"My home is where my own is, and you, have taken my own from me, as I said," he burst out. "There was all the world for you, but I had only my music and my wife, and you have taken my wife from me. "Mi Duvel", you have taken, but you shall give back again, or there will be only one of us in the world! The music I have played for you--that has told you all: the thing that was music from the beginning of Time, the will of the First of All. Fleda Druse, she was mine, she is my wife, and you, the Gorgio, come between, and she will not return to me."
A sudden savage desire came to Ingolby to strike the man in the face--this Gipsy vagabond the husband of Fleda Druse! It was too monstrous. It was an evil lie, and yet she had said she was a Romany, and had said it with apparent shame or anxiety. She had given him no promise, had pledged no faith, had admitted no love, and yet already in his heart of hearts he thought upon her as his own. Ever since the day he had held her in his arms at the Carillon Rapids her voice had sounded in his ears, and a warmth was in his heart which had never been there in all his days. This waif of barbarism even to talk of Fleda Druse as though he was of the same sphere as herself invited punishment-but to claim her as his wife! It was shameless. An ugly mood came on him, the force that had made him what he was filled all his senses. He straightened himself; contempt of the Ishmael showed at his lips.
"I think you lie, Jethro Fawe," he said quietly, and his eyes were hard and piercing. "Gabriel Druse"s daughter is not--never was--any wife of yours. She never called you husband. She does not belong to the refuse of the world."
The Romany made a sudden rush towards the wall where the weapons hung, but two arms of iron were flung out and caught him, and he was hurled across the room. He crashed against a table, swayed, missed a chair where rested the Sarasate violin, then fell to the floor; but he staggered to his feet again, all his senses in chaos.
"You almost fell on the fiddle. If you had hurt it I"d have hurt you, Mr. Fawe," Ingolby said with a grim smile. "That fiddle"s got too much in it to waste it."
"Mi Duvel! Mi Duvel!" gasped the Romany in his fury.
"You can say that as much as you like, but if you play any more of your monkey tricks here, my Paganini, I will wring your neck," Ingolby returned, his six feet of solid flesh making a movement of menace.
"And look," he added, "since you are here, and I said what I meant, that I"d help you to get your own, I"ll keep my word. But don"t talk in d.a.m.ned riddles. Talk white men"s language. You said that Gabriel Druse"s daughter was your wife. Explain what you meant, and no nonsense."
The Romany made a gesture of acquiescence. "She was made mine according to Romany law by the River Starzke seventeen years ago. I was the son of Lemuel Fawe, rightful King of all the Romanys. Gabriel Druse seized the headship, and my father gave him three thousand pounds that we should marry, she and I, and so bring the headship to the Fawes again when Gabriel Druse should die; and so it was done by the River Starzke in the Roumelian country."
Ingolby winced, for the man"s words rang true. A cloud came over his face, but he said nothing. Jethro saw the momentary advantage. "You did not know?" he asked. "She did not tell you she was made my wife those years ago? She did not tell you she was the daughter of the Romany King?
So it is, you see, she is afraid to tell the truth."
Ingolby"s knitted bulk heaved with desire to injure. "Your wife--you melodious sinner! Do you think such tomfoolery has any effect in this civilized country? She is about as much your wife as I am your brother.
Don"t talk your heathenish rot here. I said I"d help you to get your own, because you played the fiddle as few men can play it, and I owe you a lot for that hour"s music; but there"s nothing belonging to Gabriel Druse that belongs to you, and his daughter least of all. Look out--don"t sit on the fiddle, d.a.m.n you!"
The Romany had made a motion as if to sit down on the chair where the fiddle was, but stopped short at Ingolby"s warning. For an instant Jethro had an inclination to seize the fiddle and break it across his knees. It would be an exquisite thing to destroy five thousand dollars"
worth of this man"s property at a single wrench and blow. But the spirit of the musician a.s.serted itself before the vengeful lover could carry out his purpose; as Ingolby felt sure it would. Ingolby had purposely given the warning about the fiddle, in the belief that it might break the unwelcome intensity of the scene. He detested melodrama, and the scene came precious near to it. Men had been killed before his eyes more than once, but there had been no rodomontade even when there had been a woman in the case.
This Romany lover, however, seemed anxious to make a Sicilian drama out of his preposterous claim, and it sickened him. Who was the fellow that he should appear in the guise of a rival to himself! It was humiliating and offensive. Ingolby had his own kind of pride and vanity, and they were both hurt now. He would have been less irritable if this rival had been as good a man as himself or better. He was so much a gamester that he would have said, "Let the best man win," and have taken his chances.
His involuntary strategy triumphed for the moment. The Romany looked at the fiddle for an instant with murderous eyes, but the cool, quiet voice of Ingolby again speaking sprayed his hot virulence.
"You can make a good musician quite often, but a good fiddle is a prize-packet from the skies," Ingolby said. "When you get a good musician and a good fiddle together it"s a day for a salute of a hundred guns."
Half-dazed with unregulated emotion, Jethro acted with indecision for a moment, and the fiddle was safe. But he had suffered the indignity of being flung like a bag of bones across the room, and the microbe of insane revenge was in him. It was not to be killed by the cold humour of the man who had worsted him. He returned to the attack.
"She is mine, and her father knows it is so. I have waited all these years, and the hour has come. I will--"
Ingolby"s eyes became hard and merciless again. "Don"t talk your Gipsy rhetoric. I"ve had enough. No hour has come that makes a woman do what she doesn"t want to do in a free country. The lady is free to do what she pleases here within British law, and British law takes no heed of Romany law or any other law. You"ll do well to go back to your Roumelian country or whatever it is. The lady will marry whom she likes."
"She will never marry you," the Romany said huskily and menacingly.
"I have never asked her, but if I do, and she said yes, no one could prevent it."
"I would prevent it."
"How?"
"She is a Romany: she belongs to the Romany people; I will find a way."
Ingolby had a flash of intuition.
"You know well that if Gabriel Druse pa.s.sed the word, your life wouldn"t be worth a day"s purchase. The Camorra would not be more certain or more deadly. If you do anything to hurt the daughter of Gabriel Druse, you will pay the full price, and you know it. The Romanys don"t love you better than their rightful chief."
"I am their rightful chief."
"Maybe, but if they don"t say so, too, you might as well be their rightful slave. You are a genius in your way. Take my advice and return to the trail of the Gipsy. Or, there"s many an orchestra would give you a good salary as leader. You"ve got no standing in this country. You can"t do anything to hurt me except try to kill me, and I"ll take my chance of that. You"d better have a drink now and go quietly home to bed. Try and understand that this is a British town, and we don"t settle our affairs by jumping from a violin rhapsody to a knife or a gun."
He jerked his head backwards towards the wall. "Those things are for ornament, not for use. Come, Fawe, have a drink and go home like a good citizen for one night only."
The Romany hesitated, then shook his head and muttered chaotically.
"Very well," was the decisive reply. Ingolby pressed a bell, and, in an instant, Jim Beadle was in the room. He had evidently been at the keyhole. "Jim," he said, "show the gentleman out."
But suddenly he caught up a box of cigars from the table and thrust it into the Romany"s hands. "They"re the best to be got this side of Havana," he said cheerily. "They"ll help you put more fancy still into your playing. Good night. You never played better than you"ve done during the last hour, I"ll stake my life on that. Good night. Show Mr.
Fawe out, Jim."
The Romany had not time to thrust back the cigars upon his host, and dazed by the strategy of the thing, by the superior force and mind of the man who a moment ago he would have killed, he took the box and turned towards the door, taking his hat dazedly from Jim.
At the door, however, catching sight of the sly grin on the mulatto servant"s face, his rage and understanding returned to him, and he faced the masterful Gorgio once again.
"By G.o.d, I"ll have none of it!" he exclaimed roughly and threw the box of cigars on the floor of the room. Ingolby was not perturbed. "Don"t forget there"s an east-bound train every day," he said menacingly, and turned his back as the door closed.
In another minute Jim entered the room. "Get the clothes and the wig and things, Jim. I must be off," he said.
"The toughs don"t get going till about this time over at Manitou,"
responded Jim. Then he told his master about the clothes having been exposed in the room when the Romany arrived. "But I don"t think he seen them," Jim added with approval of his own conduct. "I got "em out quick as lightning. I covered "em like a blanket."
"All right, Jim; it doesn"t matter. That fellow"s got other things to think of than that."
He was wrong, however. The Romany was waiting outside in the darkness not far away--watching and waiting.
CHAPTER X. FOR LUCK
Felix Marchand was in the highest spirits. His clean-shaven face was wrinkled with smiles and sneers. His black hair was flung in waves of triumph over his heavily-lined forehead; one hand was on his hip with brave satisfaction, the other with lighted cigarette was tossed upwards in exultation.
"I"ve got him. I"ve got him--like that!" he said transferring the cigarette to his mouth, and clenching his right hand as though it could not be loosed by an earthquake. "For sure, it"s a thing finished as the solder of a pannikin--like that."
He caught up a tin quart-pot from the bar-counter and showed the soldered bottom of it.
He was alone in the bar of Barbazon"s Hotel except for one person--the youngest of the officials who had been retired from the offices of the railways when Ingolby had merged them. This was a man who had got his position originally by nepotism, and represented the worst elements of a national life where the spoils system is rooted in the popular mind. He had, however, a little residue of that discipline which, working in a great industrial organization, begets qualms as to extreme courses.
He looked reflectively at the leaden pot and said in reply: "I"d never believe in anything where that Ingolby is concerned till I had it in the palm of my hand. He"s as deep as a well, and when he"s quietest it"s good to look out. He takes a lot of skinning, that badger."
"He"s skinned this time all right," was Marchand"s reply. "To-morrow"ll be the biggest day Manitou"s had since the Indian lifted his wigwam and the white man put down his store. Listen--hear them! They"re coming!"
He raised a hand for silence, and a rumbling, ragged roar of voices could be heard without.
"The crowd have gone the rounds," he continued. "They started at Barbazon"s and they"re winding up at Barbazon"s. They"re drunk enough to-night to want to do anything, and to-morrow when they"ve got sore heads they"ll do anything. They"ll make that funeral look like a squeezed orange; they"ll show Lebanon and Master Ingolby that we"re to be bosses of our own show. The strike"ll be on after the funeral, and after the strike"s begun there"ll be--eh, bien sur!"