“‘I guess I couldn’t leave you,’ said he. ‘I didn’t want to have the blood of two of you on my hands in one day. You loved your brother, I’ve no doubt; but you didn’t love him a cent more than I loved him, though you’ll say that I took a queer way to show it. Anyhow, it seems a mighty empty world now that he is gone, and I don’t care a continental whether you give me over to the hangman or not.’
“He had turned his ankle in the fall, and there we sat, he with his useless foot, and I with my throbbing head, and we talked and talked until gradually my bitterness began to soften and to turn into something like sympathy. What was the use of revenging his death upon a man who was as much stricken by that death as I was? And then, as my wits gradually returned, I began to realize also that I could do nothing against MacCoy which would not recoil upon my mother and myself. How could we convict him without a full account of my brother’s career being made public—the very thing which of all others we wished to avoid? It was really as much our interest as his to cover the matter up, and from being an avenger of crime I found myself changed to a conspirator against Justice. The place in which we found ourselves was one of those pheasant preserves which are so common in the Old Country, and as we groped our way through it I found myself consulting the slayer of my brother as to how far it would be possible to hush it up.
“I soon realized from what he said that unless there were some papers of which we knew nothing in my brother’s pockets, there was really no possible means by which the police could identify him or learn how he had got there. His ticket was in MacCoy’s pocket, and so was the ticket for some baggage which they had left at the depot. Like most Americans, he had found it cheaper and easier to buy an outfit in London than to bring one from New York, so that all his linen and clothes were new and unmarked. The bag, containing the dust cloak, which I had thrown out of the window, may have fallen among some bramble patch where it is still concealed, or may have been carried off by some tramp, or may have come into the possession of the police, who kept the incident to themselves. Anyhow, I have seen nothing about it in the London papers. As to the watches, they were a selection from those which had been intrusted to him for business purposes. It may have been for the same business purposes that he was taking them to Manchester, but—well, it’s too late to enter into that.
“I don’t blame the police for being at fault. I don’t see how it could have been otherwise. There was just one little clue that they might have followed up, but it was a small one. I mean that small circular mirror which was found in my brother’s pocket. It isn’t a very common thing for a young man to carry about with him, is it? But a gambler might have told you what such a mirror may mean to a cardsharper. If you sit back a little from the table, and lay the mirror, face upward, upon your lap, you can see, as you deal, every card that you give to your adversary. It is not hard to say whether you see a man or raise him when you know his cards as well as your own. It was as much a part of a sharper’s outfit as the elastic clip upon Sparrow MacCoy’s arm. Taking that, in connection with the recent frauds at the hotels, the police might have got hold of one end of the string.
“I don’t think there is much more for me to explain. We got to a village called Amersham that night in the character of two gentlemen upon a walking tour, and afterward we made our way quietly to London, whence MacCoy went on to Cairo and I returned to New York. My mother died six months afterward, and I am glad to say that to the day of her death she never knew what happened. She was always under the delusion that Edward was earning an honest living in London, and I never had the heart to tell her the truth. He never wrote; but, then, he never did write at any time, so that made no difference. His name was the last upon her lips.
“There’s just one other thing that I have to ask you, sir, and I should take it as a kind return for all this explanation, if you could do it for me. You remember that Testament that was picked up. I always carried it in my inside pocket, and it must have come out in my fall. I value it very highly, for it was the family book with my birth and my brother’s marked by my father in the beginning of it. I wish you would apply at the proper place and have it sent to me. It can be of no possible value to anyone else. If you address it to X, Bassano’s Library, Broadway, New York, it is sure to come to hand.”
THE POT OF CAVIARE
It was the fourth day of the siege. Ammunition and provisions were both nearing an end. When the Boxer insurrection had suddenly flamed up, and roared, like a fire in dry grass, across Northern China, the few scattered Europeans in the outlying provinces had huddled together at the nearest defensible post and had held on for dear life until rescue came—or until it did not. In the latter case, the less said about their fate the better. In the former, they came back into the world of men with that upon their faces which told that they had looked very closely upon such an end as would ever haunt their dreams.
Ichau was only fifty miles from the coast, and there was a European squadron in the Gulf of Liantong. Therefore the absurd little garrison, consisting of native Christians and railway men, with a German officer to command them and five civilian Europeans to support him, held on bravely with the conviction that help must soon come sweeping down to them from the low hills to eastward. The sea was visible from those hills, and on the sea were their armed countrymen. Surely, then, they could not feel deserted. With brave hearts they manned the loopholes in the crumbling brick walls outlining the tiny European quarter, and they fired away briskly, if ineffectively, at the rapidly advancing sangars of the Boxers. It was certain that in another day or so they would be at the end of their resources, but then it was equally certain that in another day or so they must be relieved. It might be a little sooner or it might be a little later, but there was no one who ever ventured to hint that the relief would not arrive in time to pluck them out of the fire. Up to Tuesday night there was no word of discouragement.
It was true that on the Wednesday their robust faith in what was going forward behind those eastern hills had weakened a little. The gray slopes lay bare and unresponsive while the deadly sangars pushed ever nearer, so near that the dreadful faces which shrieked imprecations at them from time to time over the top could be seen in every hideous feature. There was not so much of that now since young Ainslie, of the diplomatic service, with his neat little .303 sporting rifle, had settled down in the squat church tower, and had devoted his days to abating the nuisance. But a silent sangar is an even more impressive thing than a clamorous one, and steadily, irresistibly, inevitably, the lines of brick and rubble drew closer. Soon they would be so near that one rush would assuredly carry the frantic swordsmen over the frail entrenchment. It all seemed very black upon Wednesday evening. Colonel Dresler, the German ex-infantry soldier, went about with an imperturbable face, but a heart of lead. Ralston, of the railway, was up half the night writing farewell letters. Professor Mercer, the old entomologist, was even more silent and grimly thoughtful than ever. Ainslie had lost some of his flippancy. On the whole, the ladies—Miss Sinclair, the nurse of the Scotch Mission, Mrs. Patterson, and her pretty daughter Jessie, were the most composed of the party. Father Pierre of the French Mission was also unaffected, as was natural to one who regarded martyrdom as a glorious crown. The Boxers yelling for his blood beyond the walls disturbed him less than his forced association with the sturdy Scotch Presbyterian presence of Mr. Patterson, with whom for ten years he had wrangled over the souls of the natives. They passed each other now in the corridors as dog passes cat, and each kept a watchful eye upon the other lest even in the trenches he might filch some sheep from the rival fold, whispering heresy in his ear.
But the Wednesday night passed without a crisis, and on the Thursday all was bright once more. It was Ainslie up in the clock tower who had first heard the distant thud of a gun. Then Dresler heard it and within half an hour it was audible to all—that strong iron voice, calling to them from afar and bidding them to be of good cheer, since help was coming. It was clear that the landing p
arty from the squadron was well on its way. It would not arrive an hour too soon. The cartridges were nearly finished. Their half rations of food would soon dwindle to an even more pitiful supply. But what need to worry about that now that relief was assured? There would be no attack that day, as most of the Boxers could be seen streaming off in the direction of the distant firing, and the long lines of sangars were silent and deserted. They were all able, therefore, to assemble at the lunch table, a merry, talkative party, full of that joy of living which sparkles most brightly under the imminent shadow of death.
“The pot of caviare!” cried Ainslie. “Come, Professor, out with the pot of caviare!”
“Potz-tausend! yes,” grunted old Dresler. “It is certainly time that we had that famous pot.”
The ladies joined in and from all parts of the long, ill-furnished table there came the demand for caviare.
It was a strange time to ask for such a delicacy, but the reason is soon told. Professor Mercer, the old Californian entomologist, had received a jar of caviare in a hamper of goods from San Francisco, arriving a day or two before the outbreak. In the general pooling and distribution of provisions this one dainty and three bottles of Lachryma Christi from the same hamper had been excepted and set aside. By common consent they were to be reserved for the final joyous meal when the end of their peril should be in sight. Even as they sat the thud-thud of the relieving guns came to their ears—more luxurious music to their lunch than the most sybaritic restaurant of London could have supplied. Before evening the relief would certainly be there. Why, then, should their stale bread not be glorified by the treasured caviare?
But the Professor shook his gnarled old head and smiled his inscrutable smile.
“Better wait,” said he.
“Wait! Why wait?” cried the company.
“They have still far to come,” he answered.
“They will be here for supper at the latest,” said Ralston, of the railway—a keen, birdlike man, with bright eyes and long, projecting nose. “They cannot be more than ten miles from us now. If they only did two miles an hour it would make them due at seven.”
“There is a battle on the way,” remarked the Colonel. “You will grant two hours or three hours for the battle.”
“Not half an hour,” cried Ainslie. “They will walk through them as if they were not there. What can these rascals with their matchlocks and swords do against modern weapons?”
“It depends on who leads the column of relief,” said Dresler. “If they are fortunate enough to have a German officer—”
“An Englishman for my money!” cried Ralston.
“The French commodore is said to be an excellent strategist,” remarked Father Pierre.
“I don’t see that it matters a toss,” cried the exuberant Ainslie. “Mr. Mauser and Mr. Maxim are the two men who will see us through, and with them on our side no leader can go wrong. I tell you they will just brush them aside and walk through them. So now, Professor, come on with that pot of caviare!”
But the old scientist was unconvinced.
“We shall reserve it for supper,” said he.
“After all,” said Mr. Patterson, in his slow, precise Scottish intonation, “it will be a courtesy to our guests—the officers of the relief—if we have some palatable food to lay before them. I’m in agreement with the Professor that we reserve the caviare for supper.”
The argument appealed to their sense of hospitality. There was something pleasantly chivalrous, too, in the idea of keeping their one little delicacy to give a savor to the meal of their preservers. There was no more talk of the caviare.
“By the way, Professor,” said Mr. Patterson, “I’ve only heard today that this is the second time that you have been besieged in this way. I’m sure we should all be very interested to hear some details of your previous experience.”
The old man’s face set very grimly.
“I was in Sung-tong, in South China, in ‘eighty-nine,” said he.
“It’s a very extraordinary coincidence that you should twice have been in such a perilous situation,” said the missionary. “Tell us how you were relieved at Sung-tong.”
The shadow deepened upon the weary face.
“We were not relieved,” said he.
“What! the place fell?”
“Yes, it fell.”
“And you came through alive?”
“I am a doctor as well as an entomologist. They had many wounded; they spared me.”
“And the rest?”
“Assez! assez!” cried the little French priest, raising his hand in protest. He had been twenty years in China. The Professor had said nothing, but there was something, some lurking horror, in his dull, gray eyes which had turned the ladies pale.
“I am sorry,” said the missionary. “I can see that it is a painful subject. I should not have asked.”
“No,” the Professor answered, slowly. “It is wiser not to ask. It is better not to speak about such things at all. But surely those guns are very much nearer?”
There could be no doubt of it. After a silence the thud-thud had recommenced with a lively ripple of rifle fire playing all round that deep bass master note. It must be just at the farther side of the nearest hill. They pushed back their chairs and ran out to the ramparts. The silent-footed native servants came in and cleared the scanty remains from the table. But after they had left, the old Professor sat on there, his massive, gray-crowned head leaning upon his hands and the same pensive look of horror in his eyes. Some ghosts may be laid for years, but when they do rise it is not so easy to drive them back to their slumbers. The guns had ceased outside, but he had not observed it, lost as he was in the one supreme and terrible memory of his life.
His thoughts were interrupted at last by the entrance of the Commandant. There was a complacent smile upon his broad German face.
“The Kaiser will be pleased,” said he, rubbing his hands. “Yes, certainly it should mean a decoration. ‘Defense of Ichau against the Boxers by Colonel Dresler, late Major of the 114th Hanoverian Infantry. Splendid resistance of small garrison against overwhelming odds.’ It will certainly appear in the Berlin papers.”
“Then you think we are saved?” said the old man, with neither emotion nor exultation in his voice.
The Colonel smiled.
“Why, Professor,” said he, “I have seen you more excited on the morning when you brought back Lepidus Mercerensis in your collecting box.”
“The fly was safe in my collecting box first,” the entomologist answered. “I have seen so many strange turns of Fate in my long life that I do not grieve nor do I rejoice until I know that I have cause. But tell me the news.”
“Well,” said the Colonel, lighting his long pipe, and stretching his gaitered legs in the bamboo chair, “I’ll stake my military reputation that all is well. They are advancing swiftly, the firing has died down to show that resistance is at an end, and within an hour we’ll see them over the brow. Ainslie is to fire his gun three times from the church tower as a signal, and then we shall make a little sally on our own account.”
“And you are waiting for this signal?”
“Yes, we are waiting for Ainslie’s shots. I thought I would spend the time with you, for I had something to ask you.”
“What was it?”
“Well, you remember your talk about the other siege—the siege of Sung-tong. It interests me very much from a professional point of view. Now that the ladies and civilians are gone you will have no objection to discussing it.”
“It is not a pleasant subject.”
“No, I dare say not. Mein Gott! it was indeed a tragedy. But you have seen how I have conducted the defense here. Was it wise? Was it good? Was it worthy of the traditions of the German army?”
“I think you could have done no more.”
“Thank you. But this other place, was it as ably defended? To me a comparison of this sort is very interesting. Could it have been saved?”
“No; ev
erything possible was done—save only one thing.”
“Ah! there was one omission. What was it?”
“No one—above all, no woman—should have been allowed to fall alive into the hands of the Chinese.”
The Colonel held out his broad red hand and enfolded the long, white, nervous fingers of the Professor.
“You are right—a thousand times right. But do not think that this has escaped my thoughts. For myself I would die fighting, so would Ralston, so would Ainslie. I have talked to them, and it is settled. But the others, I have spoken with them, but what are you to do? There are the priest, and the missionary, and the women.”
“Would they wish to be taken alive?”
“They would not promise to take steps to prevent it. They would not lay hands on their own lives. Their consciences would not permit it. Of course, it is all over now, and we need not speak of such dreadful things. But what would you have done in my place?”
“Kill them.”
“Mein Gott! You would murder them?”
“In mercy I would kill them. Man, I have been through it. I have seen the death of the hot eggs; I have seen the death of the boiling kettle; I have seen the women—my God! I wonder that I have ever slept sound again.” His usually impassive face was working and quivering with the agony of the remembrance. “I was strapped to a stake with thorns in my eyelids to keep them open, and my grief at their torture was a less thing than my self-reproach when I thought that I could with one tube of tasteless tablets have snatched them at the last instant from the hands of their tormentors. Murder! I am ready to stand at the Divine bar and answer for a thousand murders such as that! Sin! Why, it is such an act as might well cleanse the stain of real sin from the soul. But if, knowing what I do, I should have failed this second time to do it, then by Heaven! there is no hell deep enough or hot enough to receive my guilty craven spirit.”
The Colonel rose, and again his hand clasped that of the Professor.
Round the Fire Stories Page 6