Complete Works of E W Hornung

by E. W. Hornung

  “Mischief, my good man?” replied a rich deep voice, a little overladen with superior scorn. “Nothing more mischievous, I take it, than a few words with the superintendent of this gang. Perhaps you will be so extremely condescending as to give him my card.”

  “I am he,” said the major. “What can I do for you?”

  “The honour of glancing at my card,” said the stranger, with a bow as elaborate as his scorn.

  “Well, sir?”

  “My name may be familiar to you.”

  “Never heard it in my life,” replied the major bluntly. “However,” he added, as the other coloured terribly, “I live out of the world, Mr. Daintree, as you perceive.” Tom was at work quite near, and he heard the name distinctly. He, too, had never heard it before. And yet he had some dim recollection of the face, so that he was watching it intently, and saw the flush with which Daintree very fussily produced a letter.

  “That is your misfortune, sir,” Tom heard him retort; and the rap put the major in a good temper on the spot. He sang out for a wardsman to come and take charge of the gentleman’s horses.

  “Nevertheless,” continued Daintree, “I take it that even you, sir, are acquainted with the name of the writer of the missive in my hand. I am the bearer, Major Honeybone,” with immense pomposity, “of a letter from my friend, his Excellency Sir George Gipps, the Governor of this Colony!”

  “Never met him,” returned the major, with a twinkling eye. “It is my first acquaintance even with his handwriting.” Indeed his Excellency had been not many weeks installed; but it was years since the major had heard tones so rich and periods so round as those of his Excellency’s friend, whom he hereupon escorted with hospitality to his house.

  Now in this poor hut, opposite that stockade full of felons, and in that desert place, the major kept a few dozens of admirable wine, and some boxes of excellent cigars. Two of these were alight, and the gentlemen had clinked glasses and taken a sip, before Major Honey-bone would permit himself to open his Excellency’s letter. Hardly had he done so when he regretted both wine and cigars. He looked up suddenly, and in wrath, which, however, was somewhat disarmed by the eager light he thus surprised in the visitor’s strong and dusky face.

  “What on earth do you want him for? I call this a most monstrous request,” said Major Honeybone; and the last sentence was meant to have come first, until Daintree’s look inverted them.

  “Request?” said Daintree, raising his eyebrows slightly.

  “Yes, sir, request!” cried the major. “Command, sir, is a thing I don’t take from a gentleman I’ve never had the honour of setting eyes on; and this is one that Sir Richard Bourke, sir, would sooner have died than give!”

  Daintree pursed up his eyes. As it was only by patient exercise of two characteristic qualities that he had got the letter at all, so he now saw that he must trust to those two qualities to overcome this other masterful man. He must be diplomatic; he must have patience; he must pick his way where he could not force it; and it was very clear that there would be no forcing this Major Honeybone.

  The letter authorised and begged the major to deliver and hand over Thomas Erichsen, Seahorse, then undergoing sentence in the major’s iron-gang, to the bearer, who particularly wished to have him for his assigned body-servant, and undertook to make himself thenceforward responsible for the said convict’s good behaviour. It was an irregular letter; no reason was given for granting such a favour at all. It did say, however, that Mr. Daintree would give his reasons; and with the letter in both hands, as though on the point of tearing it up, the major leant back in his chair and regarded the other with a prolonged and curious stare.

  “What are your reasons?” he asked at length.

  “He is an innocent man,” replied Daintree impressively.

  “A convicted murderer, I understood.”

  “Wrongly convicted. I followed his case. Did you?”

  “No, sir,” said the major; “they give me quite enough work out here.”

  “Well, I did follow it,” the visitor went on. “Between ourselves, Major Honeybone, I did a great deal more than that. The case interested me from the first. I knew something about this poor lad. That knowledge, together with the circumstances of the case, convinced me at the time that he was an innocent man.”

  “He isn’t one now,” remarked Major Honeybone.

  “I — I am not a pauper, sir,” proceeded Daintree with embarrassment. “I don’t want this to go any further; but you see, I knew something about the boy; and, in short, I found the money for his defence!”

  “The dickens you did!” exclaimed the major. “Then you were a friend of his?”

  “I am his friend, sir, though he has never seen me.”

  “It was a noble thing to do— ‘pon my soul it was,” observed the major, very much impressed. “Quite quixotic, upon my soul!”

  This open admiration hit Daintree in his weakest spot; he leant forward and quoted the irresistible figures in a sudden blaze of self-satisfaction.

  “Lor’!” said the major. “You don’t say so. Gad-zooks!”

  “When I do a thing at all,” remarked Daintree with perfect truth, “I do it with all my heart. Either that or I leave it alone. So I need hardly tell you I didn’t stop short at Serjeant Culliford. No, sir, I went to Lord John Russell himself; it would be an affectation were I to conceal my impression that his lordship’s final decision was not uninfluenced by what I said.”

  Major Honeybone was too used to lies not to know the truth when he chanced to hear it. He filled up both glasses and sucked thoughtfully at his cigar. Daintree watched him with an eager eye.

  “So he owes his life to you?” said the major at last. “Well, sir, then it is my duty to tell you that he owes you the greatest conceivable grudge!”

  Daintree sighed.

  “I know what you mean,” said he. “I have heard much from the Principal Superintendent of convicts. I am only afraid I have more to hear from you.”

  “Not a great deal,” said the major, shrugging his shoulders. “He has had four floggings here, and one before he came here; but that’s always the way. I have known convicts who have never had the lash, but very few who’ve only had it once. It has a bad effect; but what can you do? I may tell you, sir, now that I think we understand each other, you are not the only man interested in Erichsen. I take an interest in him myself; but there’s no doing anything with him; and there would be no doing anything with any of ‘em if I didn’t come down on him as he will insist on deserving. I am sorry for him, I am sorry for you as his friend; but he’s the most dangerous man in my gang, and it would be a piece of madness to set him free. It would amount to that, you know; but Gipps can’t possibly push the matter any further after what I shall tell him; and no more must you, Mr. Daintree — you mustn’t indeed. Come, sir, I can’t say more. I am almost as sorry as you are. He’s a good sportsman!” cried old Honey bone, who was one himself. “I only wish he was hunting with the hounds instead of running with these confounded foxes of convicts!”

  Daintree took all this meekly. The major was not a little softened; that was something, but he might be made softer yet. It seemed to Daintree that a sufficiently affecting interview between himself and Erichsen, with Major Honeybone looking on, might have that effect. He pictured the convict in tears upon his knees, he heard his grateful broken utterances. He foresaw moisture even in the major’s shrewd orbs; and he was prepared, if necessary, to go upon his own knees to crave the interview.

  It was not necessary. Honeybone shrugged his shoulders, and left the room with Daintree sitting very still in his chair; he was not so still when the door shut, however. He sprang up and looked in a glass; he sat down again, wiping his forehead and his lips, and shrinking from what he courted, like a swain. He had taken deep note of Erichsen at his trial. That honest, fearless, guiltless gaze, he could see it still; yet he had sought it in vain half an hour since in the iron-gang.

  A soldier entered with a lighted lamp
. Daintree pushed back his chair a little, and was kept waiting no longer. Chains jingled outside, and in another moment the convict was ushered in by a sentry under arms, followed by the major, who shut the door.

  “Was this necessary?” whispered Daintree, glancing at the fixed bayonet with a shudder.

  “Quite,” replied the major aloud. “You don’t know your man.”

  He did not indeed: the fearlessness remained, and that was all.

  Daintree was speaking nervously, forcibly, with none of his habitual affectations, with little of his customary flow. He was saying he had taken an interest in the case at home in England, and had all along believed in the prisoner’s innocence. The prisoner stopped him at that word.

  “There’s only one man living who thinks so,” said he. “I know now where I’ve seen you before. It was at my trial. You are the man.”

  “What man?”

  “The one that saved my life. My worst friend!”

  The hoarse and surly voice stabbed Daintree to the heart. He saw Honeybone look at him, and recalled the major’s very similar words. He started up and offered Erichsen his hand.

  “Take it away,” growled Tom. “Say what you want with me, for God’s sake!”

  No; it was not Daintree’s ideal interview. As little did it resemble the meeting with his benefactor which Tom had once pictured, and even vainly solicited, but all so long ago — in that other life — that upon him the contrast was lost. All he still remembered was that he had once imagined himself indebted to this person for the blessed gift of life; all he now perceived was his mistake, and what a malignant curse that blessed gift had proved. Not that he resented it any more. He no longer resented anything in the world. Even this person’s kind, well-meant, emotional remarks moved him to no stronger feeling than one of slight impatience: nor was he listening when a look, an intonation, a pause, informed him that he had been asked a question.

  “Say it again,” said Tom.

  “I want you for my assigned servant,” repeated Daintree, disregarding both the decision and the presence of Major Honeybone, who sat there quite enjoying the prospect of further opposition. “I want to be your friend — to take you away from this ghastly place — to sponge the very memory of it out of your mind. The Governor agrees to it — I have his written leave. Will you come with me, Erichsen? Will you come? Will you come?”

  “You’re very good,” said Tom. “I prefer to stop where I am.”

  “What?” cried both gentlemen at once. The major looked personally aggrieved.

  “I prefer the iron-gang.”

  “To my house — my protection — my friendship?”

  Horror and mortification were in the rich, strong tones, and in the flushed and swarthy face.

  “I prefer the iron-gang,” repeated Tom; but his voice was weaker — he noticed it himself — and with the next breath was crying savagely that he would not go, that he would stop where he was, and who was Daintree to come interfering there? A lot he minded what the Governor or what fifty Governors said; there he was, and there he meant to stick; no power on earth should shift him out of that.

  “Oh!” said the major. “No power, eh?”

  “Short of a file of red-coats, which you can’t spare.”

  “Sentry, remove that man!”

  The rest of the gang were at supper. Tom clanked in and sat down with a rattle. He nodded to one or two desperate kindred spirits, half proudly, as much as to say, “All right, my lads; I’m not the man to desert his pals; I’m true game to those that are true game to me — I’m that if I’m nothing else.” Those indeed were the words in his heart; but nobody answered his nod, only some irons jingled, where Creasey had reached out under the table, and given Macbeth a kick.

  As they were all shuffling out of the mess-shed, Butter took a pill of paper from his mouth and pressed it into Tom’s hand. Tom unrolled it on his ledge, and furtively read it while the sentry still stood with his lantern on the threshold.

  These eleven words: —

  “All up since fleater went Mac and Cresy mean to squeek.”

  Hardly had he deciphered them when a wardsman thrust in his head and summoned Erichsen to the major’s quarters.

  “They’ve been quick about it,” thought Tom, as another wardsman joined them on the way.

  The major looked very stern and strong. Daintree was drawing on his gloves. Tom thought he recognised the little heap of clothes upon the floor; the trousers were blood-stained still.

  “Now, sir!” cried the major with a glittering eye. “I think you said that no power on earth would shift you out of this? Off with those irons, men, and he shall see!”

  Through the black window glowed the curricle lamps.

  PART III. MASTER AND MAN

  CHAPTER XXX

  “the noble unknown”

  TOM crawled into the vehicle as though those heavy chains still dangled about his legs. Nothing was so strange as the sudden cessation of the horrid jingle which had marked and mocked every movement of his body for four whole months. He felt quite lost without it, and he clambered into the curricle without a word. Daintree cracked his whip, and that was the sole sound from either of them in the first half-hour of keen and starlit freedom.

  “Feel cold, Erichsen?”

  “No.”

  “Because you can have my coat if you do. My things are thicker. Only say the word.”

  He said nothing; such gratitude as he felt in his degraded heart was not yet so poignant as to need expression; it was a very vague, dull sense at present. But Daintree understood: he had simply to sit next that silent, aged, callous figure to understand all.

  They drove on to Maitland, where they supped handsomely and lay all night. In the morning Tom was well and warmly clothed at the best store in the township. And that day the difference was that he kept turning to look over his shoulder, and this at shorter intervals as the day wore on.

  “Is anything following us?” said Daintree once.

  “Not yet,” said Tom.

  “Not yet! Why, what do you expect?”

  “What I deserve,” said Tom; and Daintree had the wisdom not to press him upon this or any other point. He knew what was alleged against Erichsen at Castle Sullivan. He had heard the story from the Principal Superintendent. He began to think there might be some truth in it after all.

  Next morning he was sure. They had put up at an unusually comfortable roadside inn, where Tom had a very excellent room, yet he came down with wild, unrested eyes and twitching fingers.

  “It’s no use!” he bitterly exclaimed.

  “Haven’t you slept?”

  “Not a wink. I heard them coming all-night long — heard them coming with the chains. Oh, take me back! They have made me the guilty man they said I was when I wasn’t. I deserve everything now!”

  And a second day of terror he spent in the curricle, looking backward hour after hour; but when that also passed over, and still nothing happened, he began to think that either Butter was mistaken, or the major incredulous, or his enemies of another mind now that he was gone. At all events he took heart of grace, and at last thanked Daintree for what he was doing: without asking, however, why he was doing it.

  On the third forenoon the spires and windmills of Sydney fringed the sky; then they mounted a hill, and there was the harbour sparkling above the roofs of the convict city.

  “We had better drop the ‘ Erichsen’ now,” said Daintree, as they drove up to the turnpike gate. “I suggest that ‘Thomas’ will suffice both for Christian name and surname. I think it would be preferable for the present. What say you?” Tom consented with perfect readiness and indifference; and he looked behind him for the last time, as much as to say what was the only thing on earth about which he was not as indifferent as the dead.

  They drove down Brickfield Hill, over the spot where Nat Sullivan had tumbled off his horse, and past the notorious inn where he had lain; it flourished still. And still the doleful felon music filled the air, striki
ng more staccato in this crisp weather than six months since in the heavy heat; but it struck to Tom’s heart no more. On the quay there was a crowd, and a fresh shipload of convicts disembarking, but Tom felt no pity for them either. And now, when his indignation was aroused, it was by the lounging laziness of a road-gang, whose overseers were smoking and chatting with the convicts, while the latter moved neither hand nor foot, and the sentries yawned at their posts.

  “They want the major there,” said Tom grimly. “He’d have that peck of stones about their ears if they stood looking at it much longer!” —

  Daintree turned and regarded him with a particularly pleased and kindly smile; then Tom knew that he had just volunteered his first remark since leaving the stockade; and he thought he knew with what sympathetic patience his first voluntary remark had been waited for, though he only now suspected this from Daintree’s smile. His heart swelled a little. They put up at an inn, and he made himself more useful to his new master than he had been yet.

  The bungalow was some few miles out, upon the delightful woody shores of Rose Bay; they drove on there in the afternoon; and the greenwood dipping beyond the post and rails of the Old Point Piper Road, the lush meadows dipping beyond that, and the azure arm of the harbour seen through the one and above the other, were all a very wonderful change after that terrible plateau of the past four months. Nor had they any feature in common with the detested region of Castle Sullivan. Tom had seen nothing like this up-country. To crown all, the bungalow lay bathed in the richest sunset when they reached it, and Rose Bay deserved that name indeed, for its sunlit waters appeared to be dimpled with wet rose-leaves from strand to strand. It was as though Nature herself were trying to soften that frozen heart and to welcome Tom Erichsen to this haven of peace.