From The Four Winds/Dick Denver's Idea

by John Galsworthy

 

DICK DENVER'S IDEA

 

'A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree,
The more you beat 'em the better they be.'

This was always a good lie; there is such an amount of truth in it.

 

...........

 

SCENE I

'You are quite mistaken, I didn't speak to him.'

'That's a lie! I saw you myself,—and I tell you, if you can't behave yourself better than to go talking to a blackguard adventurer like that, you stay down here till this d——d voyage is over.'

The brutal voice, raised in anger, subsided into a sort of growl; the first, a woman's, was silent.

'Why don't you answer? Curse it, d'you think it's your "duty,"' with a sneer, 'to stand there like a mummy? By God, a mummy's a fool to you!' The man's voice rose again in a harsh crescendo.

Dick Denver, leaning against the ship's side, involuntarily took his cigar from his lips, and ground his teeth.

'I judge domestic felicity has its shady side,' he muttered, with a soul-satisfying drawl; 'thank the Almighty for His infinite mercies!'—presumably referring to his own unencumbered condition.

'Poor little woman, she looked very sweet at dinner. Gosh! I was the blackguard adventurer!' He laughed softly, and shrugged his shoulders.

'What an everlasting brute the fellow is; that unfortunate woman must have considerable of a bad time. Ah! Well,—no affair of yours, Dick, my son.'

He turned, and from over the ship's side watched the rings of smoke curling away from his cigar. A rustle as of silken garments caught his ear, and over his shoulder he saw a woman's figure coming from the hatchway. Standing back in shadow, he watched her move listlessly towards a long deck chair, half-way between him and the hatch. He could catch a long-drawn sigh, half a sob, and see the shiver of the slight form as she sank into it. A whisper came floating along the deck to where he stood. 'God! How I hate him! How I hate him! How long? How long?'

Dick Denver, vagabond, adventurer, gambler—what you will—was a man with a soft heart, and a curious hardened inability to witness distress without a desire to offer his help, which, owing to his manner of life, was generally found to be worse than useless. Watching her as she lay with profile half-turned from him, her chin resting dejectedly in her hand, the fair hair clustering low on her white fore- head, and a pitiful droop in the corner of the little mouth,—he was conscious of a desire, gradually concentrating in the toe of his boot, to kick the originator of so much unhappiness. As he leant forward for a better look, a puff of wind caught the brim of his large felt hat, and blew it along the deck to the chair where she was sitting. Glad of the excuse, he moved towards her. She turned her head, and a gleam from the moon, half-hidden in the hurrying clouds, lit up a sweet pale face with deep grey eyes. A word of apology, and he bent forward to pick up his hat, catching a glimpse, as he did so, of a tear on her cheek. A great compassion smote his vagabond heart. He straightened himself and said:

'Aren't you cold, sitting up here so late?'

A soft musical voice was one of Mr Denver's chief accomplishments; it was useful at poker, and was found attractive even by victims.

'Oh! no, thank you; see, I have this shawl,' pointing to a flimsy concoction of silk and lace that hung over the arm of the chair in a sufficiently useless way. Without a word he took it up, and with the deftest fingers—was not Mr Denver a dealer of the first water?—wrapped it round the shoulders and slender throat. A little smile, half surprise, half thanks, was his reward.

'The dew's very heavy in these seas. Guess my cigar'll bother you?'

'Oh, no, not in the least, thank you. Don't throw it away,' as Dick made a motion in that direction. Thankfully retaining it, he stretched his length on the next chair, and emitted silent but contented puffs.

An attractive length, sinewy but slight; under the shady hat a drawn, clean-cut, clean-shaven face, bronzed from original fairness to a deep tan; lazily veiled grey eyes, rather deep-set, and a firm mouth—all these things Dick turned to his companion, and spake in his most musical and least nasal voice. She listened with pleasure, but with an apparent and growing uneasiness, and with ear strained to catch the least sound of an approach from the cabin; and, in spite of the nonchalance of his voice and attitude, Mr Denver was no less on the strain than she; 'for,' thought he, 'the powers forbid that I cause her to have more abuse from my friend below.'

The moon had burst through the clouds and was flooding the deck with silver light, and Dick improved the shining hour. The ship was bound for the West Indies; he discoursed of the islands and his own experiences there, and she listened, with an evident interest in spite of her fears. Never yet was woman (or man either, for the matter of that) uninterested when Dick Denver talked, which he did but seldom; his voice, as he might have phrased it himself, was 'kind of seductive.' Presently, however, he rose, and hat in hand, said:

'You'll pardon me, but I guess you'd better go down; your shawl's quite wet.'

She rose with a little shiver, held out her hand without a word, and turning, went down the hatchway with the same listless, dejected step as before. Dick watched her go, pushed his hat high up on his head, and whistled softly and expressively; then he stooped suddenly, raising himself again with a handkerchief in his hand, the corners of which he examined with unscrupulous care till he read a name. Holding it softly in his hand, he pitched away the end of his cigar. Presently he began whistling again. Nobody ever heard Mr Denver whistle, except in moments of profound thought; evidently he was cogitating deeply. After a minute or two he took a pack of cards out of his pocket, and caressing them with his unoccupied hand, raised his head and voice, and spake to the moon with a meditative drawl:

'’Pears I can feel kind of a sorrow for the animal!' He then put the handkerchief in his breast-pocket and idled down the hatch. Dick Denver was always solitary in his habits, and made a point of a cabin to himself, otherwise his conduct that night with a small lace pocket-handkerchief might have been considered somewhat out of keeping with the character of a professional black sheep. It is impossible to disguise the fact that Mr Denver, in spite of his notorious insouciance, was an impressionable man.

SCENE II

The ship's saloon, fitfully lighted by the swinging lamp with a green shade, furnished a picturesque framing for the two figures it contained. Mr Dick Denver, in loose garments of spotless white, sat leaning carelessly back in one chair, with his legs resting on another; a cigar in his mouth, his hands, with the cards in them, from habit well held up, and the usual indifferent look upon his face. A great contrast was the man sitting on the other side of the long, narrow saloon table. Major Massinger, late of Her Majesty's Service, a large, bull-necked man with eyes like a cod fish, in a white mess jacket and scarlet cummerbund, was sitting forward, burying a somewhat red face in a beaker of brandy and soda. A box of cigars and picquet markers testified to a long evening's play, the last indeed of a series. To those who knew him, the gallant Major's boisterous joviality would have betokened a winning night. His luck was 'in,' even to and beyond Dick's bottom dollar, but this beyondness, which might have been somewhat disquieting- to his opponent, was not to be gathered from Dick's impassive face.

'Eleven o'clock—shall we conclude?' said the latter.

'Not a bit of it, unless you're afraid of the luck?'

Dick answered by an amused look and a shrug of his shoulders, but he said:

'Won't you disturb your wife if you stay here much longer?'

'D——n my wife; you've evidently never been spliced, or you wouldn't be so beastly particular.'

Massinger turned as he said this to open another bottle of soda, and missed the ugly look in Dick's half-shut eyes.

'All serene, then,' said the latter—'guess I owe you twelve hundred and fifty dollars; well, now, I'll play you double or quits, the best of three games.'

'What's that in pounds? Two fifty, isn't it? Very good! Go ahead, my sportsman; double or quits, five hundred or nothing.'

Dick shuffled the cards and cut them; a breeze stole in at the open skylight, and sighed fitfully through the saloon, and as it died away, his sharp ears caught the 'frou frou' of a silk dress descending the hatch.

'One moment,' he said—'reckon I'll just shut that door; there's kind of a hurricane playing around here;' and, rising quickly, he moved to the saloon door and stood there a moment, hat in hand, as a slender white figure passed down the stairs. Her hand rested a moment in his as she glided by, and Mr Denver shut the door and returned to his seat. Massinger, manufacturing his fourth drink, saw nothing of this by-play, and the game was resumed. But the tide had turned, and Massinger was 'rubiconed' twice running.

'As you was before you was! Look here, Denver, can't end up like this, you know—it's too infernal slow;' his voice was getting thick and his hand shook somewhat.

'Mussh't see the luck through, y'know, somehow'n other—no craning.'

Dick, a covert sneer on his face, was far too considerate to disappoint him, and once again the cards were shuffled and dealt; the Major more boisterous, Dick more impassive than ever. With the end of the partie came the transference of £200 in notes from Massinger's pocket-book to Mr Denver's. Undaunted, the Major slapped the latter on the back, declaring him thickly to be a jolly good sportsman.

'Have my revenge to-morrow night,—too tight now,' said he.

'Yes,' assented Dick, cheerfully, 'but I guess we get to St Martin to-morrow, and I leave the ship.'

'Oh, hang it! Never mind; I suppose we stay there a bit, eh?'

'Two days,' said Dick.

'All right! I'll play you on shore. Is there any solitary thing to see in the d——d hole? My wife always wants to see everything, confound her!'

Mr Denver apparently paid no heed to this remark; he was sitting tilted back in his chair, his hat slouched over his brows, and only the slight twitching of the hand holding the pocket-book, and a curious smouldering fire in his half-closed eyes, showed that a struggle was going on in his mind. Presently, with a sudden jerk, he returned to a right-angled position, and stared straight at Massinger. The man looked particularly like a codfish at that moment, and breathed heavily. Dick shivered slightly and disgustedly. Through the open skylight above the wind could be heard sighing in the sails, 'God! How I hate him! How long? How long?' That was the refrain it took. A cold look of purpose and resolution settled in Dick's eyes—the crystallisation of a vague idea.

'Why, certainly no, not the smallest use! 'Pears to me as if there might be a chance,' he muttered unintelligibly to himself; and fingering the pocket-book in his hand, he looked at the man opposite with a calculating eye.

'What's the matter with you? You're drunker than I am,' said the latter. 'I ask you simply if there's anything to see in the island, and, begad, you're jibbering like a boiled owl.' He stooped unsteadily to reach his glass under the table.

Mr Denver's look was that of one who measures the distance for a spring.

'Malūa! Malūa!' (which is by interpretation 'Go easy'). 'I guess it can be done,' he drawled softly to himself. 'Anything to see? No—o. Stop, though,'—to the intelligent eye, as he drew himself together in his chair, the spring was very near now—'I guess I'm wrong all the time, there is something almighty curious to see, for those who have the sand.'

'What's that?'

'We—ell, it mightn't interest you, but it's a place they call "La boite du diable"—kind of a cavern in the side of a hill. Considerable few people have been to see it, and none stayed very long. Reckon you won't care about it.'

An indescribable sneer was in Mr Denver's voice, and the Major, though far gone, was not too far gone to seize upon it as an insult.

'You mean, I wouldn't dare,' he said, huskily. 'Confound you, sir, d'you think I've not got as much pluck as you?'

'Guess not,' said Dick, drily.

'D——n you, sir!' said Massinger, furiously; 'I'll bet you that £200 I've just paid you, I go to that hole, whatever it is, and stay there as long or longer than you do.'

For answer, Mr Denver rose slowly.

'Put it in writing,' he said, and, producing pen and paper out of his pocket, he reached down the saloon ink-bottle, and pushed them over to Massinger. The latter, quite sobered, stared a minute at his nonchalant companion, then sat down, and without saying a word penned the following lines in a shaky hand:

'"I bet Mr Dick Denver the sum of £200 that I visit with him a condemned hole called 'La boite du diable,' and stay there as long or longer than he does."

'Will that do?'

'Play or pay,' added Mr Denver, calmly.

'"Play or pay."

'"Albert Massinger, October 9th, 188-"—he signed his name, and threw it across to Dick, who signed his own, and pocketed the document.

'Guess I'll call for you after dinner at your hotel,' he said; 'might be happier with pistols, it's kind of a skeery place. Good-night,' he nodded, and without another word, lounged up on to the silent deck, the suspicion of an unholy smile flickering on his impassive features.

SCENE III

The night was dark, and the two figures taking a winding way up the narrow hillside path had much ado to keep from going astray. The leader, ploughing along, head down, with eyes diligently on the move to save his precious shins, was betrayed by a running accompaniment of his favourite language. He was volubly cursing his folly in having made 'such a d——d silly bet,' and Mr Denver for having inveigled him into a fool's errand. The latter, sauntering along a few steps behind, apparently quite oblivious of his companion, was humming a favourite little tune, and turning from time to time to look down on the twinkling lights of the little town scattered here and there amid the tall stems of the palms outlined against the further sky. The faint murmur of the surf breaking on the reef seemed to chime in with his mood better than the tune, for he stopped humming, and bent forward to listen. Massinger had exhausted his vocabulary for the present, and was silent also; only the fitful chirping of a cicala and the occasional bark of a dog from below broke the stillness of the tropical night. The moon was just rising over the sea, throwing a long silvery line of light, which gradually spread, as if eager to embrace the land, awaiting it in silent expectancy. The solemnity and stillness of the scene, however, only served to increase the Major's irritation.

'Come on,' he said, impatiently; 'don't stand moonstruck there; let's get this infernal foolishness over as soon as possible. How much further have we got to go up this beastly path? If it's far I'd sooner pay £500 than go on.'

'We're almost there,' said Dick, and passing his companion, he swung along up the track. In about ten minutes he came to a halt, and said in his soft drawling voice, 'We turn down here, and in a minute or so we'll be right there. Then look to your shooting-iron, and harden your heart, and in we go. Malūa, my son,' he added to himself, 'it's no part of the game to "show" a while yet—mustn't skeer the gentleman;' he chuckled grimly and audibly.

'What the devil's wrong with the infernal place, and why do we want pistols?' said Massinger, testily; but even as he spoke he drew a revolver from his side pocket. For all answer, Mr Denver led on down a zig-zag path to the left, until brought up sharp by the face of a rocky cliff, grown over with bushes and creepers. After standing there a minute to see that his companion had followed him, he stooped suddenly, raising with his hand a huge, hanging creeper, and dived as it were into the face of the rock. Astonished at his sudden disappearance, Massinger stood a minute before the rock irresolute, but a mocking voice, with that peculiar high drawl, came from within.

'Reckon you're going back, Major; is that so?'

With a muttered oath, Massinger raised the creeper, and, imitating his companion, crawled through a hidden opening in the rock, till he found himself standing upright beside Dick in an open space. When his eyes had become somewhat accustomed to the gloom, he saw that they were in a natural vault or chamber, formed in the rock of the hillside, nearly square, and about forty feet from side to side. In the centre was a huge jagged hole of cavernous depth, and above it, a large cleft in the rock ceiling of the vault, letting in a glimpse of the starry heavens. The sides of the walls, of a reddish-grey stone, were damp and clammy, and the air hot and steamy. In the far corner of the cavern, opposite the entrance, was a natural stone seat. When by degrees and uncertain glances he had taken in his surroundings, Massinger looked round for his companion. Mr Denver was seated in a degagé attitude on a stone, with his back to the entrance, carefully selecting a weed from his cigar-case. This he lighted, and got well under weigh, before he said, with the drawl that had become hateful to the other:

'Nice place, a'nt it, Major? Take a seat; there's a tolerable spry pew opposite.'

He waved with his cigar to the stone seat. Massinger, though secretly far from comfortable, was not to be outdone in coolness by this Yankee blackguard. Taking a cigarette, he lit it from the other's cigar, and strolled, with a fine assumption of indifference, to the seat indicated. A long silence followed; the moon was gradually creeping up in the sky, and long ghostly shadows were cast on the floor and walls of the 'Devil's Box.' Massinger's feelings during this night had been far from enviable; starting after a good dinner, he had looked upon the affair as an amusing freak by which he would save himself the payment of £200. The steep, difficult ascent had thoroughly disillusioned him, and the eerie look of the cavern was fast completing his discomfiture. He was conscious, too, of a vague feeling of distrust as to his companion's conduct. Why had he brought him to this unearthly hole,—where apparently there was nothing to prevent their staying till Doomsday to decide this fool of a bet. There was something sinister about the entertainment.

As if reading the thoughts that were pressing on his companion's brain, Mr Denver broke the silence,—

'Guess you're feeling up a considerable high tree, Major; this is going to be an interesting occasion for you.' There was a look as of a cat playing with a mouse about the speaker, and Massinger was not slow to read a menace into the suave tones of the high-pitched voice.

'What in God's name is the meanin' of this foolery?' he broke out, harshly; 'why have you brought me here? There's something behind all this d——d skittlin', and I'll trouble you to tell me what it is.' He rose as he spoke, and took a step with clenched hands towards Dick. The latter did not move.

'I should mind that little orifice if I were you,' he said, pointing to the yawning chasm that separated them in the centre, and from the murky depths of which ascended a faintly hissing, bubbling sound as of boiling water. Massinger, who in his excitement had advanced almost to its edge, started back again with an alacrity that showed the unstrung state of his nerves. When he had again dropped into his seat, and was playing nervously with the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket, Mr Denver took up the word.

'Major,' he said, 'I'm going to have some talk with you, and you'll pardon me if I deliver a little exordium'—he pronounced it with an ominous emphasis on the 'um.' 'I reckon the moon won't be full up for another half hour, so we've considerable time.'

'What's the moon got to do with it, and what the devil is it you want? Fire away and come to the point,' said Massinger, twisting the ends of his moustache, and endeavouring to conceal his now genuine alarm under a boisterous bluffness. Mr Denver smiled a quaint little smile, as though his spirits were rising.

'Things will begin to move right along about the time the moon's overhead,' he said, consulting his watch. 'Now, see here, Major, I don't want to bore you, but I've got to say you're kind of the worst specimen of a man I've had the luck to meet'—a smothered curse from Massinger. 'Keep cool, Major; you'll want all your language before I'm through; guess I've brought you here,—at your own request, you know,'—he smiled,—'just to explain to you a little idea of mine, which I reckon you'll appreciate.' Mr Denver's resemblance to a cat at this moment was not reassuring to the mouse. For a moment he paused, changing his attitude, and leaning back against the wall with his hands in his pockets and his legs crossed. Massinger had taken out his revolver, and fingered it nervously.

'Nice little iron,' said Mr Denver, approvingly; 'you're a good shot, too. Major, I know.'

'Pretty fair,' said the latter, grimly.

'So much the better. We—ell now, I've been thinking a good deal 'bout you since I've had the honour of making your acquaintance, and—now don't be wild. Major—you really are—as you Britishers say a great cad.'

A furious oath and a sudden movement forward from Massinger was as suddenly checked by the appearance of a little shining tube held straight at his head, and the imperturbable drawl resumed,—

'Guess I see you, and go one better; presently, my dear sir, you'll have your chance, but just now I must beg you to sit still and hear my little exordium.' A pause.

'Four years ago you married the present Mrs Massinger.'

'You blackguard, how dare you mention my wife's name?'

For the first time Dick Denver's face betrayed emotion; his mouth twitched, and a sullen fire burned slowly up into his deep-set eyes, but his voice was none the less impassive as he continued:

'I guess I've as much show; I'm a good bit fitter to talk of your wife than you are, you—you hound.' The words in the slow drawl were maddening, and this time it was Massinger's revolver that was levelled, but Mr Denver sat idly as ever, looking full at his companion, and presently the latter dropped his arm.

'Malūa, Major, Malūa! even you won't commit murder, you see.'—A longer hiss from the inky depth in the centre, and a thin jet of water spurted up a foot or two above the level of the ground. Mr Denver took out his watch and looked at the opening above.

'The show's beginning,' he said. Massinger was wiping some drops of water off his trousers.

'I say,' he said excitedly, 'that water was boilin'; will it come any higher?'

'Don't alarm yourself. Major, the moon'll be up before the next demonstration.'.

'What in the fiend's name has the moon got to do with it? If you think I'm goin' to stay here to be boiled for you or any other madman, I'm not takin' any, I can tell you.'

'No? Well, I guess you're going to stay here some, while I finish what I've got to say.—Four years ago you married the present Mrs Massinger; and I guess you've led her the life of a dog.'

'You're a liar! a d——d liar! I've never ill-used her.'

'You've never struck or kicked her, you mean, but by God, in every other way you've been a brute to her, and I reckon you've spoilt her life.'

He held the other with his look, and went on rapidly.

'I know you. Major; you're a mean, sullen, sordid cur, not fit to live with any woman, much less with her. We—ell! so—o I guess I've fixed up a little idea which I'm going to explain to you right along.' Another low, soft hiss from the bottomless pit. The rays from the moon were now striking almost vertically into the cavern, on Massinger sitting motionless in an angry but half-cowed amazement, on Mr Denver again consulting his watch. He returned it to his pocket and said:

'In ten minutes from that first jet, there'll be a geyser, and if we're here I calculate we'll be boiled and carried down that hole,—I know its little ways. There's just upon six minutes left, but in three the moon'll be right above, and there'll be considerable light in the shooting gallery.'

Massinger opened his mouth, but Mr Denver went on sharply and distinctly:

'You see. Major, my idea's just this, one of us has got to stay right here. Now its likely you'll prefer being shot to being boiled; when I say the words "one, two, three," we shall both of us fire, and if you pass out over my body you are to be congratulated. I shall shoot you if I can, because'—he paused, then very slowly, 'I guess Mrs Massinger has no kind of use for you. It's a fair and square business. Major, and you bet'—he pointed with his pistol to the bubbling, hissing chasm—'the devil'll take the hindmost'

Dick Denver smiled grimly as he finished his exordium—his composure was devilish; he rose, looked once up at the opening above, through which the moon was now visible directly overhead, and then stood immovable, watching his companion. The full horror of his position had at last dawned on Massinger; he was on his feet now, leaning irresolutely against the wall, with staring eyes fixed alternately upon the awful chasm between them and his opponent's set face.

'My God!' he said; 'you must be mad,—for heaven's sake, let's end this fooling.' But his ashen face showed that he knew it was no fooling, but a grim reality.

'Time's up. I shall say "one, two, three"; at three we fire.'

The words acted like a cold douche on Massinger; he shivered all over, then braced himself against the rock and set his teeth.

'D——n you,' he muttered, 'I'll pass out over your body yet.' Turning to bay with a wolfish glare in his eyes, he lifted his pistol.

The angry water, greedy of its prey, was hissing louder and louder between them.

'One—two—three!—' a double report and a hoarse, stifled cry. Mr Denver staggered back, and his hat, pierced through and through, fell from his head. Recovering himself, he threw one look over the pit to where Massinger lay motionless on his face, shot through the heart; the devil's water creeping up and brimming over the edge, nearly touched his rigid body.

'Wonder if the cuss is dead? Can't leave him to be boiled alive.' Dick sprang over the brimming, hissing gulf, and lifted the head.

'As mutton,' he said, dropping the lifeless mass. With a leap backwards, he gained the entrance, and, passing through, dashed down the hill. Once he paused, and looking back, saw a smoking jet shoot high into the moonlit sky. Some drops of boiling spray fell with a hiss on his face and hands,—Dick shivered and went on his way.

AN AFTERTHOUGHT

The first streaks of dawn were showing in the east. The long, low, white-verandahed hotel surrounded by a group of palms that wavered unsteadily in the half-light, like a group of ghostly sentinels, was still undisturbed by the coming day. A man standing back in the shadow muttered to himself, as, glancing over his shoulder, he caught the first glow of light on the horizon. Advancing softly, with a spring, he grasped the roof of the verandah, and swung himself up lightly and noiselessly. Climbing the balcony rails, he looked for a moment along the line of French windows opening outwards, then, creeping forward, he passed through one of them into a small empty room, with a larger one adjoining it. Pausing inside, he glanced through the open door into the other room. The night had been stiflingly hot, the win- dows were open, and from the bed standing in the far corner the mosquito-curtains were thrown back. As his eyes fell upon the bed, Dick Denver shivered, and stood thinking.

'Better not,' he said to himself; 'it's kind of a skeery tale.' He took a piece of paper from his pocket. 'No one saw us go up,' he muttered, and grimly, 'I guess no one saw us come down.' He ran his eye over the paper.

'"I bet Mr Dick Denver the sum of £200 that I visit with him a condemned hole called 'La boite du diable,' and stay there as long or longer than he does.

'"Play or pay.

'"Albert Massinger, October 9th, 188-.

"'Dick Denver."'

So it ran. With a pencil he scribbled a line underneath:

'Lost and paid. A. M. stays there for ever. Burn this.—D. D.'

He took out of his pocket a bundle of notes, then stole gently forward and pinned them both to the pillow of the bed where a white figure lay sleeping. Then he stood back and gazed with a wistful, yearning look in his eyes. The white-robed figure moved restlessly in its sleep, and a sigh that went straight to Dick's heart came stealing across the room. The window faced east, and the dawning light fell softly on the sweet face resting on a bare white arm, and on the fair hair trailing across the pillow. A tiny puff of sea-air floated in, and ruffled the lace falling back from the delicate throat. A mad longing seized upon Dick; he took two steps forward, then stopped irresolutely and staggered back against the wall, as a far-off mountain cry of beast or bird was wafted in at the window, sounding in his ears like that other cry heard not long ago. It steadied him, and with a noiseless step he moved swiftly to the bed, and stooping, pressed his lips lightly to one fair tress that fell softly over neck and bosom; then he raised himself as swiftly. Without another look he passed through the window, and swinging himself over the rail, walked hurriedly through the morning mist in the direction of the pier.

Two hours afterwards, Mr Dick Denver leant against the side of the French packet 'Belle Ile' as she made steady way from the port of St Martin. His eyes were fixed on a fast-vanishing white building.

'I'm best with a new hand; there was nothing to that racket. But it just licks creation how I made tracks; it wasn't in the programme, anyway. Why did I? Dick, my son, why did you?... We—ell, 'pears to me somehow I remembered a saying: "Ye cannot get figs from thistles"; I guess that's right so,—and,' exceeding bitterly, 'who am I that I should lift my face to hers?