmour, with her beauty and tact and
sunniness of disposition, had reigned a queen among the male section of
the passengers, and the long voyage, now nearing its close, had been
long enough to render more than one heart rather sore.

"I must not monopolise you all day, and every day, like this, child,"
Wagram had said to her.  "You are good-nature itself towards a tiresome
old bore with but one idea in his head.  You must go and make things
lively for the others a bit sometimes or I shall feel like an
interloper."

"Am I tiring you, then?" she would answer softly.

"Now, you know that is absurd.  Still, I must not be selfish."

"You--selfish?  What next?"

"I'm afraid I am--very.  Now, they are getting up that last fancy-dress
dance before we get into what may possibly be rough water.  Go and help
them in that as you would have done before.  I want to see you enjoying
yourself.  I am afraid I am too much of a fogey to cut into that sort of
thing actively myself."

She did not answer that "that sort of thing" was an inane and vapid
method of enjoying herself, compared with half-an-hour of ordinary
conversation with him.  She complied--and submissively.  Incidentally,
she found that the "enjoyment" involved a heated passage-of-arms with
the third officer; item, subsequently with a fine young Australian whom
she had refused twice during the voyage; but these were trifles light as
air under the circumstances.

Then the days grew fewer and fewer, and the grey waters of the Bay of
Biscay gave way to the greyer waters of the English Channel.  The
_Runic_ would soon be securely docked in her berth.



CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

TIME'S CHANCE.

Wagram was seated in his private study at Hilversea, thinking.

It was a lovely spring morning, and through the open window came a very
gurgle of bird voices from shrubbery and garden.  The young green was
rapidly shouldering out the winter brown of the woods, especially where
the sprouting tassels of the larch coverts seem to grow beneath one's
very gaze.

Ah, how good it was to be back home again after his wandering and exile
and anguish of mind--to be back here in his idolised home, in peace till
the end of his days--and surely it would be so.  He had done his
uttermost to find his half-brother, and had failed--had failed,
possibly, because Everard was no longer in the land of the living--
murdered by that savage miscreant the renegade, so many of whose
atrocities he himself had witnessed.  And yet, if Develin Hunt's account
of Everard were correct, it was possible that he might have been slain
by the other acting in self-defence.

What a unique experience had this last one been.  He had no idea as to
the identity of the wild tribes among whom he had moved, and the very
haziest as to the part of the coast on which he had landed.  As to the
latter point, the opinions of the captain and officers of the _Runic_
had differed considerably; indeed, he was not quite sure whether they
entirely believed his story in every particular--not implying that he
had deliberately invented it, but that parts of it might be due to
hallucination begotten of anxiety and privation.

"That you should come to board that derelict twice, with an interval of
months between, and each time by a sheer accident, is one of the tallest
sea experiences within my knowledge, Mr Wagram," had said Gibson, the
chief officer of the _Runic_, one day when he was disclosing parts of
his story.  And he had laughed good-humouredly, and agreed that it
really must be.

As a matter of fact, he had been very reticent over his experiences;
partly that they would sound rather too wonderful, and partly that the
recollection of them was distressing to himself and he would fain help
them to fade.

Well, if Everard were no longer alive he himself was just where he had
been.  But was he?  There were others with a claim.  No; there were not.
On this point he had seriously made up his mind.  The very distant
branch of the family--so distant, indeed, that it was doubtful whether
it could establish a claim at all--he was not even acquainted with, but
it was very wealthy.  He remembered his father's solemn declaration:
"Morally, and in the sight of God, your position is just what it would
have been but for this accident."  And his father had been right.
Whatever doubt as to this may have crossed his mind at the time the
words were uttered it held none whatever now.  He had been brought back
to that position, so to say, in spite of himself, had been restored to
it by a chain of occurrences well-nigh miraculous, so much so, indeed,
that others could scarcely credit them.  Surely the finger of Heaven had
been directing them.

There was just one thorn beneath the rose leaves, and it spelt Develin
Hunt.  What if that worthy should, on hearing of his return, conclude to
try for a little more blackmail?  In that event he had made up his mind
to defy him.  He was in possession--and such "possession" as that meant
was practically unassailable legally; and it was only with the legal
side of the situation he felt now concerned.  But nothing had been heard
of the adventurer since he had received the last instalment of his
price.  He seemed to have disappeared as suddenly as he had arisen.

Decidedly Wagram's train of thought was strange that morning.
Everything had been restored to him--everything as it had been; and
yet--and yet--something was wanting.  A feeling as of loneliness was
upon him--upon him, the envied of all his acquaintance.  He missed his
father now that he reigned alone--missed him every minute of the day.
The dear old man's chair at table, in which he himself now sat--he
missed him even while he was sitting there; his constant flow of
sparkling reminiscence, his pungent wit, his good-natured cynicism and
his affection for himself; and yet--and yet--he missed something else.
What was it?  The musical flow of a sweet young voice, the bright
presence and ready and tactful sympathy of one who had been his
companion for a short--in point of time, but in actual fact
concentrated--fellowship.  He went over again his first meeting with
Delia Calmour and his father's unhesitating dictum upon the house of
Calmour in general.  "A Calmour at Hilversea!  Pho!"  And now it seemed
to him that the one thing lacking to render his cup of contentment full
was the presence of one Calmour at Hilversea, and that one Delia.
Incidentally, it struck him that for present purposes it was a good
thing that old Calmour had been removed to another, and, he hoped, a
better world; but only incidentally, for, having come to the conclusion
he had, the mere removal of old Calmour and Siege House to a remoter
part of the realm than Bassingham, and that under far greater conditions
of comfort than that old toper could ever have pictured in his wildest
dreams, would have been the merest matter of detail.  However, old
Calmour was no longer there, which simplified matters.

Then the cynical element came uppermost.  His experience of the
matrimonial bond had been lamentable; why, then, should he be
ill-advised enough to make a second experiment of it?  And yet--and
yet--he had had ample opportunities of watching this girl, and she had
seemed to shine out as pure gold from the alloy of her surroundings and
bringing up.  He was no fool, and had a large experience of the seamy
side of life, which was sufficient to safeguard him from illusions.  She
was in poor circumstances, and life to her must be one of struggle.
Such a bait as his position and wealth would be under the circumstances
irresistible, but it was not under these circumstances that he wanted
her.  He was considerably her senior in years, and it was probable that
in her young mind he ranked as a serious and elderly bore, whom she
might have reason to hold in some regard, perhaps; but still--Against
that, again, he remembered how that bright, beautiful face used to light
up on such occasions as their first meeting of a morning, while on board
ship, and on others.  No; there was a spontaneity and genuineness about
that expression that was due to no sordid motive.

Since his return he had been overwhelmed with calls and congratulations;
indeed, part of his aim in life seemed to have become the dodging of
such whenever practicable.  Invitations, too, had not been lacking, with
very propitious "beauty's eyes" in the background, but for such he had
no inclination.  This girl whose acquaintance he had made in so strange
and semi-tragical a manner, whose character he had watched develop ever
since, seemed to have become bound up with his life, and now the last
phase in the acquaintance was that she--and she alone--had been the
actual instrument in the saving of his life.  For herself, she had come
out splendidly through all her disadvantages.  Yes; her presence here
was the one thing he needed--and he needed it greatly.

He remembered the arrival of the _Runic_.  Clytie had been there to meet
her sister, and the frank, cheerful greeting which she had extended to
him had impressed him very favourably.  He had been to see them since,
and the favourable impression had deepened.  There was no pretence about
them in their new home.  They had got to work, and work pretty hard too,
and they were doing it with a brave hopefulness that was beyond all
praise.  And he had extracted a promise from them that if ever they
found themselves in need of a friend--no matter what manner of
difficulty might overtake them--they were to apply to him
unhesitatingly, which was all he was able to do for them for the
present.

Then his train of thought took another turn.  The tin case he had found
in the cuddy of the derelict he had never yet investigated--had not even
opened it.  He had been very busy since his return, and had put it aside
till arrears of business should have been disposed of.  He had resisted
an inclination to open it on board the _Runic_, moved by the
consciousness that there is no real privacy on board ship, and this, he
felt instinctively, was a matter needing undisturbed and uninterrupted
attention.  Now he thought the time had come when he might very well do
so.

He unlocked a safe and got out the tin case.  It was all corroded with
its long submersion in salt water but quite intact.  It brought back to
him that gruesome dive into the heart of the spectral derelict; and for
a few minutes he sat there, going over in his mind that time alone on
the oily waters of the glistening deep, and that awful moment in the
darkness when the receding lights had betokened that he was left to his
fate--the hand of rescue stretched forth only to be withdrawn.  He shook
the recollection off, as that of a nightmare from which one awakes,
then, procuring the requisite tools, set to work to open the case.

It was full of papers--close packed, full to bursting.  Some two or
three were of parchment-looking substance, others of thin rice paper.
The latter were stitched together with a kind of thin thread of animal
fibre.  This detail he took in at once, the result of his recent and
complete savage training.  He spread them out upon the capacious
writing-table in front of him, and then--

Great Heaven! what was this?  "Develin Hunt!"  There was the name, not
at the end of a document, but in the middle of it.  He stared again, and
could hardly believe his eyes.  Develin Hunt!  He had expected to find
some clue as to his lost brother's fate, which was his reason for not
having handed over the box to the captain of the _Runic_ as containing a
possible clue to the identity of the Red Derelict, but instead the first
name to meet his eye was that of Develin Hunt!

He pulled himself together, and, with mind cool and business-like, set
himself to examine the documents, beginning with this one.  And it was
the most important of all, for it was nothing more nor less than a
marriage certificate.

He gazed at it for a moment, then got up again and went to the safe.
From this he extracted a document, and spread it side by side with the
first one.  It was a copy of another marriage certificate, that which
Develin Hunt had produced for the enlightenment of his father and
himself, but--the one he had just extracted from the tin box bore date
four years earlier.

What then?  The man might have been a widower at the time.  So far he
himself was--well, just where he was--where he had been.

He had forgotten for the moment all about Everard and his fate.  Eagerly
he turned over the other papers.  They seemed to have no bearing on the
subject until he got to the thin ones, which, in effect, were a sort of
diary, stitched together, as we have said.  And before he had gone far
through this he realised that the discovery of this other marriage
certificate was of very first-rate importance indeed, for it set forth
unmistakably that the other party referred to was alive at the time of
his mother's marriage with his father--alive, in fact, long subsequently
thereto, if not alive at the present day.  It was further obvious that
any information to be sought for on the subject must be sought in South
Africa.  Could this be established it followed that Develin Hunt's
marriage with his mother was invalid and that of his father was valid.

South Africa!  Haldane might help him here; he had spent years of his
life in those parts.  And yet, he remembered, to Haldane's mind Develin
Hunt's name had conveyed no idea other than as subject-matter for a
joke, even as it had done to his own.  Well, this need mean nothing,
unless it were that, like many adventurers, this man had not always gone
under his own name.

Again and again he read through the paper, and with each perusal the
piecing together of the puzzle became easier.  And as it did so came
another thought.  Would it not be far easier and quicker to get into
communication with the adventurer himself, and, at the possible price of
some further blackmail, obtain from him at first hand the solution of
the whole difficulty?  It was wrong and immoral, no doubt, to compound
so grave and dangerous an offence as blackmailing, but the awful anguish
of mind he had gone through seemed to justify anything--anything in the
abstract, such as this was, and not hurtful to any individual--to ensure
relief.  Even so, a weight seemed to have been lifted from him--the
whole weight, in fact--and, with the consciousness, other words spoken
by the old Squire came back to him: "There is no telling what Time may
work, so give Time his chance."  Prophetic they sounded now, words of
gold-mouthed wisdom.  He had given Time his chance, and Time had worked
accordingly; and lo, from the bowels of this spectral relic of a ship
floating for years on the slimy surface of the tropical seas, Time had
yielded up this its secret.

And then he was brought back to everyday realities by two sounds--the
ringing of the luncheon bell and the voice of his son outside.



CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

TIME'S CONSUMMATION.

"Well, Gerard, old chap?  Been keeping your nose hard to the
grindstone?" said Wagram as they sat down at table.

"Rather.  Old Churton takes care of that," laughed the tall, handsome
lad.  "He must have been a terror at Rugby."

Wagram had taken his son from school for a quarter on his return.  He
yearned to have the boy with him after his long separation, and his
restoration to life, as it were; but he sent him to read every morning
with a neighbouring Anglican rector, an ex-public school master.

"Glad to hear it.  Churton's a conscientious man and an energetic one.
It must be almost the renewal of his youth to start as bear leader
again."

"Don't know about `leader'--`driver' would be nearer the right word,
pater.  I say, what are you doing this afternoon?"

"Going over to Haldane's.  Want to come?"

"Rather.  Bike, I suppose?"

Wagram nodded.  "In an hour after lunch, then," he said.

Gerard found his father somewhat absent as they spun along between the
newly-sprouting hedges in the spring sunlight, and wondered.  The fact
was that Wagram had made up his mind to take Haldane into confidence, at
any rate partially, and was thinking over how much he should tell him as
yet.  To this end he had brought with him the tin case.

"Hallo, Gerard," he cried, waking from his abstraction as they neared
their objective.  "By George!  I'm a dullish companion for a young 'un
on a bike ride--eh, old chap?"

"That's all right, pater.  Look.  There's Yvonne under the elm; and,
great Scott! what the mischief has she been doing to herself?  Oh, I
say!"

The girl had started forward to meet them, and lo! her mantle of
rippling gold no longer draped her shoulders: it formed a shining crown
instead.

"You needn't stare like that, Gerard," she began.  "It's beastly rude,
you know.  Never saw anyone with their hair up before?" this with
dignity.  "No; but, Mr Wagram, isn't it detestable?  Will have to do the
grown-up now, I suppose."

"We must all grow up one day, Sunbeam," was the answer.  "Even I am not
exempt from the process; and as for Gerard here, why he's gone through
it long ago."

"That you, Wagram?"  And Haldane came forward with a newspaper in one
hand and a half-smoked pipe in the other.  "Come along and find a cool
seat, and I should think something else cool would go down after your
spin--something long and sparkling and with a musical tinkle of ice in
it, for choice.  Oh, the child," following their glances.  "Yes.  She's
just been trying an experiment.  I tell her she's canonised now with
this bright and shining halo round her head.  Think it improves her?"

"I don't know that it does," struck in Gerard frankly.  "Ah-ah!  I see.
She's hoisted it all up so that Reggie and I can't tweak it any more."

"Quite likely," retorted Yvonne.  "If you did now it'd be a case of
`great cry and little wool,' as Henry the Eighth said when he got hold
of the wrong pig by the ear."

"When he did what?" said Wagram, mystified.  "History does not spare the
memory of that bloody-minded monarch, Sunbeam, but it is absolutely
silent on the deed you have just named--at least so far as my reading of
it goes."

Gerard threw back his head and roared.  Haldane was absolutely
speechless.

"Well, what is it, then?  What ought I to have said?  Gerard, d'you
hear?  I don't believe you know yourself."

"Oh, Lord!  I shall die in a moment.  `As Henry the Eighth said'!" he
gasped.  "What you were feeling after is `as the devil said when he
tried to shear the pig.'"

"Of course!  Oh, what an ass I am!" cried the girl, going off into a
rippling peal.

"However, the confusion of the identity of the two particular parties is
not inexcusable," pronounced Wagram.

"You'll be the death of us one of these days, Sunbeam," gasped Haldane
when he recovered his speech.  "Hallo, Wagram, what's the row?"

"Row?  Oh, nothing," answered Wagram in a strange voice.  He had ceased
to join in the general mirth.  He had, in fact, picked up the paper
which Haldane had let fall.  It was only the _Bassingham Chronicle_,
given over mainly to crops, and Petty Sessions and ecclesiastical
presentations, and yet something in it had availed to change the
expression of his countenance as well as his voice.  Only a name--a name
and a paragraph.  Thus ran the latter:

"Motor accident--We regret to learn that Mr Develin Hunt, a gentleman
who made some stay in our midst a year or two ago, and was so impressed
with the natural attractions of our neighbourhood that he came to repeat
it, was knocked down last evening by a motor car in front of the Golden
Crown Hotel, where he is staying, and received severe internal injuries.
He was carried up to his room, and Dr Foss, who was at once sent for,
has advised that his relatives be at once communicated with.  Those in
charge of the motor car made off with all haste, and have not yet been
traced."

"Oh, ah!  I meant to have told you," said Haldane, following his glance.
"That's the chap with the rum name we were all exercising our wit on,
if you remember.  Poor devil!  I expect he's a `goner.'  `Severe
internal injuries' always has a dashed ugly sound."

"By the way, Haldane, I wanted to get your opinion on a matter of
importance," said Wagram.  "How would it do now?"

"Right.  Come inside."

"This is it," when they were alone: "I want you to go over to Bassingham
with me while I interview this very Develin Hunt.  You've no idea what a
lot depends upon it--for me.  And it may be necessary for him to swear a
statement."

Haldane was too old a campaigner to evince astonishment at any mere
coincidence, so he only answered:

"All right.  I'll tell them to inspan the dogcart.  That'll get us there
in no time."

There was something of an outcry on the part of their juniors at this
sudden move.

"We'll be back again before you have time to turn round, Sunbeam," said
Haldane.  "Keep that fellow Gerard out of mischief--take him to try for
a trout, or something.  So long!"

Haldane liked things done smartly, and generally had them so done,
consequently the dogcart was already at the door.  On the road, for they
had purposely not taken a groom, Wagram told him of the finding of the
tin case on board the _Red Derelict_, and how its contents bore largely
on his own affairs and on those of the man they were about to visit.
"You can't call to mind this man's name or identity in the course of
your former South African wanderings?" he concluded.

"No; I'll be hanged if I can.  You see, the name was bound to have
stuck, unless--"

"Unless what?"

"Unless he ran under some other name.  That's not such an uncommon thing
in some parts of the round world."

"Ah!  Well, it's possible he did.  That's just the thought that struck
me."

"If you can contrive me a glimpse of the joker I'll soon let you know
for cert.  I never forget a face."

"That might be done.  We might go into the room together--then, if he's
the wrong man, you could apologise and clear."

"Then that's what we'll do," said Haldane the decisive.

The fast-trotting nag pulled up at the "Golden Crown" just within the
hour of their start.

"Good-day, Smith," said Wagram as the landlord appeared.  "How is your
guest--the one who got bowled over by a motor?"

"Well, Mr Wagram, I couldn't say exactly.  But," lowering his voice,
"the doctor says he'll hardly last till night."

"Poor fellow.  I came to see if I could do anything for him.  He called
on us about some business, you know, when he was here before."

"He'll be glad to see you, I know, Mr Wagram.  I've just been sitting
with him a bit, and he was talking a lot about you--asking if you were
at home, and all that.  Come upstairs."

He led the way, and they ascended to the first landing, Haldane bringing
up the rear.  A tap at the door, then the landlord opened it.

"Here's Mr Wagram come to see you, Mr Hunt," he announced.

The room was somewhat darkened, but not much.  Wagram made out a form
half propped up in bed.  The red-brown face of the adventurer was of a
sallow paleness.  He heard the door softly close behind him.

"It's good of you to come and see me, Wagram," he began.  "Hallo!  Who's
with you?"

"Why, it's Jack--Jack Faro.  How are you, Jack, old man?"

The interruption proceeded from Haldane.  The man on the bed started and
stared, then he recovered himself.

"That's Haldane, for a tenner," he pronounced.  "I heard you were down
in these parts, Haldane, and thought of looking you up, only I heard
you'd become such a tearing big swell.  Thought you'd not have been
over-glad to see me."

"Oh, bosh!  You ought to have known better.  By the Lord! didn't we
stand them off in that ruction at Ikey Mo's, when we'd broken the whole
bally bank?  Jack and I had to skip over Montsioa's border for a time,
you know, Wagram," he parenthesised.  "We'd done some shooting, you
understand--but--we had to."

"Rather, we had, and we did," and the adventurer's eyes lit up over the
recollection.

"I say, Jack, d'you ever hear anything of the missis now?" went on
Haldane in the cordial-old-comrade tone.  "I must have seen her since
you did, for I was passing through Kimberley only half-a-dozen years
back, and she was throwing out fire and slaughter against you as hard as
ever."

Wagram, taking this in with all his ears, felt that an immense weight
had lifted.  Haldane had known this man's former wife, had seen her
quite lately.  She was probably alive still.

"Oh, she's got nothing to complain of," returned the adventurer testily.
"I've never kept her short."

"Of course not.  But, you know, women are the devil for grievances, and
she was always swearing that, as your lawful wife, her place was with
you."

"I'd have murdered her long ago if it had been," was the weary reply.
"I shunted her to save her life and my neck.  Women are the very devil,
Haldane.  I can't think why the blazes they were ever invented."

"Oh, you're not alone in that opinion, old man," laughed the other.
"But, look here, when is Foss going to get you up again?"

"Never.  He swears I'll be a stiff before morning, and for once I
believe him--though these quacks are the most infernal set of humbugs,
as a rule.  Now, Haldane, do me a favour, like a good chap, and skip
downstairs for a little while.  I want to hold a bit of an _indaba_ with
Wagram alone."

"Right.  So long, then."

There was a moment or two of silence after the door had closed on
Haldane.  Then Hunt said:

"Well, you heard all that?"

"Yes; it is true, then?"

"Every word of it.  I'm glad you heard, because it'll save me the
trouble of going over it all again."

"Then you obtained thirty thousand pounds out of us under false
pretences?"

"That's one way of putting it, but I suppose it's the correct one.  The
thing was a gamble; but, hang it, I didn't think the money side would
have bothered you over-much, Wagram.  Why, as I said before, it's only
like a half-crown to you.  Haldane and I have brought off bigger things
than that in the old Kimberley days."

Wagram stiffened.

"Do you mean to tell me, then, that Haldane was associated with you in
blackmailing?  Because, if so, you had better tell it in his presence."

"No--no--no.  Of course, I don't mean anything of the sort.  Haldane is
as straight and square a chap as ever walked.  This affair was off my
own.  I couldn't resist it when I stumbled against Butcher Ned, and he
put me up to who he was, and used to talk about his people too.  Lord!
how he used to hate you--you, especially.  I'd have been sorry for you
if he'd ever got the chance of squinting at you for a moment from behind
the sighting of a rifle or pistol.  By the way, you never found him, did
you?"

"No.  But before we talk further will you make a statement as to this
first marriage of yours?  Haldane is a magistrate, and you might make it
before him."

"I would willingly, but it isn't in the least necessary.  The whole
thing is entirely between ourselves so far, and you can easily verify
the facts."

"I have verified them already.  Do you know this?"  And he held up the
tin case.

"Oh, good Lord!  Yes; I ought to.  And you have opened it and gone into
the contents?  Well, then, Wagram, it isn't like you making an
unnecessary fuss.  You've got all you want in there already."

"Meaning the certificate.  Here it is."

"That's right.  You can burn the other things.  And now, where on earth
did you pick up that box?"

Wagram told him, also hurriedly, about his intervening adventures.  The
dying man's face underwent some curious changes--not the least curious
being that which passed over it on beholding the skeleton pistol.

"Rum thing that you should have stumbled on to that hooker not once but
twice," he said.  "But, good Lord! life for me has been made up of even
rummier things than that, and now I've got to the end of it.  Yes; I
know that pistol.  That bright half-brother of yours plugged a hole into
me with it that'll last till my dying day--which, by the way, has come.
And I?--well, I planted a mark on him that'll last till his."

He checked himself suddenly, with a queer look.

"What was the story of the Red Derelict?" said Wagram, after a pause.

"Better leave that alone--except that it was a story of red murder and
piracy such as you'd think only existed in books.  And now, Wagram," he
went on, "I've been yarning a lot more than any man in my state ought to
yarn, and I'm feeling tired.  You'd never guess what brought me down
here this time.  It wasn't to fleece you again--no, no.  Fact is, I
heard you were back, and I was curious to see you again and hear how you
had got on.  And I have.  You shook hands with me once; I'd be glad if
you'd do it again."

But Wagram's hand did not come forward, nor did he move.

"That was when I thought your story a true one," he said.  "On your own
showing you have heaped dishonour upon my family, and I can testify that
you hastened my father's end.  It is not in human nature to forgive
that--at any rate, all at once."

"Later than `all at once' will be too late, and by refusing your
forgiveness to a dying man you will be denying your own creed."

He smiled as he watched the struggle going on within the other.  Then
Wagram slowly put forth his hand.

"For any injury to me I forgive you freely," he said.  "For the rest I
will try to.  Good-bye."

"And you will succeed.  Good-bye, Wagram.  You will never regret this.
And ask Haldane to come up for a minute.  I should like to bid him
good-bye for the sake of old times."

Wagram bent his head and left the room, and at a word from him Haldane
went up.

"This is a bad lookout, Jack," he began in his downright way.  "No
chance, I suppose, old chap?"

"No; none."

"You wouldn't like, I suppose--er--to see a parson--er--or anyone in
that line?"

"No--no.  I've no use for any parson.  The last sight of a man like
Wagram's a sight better than any parson.  Has he told you about his
adventures and the Red Derelict, eh?"

"Yes; and they sounded so jolly tall that, if anybody but Wagram had
told me, I shouldn't have believed half of them."

"But they're true, all the same.  I could take you to the very place.
And the white man who put him through all that lively time was no other
than the chump he was looking for--his half-brother, Butcher Ned, as we
used to call him--otherwise Everard Wagram."

"Good Lord!"

"Fact.  But I wasn't going to tell him that, neither must you--d'you
hear?--neither must you.  Because if you do nothing'll prevent him from
starting right away to put himself in the power of that infernal
cut-throat again--under the pretence of trying to reclaim him.  Reclaim
Butcher Ned!"

There was a world of expression in the dying adventurer's weakening
voice over these last words.  He went on:

"Wagram would never have got out of that camp alive if he hadn't got out
when he did.  Don't you see, that's why Ned wanted to make him bring his
boy out there.  Then he'd have done for the pair, and come and set up
here at Hilversea.  He would, sure as eggs.  So never let on about it."

"All right, I won't."  And after a little more talk the old comrades
bade each other good-bye.

"You know, Wagram, it's a deuced rum world," said Haldane as the two
were driving home again.  "Fancy this poor chap Develin Hunt, over whose
absurd name we were roaring when that first yarn about the derelict came
to hand, turning out to be my old pal Jack Faro of the early, rousing,
Kimberley days!  Poor chap!  How he wilted over the recollection of that
old crock of his.  You know, it was an echo of the old camp chaff I was
firing off on him--the point of which was that the said old ruin was
fond of bragging that she was Jack's real and lawful wife, whatever
others might be, and brandishing what she called her `lines' in the
faces of all comers.  Poor old Jack!  He was fairly straight as men go--
and yet--and yet--I don't know--there were things whispered about him
even then.  Well, he's gone now."

Haldane never learned of the said Develin Hunt's--otherwise Jack
Faro's--last _coup_, for on that Wagram was for ever silent.

That night Develin Hunt died.



CHAPTER FORTY.

CONCLUSION.

"Oh, how good you have been to us!  No; really, when I want to find
words--well, I simply can't."

"Then don't try.  That's the simplest way out of the difficulty, isn't
it?" answered Wagram, with a smile.

Delia Calmour shook her head, a puzzled little frown contradicting, as
it were, the soft light that was in her eyes, and a certain tender
curving of the lips.  Her gaze swept over the network of sunlight
glinting on the sward beneath the arching oaks, then rested on the
adjacent palisade enclosing the African animals, whose quaint bellow
would every now and then vie with the shout of the cuckoo to break the
stillness of the lustrous summer air.  She thought of herself--now
enabled to make more than a comfortable living by turning her musical
talents to account; of Clytie, doing exceedingly well in her own line;
of raffish Bob, removed from Bassingham influences and third-rate
Pownall and Skreet, to be given every chance at a fair salary with a
first-class legal firm in London; of the three younger ones at school
again, only at far better schools than they had ever dreamed of before--
and, thus thinking, she did not exaggerate in declaring that she could
not find words to express her appreciation to the man beside her--to
whom all this was due.  And again she repeated this.

"My dear child," he answered, "haven't I told you before that it's our
duty to help each other in this world as far as lies in our power?  At
any rate you seemed to bear in mind that principle when you literally
forced the skipper of the _Runic_ to put back because you had glimpsed
some unknown poor devil left on board the derelict.  Eh?"

"That's different--quite different."

Again she felt strangely tongue-tied.  The past couple of years flashed
through her mind, and how they had seemed to her to contain but one
consideration, but one all-engrossing thought--the man now at her side.
How their lives seemed bound up together from their first sudden and
semi-tragical meeting!  Even upon the vast wilderness of the wide deep
they had been thrown together once more.  And now here they were
together again at dear old Hilversea--on the very spot, hallowed, as it
were, within her mind, by the associations of those earlier days.

The time intervening, and the experiences it comprised, had rather
enhanced than detracted from her beauty; indeed, it was not the fault of
more than one pecuniarily eligible and physically attractive unit of the
other sex that she was still Delia Calmour, eke of more than one of whom
neither of these qualifications held good.  And now here she was at
Hilversea again.

She was staying at Haldane's, and had cycled over that morning in
response to a note from Wagram asking her to come and look at some old
musical manuscripts he had unearthed in his library.  Yet, so far, very
little had been said about the manuscripts, he declaring it was much too
lovely a morning to sit indoors; and the manuscripts were always with
them, but the fine weather was not.  Now he did not seem inclined to
help her through her unwonted fit of silence as he strolled by her side;
calm, self-possessed, the very personification of ease and strength and
dignity, she was thinking.

"So you are happy in your new line, Delia?" he said at last.  "And
comfortable?  Sure you are quite that?"

"Of course I am--all that--thanks to you," she answered, throwing an
unconscious warmth into her voice.

"That's rather a pity, because I was going to suggest that you should
change it."

"Change it?" she echoed, looking up at him wonderingly.

"Yes.  It is only a suggestion, for, after all, I daresay in your eyes I
am only a solemn sort of old fogey.  But, darling, I seem to have learnt
to love you very dearly indeed, and have been wondering if you would
consent to make my life entirely and completely happy.  I remember you
asking me once--I believe it was here on this very spot--whether I
didn't sometimes find life too good to be real; do you remember?  Well,
now, I want you to make it so.  I believe I could make you very happy--
we seem to have got to know each other well enough by this time to
warrant me in thinking so.  Now, child, what do you say?"

The girl seemed incapable of saying anything.  It was as though the
gates of a blissful paradise had opened to receive her.  She seemed to
sway unsteadily.  Her lips were parted and her breathing came quickly,
but in her wide eyes was a whole world of adoring affection, which was
in itself sufficient answer without mere words.

"I loved and adored you from the very moment we first met," she managed
to whisper as she sank into his embrace.  "But you?  What can _you_ have
seen in me?  You?"

"Darling, I suppose I have learnt to recognise pure gold when I see it.
So you will make life too good for me after all?"

"Too good for you?  But it is going to be too good for me, it seems.
Yet listen.  You won't be offended if I tell you something."

"Offended?  No, child; never shrink from telling me anything through
fear of that.  What is this `something'?"

"There was a time when I thought some great trouble had come upon you;
of course, I could not even guess at its nature.  Well, whatever that
trouble might have been, then was the time I would have loved you most,
if possible, no matter what it was.  If it had been--I am only putting a
case, mind--that which should have turned the whole world against you,
that is the time I should have gloried to stand by your side.  You are
not offended with me for saying this?"

He laughed--lightly, happily.

"No, child.  Well, you have guessed rightly.  There was a trouble;
black, overwhelming it seemed, as death.  Now it has passed--by the
mercy of God, passed for ever.  Some day I may tell it you, perhaps, but
not now.  This is the time only for happiness."

Happiness!  In saying what she had just said Delia had not overstated
the case by a single word.  Had he come to her ruined, crushed by some
unknown weight, even with the whole world against him, and said what he
had just said she would have reckoned life almost too good to live.  But
now, to spend the rest of her life at his side here at beautiful,
enchanted Hilversea, his happiness her life's object--ah! the vista thus
opened was too golden, too glowing, too complete.  The very perfection
of it frightened her as being too perfect for such an imperfect state.
Happiness!

"What does all this long silence cover, dearest?" he said at last, for
he had been watching with a smile the swift transitions of thought which
had chased each other across the beautiful, expressive face.  "I believe
I know," looking at his watch.  "You were going to say you must get back
to the Haldanes or they'd be wondering what had become of you.  Well,
they'll have to wonder.  You must stay and take care of me this
morning--get your hand in a little, you know.  This afternoon we'll go
over, and--tell them."

_Note_.--The Red Derelict was never again sighted.  Whether the impact
of the _Runic's_ collision with her had sent the ghostly hulk far down
into the green depths for ever must remain a mystery.  She had delivered
up her message, and was gone.






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