CHAPTER XI
THE EPISODE OF THE OFFICER WHO UNDERSTOOD PERFECTLY
After our fortunate escape from the clutches of our too-admiring
Tibetan hosts, we wound our way slowly back through the Maharajah's
territory towards Sir Ivor's headquarters. On the third day out
from the lamasery we camped in a romantic Himalayan valley--a
narrow, green glen, with a brawling stream running in white
cataracts and rapids down its midst. We were able to breathe
freely now; we could enjoy the great tapering deodars that rose in
ranks on the hillsides, the snow-clad needles of ramping rock that
bounded the view to north and south, the feathery bamboo-jungle
that fringed and half-obscured the mountain torrent, whose cool
music--alas, fallaciously cool--was borne to us through the dense
screen of waving foliage. Lady Meadowcroft was so delighted at
having got clear away from those murderous and saintly Tibetans
that for a while she almost forgot to grumble. She even
condescended to admire the deep-cleft ravine in which we bivouacked
for the night, and to admit that the orchids which hung from the
tall trees were as fine as any at her florist's in Piccadilly.
"Though how they can have got them out here already, in this
outlandish place--the most fashionable kinds--when we in England
have to grow them with such care in expensive hot-houses," she
said, "really passes my comprehension."
She seemed to think that orchids originated in Covent Garden.
Early next morning I was engaged with one of my native men in
lighting the fire to boil our kettle--for in spite of all
misfortunes we still made tea with creditable punctuality--when a
tall and good-looking Nepaulese approached us from the hills, with
cat-like tread, and stood before me in an attitude of profound
supplication. He was a well-dressed young man, like a superior
native servant; his face was broad and flat, but kindly and good-
humoured. He salaamed many times, but still said nothing.
"Ask him what he wants," I cried, turning to our fair-weather
friend, the cook.
The deferential Nepaulese did not wait to be asked. "Salaam,
sahib," he said, bowing again very low till his forehead almost
touched the ground. "You are Eulopean doctor, sahib?"
"I am," I answered, taken aback at being thus recognised in the
forests of Nepaul. "But how in wonder did you come to know it?"
"You camp near here when you pass dis way before, and you doctor
little native girl, who got sore eyes. All de country here tell
you is very great physician. So I come and to see if you will turn
aside to my village to help us."
"Where did you learn English?" I exclaimed, more and more
astonished.
"I is servant one time at British Lesident's at de Maharajah's
city. Pick up English dere. Also pick up plenty lupee. Velly
good business at British Lesident's. Now gone back home to my own
village, letired gentleman." And he drew himself up with conscious
dignity.
I surveyed the retired gentleman from head to foot. He had an air
of distinction, which not even his bare toes could altogether mar.
He was evidently a person of local importance. "And what did you
want me to visit your village for?" I inquired, dubiously.
"White traveller sahib ill dere, sir. Vely ill; got plague. Great
first-class sahib, all same like Governor. Ill, fit to die; send
me out all times to try find Eulopean doctor."
"Plague?" I repeated, startled. He nodded.
"Yes, plague; all same like dem hab him so bad down Bombay way."
"Do you know his name?" I asked; for though one does not like to
desert a fellow-creature in distress, I did not care to turn aside
from my road on such an errand, with Hilda and Lady Meadowcroft,
unless for some amply sufficient reason.
The retired gentleman shook his head in the most emphatic fashion.
"How me know?" he answered, opening the palms of his hands as if to
show he had nothing concealed in them. "Forget Eulopean name all
times so easily. And traveller sahib name very hard to lemember.
Not got English name. Him Eulopean foleigner."
"A European foreigner!" I repeated. "And you say he is seriously
ill? Plague is no trifle. Well, wait a minute; I'll see what the
ladies say about it. How far off is your village?"
He pointed with his hand, somewhat vaguely, to the hillside. "Two
hours' walk," he answered, with the mountaineer's habit of reckoning
distance by time, which extends, under the like circumstances, the
whole world over.
I went back to the tents, and consulted Hilda and Lady Meadowcroft.
Our spoilt child pouted, and was utterly averse to any detour of
any sort. "Let's get back straight to Ivor," she said, petulantly.
I've had enough of camping out. It's all very well in its way for a
week but when they begin to talk about cutting your throat and all
that, it ceases to be a joke and becomes a wee bit uncomfortable.
I want my feather bed. I object to their villages."
"But consider, dear," Hilda said, gently. "This traveller is ill,
all alone in a strange land. How can Hubert desert him? It is a
doctor's duty to do what he can to alleviate pain and to cure the
sick. What would we have thought ourselves, when we were at the
lamasery, if a body of European travellers had known we were there,
imprisoned and in danger of our lives, and had passed by on the
other side without attempting to rescue us?"
Lady Meadowcroft knit her forehead. "That was us," she said, with
an impatient nod, after a pause--"and this is another person. You
can't turn aside for everybody who's ill in all Nepaul. And
plague, too!--so horrid! Besides, how do we know this isn't
another plan of these hateful people to lead us into danger?"
"Lady Meadowcroft is quite right," I said, hastily. "I never
thought about that. There may be no plague, no patient at all. I
will go up with this man alone, Hilda, and find out the truth. It
will only take me five hours at most. By noon I shall be back with
you."
"What? And leave us here unprotected among the wild beasts and the
savages?" Lady Meadowcroft cried, horrified. "In the midst of the
forest! Dr. Cumberledge, how can you?"
"You are NOT unprotected," I answered, soothing her. "You have
Hilda with you. She is worth ten men. And besides, our Nepaulese
are fairly trustworthy."
Hilda bore me out in my resolve. She was too much of a nurse, and
had imbibed too much of the true medical sentiment, to let me
desert a man in peril of his life in a tropical jungle. So, in
spite of Lady Meadowcroft, I was soon winding my way up a steep
mountain track, overgrown with creeping Indian weeds, on my road to
the still problematical village graced by the residence of the
retired gentleman.
After two hours' hard climbing we reached it at last. The retired
gentleman led the way to a house in a street of the little wooden
hamlet. The door was low; I had to stoop to enter it. I saw in a
moment this was indeed no trick. On a native bed, in a corner of
the one room, a man lay desperately ill; a European, with white
hair and with a skin well bronzed by exposure to the tropics.
Ominous dark spots beneath the epidermis showed the nature of the
disease. He tossed restlessly as he lay, but did not raise his
fevered head or look at my conductor. "Well, any news of Ram Das?"
he asked at last, in a parched and feeble voice. Parched and
feeble as it was, I recognised it instantly. The man on the bed
was Sebastian--no other!
"No news of Lam Das," the retired gentleman replied, with an
unexpected display of womanly tenderness. "Lam Das clean gone;
not come any more. But I bling you back Eulopean doctor, sahib."
Sebastian did not look up from his bed even then. I could see he
was more anxious about a message from his scout than about his own
condition. "The rascal!" he moaned, with his eyes closed tight.
"The rascal! he has betrayed me." And he tossed uneasily.
I looked at him and said nothing. Then I seated myself on a low
stool by the bedside and took his hand in mine to feel his pulse.
The wrist was thin and wasted. The face, too, I noticed, had
fallen away greatly. It was clear that the malignant fever which
accompanies the disease had wreaked its worst on him. So weak and
ill was he, indeed, that he let me hold his hand, with my fingers
on his pulse, for half a minute or more without ever opening his
eyes or displaying the slightest curiosity at my presence. One
might have thought that European doctors abounded in Nepaul, and
that I had been attending him for a week, with "the mixture as
before" at every visit.
"Your pulse is weak and very rapid," I said slowly, in a
professional tone. "You seem to me to have fallen into a perilous
condition."
At the sound of my voice, he gave a sudden start. Yet even so,
for a second, he did not open his eyes. The revelation of
my presence seemed to come upon him as in a dream. "Like
Cumberledge's," he muttered to himself, gasping. "Exactly like
Cumberledge's. . . . But Cumberledge is dead . . . I must be
delirious. . . . If I didn't KNOW to the contrary, I could have
sworn it was Cumberledge's!"
I spoke again, bending over him. "How long have the glandular
swellings been present, Professor?" I asked, with quiet
deliberativeness.
This time he opened his eyes sharply, and looked up in my face. He
swallowed a great gulp of surprise. His breath came and went. He
raised himself on his elbows and stared at me with a fixed stare.
"Cumberledge!" he cried; "Cumberledge! Come back to life, then!
They told me you were dead! And here you are, Cumberledge!"
"WHO told you I was dead?" I asked, sternly.
He stared at me, still in a dazed way. He was more than half
comatose. "Your guide, Ram Das," he answered at last, half
incoherently. "He came back by himself. Came back without you.
He swore to me he had seen all your throats cut in Tibet. He alone
had escaped. The Buddhists had massacred you."
"He told you a lie," I said, shortly.
"I thought so. I thought so. And I sent him back for confirmatory
evidence. But the rogue has never brought it." He let his head
drop on his rude pillow heavily. "Never, never brought it!"
I gazed at him, full of horror. The man was too ill to hear me,
too ill to reason, too ill to recognise the meaning of his own
words, almost. Otherwise, perhaps, he would hardly have expressed
himself quite so frankly. Though to be sure he had said nothing to
criminate himself in any way; his action might have been due to
anxiety for our safety.
I fixed my glance on him long and dubiously. What ought I to do
next? As for Sebastian, he lay with his eyes closed, half
oblivious of my presence. The fever had gripped him hard. He
shivered, and looked helpless as a child. In such circumstances,
the instincts of my profession rose imperative within me. I could
not nurse a case properly in this wretched hut. The one thing to
be done was to carry the patient down to our camp in the valley.
There, at least, we had air and pure running water.
I asked a few questions from the retired gentleman as to the
possibility of obtaining sufficient bearers in the village. As I
supposed, any number were forthcoming immediately. Your Nepaulese
is by nature a beast of burden; he can carry anything up and down
the mountains, and spends his life in the act of carrying.
I pulled out my pencil, tore a leaf from my note-book, and
scribbled a hasty note to Hilda: "The invalid is--whom do you
think?--Sebastian! He is dangerously ill with some malignant
fever. I am bringing him down into camp to nurse. Get everything
ready for him." Then I handed it over to a messenger, found for me
by the retired gentleman, to carry to Hilda. My host himself I
could not spare, as he was my only interpreter.
In a couple of hours we had improvised a rough, woven-grass hammock
as an ambulance couch, had engaged our bearers, and had got
Sebastian under way for the camp by the river.
When I arrived at our tents, I found Hilda had prepared everything
for our patient with her usual cleverness. Not only had she got a
bed ready for Sebastian, who was now almost insensible, but she had
even cooked some arrowroot from our stores beforehand, so that he
might have a little food, with a dash of brandy in it, to recover
him after the fatigue of the journey down the mountain. By the
time we had laid him out on a mattress in a cool tent, with the
fresh air blowing about him, and had made him eat the meal prepared
for him, he really began to look comparatively comfortable.
Lady Meadowcroft was now our chief trouble. We did not dare to
tell her it was really plague; but she had got near enough back to
civilisation to have recovered her faculty for profuse grumbling;
and the idea of the delay that Sebastian would cause us drove her
wild with annoyance. "Only two days off from Ivor," she cried,
"and that comfortable bungalow! And now to think we must stop here
in the woods a week or ten days for this horrid old Professor! Why
can't he get worse at once and die like a gentleman? But, there!
with YOU to nurse him, Hilda, he'll never get worse. He couldn't
die if he tried. He'll linger on and on for weeks and weeks
through a beastly convalescence!"
"Hubert," Hilda said to me, when we were alone once more; "we
mustn't keep her here. She will be a hindrance, not a help. One
way or another we must manage to get rid of her."
"How can we?" I asked. "We can't turn her loose upon the mountain
roads with a Nepaulese escort. She isn't fit for it. She would be
frantic with terror."
"I've thought of that, and I see only one thing possible. I must
go on with her myself as fast as we can push to Sir Ivor's place,
and then return to help you nurse the Professor."
I saw she was right. It was the sole plan open to us. And I had
no fear of letting Hilda go off alone with Lady Meadowcroft and the
bearers. She was a host in herself, and could manage a party of
native servants at least as well as I could.
So Hilda went, and came back again. Meanwhile, I took charge of
the nursing of Sebastian. Fortunately, I had brought with me a
good stock of jungle-medicines in my little travelling-case,
including plenty of quinine; and under my careful treatment the
Professor passed the crisis and began to mend slowly. The first
question he asked me when he felt himself able to talk once more
was, "Nurse Wade--what has become of her?"--for he had not yet
seen her. I feared the shock for him.
"She is here with me," I answered, in a very measured voice. "She
is waiting to be allowed to come and help me in taking care of
you."
He shuddered and turned away. His face buried itself in the
pillow. I could see some twinge of remorse had seized upon him.
At last he spoke. "Cumberledge," he said, in a very low and almost
frightened tone, "don't let her come near me! I can't bear it. I
can't bear it."
Ill as he was, I did not mean to let him think I was ignorant of
his motive. "You can't bear a woman whose life you have attempted,"
I said, in my coldest and most deliberate way, "to have a hand in
nursing you! You can't bear to let her heap coals of fire on your
head! In that you are right. But, remember, you have attempted MY
life too; you have twice done your best to get me murdered."
He did not pretend to deny it. He was too weak for subterfuges.
He only writhed as he lay. "You are a man," he said, shortly, "and
she is a woman. That is all the difference." Then he paused for a
minute or two. "Don't let her come near me," he moaned once more,
in a piteous voice. "Don't let her come near me!"
"I will not," I answered. "She shall not come near you. I spare
you that. But you will have to eat the food she prepares; and you
know SHE will not poison you. You will have to be tended by the
servants she chooses; and you know THEY will not murder you. She
can heap coals of fire on your head without coming into your tent.
Consider that you sought to take her life--and she seeks to save
yours! She is as anxious to keep you alive as you are anxious to
kill her."
He lay as in a reverie. His long white hair made his clear-cut,
thin face look more unearthly than ever, with the hectic flush of
fever upon it. At last he turned to me. "We each work for our own
ends," he said, in a weary way. "We pursue our own objects. It
suits ME to get rid of HER: it suits HER to keep ME alive. I am no
good to her dead; living, she expects to wring a confession out of
me. But she shall not have it. Tenacity of purpose is the one
thing I admire in life. She has the tenacity of purpose--and so
have I. Cumberledge, don't you see it is a mere duel of endurance
between us?"
"And may the just side win," I answered, solemnly.
It was several days later before he spoke to me of it again. Hilda
had brought some food to the door of the tent and passed it in to
me for our patient. "How is he now?" she whispered.
Sebastian overheard her voice, and, cowering within himself, still
managed to answer: "Better, getting better. I shall soon be well
now. You have carried your point. You have cured your enemy."
"Thank God for that!" Hilda said, and glided away silently.
Sebastian ate his cup of arrowroot in silence; then he looked at me
with wistful, musing eyes. "Cumberledge," he murmured at last;
"after all, I can't help admiring that woman. She is the only
person who has ever checkmated me. She checkmates me every time.
Steadfastness is what I love. Her steadfastness of purpose and her
determination move me."
"I wish they would move you to tell the truth," I answered.
He mused again. "To tell the truth!" he muttered, moving his head
up and down. "I have lived for science. Shall I wreck all now?
There are truths which it is better to hide than to proclaim.
Uncomfortable truths--truths that never should have been--truths
which help to make greater truths incredible. But, all the same,
I cannot help admiring that woman. She has Yorke-Bannerman's
intellect, with a great deal more than Yorke-Bannerman's force of
will. Such firmness! such energy! such resolute patience! She is
a wonderful creature. I can't help admiring her!"
I said no more to him just then. I thought it better to let
nascent remorse and nascent admiration work out their own natural
effects unimpeded. For I could see our enemy was beginning to feel
some sting of remorse. Some men are below it. Sebastian thought
himself above it. I felt sure he was mistaken.
Yet even in the midst of these personal preoccupations, I saw that
our great teacher was still, as ever, the pure man of science.
He noted every symptom and every change of the disease with
professional accuracy. He observed his own case, whenever his mind
was clear enough, as impartially as he would have observed any
outside patient's. "This is a rare chance, Cumberledge," he
whispered to me once, in an interval of delirium. "So few
Europeans have ever had the complaint, and probably none who were
competent to describe the specific subjective and psychological
symptoms. The delusions one gets as one sinks into the coma, for
example, are of quite a peculiar type--delusions of wealth and of
absolute power, most exhilarating and magnificent. I think myself
a millionaire or a Prime Minister. Be sure you make a note of
that--in case I die. If I recover, of course I can write an
exhaustive monograph on the whole history of the disease in the
British Medical Journal. But if I die, the task of chronicling
these interesting observations will devolve upon you. A most
exceptional chance! You are much to be congratulated."
"You MUST not die, Professor," I cried, thinking more, I will
confess, of Hilda Wade than of himself. "You must live . . . to
report this case for science." I used what I thought the strongest
lever I knew for him.
He closed his eyes dreamily. "For science! Yes, for science!
There you strike the right chord! What have I not dared and done
for science? But, in case I die, Cumberledge, be sure you collect
the notes I took as I was sickening--they are most important for
the history and etiology of the disease. I made them hourly. And
don't forget the main points to be observed as I am dying. You
know what they are. This is a rare, rare chance! I congratulate
you on being the man who has the first opportunity ever afforded us
of questioning an intelligent European case, a case where the
patient is fully capable of describing with accuracy his symptoms
and his sensations in medical phraseology."
He did not die, however. In about another week he was well enough
to move. We carried him down to Mozufferpoor, the first large town
in the plains thereabouts, and handed him over for the stage of
convalescence to the care of the able and efficient station doctor,
to whom my thanks are due for much courteous assistance.
"And now, what do you mean to do?" I asked Hilda, when our patient
was placed in other hands, and all was over.
She answered me without one second's hesitation: "Go straight to
Bombay, and wait there till Sebastian takes passage for England."
"He will go home, you think, as soon as he is well enough?"
"Undoubtedly. He has now nothing more to stop in India for."
"Why not as much as ever?"
She looked at me curiously. "It is so hard to explain," she
replied, after a moment's pause, during which she had been drumming
her little forefinger on the table. "I feel it rather than reason
it. But don't you see that a certain change has lately come over
Sebastian's attitude? He no longer desires to follow me; he wants
to avoid me. That is why I wish more than ever to dog his steps.
I feel the beginning of the end has come. I am gaining my point.
Sebastian is wavering."
"Then when he engages a berth, you propose to go by the same
steamer?"
"Yes. It makes all the difference. When he tries to follow we, he
is dangerous; when he tries to avoid me, it becomes my work in life
to follow him. I must keep him in sight every minute now. I must
quicken his conscience. I must make him FEEL his own desperate
wickedness. He is afraid to face me: that means remorse. The more
I compel him to face me, the more the remorse is sure to deepen."
I saw she was right. We took the train to Bombay. I found rooms
at the hospitable club, by a member's invitation, while Hilda went
to stop with some friends of Lady Meadowcroft's on the Malabar
Hill. We waited for Sebastian to come down from the interior and
take his passage. Hilda, with her intuitive certainty, felt sure
he would come.
A steamer, two steamers, three steamers, sailed, and still no
Sebastian. I began to think he must have made up his mind to go
back some other way. But Hilda was confident, so I waited
patiently. At last one morning I dropped in, as I had often done
before, at the office of one of the chief steamship companies. It
was the very morning when a packet was to sail. "Can I see the
list of passengers on the Vindhya?" I asked of the clerk, a sandy-
haired Englishman, tall, thin, and sallow.
The clerk produced it.
I scanned it in haste. To my surprise and delight, a pencilled
entry half-way down the list gave the name, "Professor Sebastian."
"Oh, Sebastian is going by this steamer?" I murmured, looking up.
The sandy-haired clerk hummed and hesitated. "Well, I believe he's
going, sir," he answered at last; "but it's a bit uncertain. He's
a fidgety man, the Professor. He came down here this morning and
asked to see the list, the same as you have done. Then he engaged
a berth provisionally--'mind, provisionally,' he said--that's why
his name is only put in on the list in pencil. I take it he's
waiting to know whether a party of friends he wishes to meet are
going also."
"Or wishes to avoid," I thought to myself, inwardly; but I did not
say so. I asked instead, "Is he coming again?"
"Yes, I think so: at 5.30."
"And she sails at seven?"
"At seven, punctually. Passengers must be aboard by half-past six
at latest."
"Very good," I answered, making up my mind promptly. "I only
called to know the Professor's movements. Don't mention to him
that I came. I may look in again myself an hour or two later."
"You don't want a passage, sir? You may be the friend he's
expecting."
"No, I don't want a passage--not at present certainly." Then I
ventured on a bold stroke. "Look here," I said, leaning across
towards him, and assuming a confidential tone: "I am a private
detective"--which was perfectly true in essence--"and I'm dogging
the Professor, who, for all his eminence, is gravely suspected of a
great crime. If you will help me, I will make it worth your while.
Let us understand one another. I offer you a five-pound note to
say nothing of all this to him."
The sallow clerk's fishy eye glistened. "You can depend upon me,"
he answered, with an acquiescent nod. I judged that he did not
often get the chance of earning some eighty rupees so easily.
I scribbled a hasty note and sent it round to Hilda: "Pack your
boxes at once, and hold yourself in readiness to embark on the
Vindhya at six o'clock precisely." Then I put my own things
straight; and waited at the club till a quarter to six. At that
time I strolled on unconcernedly into the office. A cab outside
held Hilda and our luggage. I had arranged it all meanwhile by
letter.
"Professor Sebastian been here again?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; he's been here; and he looked over the list again; and
he's taken his passage. But he muttered something about
eavesdroppers, and said that if he wasn't satisfied when he got on
board, he would return at once and ask for a cabin in exchange by
the next steamer."
"That will do," I answered, slipping the promised five-pound note
into the clerk's open palm, which closed over it convulsively.
"Talked about eavesdroppers, did he? Then he knows he's been
shadowed. It may console you to learn that you are instrumental in
furthering the aims of justice and unmasking a cruel and wicked
conspiracy. Now, the next thing is this: I want two berths at
once by this very steamer--one for myself--name of Cumberledge; one
for a lady--name of Wade; and look sharp about it."
The sandy-haired man did look sharp; and within three minutes we
were driving off with our tickets to Prince's Dock landing-stage.
We slipped on board unobtrusively, and instantly took refuge in our
respective staterooms till the steamer was well under way, and
fairly out of sight of Kolaba Island. Only after all chance of
Sebastian's avoiding us was gone for ever did we venture up on
deck, on purpose to confront him.
It was one of those delicious balmy evenings which one gets only at
sea and in the warmer latitudes. The sky was alive with myriads of
twinkling and palpitating stars, which seemed to come and go, like
sparks on a fire-back, as one gazed upward into the vast depths and
tried to place them. They played hide-and-seek with one another
and with the innumerable meteors which shot recklessly every now
and again across the field of the firmament, leaving momentary
furrows of light behind them. Beneath, the sea sparkled almost
like the sky, for every turn of the screw churned up the
scintillating phosphorescence in the water, so that countless
little jets of living fire seemed to flash and die away at the
summit of every wavelet. A tall, spare man in a picturesque cloak,
and with long, lank, white hair, leant over the taffrail, gazing at
the numberless flashing lights of the surface. As he gazed, he
talked on in his clear, rapt voice to a stranger by his side. The
voice and the ring of enthusiasm were unmistakable. "Oh, no," he
was saying, as we stole up behind him, "that hypothesis, I venture
to assert, is no longer tenable by the light of recent researches.
Death and decay have nothing to do directly with the phosphorescence
of the sea, though they have a little indirectly. The light is due
in the main to numerous minute living organisms, most of them
bacilli, on which I once made several close observations and crucial
experiments. They possess organs which may be regarded as miniature
bull's-eye lanterns. And these organs--"
"What a lovely evening, Hubert!" Hilda said to me, in an apparently
unconcerned voice, as the Professor reached this point in his
exposition.
Sebastian's voice quavered and stammered for a moment. He tried
just at first to continue and complete his sentence: "And these
organs," he went on, aimlessly, "these bull's-eyes that I spoke
about, are so arranged--so arranged--I was speaking on the subject
of crustaceans, I think--crustaceans so arranged--" then he broke
down utterly and turned sharply round to me. He did not look at
Hilda--I think he did not dare; but he faced me with his head down
and his long, thin neck protruded, eyeing me from under those
overhanging, penthouse brows of his. "You sneak!" he cried,
passionately. "You sneak! You have dogged me by false pretences.
You have lied to bring this about! You have come aboard under a
false name--you and your accomplice!"
I faced him in turn, erect and unflinching. "Professor Sebastian,"
I answered, in my coldest and calmest tone, "you say what is not
true. If you consult the list of passengers by the Vindhya, now
posted near the companion-ladder, you will find the names of Hilda
Wade and Hubert Cumberledge duly entered. We took our passage
AFTER you inspected the list at the office to see whether our names
were there--in order to avoid us. But you cannot avoid us. We do
not mean that you shall avoid us. We will dog you now through
life--not by lies or subterfuges, as you say, but openly and
honestly. It is YOU who need to slink and cower, not we. The
prosecutor need not descend to the sordid shifts of the criminal."
The other passenger had sidled away quietly the moment he saw our
conversation was likely to be private; and I spoke in a low voice,
though clearly and impressively, because I did not wish for a
scene. I was only endeavouring to keep alive the slow, smouldering
fire of remorse in the man's bosom. And I saw I had touched him on
a spot that hurt. Sebastian drew himself up and answered nothing.
For a minute or two he stood erect, with folded arms, gazing
moodily before him. Then he said, as if to himself: "I owe the
man my life. He nursed me through the plague. If it had not been
for that--if he had not tended me so carefully in that valley in
Nepaul--I would throw him overboard now--catch him in my arms and
throw him overboard! I would--and be hanged for it!"
He walked past us as if he saw us not, silent, erect, moody. Hilda
stepped aside and let him pass. He never even looked at her. I
knew why; he dared not. Every day now, remorse for the evil part
he had played in her life, respect for the woman who had unmasked
and outwitted him, made it more and more impossible for Sebastian
to face her. During the whole of that voyage, though he dined in
the same saloon and paced the same deck, he never spoke to her, he
never so much as looked at her. Once or twice their eyes met by
accident, and Hilda stared him down; Sebastian's eyelids dropped,
and he stole away uneasily. In public, we gave no overt sign of
our differences; but it was understood on board that relations were
strained: that Professor Sebastian and Dr. Cumberledge had been
working at the same hospital in London together; and that owing to
some disagreement between them Dr. Cumberledge had resigned--which
made it most awkward for them to be travelling together by the same
steamer.
We passed through the Suez Canal and down the Mediterranean. All
the time, Sebastian never again spoke to us. The passengers,
indeed, held aloof from the solitary, gloomy old man, who strode
along the quarter-deck with his long, slow stride, absorbed in his
own thoughts, and intent only on avoiding Hilda and myself. His
mood was unsociable. As for Hilda, her helpful, winning ways made
her a favourite with all the women, as her pretty face did with all
the men. For the first time in his life, Sebastian seemed to be
aware that he was shunned. He retired more and more within himself
for company; his keen eye began to lose in some degree its
extraordinary fire, his expression to forget its magnetic
attractiveness. Indeed, it was only young men of scientific tastes
that Sebastian could ever attract. Among them, his eager zeal, his
single-minded devotion to the cause of science, awoke always a
responsive chord which vibrated powerfully.
Day after day passed, and we steamed through the Straits and neared
the Channel. Our thoughts began to assume a home complexion.
Everybody was full of schemes as to what he would do when he
reached England. Old Bradshaws were overhauled and trains looked
out, on the supposition that we would get in by such an hour on
Tuesday. We were steaming along the French coast, off the western
promontory of Brittany. The evening was fine, and though, of
course, less warm than we had experienced of late, yet pleasant and
summer-like. We watched the distant cliffs of the Finistere
mainland and the numerous little islands that lie off the shore,
all basking in the unreal glow of a deep red sunset. The first
officer was in charge, a very cock-sure and careless young man,
handsome and dark-haired; the sort of young man who thought more of
creating an impression upon the minds of the lady passengers than
of the duties of his position.
"Aren't you going down to your berth?" I asked of Hilda, about
half-past ten that night; "the air is so much colder here than you
have been feeling it of late, that I'm afraid of your chilling
yourself."
She looked up at me with a smile, and drew her little fluffy, white
woollen wrap closer about her shoulders. "Am I so very valuable to
you, then?" she asked--for I suppose my glance had been a trifle
too tender for a mere acquaintance's. "No, thank you, Hubert; I
don't think I'll go down, and, if you're wise, you won't go down
either. I distrust this first officer. He's a careless navigator,
and to-night his head's too full of that pretty Mrs. Ogilvy. He
has been flirting with her desperately ever since we left Bombay,
and to-morrow he knows he will lose her for ever. His mind isn't
occupied with the navigation at all; what HE is thinking of is how
soon his watch will be over, so that he may come down off the
bridge on to the quarter-deck to talk to her. Don't you see she's
lurking over yonder, looking up at the stars and waiting for him by
the compass? Poor child! she has a bad husband, and now she has
let herself get too much entangled with this empty young fellow. I
shall be glad for her sake to see her safely landed and out of the
man's clutches."
As she spoke, the first officer glanced down towards Mrs. Ogilvy,
and held out his chronometer with an encouraging smile which seemed
to say, "Only an hour and a half more now! At twelve, I shall be
with you!"
"Perhaps you're right, Hilda," I answered, taking a seat beside her
and throwing away my cigar. "This is one of the worst bits on the
French coast that we're approaching. We're not far off Ushant. I
wish the captain were on the bridge instead of this helter-skelter,
self-conceited young fellow. He's too cock-sure. He knows so much
about seamanship that he could take a ship through any rocks on his
course, blindfold--in his own opinion. I always doubt a man who is
so much at home in his subject that he never has to think about it.
Most things in this world are done by thinking."
"We can't see the Ushant light," Hilda remarked, looking ahead.
"No; there's a little haze about on the horizon, I fancy. See, the
stars are fading away. It begins to feel damp. Sea mist in the
Channel."
Hilda sat uneasily in her deck-chair. "That's bad," she answered;
"for the first officer is taking no more heed of Ushant than of his
latter end. He has forgotten the existence of the Breton coast.
His head is just stuffed with Mrs. Ogilvy's eyelashes. Very
pretty, long eyelashes, too; I don't deny it; but they won't help
him to get through the narrow channel. They say it's dangerous."
"Dangerous!" I answered. "Not a bit of it--with reasonable care.
Nothing at sea is dangerous--except the inexplicable recklessness
of navigators. There's always plenty of sea-room--if they care to
take it. Collisions and icebergs, to be sure, are dangers that
can't be avoided at times, especially if there's fog about. But
I've been enough at sea in my time to know this much at least--that
no coast in the world is dangerous except by dint of reckless
corner-cutting. Captains of great ships behave exactly like two
hansom-drivers in the streets of London; they think they can just
shave past without grazing; and they DO shave past nine times out
of ten. The tenth time they run on the rocks through sheer
recklessness, and lose their vessel; and then, the newspapers
always ask the same solemn question--in childish good faith--how
did so experienced and able a navigator come to make such a mistake
in his reckoning? He made NO mistake; he simply tried to cut it
fine, and cut it too fine for once, with the result that he usually
loses his own life and his passengers. That's all. We who have
been at sea understand that perfectly."
Just at that moment another passenger strolled up and joined us--a
Bengal Civil servant. He drew his chair over by Hilda's, and began
discussing Mrs. Ogilvy's eyes and the first officer's flirtations.
Hilda hated gossip, and took refuge in generalities. In three
minutes the talk had wandered off to Ibsen's influence on the
English drama, and we had forgotten the very existence of the Isle
of Ushant.
"The English public will never understand Ibsen," the newcomer
said, reflectively, with the omniscient air of the Indian civilian.
"He is too purely Scandinavian. He represents that part of the
Continental mind which is farthest removed from the English
temperament. To him, respectability--our god--is not only no
fetish, it is the unspeakable thing, the Moabitish abomination.
He will not bow down to the golden image which our British
Nebuchadnezzar, King Demos, has made, and which he asks us to
worship. And the British Nebuchadnezzar will never get beyond the
worship of his Vishnu, respectability, the deity of the pure and
blameless ratepayer. So Ibsen must always remain a sealed book to
the vast majority of the English people."
"That is true," Hilda answered, "as to his direct influence; but
don't you think, indirectly, he is leavening England? A man so
wholly out of tune with the prevailing note of English life could
only affect it, of course, by means of disciples and popularisers--
often even popularisers who but dimly and distantly apprehend his
meaning. He must be interpreted to the English by English
intermediaries, half Philistine themselves, who speak his language
ill, and who miss the greater part of his message. Yet only by
such half-hints-- Why, what was that? I think I saw something!"
Even as she uttered the words, a terrible jar ran fiercely through
the ship from stem to stern--a jar that made one clench one's teeth
and hold one's jaws tight--the jar of a prow that shattered against
a rock. I took it all in at a glance. We had forgotten Ushant,
but Ushant had not forgotten us. It had revenged itself upon us by
revealing its existence.
In a moment all was turmoil and confusion on deck. I cannot
describe the scene that followed. Sailors rushed to and fro,
unfastening ropes and lowering boats, with admirable discipline.
Women shrieked and cried aloud in helpless terror. The voice of
the first officer could be heard above the din, endeavouring to
atone by courage and coolness in the actual disaster for his
recklessness in causing it. Passengers rushed on deck half clad,
and waited for their turn to take places in the boats. It was a
time of terror, turmoil, and hubbub. But, in the midst of it all,
Hilda turned to me with infinite calm in her voice. "Where is
Sebastian?" she asked, in a perfectly collected tone. "Whatever
happens, we must not lose sight of him."
"I am here," another voice, equally calm, responded beside her.
"You are a brave woman. Whether I sink or swim, I admire your
courage, your steadfastness of purpose." It was the only time he
had addressed a word to her during the entire voyage.
They put the women and children into the first boats lowered.
Mothers and little ones went first; single women and widows after.
"Now, Miss Wade," the first officer said, taking her gently by the
shoulders when her turn arrived. "Make haste; don't keep us
waiting!"
But Hilda held back. "No, no," she said, firmly. "I won't go yet.
I am waiting for the men's boat. I must not leave Professor
Sebastian."
The first officer shrugged his shoulders. There was no time for
protest. "Next, then," he said, quickly. "Miss Martin--Miss
Weatherly!"
Sebastian took her hand and tried to force her in. "You MUST go,"
he said, in a low, persuasive tone. "You must not wait for me!"
He hated to see her, I knew. But I imagined in his voice--for I
noted it even then--there rang some undertone of genuine desire to
save her.
Hilda loosened his grasp resolutely. "No, no," she answered, "I
cannot fly. I shall never leave you."
"Not even if I promise--"
She shook her head and closed her lips hard. "Certainly not," she
said again, after a pause. "I cannot trust you. Besides, I must
stop by your side and do my best to save you. Your life is all in
all to me. I dare not risk it."
His gaze was now pure admiration. "As you will," he answered.
"For he that loseth his life shall gain it."
"If ever we land alive," Hilda answered, glowing red in spite of
the danger, "I shall remind you of that word. I shall call upon
you to fulfil it."
The boat was lowered, and still Hilda stood by my side. One second
later, another shock shook us. The Vindhya parted amidships, and
we found ourselves struggling and choking in the cold sea water.
It was a miracle that every soul of us was not drowned that moment,
as many of us were. The swirling eddy which followed as the
Vindhya sank swamped two of the boats, and carried down not a few
of those who were standing on the deck with us. The last I saw of
the first officer was a writhing form whirled about in the water;
before he sank, he shouted aloud, with a seaman's frank courage,
"Say it was all my fault; I accept the responsibility. I ran her
too close. I am the only one to blame for it." Then he
disappeared in the whirlpool caused by the sinking ship, and we
were left still struggling.
One of the life-rafts, hastily rigged by the sailors, floated our
way. Hilda struck out a stroke or two and caught it. She dragged
herself on to it, and beckoned me to follow. I could see she was
holding on to something tightly. I struck out in turn and reached
the raft, which was composed of two seats, fastened together in
haste at the first note of danger. I hauled myself up by Hilda's
side. "Help me to pull him aboard!" she cried, in an agonised
voice. "I am afraid he has lost consciousness!" Then I looked at
the object she was clutching in her hands. It was Sebastian's
white head, apparently quite lifeless.
I pulled him up with her and laid him out on the raft. A very
faint breeze from the south-west had sprung up; that and a strong
seaward current that sets round the rocks were carrying us straight
out from the Breton coast and all chance of rescue, towards the
open channel.
But Hilda thought nothing of such physical danger. "We have saved
him, Hubert!" she cried, clasping her hands. "We have saved him!
But do you think he is alive? For unless he is, MY chance, OUR
chance, is gone forever!"
I bent over and felt his pulse. As far as I could make out, it
still beat feebly.
