"Can one work there?"
"Certainly. One must do something always. You hang your canvas up in a palm tree and let the parrots criticise. When the scuffle you heave a ripe custard-apple at them, and it bursts in a lather of cream. There are hundreds of places. Come and see them."
"I don"t quite like that place. It sounds lazy. Tell me another."
"What do you think of a big, red, dead city built of red sandstone, with raw green aloes growing between the stones, lying out neglected on honey-coloured sands? There are forty dead kings there, Maisie, each in a gorgeous tomb finer than all the others. You look at the palaces and streets and shops and tanks, and think that men must live there, till you find a wee gray squirrel rubbing its nose all alone in the market-place, and a jewelled peac.o.c.k struts out of a carved doorway and spreads its tail against a marble screen as fine pierced as point-lace.
Then a monkey--a little black monkey--walks through the main square to get a drink from a tank forty feet deep. He slides down the creepers to the water"s edge, and a friend holds him by the tail, in case he should fall in."
"Is that all true?"
"I have been there and seen. Then evening comes, and the lights change till it"s just as though you stood in the heart of a king-opal. A little before sundown, as punctually as clockwork, a big bristly wild boar, with all his family following, trots through the city gate, churning the foam on his tusks. You climb on the shoulder of a blind black stone G.o.d and watch that pig choose himself a palace for the night and stump in wagging his tail. Then the night-wind gets up, and the sands move, and you hear the desert outside the city singing, "Now I lay me down to sleep," and everything is dark till the moon rises. Maisie, darling, come with me and see what the world is really like. It"s very lovely, and it"s very horrible,--but I won"t let you see anything horrid,--and it doesn"t care your life or mine for pictures or anything else except doing its own work and making love. Come, and I"ll show you how to brew sangaree, and sling a hammock, and--oh, thousands of things, and you"ll see for yourself what colour means, and we"ll find out together what love means, and then, maybe, we shall be allowed to do some good work.
Come away!"
"Why?" said Maisie.
"How can you do anything until you have seen everything, or as much as you can? And besides, darling, I love you. Come along with me. You have no business here; you don"t belong to this place; you"re half a gipsy,--your face tells that; and I--even the smell of open water makes me restless. Come across the sea and be happy!"
He had risen to his feet, and stood in the shadow of the gun, looking down at the girl. The very short winter afternoon had worn away, and, before they knew, the winter moon was walking the untroubled sea. Long ruled lines of silver showed where a ripple of the rising tide was turning over the mud-banks. The wind had dropped, and in the intense stillness they could hear a donkey cropping the frosty gra.s.s many yards away. A faint beating, like that of a m.u.f.fled drum, came out of the moon-haze.
"What"s that?" said Maisie, quickly. "It sounds like a heart beating.
Where is it?"
d.i.c.k was so angry at this sudden wrench to his pleadings that he could not trust himself to speak, and in this silence caught the sound. Maisie from her seat under the gun watched him with a certain amount of fear.
She wished so much that he would be sensible and cease to worry her with over-sea emotion that she both could and could not understand. She was not prepared, however, for the change in his face as he listened.
"It"s a steamer," he said,--"a twin-screw steamer, by the beat. I can"t make her out, but she must be standing very close insh.o.r.e. Ah!" as the red of a rocket streaked the haze, "she"s standing in to signal before she clears the Channel."
"Is it a wreck?" said Maisie, to whom these words were as Greek.
d.i.c.k"s eyes were turned to the sea. "Wreck! What nonsense! She"s only reporting herself. Red rocket forward--there"s a green light aft now, and two red rockets from the bridge."
"What does that mean?"
"It"s the signal of the Cross Keys Line running to Australia. I wonder which steamer it is." The note of his voice had changed; he seemed to be talking to himself, and Maisie did not approve of it. The moonlight broke the haze for a moment, touching the black sides of a long steamer working down Channel. "Four masts and three funnels--she"s in deep draught, too. That must be the Barralong, or the Bhutia. No, the Bhutia has a clipper bow. It"s the Barralong, to Australia. She"ll lift the Southern Cross in a week,--lucky old tub!--oh, lucky old tub!"
He stared intently, and moved up the slope of the fort to get a better view, but the mist on the sea thickened again, and the beating of the screws grew fainter. Maisie called to him a little angrily, and he returned, still keeping his eyes to seaward. "Have you ever seen the Southern Cross blazing right over your head?" he asked. "It"s superb!"
"No," she said shortly, "and I don"t want to. If you think it"s so lovely, why don"t you go and see it yourself?"
She raised her face from the soft blackness of the marten skins about her throat, and her eyes shone like diamonds. The moonlight on the gray kangaroo fur turned it to frosted silver of the coldest.
"By Jove, Maisie, you look like a little heathen idol tucked up there."
The eyes showed that they did not appreciate the compliment. "I"m sorry," he continued. "The Southern Cross isn"t worth looking at unless someone helps you to see. That steamer"s out of hearing."
"d.i.c.k," she said quietly, "suppose I were to come to you now,--be quiet a minute,--just as I am, and caring for you just as much as I do."
"Not as a brother, though. You said you didn"t--in the Park."
"I never had a brother. Suppose I said, "Take me to those places, and in time, perhaps, I might really care for you," what would you do?"
"Send you straight back to where you came from, in a cab. No, I wouldn"t; I"d let you walk. But you couldn"t do it, dear. And I wouldn"t run the risk. You"re worth waiting for till you can come without reservation."
"Do you honestly believe that?"
"I have a hazy sort of idea that I do. Has it never struck you in that light?"
"Ye--es. I feel so wicked about it."
"Wickeder than usual?"
"You don"t know all I think. It"s almost too awful to tell."
"Never mind. You promised to tell me the truth--at least."
"It"s so ungrateful of me, but--but, though I know you care for me, and I like to have you with me, I"d--I"d even sacrifice you, if that would bring me what I want."
"My poor little darling! I know that state of mind. It doesn"t lead to good work."
"You aren"t angry? Remember, I do despise myself."
"I"m not exactly flattered,--I had guessed as much before,--but I"m not angry. I"m sorry for you. Surely you ought to have left a littleness like that behind you, years ago."
"You"ve no right to patronise me! I only want what I have worked for so long. It came to you without any trouble, and--and I don"t think it"s fair."
"What can I do? I"d give ten years of my life to get you what you want.
But I can"t help you; even I can"t help."
A murmur of dissent from Maisie. He went on--"And I know by what you have just said that you"re on the wrong road to success. It isn"t got at by sacrificing other people,--I"ve had that much knocked into me; you must sacrifice yourself, and live under orders, and never think for yourself, and never have real satisfaction in your work except just at the beginning, when you"re reaching out after a notion."
"How can you believe all that?"
"There"s no question of belief or disbelief. That"s the law, and you take it or refuse it as you please. I try to obey, but I can"t, and then my work turns bad on my hands. Under any circ.u.mstances, remember, four-fifths of everybody"s work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake."
"Isn"t it nice to get credit even for bad work?"
"It"s much too nice. But----May I tell you something? It isn"t a pretty tale, but you"re so like a man that I forget when I"m talking to you."
"Tell me."
"Once when I was out in the Soudan I went over some ground that we had been fighting on for three days. There were twelve hundred dead; and we hadn"t time to bury them."
"How ghastly!"
"I had been at work on a big double-sheet sketch, and I was wondering what people would think of it at home. The sight of that field taught me a good deal. It looked just like a bed of horrible toadstools in all colours, and--I"d never seen men in bulk go back to their beginnings before. So I began to understand that men and women were only material to work with, and that what they said or did was of no consequence.
See? Strictly speaking, you might just as well put your ear down to the palette to catch what your colours are saying."
"d.i.c.k, that"s disgraceful!"