Chapter II: His Story (4)

Presently the station woke up. One or two people arrived, and took seats on a barrow in a shady place. The station-master labelled a hamper and gave out a ticket. Then some one who was by no means welcome to the vicar appeared--Jim Foley. He did not enter the station, but the vicar caught sight of him standing on the bridge which carried the road over the railway. What was more, Jim Foley at the same moment discovered the vicar.

Jim looked elsewhere, but he had his suspicions. "Hallo!" he muttered. "Friend Jones grows more of a riddle than ever. I suppose he has had dealings with Master Wilkins, and has an equal interest with me in seeing him off. I hope he has got rid of him as cheaply! But it is odd! I shall tell the Partridge, and hear what she says. She likes him."

He forgot his wife a few minutes later, when the train had steamed slowly in, and stood, and steamed out again, and the two people who had come by it had passed him, and even the vicar, slowly and perforce, had crawled up to him on the bridge. Foley by that time had found something else to consider. "I say," he exclaimed on the impulse of the moment, meeting the clergyman open-mouthed, "this won't do, you know."

Jones was dazed, struck down and prostrated by his disappointment. "What," he said feebly--"what won't do?"

"He has not gone!"

"No!"

"The old buffer! I guessed what was up when I saw you hanging about. Did he get anything out of you?"

The question sounded brutal, but the clergyman answered it. "Yes," he said, his cheek dark--and he looked down at the end of his stick and wondered how the other had found it out. "Two sovereigns."

"By Jove! Well, what is to be done now--that is the question?"

"I shall go to the squire," Jones said.

"What? And tell him this?"

"Yes."

Jim shrugged his shoulders. "Well," he said, after a pause in which he tried to see if this would hurt him, "I dare say it is the best thing you can do. While you are telling other things, perhaps you may as well throw this in."

Jim strolled towards the Acton Arms, after making this handsome concession, much puzzled in his mind by the new light which events were shedding on the character of Jones. The discovery that his future brother-in-law had done a little betting did not surprise him. But, in conjunction with the entanglement to which the vicar had owned the day before, it seemed to indicate a character so different from the model of propriety he had hitherto known, that he was staggered. "And he never kills a thing," Jim thought, turning it over. "You would not think that he knew what sport meant!"

The village policeman was loitering outside the inn, and Foley, who had a word for every one, invited him to come in and have a glass of ale. The road in front of the Acton Arms is separated from the Chase only by a sunk fence; and Jim, casting a glance behind him as he entered, could see the windows of the great house flashing in the sunlight, and the vicar pounding along the avenue towards them. He went in, the constable at his heels, and turned into the cool fireless taproom, which he took to be empty. His stick had scarcely rung on the oak table, however, before a man who had been sitting on the settle, his head on his hands and his senses lost in a drunken stupor, leapt up and, supporting himself by the table, glared at the two intruders.

"Ah!" the squire's son-in-law said drily, "so you are here, Master Jones _vice_ Wilkins, are you? I might have known where to find you!"

It is probable that the wretched man, recognising him, and seeing the policeman with him, thought that they had come to arrest him. Roused thus abruptly from his slumbers, bemused and drink-sodden, he saw in a flash the hand of the law stretched out to grasp him, and an old and ungovernable terror seized upon his shattered nerves. "Keep off! keep off!" he gasped, clawing at the two with his trembling hands. "You shall not take me! I will not be taken! Don't you see I am a gentleman?"--this last in a feeble scream.

"Easy, easy, old fellow," Jim said, surprised by his violence, "or you will be doing yourself a mischief."

But the words only confirmed the poor man in his mistake. "I won't be taken!" he cried, waving them off. "My son will pay you, I tell you," he cried, his voice rising in a shriek which rang in the road outside, and startled the house-dog sleeping in the sunshine--"I tell you my son will pay you!" One of his hands as he spoke overturned the empty glass, and it rolled off the table--on such trifles life rests. For the policeman instinctively started forward to catch it, and the old man misunderstood the movement. He fell in a fit on the floor.

Of course there was a great commotion. The inn was roused from its afternoon slumber, and the policeman was sent for the doctor; with one thing and another half an hour elapsed before Foley left the house and slowly made his way to the Chase. He was thinking a great deal more seriously than was his wont. As hard as nails, some of his friends called him; but there is a soft spot in these men who are as hard as nails, if one can find it. Approaching the house, he caught sight of his sister-in-law, and shrugged his shoulders and shook himself to get rid of unpleasant thoughts. Patty was a favourite with him, and, seeing her loitering round the sweep before the house, he guessed that she was waiting to intercept her betrothed and learn the cause of his conduct. Jim said a naughty word under his breath and went to her, as if he had something to say. But, reaching her, he listened instead--as a man must when a woman has a mind to speak.

"What is it, Jim?" she broke out. Her eyes were full of trouble and her pale complexion was a shade paler than usual. "What is the matter with Walter? He did not dine here last night, though he meant to do so. And when we went to learn the reason this morning he was out. He was away at luncheon-time, and the school had never been visited. And now, when he appeared at last, he told Robert not to call me, and said he would wait in papa's study until he came in."

She stopped. "He is here now?" Jim asked.

"Yes; papa has come in, and they are in the bowling-green."

"I will go to them," he said.

"But, Jim, what is it?" she repeated, speaking with a little quaver in her voice; and laying her hand on his arm, she detained him. "Tell me, is there anything the matter?"

Jim looked down at her. She was one of those soft plump feminine women who seem made to be protected--whom to hurt seems as wicked as to harm a child. "The matter?" he said. "Nothing that I know of. What should be the matter? I will go and see them."

He escaped from her and, entering the hall, of which both the front and back doors were open, he found that she was right. The young vicar, the dust on his shoes and an unwonted shade of depression darkening his face, was walking up and down the sward with the squire--a little man as choleric as he was kind-hearted, who passed two-thirds of his waking hours in breeches and gaiters. Jim Foley strode towards them, a purpose in his mind. The vicar, just embarked on his confession, found it interrupted and made a thousand times more difficult. "Jones has come to explain matters, I hope, sir," Jim said.

The clergyman winced. "He has come to turn my brain, I think," the squire cried, angry and suspicious. "I cannot make out what he would be at."

"I was telling you, sir," the vicar answered with some impatience--"that my father----"

"You had better leave your father alone, I think!" Foley struck in with a manner like the snapping of a trap. "And explain to Mr. Stanton the matter you mentioned to me yesterday."

"I was explaining it!" the clergyman rejoined. "I was saying that my father--he was at school with you, sir, you remember?"

"To be sure," the squire said, his grey whiskers curling with impatience as he looked from one to the other. "And at college."

"He lost money after my mother's death," the young man continued, "and went to live in Glasgow." In his shrinking from the disclosure he had to make his voice took a rambling tone as he added, "I think I told you that, sir."

"To be sure! Twice!

"But I did not tell you," the clergyman replied, driving his stick into the ground and working it about while his face grew scarlet--"and I take great shame to myself that I did not, Mr. Stanton--that my father was much----"

"Good heavens, Jones!" Jim broke out, his patience exhausted. "What on earth has your father to do with it? Yesterday you gave me to understand that you had some entanglement which weighed on your mind. And I thought that you had come here to make a clean breast of it. Instead of which--for Heaven's sake man, don't make me think that you are not running straight!"

The vicar glared at him, while the squire gazed at both. "But that old man," Jones said at last, almost at choking point by this time, "whom you saw this afternoon was----"

Jim struck in again savagely. "We do not want to know anything about him either. As for him, he is----"

"My father!"

"He is dead," Jim persisted, raising his hand for silence, and determined to keep his man to the point and to have things straightened out. "We do not want to hear anything about him. He is dead. We want----"

"Who is dead?"

The question was the vicar's. He wheeled round as he put it, his face white, his voice changed. The squire, who, like most listeners, had learned more than the talkers, saw his tremendous agitation, and, grasping some idea of the truth, tried to intercept Foley's answer. But he was too late. "The old fellow we went to see off," Jim said, almost lightly. "He is dead. Died in a fit half an hour ago, I tell you."

"Dead?"

"Yes, dead. At least the doctor says so."

The vicar put his hands to his face, and turned away, his back shaking. The others looked at him. "He was--he was my father!" he murmured--almost under his breath. And even Jim, his eyes as wide as saucers, understood.

"Fetch some wine, you fool" the squire muttered, giving him a nudge. And he put his arm round the clergyman, and led him to a seat in the shade. There, I think, Walter Jones prayed that he might not be thankful. Man is weak. And conventional man very weak.

Once a gentleman always a gentleman, was the squire's motto. There was no attempt at concealment. The poor man, whose life had been so unlovely, lay at peace at last in the best room at the vicarage, and was presently, with some tears of pity shed by gentle eyes, laid in a quiet corner of the churchyard. There was talk, of course, but the talk was confined to the village, where the possession of a drunken father was not uncommon, or uncharitably considered. The worst of the dead man was known only to Jim Foley, and he kept it even from his wife; while any Spartan thoughts which the squire might otherwise have entertained, any objections he might have raised to his daughter's match, were rendered futile and quixotic by the strange mode in which the denouement had been reached in his presence. He consented, and all--after an interval--went well. But the vicar will sometimes, I think, in the days to come, when prosperity laps him round, wander to the churchyard and recall the hot noon when he walked the roads haunted by that strange sense of forlornness and ruin.

THE OTHER ENGLISHMAN

THE OTHER ENGLISHMAN

"You are English, I take it, sir?"

It was clear to me that the speaker was. I was travelling alone, and had not fallen in with three Englishmen in as many weeks. I turned to inspect the new-comer with a cordiality his smudged and smutty face could not wholly suppress. "I am," I answered, "and I am glad to meet a fellow-countryman."

"You are a stranger here?" He did not take his eyes from me, but he indicated by a gesture of his thumb the busy wharf below piled high with hundreds and thousands of crates full of oranges. From the upper deck of the _San Miguel_ we looked down upon it, and could see all that came or went in the trim basin about us. The _San Miguel_, a steamer of the Segovia Quadra and Company's line, bound for several places on the coast southward, was waiting to clear out of El Grao, the harbour of Valencia, and I was waiting impatiently to clear out with her. "You are a stranger here?" he repeated.

"Yes; I have been in the town four or five days, but otherwise I am a stranger," I answered.

"You are not in the trade?" he continued. He meant the orange trade.

"No, I am not. I am travelling for pleasure," I answered readily. "You will understand that, though it is more than a Frenchman or Spaniard can." I smiled as I spoke, but he was not very responsive.

"It is a queer place to visit for pleasure," he said, looking from me to the busy throng about the orange crates.

"Not at all," I retorted. "It is a lively town and quaint, and it is warm and sunny. I cannot say as much for Madrid, from which I came two or three weeks back."

"Come straight here?" he asked.

I was growing tired of his curiosity, but I answered, "No. I stayed a short time at Toledo and Aranjuez, and at several other places."

"You speak Spanish?"

"Not much. _Muy poco de Castellano_," I laughed, calling to mind the maddening grimace by which the Spanish peasant indicates that he does not understand, and is not going to understand you. He is a good fellow, is Sancho Panza, but having made up his mind that you do not speak Spanish, the purest Castilian is not Spanish for him.

"You are going some way with us--perhaps to Carthagena?" the inquisitor persisted.

He laid some stress on the last word, and with it shot a sly glance at me--a glance so unpleasantly suggestive that I did not answer him at once. Instead, I looked at him more closely. He was a wiry young fellow, rather below than above the middle height, to all appearance the chief engineer. Everything about him, not excluding the atmosphere, was greasy and oily, as if he had come straight from the engine-room. The whites of his eyes showed with unlovely prominence. Seeing him thus, I took a dislike for him. "To Carthagena!" I answered brusquely. "I am not going to stay at Carthagena. Why should you suppose so? Unless, indeed," I added, as another construction of his words occurred to me, "you think I want to see some fighting? No, I fancy the fun might grow too furious."

I should say that three days before there had been a mutiny among the troops at Carthagena. An outlying fort had been captured, and the governor of the city killed before the attempt was suppressed. The news was in every one's mouth, and I fancied that his question referred to it.

My manner or my words disconcerted him. Without saying more he turned away, not going below at once, but standing on the main deck near the office in the afterpart. There was a good deal of bustle in that quarter. The captain, the second officer, and clerk were there, giving and taking receipts and what not. He did not speak to them, but leaned against the rail close at hand. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he was watching me; and this gave rise to a shrinking from the man, which did not affect me always, but returned from time to time.

Presently the dinner-bell rang, and simultaneously the _San Miguel_ moved out to sea. We were to spend the next day at Alicante, and the following one at Carthagena.

Dinner was not a cheerful meal. The officers of the ship did not speak English or French, and were not communicative in any language. Besides myself there were only three first-class passengers. They were ladies, relatives of the newly appointed Governor of Carthagena, and about to join him there. I have no doubt that they were charming and fashionable people, but their partiality for the knife in eating prejudiced them unfairly in English eyes. Consequently, when I came on deck again, and the engineer--he told me his name was Sleigh--sidled up to me, I received him graciously. He proffered the omnipresent cigarette, and I provided him with something to drink. He urged me to go down with him and see the engine-room, and after some hesitation I did so. It was after dinner.

"I have pretty much my own way," he boasted. "They cannot do without English engineers. They tried once, and lost three boats in six months. In harbour, my time is my own. I have seven stokers under me, all Spaniards. They tried it on with me when I first came aboard! But the first that out with his knife to me I knocked on the head with a shovel. I have had none of their sauce since!"

"Was he much hurt?" I asked, scanning my companion. He was not big, and he slouched. But there was an air of swaggering dare-devilry about him that gave colour to his story.

"I don't know," he answered. "They took him to the hospital, and he never came aboard again. That is all I know."

"I suppose your pay is good?" I suggested. To confess the truth, I felt myself at a disadvantage with him down there. The flaring lights and deep shadows, the cranks and pistons whirling at our elbows, the clank and din, and the valves that hissed at unexpected moments, were matters of every hour to him; they imbued me with a desire to propitiate. As my after-dinner easiness abated, I regretted that it had induced me to come down.

He laughed harshly. "Pretty fair," he said, "with my opportunities. Do you see that jacket?"

"Yes."

"That is my shore-going jacket," with a wink. "Here, look at it!"

I complied. It appeared at first sight to be an ordinary sailor's pea-coat; but, looking more closely, I found that inside were dozens of tiny pockets. At the mouth of each pocket a small hook was fixed to the lining.

"They are for watches," he explained, when he saw that I did not comprehend. "I get five francs over the price for every one I carry ashore to a friend of mine--duty free, you understand."

I nodded to show that I did understand. "And which is your port for that?" I asked, desiring to say something as I turned to ascend.

He touched me on the shoulder, and I found his face close to mine. His eyes glittered in the light of the lamp that hung by the steam-gauge; they had the same expression that had perplexed me before dinner. "At Carthagena!" he whispered, bringing his face still closer to mine. "At Carthagena! Wait a minute, mate, I have told you something," he went on. "I am not too particular, and, what is more, I am not afraid! Ain't you going to tell me something?"

"I have nothing to tell you!" I answered, staring at him.

"Ain't you going to tell me something, mate?" he repeated. His voice was low, but it seemed to me that there was a menace in it.

"I have not an idea what you mean, my good fellow," I said, and, turning abruptly, my eye discovered a shovel lying ready to his hand--I ran as nimbly as I could up the steep ladder, and gained the deck. Once there, I looked down. He was still standing by the lamp, staring up at me, chagrin plainly written on his face. Even as I watched him he rounded his lips to an oath; and then seemed to hold it over until he should be better assured of its necessity.

I thought no worse of him for his revelations. In a country where the head of the custom-house lives like a prince on the salary of a beggar, smuggling is no sin. But I was angry with him, and vexed with myself for the haste with which I had met his advances. I disliked and distrusted him. Whether he was mad, or took me for another smuggler--which seemed the most probable hypothesis--or had conceived some false idea of me, whatever the key to the enigma of his manner might be, I felt that I should do well to avoid him.

Like should mate with like, and I am not a violent man. I should not feel at home in a duel, though the part were played with the most domestic of fire shovels, much less with a horrible thing out of a stoke-hole.

About half-past ten the _San Miguel_ began to roll, and I took the hint and went below. The small saloon was empty, the lamp turned down. As I passed the steward's pantry I looked in and begged a couple of biscuits. I am a tolerable sailor, but when things are bad my policy is comprised in "berth and biscuits." With this provision against misfortune, I retired to my cabin, happy in the knowledge that it was a four-berth one, and that I was its sole occupant.

In truth I came near to chuckling as I looked round it. I did not need the experience I had had of a cabin three feet six inches by six feet three, shared with a drunken Spaniard, to lead me to view with contentment my present quarters. A lamp in a glass case lighted at once the cabin and the passage outside, and gave assurance that it would burn all night. On my right hand were an upper and lower berth, and on my left the same, with standing room between. A couch occupied the side facing me. The sliding door was supplemented by a curtain. What joy--to one who had known other things--to arrange this and stow that, and fearlessly to place in the rack sponge and tooth-brush! What wonder if I blessed the firm of Segovia Quadra and Company as I sank back upon my well-hung mattress.

I sleep well at sea. The motion suits me. A slight qualm of sea-sickness does but induce a pleasant drowsiness. I love a snug berth under the porthole, and to hear the swish and wash of the water racing by, and the crisp plash as the vessel dips her forefoot under, and the complaint of the stout timbers as they creak and groan in the bowels of the ship.

Cosy and warm, I fell asleep, and dreamed that I was again in the engine-room, seated opposite to the other Englishman. "Haven't you something to tell me? Haven't you something to tell me?" he droned monotonously, wagging his head from side to side, with the perplexing smile on his face which had distressed me waking. "Haven't you something to tell me?"

I strove to say that I had not, because I knew that if I did not satisfy him, he would do some dreadful thing, though I did not know what. But I could not utter the words, and while I struggled with this horrible impotency, the thing was done. I was bound hand and foot to the crank of the engine, and was going up and down with it, up and down! I wept and prayed to be released, but the villain took no heed of my prayers. He sat on, regarding my struggles with the same impassive smile. In despair I strove to think what it was he wanted--what it was--what----

How the ship was rolling! Thank Heaven I was awake! Thank Heaven I was in my berth, and not in that horrible engine-room. But how was this? The other Englishman was here too, standing by the lamp, looking at me. Or--was it the other Englishman? It was some one who had a smudged and smutty face. All the wonder in my mind had to do with that. I lay for a while, between sleeping and waking, watching him. Then I saw him reach across my feet to a little shelf above the berth. As he drew back, something that was in his hand--the hand that rested on the edge of my berth--glittered as the light fell upon it; and, wide awake, I sprang to a sitting posture in my berth, and cried out for fear.

He was gone on the instant, and in the same second of time I was out of bed and on the floor. A moment's hesitation, and I drew aside the curtain, which still shook. The passage was still and empty. But opposite my cabin and separated from it by the width of the passage was the door of another cabin, which was, or had been when I went to bed, unoccupied. Now the curtain, drawn across the doorway, was shaking, and I did not doubt that the intruder was behind it. But behind it also was darkness, and I was unarmed, whereas the thing upon which the light had fallen in the man's hand was either a knife or a pistol.

No wonder that I hesitated, or that discretion seemed the better part of valour. To be sure I might call the steward and have the cabin searched; but I feared to seem afraid. I stood on tiptoe listening. All was still; and presently I shivered. The excitement was passing away, I began to feel qualms. With a last glance at the opposite cabin--had I really seen the curtain shake? might it not have been caused by the motion of the ship?--I closed my sliding door, and climbed hastily into my bunk. Robber or no robber I must be still. In a short time, what with my qualms and my drowsiness, I fell asleep.

I slept until the morning light filled the cabin, and I was roused by the cheery voice of the steward, bidding me "Buenos dias." The ship was moving on an even keel. Overhead the deck was being swabbed. I opened my little window and looked out--and the night's doings rose in my memory. But who could think of dreams of midnight assassins with the sea air in his nostrils, and before his eyes that vignette of blue sea and grey rocks--grey, but sparkling, gemlike, ethereal under the sun of Spain? Not I. I was gay as a lark, hungry as a hunter. Sallying out before I was dressed, I satisfied myself that the opposite cabin was empty, and came back laughing at my folly.

But when I found that something else was empty, I thought it no laughing matter. I wanted a snack to stay my appetite until the steward should bring my _cafe complet_, and I turned to the little shelf over my berth where I had placed the biscuits. They were not there. Curious! And I had not eaten them. Then it flashed upon my mind that it was with this shelf my visitor had meddled.

After that I did not lose a moment. I examined my luggage and the pockets of my clothes; the result relieved as much as it astonished me; nothing was missing. My armed apparition had carried off two captain's biscuits, and nothing else!

I passed the morning puzzling over it. Sleigh did not come near me. Was he conscious of guilt, I wondered, or offended by the abruptness of my leave-taking the night before? Or was he engaged about his work?

About noon we came to our moorings at Alicante. The sky was unclouded. The shabby town and the barren hills that rose behind it--barren to the eye, since the vines were not in leaf--looked baking hot. I had found a cool corner of the ship, and was amusing myself with a copy of "Don Quixote" and a dictionary, when the engineer approached.

"Not going ashore?" he said.

For the twentieth time I wondered what it was in his manner that made everything he said a gibe. Whatever it was, I hated him for it; and I gave my feelings vent by answering sullenly, "No, I am not." And forthwith I turned to my books again.

"I thought you travellers for pleasure wanted to see everything," he said. "Maybe you know Alicante?"

"No," I answered snappishly. "And in this heat I don't want to know it!"

"All right, governor, all right!" he replied. "Think it might be too hot for you, perhaps?" And with a hoarse laugh that lasted him from stem to stern, and brought the blood to my cheeks, he left me. But I could see that he did not lose sight of me, and at intervals I heard him chuckling at his own wit for fully half an hour afterwards. But where the joke came in I could not determine.

Towards evening I went ashore, slipping away at a time when he had gone below for a moment. I found a public walk in an avenue of palm-trees which ran beside the sea. The palms were laden with clusters of yellow dates, that were more like dried sea-weed than fruit. As darkness fell, and with it coolness, I sat here, and watched the vessels in the port fade one by one into the gloom, and little sparks of light take their places. A number of people were still abroad, enjoying the air, but these sauntered in the indolent southern fashion, so that when I heard the step of a man approaching in haste, I looked up sharply. To my surprise, it was Sleigh, the engineer!

He passed close to me. I could not be mistaken, though he had put off his slouching, shambling air, and was keenly on the alert, glancing from this side to that, as if he were searching for some one. For whom? I was one of half a dozen on a seat in deep shadow. If I were the person he wanted, he overlooked me, and went on. I sat some time after his step had died away in the distance, my thoughts not pleasant ones. But he did not return, and I went up to the Hotel Bossio prepared to eat an excellent dinner.

The _table d'hote_ in the big whitewashed room was half finished. I was late; and perhaps for this reason the waiters eyed me, as I took my seat, with odd attention; or possibly it was because the English were not numerous at Alicante, or not popular; or, again, it was possible that some one--Sleigh, for example--had been there making inquiries for a foreigner--blond, middle-sized, and speaking very little Spanish. Their notice made me uncomfortable. It seemed as if I could nowhere escape from my Old Man of the Sea.

Nowhere indeed, for I was to have another rencontre that night, with which my mind mixed him up, and which must be told because of the light afterwards thrown upon it. Returning to my ship along the dark wharf, I came upon figures loafing in the shadow of bales or barrels, and, passing them, clutched my loaded stick more tightly. I got by all, however, in safety and reached the spot where the ship lay. "San Miguel! Bota!" I shouted in the approved fashion of that coast. "San Miguel! Bota!"

The words had scarcely left my lips when there was a rustling close to me. A single footstep sounded on the pebbles, and the light of a lantern was flashed in my face. I recoiled. As I did so two or three men sprang forward. Dazzled by the light, I had only an indistinct view of figures about me, and was on the point of fighting or running, or making an attempt at both, when by good luck the clink of steel fell upon my ear.

By good luck! For they were police who had stopped me; and it is ill work resisting the police in Spain. "What do you require, gentlemen?" I asked in my best Spanish. "I am English."

"Perdone usted, senor," replied the leader, who held the light. "Will you have the goodness to show me your papers?"

"Con mucho gusto!" I answered, delighted to find that things were no worse. I was for producing my passport on the spot, but the sergeant, with a polite but imperative "This way!" directed me to follow him. I did so for a short distance, a door was flung open, and I found myself in a well-lighted office, which I guessed was a custom-house. The officer took his place behind a desk, and by a gesture of his cocked hat signified his readiness to proceed.

I had had to do with the police before, but I was aware of a suppressed excitement in the group, of strange glances which they cast at me, of a general drawing round their chief as he bent over my passport, which seemed to indicate that this was no ordinary case of passport examination. Singular, too, was the disappointment they evinced when they found that my passport bore, besides the ordinary _vise_, the signatures of the Vice-Consul and Alcalde at Valencia. As their faces fell my spirits rose. Full conviction took possession of them after I had answered half a dozen questions; and the interview ended with the same "Perdone usted, senor," with which it had begun. I was bowed out; a boat was instantly procured for me, and in two minutes I was climbing the ladder which hung from the _San Miguel's_ quarter.

The first person I saw on board was Sleigh. He was lolling on a bench in the saloon--confound his impudence!--drinking aguardiente and staring moodily at the table. I tried to pass by him and reach my cabin unnoticed, but on the last step of the companion I slipped. With an oath at the interruption he looked up, and our eyes met.

Never did I see a man more astonished. He gazed at me as if he could not trust his sight. "Well, I never!" he cried, slapping his thigh with an oath, and speaking in a jubilant tone. "Well, I am blest, governor! So you did not go ashore after all! Here's a lark!"

I saw that he had been drinking. "I have been ashore," I answered, my dislike increased tenfold by his condition.

"Honour bright?" he exclaimed.

"I have told you that I have been ashore," I replied.

He whistled. "You are a cool hand," he said, looking me over with a new expression in his face. "I might have known that, precious mild as you seemed! Dined at the Hotel Bossio, I warrant you did, and took your walk in the Alameda like any other man?"

"I did."

"So you did! O Lord! O Lord! So you did!" Again he contemplated me at arm's length. I could construe his new expression now--it was one of admiration. "So you did, governor! And came aboard in the dark, as bold as brass!"

That thawed me, for I thought that I had done rather a plucky thing in coming on board alone at that time of night. But I told him nothing of the affair with the police. I merely answered, "I do not understand why I should not, Mr. Sleigh. And as I am tired, I will bid you good night."

"Wait a bit, governor," he said, in a lower tone, arresting me by a gesture as I turned away. "Don't you think you are playing it a bit high? You are a cool one, I swear, and fly--there is nothing you are not fly to, I'll be bound! But two heads are better than one--you take me?--letting alone that it is every one for himself in this world. Do you rise to it?"

"No, I don't rise to it," I answered, drawing back from his spirituous breath and leering eyes. He was more drunk than I had fancied.

"You don't? Think again, mate," he said, almost as if he pleaded with me. "Don't play it too high."

"Don't talk such confounded nonsense!" I retorted angrily.

He looked at me a moment, a scowl darkening his face and not improving it. Then he answered, "All right, governor! All right! Pleasant dreams! and a pleasant waking at Carthagena!"

"I have no doubt I shall enjoy both," I replied, "if you will have the goodness not to disturb me as you did last night!" He should not think he had escaped detection.

"It is your turn now," he replied more soberly. "I don't know what you are up to now. I didn't disturb you last night."

"Some one did! And some one uncommonly like you."

"What did he do?" he asked, eyeing me with suspicion.

"I startled him," I answered, "or I do not know what he would have done. As it was he did not do much. He took some biscuits."

"Took some biscuits!" He pretended that he did not believe me, and he did it so well that I began to doubt. "You must have been dreaming, mate."

"I could not dream the biscuits away," I retorted.

The stroke went home. He stood thinking, drawing patterns on the table with his finger and a puddle of spilled water. Guilty or innocent, he did not seem ashamed, but puzzled and perplexed. Once or twice he glanced cunningly at me. But whether he wished to see how I took it, or suspected me of fooling him, I could not tell.

"Good night!" I cried, losing patience at last; and I went to my cabin. The last I saw of him, he was still standing at the table, drawing patterns on it with his finger.

I turned in at once, satisfied that after what had passed between us there would be no repetition of last night's disturbance. In a pleasant state between waking and sleeping I was aware of the tramp of feet overhead as the moorings were cast off. The first slow motion of the engines was followed by the familiar swish and wash of the water sliding by. The ship began to heel over a little. We had reached the open sea. After that I slept.

I awoke suddenly, but in full possession of my senses. The cabin was still lit by the lamp. I guessed that it was a little after midnight; and "_O utinam!_" I sighed, "that I had not taken that cup of coffee after dinner!" My portmanteau too had got loose. I could hear it sliding about the floor, though, as I lay in the upper berth, I could not see it. I must set that to rights.

I vaulted out after my usual fashion. But instead of alighting fairly and squarely on the floor, my bare feet struck something soft, a good distance short of it, and I came down on my hands and knees--to form part of the queerest tableau upon which a cabin-lamp ever shone. There was I, lightly clothed in pyjamas, glaring into the eyes of a dingy-faced man, who was likewise on his hands and knees on the floor, but with more than half the breath knocked out of his body by my descent upon him. I do not know which was the more astonished.

"Hallo! how do you come here?" I cried, after we had stared at one another for some seconds.

He raised his hand. "Hush!" he whispered: and obeying his gesture I crouched where I was, while he listened. Then we rose to our feet as by one motion. I had not time to feel afraid, though it was far from a pretty countenance that was close to mine. Terror was written too plainly upon it.

"You are English?" he said sullenly.

I nodded. I saw that he had a pistol half-hidden behind him, but somehow I felt master of the position. His fear of being overheard seemed so much greater than my fear of his pistol; and it is not easy to do much with a pistol without being overheard. "You are English, too," I added, below my breath. "Perhaps you will kindly tell me what you are doing in my cabin?"

"You will not betray me?" he cried.

"Betray you, my man!" I replied, with a prudent remembrance of his weapon and the late hour of the night. "If you have taken nothing of mine, you may go to the deuce for me, so long as you don't pay me another visit."

"Taken anything!" he retorted, almost forgetting his caution, "do you take me for a thief? I will be bound----" he went on with a pride that seemed to me very pitiable when I understood it--"that you are about the only man in Spain who would not know me at sight. There is a price upon my head! There are two thousand pesetas for whoever takes me--dead or alive! There are bills of me in every town in Spain! Ay, of me! in every town from Irun to Malaga!"

I knew now who he was. "You were at Carthagena," I said sternly, thinking of the old grey-headed general who had died at his post.

He nodded. The momentary excitement was gone from his face, leaving him what he was, a man, dirty, pallid, half famished. About my height, he wore clothes, shabby and soiled, but like mine in make and material. In his desperate desire for sympathy, for communion with some one, he had already laid aside his fear of me. When I asked him how he came to be in my cabin he told me freely.

"I intended to ship from Valencia to France, but they watched all the boats. I crept on board this one in the night, thinking that as she was bound for Carthagena she would not be searched. I was right; they did not think I should venture back into the lion's jaws."

"But what will you do when we reach Carthagena?" I asked.

"Stay on board and, if possible, go with this ship to Cadiz. From there I can easily get over to Tangier," he answered.

It sounded feasible. "And where have you been since we left Valencia?" I asked.

"Behind this sailcloth." He pointed to a long roll of spare canvas which was stowed away between the floor and the lower berth. I opened my eyes.

"Ay!" he added, "they are close quarters, but there is room behind there for a man lying on his face. What is more, except your two biscuits I have had nothing to eat since the day before yesterday."

"Then it was you who took the biscuits?"

He nodded; then he fell back against my berth, all his strength gone out of him. For from behind us came a more emphatic answer. "You may take your oath to that, governor!" it ran; and briskly pushing aside the door and curtain, Sleigh the engineer stood before us. "You may bet upon that, I guess!" he added, an ugly smile playing about his mouth.

The refugee's face changed to a sickly white. His hand toyed feebly with the pistol, but he did not move. I think that we both felt we were in the presence of a stronger mind.

"You had better put that plaything away," Sleigh said. He showed no fear, but I observed that he watched us narrowly. "A shot would bring the ship about your ears. There is no call for a long tale. I took the governor here for you, but when he told me that some one was stealing his biscuits, I thought I had got the right pig by the ear, and five minutes outside this door have made it a certainty. Two thousand pesetas! Why, hang me," he added brutally, "if I should have thought, to look at you, that you were worth half the money!"

The other plucked up spirit at the insult. "Who are you? What do you want?" he cried, with an attempt at bravado.

"Precisely. What do I want?" the engineer replied with a sneer. "You are right to come to business. What do I want? A hundred pounds. That is my price, mate. Fork it out and mum's the word. Turn rusty, and----" He did not finish the sentence, but grasping his neck in both hands, he pressed his thumbs upon his windpipe and dropped his jaw. It was a ghastly performance. I had seen a garotte and I shuddered.

"You would not give the man up? Your own countryman?" I cried in horror.

"Would I not?" he answered. "You will soon see, if he has not got the cash!"

"A hundred pounds!" the wretched fellow moaned. Sleigh's performance had completely unmanned him. "I have not a hundred pesetas with me."

As it happened--alas, it has often happened so with me!--I had but three hundred pesetas, some twelve pounds odd, about me, nor any hope of a remittance nearer than Malaga. Still, I did what I could. "Look here," I said to Sleigh, "I can hardly believe that you are in earnest, but I will do this. I will give you ten pounds to be silent and let the man take his chance. It is no good to haggle with me," I added, "because I have no more."

"Ten pounds!" he replied derisively, "when the police will give me eighty! I am not such a fool."

"Better ten pounds and clean hands, than eighty pounds of blood money," I retorted.

"Look here, Mister," he answered sternly; "do you mind your own business and let us settle ours. I am sorry for you, mate, that is a fact, but I cannot let the chance pass. If I do not get this money some one else will. I'll tell you what I will do." As he paused I breathed again, while the miserable man whose life was in the balance looked up with renewed hope. "I will lower my terms," he said. "I would rather get the money honestly, I am free to confess that. If you will out with two thousand pesetas, I will keep my mouth shut, and give you a helping hand besides."

"If not?" I said.

"If not," he answered, shrugging his shoulders--but I noticed that he laid his hand on his knife--"if you do not accept my terms before we are in port at Carthagena, I go to the first policeman and tell him who is aboard. Those are my terms, and you have time to think about them."

With that he left the cabin, keeping his face to us to the last. Hateful and treacherous as he was, I could not help admiring his coolness and courage, and his firm grasp of the men he had to do with.

For I felt that we were a sorry pair. I suppose that my companion, bad as his position seemed, had cherished strong hopes of escape. Now he was utterly unmanned. He sat on the couch, his elbows on his knees, his head on his hands, the picture of despair. The pistol had vanished into some pocket, and although capture meant death, I judged that he would let himself be taken without striking a blow.

My own reflections were far from being comfortable. The man grovelling before me might deserve death; knowing the stakes, he had gambled and lost. Moreover, he was a complete stranger to me. But he was an Englishman. He had trusted me. He had spent an hour--but it seemed many--in my company, and I shrank from the pain of seeing him dragged away to his death. My nature revolted against it; I forgot what the consequences of interference might be to myself.

"Look here," I said, after a long interval of silence, "I will do what I can. We shall not reach Carthagena until eight o'clock. Something may turn up before that. At the worst I have a scheme, though I set little store by it, and advise you to do the same. Put on these clothes in place of those you wear." I handed to him a suit taken from my portmanteau. "Wash and shave. Take my passport and papers. It is just possible that if you play your part well they may not identify you, and may arrest me--despite our friend upstairs. For myself, once on shore I shall have no difficulty in proving my innocence."

Not that I was without misgivings. The Spanish civil guards give but short shrift at times, and at the best I might be punished for connivance at an escape. But to some extent I trusted to my nationality; and for the rest, the avidity with which the hunted wretch at my side clutched at the slender hope held out to him drove hesitation from my mind.

As long as I live I shall remember the scene which ensued. The grey light was beginning to steal through the port-hole, giving a sicklier hue to my companion's features, as I helped him with trembling fingers to dress. The odour of the expiring lamp hung upon the air. The tumbled bed-clothes, the ransacked luggage, the coats swaying against the bulkheads to the music of the creaking timbers, formed surroundings deeply imprinted on the memory.

About seven o'clock I procured some coffee and biscuits and a little fruit, and fed him. Then I gave him my papers, and charged him to employ himself about the cabin. My plan was to be out of the way, ashore, or elsewhere, when Sleigh fired his mine, and to trust my companion to return my luggage and papers to my hotel at Malaga; until I reached which place I must take my chance. In reality I played no fine and magnanimous part, for, looking back, I do not think I believed for a moment that the police would be deceived.

A little after eight o'clock I went on deck, to find that the ship was steaming slowly between the fortified hills that frown upon the harbour of Carthagena; a harbour so spacious that in its amphitheatre of waters all the navies of the world might lie. For a time the engineer was not visible on deck. The steward pointed out to me some of the lions--the deeply embayed arsenal, the distant fort, high-perched on a hill, which the mutineers had seized, the governor's house over the gateway where the wounded general had died; and we were within a cable's length of the wharf, crowded with idlers and flecked with sentinels, when Sleigh came up from below.

Although the morning was fine, he was wearing the heavy pea-jacket which I had seen in the engine-room. He cast a spiteful glance at me, then, turning away, he affected to busy himself with other matters. Bad as he was, I think that he was ashamed of the work he had in hand.

"Do we stay here all day?" I asked the steward.

"No, senor, no. Only until ten o'clock," I understood him to say. It was close upon nine already. He explained that the town was still so much disturbed that business was at a standstill. The _San Miguel_ would land her passengers by boat and go at once to Almeria, where cargo awaited her. "Here is the police-boat," he added.

Then the time had come. I was quivering with excitement--and with something else--a new idea! Darting from the steward's side, I flew down the stairs, through the saloon and to my cabin, the door of which I dragged open impatiently. "Give me my papers!" I cried, breathless with haste. "The police are here!"

The man--he was pretending to pack, with his back to the door, but at my entrance he rose with an assumption of ease--drew back. "Why? will you desert me too?" he cried, his face blanched. "Will you betray me? Then, my God! I am lost!" and he flung himself upon the sofa in a paroxysm of terror.

Every moment was of priceless value. This a conspirator! I had no patience with him. "Give them to me!" I cried imperatively, desperately. "I have another plan. Do you hear?"

He heard, but he did not believe me. He was sure that my courage had failed at the last moment. But--and let this be written on his side of the account--he gave me the papers; it may be in pure generosity, it may be because he had not the spirit to resist.

Armed with them I ran on deck as quickly as I had descended. I found the position of things but slightly changed. The police-boat was now alongside. The officer in command, attended by two or three subordinates, was mounting the ladder. Close to the gangway Sleigh was standing, evidently waiting for him. But he had his eye on the saloon door also, for I had scarcely emerged before he stepped up to me.

"Have you changed your mind, governor? Are you going to buy him off?" he muttered, looking askance at me as I moved forward with him by my side.