There were other stalls where they sold Mexican drawn-work, carved leather and filigree silver, others again with chairs set round where one could have iced-fruit drinks or coffee, and the band played sonorously and the crowd, good-natured, laughing, gaily dressed, men, women, and children of all sizes, strolled amongst the stalls, buying, looking, chattering, flirting, in the soft, damp heat of the night.
Suzee was enchanted and stared about her with bold, l.u.s.trous glances, pleased at the admiring looks of the men on her strange pretty face.
She steered me up to the silver-filigree stall and there had all the vender"s wares put out for her inspection. She was keen enough where her own particular interests were concerned, and the sellers of artificial jewellery tempted her with their sparkling gewgaws not at all. Real solid worth was what she intended to obtain, and her taste in choosing the silver was excellent.
Would I buy her this? Would I buy her that? And I a.s.sented to everything. I only wished I could buy myself pleasure as easily.
She chose a necklet, a brooch, and numberless bangles for her arms, all the smallest she could find, those generally made for children.
When these loaded her little arms and the necklet was clasped round her throat she was happy, and the curious, interested Mexicans gathered in a little knot round us, looked on with interest and evident approval at the Englishman"s money being spent amongst them.
We stayed in the square buying to her heart"s content till eleven, and then, after supper at a little table beneath the Plaza trees where the band played loudest, for Suzee loved music when it meant noise, we went back to the hotel and to bed.
The next day I went by train to the place where we had embarked for our voyage down the Tamesi, fully equipped with my materials for a sketch--and alone.
Suzee, adhering to her idea that it would be dull and hot on the river-bank, had preferred to stay in the hotel playing with some of the treasures bought yesterday at the fair.
Alone and undisturbed I sat all day sketching, till the fires were lighted in the West and warned me I must turn homewards. I had a good picture, and I packed up my traps with that deep sense of satisfaction that accomplished work alone can give and walked slowly to the station. As my thoughts slipped on to Suzee a sense of anxiety came over me. Time was going on. The year would soon be over. What did I intend to do? Once the year was past it would be impossible for me to continue living with her, even for a day. And now I felt so often I would rather be alone than with her. How would she feel over our separation? How could I provide for her happiness when I took back my freedom?
Satiety was beginning to creep over the pa.s.sion I had for her, and that was still farther checked now that I knew she looked upon it more as a means to an end--the child--rather than enjoyed it for itself.
It worried me greatly this thought of her future and how I was going to provide for it, and it seemed sometimes as if it might be better to give in to her; perhaps without me she would be happy if she had a child as she wished, provided I could make, as I could, a good allowance to both. But then even with a child I could not imagine Suzee would want to remain alone, and what would be the fate of a child if other lovers came, or a husband?...
While I did not think that Suzee loved me deeply, deep emotion not being within her range of powers, it was difficult to see how I could find for her an existence as pleasant as she led with me.
All these things worried me greatly, and as Fate willed it, needlessly.
How often in this life a way is suddenly opened out through circ.u.mstances where we least expect it.
The Greeks said--"For these unknown matters a G.o.d shall find out the way." And often indeed it happens that Fate steps in, and in some way our wildest dreams have never pictured turns all our life to another hue suddenly before our eyes.
One night when I had been making a little head of Suzee in her prettiest mood on my canvas, she came and sat on my knee and begged me to give her, as a reward for her sitting, a narrow band of gold I always wore on my left arm above the elbow.
I refused, for Viola had given it to me and locked it on my arm. She had the key and I, even had I wished, could only have had it taken off by means of another key or melting the gold.
At my refusal there was a storm of tears as usual, but it soon pa.s.sed over on my kissing her and promising we would go to a jeweller"s on the morrow and have one something like it put on her own arm.
She soon fell asleep after peace was restored, but I lay awake for hours watching the tracery of palm shadows on the wall opposite, thrown there by the light of the square. At midnight the lamp was put out, the room grew black, without a ray of light, and after a time I, too, fell asleep.
I was awakened by a curious sense of a presence in the room. My eyelids flew open, my ears strained. The room was one solid block of blackness, there was no ray of light anywhere. I could see and hear nothing for a moment, though I was certain another living thing had entered the room. Then at the same instant there was a violent vibration of the bed beneath me and a piercing scream from Suzee, a blind, wild cry to me for protection.
Instinctively I threw my arms out to her. Her body was struggling, writhing. I felt it as my hands shot out and gripped fiercely, in the thick darkness, round two hard hairy arms, tense, rigid, as they held her down.
Suzee"s voice broke out suddenly as my grip possibly loosened the pressure of those other hands upon her throat, and she was speaking in _Chinese_. A hot breath came on my eyes, some face must have been close to mine in the blackness; under my arms, on Suzee"s wildly heaving body, I felt something moving, warm and slow and soft, and knew that it was blood.
"Suzee," I called to her across her clamour of terrified entreaty, "get a light if you can."
The hot breath came nearer.
"Devil! Devil! This is your promise, your English word." The sound came to me like the hiss of steam close to my ear, but I knew the voice of Hop Lee--Hop Lee buried in Sitka, thousands of miles away.
The arms in my clutch struggled furiously; in their spasm of muscular effort they tore me upwards from the bed, as the lock of my fingers would not give way.
Suzee"s voice clamoured in pa.s.sionate entreaty, unintelligible to me.
Then suddenly came a terrific twist, which wrenched away one of the arms, and a lightning stab, a deep burning in my shoulder, and simultaneously a blaze of light. Over me hung the bent old form of Hop Lee, his right arm, lifted up, held a long knife raised for its second stab. His face was alight with fury. Scarlet was already running in bright ribands over the whiteness of the bed, Suzee"s blood and my own. I threw up my left arm and caught his wrist and turned the hand and knife upwards till it pointed to the ceiling, my own arm stretched to the fullest length upright. Suzee gave one horrible cry of terror, animal terror, and then there was silence beside me.
"She has fainted, has fainted," my brain muttered in itself. A sickening fear came into it as silence fell after that one awful cry.
I had my revolver under my pillow. If I could reach it! I looked up to the small red eyeb.a.l.l.s of the Chinaman.
They were insane, glaring, full of the wild, unreasoning l.u.s.t to kill.
Some instinct moved me to speak.
"You were dead, I heard. I never had your wife while you were alive."
"Liar! Liar! You shall pay me in blood."
His hand with the knife in it twisted itself round in my grip. I felt my uplifted arm losing its force. What was draining my strength? That stream coming softly from my shoulder.
I lifted myself, trying to throw him backwards. My arm suddenly bent at the elbow and his hand with the knife in it zigzagged downwards very near to my throat. Age and feebleness had disappeared from him.
He was strong now with the strength of insanity and of that blind leaping fury that glared out of his distorted face. There was a sudden struggle as he dropped on my chest, then with my hand still locked on his wrist we rolled together onto the floor.
A moment and we were up on our feet and he had forced me backwards to the bed. I felt my strength was going, but I still clung with a steel-like clutch to his wrist and kept the pointed knife at bay. As he bent me backwards on to the bed near the pillow, I took my right hand from his arm, s.n.a.t.c.hed the revolver from under the pillow, thrust it into his face between the eyes, and fired.
He fell forwards, a great hole torn in his forehead, from which a river of blood poured, joining the bright ribands and with them making a sea of crimson.
I looked across him to where Suzee lay motionless.
"Suzee," I said, my breath almost dying in my throat.
She stirred slightly. I was beside her in a moment. Her eyelids opened slowly. Then her eyes filled with terror.
"Where is he?" she muttered.
"Dead; he cannot hurt you any more. You are safe now."
"No, Treevor, I am dying; it pains me so here."
She laid one hand on her breast and I saw the blood well up between two fingers. I tore aside the muslin veils on her bosom and found the wound: it was not large, just one clean stab, turning purple at the edges.
"It is deep, Treevor; so deep. And it bleeds inside me. It is drinking my life. I have only a few minutes to tell you. Hold up my head. I can"t breathe."
I slipped my arm beneath her little neck. My heart seemed breaking with distress; black tides of resentment, of rage went through me, that she should be torn from me.
"Listen, Treevor. It was I that lied to you. I told you he was dead, and the child. They were not. I ran away. I left them at Sitka. I came to "Frisco and took refuge with that woman. Then I wrote to you."
A sudden horror of her seemed to enfold me as I heard.
How she had lied and deceived me! And forced me to break my word!
"Because I wanted you so much and I knew you would never have me if you thought he was still alive.... Your stupid promise. What are promises when one loves? I wanted you, Treevor, so much! So much!"