He fought hard. He knew that he must throw that bucket overboard, so he forced his thoughts upon the act.
"I"ll walk twenty times the length of the deck with my mind on that," he muttered to himself.
So, concentrating his brain upon the necessary deed, he began pacing up and down. At the twentieth turn he walked toward the bucket and stopped suddenly, livid as death, his eyes fixed stupidly upon his hands.
In his right hand he held a stick, a little, pliable bamboo stick.
He tried to remember picking it up; he could not. The act had been not of the will, of the will that was fighting for mastery; it had been forced by that other Power, that Power which possessed his nerves, his bones, his flesh, the Power he was seeking to kill.
"I will begin again," he muttered.
At the tenth turn he stopped short, and a cold sweat welled up upon his body. He had another stick in his hand.
And then, slowly, haltingly, but irresistibly, he approached the bucket.
With somnambulant rigidity he placed the stick in the viscous stuff and slowly rotated it once, as if tentatively; then once more, determinedly; then again, with a sort of rage. The heavy fluid followed the stick, turned on itself faster and faster. A little whirlpool formed in the center. Burke"s eyes fixed themselves upon it, and silently the little whirlpool sucked down all that was strong in him.
The stick sc.r.a.ped along the sides of the bucket; the liquid circled swiftly. In a minute, in the depression at the center, a black spot formed. The stick turned faster. The black spot grew; finally it was a little round ball that sank to the bottom. The stick whirled around madly. The little ball enlarged. From all sides the like molecules rushed to it, rounding it out as a s...o...b..ll that is rolled downhill. At last it was like a small cannon-ball. Burke bared his arms, plunged them into the bucket, drew out the black, pitchy solid and threw it overboard.
He rushed back, and his hollowed hand scooped up a few drops of the now-white liquid and slapped it to his lips. The taste drove him mad, and, dropping down on hands and knees like a dog, he put his lips to the side of the bucket and drew in long gulpfuls.
A little later the natives were all gathered at the stern, looking with wonder upon the strange actions of the Americano.
He was squatting on deck, the bucket between his knees. At close intervals he raised it to his lips and poured the awful contents down his throat. Then he hugged the bucket, sobbing softly like a child being consoled after suffering, and between his laughs and his tears he gurgled to himself an endless story, full of tearful self-compa.s.sion and sobbing, endearing terms, long and soft and meaningless as the croon of a lonely babe.
Toward night he fell into a heavy stupor and lay there on his back, his face to the moonlight, and the tears drying on his cheeks.
In the morning, when the doctor"s launch churned out of the river, it had in tow the boat of the _Bonita_ filled with the people of the lorcha. They had been caught by a patrol boat at midnight just as they were on the point of landing on the Luneta.
The launch pulled up against the lorcha, and Huntington sprang aboard.
Burke rose from the deck and waited for him. He was hollow and drooping, as if the bony frame had been removed from his body, and his eyes were dead.
A look told the doctor what had happened.
"Yes," said Burke, corroborating the surgeon"s unexpressed thought.
Huntington paced the deck.
"Well," he said, finally, "you did well to stand it that long. Next time it will be longer."
Burke did not answer.
"We have to begin again."
"Begin again," echoed Burke, mechanically.
"You"ll do it, old man," said Huntington, confidently.
"My G.o.d, Huntington," said Burke, in a whisper; "my G.o.d, Huntington, I killed Tionko; I threw him to the sharks, and now, look at me!"
When the launch had left, Burke crouched down in a corner against the bulwarks, and there he sat the morning long, his eyes glued stupidly to the deck.
At noon he suddenly got up, walked firmly to the mainmast, and ran up the yellow flag.
When the boat came he went down the ladder and sat himself in the sternsheets. The man in charge looked at him inquiringly.
"Pull away," he said, shortly; "I"ve got it."
VI
SOME BENEVOLENT a.s.sIMILATION
That by teaching the Filipinos the American branch of the English language it was expected to transfuse into them the customs, ideas, and ideals of the speakers of that tongue, the Maestro vaguely knew. But that this method would meet with the vigorous and somewhat eccentric success that it did in Senorita Constancia de la Rama, the Visayan young lady whom he had trained to take charge of his girls" school, he had not dreamed. So, taken unaware by the news, he flopped down on a chair with a low whistle that finished off into something like a groan as the situation presented itself to him in its full beauty. And then, taken by that perverse desire which, in time of catastrophe, impels us to rehea.r.s.e all of the elements that go to make our woe particularly unbearable, he began to question the urchin who had brought the note from Mauro Ledesma, one of the native a.s.sistant teachers of the boys"
school.
"Senor Ledesma gave you that note, Isidro?"
"Yes, Senor Pablo, the little Filipino maestro gave it to me," answered Isidro, careful in his discrimination of masters.
"Where was he; in the house?"
"Oh, yes, Senor Pablo, he was in the house--he was altogether inside of the house!"
The Maestro eyed the boy with sudden suspicion. He thought that he had detected a joyous note in the statement of the native teacher"s whereabouts. But Isidro"s return glance was liquid with innocence.
"And he called you?" went on the Maestro.
"Oh, no, Senor Pablo, he did not call me! Ambrosio, his muchacho, called me! Senor Ledesma, he stayed inside!"
Again the Maestro started, for Isidro"s sentence formation seemed suspiciously appreciative. But the little face he searched was wooden.
"He called you from the door?"
"From the window, Senor Pablo. The door, it was locked. He called this way--" (here Isidro described with his right arm a furious moulinet).
"He said, "sh-sh-sh-sh-sh," and then he moved his arm this way--" (again the moulinet), "and then he stopped his arm and moved his finger this way--" (here Isidro held up his hand before his face and moved the index finger several times toward his nose in a gesture full of mysterious significance).
"And then you went in?"
"Yes, Senor Pablo. They opened the door, oh, just a little, like that--"
(Isidro placed his hands palm to palm with an interstice between them just wide enough to allow the wiggling through of a very lean serpent), "and I went in and they shut the door again and put the bed up against it."
"Well, well; and Maestro Ledesma, he was inside?"
"Oh, yes, Senor Pablo, he was inside. He was writing this letter. And I think Senor Ledesma is very sick, Senor Pablo, because when he was writing he was all the time saying, "Madre de Dios" and "Jesus-Maria-Joseph!" and making noises like this."
And Isidro convulsed himself in an effort that resulted in a vague imitation of the wail of a carabao calf.