""Ain"t no use lowerin"," he said. "Besides, he ain"t worth savin"."
"That night I had to crawl over the dead man"s empty berth; his pillow and quilt were just as he had left them, all tumbled and mussed, and his tin tobacco-box where he had laid it. Try as I would as I lay awake in my warm bunk and thought of him out in the sea, and my own close shave for life, I could not get rid of a certain uncanny feeling--something akin to the sensation as that of which Lemois was speaking. Only an instant"s time had saved me from the same awful plunge--his last in life. I never got over the feeling until we reached port, for his berth was left untouched and his tin tobacco-box still lay beside his pillow.
Even now when a sailor or fisherman pulls out an old tin box--they are all pretty much alike--or cuts a plug with a sheath knife, it gives me a shudder."
"Served the brute right!" cried Louis. "Very good story, Herbert--a little exaggerated in parts, particularly where you were so absent-minded as to select the face of the gentleman for your murderous kick, but it"s all right: very good story. I could freeze you all solid by an experience I had with an Apache who followed me on my way to Montmartre last week, but I won"t."
"Give it to us, Louis!" cried everybody in unison.
"No!"
"Well, why not?" I demanded.
"Because he turned down the next street. I said I _could_, and I would if he"d kept on after me. Your turn, Brierley. We haven"t heard from you since you kept school for crows and wild ducks and taught them how to dodge bird shot. Unhook your ear-flaps, gentlemen; the distinguished naturalist is about to relate another one of his soul-stirring adventures--pure fiction, of course, but none the less entertaining."
Before I could reply, Lemois, who had followed the course of the discussion with the keenest interest, interrupted with a deprecating shrug of his shoulders, his fingers widened out.
"But not another bird story, if you please, Monsieur Brierley. We want something deeper and stronger. We have touched upon a great subject to-night, and have only sc.r.a.ped the surface."
Herbert leaned forward until he caught Lemois" eye.
"Say the rest, Lemois. You have something to tell us."
"I! No--I have nothing to tell you. My life has been too stupid. I am always either bowing to my guests or making sauces for them over Pierre"s fire. I could only tell you about things of which I have _heard_. You, Monsieur Herbert, can tell us of things with which you have _lived_. I want to listen now to something we will remember, like your story of the cannibal"s wife. Almost every night since you have been here I go to bed with a great song ringing in my ears. You, Monsieur Herbert, must yourself have seen such tragedies in men"s lives, when in the s.p.a.ce of a lightning"s flash their souls were stripped clean and they left naked."
Herbert played with his fork for a moment, threw it back upon the cloth, and then said in a decided tone:
"No--it is not my turn; I"ve talked enough to-night. Open up, Le Blanc, and give us something out of the old Latin Quartier--there were tragedies enough there."
"Only what absinthe and starvation brought--and a ring now and then on the wrong girl"s finger--or none at all, as the case might have been.
But you"ve got a story, Herbert, if you will tell it, which will send Lemois to bed with a whole orchestra sounding in his ears."
Herbert looked up.
"Which one?"
"The fever camp at Bangala."
Herbert"s face became instantly grave and an expression of intense thought settled upon it. We waited, our eyes fixed upon him.
"No--I"d rather not, Le Blanc," he said slowly. "That belongs to the dead past, and it is best to leave it so."
"Tell it, Herbert," I coaxed.
"Both you and Le Blanc have heard it."
"But Lemois and the others haven"t."
"Got any cannibals or barbecues in it, Herbert?" inquired Louis.
"No, just plain white man all the way through, Louis. Two of them are still alive--I and another fellow. And you really want it again, Le Blanc? Well, all right. But before I begin I must ask you to pardon my referring so often to my African experiences"--and he glanced in apology around the table--"but I was there at a most impressionable age, and they still stand out in my mind--this one in particular. You may have read of the horrors that took place at Bangala in what at the time was known as the fever camp, where some of the bravest fellows who ever entered the jungles met their deaths. Both natives and white men had succ.u.mbed, one after another, in a way that wiped out all hope.
"The remedies we had, had been used without effect, and quinine had lost its power to pull down the temperature, and each fellow knew that if he were not among those carried out feet foremost to-day, and buried so deep that the hyenas could not dig him up, it was only a question if on the morrow his own turn did not come. A strange kind of fear had taken possession of us, sick or well, and a cold, deadening despair had crept into our hearts, so great was the mortality, and so quickly when once a man was stricken did the end come. We were hundreds of miles from civilization of any kind, unable to move our quarters unless we deserted our sick, and even then there was no healthier place within reach. And so, not knowing who would go next, we awaited the end.
"The only other white man in the country besides ourselves was a young English missionary who had taken up his quarters in a native village some two miles away, in the low, marshy lands, and who from the very day of his arrival had set to work to teach and care for the swarms of native children who literally infested the settlement. Many of these had been abandoned by their parents and would have perished but for his untiring watchfulness. When the fever broke out he, with the a.s.sistance of those of the natives whom he could bribe to help, had constructed a rude hospital into which the little people were placed. These he nursed with his own hands, and as children under ten years of age were less liable to the disease than those who were older, and, when stricken, easier to coax back to life, his mortality list was very much less than our own.
"With our first deaths we would send for him to come up the hill and perform the last rites over the poor fellows, but, as our lists grew, we abandoned even this. Why I escaped at the time I do not know, unless it was by sheer force of will. I have always believed that the mind has such positive influence over the body that if you can keep it working you can arrest the progress of any disease--certainly long enough for the other forces of the body to come to its aid. So when I was at last bowled over and so ill that I could not stand on my feet, or even turn on my bed, I would have some one raise me to a sitting posture and then I would deliberately shave myself. The mental effort to get the beard off without cutting the skin; the determination to leave no spot untouched; the making of the lather, balancing of the razor, and propping up of the small bit of looking-gla.s.s so as to reflect my face properly, was what I have always thought really saved my life.
"What I started to tell you, however, happened before I was finally stricken and will make you think of the tales often heard of shipwrecked men who, having given up all hope at the pumps, turn in despair and break open the captain"s lockers, drinking themselves into a state of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. It is the coward"s way of meeting death, or perhaps it means the great final protest of the physical against the spiritual--a mad defiance of the inevitable--and confirms what some of our physiologists have always maintained--that only a thin stratum of self-control divides us from something lower than the beast.
"We had buried one of our bravest and best comrades, one whose name is still held in reverence by all who knew him, and after we had laid him in the ground an orgy began, which I am ashamed to say--for I was no better than the rest--was as cowardly as it was b.e.s.t.i.a.l. My portable india-rubber bath-tub, being the largest vessel in the camp, was the punch-bowl, and into it was dumped every liquor we had in the place: Portuguese wine, Scotch whiskey, Ba.s.s"s ale, brown stout, cognac--nothing escaped. You can imagine what followed. Those of our natives who helped themselves, after a wild outburst of savagery, soon relapsed into a state of unconsciousness. The exhilaration of the white man lasted longer, and was followed by a fighting frenzy which filled the night with horror. Men tore their clothes from their backs and, half-naked, danced in a circle, the flickering light of the camp-fire distorting their bodies into demons. It was h.e.l.l let loose!
"I have got rather a strong head, but one cup of that mixture sent my brain reeling. My fear was that my will would give way and I be tempted to drink a second dipperful and so knocked completely out. With this idea firmly in my mind, I watched my chance and escaped outside the raging circle, where I found a pool into which I plunged my head. This sobered me a little and I kept on in the darkness until I reached the edge of the hill overlooking the missionary"s settlement, the shouts of the frenzied men growing fainter and fainter.
"As I sat there my brain began to clear. I noticed the dull light of the moon shrouded in a deadly fog that rose from the valley below. In its mysterious dimness the wraiths of mist and fog became processions of ghosts stealing slowly up the hill--spirits of the dead on their way to judgment. The swollen moon swimming in the drowsy vapor was an evil eye from which there was no escape--searching the souls of men--mine among them--I, who had been spared death and in return had defied all the laws of decency. The cries of the forest rang in my ears, loud and insistent.
The howl of a pariah dog, the hoot of an owl, became so many questions--all directed toward me--all demanding an answer for my sins.
Even the hum of myriads of insects seemed concerned with me, disputing in low tones and deciding on my punishment.
"Gradually these sounds grew less insistent, and soft as a breath of air--hardly perceptible at first--there rose from the valley below, like a curl of smoke mounting into the stillness, a strain of low, sweet music, and as suddenly ceased. I bent my head, wondering whether I was dreaming. I had heard that same music, when I was a boy at home, wafted toward me from the open window of the village church. How came it here?
Why sing it? Why torture me with it--who would never see home again?
"I struggled to my feet, steadied myself against a cotton-tree, and fixed my eyes on the valley below; my ears strained to catch the first recurrent note. Again it rose on the night air, this time strong and clear, as if a company of angels were singing.
"I knew now!
"It was the hymn my friend the missionary had taught the children.
"I plunged down the hill, stumbling, falling, only to drag myself to my feet again, groping my way through the dense night fog and the tangle of undergrowth, until I reached the small stockade at the foot of the incline which circled the missionary station. Crossing this ground, I followed the path and entered a small gate. Beyond it lay a flat piece of land cleared of all underbrush, and at its extreme end the rude bamboo hut of a hospital filled with sick and dying children.
"Once more on the deadly night air rose the hymn, a note of exaltation now, calling me on--to what I knew not, nor did I care, so it would ease the grinding fear under which I had lived for weeks.
"Suddenly I came to a halt. In the faint moonlight, within a dozen yards of me, knelt the figure of a man. He was praying--his hands upraised, his face lifted--the words falling from his lips distinctly audible. I moved nearer. Before him was a new-made grave--one he had dug himself--to cover the body of a child who had died at sunset.
"It was a moment I have never forgotten, and never want to forget.
"On the hill above me were the men I had left--a frenzied body of b.e.s.t.i.a.l cowards who had dishonored themselves, their race, and their G.o.d; here beside me, huddled together, a group of forest children--sp.a.w.n of cannibal and savage--racked with fever, half-starved, many of them delirious, their souls rising to heaven on the wings of a song.
"And then the kneeling man himself!--his courage facing death every hour of the day--alone--no one to help--only his Maker as witness. I tell you, gentlemen, that when I stood beside him and looked into his eyes, caught the tones of his voice, and watched the movement of his fingers patting the last handfuls of earth over the poor little nameless body, and realized that his only recompense lay in that old line I used to hear so often when I was a boy--"If ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me"--I could have gone down on my knees beside him and thanked my Creator that He had sent me to him."
IX
IN WHICH MADAME LA MARQUISE BINDS UP BROKEN HEADS AND BLEEDING HEARTS
The morning brought us two most welcome pieces of news, one being that Gaston, his head swathed in bandages, had, with the doctor"s approval, gone home an hour before breakfast, and the other that our now adorable Madame la Marquise de la Caux, with Marc as gentleman-in-waiting, would arrive at the Inn some time during the day or evening, the exact hour being dependent upon her duties at the site of her "ruin." These pieces of news, being positive and without question, were received with the greatest satisfaction, Gaston"s recovery meaning fresh roses in Mignon"s cheeks and madame"s visit giving us another glimpse of her charming personality.
That which was less positive, because immediately smothered and sent around in whispers, were rumors of certain happenings that had taken place shortly after daybreak. Mignon, so the word ran, before seeking her little cot the night before, had caught a nod, or the lift of Lea"s brow, arched over a meaning eye, or a significant smile--some sort of wireless, anyway, with Lea as chief operator, and a private wire to Louis" room, immediately over Gaston"s. What she had learned had kept the girl awake half the night and sent her skipping on her toes at the break of dawn to the little pa.s.sageway at the far end of the court-yard, where she had cried over Gaston and kissed him good-by, Lea being deaf and dumb and blind. All this occurred before the horrible old bogie (Lemois was the bogie), who had given strict orders that everything should be done for the comfort of the boy before he left the Inn, was fairly awake; certainly before he was out of bed.