Terence O'Rourke/Part 1/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
HE DECIDES THAT BEGGARS SHOULD RIDE
O'Rourke found the night air soft and balmy, humid but refreshing. He walked with great, limb-stretching strides, throwing back his shoulders and expanding his chest—bathing his lungs, so to speak, with the cleansing atmosphere.
His way led him straight across the city, a walk of no slight distance to his lodgings; but he made a detour to prolong it, to give the exercise an opportunity to clear his brain and steady his nerves—unstrung as they were, from his recent excitement, as from the action of an opiate.
It was later than he began to think; for he could not immediately believe that time had flown so rapidly in the house of Paz. Only the almost deserted streets in which his footsteps echoed loud and lonely, the quietness that lay upon the city, the repose of the gendarmes on the corners, brought home to him the wee smallness of the hour.
He was not sleepy—anything but that; he was very much awake—and yet he was dreaming, holding a "post-mortem" (as he termed it) on his luck and misfortunes of the night, and planning toward his future; or rather, he was striving to solve the riddle of his future, drear and uncompromisingly blank as it then loomed, to his imagination.
For the present—it came to him as a distinct shock—he was exceedingly hungry, and, through his own folly, found himself without the wherewithal to satisfy that young and healthy appetite.
But he told himself that he, an old campaigner who had known keen privation in his time, could stave off starvation by reefing in his belt. "A light stomach makes a light conscience," was the aphorism from which he was seeking consolation when he noticed that he was being followed.
Quick, determined footsteps were sounding in the street behind him.
"Is it possible," he inquired aloud, "that me friend with the Vandyke beard is after me, with his nefarious designs, now? I've half a mind to stop and let him interview me."
He glanced over his shoulder; the man behind was passing under a light about a block distant; O'Rourke judged that he was a heavy, bulky man, with a beard.
"The same!" he cried, pleased as a child with a toy, with the strangeness of the affair. "Faith, now, I'll be giving him a run for his money."
He mended his pace, lengthening his stride; but the other proved obstinate, and was not to be shaken off. For some time O'Rourke could tell by the sound that the distance between them was neither increasing nor decreasing; and then he began to puzzle his head about the pursuer's motive.
The man had dogged two men, at least, besides O'Rourke himself, from the gambling house; and each had been, or had seemed to be, broken in fortune, and therefore likely to be more or less desperate, and ready to seize upon any chance to recoup.
What then had this fellow to offer ruined gamesters? O'Rourke wondered. His inquisitiveness made his feet to lag, for he was now determined to find out; and he cast about for an excuse to halt altogether, finding it in the half of a cold cigar upon which he had unconsciously been chewing.
He felt in his pocket for a match, and stopped to strike it under one of the gloomy arches of the Rue de Rivoli. His man came up rapidly. O'Rourke dallied with the match, pretending an interest in the odd aspect of the almost desolate street, so generally populous.
"Monsieur—"
He jumped, by premeditation, and looked around. The man with the beard stood by his side, breathing heavily. O'Rourke eyed him gravely.
"The top of the morning to ye, sir," he said courteously; "and what can I have the pleasure of doing for ye, may I ask?"
The other recovered his breath in gasps, begging for time with an uplifted, expressive hand. He bowed ponderously; and O'Rourke made him a graceful leg, his eyes twinkling with amusement; after all the Irishman was no more than a boy at heart, fun-loving, and just then resolved to extract what entertainment he might from the Frenchman.
"Monsieur, I have a favor to ask—"
"A thousand, if ye will!"
The man was quick-witted; he saw that he was being trifled with, and expressed his resentment by the gathering of his heavy brows and a significant pause. At length, however, "Monsieur has been unfortunate," he suggested coldly.
"In what way?" demanded O'Rourke, on his dignity in an instant.
"At roulette," returned the other. "I presume that monsieur is not—" He hesitated.
"Not what, if ye please?"
"Rich, let us say; monsieur feels his losses of to-night—"
"He does? And may I ask how monsieur knows so much about me private affairs?"
"I was watching—"
"Ye were!"
The other flushed, yet persisted: "Not precisely. One moment—I will explain—"
"Very well," O'Rourke consented ominously.
"Perhaps you are in need of money? Now, I am—"
He got no further; that was a bald impertinence to an O'Rourke, even if to a penniless one; and the destitute adventurer, made thus to realize how desperately he was in reality in need of money, was not pleased.
"That," he broke in placidly, "is none of your damned business!"
"What!"
A deeper shade of red mantled the face of the Frenchman. He stepped back, but, when the Irishman would have passed on, barred the way.
"Will monsieur please to repeat those words?" he requested, with ceremony.
"I will," returned O'Rourke hotly; and obliged. "Now," he concluded, "ye are at liberty to—get—out—of—me—way, sir!"
"But—you have insulted me!"
"Eh?" O'Rourke laughed shortly. "Impossible," he sneered.
"Monsieur! I insist! My card!" He nourished a bit of pasteboard in O'Rourke's face. "For this you shall afford me satisfaction!"
"Angry little one!" jeered O'Rourke. Now thoroughly aroused, he seized the card and tore it into a dozen scraps, without even looking at it.
"I'll afford ye no satisfaction," he drawled exasperatingly, "but—if ye don't remove yourself from me path, faith, I'll step on ye!"
Quivering with rage, the Frenchman began to draw off his gloves. O'Rourke divined what he purposed. He paled slightly, and his mouth became a hard, straight line as he warned the aggressor.
"Be careful, ye whelp! If ye strike me, I'll—"
The gloves were flicked smartly across his lips, instantly demolishing whatever barriers of self-restraint he had for a check upon his temper. He swore, his eyes blazing, and his arm shot out. The Frenchman received the full impact of the blow upon his cheek, and—subsided.
Standing over the prostrate body, O'Rourke glanced up and down the street; it seemed very still, quite dark, almost deserted. Only upon a distant corner he made out the figure of a man leaning negligently against a lamp-post; he might prove to be a gendarme, but, so far, apparently, his attention had not been attracted to the affair.
O'Rourke's primal impulse was to pass on, and leave his adversary to his fate; but the retaliating blow had cooled his anger by several degrees. On second thought, the Irishman decided to play the good Samaritan—which was egregious folly. His man was sitting up, by then, rubbing ruefully his cheek; O'Rourke gave him a generous hand and assisted him to his feet.
"I trust," he said, "that ye are not severely injured—"
"Canaille!" rasped the Frenchman, sullenly, dusting his coat; and he drove home the epithet with a venomous threat.
O'Rourke laughed at him.
"Aha," he cried, "then ye've not had enough? Do I understand that ye want another dose of the same?"
Silently the man picked up his hat from the gutter, knocked it into shape, and rubbed it against his sleeve in fatuous effort to restore some of its pristine brilliancy.
"If ye are quite through with me," continued the Irishman, "I'll go to the devil in me own way, without your interference. And, monsieur, a word in your ear! Attend to your own affairs in the future, if ye would avoid—"
The man with the beard cursed audibly, gritted his teeth and clinched his hands; but when he spoke it was coolly enough.
"I have not done with you, canaille," he said. "You will do well, indeed, to go on, for I intend to hand you over to a gendarme."
"The divvle ye say!"
O'Rourke found that he was addressing the back of the man, who was making hastily toward the figure under the distant lamp-post. "That looks," he debated, "as if he meant business! Faith, 'tis meself that will take his advice—this once!"
Accordingly he started off in the opposite direction, in leisurely fashion; he was not inclined to believe that the Frenchman would really carry out his threat of arrest. Nevertheless, he kept his ears open, nor was he greatly surprised when presently, as he debouched into the Place de la Concorde, he heard mingled with shouts the sound of two pairs of running feet in the street behind him.
"Why, the pup!" he exclaimed, deeply disgusted, and stopped, more than half inclined to face and thrash both the representative of the law and the impertinent civilian. But he quickly abandoned that alluring prospect; it was entirely too fraught with the risk of spending a night in custody—something that he desired not in the least.
By then, the sounds of pursuit were nearing rapidly. Already the gendarme had caught sight of his figure, and was yelling frantically at him to halt and surrender.
"This won't do, at all, at all," reflected O'Rourke, and himself began to run, cursing his hotheadedness for the predicament into which it had led him.
A sleepy cabby woke up, startled by the unusual disturbance, and added his yelps to those of the policeman and the much-abused Frenchman. Others joined in the chorus. A belated street gamin shrieked with joy, and attached himself to the chase. His example was followed by others. O'Rourke began to be very, very regretful for his precipitancy.
He doubled and turned into the Champs Elysées, hounded by a growing, howling mob. It seemed to him that men sprang from the earth itself to help run him down; and the sensation was most unpleasant. He began to sprint madly, his inverness napping behind him like the wings of some huge, misshapen bird of night. He dug elbows in ribs, clenched his teeth, and threw back his head, careful to keep as much as possible in the shadows.
And the mob grew, whooping joyously with interest; from their cries it seemed that they considered O'Rourke an escaping criminal of note.
The Irishman kept himself ever on the alert for some chance of escape—any subterfuge to throw the pursuit off his track; but none appeared. He realized that he was gaining by sheer fleetness of foot, but not for a moment did he imagine that by swiftness he might distance the mob. For a rabble is always fresh, never tiring; the places of those who drop out, exhausted and breathless, are instantly filled by fresh and willing recruits. And in the end the mob gets at the throat of its quarry—if the running be in the open.
O'Rourke knew this entirely too well for the peace of his own mind; therefore, he grasped avidly at the first chance that presented itself, heedless of its consequences.
Drawn up at the curb, a fiacre stood with open door. He could see the driver turning on the box to discover the cause of the uproar. That was good, O'Rourke considered; the man, then, was wide awake.
He reached the vehicle and jumped upon the step, shouting to the driver the first address which entered his head:
"To the Gare du Nord! At once! With haste!"
Immediately the fiacre was in motion; O'Rourke experienced some difficulty in drawing himself in and closing the door because of the rapidity of the pace. In another moment the horse was leaping forward furiously, under the sting of a merciless lash.
"Bless the intilligent man!" muttered O'Rourke fervently. He felt that he could have kissed the driver for his instant obedience. But at once he was crushed by a paralyzing thought; how, in Heaven's name, was he to pay the hire of the vehicle?
He cursed his luck, and attempted to seat himself—gasped with astonishment, and incontinently stood up again, bumping his head against the roof.
"Madame!" he cried astounded, into the obscurity. "I beg—"
The reply was instant and encouraging.
"My pardon is granted, monsieur. Will monsieur be pleased to resume his seat?"
For the other occupant of the fiacre was—a woman.