Byrne, apparently unmoved by the seriousness of Theriere’s condition, removed the man’s cartridge belt and buckled it about his own waist, replacing the six empty shells in the revolver with six fresh ones. Presently he noticed the bound and gagged Oda Iseka lying in the brush behind them where he and Theriere had left him. The samurai were now sneaking cautiously toward their refuge. A sudden inspiration came to the mucker.
“Didn’t I hear youse chewin’ de rag wit de Chinks wen I hit de dump over dere?” he asked of Barbara.
The girl, oddly, understood him. She nodded her head, affirmatively.
“Youse savvy deyre lingo den, eh?”
“A little.”
“Tell dis gazimbat to wise his pals to de fact dat I’ll croak ‘im, if dey don’t beat it, an’ let us make our get-away. Theriere says as how he’s kink when his ole man croaks, an’ his ole man was de guy youse put to sleep in de chicken coop,” explained the mucker lucidly; “so dis slob’s kink hisself now.”
Barbara Harding was quick to see the strength of the man’s suggestion. Stepping to the edge of the clearing in full view of the advancing enemy, with the mucker at her side, revolver in hand, she called to them in the language of their forbears to listen to her message. Then she explained that they held the son of Oda Yorimoto prisoner, and that his life would be the price of any further attack upon them.
The samurai conferred together for a moment, then one of them called out that they did not believe her, that Oda Iseka, son of Oda Yorimoto, was safe in the village.
“Wait!” replied the girl. “We will show him to you,” and turning to Byrne she asked him to fetch the youth.
When the white man returned with the boy in his arms, a wail of mingled anguish and rage rose from the natives.
“If you molest us no further we shall not harm him,” cried Barbara, “and when we leave your island we shall set him free; but renew your attack upon us and this white man who holds him says that he will cut out his heart and feed it to the fox,” which was rather a bloodthirsty statement for so gentle a character as Barbara Harding; but she knew enough of the superstitious fears of the ancient Japanese to feel confident that this threat would have considerable weight with the subjects of the young Lord of Yoka.
Again the natives conferred in whispers. Finally he who had acted as spokesman before turned toward the strangers.
“We shall not harm you,” he said, “so long as you do not harm Oda Iseka; but we shall watch you always until you leave the island, and if harm befalls him then shall you never leave, for we shall kill you all.”
Barbara translated the man’s words to the mucker.
“Do youse fall fer dat?” he asked.
“I think they will be careful to make no open assault upon us,” replied the girl; “but never for an instant must we cease our watchfulness for at the first opportunity I am sure that they will murder us.”
They turned back to Theriere now. The man still lay, unconscious and moaning, where Byrne had deposited him. The mucker removed the gag from Oda Iseka’s mouth.
“Which way is water? Ask him,” he said to Barbara.
The girl put the question.
“He says that straight up this ravine behind us there is a little spring,” translated the girl.
Byrne lifted Theriere in his arms, after loosening Oda Iseka’s feet and tethering him to his own belt with the same grass rope; then he motioned the youth up the ravine.
“Walk beside me,” he said to Barbara Harding, “an’ keep yer lamps peeled behind.”
Thus, in silence, the party commenced the ascent of the trail which soon became rough and precipitous, while behind them, under cover of the brush, sneaked four trailing samurai.
After half an hour of the most arduous climbing the mucker commenced to feel the effects of loss of blood from his many wounds. He coughed a little now from the exertion, and when he did the blood spurted anew from the fresh wound in his breast.
Yet there was no wavering or weakness apparent to the girl who marched beside him, and she wondered at the physical endurance of the man. But when at last they came to a clear pool of water, half hidden by overhanging rocks and long masses of depending mosses, in the midst of a natural grotto of enchanting loveliness, and Oda Iseka signaled that their journey was at an end, Byrne laid Theriere gently upon the flower-starred sward, and with a little, choking gasp collapsed, unconscious, beside the Frenchman.
Barbara Harding was horror-stricken. She suddenly realized that she had commenced to feel that this giant of the slums was invulnerable, and with the thought came another — that to him she had come to look more than to Theriere for eventual rescue; and now, here she found herself in the center of a savage island, surrounded as she felt confident she was by skulking murderers, with only two dying white men and a brown hostage as companions.
And now Oda Iseka took in the situation, and with a grin of triumph raised his voice in a loud halloo.
“Come quickly, my people!” he cried; “for both the white men are dying,” and from the jungle below them came an answering shout.
“We come, Oda Iseka, Lord of Yoka! Your faithful samurai come!”
CHAPTER XIII. A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
AT THE sound of the harsh voices so close upon her Barbara Harding was galvanized into instant action. Springing to Byrne’s side she whipped Theriere’s revolver from his belt, where it reposed about the fallen mucker’s hips, and with it turned like a tigress upon the youth.
“Quick!” she cried. “Tell them to go back — that I shall kill you if they come closer.”
The boy shrank back in terror before the fiery eyes and menacing attitude of the white girl, and then with the terror that animated him ringing plainly in his voice he screamed to his henchmen to halt.
Relieved for a moment at least from immediate danger Barbara Harding turned her attention toward the two unconscious men at her feet. From appearances it seemed that either might breathe his last at any moment, and as she looked at Theriere a wave of compassion swept over her, and the tears welled to her eyes; yet it was to the mucker that she first ministered — why, she could not for the life of her have explained.
She dashed cold water from the spring upon his face. She bathed his wrists, and washed his wounds, tearing strips from her skirt to bandage the horrid gash upon his breast in an effort to stanch the flow of lifeblood that welled forth with the man’s every breath.
And at last she was rewarded by seeing the flow of blood quelled and signs of returning consciousness appear. The mucker opened his eyes. Close above him bent the radiant vision of Barbara Harding’s face. Upon his fevered forehead he felt the soothing strokes of her cool, soft hand. He closed his eyes again to battle with the effeminate realization that he enjoyed this strange, new sensation — the sensation of being ministered to by a gentle woman — and, perish the thought, by a gentlewoman!
With an effort he raised himself to one elbow, scowling at her.
“Gwan,” he said; “I ain’t no boob dude. Cut out de mush. Lemme be. Beat it!”
Hurt, more than she would have cared to admit, Barbara Harding turned away from her ungrateful and ungracious patient, to repeat her ministrations to the Frenchman. The mucker read in her expression something of the wound his words had inflicted, and he lay thinking upon the matter for some time, watching her deft, white fingers as they worked over the scarce breathing Theriere.
He saw her wash the blood and dirt from the ghastly wound in the man’s chest, and as he watched he realized what a world of courage it must require for a woman of her stamp to do gruesome work of this sort. Never before would such a thought have occurred to him. Neither would he have cared at all for the pain his recent words to the girl might have inflicted. Instead he would have felt keen enjoyment of her discomfiture.
And now another strange new emotion took possession of him. It was none other than a desire to atone in some way for his words. What wonderful transformation was taking place in the heart of
the Kelly gangster?
“Say!” he blurted out suddenly.
Barbara Harding turned questioning eyes toward him. In them was the cold, haughty aloofness again that had marked her cognizance of him upon the Halfmoon — the look that had made his hate of her burn most fiercely. It took the mucker’s breath away to witness it, and it made the speech he had contemplated more difficult than ever — nay, almost impossible. He coughed nervously, and the old dark, lowering scowl returned to his brow.
“Did you speak?” asked Miss Harding, icily.
Billy Byrne cleared his throat, and then there blurted from his lips not the speech that he had intended, but a sudden, hateful rush of words which seemed to emanate from another personality, from one whom Billy Byrne once had been.
“Ain’t dat boob croaked yet?” he growled.
The shock of that brutal question brought Barbara Harding to her feet. In horror she looked down at the man who had spoken thus of a brave and noble comrade in the face of death itself. Her eyes blazed angrily as hot, bitter words rushed to her lips, and then of a sudden she thought of Byrne’s self-sacrificing heroism in returning to Theriere’s side in the face of the advancing samurai — of the cool courage he had displayed as he carried the unconscious man back to the jungle — of the devotion, almost superhuman, that had sustained him as he struggled, uncomplaining, up the steep mountain path with the burden of the Frenchman’s body the while his own lifeblood left a crimson trail behind him.
Such deeds and these words were incompatible in the same individual. There could be but one explanation — Byrne must be two men, with as totally different characters as though they had possessed separate bodies. And who may say that her hypothesis was not correct — at least it seemed that Billy Byrne was undergoing a metamorphosis, and at the instant there was still a question as to which personality should eventually dominate.
Byrne turned away from the reproach which replaced the horror in the girl’s eyes, and with a tired sigh let his head fall upon his outstretched arm. The girl watched him for a moment, a puzzled expression upon her face, and then returned to work above Theriere.
The Frenchman’s respiration was scarcely appreciable, yet after a time he opened his eyes and looked up wearily. At sight of the girl he smiled wanly, and tried to speak, but a fit of coughing flecked his lips with bloody foam, and again he closed his eyes. Fainter and fainter came his breathing, until it was with difficulty that the girl detected any movement of his breast whatever. She thought that he was dying, and she was afraid. Wistfully she looked toward the mucker. The man still lay with his head buried in his arm, but whether he were wrapped in thought, in slumber, or in death the girl could not tell. At the final thought she went white with terror.
Slowly she approached the man, and leaning over placed her hand upon his shoulder.
“Mr. Byrne!” she whispered.
The mucker turned his face toward her. It looked tired and haggard.
“Wot is it?” he asked, and his tone was softer than she had ever heard it.
“I think Mr. Theriere is dying,” she said, “and I — I — Oh, I am so afraid.”
The man flushed to the roots of his hair. All that he could think of were the ugly words he had spoken a short time before — and now Theriere was dying! Byrne would have laughed had anyone suggested that he entertained any other sentiment than hatred toward the second officer of the Halfmoon — that is he would have twenty-four hours before; but now, quite unexpectedly, he realized that he didn’t want Theriere to die, and then it dawned upon him that a new sentiment had been born within him — a sentiment to which he had been a stranger all his hard life — friendship.
He felt friendship for Theriere! It was unthinkable, and yet the mucker knew that it was so. Painfully he crawled over to the Frenchman’s side.
“Theriere!” he whispered in the man’s ear.
The officer turned his head wearily.
“Do youse know me, old pal?” asked the mucker, and Barbara Harding knew from the man’s voice that there were tears in his eyes; but what she did not know was that they welled there in response to the words the mucker had just spoken — the nearest approach to words of endearment that ever had passed his lips.
Theriere reached up and took Byrne’s hand. It was evident that he too had noted the unusual quality of the mucker’s voice.
“Yes, old man,” he said very faintly, and then “water, please.”
Barbara Harding brought him a drink, holding his head against her knee while he drank. The cool liquid seemed to give him new strength for presently he spoke, quite strongly.
“I’m going, Byrne,” he said; “but before I go I want to tell you that of all the brave men I ever have known I have learned within the past few days to believe that you are the bravest. A week ago I thought you were a coward — I ask your forgiveness.”
“Ferget it,” whispered Byrne, “fer a week ago I guess I was a coward. Dere seems to be more’n one kind o’ nerve — I’m jest a-learnin’ of the right kind, I guess.”
“And, Byrne,” continued Theriere, “don’t forget what I asked of you before we tossed up to see which should enter Oda Yorimoto’s house.”
“I’ll not ferget,” said Billy.
“Good-bye, Byrne,” whispered Theriere. “Take good care of Miss Harding.”
“Good-bye, old pal,” said the mucker. His voice broke, and two big tears rolled down the cheeks of “de toughest guy on de Wes’ Side.”
Barbara Harding stepped to Theriere’s side.
“Good-bye, my friend,” she said. “God will reward you for your friendship, your bravery, and your devotion. There must be a special honor roll in heaven for such noble men as you.” Theriere smiled sadly.
“Byrne will tell you all,” he said, “except who I am — he does not know that.”
“Is there any message, my friend,” asked the girl, “that you would like to have me deliver?”
Theriere remained silent for a moment as though thinking.
“My name,” he said, “is Henri Theriere. I am the Count de Cadenet of France. There is no message, Miss Harding, other than you see fit to deliver to my relatives. They lived in Paris the last I heard of them — my brother, Jacques, was a deputy.”
His voice had become so low and weak that the girl could scarce distinguish his words. He gasped once or twice, and then tried to speak again. Barbara leaned closer, her ear almost against his lips.
“Good-bye — dear.” The words were almost inaudible, and then the body stiffened with a little convulsive tremor, and Henri Theriere, Count de Cadenet, passed over into the keeping of his noble ancestors.
“He’s gone!” whispered the girl, dry-eyed but suffering. She had not loved this man, she realized, but she had learned to think of him as her one true friend in their little world of scoundrels and murderers. She had cared for him very much — it was entirely possible that some day she might have come to return his evident affection for her. She knew nothing of the seamy side of his hard life. She had guessed nothing of the scoundrelly duplicity that had marked his first advances toward her. She thought of him only as a true, brave gentleman, and in that she was right, for whatever Henri Theriere might have been in the past the last few days of his life had revealed him in the true colors that birth and nature had intended him to wear through a brilliant career. In his death he had atoned for many sins.
And in those last few days he had transferred, all unknown to himself or the other man, a measure of the gentility and chivalry that were his birthright, for, unrealizing, Billy Byrne was patterning himself after the man he had hated and had come to love.
After the girl’s announcement the mucker had continued to sit with bowed head staring at the ground. Afternoon had deepened into evening, and now the brief twilight of the tropics was upon them — in a few moments it would be dark.
Presently Byrne looked up. His eyes wandered about the tiny clearing. Suddenly he staggered to his feet. Barbara Harding sprang up, star
tled by the evident alarm in the man’s attitude.
“What is it?” she whispered. “What is the matter?”
“De Chink!” he cried. “Where is de Chink?”
And, sure enough, Oda Iseka had disappeared!
The youthful daimio had taken advantage of the preoccupation of his captors during the last moments of Theriere to gnaw in two the grass rope which bound him to the mucker, and with hands still fast bound behind him had slunk into the jungle path that led toward his village.
“They will be upon us again now at any moment,” whispered the girl. “What can we do?”
“We better duck,” replied the mucker. “I hates to run away from a bunch of Chinks, but I guess it’s up to us to beat it.”
“But poor Mr. Theriere?” asked the girl.
“I’ll have to bury him close by,” replied the mucker. “I don’t tink I could pack him very fer tonight — I don’t feel jest quite fit agin yet. You wouldn’t mind much if I buried him here, would you?”
“There is no other way, Mr. Byrne,” replied the girl. “You mustn’t think of trying to carry him far. We have done all we can for poor Mr. Theriere — you have almost given your life for him already — and it wouldn’t do any good to carry his dead body with us.”
“I hates to tink o’ dem head-huntin’ Chinks gettin’ him,” replied Byrne; “but maybe I kin hide his grave so’s dey won’t tumble to it.”
“You are in no condition to carry him at all,” said the girl. “I doubt if you can go far even without any burden.”
The mucker grinned.
“Youse don’t know me, miss,” he said, and stooping he lifted the body of the Frenchman to his broad shoulder, and started up the hillside through the trackless underbrush.
It would have been an impossible feat for an ordinary man in the pink of condition, but the mucker, weak from pain and loss of blood, strode sturdily upward while the marveling girl followed close behind him. A hundred yards above the spring they came upon a little level spot, and here with the two swords of Oda Yorimoto which they still carried they scooped a shallow grave in which they placed all that was mortal of the Count de Cadenet.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 386