*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75691 ***



                           THE BEATING HEART




                           The Beating Heart


                                  BY


                            VICTORIA CROSS




    _Author of “Anna Lombard,” “Five Nights,” “Life’s Shopwindow,”
                       “Over Life’s Edge,” etc._





                               NEW YORK
                              BRENTANO’S
                              PUBLISHERS




                          COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY
                          VIVIEN CORY GRIFFIN


                          All rights reserved




               _Printed in the United States of America_




CONTENTS


                                                          PAGE

 1. The Kiss in the Wilderness                                1

 2. Colour                                                   49

 3. A Novel Elopement                                        62

 4. The Jewel Casket                                        100

 5. The Vengeance of Pasht                                  116

 6. Village Passion                                         128

 7. Supping with the Devil                                  151




                       _The Heart can beat with_

                                 LOVE
                                DESIRE
                                 PITY
                               SYMPATHY
                                 FEAR
                               JEALOUSY
                              INDIGNATION




                      THE KISS IN THE WILDERNESS

                                  BY

                            VICTORIA CROSS


They were coming up in a closed carriage from Jerico, a jolly, merry,
roystering crowd. Melisande whose real name was Eliza, late of the
Gaiety theatre, now married to a millionaire, Lord and Lady Hillingford
on their honeymoon, an old bachelor Major keen on reckless adventure,
and Miss Smith.

To pass the time they were singing comic songs with resounding chorus,
which floated out of the open windows and echoed strangely from the
stony hills of the wide stretching barren wilderness that lies between
Jerico and Jerusalem.

It was a brilliant night with a huge silver moon at the full hanging in
the sky above sending its floods of light down upon the lonely waste,
in which there was no tree nor flower nor bird: yet something moved at
intervals, a curious low four-footed shape with sloping spine and coat
so cunningly contrived in spots and lines of brown and white that it
matched exactly the patchy, stony hills and clefts and crannies amongst
the rocks through which the creatures flitted with their elusive
movements.

The exhilarated crowd within the carriage took no notice except one,
Miss Smith who was always an exception to whatever the rest might do or
be.

The supper at the Jerico Inn before their start had been good with
copious libations of the rich Greek wine and now Melisande’s golden
head was leaning on Hillingford’s shoulder while she shrilled out the
chorus from her coral mouth and the millionaire’s arm was round Lady
Hillingford’s neck and the Greek wine no doubt was to blame if she was
too confused to notice it wasn’t her husband’s arm. The old Major was
frankly overcome and curled up in a quiescent ball in his corner of
the great roomy old carriage, only Miss Smith sat quiet and sedate in
her grey travelling dress watching the shapes flitting among the rocks
in the moonlight. They were hyaenas Miss Smith knew what they were.
She was not intoxicated, she was not sleepy. She was not singing comic
songs. She sat up straight, alert and watchful.

Her companions did not heed her. They generally left her alone
recognizing that while with them she was not of them. At the same time
they did not object to her. No one ever objected to Miss Smith. They
teased her goodnaturedly because she never drank, smoked, flirted nor
swore as they did and used to read and study dingy brown books in
the queer languages of the country and she as goodnaturedly smiled
and continued to pursue her own quiet way. Among other women she was
generally passed over and ignored and considered unattractive because
she was generally termed “good” and in these days to be a good woman,
is not attractive. A beautiful woman, a fast woman, a fascinating
woman, a wicked woman, any adjective almost, sounds interesting but
good no. So once having dubbed her good everyone let her alone and she
was allowed to wear her crown of Virtue unchallenged and undisturbed.

In person she was rather tall and slender and affected quiet
well-fitting tailor made clothes. Her hair was of a warm brown shade
and very thick but so quietly done, pressed close to her small head
that no one looked twice at it while the frizzed out golden curls,
now getting thin from over much dying that flared in a halo round
Melisande’s head drew every eye. Miss Smith’s skin was cool and pale,
her eye grave and grey a different thing altogether from the sunny
saucy laughing blue beloved by man. Yet the eye had beauty in its
calm repose like a clear deep pool in a shady wood. She was 36 though
she looked only about 26 and her present and future had been kindly
settled for her as old maid by her friends. When she had first joined
the touring party, both the married men had attempted to flirt with
her after the way of married men but Miss Smith did not care for
flirtations with married men and did not want the attentions of the old
bachelor Major Mitchell who gallantly offered them. What she did want
was locked up in her own soul.

She had been proposed to at 16 and had accepted. He was a young man
her father’s secretary. The engagement had pursued a tranquil and as
Miss Smith privately thought a disappointing course until one evening
when as he was leaving her after much long and as she thought boring
conversation, she ventured to whisper softly as he took her hand in
farewell “Kiss me.”

Instantly she was enfolded in his arms and a kiss pressed upon her
lips, not an irreverent one but one full of force and electric fire
and pressed down so hard that her lips were painfully crushed upon her
teeth, under it. When he let her go suddenly she was absolutely white
dazed and breathless and involuntarily sank down on the chair nearest
her.

The young man’s face was white too as they stared for a moment at each
other in silence. Not a word was spoken. He retreated silently, swiftly
to the door and vanished through it. She sat still where she was
until the beating of her heart grew calmer and allowed her to get up.
Then as the sense of physical shock passed she smiled. That had been
delightful! That was Life! That was Love! That moment compensated her
for the preceding boring weeks of her engagement. In that moment she
had had her first insight into that stupendous joy that we share with
the animals and primitive man alike. Perverted, degraded, chained and
beaten down out of sight, as the sexual instinct is by civilization,
there are still moments like these of innocent youthful joy in which we
see the face of Nature for an instant and realise her tremendous power.

Little Christine Smith went to bed that night profoundly happy.
Engagements were not stupid after all. Life was not all dullness.
Poets and novelists were right. There was something in existence which
was marvelous and golden and glowing and it was love. She adored her
fiance now. Had he not in that electric wonderful kiss shown her the
majestic Force that he represented? It was overaweing, inspiring. All
night she dreamt innocently happily of the kiss that had lifted her to
heaven. In the morning there was a letter from him.

Trembling and flushing she had carried it to her room to read alone.
His prayer no doubt to her to hasten their marriage so that there might
be more and more and more of those heavenly moments. But the letter
was not that. _It was an apology._ A craving of pardon for that
kiss. A promise that if forgiven he would never, never ever again.
Christine could not understand. Grown cold and white she read that
astounding letter over and over again and the more she read it the less
she understood it. What did he mean? What was wrong? Why was the kiss
wrong? It was not, her common sense told her that. It had been just
the revelation of his love for her in all its splendid strength and
ardour and she loved him for it, and now here was this stupid letter in
which he painted himself as a sort of criminal. She was dumbfounded.
But one thing was clear. He evidently thought the kiss was very wicked
and if she did not agree then he would think her very wicked also.
Christine sat very still and cold thinking, the gay mirage that Nature
had flung all about her dissipated and gone. Her primitive instincts
urged her to go to him and tell him he was mistaken. The kiss was
Right and he must take her in his arms and kiss her again and again in
exactly the same way give her again that wonderful glimpse of a golden
and rose-coloured world of ecstasy. But civilised 16 is rather shy.
Christine shrank from facing that cold condemnation that was in the
letter, turned upon herself. It seemed so impossible to explain, to
find the words to fit all those myriad feelings leaping within herself.
She was afraid he would not understand.

At last after hours of thought she folded the letter and put it away.
He had said he would come that evening to hear her say she forgave him.
She decided she must say nothing but extend to him her pardon as he
desired.

For months the engagement went on. Christine secretly hoped that once
again his feelings might betray him and that glorious moment come again
but it never did.

The engagement was finally broken off and not by him. Christine told
him gently that she feared they hardly understood each other well
enough for marriage.

The young man mournfully and humbly accepted her decree. To this day he
believes that it was that fatal moment (to her so ecstatic) that was
his undoing.

There had been several engagements since then on the same dull formal
lines and terminated in the same way by her. They had not contained
any whirling moments such as the one she had experienced and for the
return of which she waited confidently as an astronomer for the return
of a comet. This time when it came....

Meanwhile she was not unhappy. She was strong and fleet of foot and
clear of eye. She had perfect health in a splendid well knit frame and
life was sweet and all the days of this tour through Palestine had been
very bright and fair.

She had enjoyed especially this just finished visit to Jerico, going
down from Jerusalem in the early summer when the heat was so deadly
that not a soul except their own reckless party would venture down
there.

The Hotel keeper at Jerusalem had begged them not to go! The season
for it was over the heat far too great but they had laughed at him.
They had been so cooked they declared a temperature of 110° could not
frighten them and the idea of going down down to the scorching plain
of Jerico, to the borders of the Dead Sea beneath which lay the sinful
Cities of the Plain had a delightful fascination in it.

The road the landlord urged was extremely dangerous. It lay through
the wilderness and at this time the Bedouin Arabs were travelling up
and down. Caravans and long lines of them fully armed might be met at
any point. If go they must an escort of two armed soldiers would be
provided for them by the Government. What would be the good of two
soldiers against a band of robbers? Hillingford had asked and the
landlord had explained “If you have Turkish soldiers with you, no
matter how few, it shows you are under the protection of the Sultan of
Turkey the head of their religion the Sheik-Islam: they will not lift a
hand against their own chief. No one will touch you.”

The party consented to take the escort but at the last moment it
did not arrive and they would not wait. Finally to the sound of
lamentations from their host, they drove away, in the capacious vehicle
with a good pair of horses and a single unarmed man as driver. They
went by night to avoid the blinding heat of the sun and here they were
returning by night by moonlight and the moonlight that falls on the
plain of Jerico and on the stony wilderness around it is as hot as
English sunlight. The party were well pleased with their visit they had
enjoyed it especially Miss Smith. She had liked the journey down down
into the simmering bowl of heat, at the bottom of which lay the rich
verdant tree filled plain of Jerico and the sparkling blue Salt Lake
called the Dead Sea.

The Jerico Inn kept by a Greek where they stayed was a low white
building of immensely thick walls and almost hidden from view under
the shade of a gigantic fig tree whose wide spreading massive thick
leaved boughs filled the court yard with deep delicious shadow green
and cool. Here, on their arrival after midnight they had sat and supped
at a table neatly spread with bread and cheese and fruit and great jars
of honey and the rich heady wines of Greece and while the others had
rioted and jested and laughed and kissed Miss Smith had sat gazing up
through the fig leaves to where between them here and there a great
planet burned fiercely in the sky uneclipsed even by the silver light
of the moon. She was enjoying it all in her deep calm soul. The next
morning the rioters slept late in the cool stone chambers of the inn,
but she was up while the larks were singing overhead and the whole
fair plain of Jerico was smiling in fresh dew and early light. Alone
and unafraid and unmolested she found her way down to the edge of the
sparkling sea, undressed and bathed in its wonderful blue and limpid
waters that would not let her sing and clung round her snowy throat and
limbs like the heaviest thickest oil.

Miss Smith thought of all these things now in pleasant retrospect as
the carriage lumbered along slowly up the stony road between the hills.

Suddenly a sharp sound the crack of a rifle came stinging through the
silence, followed by a terrible thud in front of the carriage. Their
driver, doubled up in a sort of ball, fell from his seat and then
rolled heavily to the ground, the reins still in his hands. The horses
plunged and shied a little as his body fell close by their heels, but
they were too hot and weary in that long upward climb to run away.
They were startled frightened, something had happened but fatigue was
greater than any other feeling. They stopped dead still with heaving
sweating sides.

The instant the carriage stopped, the occupants who had by now sung
themselves into a state of lethargy, woke up with a shock and the men
began to get out. Miss Smith had descended on her side and was first at
the side of the fallen driver.

Miss Smith knew all about first aid and she saw here there was no aid
to be given. The man was dead. The old Major came to her side. He also
knew death when he saw it. “God bless me!” he ejaculated. “This is
dreadful, poor fellow! Poor fellow! What’s it all mean, eh?”

Miss Smith did not answer, she was looking through the silver space to
a long broken line of rocks some 200 yards away. From these, men were
running up to them. In a few moments it seemed the carriage in which
the two women still sat, huddled together, was surrounded by a circle
of Bedouin Arabs. Each one carried a rifle in one hand and a short
knife was thrust into the broad sash folded many times round their
waist.

Thought is very quick and Miss Smith had time to think even in that
alarming moment how handsome and picturesque a crowd they were. Their
dark faces were finely carved and featured with brilliant flashing
eyes and teeth. On their heads they wore what looked like two enormous
rolls of coloured cord, deep red and blue, forming a sort of turban and
falling in a twist on their shoulders at the back. A vest of coloured
silk and purple Zouave jacket, wide sash and cartridge belt, and loose
crimson trousers to somewhat below the knee made up a costume worn with
extraordinary grace on beautiful and stately figures of about average
height. These men were not specially tall but extremely lithe and well
proportioned. They closed round the little English group as leopards
encircle antelope. Two of them between them carried the soft limp body
of a shot hyaena. They laid it down by the body of the driver. Miss
Smith stooped for a moment and stroked softly the exquisite white fur
on its chest. Then she straightened herself and looked round on the
circle of eager dark faces and asked them in Arabic what they wanted.

And then the whole English party realised that they were helpless and
useless in this emergency except for this slim quiet serene person,
whom they had laughed at and ignored. She was now the mistress of the
situation. Their lives and safety lay in her hands. They could only
stand by gaping helplessly while she, thanks to her dingy brown books,
parleyed with their enemies.

It looked as if they were in an appalling mess and they depended on her
now to get them out of it. The women in the carriage put scared white
faces out of the window.

“What do they say, the scoundrels?” queried the Major after Christine
in her musical voice had exchanged some sentences with the leader. To
Major Mitchell the best man living, if he had a dark skin, was always a
scoundrel.

“He says they had no intention of killing our driver,” she replied,
“but a shot ricochetted from a rock that was aimed at a hyaena.”

“Oh come that’s good!” said Hillingford, “well then can they help us to
get on anywhere?”

“You must remember that is what they _say_,” she returned calmly
and then she resumed conversing with the Arab leader, while the women
in the carriage shivered in the heat and the English men cursed
themselves inwardly for having come without the Government guard. The
millionaire stole close to Christine’s side. “Offer them anything,
_anything_, a thousand, ten thousand, if we get safely back to
Jerusalem,” he whispered shakily. Christine turned her clear eyes upon
him. “I do not think _money_ is what they want,” she replied
regarding him steadily. What she thought they did want she did not say.

John Briggs, millionaire, stepped back, white under his Eastern
sunburn. His money had smoothed out most ruts in his life. Was it going
to fail him now? He glanced at the other two men and it was three very
pinched looking faces that stared at each other in the moonlight,
while the long glistening barrels of the rifles held by the Arabs
sides, almost touched them as the circle drew nearer and the dark
eager countenances with their glittering eyes and teeth came thrusting
themselves close up to their shoulders.

“Ugly business Jack,” muttered Hillingford.

“Scoundrels,” repeated the Major whose vocabulary was limited,
clenching his fists.

“This is just what the landlord said. Fools we were not to take his
advice,” said Briggs savagely.

Then they were silent. Christine had finished a long talk with the
leading Arab and had now turned to them.

“They say they don’t want money nor anything we have with us. That they
are not robbers and that the shooting of our driver was an accident. As
they have killed him however, they can do nothing without their Sheik’s
orders. He is called Sheik Lasrali and he has a tent pitched some
distance from here in the wilderness and we must all go there with them
and hear his orders.”

“What cheek! The scoundrels,” burst out the Major. Christine’s even
brows contracted a little.

“Do be careful Major and control yourself,” she said, “We are in a bad
enough position as it is, don’t make it worse.”

“How are we to get to this Lasrali?” asked Hillingford.

“We must walk,” returned Christine and he thought how well she showed
up, standing there in the moonlight, wholly undismayed, quite calm
and mistress of herself and talking easily and clearly that difficult
gutteral tongue which he had given up studying in despair.

“We have no driver,” she went on, “and if we had the carriage couldn’t
go over that rough ground. It would be overturned directly. We have
got to go back some distance in that direction.” She pointed far back
across the stony waste towards the plain of Jerico whence they had come
and the travellers groaned involuntarily. To go back! Further away
from the city with its law and order and protection, further into this
savage desolation where the moonlight showed nothing but rocks and
stones where even the rough rocky grass struggled in vain for existence
and here and there bleached bones showed whitely on the ground.

“There is no help for it” she said merely and turned to the carriage.
The women in it were sitting white faced and silent but like English
women faced with grave emergency their courage rose to meet it. There
was no complaint, no shrinking back. They opened the door of the
carriage and stepped down on to the stony ground without a word.

The vehicle was packed in all its corners with small handbags and
cases, extra cloaks and wraps and sunshades. The Arabs peered in
curiously jabbering amongst themselves. There was a hasty consultation
between the travellers as to whether they could carry anything with
them. The Gaiety girl, Melisande, prayed for her handbag. It had all
her make up in it. Lady Hillingford could not bear parting from her
small flat case. Hillingford hastily opened his bag and extracted his
favorite razor. Miss Smith went to hers and pulled out her Arabic
dictionary.

“Don’t take much,” she advised. “It’s so hot and we have a long way to
walk. The Arabs are going to leave a guard and the carriage and all
its contents will be perfectly safe. I have told them we must take the
horses out and take them with us. The Sheik will have water and food
and rest when we get there.”

While the women fussed over their luggage, anxious as human beings
always are about trifles even with the great issues of life and death
hanging over them, and the Arabs sat down a little way off watching
them with an amused smile curling their dark lips and their rifles held
across their knees, the three men and Christine stood for a moment
together at the horses’ heads.

“I wonder whether we’re wise,” Hillingford asked, “in giving in like
this? Suppose we said we would not go?”

“The alternative is for us all to sit here under a guard while two
of the Arabs go off with a message to the Sheik and ask for orders.”
Christine answered, she had evidently discussed this with the chief
already, “but you see he might be ages coming back. Perhaps he wouldn’t
come till the morning and we’d get awfully tired waiting here and the
horses would get no water. Then he says the Sheik would be sure to send
for us, so we’d have to go in the end.”

“Why should he send for us, damn him?” This from the Major.

“The leader says he would not mind the men going on but he would be
sure to want to see the three ladies!”

“Scoundrel!” shouted the Major.

“I think we had better go and make no trouble about it,” said
Christine, “we may be able to reason things out with Lasrali.”

The men nodded. There seemed no way out. An Arab came up and took out
the two horses, weary and dejected with the long toil. Christine patted
their necks and the Arab led them off the roadway. Next came another
Arab strung about with various small articles belonging to the English
that he had been deputed to carry by the leader. Hillingford and his
wife followed, then Briggs and Melisande, then the Major and Christine
and this small column of English was flanked on each side by a guard of
six Arabs.

Christine turned and glanced back as they were starting. Two motionless
Arabs sat on the box seat of the carriage, their rifles on their knees.
Side by side on the ground lay the dead driver and the dead hyaena
mingling their blood in a small dark pool on the road.

Out into the wilderness. Away from even the road, that wild desolate
and inhospitable as it is, has at least, each end in civilization.
But in the wilderness itself that stretches between the proud city of
Jerusalem and the fair plain of Jerico there one can see the face of
Loneliness itself and feel Starvation and Death lurking among those
never ending ridges of whitish rock rising from the arid, waterless
plain. The African desert with its soft films of sand, its glorious
mirage seems homelike by contrast with it. The American desert with
unbroken miles of sagebrush and its alkali pools seems inviting ground
in comparison. In the wilderness there is nothing but solitude and
stone and hyaenas grown fat on the corpses of wayfarers.

Doggedly and in silence the little party went on. The two wives in
their thin high heeled shoes and silk stockings suffered most. The
men and Christine walked easily on flat heels over the loose stones
and uneven surface. But no one of them made any sound of discontent.
Melisande and Eva Hillingford stumbled along awkwardly and painfully
but bravely and the curls on their forehead and the silk blouses on
their chests were soaked through with sweat in the hot still air.

Apprehension as to their possible fate had got its teeth well into them
now. Leaving the road, their only friend and guide, had brought them
to a sense of their utter helplessness. Even if left now unmolested,
they could not find their way back to it, they could only wander about
amongst these everlasting gleaming rocks, each one exactly like another
till they died.

After a little while physical fatigue and pain shut out much reflection
on other things. They were intolerably thirsty and their limbs ached
from that curious rough walking similar to going up hill on an English
beach. The Arabs were not inconsiderate and did not even hurry them.
Only once when the Major lagged behind one of the guard pressing on
their heels poked the nuzzle of a rifle against his shoulder blades.
After that, rather than have it happen again, he stepped out more
briskly.

The first light of the dawn showed faintly in the East, when the Arab
leader pointed out to the white weary crowd toiling on some large dark
objects not very far away.

“Lasrali’s tents,” he said.

It seemed as they came nearer quite a large encampment altogether a
great number of tents pitched near to a ridge of rock which slightly
overhanging made a sort of rough shed. Against this were grouped
various animals, camels, horses, donkeys and goats, some lying down
others standing round a heap of fodder put down for them. Christine
went forward and spoke earnestly with the Arab leading the horses:
making him promise to allow them to lie down and to give them plenty
of food and water as they could take it. He laughed showing all his
glittering teeth in the bright moonlight.

“Lasrali would be very angry with me if I did not look after them. He
loves horses.” What a relief those words carried to her mind. A man who
loved horses could not be wholly bad. She fell back and told the good
news to the others. They were just on the outside of the encampment
now. Most of its occupants had retired apparently, but a long line of
cooking fires burnt redly still upon the ground. The chief man who
had so far all along spoken with Christine, gave his charges over to
the guard and disappeared into the largest of the tents to know his
master’s wishes. It was only a few minutes before he returned and
ushered them all in, holding back the tent flaps for them and then
bringing up the rear himself.

It was a large and roomy tent well carpeted and with masses of silken
cushions lying about. Also there were little tables at which if sitting
on a cushion on the floor, one could comfortably write and read.

Lasrali himself was seated in one of those capacious black wood chairs
inlaid with mother of pearl, so familiar in Damascus. Wearing a snow
white burnous, edged with gold embroidery and a gold band encircling
the hood of it, just above his black brows he presented a kingly
and dignified appearance. His face was handsome in the typical Arab
way. Olive skinned and oval with refined aristocratic features and
large dark eyes. In age he appeared about 38. In one rather white and
slender hand he held a long stemmed pipe which he appeared to have been
peacefully smoking when disturbed.

As soon as the worn weary captives were ushered in, he rose from his
seat, bowed slightly and then immediately resumed it, ordering one of
his Arabs to bring forward cushions for his visitors. When these were
brought the three women sank down gratefully upon them, the men taking
their stand behind them until Lasrali waved them with a more decided
gesture to be seated also. Then he called up the leader to stand beside
him, and set himself to listen attentively to the man’s story, pulling
occasionally at his pipe and asking now and then a quiet question.

The Arab leader went on with his interminable relation for endless time
as it seemed to the wearied English. With the exception of Miss Smith,
they could none of them understand a word and they were so dazed and
sleepy with heat and fatigue that the conversation came to their ears
only in an unmeaning blur. Christine was tired too, but her head was
clear and she sat bright eyed and upright on her cushion listening
intently to every word that was uttered. Much of the conversation’s
meaning she missed of course. It is impossible for a stranger however
well he knows a language to catch all that passes between two others,
not addressing him but talking rapidly to each other, but the drift of
it she gathered very well. At one time when the leader said something
as to money she took her courage in both hands and ventured to
re-inforce his statement.

“There is a gentleman here,” she said, indicating Briggs, “who will pay
anything you like to ask in money for our release.”

Lasrali regarded her in silence but did not reply and the leader turned
on her saying:

“My master is very rich man, he does not seek money. He might be
pleased however to take a white wife.”

“The dream of my life has been to win a white woman who is also a
lady,” supplemented Lasrali in a very low tone, “no sum of money can
weigh against such a dream.”

Christine did not translate any of these sentences into English. They
sank into her heart and set it beating. In defiance of something within
her that seemed holding her back, she seized hold of the old phrases
and stated them as one who speaks from a sense of duty.

“The English are a mighty people. We are few but if any of us are
injured, a great army will come to avenge us.”

She thought she saw the faint flicker of a smile pass over Lasrali’s
face that he was too courteous to wholly indulge in. The leader was not
so ceremonious however. He laughed openly.

“Your country used to be great and protect its subjects. It is too
lazy to do that now. Besides my master cannot be found in his native
mountains and the captive men would be killed and scattered to the
winds of heaven long before help came and the captive women would be--”

The expression made the blood fly flaming all over Christine’s face and
Lasrali sharply reprimanded the Arab leader.

“Do not talk to the lady at all,” he said with anger. “Confine your
conversation to me,” and he motioned him to come closer to his chair.

After a long discussion between them Lasrali at last waved him to one
side and addressing Christine direct asked her and the other two ladies
to get up and approach him. This they did, Christine springing up at
once and the other two wearily dragging themselves to their feet.
Then they stood in a line before him and the Arab regarded them all
with grave attentive eyes. Dusty and tired, with rumpled hair and
damp faces, in their rather bright coloured clothes, hatless and with
arms and necks bare in the intense heat, neither Lady Hillingford who
was 25 and pale and dark, nor Melisande who had no age and was of the
flamboyant type, looked their best and being conscious of this did not
improve matters by their expressions. Melisande trying to get up her
footlight smile and Lady Hillingford frankly weary and disdainful.
It was on Christine that the Arab’s quiet gaze rested longest. Trim,
elegant, apparently untired, her clear pale skin rendered still paler
by the heat, her large eyes burning with keen interest and power, her
lips, glowing red, her thick hair unruffled in its soft close waves
about her head, she certainly presented the most pleasing aspect of the
three. Her gaze was fixed unwaveringly upon the handsome face turned to
her. She looked exactly what she felt, intensely interested. After a
lengthened survey which was in no way rude nor impudent, only evidently
extremely critical and observant of the minutest details, he turned to
his attendant and told him to conduct all the English to a private tent
and look after them except the lady who spoke Arabic and she should
follow them directly. Christine looked at her companions with her
cheerful smile and translated this adding, “Go ahead and leave me. I’ll
come as soon as I can.”

They did not like seeming to desert her, but she had become so much
their leader and director in the last few hours and she seemed so
perfectly unafraid of the whole situation that they solemnly filed out
after the Arab in silence.

The tent was now empty except for the handsome seated form and herself
standing before him, a slender, graceful English figure in her simple
grey clothes. The light from the great swinging center lamp fell on her
thick brown hair and showed a soft wavering colour in her cheeks as she
gazed steadily at her captor. She felt no fear as she heard the others
withdraw. She did not know what was going to happen to her, no word in
the long conversation had indicated what her fate might be and she knew
herself absolutely defenceless but her whole mind had been seized as it
were by a great expectancy and there was no room for any other feeling.
Physically she was in those moments intensely alive: every sense seemed
at its highest power. Her eyes took in every detail of the face and
form opposite her, her ears were conscious of the faintest rustle and
click of the curtain behind her as they fell to shutting her in, her
nostrils quivered to the strange scent of tobacco and camel, coffee and
wood fire, in the tent. Her whole being seemed rising on tip-toe to go
forward to something she did not know. Lasrali rose from his seat and
approached her. She did not retreat. Then in a single sweep of his arm
he had drawn her close up to his breast, he bent his head and pressed
his lips down hard on hers.

Then suddenly she knew that here now, whirling down upon her through
the space of twenty years, was again the wonderful moment she had
known at 16 and never refound. It was here now. It was hers again.
Her head was pressed back on his arm. She could not move. Again the
pain on her mouth. Again the realization of being in the presence of a
tremendous Force and that not a destructive but an august beneficent
force, the constructive force of Life itself. Again that glimpse before
her eyes of something wonderful, something majestic and utterly beyond
the petty details of everyday existence. For the moment she seemed
united to something vast, eternal, primaeval, as indeed she was, to
the Impulse of Life itself that causes the whole universe to roll on
through its countless aeons. Her eyes gazed up to the dark beauty of
those above her but she did not see them with their lids half closed
over them and the straight black brows contracted into one line almost
as with severe physical pain above them. She saw before her mental
vision the magnificence of triumphal Life sweeping up towards her to
engulf her in its stupendous onrush.

It was only for an instant: She was released suddenly and staggered
slightly, clutching at the central tent pole for support and white and
trembling just as she had been on that other evening long ago. But her
eyes were shining still with the joy of the vision and she smiled at
Lasrali now gravely regarding her. He took her arm and led her up to
his own vacant chair into which he gently pressed her. Then bending
over her he began to speak slowly and distinctly so that she caught
every word.

“Listen. I want you. For the others I do not care. As you know I am
an Arab and not like the English supposed to have only one wife. I
can have a number but as it happens I have none now. If you will stay
and be my wife, I will let all your companions go. I will give them a
driver and a guard and they will go safely on their way to Jerusalem.
Nothing of theirs will be taken and I will send two of my Arabs to
explain the shooting.”

He stopped, waiting for her reply and Christine in the crisis of her
fate seemed suddenly struck dumb. The immensity of her feelings, the
intense desire to express all that was surging up in her soul seemed
to paralyse her utterance as a volume of water gets choked by its own
pressure in the narrow neck of a vessel from which it is struggling to
escape. She, the glib interpreter for others, she, the student who had
read Arab poetry by the hour was now tongue tied and silent, unable
to utter one little word of love or encouragement to the man bending
over her. She thought the beauty of his face so perfect, its expression
now so infinitely soft and tender, that she longed to throw her arms
about his neck and tell him that she loved him and would those words
have been any less true, any more exaggerated an expression than when
an English society girl says, “I love you,” to a man she is going to
marry, after a three weeks’ engagement?

Rather, the truth of it was so intense in Christine’s case and the
realisation of it so overawing that her lips were locked and her limbs
seemed inert. She struggled as we struggle in dreams to speak but not
a single world would come to her aid. She could only look and look back
to the eyes above her. Her dilated, appealing gaze might have been one
of helpless, fascinated terror and her heart thumping so violently in
her bosom blanched her face and lips.

A shade of disappointment came over Lasrali’s countenance.

“You will stay to save your friends?” he repeated and Christine managed
to force her trembling lips to a weak, yes.

“Aiwa.”

Lasrali gave a deep sigh as of relief and straightened himself. His
face relapsed into its habitual gravity as he said:

“I see you are very frightened but there is no need. In my tent you
will not be hurt or grieved. You will be safe, protected, I believe
happy. I shall try with all my force to make you so. You are very tired
now, go and rest; eat and sleep. Peace be with you.”

Again Christine tried to respond but the whole view of this love and
life so suddenly forced upon her seemed too great for her to assimilate
and to find quickly the suitable words a vehicle for her thoughts. And
the moment for her to speak and accept seemed maliciously to have gone
before she could grasp it.

If it was impossible for her to speak while he bent over her, his face
suffused with tenderness, it seemed still more hopeless to do so now
when he had drawn a little away and his usual calm and dignity had
enfolded him.

She hesitated clasping her hands, not as he fancied in supplication
to him, but to those unseen powers that were holding her, preventing
her disclosing her feeling towards him. Her mind was staggered and as
we fail when suddenly we come into view of a colossal mountain or a
huge giant tree, to summon words in which to describe our admiration,
because words seem so inadequate, so did Christine fail now.

Lasrali did not touch her again but with a grave gesture, waved her to
the door of the tent, the curtains of which he himself held back that
she might pass through.

With a look of intense gratitude, admiration and love, which he
translated as one of final appeal, she passed out and he was left alone.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Christine entered the other tent, the rest of the party were
seated in the centre, round a piece of carpet on which stood a coffee
pot of steaming coffee, a jug of goat’s milk, white bread as good as in
the Jerico hotel and a pile of dates.

They raised jaded looking enquiring faces to her as she joined the
circle and sat down.

“It’s all right. You are quite safe. Give me some coffee and I’ll tell
you.”

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Briggs. “Well you are splendid. What does he say?”

“He says, first we must all sleep here and rest until it’s cool
to-morrow afternoon. He will then send you all with a good driver and
an armed escort up to Jerusalem and an Arab who will explain all about
the shooting and see that the proper people are sent after our driver’s
body, which will be guarded till they come.” She paused and drank up
her coffee. A relieved sigh rose from the others, from all except the
Major who would not look relieved. He glared fiercely into his coffee
cup in silence.

“How wonderful!” said Lady Hillingford.

“Good fellow,” from her husband.

“Thank God,” said the millionaire.

“Well, he’s a darling,” declared Melisande.

Then Christine quietly threw her bombshell.

“Yes, only he says one of the women must stay.”

“Scoundrel,” shouted the Major, banging his cup down on the carpet.

“Ah, I _thought_ so,” murmured Lady Hillingford turning very white.

The two husbands looked at each other across the coffee without a word.

“Which one does he want?” asked Melisande drawing out her little mirror
from the bag on her lap and puffing out her golden locks at the side of
her head with her jewelled fingers.

“Me,” replied Christine.

“_You?_” exclaimed both ladies at once with an emphasis which was
not at all complimentary.

“Yes: seems strange, doesn’t it?” returned Christine tranquilly,
sinking her white even teeth into her dates with keen satisfaction.
She was evidently going to enjoy her supper to the full.

All eyes turned on her. Her companions stared at her in those moments
as if they had never seen her before. And indeed it was a new Christine
from the one they had been travelling with. The primaeval woman was
rising in her in all her strength and glory and arming her with new and
wonderful weapons. In her skin which had a curious transparency was
kindled a lovely rose flush, her eyes were no longer still dark pools
but rather wells of moving fire, her lips were redder than Melisande’s
painted ones. As she sat her slender body rose full of proud grace from
her cushion seat.

There was a long pause, full of tension. Somehow the ladies looked
displeased and the men not less concerned than before. Melisande was
the first to break the silence.

“What did you say?” she asked abruptly as Christine continued to eat
calmly and cheerfully.

“Said I’d stay.”

“Said you would stay?” gasped the men together.

“Yes, of course. I wasn’t going to get you all shot and Eva and Sandy
kept as prisoners as well as myself. I didn’t see the use.”

“Oh, but look here, we can’t stand this,” broke out Hillingford. “Do
you think we could go back and save ourselves at your expense like
that?”

“Well, what would you propose?” asked Christine pouring more milk into
her coffee.

“Er--well, I--er--don’t know--I should think they’d never dare
to--to--” he stopped.

“I don’t know either but they might dare a good lot. I heard a great
many cheering references to ‘Dead men tell no tales,’ while the
leader was talking to him. He seemed to think it was a splendid plan
for you three men to be shot and then for Lasrali to disappear into
the wilderness with us three women after duly rewarding his faithful
followers with our horses, carriage, bags, and jewelry and burying the
driver under a rock. It sounded a most engaging programme and I was
afraid each minute Lasrali would accept it. But he wouldn’t.”

“Did you offer him all he liked to ask if he would let us _all_
go?” asked Briggs.

“I did and he said it had been the dream of his life to--to marry a
white woman and a lady and he would not give it up for any amount of
money.”

“Scoundrel,” exclaimed the Major.

“Did you say that although we seemed a small party we had all the power
of England and the law behind us and he would certainly suffer very
much if he injured us?”

“I did: and he said England wasn’t much good now and didn’t protect her
people worth a cent. Besides which nobody could possibly get at him in
the wilderness until--until, well, until he’d realised his dream.”

“Devil! Devil!” shouted the Major who had at last got on to another
word.

The others all sat pale and silent. The tremendous end of their
journey to the Dead Sea taken so thoughtlessly and gaily was coming
close up to them now and appalled them.

It was Hillingford who spoke first.

“I don’t know what you others think about it but personally I feel I’d
rather stay here and be shot than save myself at a woman’s expense.
Damn it, I say, we _can’t_ go back and leave you here.”

“Our wives, Hillingford, our wives, we’ve got to think of them,”
murmured Briggs. He doubtless did think of his wife, but also somewhere
at the back of his mind he had the feeling that Eternal Justice would
be better satisfied by Miss Smith becoming an Arab’s bride than by John
Briggs with all his millions being murdered in the wilderness.

“If I know Eva,” Hillingford returned hotly, “she’d die here with me
rather than sneak out of a thing like this.”

Lady Hillingford looked back at her husband. Her face was dead white
but she knew what she had to do and say and played up to her caste.

“Certainly, Will, I’ll stay. I have no doubt you can finish me with a
rock or a knife.”

Christine looked over to him with a smile in her now lovely eyes. Then
having finished an excellent meal, she sat back on her cushion and
wiped her pink tipped fingers on her little handkerchief. Then she
stretched out a small hand to Hillingford.

“It’s most awfully good of you Lord Hillingford and I do appreciate
it. But I should simply hate for all our lives to be wasted. I should
want to do the same and stay and save you, in any case but as it is
you needn’t worry at all. You can all go off with clear consciences. We
came out for adventures and this is the biggest we’ve had. It’s mine
principally and I’m going to take it. I think Lasrali hasn’t been half
bad in spite of what the Major says. He has very self sacrificingly
picked out the plainest and least attractive woman simply because she’s
free and the others have husbands. I like him and I’m going to stay and
marry him.”

This was another bombshell amongst them that left them gasping. Only
Melisande did not seem surprised. She watched Christine with a little
malicious smile.

“Good heavens!” was all Hillingford seemed able to answer and the
distress on his face hardly lightened. Briggs was candidly and openly
pleased. It had been an awful moment for him when he really thought
Death was coming for him through his stockade of money-bags.

“Very plucky, I call it,” he said, “daring little devil, isn’t she
Sandy?”

“Oh, very,” returned Melisande getting out her cigarette case and
lighting up.

Suddenly the Major banged both clenched fists down on the carpet square
making the coffee cups dance and jingle.

“You an English woman going to marry that devil and _like it_.
Faugh!”

In his indignation he tried to struggle to his feet but being short and
fat and seated on a cushion he found this very difficult and nearly
rolled over into the coffee cups. Christine sprang to her feet and
offered him her hand.

“I think we’re all dead tired,” she said, “let’s go to bed and talk in
the morning.”

The rest of the circle broke up. They were tired beyond all words and
got up and approached thankfully the great square at the back of the
tent where rugs were unrolled and a quantity of cushions laid out.
They ranged themselves in the following order. Lady Hillingford, then
her husband, then the millionaire, then his wife, then next her in the
outside Miss Smith. The Major would have none of them. He stalked up to
the capacious bed and took his cushion and small rug.

“I despise you,” he said in a fierce undertone to Miss Smith as he
grabbed his pillow.

“Sorry,” replied Christine and threw herself full length beside
Melisande. She longed for rest and a cessation of talk and discussion,
to lie still in the darkness and listen to the Voice of Nature in her
ear and feel the kiss of Life burning on her lips.

They drew the great rug which they shared in common over them, for with
the dawn a little chill was coming into the air.

“Put out the light as you pass, Major,” called Briggs, and the Major
did so throwing his rug and cushion down as far from the others as he
could get. No one spoke any more and sleep came down heavily like a
great cloud upon them and enfolded them. Except (as usual) Christine.
Stretched out still and looking into the soft darkness, she lay and
thought.

Here after all these years, winging its way to her across the gulf
of time and space had come again the joy she had known when on the
threshold of life.

She had come into the barren desert which gives nothing neither shade
nor rest nor water nor food, and it had given her this.

How strangely things happened; she had joined this touring party,
hoping for fun and adventure, all the amusing little adventures of
travel and suddenly she had stumbled into the biggest adventure that
could happen to her that would change her whole life.

She was, what so very few of us are, free from the necessity of
consideration for others. She was without relations, home or family
ties. Without any dear ones to regret or that would regret her. In the
twenty years that had intervened between that first engagement and the
present time, one by one every one that belonged to her or who loved
her had been taken from her. She had felt the extreme loneliness of
this grow upon her and had wildly resented it at times, but here now
she saw that it was enviable. Without remorse or regret, she was free
to accept this great experience, now she had come face to face with it.
She had nothing to hold her nor restrain her from going forward to it.
There was nothing in the life behind her to hold out a single detaining
hand. She had not even a pet nor a house that needed attention and
arrangement.

She was one of those single women with a sufficient income to dress
well and live in the best hotels who spent her time studying, motoring,
dancing, amusing herself in all legitimate, civilized ways, travelling
widely and looking, always looking for something. With some of them if
they are plain and stupid it is love they are looking for, sometimes
only a kiss. Christine had never had to seek for love and kisses
she could have had by dozens. It was because she was looking for a
particular kind of love, a special sort of kiss, that the search had
been long. She did not seek brutality nor cruelty, those are totally
different from though often confused with force, intensity. The real
true strength of Love that is striving to create Life in a beloved
object that is what she had been seeking and had now found and she
could not see that she had to make any particular sacrifice for it. She
admired the grave dignity and beauty of the man himself and she had
felt that strange sharp call of his individuality to hers, which is
after all the basis of all love between the sexes whether civilized or
uncivilized. The one quality which to her was one absolute essential
in any man she was to love, tenderness and kindness to animals seemed
assured by what his servant had said. Had she really known anything
more of her father’s secretary, than she knew now of Lasrali? She could
have married him for the sake of that golden moment in his arms and she
was now going to marry Lasrali for exactly the same reason. In her eyes
it was quite as good a reason as marrying to obtain a house in town, a
settled income or a title. She saw very clearly that Nature, cruel as
she is in the deaths, disease, pain and all the woes she sends upon us
and the animals has yet in her hands for all created things this one
supreme joy and consolation for all the suffering of life, the joy of
simple, natural unrestrained love. No animals fail to realise this and
few men and women in a natural state, but in a civilized state there
are hundreds of thousands who live, marry, suffer and die without one
glimpse of this Eternal Truth.

So far Christine had steadily avoided marrying anyone, between whom
and herself there did not seem to be that strange wild magnetism, that
irresistible call and challenge to the senses, getting out of her
numerous engagements as best she could and submitting to being angrily
and furiously called a jilt, which she knew was not true. She was
simply one looking for gold and consistently refusing the dross that
was pressed upon her in its place.

Lasrali did not sleep that night. All through the remaining hours he
sat wide eyed in his chair, sometimes drawing at his pipe but more
often idle staring down at the carpet that kept the stony dust of the
wilderness from his fine narrow high arched feet. A very hardy struggle
was going on within him and he was fighting bravely against the
greatest power in the Universe, outside that still greater power that
has been given to the soul of man.

Several times his wearied attendant outside raised the tent flap a tiny
bit and looked in only to see his master still sitting there as a
statue, lost in thought.

It is absurd to limit the good and bad impulses in man by any creed,
caste, or colour. The human soul has no such limits. Nobleness,
generosity, self-sacrifice, dwell indiscriminately in black, yellow,
red, and white races alike. Evil, also is scattered impartially
through the whole of humanity as witness the loathsome cruelties and
barbarities committed by men of our own time and race under the name
of Scientific Research which surpass in horror anything done by savage
tribes.

At last when the morning was fairly on its way, he summoned his Arab.

“Are the English still sleeping?”

“Yes, they all sleep very soundly: a good time to kill the men now if
you wish.”

Lasrali lifted his hand in protest, his brows contracting.

“Listen. When the English wake, take them water for washing and all
they need. Then a good meal. While they eat, come and rouse me if I
should be sleeping. When they finish their meal, bring them here to me.”

The Arab bowed and went away muttering. Lasrali, exhausted, passed
through the curtains to his inner tent to sleep.

Although Christine had slept less than the others she was the first to
awake, when the light was sinking in the tent and the flush of sunset
was stealing over the wilderness, softening all its grim, glaring
whiteness. She looked round with a feeling of surprise that the day had
vanished, they had slept it away. It seemed strange to be waking to
the rose of sunset instead of the rose of dawn as she was accustomed
to do. She lifted herself from the rugs and looked at the sleepers
beside her. Hillingford was the only one whose eyes were open and as he
met her glance he smiled and as if by common consent they both rose,
very quietly so as not to disturb the others and went out of the tent
together, passing by the Major still soundly asleep by the door.

The encampment outside was an animated scene, cooking fires were
sparkling everywhere and Arabs coming and going between them preparing
the evening meal. The line of camels and other animals were feeding
leisurely under their rock shelter, all the tent doors were open except
the great double one, really two tents, joined together, one behind the
other, which belonged to Lasrali. Of these the door flaps were closed
and fastened and two Arabs sat on the ground before them.

Christine looked out on it all curiously and smelt the scent of the
wood fires rising in the hot still air with a curious leaping of the
heart. Why is it that the scent of the camp fire affects all or nearly
all mankind with a strange feeling like nostalgia? Is it because on its
fragrance our senses are borne back to primaeval times when our first
camp fires smoked in the untamed forest?

She glanced across to Lasrali’s tent and the sight of its closed door
struck her with a sense of loneliness. Her life henceforth would lean
upon him. This scene that she looked upon would be its outside shell
but there was nothing in it that she cared about except himself.

She turned to Hillingford who stood beside her. The Arabs about them
glanced at them sideways, but the Mahomedan from his earliest years
is taught not to stare and the long dark eyes were drooped again
immediately over boiling kettle, or rice bowl as if they had seen
nothing unusual.

“There are just one or two things I should like you to do for me,” she
said gently, “if you will.”

“Of course, I will, anything,” he returned gazing at her in the
soft rose light that fell all about them from the tinted sky. How
wonderfully well she was looking he thought with no toilet made nor
adjuncts of any kind. He did not realise how the great force of
expectant life was awakened and moving within her, painting her cheeks
and lips, kindling and softening her eyes.

“You know I have no near relations,” she went on, “so there’s no
one to see or to tell about me, but I should like the money I have
to be safeguarded. Will you be my trustee and look after it for me?
And re-invest the income, so that in the future, if there should be
any--any, well if it’s wanted it will be there. In my bag when you go
back to the carriage you will find a small packet of all my papers,
bank book, check book, etc. Will you take possession of it. That will
give you all the details. And send me back by one of the Arabs my
little case of clothes. I shall want that here.”

“I’ll do anything and everything,” he returned, “but you must authorize
me about the money here,” and he drew out his pocket book and gave it
to her. “Write down there that you wished me to act for you. Here’s
a pen.” He gave her his own stylographic and she looked at it for a
moment in silence.

“Isn’t this all funny? Doing this civilized sort of business out here
in this wilderness. What an end we have had to our tour!”

“Yes, it’s awful,” groaned Hillingford, “I shall never forgive myself
or feel the same again.” Christine had seated herself on a great stone
and was writing rapidly in the pocket book all that she thought was
necessary. When it was done, she handed up the book and pen to him.

“Will that do?”

Hillingford read it through.

“That’s all right,” he said and shut the book and replaced it. “But we
shall send after you and rescue you as soon as we get back.”

Christine still seated put her hand round her knees and stared over the
small space that intervened to the closed tent door of Lasrali.

“Do you remember your Roman History?” she said slowly after a minute.
“You remember how the Romans carried off the Sabine women and how
after a time the Sabine husbands and fathers came after them to rescue
them and the Sabine women came out and said they were happy with their
Roman husbands and didn’t want to be rescued? It was too late. Well
it’s the same now. I am sure it will be too late. Besides this I am a
sort of hostage. If you come after me to rescue me I believe you won’t
find me because Lasrali will go far, far away in the mountains and
hide.”

“But surely he could be found. We could get an army to scour the
place,” remonstrated Hillingford in hot desperation.

Christine shook her head.

“It might be possible to find and punish him but what about me? I
should think I should be killed when the news first came to him he was
being followed and don’t you see he has us all in his power _now_?
If he lets you go, you are on parole, as it were. You can’t pursue him
afterwards,” Hillingford groaned, then he burst out, “He’s no right to
keep you.”

“No, but I am staying of my own free will. Don’t attempt to rescue
me. You will only make fearful trouble if you do and it seems to be
dishonourable when he has had you in his power and let you go. Be quite
happy about me, really. I have had so many years of ordinary civilized
life I am quite prepared to accept this adventure as a change and make
the best of it.”

Hillingford was silent, staring down at the ground.

“Do you despise me, too, like the Major?” she asked with a little laugh.

“Good heavens, no, I think you are a heroine. Of course, I know
whatever you may say, you are only doing it for us!”

Christine’s brows contracted.

Again this wall of hopeless misunderstanding. She could not clear it
away. She could not explain to him for he would never understand. They
spoke the same language, they were of the same country, class and
creed, yet she felt further from him, in a way, than she did from the
stranger who was their host.

Hillingford who was girt about with conventions and civilization got on
very well with the half of Christine that was conventional, civilized
woman, the other half the simple, natural primitive woman he would not
have been able to understand at all.

Christine did not attempt further explanation all she said was:

“Well, remember the Sabine women and don’t rescue me. I don’t want it.
I think it would be dishonourable and extremely dangerous. When I want
civilization again I’ll find a way of getting back to it. Now, promise.
Then I shall feel safer and happier,” and very reluctantly Hillingford
promised.

The rosy glow was fading, stars sparkled in it here and there. In the
East a great pale moon came up reminding them of the approaching hour
of departure.

In silence they walked back to the tent. The door was open and an Arab
was lighting the central lamp, while two others were spreading out a
meal on the carpet. The women were arranging their hair before scraps
of looking-glass and the men sat moody and silent watching the Arabs at
work.

It was a short and quiet meal, less lively than their supper last night.

There seemed nothing more to be said. No one seemed to have any ideas,
or to wish to speak. A sullen sort of apathy had settled on them all
as if they were a flock of overdriven sheep. Christine alone looked
radiant and clear-eyed and sat looking through the door of the tent
towards that other one of which she could just see the closed flaps. At
last she saw movement about it. Arabs went in carrying coffee and Arabs
came out and at last one crossed the space to their tent and entered.

“The horses are refreshed and ready. All is now prepared for your
departure and our Master would be pleased if you will come to his tent.”

Not knowing yet whether they were all going to be executed at the last
moment or not the English all rose and followed the Arab out of their
tent across the now moonlit space to the other one and were ushered
gravely in.

Lasrali was standing to receive them. The audience was to be short so
no cushions were prepared nor offered, of which the Major was very
glad. They filed in. Christine as the interpreter and the only one
who could understand was pushed a little forward and stood in front
of the rest. Her eyes alight, her cheeks and lips glowing, her form
full of elastic strength, she looked as she felt in the first flush of
womanhood. Her face was smiling as she looked up at him and Lasrali
looked down at her as a man dying of thirst looks at a crystal spring.
Then he began to speak very clearly and restrainedly.

“I am an Arab and a host is a host, and guests are guests. I tell you
now you are all free. Last night I made conditions I should not have
done. They do not exist this evening. With my escort you will all
proceed to Jerusalem and may peace be with you.”

He stopped and Christine, paling a little, repeated it in English.

Then Lasrali approached her a step nearer and added: “Sacred is the law
of hospitality. I infringed it last night. I touched this lady. To her
I apologise.”

Utter silence. Christine stood as if actually turned to ice or stone.
Her color fled. She gazed up at Lasrali as if he were demented. Her
companions to whom the words conveyed nothing grew cold with fear. What
now? What in heaven’s name had he said? Was all that first palaver some
ghastly joke? Had he now suggested they should be eaten alive or what?
They gazed at Christine, longing for her to speak and fully prepared
for the worst. Her face was a study of astonishment, agony and despair.
The Major couldn’t stand it. He went up behind her and shook her arm.

“What’s he said now? The scoundrel!”

Lasrali bent towards her with grave kindness.

“Perhaps you do not understand. You are free. Go with your friends. I
regret that your beauty last night overcame me.”

Christine still stood white and silent and trembling. Was it possible?
Here again the very idea, the actual words that had ruined her
happiness at 16! Here in this man of different race and caste and
blood, country and creed, the same misunderstanding. Were men all
alike? Was it only Woman who saw clearly back to the primaeval fount of
things and recognized in passion the joyous force of life?

“Christine!” it was Lady Hollingford’s voice sharp and thin. She was
delicate and nervous and she felt she could bear the strain no longer.
“Do tell us what he says, whatever it is!”

In a flash Christine saw how this little accident of knowing the
language put them all in her power. Her friends, their safety, Lasrali,
his reputation, were all her toys.

For the moment the temptation came to her to mistranslate his words.
Just to say he dismissed them as had been arranged and was keeping her.
The primaeval woman fighting for her ends prompted this. That would
satisfy all these civilized fools and they would go and leave her in
peace with the heroine’s halo round her head. It would be so difficult
otherwise perhaps to stay.

But the impulse was pushed aside instantly by her feelings of truth and
honour and responsibility to those who trusted her. Also she would not
rob Lasrali of the credit for his fine feelings and his self-sacrifice.

Stammering and hesitating because of the amazement gripping her, she
gave out his words in English exactly as he had spoken them and the
relief of the others was mixed with surprise.

“Well, that’s all right! What’s the matter with you?” asked Lady
Hillingford, but Melisande only laughed.

“Please leave me now I desire rest,” Lasrali said.

“Do thank him for us and tell him how grateful we are,” Hillingford
said and Christine mechanically turned his words into Arabic. Slipping,
slipping from her she saw the golden moment, never to be captured
again. The English are not a graceful people. They tried to bow and
salute Lasrali who stood there reposeful and dignified but they were
not very good at it and in a sort of huddled bunch they got through the
tent curtains. The Major marched out with flat defiance.

“Showed the white feather after all, didn’t dare to touch us, thought
so, damned scoundrel!” was his farewell remark.

Christine was the last to leave. The others had preceded her and the
curtains had fallen to behind them. Her hand was on the dangling
fringes. She looked back. The tent was empty. At the other side of it
were the curtains dividing off Lasrali’s sleeping tent. Through them he
had disappeared. Should she? Dare she? Race after that fleeting, golden
moment which was now eluding her for the second time? Behind her lay
all those years of an existence she knew so well. Almost every form
of civilised amusement that a modern age provides had been hers. And
love in all its delicate restrained civilised ways had been offered her
again and again but there had seemed something tame and flat about it
all. Before her stood Life in another dress or rather in an unashamed
barbaric nakedness which had some strength and glory about it. Above
all it was something new. She seemed in those seconds to visualise it
as a dancing, laughing figure, taunting her, daring her to come after
it. And she would dare. Beyond the further curtains was burning a great
electric force that was calling to every nerve and pulse and fibre of
her frame pulling her irresistibly to itself.

The curtains dropped from her nerveless fingers. Swift, silent as a
shadow, she passed across the space and drew back the curtains that
had closed behind Lasrali. A dim light burned in the tent. Beyond she
saw his unrolled bed. He himself was standing still gazing at the
ground. He turned and saw her as she entered, not weak nor white nor
trembling nor hesitant now, but alive, determined, triumphant, glowing,
expanding, the future mother of a bold and hardy race. Eyes shining,
she advanced towards him with outstretched hands.

“Lasrali! don’t send me away! I want to stay here with you!”

A flash came over his face as of some great enlightenment. He put both
his hands on her shoulders and gazed keenly into her eyes but hers did
not waver. They glowed and glowed carrying their message straight to
his.

“Is it true?” he asked.

“Yes, I swear it by the Koran.”

Over his face so superbly gifted by Nature, swept that wonderful, all
enveloping softness and sweetness that filled her with ecstasy.

“Then the dream of my life is realised.”

“And mine,” said Christine.




                                COLOUR


     _Circumstances sometimes make us virtuous against our will._


George Morris was pottering about at the back of the dusty, dingy
little picture shop, while the dealer had gone to fetch the picture
backing George had come in for, when he noticed set away on a shelf a
little sketch and paused before it fascinated. It was a most attractive
little thing, all red: everything in it was a delightful warm, rich,
glowing crimson. The background was red--the interior of a room full
of firelight. A bed hung with red curtains occupied the centre with an
undraped woman’s figure of the loveliest lines, getting into it: one
ivory knee pressed the side of the bed: her fair hair, glinting with
red in the firelight, fell over her shoulders and her rounded arm,
uplifted to draw aside the curtain. Underneath the picture was written
the one word, “RUBY.”

George Morris, city man, living in the suburbs with Mrs. Morris in the
dull, solid round of English existence, felt his heart leap up suddenly
in response to the call of the picture. Under a plain, prosaic exterior
this man had a deep natural love for romance, a thirst for adventure,
a longing for the “wine, woman and song” that seemed never to form
a part of his humdrum life. He thought of Mrs. Morris and her dull,
plain face and the ginger-brown gown she seemed to live in. Why did she
always wear brown, he wondered? Why not red, for instance? He thought
of their bedroom at Meadow View, Mervyn Road: its linoleum floor, its
iron bedstead, its white walls, its narrow grate filled with tissue
paper and never guilty of a fire. In fact, it was always so cold that
Maria Morris wore very thick nightgowns and woolly jackets to keep
warm, and the electric light was so expensive now that she would hardly
allow it to be used upstairs, and always said they could just as well
undress in the dark.

George sighed. Why was Maria like that and his bedroom like that? Why
should he not have a rich, warm, red room like this ... and ... and...?

“There you are, sir: the best three-ply there is for picture backing.”

George turned round with a start. He had quite forgotten his errand.

The dealer was peering at him through his spectacles, the thin wood in
his hand.

“Er--ah!--thank you very much,” he stammered. “Er--this picture
here--what price is it?” He indicated the little red sketch.

“Oh, that’s not for sale,” replied the man. “It’s just a bit an artist
brought in to show me. He’s painting quite a big picture. It’s for the
Salon, I believe.”

“Oh,” murmured George, “not for the Academy?” He felt disappointed he
couldn’t buy the sketch, and if the picture was going to Paris he would
never see it again.

The dealer shook his head doubtfully. “No. I think not. Colour’s a bit
too warm for England, I should say.”

The door bell sprang at the moment, and the dealer looked round a pile
of frames into the front shop.

“Why, here is Mr. Brookes himself!” he exclaimed. And George saw a tall
slight young man with the artist’s slouch-hat and a flowing tie come
in and nod to the shopman. “There’s a gentleman here admiring your
picture,” the latter said, and George approached him eagerly.

“I do indeed,” he said. “It’s a wonderful picture. I’m sorry I won’t
ever see the big one.”

The artist flushed with pleasure. “You can come and see it now, if you
like,” he said in a pleased tone. “My shanty’s only a stone’s throw
from here; two tubes of purple madder, please, Smith, and chalk them
up, will you? I haven’t a cent on me.”

George’s heart beat. A visit to a real studio with an artist to see
this glorious red picture! He accepted at once. What a comfort that
Maria had always been out to tea lately and there was no need for him
to hurry back.

When the artist had got his paints and George had paid for his
purchase, they left the shop together and walked to the studio.

It was in a side street, and you went down a long slope from the
pavement to a wooden door which the artist opened with his latchkey,
and George walked through a small passage into a great, untidy,
comfortable room that, with its hint of gaiety and dissolute romance,
delighted him. There were deep chairs everywhere, a huge dais in one
corner all draped in gorgeous red, a stove in the centre glowing hot,
a deep cushioned semi-circular lounge half round it. One corner of the
room was walled off with voluminous blue curtains to form the artist’s
bedroom. The whole end of the room farthest from this was window,
but it only looked into a quiet green garden with high walls round
affording complete seclusion. There was a delightful litter of pictures
all about, a mass of flowers by the sunny window, an aviary of singing
birds, soft Turkey rugs on the floor, and the perfume of scented
cigarettes in the air. George liked it. He liked it much better than
the stiff drawing room with the starched white curtains and high hard
chairs of Meadow View.

The artist drew forward two big chairs and then, going to the dais
pulled on a cord. The curtains flew apart and there was the picture!
Then he threw himself into one of the chairs while George took the
other, and the two men gazed at the canvas in silence.

“Wonderful woman she is,” remarked the artist after a minute between
the puffs of his cigarette. “Bit of a mystery. Calls herself Mrs.
Brown, but don’t believe that’s her real name. Can’t make out what
she’s doing it for: whether it’s the money or for the fun of it; little
of both, perhaps. She’s not a regular model evidently, but she’s one of
the best I ever had. Good figure, isn’t it?”

“Oh, perfect, perfect!” replied George rapturously. He couldn’t take
his eyes off the picture. He sat before it spellbound, clasping his
British umbrella in both hands as it stood between his British knees
gazing at the vivid, barbaric riot of beautiful colour and suggestion
that appealed so to his romantic un-British heart. “What’s her face
like?”

“Oh, nothing very much. Not a bad little face when she smiles and gets
some colour; but you see I didn’t want the face for that picture.”

“No, quite so, quite so,” assented George.

“Larky woman, I should think,” went on the artist. “Married to a sort
of dull brute of a husband--doesn’t care about her; leaves her alone
all day.”

“Pig!” grunted George indignantly. “Can you imagine a man having a
woman like that and neglecting her?”

The artist laughed.

“Well, marriage is a killing atmosphere. I don’t know what she may be
at home, she’s amusing enough when she comes in here.”

“What do you know about her? Where did you meet her?”

“The funny part is I don’t know anything. She just walked in here one
afternoon: said she was bored to death and had no romance or fun
in her life, and no money of her own to spend. Said she’d sit as a
model if I’d have her. I wasn’t much struck at first: she was rather
badly dressed, you know; but we talked a little bit and I got rather
interested. I’d had the idea for this picture for a long time, I hadn’t
a model, and she was cheap and very willing to learn and be civil,
which all of them are not, and so there it was. She’s been coming to me
for quite a time now, and it’s good, the picture, isn’t it? I’m hoping
it’ll make a big hit.”

George nodded. He was grasping his umbrella feverishly, his hands
rolling and unrolling the silk flaps nervously. He would do it, he
would. He’d have this one bit of romance in his life to cherish and
look back upon.

He turned to the insouciant artist who, with his head tilted back and
the cigarette in his teeth and his leg hanging over one arm of the
chair, was contemplating his work with satisfaction through half-closed
eyes.

“I think I heard you say in that shop you were a little pressed for
ready money,” he said in his rather stiff way.

The artist laughed. “Dead broke, my dear sir, that’s what I am! Why?
Are you thinking of making me an offer for the picture?”

George leant nearer him.

“The picture’s good,” he said hoarsely, for his throat felt dry, “but
it’s the woman I want. Do you want to make twenty pounds? Well, here’s
your chance. Get her for me. Get her here. Lend me the studio for a
few hours. Fix up those red curtains, have it just like the picture,
red lights, red fire, red roses, red everything. Get her posing just
like that, mind, just like that; then you clear out and leave us alone.”

The artist was sitting bolt upright now staring at Mr. George Morris as
if he could not believe his eyes or his ears, as indeed he could not.
Was this really the very respectable old party he had met in the shop?
His eyes were glowing, his face flushed. He looked almost young and
handsome. What an astounding proposition from such an orthodox-looking
old Briton! Still, twenty pounds....

“But I don’t suppose for one minute she’d consent,” he said after an
astonished pause of reflection.

George made an angry movement of impatience.

“Unless you muddle things,” he said, “she won’t know anything about it.
You won’t ask her anything.”

“But I don’t see....” began the other.

“Look here. You get the lady to come to an ordinary sitting; just as
usual. You fix up everything, just as it is there, as you always do, I
suppose. I’m waiting behind those curtains there. Then you get her to
pose just like that: you step back to get something, brush or what-not.
You slip behind the curtains and then clear out of the studio and I am
left in your place. What’s to prevent you doing that?”

“Nothing. Only it seems rather a bad trick for me to play her and she
may disappoint you, she may....”

“Never mind,” returned George calmly now. “If I muddle my own affairs
when you leave us that’s my business; nothing to do with you. You get
your twenty all the same.”

“When?” asked the artist dubiously.

“When I look through those curtains,” returned George intimating the
artist’s walled-off bedroom behind them, “and see this picture in life.
When you pass me to go out I’ll slip the notes into your hand.”

Mr. James Brookes looked down on the floor in silent thought. He didn’t
like the idea at all. Still, he was very hard up and perhaps his model
would not mind. She seemed very good natured. He could pass it off as a
practical joke.

“I don’t half like it,” he said after a minute. “Still, I’ll do it.”

“When?”

“Day after to-morrow she’s coming--four to six. You’d better be here by
three-thirty, so there’s no chance of her seeing you come in.”

George got up with a strange fire of joy in his heart. Here was
romance, intrigue, adventure, coming into his life at last!

He cast his eyes round the studio with its inviting air of ease, its
bright colours, its luxury, which seemed to belie, or was it the cause
of its owner’s poverty?

“I envy you your life,” he said, buttoning up his coat and gazing at
the innumerable portraits of brunettes and blondes on the studio walls.
“There must be so much beauty, poetry, colour in it, novelty, change.”
And he sighed, thinking of his eighteen years at Meadow View with Maria.

“Oh, I don’t know,” returned the artist. “One gets sick of it, you
know; so many women and all jealous and squabbling with one another.
One longs sometimes for a home and a little peace and quietness.”

“What a pity we can’t change places,” mused George as he walked home
thinking over the artist’s words. Then he fell to wondering what the
model’s face would be like. “A nice little face when she smiles and
gets some colour,” the artist had said, and it rather took his fancy.
Ruby! It was a sweet name! And she, like himself, was sighing for
romance in her life, was evidently just as lonely and unappreciated as
he was. By the time he got back to Mervyn Road, his face had assumed
its usual chastened expression.

Maria seemed rather more dull and sour than usual.

“Why didn’t you come back to tea?” she enquired.

George flushed.

“You have been out so often to tea lately,” he said.

“Well, I wasn’t to-day,” she snapped. “You might let me know when
you’re not coming home till dinner.”

“I’ll be at the office late, I know, the day after to-morrow,” replied
George, trying to speak naturally, but getting redder and redder.

“All right,” returned Maria, “I’m glad to know it. I’ll go and have tea
with Aunt Emma.”

“Do, my dear, and I’ll get back in time for dinner.”

“I should hope so,” rejoined Maria.

George was amiability itself that evening. The glow of the picture had
got into his heart and warmed it, and that night he could not sleep for
thinking of it. What might not this adventure lead up to? He had heard
of men who had cosy little flats, the existence of which was unknown
to their lawful wives. He had always thought this very wrong, but now
he began to feel sympathy with those men. Perhaps, like himself they
had dull, unsympathetic wives; perhaps they, too, were yearning after
colour in their lives. A little flat and all furnished in red, which
could be kept very warm so that its occupant could wear those nice
pink and blue things he saw in the windows of the Burlington Arcade,
and dispense with woolly jackets. Silk stockings, too! He had often
thought it would be nice to have someone to take those neat boxes of
silk stockings home to that he saw on the counter of men’s shops when
he went to buy his ties. He had never thought of Maria. Silk stockings
didn’t go with Meadow View--they went with little flats. Of course, it
might be rather expensive, but then, why should he not spend something
on his own amusements? He was very liberal with Maria. She was always
buying new hats. Now last year, she had had--how many? There was
the hat with the green feathers, and--er--er the hat with the green
feathers, and--and--the hat with the green feathers. Well, there, he
couldn’t think of any other hat, so he supposed she had had only one
last year, and finally, trying to find another hat for Maria, he fell
asleep.

       *       *       *       *       *

The great day came and with a beating heart, Mr. George Morris left
his office early and hurried to the studio, arriving there some
minutes before the appointed time. The artist let him in himself, and
George thought the studio looked more attractive than ever. The sun
was streaming through the lowered red blinds, the stove was burning
brightly, there were flowers on the many little tables and a heavy
fragrance from burning pastilles in the air. He was quite sorry to have
to go into the dark recesses of the bedroom in the corner, but his host
insisted on it and gave him a chair well back against the wall away
from the curtain. He gave him a paper, but as it was too dark to read
there with any comfort and he was strictly enjoined not to make the
faintest noise, so that he could not turn its pages, it was obvious the
paper was not much use to him. And how could anyone read in that state
of high-strung expectation in which Mr. George Morris now found himself?

After sitting there alone in the obscurity for what seemed an
interminable time, he heard a ring at the main door and the artist
going out to answer it. They seemed to linger a long time at the door
and he thought he heard some ripples of laughter that set all his
pulses beating. Then he heard the studio door open and evidently two
persons entering. But he was disappointed that he could not hear their
conversation, hardly their voices through the muffling folds of the
heavy curtains. He was afraid to leave his seat and approach nearer
the curtains for fear lest some noise of his movement might betray
him. The model’s ears might be sharper than his own. There was quite a
long pause of silence, and he wondered what they were doing. Perhaps
the model was undressing. Then he heard the moving of furniture and
supposed the scene was being arranged. The heavy bed with its elaborate
red drapery that figured in the picture had to be pushed to its right
position on the dais. He sat impatiently on his chair, the notes all
ready in his hand to be given to the artist in that blissful moment
when he should pass by him on his way out, leaving him alone with the
adorable model.

At last his host’s light step approached the other side of the
curtains, a hand was laid on them, and he heard his voice say: “I’ll
just fetch that tube,” and then the curtains were pulled apart.

Morris sprang to his feet and stood spellbound. There was the lovely
picture in the life, the warm interior, the gorgeous bed, the crimson
lights and in the centre, the feminine figure of lovely whiteness with
the flowing hair in the pose of just getting into bed.

The artist passed swiftly by him, pulled the notes out of George’s
nerveless hand as he stood there staring, then passed on noiselessly
to the door which he closed behind him with the faintest click.
Faint though it was, it came to George’s ears and roused him. He was
alone--the room, the scene, the model was his! With outstretched arm he
rushed forward to clasp this beauty, this dream, this delight to him.
He reached the dais. His arms were almost round her lovely shoulders
when the model turned.

A shriek rang through the studio: “_George!_”

“_Maria!_”




                           A NOVEL ELOPEMENT


The train puffed its way along its line through one of the prettiest
parts of Kent and carried among its many passengers a bridal couple
that had that morning been married and were now _en route_ for
their honeymoon.

Three weeks ago they had never seen each other, these two, who now
at the respective ages of eighteen and twenty-five, had taken their
solemn oath to remain together till Death. They had met at a dance. He
had been in the mood to marry somebody; she was already rather tired
of refusing offers and accepted his for a change. Their engagement
had been a joyous whirl, and both were very happy now and were quite
convinced that their choice was excellent. Eva thought Eric was so
clever and had such a wonderful mind and character because he always
agreed with her in conversation. Eric was so occupied with gazing into
her blue eyes when he answered her searching questions, that he had
not the remotest idea what it was he agreed to. If she said she loved
dogs he said he thought there was nothing so jolly and faithful; if
she said women should have votes, he said it would be a shame if they
hadn’t. If she said she adored music, he said his happiest hours were
passed listening to her playing; if she said vivisection was a blot on
our civilization, he said it was a beastly, unnatural practice and
ought to be stopped. If she said the traffic in old horses should be
abolished he told her his idea had always been to found a home where
old horses could end their days in peace. Once, when he trod on the
tail of her mother’s cat, he had seemed, to her surprise, a little
callous about it. She had reproached him. The cat had been picked up
immediately by him, fondled on his knee and given a saucer of milk by
way of consolation.

Eva simply glowed with joy and love after such conversations and
incidents, and when her mother pointed out that she knew very little of
the man and that the engagement was very short, she answered:

“It doesn’t matter, we are so alike and take the same view of
everything. We are sure to be happy.”

She honestly thought she saw him in his words. All she saw was what
he let her see--the reflection of her own warm-hearted, clear-headed
self. She had really thought out the subjects on which she formed her
well-founded opinions. When she offered these to him, as he never
thought out anything and had no opinions, he accepted hers just as
lightly and easily as he would have accepted the contrary ones, if
offered!

It is always very difficult for the deep, strong nature of a woman
to realise the facile worthlessness of a man’s. She was happy as she
sat in the corner of the carriage, her hand tucked into his. She was
sure--or _nearly_ sure--that she had found a good, great man.
He was quite sure he had found a girl with a pretty face and nice
figure--these were clear to the eye, no bother of thinking them out--so
both young people were blissfully content and satisfied.

Suddenly the easy motion of the train stopped. A jar and a jerk, then
it drew up motionless where the line ran through a pretty wood. Eric
sprang up and put his head out of the window. It was autumn, the
evening chill, and dusk. He could not see ahead--only that they were
not stopping at any station. Presently the guard came along by the side
of the train:

“There’s an obstruction on the line, sir, on ahead! Part of a tunnel
fallen in. It will take some clearing away, too. We can’t get on
to-night.”

Most of the other passengers were looking out and listening to his
discouraging accents. Their eyes wandered over the wood in which the
train was pulled up. It stood golden in autumn leaf, silent and chill.
It seemed unresponsive, and to offer no solution of their difficulties.
Then plans began to be made and eagerly discussed. Some of the
passengers were in favor of returning to the last station and stopping
there the night, being somewhat reluctantly assured by the guard they
could “get on in the morning.”

Eric withdrew his head and sat down by Eva.

“What would you like to do, darling?”

Eva was gazing into the mystery of the shadowy wood.

“Could we camp there?” she said. “Under that golden canopy, it’s very
lovely!”

Eric’s face lengthened.

“Hardly, dear, I think. It’s so damp and----”

“There is a lovely full moon rising behind the trees,” she answered.

Eric was silent. The wood did not appeal to him, nor the rising moon.
Neither did the “Bull and Cow” which was the station inn and the only
one they had seen from the last station as they passed.

In the pause that ensued the guard entered the carriage and approached
the young couple confidentially.

“We’ve decided to make a run back, sir, from here; but if I may make
a suggestion, there’s a nice farmhouse not a stone’s throw from here
where you’d be most comfortable. I know the party as keeps it would put
you up for the night and give you a good supper.”

Eva looked up brightly.

“A farmhouse? Is it a pretty one?”

“Well, I couldn’t say as it’s so very pretty,” returned the guard
doubtfully, “but there’s good ale to be had and fowls and pork and nice
rooms, too, what they let in the summer.”

Eric became decisive.

“I think, darling, that’s really the best we can do, and if it’s quite
near we can get our light luggage carried over.”

A man was found by the guard. They gathered their wraps and light cases
together. In a few moments they were standing on the damp soil by the
side of the train, listening to the directions he was giving for the
route.

It did not sound so very near:

“You keeps away from the wood and you goes up the hill to the top and
then down on the other side till you comes to the bridge, and don’t
cross the bridge, but keep along by the stream till you get to a stile,
and you cross the stile and go through two fields and then there’s a
bit of a wood and you go through the wood and then you comes out on a
bit of a slope and the farm’s just facing you.”

“But that’s a long way,” expostulated Eric. Eva was surprised at his
cross tone. She had never heard it before.

“It will be a lovely walk on this moonlight night,” she volunteered.

“It’s not more’n fifteen minutes or ’arf-an-hour’s walk,” said the
guard in an aggrieved tone, “and you can’t miss it, and the ale’s good.”

Eric tipped him. The man shouldered the cases and they started. They
followed their instructions to keep away from the wood and took a
little narrow path that wound up to the top of the hill. The moon was
just peeping over its brow and made long shadows fall from the trees
that stood here and there. The air was damp and cool and full of the
scent of late roses and wet leaves.

To the girl it was all pure enjoyment, only clouded a little by the
fact that Eric seemed so put out. They walked side by side in silence.
The man trudged along behind them, silent also. Up and up till the
ridge was reached, then down and down on the other side. Eva walked
with springing steps admiring the calm beauty of it all, drawing
pleasure from each little detail of star in the sky or gleam of
moonlight on the brook. She hazarded a few enthusiastic remarks, but
Eric did not seem to hear them, and there was silence until the second
field beyond the stile was reached. Then through the quiet air came
suddenly to them a strange sound--a low, hollow sound of misery. Eva
stopped:

“What is that sound, Eric?”

“Dog barking, I should think,” he answered shortly.

“I never heard a dog bark like that before; it has an awful,
extraordinary sound.”

“Yes, because the beast has barked himself hoarse, I should think,
that’s all.”

Eva stood listening.

“Yes, I suppose it is hoarse as you say, but what a terrible sound.”

It was a terrible lamenting cry of a soul in misery that came to them
wailing over the wood and the stream.

“Please come along,” Eric said as she stood there with dilating eyes.
“We don’t want to spend the night here.”

Eva walked on. The sound of the barking, if barking it could be called,
becoming clearer and nearer as they advanced. They were in the wood
now, and the moonlight falling through the trees made beautiful
patterns and traceries on the moss-grown path, but Eva now had no eyes
for it. She was listening to that long-drawn wail of pain that came
fitfully through the silver air.

“But aren’t you sorry for it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s barked itself into that condition, I expect. I
suppose it’s one of the farm dogs. I hope the brute won’t go on like
that all night.”

Eva was silent. It was not quite what she expected Eric to say, but she
made no comment.

They were through the wood, on the slope, and there was the farmhouse
at last facing them on the slope opposite.

It looked comfortable enough and cheery; well-built and solid with a
warm blaze of light in its lower windows. A large farmyard was close
at its side; an orchard on the other side. From behind the house the
hollow, melancholy barking continued, belying the aspect of peace and
rest.

At the door of the farmhouse they received a warm welcome. It was
thrown open by the stout, good-tempered looking woman herself, while
her husband and son, burly figures in their rough farm clothes, lounged
up to the threshold, hands in pockets, to stare at the strangers.
Behind them at the end of the passage or hall a door stood open to
warmth and lights and a table laid for supper.

Farmer Bates and his wife let rooms in the summer, so they knew
the ways of the rich and those who were not farmers. There was no
difficulty. They could have a nice room, they could have hot water,
they could have baths and they could have early tea in the morning;
they could have roast chicken and soup and apple tart for supper.

Eric cheered up and Eva saw the expression she was familiar with come
back to his face. The “engagement expression” as she now christened
it in her mind. It was the only one she had seen for those three
weeks--the only one she knew--but she saw now his face had others.

She was asked to go in and sit by the fire, and did so while the
farmer’s young, handsome son took the place opposite. Eric was
arranging terms with the woman and seeing their luggage carried
upstairs.

The young farmer started a conversation as he was accustomed to do
with the summer visitors. Eva was preoccupied; she wanted to ask about
the dog, but she hesitated as to how best to approach the subject, and
before she had decided, the others came back into the room.

The supper was quite a merry meal for all except herself. It was all
quiet outside now, but in spite of the talk going on round her, her
ears were only listening for that call from without. Eric grew quite
jovial; he approved the farmer’s ale and drank heartily. The farming
family were pleased at their guests’ appreciation, and the prospect of
the good pay coming in. Bridegrooms were always generous. Suddenly,
across the laughter and the talk, it came again; that awful wail of
hopeless misery. The hosts did not appear to hear it, but Eva’s face
blanched, and a look of annoyance flashed across Eric’s handsome
countenance.

Eva turned to the young man next her:

“Why has that dog got such a peculiar bark?” she asked.

“Because he’s going mad, I think,” he answered. “We’re going to shoot
him in the morning.”

The young farmer was quite surprised by the look of distress that come
to the girl’s face.

“Oh, but why?” she exclaimed. “I think from his bark he wants water.
Let me take him some.”

The man laughed:

“You take him water? Why you couldn’t get near him. He’s so savage he’d
eat you alive.”

“What has made him so savage?”

“Well, we’ve kept him on the chain for seven years, and it’s sent him
crazy, I think,” he answered indifferently. “We haven’t been able to
get near him for years; we just throw him his food and push the water
to him with a pole.”

“Do you mean you’ve kept him chained up and never let him free once,
never given him any exercise for seven years?”

“Oh, he gets exercise enough dancing about at the end of that chain and
howling. We let him howl in the winter for we don’t notice him, and
it’s too much trouble to go out and bash him, but in the summer when
the visitors are here we thrash him when he barks, for they don’t like
it, and if it annoys you I’ll soon settle him now.”

And before she realised what he was going to do, he rose from his
place, strode up to where some huge horsewhips were ranged against the
wall, and then with one in his hand, went to the door. The burly farmer
turned in his chair.

“That’s right, Steve, you go and give him a good hiding. Teach him to
behave when we have ladies here.”

The son would have gone out, but Eva had sprung up and she put herself
between him and the door.

“Pray don’t,” she said. “It does distress me to hear him, but I
wouldn’t have him beaten for anything.”

The young farmer looked down into her blanched face and dilated eyes.
Their beauty conquered him.

“As you like,” he said rather sullenly, and hung the whip up again on
the wall.

The farmer himself laughed.

“Now then, missis,” he called banteringly. “You’ve no call to
interfere. If he wants to beat our dog, why shouldn’t we?”

“Don’t be foolish, Eva. Come and sit down,” Eric said. His tone was
full of annoyance.

She came back to the table and sat down facing the farmer. She was
white and trembling.

“It’s not your dog,” she said steadily.

The farmer’s red face turned purple.

“Not our dog, eh! Not our dog! And ’oos dog is it, then, I should like
to know?”

“It’s God’s dog,” the girl replied unflinchingly.

She had a beautiful voice, very soft and sweet in tone, but full of
power. It vibrated through the room now, charged with the intensity of
her feelings and held her listeners:

“All animals are His. He created them. They are not ours. They are only
lent to us in trust, and it is _my_ business to interfere, as it
is everybody’s business to interfere when they are ill-treated and
mis-used.”

No one spoke for a moment. The farmer sat back, open-mouthed.

“’Pon my word,” he stuttered after a minute. “’Pon my word,” and could
get no further.

They all turned instinctively to Eric to see what view he would take,
and Eva, too, looked at him appealingly. Surely he would take her side
against the others!

“Eric?” she said questioningly. He coloured hotly. He was annoyed at
her making a scene like this about nothing.

“Don’t be stupid, Eva,” he said shortly. “Go on with your supper. Of
course Bates has a right to do as he thinks best. Personally, I think
it would be a good thing if he did give the brute a thrashing and
stopped his howling.”

“Eric!” she exclaimed again, but this time her tone was one of sheer
amazement and bewilderment, and sitting in her place she stared across
at him as if he were some new strange monster suddenly presented to her
eyes. And indeed, this was the fact. She saw, for the first time, the
real Eric. This was not the man she had married this morning, surely?
This was not the man whose eyes had been wont to fill with sympathetic
tears whenever she had wept. A feeling of extreme loneliness came over
her. He was one in spirit with these coarse-faced, brutal farmers, who
had tortured their four-footed servant for seven years and thrashed him
when he had cried to them for help.

She was alone amongst them all.

She had no husband. That man opposite her, who had just let fall those
words, was not the one she had loved and adored and married. By his
speech he seemed to have let loose an icy river which was flowing now
wide and deep as the Polar sea between them.

“Don’t sit staring at me,” Eric said impatiently. “Go on with your
supper, for Heaven’s sake.”

Eva’s lips set. She pushed her plate from her and rose.

“Thank you, I have finished,” she merely said, but there was such a
cutting disdain in her voice, such a thin, frosty edge to her tone,
that it seemed to those at the table a shower of ice had fallen
suddenly upon them. She stood for a moment looking down on the circle,
at the flushed, bloated faces, at the burly lounging forms of these
men who could sit there stuffing themselves to their protruding eyes;
well-warmed, well-fed, well-clothed, and knowing that their faithful
friend and devoted defender was stretched on the cold stones a few feet
away, dying in the agonies of thirst and despair.

She turned and left the room before anyone moved or spoke, and went
upstairs to the bedroom.

She opened the door. A fire had been lighted in the grate, and its
cheerful red light was playing all over the room. The blinds were
pulled down, and thick red curtains drawn across the windows. On the
neat dressing-table stood a vase full of dried lavender. The bed in the
corner with snowy sheets and counterpane invited to repose. Another
little bed, draped in pink dimity, stood near the window.

It was a room in which any weary traveller would have liked to rest.

Eva noticed nothing. She shut the door behind her, then walked over to
the window, pulled aside the curtains and let the spring blind fly up
with a snap. Then she looked out, and there was the dog! Facing her
across a large stone paved yard, fully illuminated by the brilliant
moonlight so that she could see every detail. At the extreme end of
his chain, his long-nailed paws on the stone flags, the wild-eyed,
dishevelled looking creature stood, gazing towards the house where his
tormentors lived. The girl’s quick eyes took in his gaunt and bony
frame, the rough hair that stood upright down his spine, the open jaw
with white foam hanging from it, the neck from which all the hair was
gone, rubbed away in his ceaseless efforts to free himself from his
chain. Near him were a few bones and untouched scraps. Just out of his
reach, however he might strain, was an overturned earthenware saucer.
It looked dry, as if it had not contained water for many days.

So little like a dog the creature looked, she could not determine to
what breed it belonged, but it seemed to have been something between
a mastiff and a wolfhound. Now it was just a huge, wasted wreck,
glaring-eyed, demented, that man had made.

And she looked out at it and pitied it and loved it with that boundless
love and sympathy for all suffering things, that is the best part of
the female nature.

So he had stood in that stone-paved yard, week in week out for seven
years--day after day, night after night, of burning sun and intolerable
heat, or icy cold and cutting winds. No shelter, not even a kennel, not
even a trace of straw. All round him was a ring of shining white on the
grey flags which his scratching feet had made in his hopeless efforts
to be free; and the physical sufferings were the least of what he had
borne. The worst had been the awful monotony of those long, dreary
days without hope, without aim or occupation: that emptiness and that
sameness that preys on an animal’s brain just as much as on a man’s.

Chained up in his youthful days, with all the wild longings for the
twenty-mile run, the smell of the wildwoods, the finding of mates,
fermenting in his blood, with his great canine heart full of that
wonderful enthusiastic worship of man that Nature has planted there,
longing for love and companionship, for the touch of a kind hand on
his head, he had watched the homestead with wistful, hungering eyes.
And because, when people approached him, he had tugged so frantically
at his chain and pawed the air to show his joy and longing to follow
them, he had been thought savage, and when he had cried out in his
loneliness, he had been beaten into quietude; but his agony and his
sorrow, and his wonder at it all was so great that even those cruel
thrashings had not silenced him.

And now, after seven years of this, he was to be shot to-morrow! The
girl, looking out at him, understood all he had gone through, and
a fierce resentment against his tormentors rose and swelled within
her like a great wave. Somehow, she would save him, she determined,
and give him a little happiness before he died; give him that love
and sympathy his heart had been craving for all those years. She had
forgotten herself, forgotten it was her wedding evening--a time so
passionately anticipated during her engagement. As for Eric, he seemed
to have disappeared from her. Somewhere between the Church and the
farmhouse the Eric she loved had vanished. How could she reach that
poor, condemned prisoner? If she went down now to the farmhouse door
she would be heard unfastening it, even if she could move those solid
bars. If she were seen in the yard she would certainly be followed and
prevented from getting near the dog. No one else could be persuaded to
release him. Everyone was afraid of those gleaming teeth and blood-shot
eyes. She would only probably succeed in getting him shot that night
instead of to-morrow. And how would they shoot him? Not with one
merciful bullet sent direct to the brain; but probably aiming from a
distance, they might shoot and wound him a dozen times and then perhaps
leave him dying and not dead.

They would certainly kill him in the same clumsy, misunderstanding way
they had treated him while alive. Merely to release him in his present
condition, wild-looking and supposed to be mad, would be no kindness.
If he dashed away he would soon be followed, perhaps stoned by the
screaming rabble of the village. No, she must not only release him, she
must take him away and with her. He was her dog now. No one wanted him.
He was going to be shot. Well, she would not have that. She would take
him. Then suddenly she remembered Eric. He would certainly object! and
she was married. She had to consult him.

She turned from the window in a sudden panic--she was a prisoner, too.
And her gaoler was of the stamp of the men downstairs. How awful this
was! She had never meant to marry such a man. Had he shown himself
before the ceremony as he had at the supper here, she would never have
married him. Her hands turned cold, and her knees shook. She sank down
in a chair by the fire. She had never realized the prison side of
marriage.

Union with the twin soul she had thought she had found in Eric had not
suggested it. But now she saw how the case was. Had she been travelling
alone she could have gone to the farmer and paid him his own price for
the dog and taken him away with her, openly. It would have been quite
simple. But now she knew instinctively Eric would not let her do this
and as he was against her as well as all those downstairs, the dog
would probably be shot before her eyes and she would be powerless to
prevent it because she had given up her single freedom of action, given
up the right over her own conduct. And to that man! It was horrible.
Her nails sank into her clenched hands. In that moment she longed to
be free of that room, free of her marriage as the dog outside longed
to be free of his chain. The sex passion is infinitely curious in its
nature. Though in some ways so strong, so resistless, yet in others it
is so frail a plant that the lightest wind may sweep it away. Eva had
given to Eric not only love and admiration, but also the natural joyous
passion of awakened girlhood. Now all these were equally dead. She sat
there, numb and cold with only one desire--to save the dog and escape.

As she sat trying to think out some plan of action, the door opened
and Eric came in. The supper had done him good; his bad temper was
forgotten. He came in smiling, and she saw again the old Eric with the
“engagement expression.” Suddenly it occurred to her she could win her
way by blandishment however her feelings might have changed. For the
dog’s sake she must dissemble and act.

She went up to him with arms outstretched.

“Oh, Eric darling, I am so glad you have come. Do do me a favor, and
I’ll simply adore you. Do let us buy that poor dog and take him away
with us and make up to him for all he has suffered.”

The smile died away from the man’s face. He unclasped her arms from his
neck.

“But, my dear child, he’s mad. You can’t take a mad dog about with you.
His own people are afraid to go near him.”

“I should think they would be after the way they have treated him,” she
answered with burning indignation. “But _I’m_ not afraid of him.
He is not mad. He is only crazy with loneliness and thirst. Let me go
down and release him, and I’ll be responsible for him.”

Eric stared at her in amazement and with a growing anger fed by
jealousy and wounded vanity.

A man’s nerves and state of general self-control are not at their best
on such an occasion as this, and in his unbalanced condition it seemed
intolerable to him that his bride should not be wholly occupied with
himself but should be worrying over a miserable brute of a dog. It did
not occur to him that she was only now displaying those qualities that
had so much attracted him from the first--that soft, warm heart, that
all-embracing love and sympathy that coupled with her physical beauty
had made him decide to marry her out of all the women he might have
chosen. It did not occur to him either what a priceless possession
of adoring love he might have gained for all the rest of his life by
yielding to her then and conquering himself; nor how, for ever he would
kill his own future by opposition. He was simply intensely angry,
jealous and annoyed and blinded by hurt vanity and selfish passion.

“It’s our _duty_ to do something,” she urged. “Come and look at
him,” and she drew him, reluctant, to the window.

The dog stood in the same position at the end of the hateful chain! his
eyes glaring, his mouth open, his body shivering. The man and woman
looked out at him together. The woman’s eyes saw a fellow creature’s
suffering soul, the man saw--a mad dog.

“It’s really nothing whatever to do with us,” he expostulated, “it’s
not our business. The people who own him must know how to manage him.
Why do you bother yourself about it!”

Eva turned and gazed at him with sheer surprise.

“But Eric, we couldn’t possibly enjoy ourselves and sleep comfortably
up here knowing he is there in such misery!”

“Of course, we could, if you were not so silly about it,” he answered.

Eva was silent. Power to reply seemed taken away from her in face of
this colossal adamantine hardness. She began to realise that this man
she had married was not at all the exceptional individual she had
imagined, but just the ordinary usual human being, not actively cruel,
but absolutely indifferent and callous, not caring about anything
except the satisfaction of his senses and the comfort of his own body.

“Well, if you could, I couldn’t,” she said after a moment. “Let me go
down and unchain him and tell the people I’ll buy him. If you don’t
want him with us, I’ll send him to my sister to keep for me.”

“To attempt to unchain a dog in that condition is going to your death,”
he said shortly, keeping control over himself as well as he could.

“I am sure it’s not so, but even if it were and I feel it’s my duty,
I ought to do it. Why, Eric, how many times in the War did you not go
forward to almost certain death just because it was your duty?”

Eric coloured furiously.

“That may be, but I’m not going to risk my life now to free a mad dog.”

“I’m not asking you to. I want to free him.”

“And my answer is, you shan’t do anything so damnably foolish.” Swept
by a sudden whirl of anger that was utterly beyond him to control, he
strode across the room, locked the door, tore out the key and flung it
with all his force through the window. It fell tinkling on the stone
flags of the yard.

“Now that ends all this damned nonsense,” he said violently, and drew
her roughly away from the window which he closed, and pulled the
curtain across.

The girl stood as if turned into stone. As the key fell, a cry escaped
her. A cry so bitter with hate and loathing that he might well have
shuddered if he had noted it. But he did not. He did not realise it was
the death-cry of the last shred of love or feeling of allegiance to
him that was left in her heart.

The explosion of rage had helped Eric to become normal again. Having
now secured, as he supposed, beyond all possibility of doubt, his own
way, he became calmer. The brain-storm passed. He came up to where she
stood, mute and motionless by the hearth.

“Darling,” he said, attempting to draw her into his arms, “don’t be
stupid and spoil all our pleasure. Have you forgotten how we looked
forward to being like this alone together?”

She wrenched herself away from him, and there was such a fury of
resentment in her eyes that even he fell back from her with a confused
sense of having made some fatal error. Women were intended by Nature to
rule the world, not men, and that is why any attempt to coerce a woman
by man generally fails.

“Don’t touch me,” she said in a voice low and sharp with the intensity
of her anger. “You shall never touch me again.”

“You seem to forget you’re my wife,” he said hotly.

“If I am fifty thousand times your wife I will never give myself to
you. You can kill me first.”

Eric stepped back and regarded her with dismay. He was face to face now
with a force which he could only dimly comprehend. But as the storm
had passed from his brain, it had left his intellect fairly clear, and
he began to see things were getting serious. Somehow he was making a
mess of it. Mechanically he turned away, fumbling in his pocket for his
cigarette case. He drew out a cigarette, lighted it and began to smoke.
What would be best to do, he wondered. Perhaps, if he said nothing
she would calm down again. He rather wished he had not been so hasty.
He wished he had put the key in his pocket instead of throwing it out
of the window. There was no getting out of the room now for either of
them. He regretted he had not been wiser and temporised more.

Presently he threw himself into a chair, and watched her furtively. Her
eyes were turned away towards the fire. She stood like a thing turned
into stone.

“What are we going to do, then?” he said, half banteringly, when the
silence became unbearable. “Sit up all night?”

“As you please,” the girl replied, without turning her head. He
wondered what she was thinking about, and debated feverishly with
himself what he should do or say. He would have been astonished if he
could have known her thoughts. He had not the faintest conception of
the character and the will he was dealing with.

The girl stood there,--Herself, sunk utterly in her thought. How to
gain her end and carry out the dog’s deliverance was the only thing
that occupied her. Eric’s last words had suddenly flashed a light into
her brain. For a moment, when the key had whizzed by her and clinked
on the stones without, hope had died in her. It seemed so impossible
then to ever reach the poor chained one down there in time, but now his
words, “sit up all night” showed her suddenly the contrary proposition.
If Eric were once asleep and she, alone awake in the room, she could
effect her escape from it by the window. Her heart gave a suffocating
leap upward as the whole plan unrolled itself like a map before her
mental vision. Light and agile as a cat, it would be possible for
her to swing herself down by knotted sheets to the yard, loose the
prisoner, and with him run through the moon-lighted country, back to
that station down the line their train had passed, and catch the first
one back to London. It was all most dangerous and difficult, most open
to failure, still it was a _possible_ plan--if Eric were asleep.

And with an infinite sense of horror and loathing, she realised the
best and perhaps the only way to ensure his sleep was to reverse all
she had said, to humiliate herself, to act a part, to give herself to
him--and let him sleep. She saw his plan now was to sit up and smoke
waiting and hoping she would change her mind. Time was passing, and
each silver minute of the night brought the prisoner outside nearer to
his doom.

She suddenly bent her head down on the mantelpiece. Nothing she would
hate so much now as the caress of this man in whose caresses she had
once so rejoiced! These moments she had so looked forward to, how
horrible, how terrible they were now! His embrace! Surely with that
fury of resentment in her heart, she would suffocate in it! But the
dog had to be saved, and to accomplish that she would go through any
suffering, any degradation. She drew herself together with a supreme
effort of will, and turned to the man in the chair.

“Eric, I am so sorry I spoke as I did. Let’s never mind about anything.
Let’s forget it. Kiss me.”

He had sprung to his feet at her first word. She was beside him now,
looking up at him with her glorious eyes full of light and her face
glowing with smiles, though her heart was shuddering within her.

“Darling, my own, I am so sorry too,” Eric was covering her upturned
face with kisses. “My dearest, my very own.”

Outside, the dog stood cold and stiff in the damp night air, aching
with thirst, his poor, half-crazy eyes turned up to the moonlit sky
from which no mercy came. The hours crept by, till the clock in the
village struck three. For seven years he had listened to those strokes
that marked the passing hours, hours that never brought him nearer to
liberty, to the free use of his cramped limbs, to any of the natural
joys for which he had been created. He sank wearily down on his
haunches. He could no longer cry out; his voice seemed broken in his
throat, his tongue was swollen and black. He kept his head turned to
the window where he had seen the two figures stand looking at him. Some
faint, dull hope had stirred in him that they might be thinking of
him, that they might be coming to him to alleviate his misery and his
torment of thirst. But no, the window had been shut and had gone dark.

Inside the room the strokes of the clock vibrated through the
stillness, and Eva, lying open-eyed and filled with desperate
impatience, slid noiselessly out of bed, and with soundless movements
and feverish haste began to dress. Eric was asleep. Never in all her
life had she prayed for anything so fervently as she did now that he
might remain so. With infinite caution she crept about the room, making
her toilet to the minutest detail. Within her all her personal self
felt humiliated, outraged, seething with fury, but she would not think
of herself, only of the work ahead to be done.

Hurry generally means noise. Therefore, filled with burning impatience
as she was, she had to move slowly, regulating each movement and each
tip-toe step. Once Eric moved and sighed, and she started in terror
and stood motionless, but he did not awake, and with a thumping heart
and trembling fingers she went on with her preparations. When she was
fully dressed to her hat, and with her gloves and purse stowed away in
her bodice, together with Eric’s clasp-knife that he had left lying on
the table, she approached the unoccupied bed standing in the corner
by the window, and inch by inch drew the sheets from it. These alone
would have been too short a length for her purpose even when knotted
together at their extreme ends, but she took the counterpane as well,
and all three end to end she judged would let her nearly to the ground.
At their country place at home her father had shown her how to escape
in case of fire, and she knew now exactly what to do. She knotted
the corner of the sheet tightly round the little wooden post of the
bed, and then there was the barrier of the window to be surmounted.
She did not dare to draw back the curtains for fear of the rattle of
their rings, but she lifted them slowly and silently to one side and
then with both hands and infinite care, guided the spring blind up and
looked out. Her heart gave a leap of boundless sympathy as she saw the
great dog sitting at the end of his tightly-drawn chain, still gazing
towards the window--his only hope--as he had been hours ago.

No Juliet felt more eager to join her Romeo than this girl did now
to get to the suffering animal and soothe its pain. And of such
natures is the Kingdom of Heaven. Such people are those who make this
earth a little less like hell. Blind and curtain out of the way, it
still remained to open the window without noise. Very, very softly
with indrawn breath and shaking heart, she raised it half way, just
enough to let her through. Then she paid out her long rope of knotted
bedclothes, and looking out, she saw it reached to within about eight
feet of the yard. Then, as often before in the fire drill, she crept
on to the window sill, twisted her feet well round the dangling cloths
and gripped them hard in her little hands. Then down, down she swung
her light weight and dropped at length noiselessly to the ground. The
captive in the yard rose to his feet and lowered his head, staring at
her fixedly, but he gave no sound. Some instinct seemed to tell him
that all this strange proceeding had something to do with him.

The girl, once out of the room and away from the sleeping man she had
sworn to love and honour and cleave to till death, felt such a rush of
joyous elation that it seemed to give her wings. Quite half her work
was successfully accomplished. She ran swift and silent as a shadow
across the yard.

As he realised she was actually coming to him, the enormous dog tore at
his chain, and as he could not advance he reared himself on his hind
legs, his front pawing at the air, his eyes almost out of his head,
his foaming jaws wide open. It was a fearsome sight, but the girl went
on unflinchingly, straight up to the desperate animal. Tall as she was
the dog stood as high as herself, and as she reached him his great
bony, shaggy paws descended heavily on her shoulders, and she put both
her arms out under them and clasped him to her warm, loving breast.
And the animal enveloped in that marvelous electricity that flowed out
from her, soothed and calmed instantly by that contact with true loving
humanity which he had longed for all through his dreary life stood
perfectly still, all his raging pulses calmed, all his tormenting pains
dying away.

“Darling, be good now while I release you,” she said in his ear, and
gently let him slide to his four feet. Then she knelt down beside him
and put her hands to his collar.

The dog understood perfectly she had come to release him. At last, at
last he would be free, and he stood patient and still as a statue,
only his whole frame quivered and thrilled with joy. He felt her
little fingers trying desperately to undo the hateful collar. Eva’s
heart beat almost to choke her. Suppose, suppose she failed to get it
undone. Seven years had solidified the leather almost into iron; the
brass point that pierced the leather was embedded in and had become one
almost with it.

Both were welded together under a thick coat of verdigris. Every nail
on her fingers was broken before she gave up the hopeless task of
unstrapping it. Then, keeping one hand on the dog’s head, she felt in
her bosom for the knife.

Because she understood him so perfectly, and that his loneliness and
forsaken neglect had been the chief sorrow of his life, she knew
just how to manage him. When she failed to undo the collar, he felt
his heart die within him and had she moved away from him, his poor
desperate brain would have given way. But she kept quite close to
him and that told him that all hope was not lost, and nerved him to
patience. The collar was loose for the hair had been rubbed and the
neck wasted away which had filled it, and there was room for the
knife-blade to pass under the leather.

“Hold still, now, don’t move,” she whispered in tense tones, and then
sawed with all her strength, outwards on the collar.

It seemed incredibly hard, but the knife was sharp and leather must in
the end yield to steel.

After minutes that seemed hours she cut it through, and with one great
bound the dog leapt away from chain and collar. Free! Free in the
moonlit night! Eva rose to her feet, and he came back to her, lowering
his great body down to the earth on his fore-paws, and then springing
to his full height to put them on her breast to show his rapture.
Elated, joyous, but still in terror of being overtaken, Eva threw one
rapid glance over the silent house and up to the window where her long
white rope hung gleaming in the moonlight.

Then “Come,” she said to the dog, and close, side by side, they raced
out of the yard by the door just behind where he had been chained. A
door that was never fastened for he had guarded it so faithfully and
securely. Out of the yard and through the wasty farmyard adjoining,
then over the low wall surrounding it, and they were out on the slope,
tearing away like mad things to the shelter of the wood.

Here they continued to run, down the narrow, mossy path that Eric
and she had come by, filled with such different feelings the evening
before. Silent now, with all their strength given to speed, but with
perfect union of intention, they steadied down to an even trot, the dog
modifying his pace to the human being’s. He knew that she had saved
him, freed him, and he was now her faithful slave for life. No evil,
no danger should come near her. No enemy could lay a finger on her as
long as an atom of strength remained in him to defend her. He was hers
and she was his till death.

At last they reached the spot where the train had pulled up the
previous evening, and Eva, still hounded by the fear of pursuit, after
a few minutes’ rest, ran on steadily, taking a little path that passed
beneath evergreens near the railway.

The station down the line was thirteen miles distant, yet such is the
force of joy and the power of will and determination that the girl felt
hardly fatigued when she saw the red and green lights ahead of her; and
she walked into the booking office with a light and springing step as
the yawning clerk opened it.

The next train to London, the first in the day to carry the mails, left
in fifteen minutes. She took her ticket and a dog ticket, and went out
on to the platform and sat down. She felt such happiness, such joy
in her success, her accomplished plan, that nothing in her life had
equalled it, and all sense of pain and tiredness were entirely drowned
in it.

The dog was more distressed than she. He fell heavily at her feet
as she sat down. He was footsore, his limbs ached and he was oh, so
thirsty, but he minded nothing. He was content.

Eva had been afraid to wait to give him water, but she bent over him
now, looking anxiously at his swollen, hanging tongue. He did not ask
for anything, only looked up at her with great eyes from which the
wildness was already dying away; for had he not felt a soft hand on
his head and heard a kind voice in his ear?

She rose to seek water for him, and, stiff and sore though he was, he
dragged himself to his feet to follow her. He could not bear her to
move away from him.

There was a little tap of water standing out from the wall further down
the platform, and stooping down, she turned it on and made a little
bowl of her two small, pink-palmed hands for him to drink from. At
first he seemed hardly able to swallow, nor get the water over his
swollen tongue, but she waited patiently, and at last he drank easily
and freely as long as she thought good for him. Then they walked
back to the seat and she sat down and took his head on her knees and
smoothed back the harsh, rough hair and looked deep into his eyes, and
they talked together, as lovers do, in looks and silence.

At last the train arrived, and the guard of it came along, swinging
his lantern. He stopped when he caught sight of her daintily-dressed
figure, and the huge, rough wolfhound at her side. She turned to him,
her hand on the carriage door.

“Can I take him in the carriage with me?” she asked.

The guard flashed his light over them.

“Yes, that’ll be all right. The train’s almost empty,” he replied,
eyeing the dog. He was not at all anxious to have the grim-looking
beast shut up with him in his van.

“Not many people travels at this time of night,” he added
inquisitively, looking in at her after she was seated and the dog had
dropped onto the floor of the carriage.

Eva made no response, and he turned away mumbling in a dissatisfied
tone: “Runaways and eloping couples, thieves and such--them’s wot
travels at night.”

Two or three minutes more of this anguished suspense and then the train
started, gathered speed and they were away--safe. She leant over the
dog with a joyous laugh. Oh, the relief of that moving train! Not Eric
nor Bates, nor all the farm hands could overtake them now.

“He talked of eloping couples; that’s just what we are, aren’t we,
darling?” And the dog beat his great, waving brush of a tail on the
carriage floor for answer. She sat back in a corner, for the first time
realising that she was very tired, but the joy at her heart glowed more
fiercely every moment as the train rushed on its non-stop run to town.
She had done it all; she had succeeded so admirably. She had saved the
dog. She did not believe they could be separated now. If Bates sued
her for stealing his dog she was ready to pay his full value which the
farmer would probably prefer; and Eric? What would he do or say or
think when he woke and found himself alone in the room where he had
locked himself? Would he climb down the sheets as she had done? She
wondered and laughed. But whatever he did he should never approach her
again.

Arrived in town she went straight to her sister, a girl of twenty,
widowed in the War, who had always strenuously disapproved of Eric.
Brushing past the astonished footman in the hall, she ran upstairs and
found the beautiful Linda still in bed. She sat up in astonishment as
Eva and the great hound burst into the room.

“Linda, I’ve eloped!”

“Well, you _are_ modern! You were only married yesterday!”

“I know,” Eva answered, sitting down in a deep armchair, “but I found I
hadn’t married the man I meant to after all, but somebody else that I
didn’t like at all.”

“We most of us do that,” returned Linda, swinging two ivory feet out of
bed and eyeing the dog:

“What a beautiful dog. What’s he doing here?”

Few would have applied that adjective to the great creature stretched
before her. But Linda saw through the devastation man had made to the
original beauty given by Nature.

“He is the cause of everything. I eloped with _him_.”

“What do you mean? Tell me everything, now, from the beginning,” and
Linda wrapped herself in a rose-hued gown and settled herself to
listen. The dog stretched himself out on his side between them and
fell asleep, worn out, not so much by the physical exertions as the
conflicting emotions of the night.

Eva told all; shortly, incisively. Only once did she give rein to her
feelings--when she had to tell how she had bought Eric’s passivity and
sleep--she sprang up with her hands clenched into knots.

“If I have a child by him, I’ll kill it before it breathes!” she
exclaimed. “What is the good of multiplying callous brutes like that?”

Linda listened attentively to the end. Then she rose and rang the bell.

“You poor thing, you must be quite worn out. What you want is breakfast
first and then sleep.”

“But did I do rightly? Do tell me what you think, Lin.”

“Of course I think so, and I think you have made a good exchange. A dog
will never disappoint you--never go back on you--never be unkind to
you, never be unfaithful to you and a man will--always.”

Eva sighed, leaning back and closing her eyes.

“It’s so good to be back with you, Lin.”

The maid brought in hot coffee, and a huge breakfast tray of delicious
edibles, and the girls laughed and talked as they ate, and the dog who
had had bones flung to him on the flags, had a pile of delicate curly
slices of bacon on a hand-painted porcelain dish. After breakfast Linda
insisted on Eva going to bed, and there in that soundless room the girl
and dog slept away the morning hours.

In the afternoon Eric came, and Eva went down to see him in the library.

“What does all this mean?” he asked as she closed the door and stood
facing him.

“I am not coming back to you. Linda has asked me to stay with her, and
I have accepted.”

“But you married me!”

“No, that’s where you make the mistake. I married a dream man, a man
of my own imagination, a man who was decent and kind and humane, quite
different from you altogether.”

Eric flushed a dull, angry red.

“You consummated the marriage with _me_ anyhow; you won’t deny
that, I suppose?” he said.

A look of intense repulsion came over her face.

“For the dog’s sake, I gave myself to you, though I _loathed_
you,” she answered in a low tone, full of repressed vehemence.

“For the dog’s sake,” repeated Eric, growing more and more bewildered
and less and less able to solve the problem that woman always presents
to man. “How? I don’t understand.”

“You had determined to sit up all night and prevent me going to him; if
I had had any chloroform or any drug to put you to sleep I would have
given it to you. I had nothing but myself so I gave you that.”

She was standing close to him and looking straight into his eyes. The
gaze was relentless and bright as the blade of a sword.

“But your kisses--your wonderful passion--your insistence--” he
stammered.

“It was all for his sake. I tell you, I hated and loathed you.”

“It was damned good acting then.”

“It could hardly exceed yours during our engagement,” she flashed back.

“Acting, no, it was prostitution,” he said with a sudden storm of
anger, “if what you say now is true.”

“Perhaps; you may call it what you please. I would do anything in the
world to save a helpless and suffering animal and be proud of it,” she
answered.

Eric turned away and took a few paces up the long room. She angered
him. In a way he longed to strike her for what she said to him, but
the memory of last night clung to him and held him. It had been so
wonderful, so perfect, her love, real or assumed; she looked now so
bright, so true, so undaunted, he longed for her, coveted her more than
ever he had done in the past. He could not imagine how they had drifted
into this mess. He had tried hard to please her during their engagement
and had succeeded. He had won her. How had he lost her so soon? He did
not know what to say, nor how to act. And all about this stupid dog; he
would kill the beast if he could get hold of it.

“What can we do now?” he said, at last in a tone of bewildered
perplexity.

“We must get a divorce. I believe it can be managed somehow. Your wife
has eloped, deserted you, refuses to come back, go to a lawyer and see
what he can do for you. If those charges are not enough, I have done
more for I married a good man, and my wedding night was passed with
somebody else, another totally different man. If a lawyer can’t twist
that into cause for divorce, he can’t be much of a lawyer. I don’t
want to spoil your whole life, so I give you leave to say anything you
like about me.”

And before he had realised it, she had opened the door and had gone,
and though he stormed and swore and summoned the servants and Linda
came down to him, nothing would induce Eva to see him again.

She vanished from him and all he could do was to follow her advice and
seek consolation of his lawyers.

About a year later, had anyone passed through the scarlet land of
poppies at Cromer, he would have seen two girls sitting among them,
looking out to the hazy sea, and a great wolfhound lying between
them. He has been christened Joy, and his sparkling eye and glossy
coat, his rounded form and waving brush of a tail all speak to the
appropriateness of his name.

He and Eva are inseparable and he understands her looks, her tones, her
words. He understands _her_ far better than Eric ever had, and at
any moment he would lay down his life joyfully for her sake.

“I see that Eric has married again, Eva,” Linda said presently. “So now
you are really and truly free. Do you think you will ever marry again,
yourself?”

“Not while Joy lives,” Eva answered, her little hand resting on his
neck and buried in its thick, glossy black hair. “I would never give
him a rival. The next man might want to chain him up in the yard! Then
we’d have to run away again, wouldn’t we, Joy?”

And the great dog leapt to his feet and gave a deep, musical bark in
answer, bounding backwards and forwards and leaping up to them as the
two girls rose and wended their way slowly through the poppies, emblems
of peace and forgetfulness, home.




                           THE JEWEL CASKET


The wind howled miserably round the great London station and pierced
the thin, worn clothing of Jim Thorn and Bill Smith as they loitered,
hands in pockets, near the mouth of one of the draughty passages.

It was a bitter January evening and neither inside them nor outside
them had the men anything to keep them warm.

“It ain’t no sort of use, Bill,” remarked Jim, drearily, after a long
silence during which both men had been gazing across the wide space
filled with moving figures to where the refreshment buffet threw out
its warm and cheery glow speaking of the tempting delights within.
“We shan’t get a job here to-night. There’s too many reg’lar porters
about.” He was a thin, spare man, with a long white face in which shone
two grey eyes of a kindly expression. Once a good gardener, ill-health
and ill-luck had brought him to evil days.

“Go on with yer! Who came here after a job?” snarled the other,
in every way a contrast to his companion: thick-set and heavy,
bull-necked, long-lipped and cruel-eyed. “It’s pinching we’re after and
I’ll get something to-night or I’m not Bill Smith.” Lie finished his
sentence with an oath. The other made no reply, only sank into a still
more slouching position against the wall. The crowd of passengers
before them had swelled. There were many coming out from the ticket
office following well-filled trucks of luggage. It was not long now
to the departure of a favorite express into Kent. Jim Thorn’s gaze
drifted about the throng until it lighted on a girl’s figure, one of a
newly-arrived party, and there it remained. His eyes followed her about
with interest, not because he thought she had anything to “pinch,” but
because, in his own instinctive, uneducated way, he loved all pretty
things. She was a very pretty young lady in her plain dark clothes and
her heavy furs, with a slim tall figure and golden curly hair peeping
out from underneath her small black velvet hat. Jim looked at her with
pleasure. He quite forgot about the hot coffee he had been dreaming of
in watching her dainty movements.

It did not occur to him to envy her furs or her warm clothing, nor
to be wrathful with her that she had them, and he had not. His mind
was not of the Socialist order. He no more expected her to give him
her cloak than he expected himself to give his coat to one who had
only waistcoat and trousers. Her cloak was hers and his coat was his,
and could he have explained his mental attitude in words, he would
have told you that he was jolly glad that the same law and order that
enabled the lady to keep her cloak, also gave him the right to keep his
coat and not have it torn off his back by one poorer than he. Although
the companion of a thief, he was by nature a respecter of property.

Suddenly he felt a great grab on his arm, and Bill bent his large red
face close to him.

“Look there!” he whispered excitedly. “The very thing I was looking
for. See that party?”

Jim, following with his gaze Bill’s outstretched finger, saw to his
dismay that it indicated the very young girl he had been so admiring.

“See that little case she has?” pursued his companion in his thick,
beery accents. “Mark my words, that a jool case!” His mouth was close
to Jim’s ear now. “P’raps dimonds, maybe pearls.” He let fly these
imposing words like darts into Jim’s ear.

Jim straightened up and strained his eyes to see what the girl was
carrying. It certainly did look most inviting. A little square, rather
deep case of some dark wood, clamped carefully on all sides with metal,
and with a handle on the top through which the dainty hand of its owner
was passed. It looked as if pearls or diamonds might be lying on cotton
wool inside, and yet the sentimental Jim felt he did not want that
young lady robbed.

“It’s a bit small,” he ventured lamely, in a discouraging tone.

The burly one gave a contemptuous grunt. “Much good _you’d_ be at
the game without me,” he answered. “Haven’t you never heard wot’s good
comes in small parcels? Don’t you know that small and valuable, easy to
sell and light to carry should be the pinchers’ motto? I’m onto that
there jool casket, if I dies for it.”

“But you don’t know what’s in it,” argued Jim. “Maybe it’s just a
purse with not much in, an’ a ticket, an’ a hanky.”

The other sniffed scornfully, his gaze glued on the girl’s hand as he
answered:

“You just watch, as I do, an’ don’t talk so much. I’ve watched and
watched that girl till I knows wot’s in that casket as well as I knows
wot’s in my pocket. ’Ow do I know? Well, because she’s that careful
of it. She looks down at that little box every half-minute and just
now, when she set it down for a second and the porter comes by, up she
snatches it again and holds it to her, and w’en just now someone wanted
to take it off her while she fastened her jacket, she shakes her head
and clings on all the time.”

“It’ll take some doing to get it,” replied Jim, with intensifying gloom.

“I can manage it,” returned Bill, swelling out his chest. “You’ll see.
I’ll always take trouble for jools, and jools they is. Girls don’t go
on like that about anything else.”

“P’raps it’s her young man’s picture,” suggested the sentimental Jim in
a last hope of changing his companion’s intention, though the little
square box with its clamp did not suggest a portrait-case.

The light from where the men stood was not very good and the dark case
sank indistinguishably into the shadow of the girl’s dress. Bill could
not see to his satisfaction what shape and look it really had but the
girl’s intense solicitude for it carried complete conviction to his
mind which was unable to imagine anything being of value except what
could be turned into cash.

The conversation came to an end as the crowd of passengers moved toward
the barrier. It was time for action and the two thieves mingled with
the stream of hurrying humanity and pressed closely up behind the party
to which the girl with the jewel-case belonged. She was certainly very
careful of it. She held it tightly and firmly to her so that it could
not be caught or brushed out of her grasp by any jostling or hustling
movement and she constantly glanced down on it as if to assure herself
of its safety. The train had not come up and the throng swayed back
again, Bill and Jim moving naturally with it, but always quite close
to the girl. They were, though thinly and poorly dressed, not ragged,
or in their aspect in any way likely to attract attention. Bill,
especially, had adapted for the occasion quite a traveling appearance
and had a light overcoat on one arm. True it was only a bit of an
overcoat, but when skilfully draped on the arm, looked quite well and
might have its uses. Their quarry now approached the book-stall to the
delight of Bill, but though the girl stopped to look with interest at
the books and papers and even purchased one of the latter, she never
once set down the little box. The train was now due and the passengers
thickly bunched near the barrier to the platform. Once through the
barrier the girl would be, as Jim put it to himself, “safe,” for he
really did not want to see that box filched from her slender hand, and
as Bill put it to himself, “lorst.” He felt desperate and was just
inwardly cursing his luck when luck itself favoured him. The girl was
standing chatting to the older persons of her group, presumably her
parents, when a young man, leading a fat terrier, hurriedly joined the
throng round the gates. Bill’s eye fell on the dog, and he instantly
moved to the side of the girl farthest from the young man. With a
movement of his hand he attracted the dog’s attention, and next moment
the chain was wound round the girl’s ankles. The dog-owner pulled at
the chain, but to free herself she had to take it from his hand, and to
do so, for one moment, she set the box down beside her. In the second,
while she stooped over the dog, Bill’s great hand dropped on the
box. It was lifted and under his hanging coat, and he and Jim sifted
themselves out of the press of passengers now swaying to the gates
which had just been opened. Calmly, quietly, with blank faces, Jim and
Bill crossed the station to the exit, hearing in their rear a sort of
confused clamour which told them the owner of the box had discovered
her loss.

No one stopped them, no one looked at them. They slipped through the
wind-swept passage, and in a few seconds were out in the street; still
without apparent haste, but at a good pace, they turned down a side
alley and made a short cut for “home.” As they turned down one silent,
dark street, Bill, swelling with satisfaction, opened out on his
companion.

“Now you see wot it is. But for me you’d never have got this necklace,
or tiary, whichever it is, an’ we might have stayed grubbin’ at ’ome
all winter. Now we’ll have a trip abroad for it won’t do to try and
sell ’em here. It ain’t safe for pearls and dimonds.”

“We don’t know yet that they is pearls and dimonds,” objected Jim.

“There you go. You haven’t the brain to imagine anything,” returned
Bill loftily. “And what do you think a young lady would be
carrying--herself--personally, mind, when she had a strappin’ maid
walking behind her with a dressing-case a yard square. Maybe you’d have
gone for that dressing-case,” he added, with a crushing sneer. “That’s
the ordinary brain all over. Sees what’s just ahead an’ no more; goes
for the gilt-topped bottles and lets the tiarys go. Now p’raps when
we’ve sold the jools and are getting a fling on the Continnong you’ll
be grateful you’ve got such a partner and you won’t be so narsty about
it.”

It was a bitter night; sleeting now and with scurries of icy wind and
snow. In the sky a moon was struggling up amongst thick black clouds,
the streets and alleys through which they passed were slippery, wet
and dark. Arrived at a dingy building with a gaping open doorway, they
groped their way up an unlighted stone staircase and reached their
“pitch” at the top in safety. Bill marched in first with the air of a
conqueror, and Jim followed, bolting the door after him. There was a
little light from the remains of a smouldering fire in the grate.

Jim stirred it into a blaze and fed it with some split-up egg-boxes,
and Bill turned on the gas and lighted it.

“That’s my job,” he said, setting down the little dark case on the
table, “and a neat bit of work I calls it, and that dawg helped
wonderful.”

Jim regarded it mournfully. Odd though it may seem this strange waif of
humanity was not thinking of the rich contents; he was wondering what
the poor young lady was feeling at having lost it.

The light revealed a curious den in which these two lived. A folding
bed of ancient date with one side sagging to the floor, in the corner.
A capacious cupboard in the wall through the half-open door of which
strange and various articles were protruding, a table in the centre
with scattered tin cups and plates and battered tin teapot on it and on
the window ledge a cracked flower-pot with a primrose-root growing in
it--Jim’s.

“Now, then,” said Bill, “let’s have a look.” He took up the box and
turned it round. “Why, blimey, it hasn’t a lock,” he exclaimed, rather
blankly. “That don’t look like jools--only a bit of a catch like this,
and two ’oles each side. Wot the ’Ell’s that for?”

With fingers beginning to tremble, he forced up the brass catch and
then tore open the lid, and then both men who had been bending forward
over their treasure, collapsed suddenly speechless, on the two chairs,
and sat opposite to each other staring across the table, for there
within the box was no necklace of rare pearls reposing on velvet
cushions, but a neat little nest of hay, from the centre of which
looked out with enquiring eyes--two white mice!

Very dainty silk-like coats of the purest white on which the gas-light
gleamed, tiny pink paws of the palest shell-like pink, little white
ears delicate as a butterfly’s wing and large eyes like glowing rubies.
Gentle and not dreaming that anyone could hurt them, they looked up at
the staring faces of the men over them, unafraid, and began polishing
their noses with their tiny paws.

Bill recovered from the shock first. With a foul oath, he sprang to his
feet and made a grab at the box, but Jim was too quick for him. With
one of his agile movements that made him such an invaluable thief, he
snatched away the box before Bill’s heavy hand reached it, snapped down
its lid and held it firmly in both hands against his chest.

“Wot yer goin’ to do with it?” he asked.

For a full ten seconds, Bill swore all the best oaths he knew.

“Do with it?” he roared at the finish. “Throw it on the fire and see
those vermin burn alive--you just give it me!”

Jim turned pale and clutched the box tighter.

“Now, Bill, you’d never do such a thing,” he urged anxiously. “They’s
done you no harm and it’s crool to burn them; no good’d come of it,
besides the lidy was fond of ’em, you saw that yourself, and maybe
there’ll be a reward. Here’s a name and address on the box.”

This was sound sense, but Bill was blind and deaf with fury. No oaths
nor mere words could suffice to vent his rage. Some horrible violence
and cruelty alone could do that. He made a lunge across the rickety
table, but Jim avoided him and backed against the wall. He was pale,
but his eyes shone with an indomitable light. A frail, small man with a
poor physique and little health or strength but there was a spirit in
him that had often stood up to and conquered the big bully before. He
saw now this might be a fight to the death, but he just felt he didn’t
care. He would be crushed to a pulp first before Bill got hold of the
box and burned those two little innocent things inside. His blood was
up and on its tide had risen that wonderful determination that can make
one weak man equal to ten strong ones. Bill was round the table in an
instant and let fly at him a blow from his ponderous fist which he
meant to stretch him senseless, but Jim dodged and it only caught the
corner of his eye and his lean arm seemed locked like steel across the
box on his chest and Bill wrenched at it in vain.

Does some great current of electricity come into being with that mental
fixity of purpose and lend a determined combatant a strength altogether
beyond his own?

It seemed so to Jim. He seemed full of some living force as he dodged
round the table and chairs and over the bed and Bill came floundering
after him, cursing and sending his blows wide of the mark. At last Jim
found himself close to the door and with a monkey’s quickness shot back
the bolt and fell through the opening door. Bill grabbed him by the
neck, but Jim wriggled so furiously that both men fell in a heap on the
top stair and then rolled to the bottom. As they bumped onto the last
step, Bill’s hands sank from the other’s neck and while Jim scrambled
to his feet he lay inert and crumpled on the lowest stair.

Jim, breathless, his thin clothing torn and one eye closed, but still
gripping the box to his body, ran out into the street and to the
nearest lamp-post. There under the wavering light he read the address
on the casket-lid:

                            MISS TORRINGTON
                            Hailstone Hall
                           Sevenoaks, Kent.

All the time Bill had been chasing him round the attic a resolution had
been forming in his mind. If he escaped with his life he would take the
box and its little inmates back to the young “lidy.”

For years past in his low degraded existence this man’s soul had
vaguely yearned after goodness, as a plant in a dark cellar strains
with its colourless leaves towards its native light, but there was
little opportunity in his life overshadowed by Bill for anything but
crime. He hated Bill but he couldn’t get away from him. He had not
the strength of mind to say good-bye to the daring pal who kept the
attic supplied with bread and beer and knew exactly how to utilise in
his petty thievings the sharp agility of Jim. But now to-night was
the end of it all. Bill was down and out and the way lay clear to a
good action, and standing there in the biting cold with his bleeding
eye and bruised body, he thrilled through and through with joy. He had
done something already. He had foiled his companion’s brutal intention,
he had saved the animals, and now if he could restore the “lidy’s”
property to her safe and sound he felt he would be content no matter
what happened to himself. Possibly the thought of a reward struggled
for life at the back of his mind, but it was not the prompting motive,
and there was a risk of being turned over to the law and to prison on
returning the property, which far out-balanced the possible reward. To
have kept on the right side of his partner and destroyed the stolen
goods, as a business proposition, was far better, but the thought of
the lady’s pleasure and the joy of the little creatures that had looked
out so confidingly at him, attracted him just as the primrose blossoms
pleased his eyes when they bloomed in the Spring on his window ledge.

Sevenoaks! Not so far away--a matter of twenty-four mile. He had
tramped it before in the hop-picking season; he could tramp it again.
It was a freezing night, but the moon was getting up, and if he had
luck he would be there in the morning. He raised the lid of the casket
and looked in to see if his treasures were still safe. Yes, there they
lay close side by side, like tiny snowballs tucked down in the hay
which had protected them through all the scuffling with Bill and the
roll down the stairs.

Jim carefully snapped to the lid and put the box under his arm for
shelter against the searching wind. Then aching and shaky in body but
dauntless in mind he set out for his tramp to Sevenoaks. When the city
and its pitiless streets were left behind him and he had once reached
the open country road he felt happier. Here there were no police to
pass with a quaking heart as they sternly eyed his blood-stained face
and torn coat. He stepped out more strongly as the night wind of the
countryside blew in his face. It was cold but not so damp and cruel
as London’s breath. He looked over the hedge-tops across the wide
meadows with the shadowy form of sleeping cattle; he looked at the
trees arching over him and the tracery of their shadows on his path,
at the sky with the moon riding high in it through bands of scurrying
clouds, and he felt he loved it all. Wonderful indeed, as the Latin
poet sang, is the joy of the mind conscious of its own right doing, and
wonderful also is the dominion of man’s mind over his body. Jim, the
poor, penniless tramp, hungry and empty and aching, footsore, weary
and cold, marched on full of the greatest joy of his life because his
mind told him he was doing right. Many doubts and fears beset him and
much anxious questioning as to his reception and his fate but nothing
could quell that springing sense of joy in his heart as mile after mile
fell behind him. When the first red light of morning lit up the sky, it
shewed a forlorn and limping figure with a drawn and haggard face, but
with a proud, glad light in its one uninjured eye.

The great gates of Hailstone Hall looked imposing enough, shut tight in
frosty splendour of twisted ironwork, but they were not locked and Jim
pushed them open with an unfaltering hand. The drive winding between
the velvet green of tall evergreen trees and with gleaming bands of
sparkling frost on each side, lay before him silent and solitary save
for the birds hopping across it, and Jim walked straight up the middle
of it and found himself with a beating heart on the steps before the
big front door. No slinking round by the back door for him with that
proud consciousness of right in his breast. He wanted no delays and
parleys with impeding and inquisitive servants. He felt weak and his
strength failing; with the last bit of it he wanted to put the box
himself straight into the lady’s hand, and then what became of him did
not seem to matter at all.

The door opened in response to his modest ring and a young footman
looked out at him with blank astonishment.

“Please can I see Miss Torrington,” said Jim. “I’ve something for her
which she wants very particular.”

He had thought this sentence out with care, and it certainly showed
ingenuity in its suggestion of the lady’s desire to see him.

The door was not slammed in his face as he feared it might be. The
young footman held it, still staring at him in silence. As he said
afterwards in the servants’ hall, “I was that surprised at his cheek
coming to the front door in his condition I couldn’t say nothing.”

At that moment the butler chanced to cross the hall and seeing the open
door and the intruder on the steps, approached. A tall, portly man the
butler, who would have made about four of Jim. As he came up the frail
one clutched still harder the box against his bony ribs. “Good Lord, if
she should drop upon me, I’m done,” was the thought that dashed through
his brain. Nothing of the kind happened, however.

“My good man,” said the butler benevolently, “what is it you want?”

Jim repeated his fine phrase, but stammering a little as his weakness
gained on him.

“Very good,” replied the butler blandly, “Give me what you have and I
will give it to Miss Torrington.”

Jim’s heart thumped, and the hall seemed moving round him, but he stuck
to his purpose.

“Twenty-four miles,” he stammered with blue lips. “Give it ’er myself.”

The butler looked him over. He was a man of some brains, or perhaps
he would not have been butler to Miss Torrington on a comfortable
salary. He met the clear determined gaze of Jim’s one unclosed eye and
read perhaps something in it that made him sign to Jim to enter and
the footman to close the door. Then he said: “If you wait here I will
enquire if Miss Torrington wishes to see you.”

Jim stood still as a post just inside the door and erect, though
everything was getting uncertain round him, and the footman lounged
watching him.

Though a thief by profession and accustomed to be so styled and
considered, a feeling of amusement stirred in Jim that the man should
mount guard over him here.

“As if I’d steal a thing off ’er,” passed through him, and somehow this
new feeling of pride and self-respect he had been indulging in was so
delightful he thought he would never steal another thing as long as he
lived.

Jim did not know how long he waited, but it seemed a world of time,
and then a swift, light step came down the stairs and the young
lady herself came across the hall towards him. There she was, slim,
dark-clothed form and golden hair and slender hand.

“Oh, you’ve found my box!” she exclaimed in a sweet, soft voice. “Oh,
good man! Are they alive and all right?”

Jim stood speechless; the last of his powers seemed deserting him. His
voice died in his throat. With both trembling hands he pushed out the
precious casket into her eager grasp.

Then all went dark and he fell in a crumpled heap on the whiteness of
the marble flooring.

       *       *       *       *       *

Bill is now in quod doing seven years for a burglary with violence,
but Jim is third gardener at Hailstone Hall, has a sunny room all to
himself, and a whole row of primroses on his window sill.




                        THE VENGEANCE OF PASHT


In the torrid heat of the Egyptian afternoon the desert lay
outstretched, a silent, shimmering golden sea. Little wavelets of sand
rose from its surface at intervals, curled over and blew away as the
scorching desert wind passed by. Otherwise nothing moved nor stirred
till the form of a camel outlined itself against the blue sky, walking
easily and swiftly and bearing on its back the slight white clothed
figure of a girl. She was young and extremely fair, the mass of curls
pressed up against the shady hat-brim was gold as the sunshine, the
eyes were bright sparkling blue like the sky above, the skin all
softness and bloom. She was humming to herself as she rode--she felt so
happy, so delightfully alone and free. She had slipped away from the
noisy clamoring crowd of tourists with whom she travelled on her little
Cook’s ticket which had cost her £25 and brought her to this ancient
land of old and sacred gods.

She had escaped from the hateful attentions of one of the men of the
party and now with a map and a guide book she had started out on the
great adventure of finding for herself the obscure and lonely little
temple of the Goddess Pasht.

From her childhood she had studied Egyptian history and she knew all
about the great Goddess; divine protector of all the feline tribe. Her
father had been an Egyptologist of some note and books and pictures of
Egypt had been her playthings from her earliest years but what were
books and pictures to the delights of being here at last and seeing for
herself the rich and glorious temples that have been the wonders of the
world for centuries?

She rode on leisurely, accommodating her supple body to the long
swinging stride of the camel and the sun slanted slowly to the Western
sky behind her. She was thinking how delightful life would be if there
were more of this loneliness in it; that horde of chattering companions
she was with usually day and night, how she hated it and that one man
who pursued her so relentlessly. That wretched man, how she hated him.
He was positively spoiling the whole of her tour. Wherever she went
she always found that he was there. She never seemed able to escape
him. If their little boat had to cross the Nile to reach Thebes, he
always managed to secure the seat next to hers. If the party were
making an excursion on donkeys, he always rode his up beside hers and
once, through pushing up close beside her on a steep bank, he had
forced her donkey so near the edge that it had almost rolled over
it. It had been so from the very first, this constant pursuit of her
and she could honestly feel she had given him no encouragement. His
personal appearance on the first day she saw him among the crowd of
jolly-faced tourists had repelled her. The long lanky dark hair which
was always falling over his pallid forehead, the sinister dark eyes,
the peculiarly evil mouth and above all the large lean sinewy hands had
filled her with a sense of horror and repulsion.

Even before she had heard what he was, a medical student, and been
shocked by his callous conversation, his horrid talk of his cruel
experiments on cats. Cats! animals that she particularly loved for
their soft, sinuous movements, their beautiful eyes and their deep
silent affections.

She shuddered as she thought of him and glanced involuntarily behind
her. But here out in the desert there seemed no menace. Only limpid
golden light on golden sand met her eye, infinite silence and peace was
all around.

She consulted the map; she should be nearing her destination now and
after a few more minutes she descried ahead of her the rising mound of
sand that marked the site of the half buried temple of Pasht. Rather
plain in its architecture and not imposing in size, it is often passed
over by the tourist and the sight-seer as unworthy of particular
notice, and the long camel ride one has to take to find. But now with
its smooth straight walls glowing gold in the magic lights and its dark
portal suggesting mysteries within, its lonely situation out here away
from any other tomb or temple away from every sign of life, half buried
beneath the drifting tide of sand it seemed to the girl most appealing,
far more interesting visited thus in its grandeur of desolation than
the larger ones she had seen thronged with loquacious dragomen and
gaping visitors.

She pulled up the camel and looked around. Everywhere about her amber
glory of soundless space.

“Khush” she said gently to the camel and the great docile beast went
down on his knees and let her dismount.

She had to descend three steps and then through the great granite
doorway she entered the temple.

There were three small horizontal windows, rectangular slits, at the
top of the walls near the stone roof on which the sand had piled and
the whole of the interior was full of a soft grey light. In the very
centre of the small square chamber was the great statue of the Goddess
about three times the girl’s own size. A seated majestic figure in grey
stone, the body that of a woman, bare breasted and with hands resting
on its knees, the head and face that of an enormous cat with calm fixed
eyes looking out towards the desert beyond the open door. So had it sat
gazing in unmoved calm while the centuries rolled by and generations of
men turned into dust which the desert wind swept by the temple door.

Pasht sat there silent and alone in her neglected temple. Her
worshippers had passed away, the flowers and lights and wreaths of
former days were hers no more, the girls who had danced in her honour
and flung chains of roses round her feet, where were they now with
their dusky slender limbs and dark laughing eyes? Perished and gone but
she in her carven stone sat there still, serene and secure.

The girl on first entering could see nothing but after a few minutes
when her eyes, accustomed to the soft gloom, took indistinctly the huge
form of the great woman-cat towering over her, a sense of awe enfolded
her and she dropped into a sitting position near its feet, and gazed up
reverently into the curious feline countenance, carved so long ago by
some skilled and loving hand.

“Goddess, I love you,” she said in a whispering tone after a minute’s
silent musing, “just as much as any of your old, old long ago
worshippers did, and I love all cats all your incarnations. They are
the dearest darlings in the world and so misunderstood. Just because
they have not the exuberant spirits of the dog, man thinks they
can’t feel. But deep down in their dark reserved passionate natures,
they feel intensely and they love. Oh, how they can love when one
understands them! I am glad they were held sacred and worshipped in
Egypt! Perhaps I was one of your temple girls, Goddess, in those old,
far off times!”

She sat still on the sand, her hands loosely clasped round her knees.
She felt so happy to have discovered the temple--and the statue that
her father had told her of and all by herself, and happy to be able to
sit still and think for which there was generally so little time in
this tour with the band of people always being hurried along from one
place to another.

This was an interval of calm and rest and she was thoroughly enjoying
it. She felt no fear, no sense of loneliness, under the kind grave
eyes of the stone deity. She felt protected and with some august
companion.

Suddenly in the soft and profound stillness a sound struck upon her
and thinking the camel had become restless, she rose and turned to the
door. Then drew back with a half uttered exclamation and stood close
against the colossal knees of the goddess with horror stamped on her
face. In the doorway stood the slim erect figure of a young man in a
light grey suit. Not apparently a very horrifying sight but a chill
hatred ran all along the girl’s veins as she looked at him and her hand
grew cold as the stone on which it rested.

He advanced smiling. “This is a treat darling to find you here all
alone,” he said gaily coming up to her. “What’s this old thing here?
Why I do believe its a beastly cat,” and he stared up impudently into
the stately countenance above them.

“Oh, hush! please, it’s a statue of the Goddess Pasht.”

The young man looked back at her laughing, “Pasht, well who’s she and
why’s she got a cat’s head?”

“She was the patron Goddess of cats,” said the girl.

“Oh, was she? Well, she won’t like me then, I’ve cut up lots of her
protégés, starved them and drowned them and doubled them up with
tetanus.”

“Please don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to hear.” The girl’s lips
were white; all her happy smiles and colour had fled.

“Oh they were only ordinary wretched little street cats anyway,”
rejoined the man lightly.

“How did you come here?” asked the girl. Her eyes were fixed on the
stone face above them. Was it only her fancy, or that the light was
failing? It seemed to her the countenance had darkened as if with wrath
and the calm gaze grown fierce and grim.

“On a camel; same as you did. Oh, you didn’t think I was going over to
Thebes did you with the rest of the flock, if you weren’t there? Not
much. I just waited about in the Hotel and after you’d gone I found
out from the porter whom you’d hired the camel from, then I went to
_him_ and found out where you had headed for. Then I followed you
but I had to be precious careful you didn’t turn round and see me. One
can see for such miles in the desert.”

“Why did you come?” the girl’s voice was strained and low. Oh, how she
hated this man who had made her life a burden ever since the beginning
of the tour.

The man laughed.

“What a question! As if you don’t know, you little humbug! Why to make
love to you of course, not to see this old Smash Pash or whatever you
said her name was.”

“Well you know I don’t want to listen to you and its getting late now.
Let us ride back.” She was still standing by the knees of the statue.
He was between her and the door, she could not move towards it without
approaching him.

She glanced round; the greyness of the temple was of a darker tint;
outside the glowing patch of light showed the approach of sunset.

“Not at all. I have no intention of going back yet. You may as well sit
down and be sensible. I’ve come out to ask you again will you marry me?”

“No, I have told you before I will not.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t love you. I could never love anybody who cut up
animals alive.”

“We don’t call it that now, you are so old fashioned, we call it
Scientific Research.”

“It’s the same thing whatever you call it.”

“Lots of women admire it.”

“Well marry one of them.”

“I don’t want to, I want to marry you.”

“You can never do that.”

“We shall see. To-morrow morning you will be begging and praying me to
marry you.”

The girl went deadly cold all over and the sweat broke out on her
forehead. He had come a little nearer. Through the dark she could see
the evil face, the horribly eager expression.

“What do you mean?” she stammered, her throat was dry, her limbs
trembled. Horror and hatred and a nameless fear possessed her. The
temple seemed growing smaller, its walls contracting, pushing him upon
her.

“I should think you’d know. We’re going to make a night of it here and
if you’re alive in the morning--well, we’ll see what you say then.”

There was a great dead silence. Now that she realized the extremity of
her danger her courage seemed to rise to meet it. She thought rapidly:
Was there any escape, any help anywhere? Was anyone likely to come to
her rescue? Would she be missed, followed?

“You arranged it all very well,” the man’s voice went on in mocking
tones as if in answer to her thoughts. “You told no one where you were
going. Only the camel man has the least idea where you are and I’ve
tipped him well. He won’t tell anyone _in time_.”

He was very near her now and suddenly he threw both arms round her
and drawing her up to him kissed her violently on the mouth. At the
touch of his lips a perfect fury of revolt rose in her and she struck
out wildly at him with her clenched fists. With the strength that the
madness of anger gives she wrenched herself loose from him and fled
behind the statue so that the colossal form of the image was between
her and her tormentor. There she paused trembling and gasping.

The man was now by the knees of the statue. She saw his dark face and
the black brows contracted into a straight savage line as the light
from one of the slit-like windows above fell on it. He followed her
but terror lent wings to her feet and she fled away before he could
reach her circling round the image. He followed and dodged and circled
also but she was too quick and fleet in her movements for him to
circumvent. So for a few moments they played in a deadly game round
the age old Deity. But the girl felt her strength failing. The poisons
of hatred and anger, terror and loathing were pouring into her blood,
enervating her, taking away her powers. Her eyes were darkening, her
limbs giving way.

In another moment she must faint and fall.

They were on opposite sides now. Across the lap of the Goddess she
saw the crimson face, the bulging blood-shot eyes of the human beast
waiting to spring on her. The temple was going dark, all was whirling
before her.

“Save me, Pasht!”

And as her agonized scream rang through the temple, she pressed her
slender white hands against the arms of the statue.

Was it the pressure of those soft fingers disturbing the balance
already shaken by the shifting of the sand floor through a thousand
years? Or was the stone heart of the Goddess turned to flesh and blood
as man’s heart is so often turned to stone? Who shall say?

Before the murderous beast could move back from where he stood beside
her lap the huge idol reeled and fell over on its side with a sullen
thud bearing him to the ground beneath its six tons of solid granite.
The temple shook to its foundation and the whole air was filled with
a fog of blood and sand. One piercing shriek of agony rang through
it. Then there was silence except for the sound of the blood thrown
on the walls trickling down them to the ground. The concussion of the
air in that small space had thrown the already half fainting girl back
against the wall. For a moment she could see nothing, the stinging
sand filling and closing her eyes. Then as the particles settled down
once more to their age old repose her terrified gaze took in the form
of the huge image at her feet, the scarlet wall opposite her, the
semi-obliterated mass of small human form and clothes. The man’s face
was crushed deeply into the sand under the colossal shoulder of the
Goddess but something still moved, chaining her fascinated gaze--two
large sinewy hands scrabbled still convulsively pulling at the sand.
Then after a few more minutes these also grew motionless. Breathless,
terrified, half suffocated and dazed the girl still clung to the wall
hardly realising yet what had happened and if she herself were still
living and uninjured. Then as the sand settled and the air grew clear,
calmness returned to her and she knew she was safe and free.

With gentle steps she approached the huge fallen form, avoiding the
horrid blue hands that looked still able to grip and grasp and holding
her skirts away from all the contamination oozing from under the stone
and looked down into the face of the statue. The light from the doorway
slanted on to it and seemed to soften it all into smiles and the desert
wind springing up passed through the temple and out at the top slits by
the roof with a loud purring sound. The girl stooped and pressed her
warm red lips on the ancient stone brow in a kiss of gratitude, then
passed out into the sunset and mounting her camel and followed by the
other, rode away over the golden sand and night settled slowly on the
desert in a violet dusk enclosing the ancient temple where the Goddess
Pasht lay purring on her prey. Her starry eyed children were avenged.




                            VILLAGE PASSION


The shapely mass of her body was outlined dark against the rosy gold of
the evening sky, as she sat on the top of the red brick orchard wall,
looking up and down the country road on which it bordered.

She was named Apricot Marten and the Christian name given her by a
fanciful mother could not have been more suitably bestowed. She was
just like a golden glowing apricot in its very best condition when
it hangs basking in the summer sun. She had a soft, clear skin with
a warm flush in the velvet cheek, great lustrous laughing eyes of a
warm golden brown, and a wealth of bright waving hair in which the
sunrays seemed to have got permanently entangled. Her mouth was bright
crimson and turned up at its smiling corners, and her body was supple
and gracious in its full rounded contours. Altogether she was an
enchanting piece of girlhood just merging into womanhood, and many were
the sleepless nights passed by the young men of Fullingham village in
thinking about her.

She was not entirely free from the reputation of a flirt, but deep in
her heart her choice was made, and from it she never swerved however
mischievously she might behave.

It was John Macpherson the Highlander, the lithe, agile, black-haired,
hasty-tempered Scot who worked on the farm which adjoined her father’s
cottage and orchard. But she gave this away to no one, and many thought
she had her eye on Tony Morrison, whose father owned the little
village shop and general store, and, in absence of all competition,
did a good business. Tony served in the store, and while rather short
and insignificant in physique, made up for this by the extreme care
he bestowed upon his dress and personal appearance. He wore neat and
becoming grey suits and townish-looking hats, and always produced a
pleasing impression of great cleanliness and smartness. Tony’s heart
had been given long ago to Bessie Smith in the next village, a little
quiet mouse of a girl with violet eyes. Apricot was much too flamboyant
a personage to please his quiet taste, but this secret devotion he also
imparted to no one, and as Apricot was considered the belle of his
village, it flattered his masculine vanity to be supposed one of her
accepted admirers. By a quiet and modest smile he generally managed
to encourage the rumours about himself and Apricot while ostensibly
denying them. All of which made the heart of John Macpherson flare up
with consuming anger against him.

Thus stood matters in Fullingham village on that lovely summer evening
when Apricot sat humming to herself on the top of the orchard wall.
The scene was truly idyllic in its beauty. Fullingham is one of the
prettiest villages in the quietest and most remote part of Devonshire,
and this evening the glory of pink light in the sky was so great it
turned even the white road a rosy colour, and all the hedges were full
of wild roses and the still warm air heavy with balmy scents.

Apricot thought it beautiful, and looked with longing eyes up and down
the road. She felt she wanted to kiss somebody, to throw her arms
round somebody’s neck, and who so delightful for this as the handsome
Highlander, if he would only come! They had an appointment at this
place and hour. She was there, but where was he? There was no one to
be seen in the road except a small shock-haired boy gnawing an apple.
Then, swinging lightly along, came a figure down the road.

Apricot put her hand to shade her eyes to see, but it was not John. She
thought at first it was Tony, that slight, neat form in grey with the
smart hat; but no, it was not he. It was a stranger.

Up went Apricot’s hand to her hair to smoothe back a tress. What would
he think of her? She wondered. Would he look up as he passed?

The stranger did more than that. When he came up to the orchard he
stopped and looked up.

“What are you doing up there?” he asked. His voice was gentle and
courteous, and the face he turned up towards her very pleasant to look
at.

Apricot did not resent his addressing her.

“What’s that to you?” she called back saucily, showing her small white
teeth in a gay smile; and pulling a great red rose that grew on the
wall close to her hand, she threw it down full in his face.

The stranger caught the rose and kissed it, and then stuck it in his
coat.

“Come down and have a little walk with me. You look lonely up there.”

“Not so lonely as you look in the road, young man.”

“Oh, I’m lonely enough! That’s why I want your company.”

“Will you catch me?” she said laughing and leaning over.

“Certainly I will,” he answered, holding out his arms. “Come along.”

She swung her shapely legs and neat feet over the side of the wall
next him, and then let herself slip down it. He caught her fine,
well-developed figure in his arms, and holding her up tight and close
gave her a kiss on her bright red lips.

She slapped his face, but quite gently, and struggled away from him,
shaking her blue cotton gown straight that had been rather rumpled by
her descend.

“Now we’ll go for a walk,” said the stranger. “Which way?”

“Oh, we’ll go towards Hawley village. That’s very pretty,” she
answered. “And if you want the train you can get it there. You’re a
town gentleman, aren’t you?” she added shyly.

Fullingham village is off the railway line and it was not an uncommon
thing for strangers to pass through the village from Riverside where
there was a station to Hawley on the other side where they could
again take the train, having walked through six miles of the prettiest
Devonshire scenery.

“Oh, that’ll do very well. I didn’t know you had a train so near. Yes,
I’m finishing my holiday and going back to town to-night.”

They were walking slowly up the road now in the gorgeous sunset light.
A moon large and pale as a thin white paper disc rose in the East
before them.

Apricot had her own ideas in view in going in the Hawley direction and
shipping the stranger off her hands there. She was thoroughly enjoying
the new sensation of walking and talking with a London gentleman, but
she was not _quite_ sure how John Macpherson would view her little
promenade, and she was not _too_ anxious to be met or seen by him.
It was quite true he had not kept their tryst, and in her own mind that
quite excused her for going off with someone else. But then, he and she
did not always agree about these things, and altogether it was best to
take the handsome stranger out of her own village and over to Hawley in
which direction the Fullingham rustics did not often walk.

Laughing and jesting and walking quite near together the two young
figures passed up the sunlit road. Some little way ahead of them there
was a fork, one road winding up an incline and passing through a larch
plantation on the hill before it dipped down to Hawley station, the
other a far prettier road following the valley and passing through a
lovely wood as it worked round to Riverside.

Apricot and the stranger walked along with springing steps, taking the
Hawley road. It was surely an evening to feel, if ever, the madness
of Summer in one’s veins. He thought he had never seen such a lovely
country girl and she, without swerving in the least from her allegiance
to the fiery Macpherson, thought it was the greatest fun in the world
to be admired by a town gentleman, a real London man, with London
clothes and all.

“There’ll be none of this when I’m married to John,” she was reflecting
inwardly. “Best have what fun I can now.”

Heated a little by their walk up hill in the warm Devonshire air, they
entered the feathery larch plantation with a feeling of relief. It was
full of light, shade and music; thrushes and blackbirds, robins and
chaffinches not yet exhausted by their nesting cares were trilling on
every side of them.

“Let’s sit down here,” he suggested as they came to a mossy bank where
a tiny brooklet tinkled by, and Apricot, flushed and lovely, sat
down willingly and let the stranger’s arm come round her waist. Her
conscience told her it was not quite right, but oh! that wood with its
rosy mystery of softened summer light and the wandering perfumes of
roses and hot resin and the magic of the birds’ voices, all talking of
love, what girl would not be swayed by it and made a little giddy by
the sweet intoxication of it all?

Meantime, Macpherson had gone down to the store, his work being over
at the farm for that day, to buy himself a new tie wherewith to charm
Apricot at the trysting. He was much put out to find there only one
tie and that green, a colour he thought didn’t suit him. Everyone knows
the kind of village shop it was where everything is sold, but things
are so seldom what one wants. Gloves are there, but only size ten.
Boots are there, but only size four. Pencils are sold out, but you can
have a slate pencil. Bootlaces have not come in, but you can have a
ball of string. Macpherson bought his tie, and as the gawky girl who
assisted Morrison, was wrapping it up in a bit of paper too small for
it, he asked:

“Where’s Tony?”

“Gorn sweethearting, I ’spects,” answered the girl with a grin,
“leastways, he went out all dressed up in his new soot and hat.”

Macpherson grunted, paid and left, went home, donned the tie, and then,
a little late, flustered and rather put out, hurried to the appointed
orchard wall. There was no Apricot--no one to be seen at all up or
down the wide country road except a small boy devouring the core of an
apple. Macpherson waited with glowering eyes. It was all very well for
him to be a bit late. He had a man’s work to do, but girls should be
punctual.

Several minutes went by, each an hour to the waiting man. Then he
strode across to the boy on the other side.

“You seen Miss Apricot about here?” he asked.

The boy looked up stolidly. “I seed her a while ago.”

“Where?”

“On yon wall,” answered the boy, nodding in that direction.

“Well, where did she go?”

“Nowhere, till a gent comed along; then there wur a lot of huggin’ and
kissin’ an’ she went off with he.”

Macpherson’s face was a study as he listened to this astounding
statement. He stood rooted to the spot, and from his six feet glowered
down on the malicious little imp in the road as if he could kill
him. The boy knew perfectly well that Macpherson was “sweet” on Miss
Apricot, and he thoroughly enjoyed imparting this information. He would
have been afraid to make up such a story, but since he had witnessed it
all and it was perfectly true and this great giant had asked him, he
was going to have the fun of telling him, on the same principle that he
egged on Farmer Smith’s dog to fight another dog and shook the bag when
he was carrying ferrets to make them attack each other.

He was a little alarmed when Macpherson’s great paw came down heavily
on his shoulder.

“You little rat! What sort of a man was it? Tell me that!”

“I dunno,” said the boy sullenly, trying to shake himself free, “a kind
of a smart chap in a grey soot and hat.”

“A grey suit and hat!” The light blazed in Macpherson’s dark eyes. He
shook the boy by the shoulder.

“Was it Tony Morrison at the store?”

“I dunno,” wailed the boy frightened now by the awful look of rage in
the man’s face and only anxious to get away. “I never go to the store,
muvver always goes.”

Another frightful shake that made his teeth rattle.

“Was it?”

“I dunno. I never saw ’is face, only ’is back as he was a-kissin’ of
her. It mout be the store man, or it moutn’t.”

“Little devil!” growled Macpherson, and with a final shake sent the boy
down on his hands and knees in the dust. Then he strode off up the road
at a tremendous pace, his blood on fire, his mind entirely made up.

It was Tony, of course. He knew that absolutely. He was convinced of
it. The grey suit and hat, the smart appearance--who else in Fullingham
had that? It was Tony’s own particular property and asset. Besides,
had he not just heard at the store that Tony was gone sweethearting?
Of course it was all quite clear. Huggin’ and kissin’ his Apricot!
The thought of her darling velvet cheek that he himself so reverently
touched, her lovely smiling scarlet mouth, came to him and seemed to
add boiling oil to the raging flame within him. He would do for him!
He would kill him! He would break his back! The cur! The reptile! Who
all along had been carrying on with his girl and who was so smug and
so satisfied--always at the store so neat and clean, and always so
civil-spoken and so quiet!

He had always rather liked Tony. There had been a great friendship
between the men only lately a little spoiled by the slumbering
suspicion in John’s mind that Tony might be “after his girl,” but Tony
had always been good to him personally and he always spoke of Apricot
to John as Miss Marten, which came back bitterly to John now. “I’ll
‘Miss Marten’ him when I catch him,” he said between his teeth.

A hideous thing is jealousy, blinding its victim, deafening him alike
to the voice of conscience and the voice of reason hounding him on to
the scaffold and the grave.

John Macpherson, good man, great soul, walked up the road that evening
with red murder in his heart. When he came to the cross-roads he
stopped and hesitated. Which way had they gone?

He decided they must have taken the road to Riverside. It lay before
him so attractively beautiful all bathed in golden sheen; the road to
Hawley was up hill and in shadow.

Before one reaches Riverside comes the wood, and as the road passes
into it there is a low stile. On this stile with his back to the road
and all unconscious of the desperate figure of vengeance striding
along it, sat a figure in grey. It was Tony, blissfully happy; full of
light-hearted innocent enjoyment swinging his legs to the tune he was
whistling. He was looking back to Riverside and was counting the kisses
shy little Bessie had given him that day, and thinking how sweet she
had looked when she promised to marry him. Now he was on his way home
to Fullingham and just pausing to rest on the stile and enjoy the sweet
calm and peace of this perfect evening which suited so well his happy
mood.

Suddenly as John came along the road he caught sight of the grey back
rising above the stile and every drop of blood in John’s body turned
to raging flame. His ears caught the gay whistle. Apricot was nowhere
to be seen, but that was natural. She would be slinking home through
the woods by way of Riverside and back to her father’s cottage, where
she would turn up with the innocent look of the cat who has stolen the
cream. Well, nothing could be better. Apricot out of the way he could
deal all the more swiftly and better with his rival.

Like a bull at a fence he rushed at the stile, and Tony was knocked off
and down on the ground, pinned under John’s hands at his throat before
he knew who had approached.

“You weasel! You little devil! I’ll kill you!” John stormed, and
lifting the prostrate man by the neck dashed him down again with all
his force. There was a wide stone flag just under the stile to help
matters in the muddy wintertime, and on this flag Tony’s head came down
with a good bang.

“What’s up?” he gasped, as well as he could with John’s suffocating
grip on his neck. “What’s this for, Mac?”

“Huggin’ and kissin’!” ground out John between his teeth. “I’ll teach
you to come after my girl!”

“I haven’t! I haven’t!” cried Tony. “Let up, Mac, let up! You’re mad.”

“If I’m mad you’re dead. I’m going to kill you, you little beast!”
Bang! “Where were you this afternoon?” Bang! “Answer me that.” Bang!

Tony’s lips were going white. His thoughts were scattered by the blows
on his head. He managed to gasp out: “Riverside! I’ve been to Bessie--I
haven’t seen your girl.”

“You’re a good liar,” scoffed John. “You were seen huggin’ my girl and
I’ll see you never do again. Now go on with more of your lies.” Bang!
Bang!

But Tony’s lying or speaking at all had come to an end. His face went
grey; his jaw dropped; his body fell limp in the fierce hands which
held him.

John let him slide down and struggled to his feet. Instantly his rage
fell from him. He was face to face with the awful fact--he had killed a
man.

Sane now, calm, his anger utterly spent and gone from him, John stood
panting there, looking about him. He was quite alone in the golden
evening; everything was exquisitely calm about him, a thrush near by
was pouring out his song, and the figure, a few moments before sitting
whistling on the stile, was now lying limp and motionless at his feet.
Those few moments of blind, dark rage had turned one man into a corpse,
the other into a murderer.

Murder! It was hanging for that.

A wild longing to undo what he had done possessed him. He went down on
his knees.

“Tony!” he called. “What’s the matter with you? Tony, wake up!” But
the man lay still and grey before him. He undid his coat and felt his
heart; there was no movement.

He passed his trembling arm under his head and raised him and put his
own face down close to see if any breath touched his cheek; but there
was none. Limp, nerveless, the body lay across the flagstone, seeming
to ask him, “What will you do with me now?” And John, wrapped in that
awful horror, that awful responsibility of his deed, rose from his
knees and stood shuddering by the stile.

Then terror came and seized him. He must conceal his act. He must hide
the body. It must never be known he had murdered Tony. He might never
be discovered. If Tony’s body were found later, in the wood, what would
tie this deed to him, Macpherson? Tony might have been murdered by a
tramp in the wood.

Shivering as if with mortal cold, John stooped over the body and
dragged it by the shoulders out of the path, and into the little wood.
Parting the flowering bushes by the side of the track, he pushed into
the thick undergrowth and there left the motionless form under some
wild azaleas.

Then with, the cold, clammy fingers of his crime clinging to him,
unnerved and shaken, with his heart in a black terror, he crept out, a
criminal, from the shade of the trees and took the sunfilled road again.

He looked all round the stile, but there was no trace of the crime
committed there. He brushed the white dust of the path from his own
clothes. Then he stood and listened.

Not a sound to mar the lovely serenity of the golden air. Even the
thrush had finished his beautiful song and all was silence.

       *       *       *       *       *

John Macpherson, the same in outward appearance, but within a
miserable, broken and craven man, entered the village pot-house as the
sunset faded and the moon grew brighter, and called for a glass of beer.

When he got it he took it to one of the side benches, where he sat down
away from the rest of the company and swallowed it in silence.

What an awful sense of guilt clung round him; but the man deserved it,
he kept telling himself. Why did he come sneaking round after another
man’s girl? If it ever came out that he had killed him, everyone would
allow that he had been sorely tried. As he sat there, black and moody,
with eyes fixed on the sawdust-covered floor, scraps of conversation
floated over to him from the bar where the men had gathered. He heard
nothing at first; then a sentence pierced his preoccupied brain.

“Smart young fellow, wasn’t he? Did you see him, Bill?”

And then Bill’s answer struck dully on his ears:

“I just seed him go by. I was at the window there, an’ I looks up.
‘Why, there’s Tony, ses I’ bein’ as ’ow he was all togged up in grey.
And I calls out, ‘Tony!’ ’cos I wanted them bootlaces he promised me.
And the feller turns round and I couldn’t help larfin’, for it wasn’t
Tony at all, but this other chap.”

There was a general laugh at Bill’s expense.

“I could have told you Tony was off for the day. I met him going to
Riverside just after dinner-time.”

“An’ what was this young feller doin’ down here, this London chap, I
mean?” came another question.

“Oh, just walking through Fullingham, as they do, you know, to see the
country. He went up by Marten’s orchard last thing I see of him, going
to Hawley, for sure.”

The talk drifted on then; but John Macpherson, seated near the open
door whence the delicious balmy air, heavy with the scent of new-mown
hay, came in and mixed with the beer and baccy of the bar, grew cold
with horror as he sat and heard. An icy conviction gripped him to his
inner being strangling him.

_He had killed the wrong man!_

He knew it. He felt sure of it. Tony’s gasping words came back to him
backed up now so unexpectedly by this man at the bar. Tony had been
to Riverside, he had “gorn sweethearting” but to his own legitimate
property, his own girl. It was the other man in grey who--oh, the
horror of it! He’d go mad if he sat there another minute. He got
onto his feet and was just about to cross the threshold when another
phrase from the little knot of men arrested him. They had got onto a
prize-fight now. They were discussing it, as one of the men had seen
it in a neighboring town.

“And there he lay, and nothin’ they could do seemed to bring him round.
I thought he was dead, sure. Then another bloke comes along, and
whether he tips brandy down ’is throat or what he does, I don’t know;
but up springs my fine fellow as gay as you please, and they sets to
again.”

A sudden ray of hope seemed to split the darkness in John’s mind.
Suppose--suppose Tony was not quite dead? Oh! the wonderful joy of the
thought. Suppose, like that other man, he could come round! Oh, if such
a thing might happen now and let him out of this cold cell of terror
he seemed shut up in, he swore within himself he would never lift hand
against man, woman or child again!

He had his whiskey-flask in his pocket. Full of a new determination he
turned and walked to the bar.

“Six-penn’orth?” asked the barman, as John handed him the flask.

“Fill it right up, man,” said John briefly. And when this was done and
paid for, he turned and went out without a word.

The barman shook his head. “Macpherson looks bad to-night,” he remarked.

“Bin drinkin’ perhaps; or p’raps that girl’s leading him a dog’s life.
She’s a termagant.”

Outside John sped up the road, new hope, dim, faint uncertain, but
still hope glimmering in his heart. The full moon was up in a rich
purple sky, and the night was soft and full of beauty. But John could
see nothing. He felt the hangman’s cord about his neck, and for the
wrong man--the wrong man!

All seemed quite still, calm as he had left it when he reached the
wood. The silvery light filtered gently through the leaves and fell on
his little path, showing him the way.

He stepped aside to the clump of azaleas and pushed them back. There
lay the still body, just as he had left it. It had not stirred.

With a thumping heart and a prayer on his lips John knelt beside it,
and raising the head pushed the neck of the open flask between the
pallid lips.

There was no movement, but some seemed to go down the throat, but he
could not be sure. Then he got desperate, and getting his handkerchief
just soaked it in the spirit and rubbed it violently all over the man’s
face and eyes.

“Tony man, wake up, I say!” he muttered, scrubbing his forehead with
the fiery spirit.

At last, oh, God! that was a sigh! He was breathing!

John’s hand trembled so that he nearly spilt the rest of the flask.

Tony opened his eyes.

“Why, what’s this?” he uttered faintly. “Where am I?”

“Here, drink some more,” said John feverishly, tipping the flask up and
sending a fresh stream down Tony’s throat.

He never touched spirits and it burnt him like fire.

He sat up, John supporting him, and looked round. “Is that you, Mac?”
he said. “Oh, I remember. You nearly bashed me to death under the
stile. What’s it all about, Mac?” His voice was rather weakly; his eyes
wandered over John’s anxious face and then up to the tracery of boughs
over them.

“It was all a mistake, Tony, and I am more sorry than I can say. But
you’re not hurt much, are you?”

Tony was sitting up now. His face looked very white. His hat, carefully
picked up by Macpherson and put beside him under the azaleas, was there
still. His forehead looked damp, and the whiskey-soaked locks of hair
hung loose over it. He leaned his cheek on his hand as he answered:

“I’ll have you up before the beak for this,” he said calmly. Tony was
mostly calm.

“You won’t?” exclaimed John anxiously.

“It’s six months’ hard for ’sault and battery, and it’s two years quod
for manslaughter,” remarked Tony.

John felt a cold sweat break out on him.

“But I’ve said it was a mistake,” he urged. “I thought it was you--”
Then he began to stammer. After all, Apricot was his girl and he was
not going to give her away.

“Well, why didn’t you find out before you came and knocked me about?”
asked Tony in an aggrieved voice. “Spoiled my hat, too.” And he took it
out from the azaleas and smoothed its battered brim in his hands.

“Look here, Tony,” said John desperately, “you must overlook this. Not
a word must come out. Say how I can make up to you and I’ll do it.”

“There’s that fifty pounds you’ve saved up,” remarked Tony mildly,
still stroking his hat.

John fell back flabbergasted. Fifty pounds! The savings of his whole
life! The sacred sum put by so that when it grew to a hundred he could
set up house with Apricot!

“What do you mean?” he asked with trembling lips.

“It won’t be nice doin’ hard for six months; and it’s two years if they
bring it in manslaughter.”

“But I didn’t kill you, man! They can’t call it that!”

“You meant to, though; and you nearly did me in. Oh, my head! it do
feel bad!” And Tony leant against a bush beside him and closed his eyes.

John seized his flask and made him take another gulp.

“You better take me home,” he said weakly. “I’d like to die in the old
house.”

John was desperate.

“Look here, Tony, if you don’t die and don’t say a word you shall have
the fifty, I promise you.”

Tony straightened himself a little.

“I’ll do my best, Mac,” he said feebly. “How soon can I have the money?
Soon as I’ve got it I’ll say I had a fit; then if I dies you’re safe,
anyway; and I’ll leave Bessie the fifty.”

“You’re a cool one,” growled out John. “Fifty pounds is a lot of money,
Tony.”

“Well, don’t pay it, don’t pay it, Mac. Maybe you’ll find it all right
in quod. Two years ain’t long, you know.”

Cold shivers went down John’s spine. Prison for one of the Highland
Macphersons! And Apricot alone and unprotected for two years! She’d
never wait for him; nor would old Marten ever let him have his daughter
then. He knew Tony had some knowledge of the law. His grandfather had
been a solicitor in a small way, and on this account many were the
knotty points referred to Tony by the villagers. But he hated like
anything to lose his cherished fifty, and made another effort.

“Look here,” he said, “I don’t see what’s to prevent my denying the
whole thing. It’s your word against mine.”

Tony shook his head solemnly. “I’d have the truth on my side, and the
truth’s a fierce thing to be up against.”

John considered. He felt that Tony was right. He could never stand up
and call God to witness that he had not laid a finger on Tony. He felt
he’d be struck dead or blind if he did.

“An’ a man’s dying oath is always took in evidence,” added Tony in a
mournful tone.

“How can it be a dyin’ oath if you don’t die?”

“If I _think_ it’s my dyin’ oath it’s the same thing.”

“’Spose it all comes out, anyway?”

“Can’t,” said Tony, sitting up and speaking with more vigour. “I’f I
gets your fifty I’m mum unless I feels like dyin’. If it’s that way,
I’ll say I have had a fit; and if I say it’s a fit, a fit it is.”

John gave in. “All right,” he said with a long sigh. “I’ll get you the
money to-night. Now let’s get back.”

He assisted Tony to his feet and put his battered hat on his head.

“Oh, it do ache!” groaned Tony.

“That’s all the whiskey you’ve drunk,” returned John unsympathetically.

“Maybe it is, and maybe it’s the bashing it’s had,” returned Tony. And
after that, in silence, the two men emerged from the wood onto the
moonlit road.

John walked along in black gloom, pondering alternately on his lost
fifty and on Apricot.

He wondered if she had walked as far as Hawley with the stranger; if
she had got back home by now; if there was the smallest chance of his
seeing her to-night. He thirsted for the touch of her red lips to
console him for all he had suffered in emotion that day.

Oddly enough he did not feel angry with her. It is a curious point of
ethics with the lower classes that what is done with a gentleman does
not count. There is not considered to be anything serious about it;
it’s only “a bit of a lark”; and while the thought of Tony supplanting
him had filled him with red fury against him, he had nothing at all
against the gentleman from town who had stolen a kiss from his girl in
passing through the village. In fact, far away in the recesses of his
heart there burnt a spark of pride that Apricot’s beauty could not be
resisted by anyone.

The two men reached the village with hardly a word exchanged, Tony
occasionally stopping to lean on his companion’s arm.

John left him at the store and went dolefully enough to fetch the price
of his folly. He brought over the small tin box in which he had saved
it and added to it through so many years, and put it into the other’s
hands in the back bedroom behind the shop. He could not bear to see it
counted out by the smiling Tony, but with a hoarse mutter of: “It’s all
there. Mind you keep your word, durn you!” he hurried away.

The night was exquisitely lovely, full of sweet scents, and all the
whispers of Summer in the air. He walked past Marten’s orchard and
looked longingly up to the wall where the trees hung their branches
heavy with fruit over the top.

But there was no one to be seen, and finally he walked away
disconsolately back to the farm.

All the next day he longed to see Apricot; but it was not till the
evening when all the village was dipped in soft violet shadows that he
at last met her, just as she was coming out of the store. She looked so
lovely his heart rose in a great bound, and he threw his arm around her
and pressed his lips into the side of her creamy neck.

“What you been to the store for?” he asked jealously.

“Only for a bit of ribbon; but I stopped to talk to Tony. Oh, John!
Think! He’s going to marry Bessie Smith in a month, and he’s got fifty
pounds to start housekeeping! Some folks do save wonderful, don’t they?”

“Yes, and some has things given ’em,” said John savagely. “But we’ll
be getting married, too. What would you say if I put the banns up
to-morrow?”

Apricot lifted two soft arms and put them about his neck. They were
sheltered by an old oak that grew near the store, and there was no one
to see. Her upturned face and glowing eyes looked very fair and sweet
in the dusk.

She loved her John and meant to marry him, and no one else in this
world, but walks and talks like yesterday’s with the stranger were very
great fun and she was afraid they might be few and far when she was
Mrs. Macpherson. Her scarlet mouth closed on John’s as she murmured
back:

“I think I’d say, John dear, don’t be so hasty!”




                        SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL


                               CHAPTER 1


“Here, Jenkins, take this animal!” And the body of the dog from which
one foreleg had been cut away was thrown into the arms of the new
laboratory attendant.

The dog was screaming wildly and some of its blood splashed upon
Jenkin’s white smock frock and some into his no less white face. The
great scientist Sir Charles Smith-Brown Bart. Dsc. F.R.C.S. etc., etc.,
was at work in his laboratory and his new attendant was assisting him.

It was Sunday morning and the Great Man was rather afraid he might be
made late for church by the bungling slowness of his subordinate.

“Throw him into the trough, man, don’t stand there staring and clamp
down his paws so that he can’t move, the three he’s got left anyway,”
he added with a little chuckle. Sir Charles was always cheerful and
pleasant at his work. Jenkins turned, lowered the dog into the trough
on his back and taking each leg fastened it into the iron clamp
provided on each side. The dog was screaming in agony and Jenkins’
fingers trembled as he did the clamps and turned his head away that
he might not see the beseeching terror in the animal’s eyes. It did
not seem right somehow. He had fed the little spaniel last night and
thought what a jolly little beast it was, frisking round him, and
caressing him with its soft nose and tongue. This Sunday morning’s work
did not seem right to him, but then he was a new hand, only having been
engaged last night and having had his duties described to him as “the
care of animals.”

“Now then have you got him fixed?” asked the great man, coming up
behind him, with a keen looking knife in his hand. With this he pointed
to the dog’s head.

“Bind his jaws and clamp the head, that’s right. Now my friend--” the
great man leant over the trough in which the dog lay rigid, helpless,
extended on its back, its legs clamped to the sides of the trough, wide
apart. Jenkins turned away and stared stolidly at the piece of bright
blue sky that appeared above the frosted panes of the lower part of the
window.

The dog unable to scream with its bound jaws could still moan and a
groaning moan of direct agony came to Jenkins’ ears as the great man
bent over the trough.

When he looked round he saw there was a great gash all down the chest
and stomach, laying bare the inside, and in the open cavity the
scientist was fumbling with both hands.

“There now that’ll do for the present,” he said cheerily as he withdrew
them, covered with blood, and wiped them briskly on a towel, “I shall
have to be off to church now or I shall be late.”

“And what about the dog, Sir?”

“Oh, I’ll leave him like that. I always do. Let ’em cool off a bit you
know,” again the pleasant laugh. “Then I’ll have at him again after
lunch.”

He was taking off his white smock in which he worked and revealed
himself well dressed underneath. He walked to the wash handstand with
its fine brass taps and washed his hands carefully. Then he went into
the hall outside where his frock-coat and tall hat were hanging.
Jenkins followed him eyeing him uneasily.

“Of course, Sir,” he began rather hesitatingly, “I’m new to this kind
of work and p’raps I don’t understand it, but isn’t it a bit cruel?”

The great man had slipped on his fine well made coat over his large
comfortable self and was just settling above his eyebrows his very
polished new silk hat. He looked back pleasantly at the nervous,
puckered face of his subordinate.

“My dear Jenkins you decidedly are new to it, very: but I trust you
will improve in time.” He took off his pince-nez and held them lightly
in one hand, as he was wont to do when addressing a class. “But I
don’t like these signs of squeamishness. Now I’ll just ask you a few
questions. You don’t know anything about Scientific Research do you?”

“No, Sir,” returned Jenkins humbly.

“Well, then,” pursued his employer genially, “you must remember
Scientific Research is a very noble work and that’s what I am doing
here, a very noble work,” he repeated, “read the daily papers, they are
always saying so.” Here he waved his pince-nez airily and smiled.

Jenkins was not an adept at analysing sarcasm but as he looked at the
smiling doctor and heard his pleasant tones, he had a vague idea that
the big man was “making game of him.”

“Then another thing is its all for the benefit of humanity. Now
remember that, Jenkins, because it’s a useful phrase, the benefit of
humanity. I am working for the benefit of humanity. You must get that
well in your head. All you saw this morning, all you will see here
while you are with me is all for the benefit of humanity, see?”

Jenkins feeling himself confused and baffled by the smiling eyes and
suave tones, tried to keep hold of his point.

“Still it is cruel, isn’t it, Sir?” he mumbled.

“Cruel?” repeated the Doctor with a shade of impatience. “Certainly
_not_. Supposing it were cruel what an uproar there would be!
You know what a lot of churches there are, all full of God-fearing
clergymen, good holy men. Would they allow it if it were cruel? Of
course not. They would denounce it in their sermons but they never say
a word against it. They uphold it. To-day for instance all the London
churches are full of these good men talking themselves hoarse, telling
us all what we must not do, but you won’t find one saying we must not
pursue our researches.”

“P’raps they don’t know what you are a doin’ of,” blurted out Jenkins
and then paused alarmed at what his employer would think of his
boldness, but Sir Charles only laughed gently.

“Oh, yes, they do,” he said. “We tell them often enough in our books
and our medical papers. But they see the aim, my dear Jenkins, unlike
you I am afraid. They see how noble, how important our work is. They
see how important, how immensely valuable, how necessary it is, in
fact, to humanity, to know that monkeys can have measles!” he broke off
laughing and Jenkins felt again the big man was making fun of him. Sir
Charles did not seem to mind now being late for church. He was amused
at the poor simple ignorant fellow before him and he liked the feeling
that he could confuse him with his big words and twist him round his
finger.

Jenkins stood blinking for a moment in silence. The little spaniel’s
agonised moaning came from the room behind him and filled his ears
making a curious undertone to the light banter of the man before
him. Sir Charles was a great believer in propaganda and never let go
an opportunity of sowing the good seed. He was a little afraid that
sooner or later an infuriated populace might turn against him and his
colleagues and put a stop to those practices for which now they so
meekly and conveniently paid: so seeing Jenkins still appeared somewhat
obdurate he continued more seriously.

“Just think a minute. There’s the whole country! England! You love
England, don’t you, Jenkins? Fought for it, eh?”

“Yes, Sir, I do,” replied Jenkins fervently. His whole face lighted up.

“Well, now England’s in the forefront of all humanitarian projects.
Won’t have bull fights, stopped cock fights, sends men to prison for
throwing a cat out of a window, would _England_ allow this work of
ours to go on, if it were cruel? No she would stop it. Would she tax
her people to give us little gifts of 500,000 pounds for Research if it
were cruel? Certainly not. Are you a taxpayer, Jenkins?”

“I must be, Sir. We’re all taxed.”

“Just so. Then here in the laboratory you’ll have the satisfaction
of seeing how your money is spent for you. Money, Jenkins, it takes
money, the noble work. Sixty thousand animals more or less go through
the laboratories every year in England. Expensive ones too, some of
them: it takes money, _your_ money, see?” Here the doctor gave his
victim a playful little dig in the side. “Now I really must run off.
Don’t you bother your head about these things. Just remember what I say
that England’s a splendidly humane country and couldn’t allow anything
brutal to be done and don’t forget too how awfully important it is to
know that monkeys have measles!”

Before his confused listener could make any remark the doctor had
walked down the passage, passed through the door and banged it behind
him.

Sir Charles walked down the road and across the straggling bit of
waste ground that surrounded his laboratory, with a pleased expression
on his face. One of his favorite experiments was to batter a dog to
death slowly with repeated blows, making notes during the operation,
of the time necessary to produce insensibility and the further time to
produce actual extinction. It was always an interesting experiment to
his highly scientific mind and he felt in some degree as if he had been
practicing in the same way on Jenkins’ mind. He thought with a smile it
would not take long in his laboratory to batter to death all Jenkins’
funny little ideas about cruelty.

Jenkins, left standing in the hall, remained there as if transfixed.
He felt as if the whole thing must be some horrible nightmare and that
he would wake up in a minute in his country cottage with the sound of
clucking hens outside, instead of that awful moaning from the room
behind him.

What sort of hell was this that he had dropped into?

You see Jenkins lacked a scientific education which enables a man
to see that black is really white and so on. Jenkins was only just
an average ordinary man so he must be excused if Sir Charles’ most
beautifully kept and perfectly appointed laboratory with all the latest
scientific appliances for giving monkeys measles and kindred noble
work, appeared to him a hell.

How had he got into it?

Seeing by chance that scrap of paper and the advertisement that a man
was wanted to take charge of animals, he had applied for the place,
because he was fond of animals, and got it.

He had arrived last night and been shown his quarters. He had also
been shown a room with four healthy happy dogs in it in kennels round
the walls. He had been told to feed them and keep them clean which work
he had joyfully accepted. The dogs had jumped round him in delight
recognizing a friend and he had spent most of his evening with them,
cleaning out the kennels which seemed to be old ones that had been
used for many occupants before these four had been put into them. His
work done he had passed through a passage with closed doors on all
sides of him and up the long flight of stairs at the end of it, to his
own two rooms, on an upper floor. These seemed cosy enough and he had
slept well. In the early morning he had been roused by the unearthly
screaming of a dog and fearing some accident had happened to one of his
charges, he bolted down to the room where he had left them overnight.

Finding only three scared looking animals there, he had followed the
terrible scream down the passage, opened the door that faced him
and come straight in on the scene of one of the doctor’s scientific
operations. Jenkins being unscientific failed to see any trace of
beauty and nobleness in the work before him. He only saw a perspiring
man in a blood stained smock holding a dog who was shrieking like a
human person in the extreme of pain and terror. He understood nothing,
he vaguely thought there must be some accident and his help was needed.

He rushed forward. “Oh, Sir--”

The scientist looked up. His face was working, his eye glaring.

“Damn you, you fool, what do you come here for when I’m at work? Get
out. Get out!” he repeated as Jenkins did not stir. “And never come
here unless I ring for you.”

Jenkins turned on shaking legs and got out of the room somehow,
shutting the door tightly behind him. Then he walked down the passage
to the room where the live dogs were, entered and shut that door too
and stood with his back against it facing his charges. Yesterday they
had jumped up to him. Now they stood still, looking at him askance.
Their ears pricked listening to those frightful screams. Then he went
into the middle of the room and sat down on a wooden chair and buried
his face in his hands with a groan. He couldn’t yet make much head or
tail of it all but one thing was certain. The man in the other room was
cutting up a dog alive. A dog who had been well and happy last night.
It had been taken from among these out of this room and by inference
these others were awaiting the same fate. And they knew it: he
stretched out his hands to them and after a time they came up to him;
not as last night capering and joyous, but cowering and whimpering,
sidling up to him pleading for a protection they felt by instinct he
could not give. He had put his arms round them and so they sat grouped
together the man and the terrified dogs listening to those horrible
cries. He did not know how long he sat there but after a time a church
bell clanged out a few harsh strokes and after that the doctor’s bell
had sounded summoning him to his duties. Now the great man had departed
and he was left in the hallway to think over his first lesson in
applied Science.

Jenkins was not an educated man, but he had a good clear mind capable
of adjusting itself to new situations. He was, besides, what we all
understand by a good man. He had those simple sincere rules of conduct
that make the useful citizen. He had his own very definite ideas of
right and wrong and lived up to them. He thought it was right to pay
your way, to help your neighbour whenever possible, to work hard and
mind your own business. He thought it wrong to lie, steal or murder, to
cheat or injure another in any way, or to abuse the helpless and the
weak. That was his simple code and it had served him very well the 38
years of his hard-working life. He saw now chance had flung him into a
place where what seemed to him scandalous infamies were carried on and
his first impulse was to flee from it, as one would from any plague
spot: make a clean bolt of it and forget that such a place existed. But
he checked the impulse as cowardly. No, here he was suddenly up against
something he did not in the least understand. It was his duty to try
to master it and see what it all meant. He perceived very clearly that
however gross the evil existing here it was one legally protected and
upheld. He remembered he had once called in a policeman to stop a man
beating a dog: nothing of that sort would avail here, that was evident.
The doctor was quite confident and easy in his mind apparently and
while the exterior of the place looked squalid and desolate situated in
its ragged waste land, the interior was fitted up with every comfort
and even luxury. Electric lights and lamps and telephones were in
every room he had seen. Beyond the outlying position, there seemed no
special secrecy or concealment about the place: No: somehow or other,
he could not think how, but _somehow_ this man was _allowed_
to do what he was doing. Allowed as he had said, by the country, by the
laws, by the church, by his fellows, to do these atrocities. His blood
boiled within him. Again came the temptation to bolt but the thought
of the animals held him. His fighting spirit was up but he could do
nothing until he knew more about what sort of a hell he was in. He
must explore. He walked down the softly carpeted hallway away from the
door, towards the staircase end and opening the first door he came to
at the side entered the apartment. It was long and narrow. No carpet
here: on the floor only bare tessellated black and white tiles. There
were windows high up in the walls: below these ranged against each
side of the room were iron cages. The light fell coldly from above and
there was a faint foul odour in the air that belied the appearance of
aggressive brightness and cleanliness of the whole place. There was a
row of iron cages on each side all down the long room and from these
rose a continuous low moaning sound which seemed to chill his blood. He
looked at the cages: each one was occupied by a mutilated or diseased
animal: most of them turning, swaying and moaning in direst agony in
their cramped quarters: others crouching motionless with staring eyes,
frozen images of despair. Jenkins turned to the first cage on his
right. It contained a retriever blinded in both eyes from the sockets
of which oozed blood and matter. He was sitting on his haunches on the
bare iron floor of his cage in which he could just turn round, that was
all: the bars at the top almost touched his head.

Jenkins stopped and spoke gently to him. The dog raised his ears a
little at the unaccustomed sound and threw up his great gentle glossy
head with the most piteous long drawn howl that Jenkins had ever heard.
Its accent of unutterable woe was such that no human voice could
achieve. It said as plainly as words, “Oh, let me out of my prison
house, let me die and escape.”

Jenkins eyes filled. He spoke again and put his hand through the bars
and stroked the dog’s shoulder and the sightless face turned towards
his hand and the dog’s hot nose pushed into it with another long drawn
pleading howl.

Jenkin’s looked at the little white enamelled tablet beneath the cage
and read:

“March 1st--Eyes removed.” The date was a fortnight back! With a
sickening feeling half benumbing him, Jenkins passed to the next cage.
Here was a ghastly creature that once had been a dog, staring with
glaring eyes through the bars. It took no notice. It’s agony appeared
to be so appalling that it was mute and rigid with it.

Jenkins stooped and read:

“Tumour (artificial) on brain. Experiment commenced February 15.” The
next cage held a small spaniel puppy with a hugely bloated body that
was twisting and writhing in every conceivable position. It’s tongue
was hanging out, foam was pouring from its mouth, its eyes bulging from
its head, it gave short scream of agony at intervals and threw itself
against the bars of its cage.

Jenkins felt it was not mad. Out of the large protruding brown eyes
looked not insanity: only terror and wonder at its own awful suffering.

Jenkins read on the cage:

“Virus introduced into stomach.” There was no date.

In the next cage the occupant lay at the point of death. It was a small
dog: the floor of its cage was one pool of blood. Where one of its ears
should have been gaped a huge hole from which blood was still running.
Its head had been apparently bandaged. Its paws evidently tied together
but in its madness of pain it had torn away its bonds. Now it lay still
on its side. Its mouth open gasping, its eyes staring, too weak to move
or cry. _Dying at last._

Jenkins read:

“Ear removed. New ear grafted. February 1st.”

A month and a half it had been there!

Jenkins crept on down the middle path between the row: feeling weak
and cold as he went. Each cage seemed to him more horrible than the
last. Of some the contents are indescribable. Beneath some ran the
legend--“Starving Experiments.” And in these the dogs lay rough-haired,
motionless, their bones almost through their skin, their eyes glazed
and the dates ranged from January.

After the dog cages came cats, cats and kittens in all stages of
mutilation with their small red tongues showing in their gasping mouths
that let out faint little cries for mercy. After these, monkeys and
here underneath Jenkins read:

Measles induced at various early dates.

He paused here looking at the suffering creatures, shivering and
crouching on the bare zinc floors of their cells and his face grew
strangely dark as he recalled the scientist’s smiling words: “It’s so
beneficial to humanity to know that monkeys can have measles!”

His feet crept on again. He felt he could hardly move them but he
determined to see it all. Other monkeys had suffered such frightful
injuries he could hardly recognize what they were. Their wizened
anguished little faces were pressed against the bars. They clung there
whining and chattering. Some without eyes, some without ears, some
with huge lumps in their throats that they continually pulled at with
trembling paws. Then the cages ended. He had come to the end of the row
and he saw in front of him a round zinc cylinder-shaped receptacle,
just like in appearance the ash barrels seen in back yards. He
noticed, however, this had perforated holes in the lid. He lifted this
off and down at the bottom of the barrel lay a collie dog.

He called to it and it lifted its head apathetically and gazed up with
dull eyes. It was very, very emaciated: just its coat seemed covering
its skeleton. Jenkins put down both his arms into the barrel and very
gently lifted the dog out bodily and set it on the ground. It lay just
where he set it, crumpled up. Then he raised it and spoke to it. The
dog apparently tried to respond and moved but as it got on its feet it
turned and turned and turned in an endless awful circle. It could not
do otherwise. Its head bent down at a queer angle, its legs quivering,
its tail and ears hanging, its eyes lifeless, its bones sticking in
places through its rough hair, it turned and turned on the same small
spot of ground till it sank exhausted.

Jenkins read:

“Portion of brain removed. Interesting circular movement induced.” And
the date was _two years before the present time_.

Jenkins straightened himself, the distorted creature crouching, silent
at his feet.

“And this is _England_!” he said half aloud.

Impossible to cure, to help, to alleviate any of this suffering.
Impossible to bestow the last boon of death on these sad helpless
beings. For if he freed any of these, new ones would be put in their
place.

With his heart heaving, and beating in a tumult of fury, he bent and
very tenderly lifted the skeleton collie in his arms, held it for a
moment against him and spoke to it gently. Then lowered it back into
its awful prison house and replaced the lid.

Then shivering as if with mortal cold he dragged himself on a few paces
to the end of the room where there was a small gas fire burning and an
arm chair drawn up by it. He sank into this and put his hands to the
fire. This was the doctor’s end of the apartment. A screen shut it off
from the long line of cages. A square of warm carpet covered the bare
tiles on the floor. A small table with some paper and-note books and
a shaded lamp stood in front of the fire. Jenkins sat in the doctor’s
chair listening to the moaning of unspeakable pain that filled all the
air, low and desolate and hopeless, and shuddered.

When the feeling of physical illness had worn off a little, he rose to
his feet and retraced his steps down the long avenue of cages. He could
not bear to look at them again but kept his gaze resolutely in front of
him. He knew he could do nothing to help the hapless tortured inmates.
His duties were to clean out the cages and to feed and water and wait
upon the healthy animals. He was not allowed to interfere with the
animals under experiment. If he overstepped his limit by the very least
he saw he would be thrown out at once and he was bent upon staying. He
felt quite clearly he was face to face with some momentous evil that
was vast and far-reaching and of which he could not read the meaning.
He could not grapple with it for he did not fully yet understand
what it was but he would be patient, he would be calm, he would be
self-controlled, he would watch and study and wait and then perhaps he
could do something. But infinite caution would be necessary: no rash
step, no giving way to raging impulses of anger and indignation would
serve him here nor help those tortured prisoners. “Who sups with the
devil must have a long spoon” and he felt he was now the guest of the
devil, indeed.

He got out of the apartment at last and closed the door after him. He
went down the hallway and listened at the small laboratory door behind
which he knew the dog was lying clamped in the trough. The moaning had
ceased. There was no sound now. Jenkins crept on up the stairs to his
own top floor rooms. Before commencing the flight he first noticed
another door on his left which he had not opened. He read on it in
passing on a small plate, Lethal Chamber. He dragged himself up the
stairs and finally reached his own little rooms at the top: with which
he had been so pleased the night before. Only the night before and it
seemed he had lived through an age of misery since then. He entered his
own little sitting room, bolted the door after him and then sat down at
the table, his head in his hands, a broken man. His beliefs, faiths,
ideals, were all shattered and fell from him leaving him naked and
alone.

This was England; These things were done in England, allowed, approved
of, and he had loved England, believed in it, fought for it. Did he
love it now? No. Would he fight for it and offer his life again for
it? No. He had believed in God. He had loved him. Not all the war and
the suffering and the horror of it had shaken his belief in Him. Did
he believe in Him now? Love Him? No. There could be no loving, good,
all-powerful being who could look down on that laboratory and that man
who worked there and not shrivel them both to nothing. A God there
might be, but if these things pleased Him then He must be evil. If they
did not please Him He must be as powerless as Jenkins himself to stop
them.

Perhaps it was that. Perhaps there was a spirit of good but perhaps it
could not work alone, perhaps it needed human co-operation. This was
a new thought to Jenkins and it give a little light to the broken and
dejected man.


                               CHAPTER 2


Day after day went slowly by and Jenkins toiled along the painful road
of life into which he had been so suddenly brought, bearing his burden
of grief and pain and learning, learning all the time. Every hour he
saw further into and through the mist of horror that surrounded him. He
learnt greedily. He felt it was vitally necessary to learn everything
about this terrible wrong that he saw being committed, if he wished in
any way to remedy it. To fight a thing successfully you must know what
it is: you must know what you are fighting.

He saw many volumes on the doctor’s bookshelves and asked permission to
read them which was genially accorded him.

“You’ll find things to stagger you in them,” Sir Charles said
pleasantly, “and lots of hard words. I don’t think you’ll get very
far with them.” But Jenkins did get much farther than the doctor
thought. He found the books were mostly volumes written by scientific
men describing their own work, records of experiments they had made
on living animals set out in full by themselves. And in spite of the
stupid jargon of words surrounding them and the heavy language Jenkins
saw that two things stood out very plainly, one, the hideous suffering
of the animals thus used, the other the absolute uselessness and
senselessness of the experiments as far as regarded Humanity. They were
very enlightening books and so Jenkins found them. Then there was a big
scrap book compiled by the doctor himself, that led Jenkins far along
the road of understanding. This book contained newspaper cuttings of
all descriptions bearing in any way on medical life and work.

Reports of coroners’ inquests especially those where the conduct of
a doctor or nurse had been called in question and where invariably
they had been triumphantly cleared by the coroner (usually himself a
doctor) and votes of sympathy extended to them. These passages had
been underscored with a red pencil and often a note of exclamation
added to them, by the old cynic who had pasted them in. There were
many announcements of wonderful cures and these were starred by a blue
pencil and many pages further on in cuttings of a later date Jenkins
would find these “cures” contradicted and dismissed as worthless hoaxes
and a blue star was put against these also. Then there were long
panegyrics on medical science in general and underneath these were
mostly pencilled notes by the doctor, “Written by Smith,” “Good old
Ted,” “Very good Charlie,” “That’s the stuff to give ’em,” and so on.
Then there were pictures of Royalty opening hospital wards: Royalty
going to balls in aid of hospitals, etc., and side by side with these,
accounts of patients who had jumped from hospital windows: patients who
had died on the operating table, patients who having lost their limbs
or their sight by the mistreatment in hospitals went back to their
garrets to hang themselves or gas themselves to death. Sometimes these
columns were marked by exclamation marks, some times the juxtaposition
was left to speak for itself. Jenkins could just imagine the face of
the doctor with his tongue in his cheek, as he glued the cuttings in.

Jenkins spent many hours hanging fascinated over this volume.

From the vivisectors’ own books he learnt what vivisection really was,
from the reports in the papers he learnt what the public thought it
was and how they were assiduously taught by the press to regard it and
medical science generally.

Then there were other means of self education, one of the best
of which though the most painful was listening to the doctor’s
conversation and that of his friends on those evenings when the great
man had some friends or some young students in to visit him. Jenkins
would be called upon to wait on them at a light supper with heavy
drinks which they took in the doctor’s study.

Jenkins as has been said was not a scientific person, he was simply a
man of common sense and the way those scientific men talked, the utter
brutality and callousness of their jokes, their stories, their whole
view of the sufferings of humanity, the confessions they made or rather
perhaps one should say the boasts, of how they had acted in their
hospital wards, made his blood run cold.

One thing he saw, emerged very clearly and restored somewhat to his
mind the belief in eternal Justice. He saw that this Scientific
Research, so unutterably wicked and cruel to the animals, was at the
same time proving an unspeakable curse to humanity.

As he heard the talk of reckless experiments on patients unnecessary
operations, over-doses of _X_-ray that burnt human insides out, and the
joking and laughter over human agony, he recognized that Humanity
was being justly punished and that the men, degraded by horrible
experiments on animals were totally unfitted to have the care of sick
and helpless men and women.

One night climbing to his room after attendance at one of these suppers
and listening to the revolting talk, he went to bed, white and dizzy
and shaking. In the darkness and stillness a question seemed to form
itself within him and he examined it carefully bringing all the
knowledge he had gained to bear upon it.

Ought he to kill this man?

Murder! That would be murder: a horrible idea, a horrible thought, a
horrible word to the well-balanced, civilized mind; and to Jenkins,
sober and straight-living, the typical good citizen without a trace of
criminality in his disposition it was appalling.

Murder! No! On no account must one murder. It was an essentially
wrong, unpardonable act. But would it be murder? he asked himself
in his clear, hard-thinking though uneducated mind. Would it not be
justifiable homicide? Let him consider. He must consider this question
from all points. Here he was on the verge of a decision to commit an
act forbidden by the law of his country, regarded with detestation by
his fellows and condemned by religion. He would take the point of law
first. The law allowed justifiable homicide. If that were the verdict,
the accused was acquitted with honour.

On what grounds was that verdict given when one man killed another?
First, self-defence. If the doctor attacked him and he feared his own
life was in danger, he might kill the doctor with impunity. _His own
life._ He might kill the doctor to save his own life.

Then why not to save something he valued much more highly? To save
from agonising suffering those thousand of helpless innocent loving
animals that the doctor would torture during his evil life? _Jenkins’
life_, what was that? Like all brave natures he had hardly a
thought for it. A run-away horse, a woman in a canal, a child on a
railway track, any of these might call for and receive its sacrifice
at any time. Certainly to save even that one line of animals in the
laboratory, slowly perishing in their long drawn out anguish he would
have laid down his life, had that been able to help matters.

Therefore, if the law allowed him to murder to save his own life,
why should it not allow him to murder to save something he valued
infinitely more? Jenkins revolved this anxiously and slowly in his
sedate mind till he came to the conclusion that the law should permit
him this choice.

Then he took up another point: the law would certainly call it
justifiable homicide if he saw the doctor murdering a man, woman or
child, any human being, even an imbecile, and killed him in defence of
any of those. Then why should he not kill him to save those thousands
of poor patients that the doctor would certainly murder if allowed
to live out his evil life to its natural close? Only that evening he
had heard him saying to a student that he had performed a certain
operation three thousand times and it had never done any good: only
killed or crippled. Jenkins shuddered as he thought of the mutilated
victims dragging out their ruined lives; women who had come to the
doctor full of hope and faith and had been sent away according to his
own statement, shattered wrecks. _But what could they expect?_
How could they come to a man for sympathy or expect him to be moved or
restrained by any decent feeling when he spent his whole life wallowing
in the most frightful mutilation of animals?

Jenkins marvelled at their folly.

But he must get back to his point as to the law. The law would allow
him to kill the doctor if he were murdering _one_ woman, then why
not when he was murdering thousands? Again, there was that paragraph
in a daily paper stating that a certain serum had been “successfully
tried on 300 children.” What about all the children on whom it had been
unsuccessfully “tried”?

Jenkins seemed for a moment to see round him a plain covered with the
small graves of children, done to death by the modern Moloch--Science.
He would save the lives of many human victims as well as the animal
victims if he extinguished this one evil existence.

Since Jenkins had come to the laboratory he had not seen one single
useful experiment made, one single operation that might be excused by
some people on the ground of its utility. He had seen cats filled with
water till they burst, of what good is that to humanity? He had seen
dogs distorted by rickets, and dogs put into boxes which were gradually
heated while the doctor watched the animals inside through a glass
window panting and writhing without water or air. He had seen the dogs
dragged out in a desperate condition and expire within half an hour.
How was humanity benefited? He had seen monkeys suffering cruelly from
measles, to what end? He had seen animals covered with tar expiring in
lingering agonies. What was the use?

He had seen the doctor take a clear eyed, healthy cat and deliberately
induce an ulcer in one eye and watch it day by day, eating the organ
away and when the work of destruction was complete he would set up an
ulcer in the other eye, encouraged apparently rather than the reverse
by its heartrending screams of pain and finally throw it back into its
cage in total blindness and convulsions of agony. And the results? What
had the Scientists to show?

A few of their vaunted remedies passed in review before him:

Insulin which the Scientists admitted amongst themselves to be more
deadly than the diabetes it was supposed to cure.

Anti-toxin for diphtheria, dangerous and unknown as to its after
effects while the simple Bella Donna was a known specific for the
disease. The inoculation of anti-typhoid serum used in the war. Jenkins
had been to the war and he knew that where the sanitation had been
good, there had been no typhoid. Where the sanitation had been bad
the anti-typhoid serum had not saved the troops. Typhoid had reigned
in spite of it. And so on, and so on. In the whole long list of
“discoveries” and “remedies” emanating from laboratories there was not
one that he could find that had been proved of benefit, not one for
which a simple common-sense substitute could not be found.

Useful, beneficial, good--any of this work? No, it was simply hellish
and having seen it as he had at close quarters and recognising it for
what it was, it was his duty to stop it in the only way he could.

It would not be murder, it would be homicide and justifiable a hundred
times over.

Anger carried him away for a moment but he brought his thoughts back
to calm consideration. What good would it do? The removal of this one
man? Very little, he admitted sorrowfully. But it seemed to him, in the
phrase of the war: “it was his bit.”

How often in the recruiting days the men had been told they were not to
worry over the larger aspects, the greater issues of the war. They were
not to say to themselves that the little which each man could do would
not either win or lose the war. No, each man was to do “his bit.” If he
killed one German it was good. If he killed ten, it was better. And if
he shrank from killing a fellow man he was to remember that by so doing
he was saving the lives of perhaps hundreds of his comrades.

The same reasoning seemed to apply here. He could not do much. He could
not sweep away that cancer of modern civilization--medical scientific
research. He could not influence the ending of it, any more than he
could influence the ending of the war, but he could do his bit. He
could kill this one man and by so doing save thousands of his fellow
human beings and thousands of his no less fellow beings--the animals.

The human beings, really, Jenkins doubted if it were his mission to
save. If they could be so blind, so stupid, so selfish and so cruel as
to allow such work as the doctor’s, because they fancied they might
gain something from it, it was only Divine Justice that they should be
poisoned by the medicines manufactured so hideously. That the Insulin
gained by the torture of dogs; the anti-toxins brought by the agony of
horses; the small-pox vaccine scooped from the aching sores of cows and
all the other vile and filthy products of the laboratory should give
them death and disease instead of the relief they sought.

But for the sake of the animals, entirely innocent, unselfish,
trusting, devoted, that this fiend would torture daily, year by year,
if he lived, for their sake, Jenkins would “do his bit” and save them.

The next morning he rose, his head clear, his heart stout and
determined. He had been sent there for some good reason and he seemed
to see it clearly before him as Joan of Arc saw her mission revealed to
her.

Possessing himself in patience, he would watch and wait till the
opportunity came to take the doctor’s life and then he would take it
as Jael slew Sisera, as Judith slew Holofernes. How many lives had he
taken in the war? He could not remember but it must have been many:
lives of good honest brave men fighting for their country as he was
fighting for his, then should he hesitate now to take a life so mean,
so worthless, so harmful not only to his fellow creatures the animals
but also to his fellow men? Why should he not rid the world of this
monster? A great calmness fell upon Jenkins as he made his resolve and
from that hour, though he lived in pain, he had the courage lent him,
of a man devoted to a cause.


                               CHAPTER 3


It was a Saturday evening and an evil-looking man stood at the door,
when Jenkins opened it to a modest ring. He had a large black bag which
bulged and looked heavy in his hand.

“A fine cat, mister,” he whispered hoarsely, “only two bob, hand over
and let me go.”

Jenkins took the bag and loosening the string at its mouth looked down
into it. At the bottom was a soft mass of handsome-looking fur from
which a faint mew came as the cat saw Jenkins’ face at the top of the
bag. It was evidently very tame and nestled up against Jenkins’ chest
directly he drew it out. It was a magnificent creature, not a Persian,
but with a very thick coat, pure white and a tail like the brush of an
Arctic fox. Jenkins returned the bag and gave two shillings to the man
with the evil face who immediately melted into the darkness and Jenkins
was just closing the door, the cat still in his arms, when the doctor
came up from the outside and entered.

“That’s a fine animal,” he remarked as he closed the door and the cat
turned its great golden eyes on him, “how much did you have to give?”

“Only 2/ Sir,” Jenkins answered, “the man has stolen it I should think.”

The doctor laughed.

“Evidently. Some old maid’s cat, I expect. Nice tame beast,” he put
his hand on the cat’s head and ruffled the fur backwards and forwards
rather roughly. The cat put its head back and looked at the doctor
with some resentment in its golden eyes. “Accustomed to sit on the
table and drink cream out of the old maid’s saucer, eh?” he went on
half playfully. “Well, we’ve a little table here for you, my beauty.
We’ll set you on it and clamp you down and then we set it spinning.
One hundred miles an hour or more we keep you whirling round for
a fortnight and then when we take you off your eyes will be all
criss-cross and you’ll be just mad with terror. That’s what we’ll
do with you, Pussy.” Then he walked on humming into his own study,
into which he went and slammed the door. Jenkins left standing in the
passage, the cat still clasped to him, wondered whether men were men
or fiends. A sick loathing grew up in him and seemed to submerge his
spirit like a great wave. Then it rolled over, leaving him with a clear
fierce determination that come what might, this thing in his arms so
gentle, so trustful, should never be placed on that hellish table.

The cat, distressed by something in the doctor’s touch or voice or
face, turned its head up to Jenkins and fixed its beautiful golden gaze
on him and apparently from Jenkins’ drawn sad face it gained confidence
and began to purr. Jenkins with the fire of hatred glowing in his heart
against mankind climbed the stairs to his own room and deposited the
cat on his bed. He then set his stove going, drew his curtains and
poured out a saucer of milk. The cat watched all these proceedings
appreciatively and purred loudly in response. When it had lapped up
all the milk while Jenkins held the saucer, it lay back on the bed and
stretched its paws up purring, saying quite clearly, “Come and caress
me, I’m accustomed to it. I’m a very nice cat,” and Jenkins sat beside
it, stroking it, with the tears burning behind his eye-lids. It was a
stolen pet evidently and Jenkins would not have taken it in at the door
except that he knew if he refused it, where possibly through him it
might have a chance of safety, the cat stealer would simply take it on
to another accursed laboratory where it would have _no_ chance of
escape from the tortures awaiting it.

That night the doctor called to Jenkins as he was going up to bed, “I’m
very busy just now. I’ve got so many things going to attend to but I’ll
have more time in a week or so. Just remind me about the cat later on,
will you? If I forget.”

Jenkins listened, his face growing dark as he stood in the shadow, on
the stairs.

“Yes, Sir,” he replied and went on up.

The cat was waiting for him curled on the bed and mewed delightedly
at his entrance, showing its white teeth and its little pink tongue,
curled up like a rose leaf, behind them.

Jenkins seated himself beside the cat and fed it on some scraps he had
brought up with him. For a week the cat remained, a willing prisoner
in his room. He gave it a large tray of earth over by the window to
scratch in and replenished it every day from the bit of common ground
round the house. He brought everything up to it and waited on it and
never let it out where evil eyes could fall on it and all that week he
searched the papers daily for some announcement of a lost cat. There
were no shops very near the laboratory but he walked every day to the
nearest, a small newsagent’s and tobacconist’s where he bought his
papers and then studied them diligently in his own room.

At last he found the notice he wanted.

“Lost. A large white tomcat. Not Persian, but thick coat and bushy
tail. Finder will be handsomely rewarded if he brings cat to blank
Grosvenor Square, W.”

Jenkins read this with a beating heart. This was his cat he felt sure.
The doctor was away for his usual week end. This was Saturday. He
always was allowed Sunday afternoon for himself. To-morrow he would
take the cat back to its owner.

That night he held it tightly to him and hardly slept but spent his
time stroking and caressing it and realising how lonely he would be
without it. But still to get it out of this hell, safe and alive, was
everything. The cat, with all its claws sheathed in its velvet skin
patted gently with its paws Jenkins’ thin cheeks and nestled close to
him purring ecstatically. It missed its own house and mistress but
no animal could be insensible of the flood of love and sympathy that
poured out from Jenkins’ unhappy heart. The next morning he spent
much time on brushing and combing its silky coat and about two in the
afternoon with his heart high in hope he set out for Grosvenor Square,
the cat curled round in the lidded basket which Jenkins had brought,
filled with vegetables, with him from the country. He thought if he;
could once see the owner of the cat and tell him or her of the horrors
his or her pet had so narrowly escaped, then surely anyone so rich and
powerful as to be able to live in Grosvenor Square would take some
steps against the system which made these horrors possible.

When he arrived at the door of the house it was opened by a footman
who at once glanced at the basket. When Jenkins asked to see the
person who had put in the advertisement, the man replied affably,
“Miss Courtneidge is in and I think will see you.” Then he stooped
down and scratched at the basket side. “Cushy,” he called and a mew of
recognition came from within.

“Come upstairs,” he said and Jenkins followed full of joyful
anticipation of coming face to face with someone who surely would
listen to his message. He entered a large room and at the far end
there sat Miss Courtneidge, a fat, middle-aged woman with a bright
intelligent and pleasing face. She jumped up and took the basket from
Jenkins smiling and lifted the lid.

“Oh, there you are Cushy,” she exclaimed, and lifted the creature out
with many murmurs of delight.

Jenkins stood by respectfully enjoying the scene to the full. There was
no doubt the lady genuinely loved her pet and the cat could hardly have
a better mistress.

“Do sit down,” she said after a minute, “and tell me where you found
him.”

She sat down with the cat in her arms and Jenkins took a seat opposite
her.

“A man, a regular cat stealer, I think, brought him in a bag to our
place and offered him to me for 2/--I saw at once he was stolen and I
thought I’d better take him and try to find the owner. If I hadn’t, the
man would have taken him to another laboratory where they wouldn’t have
bothered to restore him to his owner but used him in the laboratory.”

The lady was listening intently to Jenkins and he thought her eyes grew
harder.

“What are you then?” she asked quietly.

“I am an attendant at a laboratory for Scientific Research,” returned
Jenkins, “and the man brought the cat to be experimented upon, but I
don’t like the business and I meant to save this cat anyway.”

“If you don’t like it, why do you stay?” asked the lady quietly and
very coldly.

Jenkins realised that his hearer’s sympathies were alienated from him
and the false position in which he stood came home to him. At first
he had thought it might be possible to make a clean breast of his
feelings. He had visions of the lady coming to see the tortured animals
and in her righteous wrath having the hideous place done away with
altogether, but now something in the coldness of her voice and eyes
warned him he must go very carefully.

“I stay to try and do what I can for the animals,” he answered, “do you
know about this Scientific Research, ma’am?”

“I know that it is a very noble work carried on by selfless men and
women who give up their lives to the cause of humanity,” replied the
lady proudly.

Jenkins looked back at her aghast as these parrot phrases fell from her
lips. Evidently she knew nothing at all about it and against this dense
ignorance he felt he had no weapons.

“You don’t know what goes on in the laboratories, animals are tortured
to death and given the most hideous sufferings that don’t lead to
anything,” he said.

The lady compressed her lips.

“I can’t believe you,” she said icily, “I have many friends who are
doctors and scientific men and I am sure they would do nothing but what
is right. If they have to experiment on animals I am sure they do it
kindly.”

Jenkins could have laughed bitterly as he heard but he controlled
himself and answered:

“How _can_ you starve animals kindly, ma’am?”

The lady looked cross and was silent for a moment and Jenkins burst out:

“Do come with me now and I’ll show you what Scientific Research really
means. The laboratory is empty, I am in sole charge, the doctor is
away. Come and see the animals for yourself. Then you can judge about
it.”

The lady looked crosser than ever.

“Thank you. I am quite capable of judging the matter already. I rely
upon what my doctor tells me. In any case, if there were any cruelty, I
couldn’t bear to see it, I couldn’t sleep for a week if I did.”

Again Jenkins felt helpless and appalled. What stupendous folly, what
selfishness! Any cruelty might be practiced, provided _she_ did
not see it, provided _her_ sleep was not disturbed.

“I really must ask you to go now,” she continued. “I have a meeting
this afternoon here of the League of Love. We have the Bishop coming
and we are going to organize something to aid the hospitals.”

Jenkins rose immediately.

“To aid the hospitals! To build new laboratories for the torture of
_more_ animals! Oh ma’am, you don’t know what you are doing!
If _I_ had not saved your cat he’d have been pinned down to an
electric table and spun round at 100 miles an hour for a fortnight and
taken off it mad and blind to have his brain opened and looked at. That
was _his_ fate and how does that help humanity?”

The lady was standing too.

“You need not expect that I shall increase your reward for bringing him
back by telling me these wicked stories,” she said severely. “Here is
two pounds. I shall not give you any more!” and she held towards him
two pound-notes.

Over Jenkins’ face ran a flame of scarlet, then faded leaving him
ashy white. That was what she thought! That he was detailing false
sufferings to increase his own reward!

He took the notes from her hand and dropped them on the floor and then
stepped forward and put his foot down on them, looking her full in the
face.

“That, ma’am, is what I care for your reward! I brought that creature
back to you because I loved it. I never thought of the reward and
should not have taken any in any case. I pray some day you may be
shaken out of the darkness and the ignorance you live in.”

He turned and strode to the door, leaving the notes on the floor and
the lady too astonished to say anything. A pair of golden eyes watched
him depart and a little soft mew came to his ears as he closed the door
and seemed to stab into his heart.

He walked down the stairs and out into the street with a sorely wounded
spirit. All the joy and elation at having rescued the cat and restored
it was blotted out by the cold tide of despair. He felt that he was
helpless to save others just as loving, just as beautiful as this one,
from death by torture. What could he do? So long as the world consisted
of the friends who did these things and the fools who were so kind
that they couldn’t believe in the fiends and so cowardly that they
would not consider the question for fear of losing a night’s sleep,
what could he do? “God help me, God help me,” was the cry that rose
in his heart. And formerly it had comforted him and he had believed
that God would help him however unkind man might be. But how? Was
there any God? Was it not a Devil who ruled the world if this sort of
Scientific Research were allowed in it? Why should God help him, if he
cared nothing for the miseries of the innocent and sweet animals he had
created?

Thoroughly miserable he went back to the hell on the common and up
in his own room, making his solitary tea, he took himself severely
to task. Had he wasted that golden opportunity, when he, knowing the
truth, was face to face with one who knew nothing except some phrases
culled from the articles of doctors, in the Press? Could he have done
better? Was it his fault that he had failed? Over and over in his mind
he turned that conversation but could decide nothing. His brains felt
battered and weary but he was glad the cat was gone.

The very next morning when the doctor returned, he called Jenkins into
his study.

“Jenkins our stock of dogs is low, isn’t it?”

“The last one died last night, Sir.”

“Oh: which was that?”

“The little Skye you were starving, Sir.”

“H’m: when did I begin? Do you remember?”

“Ten days ago.”

“Ten days! That’s quite a good record. Isn’t it? Had it eaten that coke
I put in the cage?”

“No, Sir. Only gnawed it a bit. I found blood on it where the coke had
cut its mouth. It hadn’t eaten it.”

“Oh, well,” cheerily, “we must get in some more dogs. By the way,
there’s that cat, bring me that.”

“Sorry, Sir, the cat escaped.”

“What?” the doctor wheeled round in his chair and looked piercingly at
his attendant, but Jenkin’s face was still and stolid as a mask.

“You let it go, you mean, do you? I thought you were rather soft headed
over that cat when it came in. Now look here, mind this, if any more
animals _escape_ at any time, I shall have no further use for you.
See?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And to-morrow morning you’ll go and get me half a dozen kittens:
big ones. Go to the Army and Navy Stores or anywhere you like but
mind those kittens are here by noon. I am going to try some eye
transplanting.”

Jenkins withdrew.

How could such a man be allowed to exist, he asked himself. How could
such a place as this stand? Why did not a lightning stroke burn it to
the ground with its fiendish owner inside? Why did not the flame that
swept over Sodom and Gomorra sweep also over the laboratories of London
and obliterate them?

Then he smiled grimly remembering how the laboratories were supported
by the tax payer, approved by the king, and beloved by the aristocracy.

What was he, Jenkins, to think differently from all these? He was only
a poor common-sense man of the people. But he knew and they did not.
That was the tragedy of it. He would have given his life to be able to
tell and convince them.


                               CHAPTER 4


One evening the doctor on coming home tossed a card over to Jenkins
with the remark, “Better come to the lecture and hear me talk the money
out of the public pocket.”

Jenkins looked at the card and saw it admitted him at 8 p. m. on the
coming Thursday evening to a lecture on Scientific Research by Sir
Charles Smith-Brown, Dsc. M.D., etc., etc. Jenkins thanked him and put
the card in his pocket and on the next Thursday he presented his ticket
punctually at the time and place appointed.

The small lecture room was already well filled when Jenkins entered
and he noticed that the first four or five rows of seats were railed
off by a crimson cord from the rest and in these were seated people
that Jenkins recognized immediately as “gentlefolk.” They were all very
well dressed in semi-evening dress and had, for the most part, nice
kind-looking intelligent faces. Jenkins spirits rose as he saw them.

“Surely they can’t easily be humbugged,” he thought, “they’ve been
taught to read and think and had plenty of time for schooling.”

He slipped quietly into a vacant seat he saw some rows back of the red
cord. Here the people were all in hats and coats and had evidently come
on foot to the meeting. Their faces were harder looking than those in
front but they also looked intelligent, interested and alert. Jenkins
particularly liked the look of his neighbour. A hard working man he
should think, perhaps a small tradesman running his own business or
perhaps a clerk, anyway he looked keen and quick as a man with his own
decided ideas and opinions.

The platform was now filling up with figures: the ladies resplendent
in gay coloured Opera cloaks and wearing jewels in their beautifully
dressed hair, the men showing large expanses of shirt front. Among
these Jenkins noted the sleek form of the doctor and a glow of hatred
seemed to spread through him as he noted the suave smile on the thin
lips and the benign expression of the whole face so different from the
set, savage stare Jenkins was familiar with as the man worked in his
laboratory, tearing muscle and nerve out of quivering flesh.

“Blasted hypocrite,” he thought furiously to himself and then he noted
the eyes of his neighbour quickly passing over the platform as the
stately and imposing figures filed onto it quietly and took their
appointed seats.

“Who are they all?” he asked in an undertone of the keen faced one.

“Regular swells, all of them,” the man returned in the same discreet
voice which was quick like his eyes. “That’s the Marquis of Sedlestone
in the chair and that’s Lord and Lord and Lord,” he ran off the names
so quickly Jenkins could hardly catch them. “He’s gulled them all. They
all believe in him and this beastly Research. That’s what beats me. How
they can be such fools.”

Jenkins nodded sympathetically. He felt happier. Evidently this man
beside him knew the truth of things. He longed intensely to confide in
him and tell him what _he_ knew but he controlled the impulse. If
he was to carry out successfully his great scheme absolute secrecy and
concealment of his own feelings was necessary. There was no time for
further talk in any case for after a few preliminaries on the platform
had been arranged, there was the silver tinkle of a bell and the
Marquis of Sedlestone rose to address the audience.

There was absolute silence in the hall and Jenkins listened
breathlessly to every word.

“My Lords, ladies and gentlemen, we have the privilege to-night of
being gathered together to listen to one of the most distinguished men
of our time, Sir Charles Brown-Smith, M.D. Dsc. Science may be said to
be the leading force in the world to-day and in him we see one of its
most brilliant exponents.” (Applause.) “Science to-day is advancing
with the steps of a giant. Disease and decay are fading, diminishing,
vanishing before it.”

“What bosh all that is when they can’t cure a common cold,” thought
Jenkins.

“Maladies are disappearing. Yellow fever is conquered, consumption all
but conquered, cancer--”

“Is increasing,” shouted a voice at the back of the hall.

There was some laughter in the back seats but only a slight offended
rustle from the front rows.

“Alas! Yes,” continued the suave well-modulated voice from the
platform. “As my friend at the back of the hall has remarked, cancer is
increasing and that proves that more research is needed, more patient
labour, more funds, more encouragement for those noble men and women
who--”

“You’ve been at it now over twenty years,” interrupted the voice in a
dominant tone that filled the hall, “and had buckets of money poured
into it, without an atom of result, except that cancer is spreading
everywhere all the time, and it’s you people who are doing it. You’re
not stopping it: you’re spreading it with your beastly laboratories all
full of animals dying of it. Aren’t they breathing out cancer all the
time? Aren’t their cages full of it? Aren’t the men who look after them
carrying cancer germs with them everywhere?”

While these strident questions were being hurled at him, the noble
Marquis had waited silent on the platform, looking slightly annoyed and
after a second or two he turned and made some observation to a young
man sitting behind him, who rose immediately and left the platform by
its side door. There had been some applause from various parts of the
hall as these questions full of scalding contempt had been shouted out
and heads were turned and necks craned to see who the interrupter was.
Only the front rows sat unmoved as if they had not heard, their eyes
fixed before them waiting for the authorised speaker to continue and
a few seconds after the young man had disappeared from the platform,
there was a violent scuffle at the back of the room. Between two stout
men of the law the interrupter was unceremoniously bundled out.

“There’s the Free Speech of England to-day,” came a caustic whisper
from Jenkins’ bright-eyed neighbour, “if ever there’s a revolution in
England, it’ll be these damned medical men who are at the bottom of it.”

Jenkins again nodded in silence. The noble Marquis was proceeding.

“As I was saying, Science had made the most remarkable advances and
suffering Humanity could turn its eyes hopefully to the future where
disease would be stamped out, pain practically abolished, and the
onset of old age delayed by 50 or 70 years. But I will not detain you
longer. I will leave to our distinguished lecturer the pleasing task of
explaining to you how these marvels will be accomplished.”

“Awful tosh,” murmured keen-eyes as the noble Marquis took his seat and
Sir Charles Brown-Smith rose to address the meeting.

“My Lords, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “my noble friend has
promised you that I shall tell you some of the most recent marvels
Science has accomplished and I will not disappoint you, but first I
should like to say a few words on that vexed question--experiments on
living animals. Some evilly disposed persons have recently been trying
to oppose the glorious march of Science by suggesting that there is
cruelty connected with these experiments that are so vital to our work,
so necessary to its success, so far reaching in their results for
suffering humanity. I wish now to state that in my work I am frequently
obliged to resort to these experiments and also to witness them in the
studies of others and I can confidently assure you that there is not
an atom of cruelty connected with them.” Here the doctor paused and
beamed upon his docile audience through his large spectacles while a
gentle smile suffused his whole benign countenance. A warm murmur of
grateful applause rose from the seats beyond the red cord: the mass of
the people at the back listened in sullen silence: an indrawn breath of
sheer astonishment from Jenkins greeted this stupendous lie.

“The animals,” continued the doctor, “who have the honour of being
permitted to share in this glorious work, are cared for with devoted
attention, no effort is spared in seeing that they are properly housed
and well fed. They have every comfort and to see them sporting behind
the bars of their spacious cages one would imagine they were rejoicing
in their great destiny.”

Jenkins, on hearing this, simply turned in his chair, open mouthed to
his companion of the keen eyes, and met their clear quizzical gaze
fixed upon him.

“Good one, that eh?” keen-eyes murmured.

“Ananias!” shouted an unregenerate person at the back of the hall,
“what about your starving experiments?”

The doctor deigned no reply and the former scuffling sounds being
repeated, the audience knew that the interrupter had been removed and
the English tradition of liberty again upheld.

“Well fed, well cared for, watched over,” continued the doctor blandly,
“and all they have to suffer is the trifling discomfort of a quick
prick from an inoculating needle or a variation of their usual diet.”

As these lies poured smoothly forth in the great man’s mellow voice,
Jenkins saw before him the rows of desolate zinc floored cages, each
with its tortured inmate moaning out its life, he saw the puppies
starving and distorted beyond recognition in the experiment for
rickets, the dog blinded and sitting in hopeless agonies because his
eyes had been taken to graft into another dog’s sockets, the monkeys
wasted to a skeleton or hugely swelled, going blind and semi-paralysed
because their thyroid gland had been cut out, all these horrible sights
rose before him and he gazed at the speaker, stupefied and dumb.

His neighbour spoke in a low voice in his ear, very low because he had
no wish to be turned out. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the
red cord.

“Why on earth they don’t see that he’s guying them, beats me,” he said.

“So now let us dismiss this myth of cruelty from our mind, let us
remember that great men are rarely cruel and let us refuse to believe
these unjust libels that ignorant and prejudiced people are so wantonly
spreading.” Here the doctor’s voice took on a mild severity and the red
corders all warmly applauded.

The speaker proceeded.

“I have mentioned how this myth of cruelty impedes the progress
of Science but I shall now touch upon something that is even more
obstructive to our success: something that is constantly hampering
us in our forward march, and that is in this country the absence of
compulsion. Yes, my friends, it is true: we are suffering from too much
liberty. Liberty is a very excellent thing, a fine thing, but it can be
pushed too far, we can have too much of it.”

“_Never_,” from the back benches.

“Pardon me, we can have too much even of liberty. Liberty which
harms ourselves, liberty which harms others must be curtailed. I
say unhesitatingly that liberty to refuse the untold benefits of
vaccination, of inoculation, is an evil. Those who are so blind as to
fail to see the benefits, for themselves, should be forced to accept
them. I look forward personally to that time, not I trust, far distant,
when like our great sister nation, America, we shall have compulsion
for everything that is now left to the ignorant individual to decide
for himself.”

At this point the red corders began to move uneasily in their chairs
and look at each other. They were not quite so sure about all this.

“What can the individual know about the uses or the benefits of the
processes offered to him, which he so often rashly and fatally refuses?
Is it fair to throw the burden of deciding upon him? How far better
that the man of Science, the man who knows, should decide for him and
_compel_ him to accept the inestimable blessings of Science! I am
pleased to say there is a great forward movement to be noticed lately
in this direction, no one can enter the Army or the Navy or any public
service, nor can a boy go to a public school without being vaccinated
for instance, very excellent, very admirable and now that we have the
Ministry of Health we may look forward to suitable laws being passed
which will bring every individual, no matter of what class or station
under the grasp of the healing hand of Science. Personally I think,
and I hope, it will not be long before that simple and so necessary
operation of taking out the tonsils will be made compulsory.”

“I should like to say a word,” came a voice from the back and it was so
hollow, so sepulchral that it attracted instant attention and even the
red corders looked round to see to whom it belonged.

A young man of a pallid countenance and hollow cheeks was standing up
and the doctor seeing the audience was interested and would like to
hear what the interrupter had to say, affected to be quite willing and
waited for him to continue.

“I was well and strong,” proceeded the pale cheeked one in his
remarkable voice which went all over the hall, “till a medical chap
looked down my throat and advised me to have my tonsils cut out. I
didn’t know what I was in for and went to a hospital and had it done.
It’s a horrible operation and I suffered for a week after. Well, it’s
done I think and that’s that. But it wasn’t over as I thought. My
tonsils grow now since they’ve been cut. In a year I was told they
must be done again and now I’ve been through that damned thing _five
times_. I lose a lot of blood each time over it, it gets on my
nerves, and I’m a wreck. That’s what cutting out tonsils has done for
me. And I know it’s wrong now. The tonsils are filters put in our
throats to filter the air before it reaches the lungs and to stop bad
germs going further. I know now what Nature put ’em there for and I say
it’s a crying shame to take them out.”

This last was shouted defiantly and the young man paler than ever
before and with beads of sweat standing out on his corpse-like
countenance sat down.

There was dead silence for a moment in the hall where Truth for a
second had flitted through the fog of lies rising from the platform and
rent it with her sharp wings.

Then the doctor, very suave, very smiling, took up his parable again.

“My young friend has indeed suffered and we must extend our sympathies
to him. At the same time we must not allow our judgment to be
influenced by one unfortunate accidental case, when we know that
millions are benefited.”

“Who says they are?” shouted back the young man. “Only you doctor
people, not those who’ve been through it!”

“And who should know better than the doctors?” blandly returned the
lecturer. “That is just the very point I was going to elaborate when
my young friend interrupted me. Perhaps he himself has been benefited,
perhaps had he not taken the first advice he would have been now
suffering from some malady worse than the mere loss of his tonsils,
perhaps he would not have been here at all.”

The red corders nodded solemnly at this and gave some faint indications
of applause. In the back seats the young man muttered “Rot,” but the
doctor was proceeding with his lecture and the young man and Truth were
definitely squashed.

Jenkins sat in his seat wondering. Had the young man made any
impression on the red corders or not? He thought not. They had come
there determined to hear the doctor, determined to hear no one else.
They were determined to believe in him and to refuse to believe anyone
else. That was their attitude. The doctor went on.

“To compel people to be healthy and happy surely that is what the
laws should aim at and while now having grown up in our present lax
system of pleasing himself, the individual may feel it hard to have
his liberty curtailed I look forward to the future in which the child
having been brought up on scientific principles from the first will
not miss what he has never had--his liberty. Yes, that is the ideal,
ladies and gentlemen, the child, we shall begin with the child. We
shall take him from the cradle, nay more we shall deal with the mother
beforehand, so that his pre-natal welfare will be studied. In the
future we shall no longer see the poor neglected child clinging to the
hand of its slatternly mother and sucking at the noxious sweets she has
in her ignorance bought for it. No! We shall see a little being, gently
led by a sweet faced hospital nurse, his eyes carefully protected by
glasses, his pearly teeth already stopped with gold and supported by
plates. No dirty clothes to harbor disease about him, he is dressed
in the neat and simple uniform provided by the State. And within his
little frame has been as carefully tended, his tonsils removed he need
not dread tonsillitis, his appendix taken away what cause has he to
fear appendicitis, _X_-rayed every week, no disease can approach
him unperceived. Vaccinated every year against small-pox, inoculated
frequently for typhoid and all the murderous maladies that surround us,
here is my ideal little citizen of the future. He faces life armed by
Science against all ills. Is it not an inspiring picture?”

The doctor paused and beamed in a fatherly way as if the little
monstrosity he had conjured up by his words were on the platform,
before him.

The red corders gave some applause, there was dead silence at the back
for a second, then a voice asked:

“What about his little legs and arms, Mister, has he got ’em still, or
have they been sawn off and artificial ones hooked on?”

Loud laughter from all the back benches greeted this interruption. When
it had subsided the doctor replied gravely:

“Certainly nothing would be done to remove his limbs unnecessarily, if
on the other hand any accident happened to him there are artificial
limbs in readiness so carefully thought out, so exquisitely fashioned
that they function nearly as well as the natural ones.”

“Rats!” came an angry voice from the wooden benches and a young man
sprang to his feet. He looked like an ex-soldier, his face was pale and
thin with a hectic flush burning on his cheek-bones. One sleeve hung
empty by his side.

“Look at me!” he shouted, “I had my arm taken off in the war by some of
you devils. Wasn’t a bit necessary, ordinary nursing would have saved
it. But what’s that to you? You don’t care for flesh and blood, you
only care for your devilish devices. I had a flesh wound and off you
took my arm and gave me a false one, a thing all straps and buckles
and springs that tortured me like hell. I was kept on view and taught
to pick up a pin when the Queen came to see me. What good’s that to
me? The whole thing fell to pieces after a week or two. You leave us
alone and our children too. We don’t want your spectacles and your
false teeth and your _X_-rays. Leave our young ’uns alone as God
made ’em. That’s what I say.” He sat down and all those at the back
applauded loudly.

The doctor on the platform gave his shoulders an infinitesimal shrug
and waited in silence until the storm had subsided. Then he continued
in a pained voice, as one grieved by the deep ingratitude of the world.

“Again I can only say we must not judge from unfortunate exceptions.
Artificial limbs are and have been and will always be a great boon to
humanity.”

“We prefer to keep our own, thank you!” retorted the young man, which
remark the doctor passed over with a patient air and continued his
lecture.

There was nothing new in it. The same old rubbish that is always set
afloat by the doctors and scientific men and then repeated pompously
from mouth to mouth without examination by the asses in society was
duly brought forward here.

As the doctor himself with his usual cynicism would have remarked, “Why
take the trouble to invent a new lie when you can still gull the public
with the old one?”

He cited the great benefits that Science had conferred on humanity in
the War, how inoculation had saved the troops from typhoid without
explaining why a hundred thousand had died after Gallipoli.

He dilated on the wonderful advantages of the _X_-ray without
mentioning the countless victims who had been slowly roasted to death
under it.

He expatiated on anti-toxin cures of diphtheria without explaining why
the death rate from diphtheria had gone up and not down since its use
and without mentioning that Bella Donna is a specific for that disease
and there is no need whatever for anti-toxin which involves the most
hideous suffering to horses.

Lies and lies and more lies flowed from his lips until it seemed
to Jenkins he got choked with them. A hurried sip of water and he
brought his speech to a close with the usual appeal for more funds for
Research, that noble work in which thousands of selfless men and women
(like himself, he implied) were spending their lives. After that came
some whisper and a little fluttering pause. Then the Chairman announced
amidst applause from the red corders that a cheque for 50,000 pounds
had been received from a member of the audience who wished to remain
anonymous, for the splendid work--the direct result of the doctor’s
moving address.

With hissing and booing the company at the back got on to their feet
and made for the doors.

Jenkins and his neighbour went out together. A line of well appointed,
lighted motors stood outside. The two men paused as if with one accord
and waited watching the well dressed crowd come out, get into their
cars and roll smoothly away.

“There they go,” keen-eyes said bitterly, “home to sleep in their
downy beds or to eat and drink with never a thought of the agony of
the poor suffering animals. Fools! Led by the nose by that criminal
lunatic that’s been telling them all that rubbish this evening. And
they’ve _got_ the brains to see through it all, that’s what makes
me so mad with them. It’s not as if they were stupid or uneducated
and _couldn’t_ think for themselves. They _won’t_ think.”
He stopped and drew a pipe from his pocket and began filling it and
ramming in the tobacco. “I used to think well of the upper classes
at one time. I know they are unselfish and they work hard lots of
them and do a lot of good to others but the way they’ve swallowed
all this cant about Scientific Research, the way they shut their
eyes and ears to the truth has disgusted me with them. We’ve got
regular devil-worship in England now. What these so-called scientific
chaps do in their laboratories is appalling. It’s just sheer lust of
killing and torturing, lust run wild and those fools patronise it and
_because_ they patronise it, every man-jack in the Kingdom, got
to pay for it. We’ve got to struggle along and pay taxes that fellows
like this Smith-Brown may enjoy themselves wallowing in a horrible
vice. I tell you I’ve read about devil-worship in Africa and whole
communities being under the thumb of a few priests and we’ve jolly well
got exactly the same thing going on in England to-day. The health of
the country is being ruined, the blood and the brains of the people
all messed up by the filthy inoculations and vaccinations and we are
breeding more and more men with this lust in their brains for tearing
living things to pieces and those people are responsible for all this.”
He jerked his thumb in the direction of the departing motors gliding
away soundlessly bearing their freights of humanity, good hearted,
kindly persons for the most part, but utterly blinded by a foolish and
fanatical belief: just as completely as the simple savage peoples of
darkest Africa are blinded by their medicine men when they order them
to gash their breasts and throw their mutilated babies into the flames.

“What can we do?” pursued keen-eyes as the two men turned away into
the darkness of the wet streets. “We’re poor, we can’t do anything. We
can’t get at the public to tell it what’s going on. If we’re ill we’re
lugged off to these beastly hospitals and cut up alive, we’re forced
to send our children to school and the doctors there cut’em about as
they like, what can we do? But those people, they _could_ alter
things, one of those lords owns a newspaper, if he studied the thing
up, he could set it all out in his paper and squash the whole thing. He
could show up these scientific men and what they do. He could show that
this whole craze for torturing animals was just a form of lunacy. The
nation wouldn’t support it for two minutes if it were once told what
it was. But he does nothing, he uses his paper just to help the thing
on. Then those other lords, they could speak in their House and say
outright what it was--just devil-worship--but they allow themselves to
be humbugged like all the rest of the fools.”

After a pause keen-eyes started again in his quick fiery way.

“What I keep on hoping is that the medical profession itself will
see what a mistake they are making. Already a number of doctors have
declared themselves against experiments on animals. That’s the root
of the whole trouble. Experiments on living animals. The doctors are
wrongly trained from the beginning. The young men, the medical students
in their classes, at their lectures, see a living animal being operated
upon, being cut up, before them. Sometimes it is under an anaesthetic,
sometimes partially so, sometimes not at all. They are taught that
this is right, they are trained to cut the animal up alive themselves.
They are trained to see the animal writhing and struggling in its
helpless agonies and shown how to inflict them. These men are young
men, they are just at that age when the brain is most susceptible to
impressions, when the character is forming, when there are terrible
impulses towards evil and equally great yearnings toward good. It is
quite easy to see what an effect these classes must have upon them,
these spectacles of the living pulsating form of an animal being torn
in pieces, by an older man, who is evidently absolutely indifferent
to the horrible suffering he is causing. And this effect is evil. At
first many of these young men do feel horror at the sight, they feel
the normal sympathy everyone should feel at the sight of suffering.
Then they are jeered at by their older companions. They are told that
callous man who is sinking his knife between muscle and bone cutting
the nerves of the poor moaning victim is doing _right_ and a great
man. Thus they are initiated into the devil worship. Sometimes the
young students overcome by the revolt of all their natural instincts
against it, faint at the revolting sight. They are carried out of the
class room and revived. By the order of the professor they are brought
back and _made_ to witness the lingering torments of the animal
on the operating-table They are being hardened. Day by day they are
trained thus and gradually their normal feelings begin to change.
From sickness and revolt at the horrors they see done, they come to a
liking for them, a wish to participate in them, they become abnormal.
Their brains having been shocked at the most sensitive age, they become
deflected from their true balance. Those feelings of justice, mercy,
sympathy and pity which distinguish the worthy human being disappear
and the normal young man who commenced his medical course is at the
end of it an abnormal ill balanced creature with that impulse towards
cruelty we notice in the monkey highly developed and the qualities
of man carefully trained out of his crooked brain. And it is from
this material we make our doctors! The men we call in to treat our
beloved sick, to minister to our dear ones when dying! Heavens, what a
farce! Doctors above all men should be highly trained in sympathy and
justice. Nothing should be allowed to cloud or shock the brain of the
young medical student. A clear judgment, great power of observation,
great sympathy with all suffering, reverence for life. These are the
qualities we want in our doctors and should therefore be cultivated in
our medical students. All that is necessary for the healing of the
human body can be learned from the careful observation of that body in
health and in sickness and in death. Anatomy can be far better taught
by cutting up the dead human body than the living animal.”

He stopped and there was silence between them as they plodded on.
Jenkins felt too crushed and wretched to be able to collect his
thoughts and he knew it was not safe for him, with his ultimate object
in view, to reveal himself or his sentiments to anyone. He felt vaguely
comforted by the companionship of this other man who evidently, like
himself, knew the truth, but he dared not confide in him. He could only
listen in silence. The other did not seem to mind. He appeared to know
instinctively that Jenkins was of one mind with himself and he asked no
questions. At the corner of Oxford Street he stopped and held out his
hand.

“I wait here,” he said, “my bus’ll be along presently. Goodnight, it’s
a bad business but remember this, _it can’t last_. The day will
come when this gigantic fraud on the public, this Scientific Research,
will be exposed. We mayn’t be here to see it, worse luck, for it will
take a long time but it must come. All frauds come to the same end.”

Jenkins grasped his hand and wrung it, the kind keen eyes met his for
a moment. Then they had parted and Jenkins was drifting down a side
street alone with his hands driven down deep into the pockets of his
overcoat and clenched there.

What _could_ he do, what _could_ he do to unveil this
stupendous lie? To raise this flimsy curtain of a _name_ and show
the filthy loathsome lust that cowered behind it. He walked and walked
desperately up one street and down another. He did not know or care
where he went. He would walk through the night and only turn up at this
loathsome work in the morning. The utter horror of the whole thing
enveloped him like a cloud and his terrible impotence in the matter
seemed like something stifling suffocating him. He believed he could
kill the doctor and so save a certain amount of horrible suffering
but that was so little against the whole mass of evil and error that
a small band of men had managed to let loose upon the world. For the
whole world was affected. This folly of blind belief in the words of
men who dubbed themselves wise and learned, beneficent and infallible,
had spread its sickly snare not over one country nor quarter but over
the whole world. Hospitals, laboratories are found everywhere and
though there were wise and thinking people also everywhere they did not
seem numerous enough nor strong enough to stop the march of Evil. Would
the day of deliverance ever come? He wondered dismally as keen-eyes had
predicted. For the present this devil-worship was all on the up-grade.
More taxes were being levied, more money thrown into the hands of the
medicine men, more hospitals being built, more research laboratories
being endowed. Jenkins wandered on through the damp, black streets
depressed to the very uttermost. That lecture had pushed him down to
the very depths of despair, just as Doctor Smith-Brown had cynically
foreseen it would do. He saw that Jenkins had still some faith in the
common sense of ordinary people. The doctor determined he should attend
the lecture and see for himself how easily and completely they were
taken in and deluded. Towards morning, stiff and aching in every limb
he got back to the laboratory. It was dark and cold: fires and lights
were out and a low moaning of unutterable anguish filled the darkness.
Jenkins went heavily up the stairs to his bed, wretched beyond
description, oppressed by the wickedness of one half of the world and
the stupidity of the other half.


                               CHAPTER 5


Three weeks had elapsed, three weeks of dreadful mental suffering for
Jenkins and it had left its mark upon him. He was a changed man from
the one who came strong and straight, clear-eyed and tranquil-minded
from the country. He had grown pale and gaunt, he stooped a little, his
clothes hung on him loosely. Those sleepless nights when the screaming
of the animals in mortal agony rang through the whole house penetrating
even to his top room and through his blocked up ears, were draining
his strength little by little, but now his resolve once fixed and the
determination to kill the doctor, clear cut in his mind, he was less
unhappy than in those first days of astounded wondering, crumbling
beliefs and uncertainty as to where his duty lay.

Now that the Right lay plain before him, he had only one anxiety--that
his strength would hold out until his duty was done. He walled himself
round with a solid reserve and kept his grim purpose before him night
and day. He realised that he could do very little. He knew that when
a whole nation has gone mad and determined to set up a horrible vice
in its midst and worship it, one individual has little power to avert
the madness. He had learned by now that there were these hideous
laboratories all over London that the tax-payers of England were
burdened to support them, that there were numbers of men afflicted
with the same monomania as the doctor and whose work equalled in
barbarity his though it could not exceed it. He knew all this, but in
those horrible nights hearing the beseeching cries of the tortured
animals below, he reasoned thus. Each of these scientific researchers
is responsible for killing in agony a certain number of animals. He
had heard for instance the doctor quote a French surgeon who boasted
he had done to death eight thousand dogs in his laboratory. He argued,
therefore, if he could remove even one of these dehumained human beings
from the world, he would certainly save a few thousand helpless animals
from torture and Jenkins felt that was quite worth while. Of what use
was this silly semi-demented old man who sat in his laboratory dabbling
in the blood of dogs or writing to the newspapers about ridiculous
cures he had discovered, that when tried were found to be no cures at
all, or mixing his filthy glycerine in order to cultivate his still
more filthy germs in it? Jenkins, not being one of the befooled public,
saw very clearly that men like this one were not suppressing disease
but spreading it: that these laboratories were plague spots where not
new remedies, but new diseases were invented and elaborated.

The doctor was quite mad, Jenkins was convinced of that and as there
seemed no way of conveying him to an asylum where he belonged it would
be well to remove him altogether from this world where he was doing so
much evil not only to the animals but to Mankind.

Therefore waiting and watching for his opportunity Jenkins went quietly
day by day about his work, suffering inwardly horribly for the poor
mutilated animals he had to tend, but letting no sign of agitation or
distress appear in his sedate and stoic manner. The doctor from time
to time eyed him curiously noting with grim satisfaction the physical
changes that had taken place in his hard-working attendant. He was
quite aware that Jenkins was more or less against his work and felt
pain in seeing the tortures of the animals, and therefore his evil mind
delighted in forcing him to witness the most brutal experiments. Such
as tearing out a dog’s eyes to transplant them to another or cutting
out an ear by the roots and sewing it into the victim’s neck. He knew
also that Jenkins saw through the whole farce and that he could not
deceive his attendant as he did the easy going public, so he no longer
pretended that these experiments had any use in them. At the end of
a loathsome exhibition of suffering and torture which had especially
gratified his perverted sexuality, he would turn his gloating face with
its protruding eyes and saliva covered lips to Jenkins and dig him
playfully in the ribs.

“Good work that, eh, Jenkins? Not exactly useful, but interesting,
eh? Let’s say _interesting_,” and Jenkins, a wooden figure with
a wooden face would stand there with the fires of just indignation
burning him to death within and exerting all his mental and moral force
to keep himself from striking down the fiend in front of him.

So the days passed for the two men, shut away from the world in their
little building on the piece of waste ground by the common--playfully
for the doctor who “loved his work” as he was never tired of informing
the newspapers. He did indeed love his work and wallowed in its
atrocity as a drunkard in his cups. It was the only true thing he ever
said but that was true, he loved his work--painfully for Jenkins who
thought each night he could bear his martyrdom no longer. But at last
the end came.

Jenkins had had a peculiarly sickening afternoon: dog after dog had
been taken: thrown in the vivisecting trough, wrenched and racked and
torn, its nerves stimulated, red hot irons passed through its most
sensitive parts and finally been thrown in shrieking agony into a
corner. The doctor was enjoying himself, that he loved his work was
very evident from his excited face, from which he occasionally wiped
the sweat and then resumed his task with fresh ardour. Six o’clock
struck and the doctor stopped.

“Done a good day’s work, I think,” he remarked. “Take ’em away,
Jenkins, kill ’em if you like. I’ve done with them. I’ll have a fresh
lot to-morrow,” and he waved his hand to the mangled heap on the stone
floor in the corner from which long gasping shivering cries were
rising. “I’m going out. Go upstairs and get your tea. I shan’t want
you again till to-morrow.” With that he turned to his dressing room
from which Jenkins knew he would soon emerge, calm, collected, bland,
immaculate, the suave man of Science that he appeared in public.

Before getting his tea, Jenkins turned to see what could be done for
the poor bleeding remnants of living beings in the heap. Alas, nothing
but to quiet them in death. He bent over them despatching them as
gently and as quickly as he could and in half an hour the last poor
battered thing had expired. Just then the doctor came out smooth and
sleek and genially smiling. Well dressed as always and holding a little
paper in his hand.

“I’m thinking of making a few remarks to-night on the benefit of
Vivisection. Some old faddists are getting up on their hind legs and
saying it shouldn’t be allowed, so it’s best to give the public our
usual little dose of talk.”

Jenkins, sick to death, just nodded and went on with his task of
carrying out the dead bodies. Then suddenly as the lightning flashes
the moment was upon him and the whole man’s spirit sprang to attention
and every fibre within him quivered for action. On his way out the
doctor paused by the door of the lethal chamber and Jenkins on his
way back for another body, found him standing in the hallway sniffing
delicately about him.

“There’s a queer smell here,” he remarked. “I don’t like it. Where does
it come from?”

As he spoke he turned the handle, pushed open the door, of the lethal
room, and--entered. Jenkins, the blood stinging in all his veins and
a great light in his brain, moved forward. He was not conscious of
movement, only of intention. Equally without consciousness of the
action, his arm shot out, his lean fingers gripped the handle. The
brain had had standing orders given it long ago and now the moment had
come, like lightning it obeyed.

The heavy door swung to and clicked. It was shut and no earthly power
could open it from within. There was no sound. Silence fell on the
laboratory. The instant the door had closed Jenkins became a different
man. The great deed for which he had lived night and day was done,
swiftly and successfully accomplished. He held his head high. His
heart swelled within him with a joyous sense of duty done just as when
he had walked out of the enlisting office in August, 1914, a soldier
proud to die for his country. So now if he had to die on the scaffold
for this night’s work he would die proudly for he knew that the work
was good. One liar, one duper of the public, one traitor to his
country, _one_ monster of cruelty, if but one, had been put out of
existence. A great flood of joy seemed to engulf him and he stalked
forward to the pipes and tubes to turn on the taps that let in to the
chamber the deadly gasses.

It was but the work of a few minutes, for the useful chamber was
always kept in readiness by the doctor. It might be some unexpected
visitor might call at the moment when an animal was screaming under
the doctor’s fingers and then the quickest way to obtain silence was
to throw it into the lethal room out of the way before the visitor
was admitted. Of course if it were a man of Science such a precaution
was unnecessary because he would understand that the piercing cries
only meant his fellow worker was “loving his work” and pursuing it as
usual but it might be an ordinary person who called and then ordinary
people take a different view of these things and have to be humbugged
accordingly.

Jenkins stalked to the tubes and turned the taps full on. There were
no merciful air holes in this chamber arranged so that the air might
mix with the burning gasses and the victim may be overcome by the
mixed fumes instead of being choked and burnt to death. No, the doctor
wouldn’t have air holes and when Jenkins had pointed out to him how
twisted and contorted the bodies were that he had to remove pointing
to the fact that a very painful death had been experienced, the doctor
had gazed at him over his cigarette smoke with a mild reflective
gaze for a few seconds and then had turned away without a word. The
air holes had never been made and a grim smile hovered for a moment
over the attendant’s impassive face as he turned on the gas and then
walked away down the passage to the stairway where he sat down on the
lowest stair ... waiting, while the minutes passed. Then suddenly the
three dogs in the reserve room broke into loud and joyous barking.
Jenkins listened astonished. He had never heard them do that before.
No animal within those walls ever lifted its voice except to wail in
agony. But now? Did they know their hideous persecutor was dead? Could
they see the spirit passing? Animals have many higher gifts than man:
many instincts, many powers that are denied to him; or that he has
destroyed by his vices, which they are without. And their nearness
to the spiritual world had often struck Jenkins before. This was
extraordinary. He could hear them bounding and scuffling about in the
room giving short sharp barks of joy. Jenkins first thought was to
go in but with his hand on the door knob he paused. He had only just
lately had their dead companions in his arms. He would go and take
off his blood stained garments before meeting them, get rid of the
scent of death which they would recognize so well but he had something
to do first. He must put out of their long long suffering those poor
unfortunates that awaited in the ghastly gallery the morrow’s torture.
He switched on the lights and then entered the gallery, where the
scientist had pursued the work he loved. Jenkins could not bear to
meet the sad, glazing eyes that stared dully at him through the bars
of those cruel cages. What would he not have given to have been able
to restore the joyous healthy forms they had possessed before the
Scientist had cut and beaten and mangled and starved them out of all
resemblance to living creatures. But he was helpless, man can destroy
but he cannot create an animal.

At last it was over. All life was extinguished and the many mangled
forms lay stretched on the cold zinc floors of their cages where they
had dragged out their existence of months and years of suffering.
Jenkins gave one glance round: his hands and feet cold but his heart
burning like a red hot coal within him.

“This place justifies me,” he thought, “if anything is needed, this
place alone is my excuse.”

Then he switched out the lights and death and darkness reigned supreme
in the place of agony.

Coming out into the hall, he heard the joyous voices of the living dogs
and his face cleared a little of its gloom. He walked to the lethal
chamber and turned off the tap. Then he hurried up to his own little
flat and there soon had stove and lamp well alight. He washed and
changed his clothes rapidly. It was wonderful how light and strong he
felt. Some great pressure in the atmosphere was removed now that he
knew that evil thing was safely locked in the chamber below. Where had
the evil spirit gone? Jenkins did not know nor care. If it were about
in the house any where still Jenkins was not afraid of it.

His conscience was so absolutely clear, his heart, his brain, all
his instincts told him he was right, that he had done well. He felt
certain that any decent man watching that fiend working day by day
would have acted as he had done, if he had stayed his hand so long.
Most men in his place would have jumped on the doctor and strangled him
when he first realised what the so-called scientist really was. No good
man who knew the truth would condemn him so his heart was light and he
had no fear of the doctor’s ghost. He would have met it cheerfully and
give it some straight talk had it ventured up the stairs.

But no ghost or spirit came and Jenkins hurried along over his dressing
and then made his long belated tea. Then with an armful of dog biscuits
and a great jug of milk he descended to the expectant four foots below.

The lights were burning and the place looked cosy and cheery enough.
The lethal room was there solid and silent guarding well its secrets
and the welcoming bark of the dogs hearing his footsteps resounded
through the hall. Jenkins opened the door and immediately out bounded
the dogs leaping up to and caressing him. He saw at once the difference
in them. Up to now a horror and terror had seemed to brood over them:
it was in the air of the whole place, never had they ventured before
uninvited into the hall. What they smelt, what they heard in that
accursed place had told them frightful things, though Jenkins had
guarded them all he could from that knowledge.

Now they capered about the hall unrestrained and leapt up at Jenkins’
side as if acclaiming him and welcoming him as their master. Jenkins,
too sad at heart for his frolicsome companion to wholly cheer, went
into their room soberly and filled all their saucers to the brim
and broke their biscuits with careful fingers. After all it was so
little that he had done! Just one of these men stopped from their
horrible work, only one out of so many. Yet little actions sometimes
had widespreading results. He wondered sadly whether by the voluntary
sacrifice of his life he could do anything, by giving himself up and
telling plainly and boldly his whole story in the dock to judge and
jury, would he accomplish anything? Would Judge and Jury listen and
believe? No, he thought not, they would be just like the lady to
whom he had restored the cat. A personal motive would be ascribed to
him for his act and Judge and Jury would only listen to the crowd of
scientists who would pack the court. They would tell the judge and jury
that animals did not feel, that when cut up alive it was done with the
greatest kindness that the vivisectors who were appointed to inspect
these places would certainly not sympathise with vivisectors working
these, that Sir Charles Smith-Brown, Dsc. M.D., L.R.C.P., etc., etc.,
was the kindest man that ever breathed, that he lived only to benefit
humanity and all these lies would be believed and all this absurd
nonsense swallowed and Jenkins’ plain truth set aside and Jenkins
hanged. That would be all. As for the newspapers they would not report
a word of what Jenkins said but only what the scientists said by whom
they were paid. No to keep his life if possible and gradually try to
disseminate the truth was the only way that offered any hope. There
must be some thinking men and women in England. They could not all be
maundering fools like those that sat in Parliament and babbled about
“effective inspection of laboratories” by vivisectors and voted huge
sums of money for cancer research, _i.e._, for infecting thousands
of animals with cancer, for cultivating cancer, and thus spreading the
disease through the length and breadth of the land.

No, he decided, slightly comforted, they couldn’t all be fools! There
must be some common sense left in England somewhere. He must try to
find it and appeal to it.

The dogs’ supper over, he let them out for a run and then proceeded on
his rounds as usual to see all was closed for the night. There were
some letters for the doctor in the letter box and these he took out
and arranged carefully on the table under a green shaded lamp in the
doctor’s own special little study, the door of which was just opposite
the door of the lethal chamber on the other side of the hall.

He turned out all the lights and locked all the outer doors except
the hall door which “the doctor would open with his latch key when he
returned.”

Jenkins felt the value of knowing his story beforehand and he was
from now on going to entirely forget that the doctor’s body lay in
the lethal chamber. When it was eventually dragged out, it must be a
surprise to him. He had been told by the doctor that the latter was
going out and that he might go upstairs to his tea. That was at 6
o’clock. He had availed himself of the permission and gone upstairs
leaving the doctor in the hall. He had not seen him since and when he
came down he concluded that the doctor had gone out and not returned.
That was going to be his story and he was going to act in every
particular as if were a true one. So he ranged the letters carefully
under the lamp tidied the doctor’s papers and left everything in order
for his return.

At ten he went to the main door and whistled in the dogs, saw them to
their beds with many caresses, then rather wearily sought his own.

But there was quiet and peace waiting for him to-night. No shrieks, no
groans, the dead and the living alike side by side slept soundly that
night in the laboratory.


                               CHAPTER 6


Six days had elapsed and the laboratory still stood silent without a
master. Jenkins moved about in it silently as a ghost, doing everything
exactly as he would have done had he expected the doctor’s return any
minute. He had sent the three dogs down into the country by train to
the man who kept an eye on his little cottage while he was away and
who would look after them. Inwardly he was longing for it all to be
over, longing to leave this accursed spot where he had gone through
such horrible suffering. His work was all done there now. Every cage in
the long corridor had been thoroughly cleaned out: the bars polished:
the floor washed and the tiles of the corridor itself swabbed over and
rubbed to a glistening cleanliness. The doctor’s rooms were kept swept
and dusted and each day’s letters as they came in were ranged in neat
order on his writing table, with a little space between each day’s
group. The fires were lighted in the morning, the lamps lighted in the
evening.

Jenkins waited up till ten o’clock each night. Then solemnly switched
off the lights and retired. He was pale and gaunt but not unhappy now,
as compared with his former days here. He had done what he could. It
was not much but it was something, and perhaps work lay ahead for him
in the future. Perhaps he could be instrumental in exposing this awful
vice, this cruel murderous lust that called itself Scientific Research.
He missed the three dogs enormously but here again he hugged himself
with pleasure in thinking they were safe and out of the way.

It was just five on the Saturday evening and Jenkins was downstairs
taking his tea in the dogs’ room where he kept now his little outfit
for tea making, that he might be at hand to open the door. A ring came
and he rose at once to answer.

“Sir C. Smith-Brown at home?” queried the thin-lipped young man who
stood outside.

“No, sir.”

“Oh. When do you expect him back?”

“Any time, sir. He has not been in this week: not since Monday evening.”

“Really? I wonder where he is then. I don’t seem able to catch him
anywhere. Did he say he was going into the country or anything?”

Jenkins shook his head.

“No, sir. He just left on Monday about six and said he wouldn’t want me
again that day. I expected him next morning but he didn’t come and I
haven’t seem him since.”

“Funny! You’ve been here all the time I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, sir, I never go out unless the doctor gives me special leave
to.”

“Well, I’ll look up Dr. Jones and see if he’s there. Thanks, good
night.”

The young man departed. Jenkins closed the door and went back to the
dogs’ room where he reboiled his kettle and made himself another cup of
tea.

“That’s the beginning,” he thought to himself. “Now there’ll be a
disagreeable time I expect, and after that I’ll be free I hope,” and he
smiled to himself as he thought of the rescued dogs waiting for him in
the country.

Jenkins was right. The search for the doctor had begun. At nine thirty,
a longer more peremptory ring sounded through the house accompanied
by a knock. He went at once to the door. The thin-lipped young man
was there but this time in company with a shortish rotund man who made
up for his insignificant stature with great pomposity of manner. As
soon as the door was opened he stepped over the threshold with a hint
of defiance in his bearing as if he expected an effort on the part of
Jenkins to keep him out and had determined it should be unsuccessful.
Jenkins inwardly amused immediately stepped back having opened the door
to its fullest extent.

“This seems a serious affair about your master,” began his visitor. “He
is not at his house, he is not at his hospital, and you say he is not
here.” There was the faintest accent laid on the “you say.” Jenkins
looked gravely interested.

“When did you see him last?”

“Monday evening, sir, about six.”

“He’s not been back since, not even looked in, eh?”

“No, sir, I don’t think he could have. All his letters are here.” He
stepped to the study door and threw it open, switching on the light.
The neat cosy little room stood revealed very orderly. On the table
under the green shaded lamp lay the doctor’s letters ranged in their
little groups according to the day of their arrival.

The doctor’s chair was drawn toward the hearth, neatly swept up where a
small fire burnt primly.

The two visitors peered into the room, the rotund Dr. Jones went up to
the table and fingered one or two of the letters as if he hoped to
gain information from them.

“Such an exact man, such a precise man, I can’t understand his going
off like this for six days and telling nobody.”

He stared hard at Jenkins who returned his gaze with a slightly
distressed expression but made no reply.

“Well, I think I and my friend would like just to look through the
place,” Jones continued, his manner something between embarrassment and
aggression.

“We should feel more satisfied you know and something might strike us
as a clue to his disappearance.”

Jenkins assented at once.

“Do, sir, will you go round alone or shall I come with you?”

“Oh, you come along by all means,” Jones answered and the three of
them came out of the study into the hall again. Jenkins opened the
next door that of the cold long gallery where the agonized animals had
suffered such hideous miseries. Here there were no fires: the air was
deadly chill and still foul, or so it seemed to Jenkins, the electric
light fell wanly on the white walls, the lofty arched roof and the cold
glistening tiles of the floor.

Jones advanced. Then stopped short with an exclamation as his eye
caught the long row of empty silent cages.

“What’s this? Got rid of his animals? Why that looks as if he knew he
were not coming back! What do you thing of that Edward?” he addressed
his companion.

“Looks like it,” he replied laconically.

“When did the doctor dispose of his animals?” asked Jones wheeling
round upon Jenkins.

“He’d been using them up for some time, sir,” answered Jenkins, “and
last week he said he’d finish with all he’d got and have a fresh stock
in and I was to clean out all the cages and have them ready for a new
lot.”

“Oh, he said that, did he?” returned Jones. “Hm--hm--hm. Well, let’s go
on down to the end. See if he’s left a note or anything on the table.”

The three men filed down the cold long room to the end where behind
the screen which helped to shut this part off from the corridor stood
the doctor’s armchair close to the hearth. The heavy writing table was
covered with papers all neatly piled and arranged. Everything was neat
and in order all most carefully dusted. The large inkstand carefully
polished and a tray of freshly nibbed pens awaited the doctor’s return.
Evidently his servant had expected him back.

Dr. Jones looked disconsolately over the table. There was no note or
letter there. The last thing apparently that the doctor had written was
a chemical equation, drawn out on a half sheet of notepaper. This lay
on the blotting pad, carefully preserved by the invaluable Jenkins.

Dr. Jones looked at it and then laughed. To those who know how to read
the ciphers it represented a burning solution, designed to separate
living flesh from living bone.

“Well nothing here, Edward, we’ll go upstairs,” and following Jenkins,
upstairs they went. They tramped through the doctor’s comfortable
little suite above, looking in cupboards and under the bed and finding
nothing but order and extreme cleanliness everywhere.

After that Jenkins’ rooms were entered and searched but the simple
furniture and narrow bed were soon looked over and under. The dog’s
room, the bathroom, the landings the little coal cellar: they searched
all most thoroughly expecting as it seemed to Jenkins to find the
doctor’s body concealed somewhere and possibly swinging behind some
door. Dr. Jones seemed to have jumped to the conclusion that it was a
case of suicide.

“I can’t understand his stopping all his experiments and giving up all
the animals like that,” Jenkins heard him remark to his friend. “Looks
like suicide, ’pon my word it does.”

Their search yielded nothing however and at last with a curt goodnight
to Jenkins they left, passing by the lethal chamber on their way out.

“Fools,” thought Jenkins as he closed the door after them.

After that there was no more tranquility at the laboratory. The
bell was frequently being rung, people came to enquire, Jenkins was
interviewed by various persons, asked the same questions over and over
again and told the same lies in answer with commendable consistency.

The papers now had got hold of the story and devoted large spaces to
the mysterious disappearance of the famous scientist. Reporters came
to see Jenkins and to hear repeated the few simple sentences he could
tell them. But to these reporters he added to his story accounts of
the doctor’s doings and took the reporters in to see the vivisecting
troughs and all the ghastly instruments of torture that are the stock
in trade of the Scientific Researcher. But though they looked open eyed
and open mouthed on these gruesome objects and wandered up and down the
long gallery reading the incriminating labels on the empty cages never
a word of any of these things appeared in their reports in the papers
as Jenkins vainly hoped.

In talking to them, he naturally had to preserve the stolid
indifference of manner that had been his mask so long and appear to
think all this scientific atrocity in order and he could feel that
even these light headed and unthinking young men shrank away from him
in loathing. At such times Jenkins would feel a madness of longing to
shake them by the hand and urge them to carry his message to the world
but all this he crushed down. To show the least disapprobation of the
doctor’s doings, to be anything but the servile laboratory attendant
would attract suspicion to himself, perhaps fasten the noose round his
neck. So he bore their evident contempt and disgust with himself as
he had borne all the rest of his sufferings in that place without a
sign and in their attitude to him he had a certain rejoicing. It gave a
glimmer of hope for the future.

“Catch me giving a penny of _my_ money to Cancer Research after
this,” he heard one of the men say to his companion as they went out
and his heart warmed with hope.

Alas! the next morning in the very paper which had sent these two to
report there was a glowing article upon the doctor’s work, his superb
labours for humanity and all the rest of the unutterable twaddle with
which Jenkins was by now so familiar. Days passed and still nothing was
heard of the eminent scientist, the Press made all they could out of
his disappearance, it was the favorite topic of the clubs and dinner
parties. He had simply vanished and public interest and excitement
skilfully fanned by the papers waxed and grew.

On the second Saturday after his disappearance just when Editors were
thinking out a new headline, the favorite Possible Clue found to
the Smith-Brown Mystery, having been rather overworked the end came
abruptly.

At nine in the morning Jenkins opened the door to a small group of men
led by a man in an inconspicuous uniform.

“I am a police inspector and have a warrant to search these premises.”

“Yes, sir,” returned Jenkins simply. There was nothing very new in
that. “This is the doctor’s study sir,” he said, throwing open the
door as he had done before for Dr. Jones.

The Inspector just glanced that way. Then he stepped up to the door on
the other side of the hall.

“What’s this?”

Jenkins turned back to him.

“That’s the lethal chamber, sir.”

The Inspector put his hand on the handle, turned it and pushed the
door. It resisted and as he pushed it more there was the soft heavy
sound of some inert thing being moved within.

“Stand back, gentlemen, please,” he said as the little group pressed
forward, and turned his electric torch into the black aperture made
by the partially opened door. The white light gushed in and its broad
streak fell on the large head and upturned face of the doctor. Mouth
wide open as he died gasping, eyes bulging in a last grisley stare.
There was a gasp of horror from the onlookers as they drew back, a
sickly odour stealing out from the little room and enveloping them.

The Inspector seemed the only man unmoved. He ordered one of his men to
support the door that it should not close and two others to follow him.
Then he went in and the three of them brought out the doctor’s body
between them into the hall and laid it down. It was horribly contorted
as if the man had died writhing.

Jenkins turned away. He knew the look so well, just so all knotted
with agony, had the poor little monkeys been when he drew them out
from where they had huddled against the door or walls. The Inspector
touched his arm.

“This must be very painful to you,” he said kindly, touched by the
woebegone look of Jenkins’ gaunt wasted face.

“We do not need you for the moment. I shall have some questions to ask
you presently but don’t stand here now. Go into the next room and sit
down.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Jenkins brokenly and went.

Nothing could have been better nor convinced the Inspector more
completely of his entire innocence of any participation in the doctor’s
death but it was not pose on Jenkin’s part. In truth, physically he
felt he could not stand much more of nervous strain and mentally he
felt actually crushed with grief, though it was not as the Inspector
supposed for his master, but for the countless little victims that
master had so wantonly destroyed.

After a time the Inspector came to him and examined him. He questioned
him and cross-questioned him but Jenkins made no mistakes. His short
simple sentences, his direct replies, his simple manner, even his
wooden face all together produced the impression of a man, unlikely
to do anything exceptional and original. He seemed to be the typical
routine worker and wholly unconnected with the tragic event of his
master’s death.

At the inquest a verdict of Death from Misadventure, the doctor having
been overcome by the old gas fumes remaining in the unventilated
chamber, was returned and Jenkins after his evidence was allowed to
leave for his home, unsuspected and unopposed.

Down in his tiny cottage, one evening, before a blazing fire, where his
three dogs lay extended in dozing comfort, sitting by the table with
his pot of tea beside him, he was somewhat laboriously reading a dull
newspaper until his eyes caught these astounding head lines:

New Crusade for the Churches. 1,000,000 pounds appeal. Science and
Religion to co-operate.

Looking through the article he gathered that clergymen in all the
churches were to preach to their congregations on the beauty and virtue
of Scientific Research and raise a million pounds to be spent upon it.
It was stated their scheme had the warm approval of the doctors. A
little lower down he came on this paragraph:

“There is no more noble example of selfless service on behalf of
humanity than the men and women engaged in Research work,” and a little
lower down still these same men and women were described as “dedicated
spirits giving themselves as instruments into the hands of God, that
His Will may be done upon Earth.”

After reading this Jenkins sat back in his chair and remembered the
doctor giving measles to his monkeys, filling cats with water till they
burst and infecting healthy animals with cancer which never becomes
human cancer and starving dogs to give them rickets.

“And the church now is going to help,” he muttered. “Good Lord and Good
Lord and Good Lord--”




                         =TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES=


Simple typographical errors have been silently corrected; unbalanced
quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and
otherwise left unbalanced.

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not
changed.

Inconsistent hyphens left as printed.



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75691 ***