Chapter Twenty Three.
Lawless’ stay in Cape Town was so much longer than he had expected that he began to fear Tottie had not been so successful as her vanity had led her to suppose. He looked daily for news of her; but she was no hand at corresponding; until she had something definite to tell him he knew she would not write.
In the end it was not a letter but a telegram that reached him. It had been handed in at Ceres Road. Beyond this clue as to her whereabouts, the contents told him little.
“go to junction hotel kraaifontein find instructions there tottie.”
He hunted up the trains. There was nothing before the morning. He packed a portmanteau in readiness, and sat down and wrote to Colonel Grey.
“Dear Sir,—I have received my summons. Am off up the line to-morrow. Junction Hotel, Kraaifontein, will find me. I will keep you informed as to my movements.—Yours faithfully, H. Lawless.”
“That will keep the old boy quiet for a time,” he mused, and went out and posted it himself.
On turning away from the pillar-box he came face to face with Denzil. It was the first time they had met since the memorable occasion on the veld, and it was evident from the expression on their faces that that last occasion was in the minds of both. The present encounter sprang upon them unawares. Denzil had known that Lawless was in Cape Town, he had written to Van Bleit to inform him of the fact; but he had not happened across him before. He would have felt infinitely happier had he not happened across him then. Doubtless he remembered Lawless’ words, when, having him at a disadvantage, he had struck him with the packet of letters across the face. He fervently wished he had refrained from allowing his feelings to get the better of discretion in the hour of triumph. Plainly, that hour no longer endured. It was not inspiriting to meet fully the man whom, when his hands were bound, he had struck in the face, and recall his words that one day when his hands were free he would repay the insult.
He eyed the tall figure nervously, and quickened his steps. Lawless glanced him over with a speculative eye. One blow from his fist would have knocked him down. And he was sorely tempted to strike out, to punish this miserable little cur who had dared to insult a better man than himself. But it was against his policy to endanger his liberty at that juncture; and to punish Denzil in the open street, with people passing continually, and a policeman standing at the corner, was courting arrest. And so he allowed his man to slip past him; but there was in the keen grey eyes as they rested upon the foe such a look of quiet prospective vengeance that, though he passed unmolested, Denzil was not greatly reassured. It was a temporary let-off, he felt.
He hurried on, and Lawless pursued his way in an opposite direction. The evening was all before him. He decided that with the uncertain promise of rest the following night held, he would turn in early and take all the sleep he could procure. He might be glad during the next few days of a reserve to fall back upon. He returned to his hotel to dine. Against the kerb before the entrance a motor-car was stationed. It occurred to Lawless that he had seen the car before; but it was not until he entered the hotel that he realised its being there concerned him in any way. A messenger was waiting for him in the vestibule with a note. He had been waiting some time, and seemed immeasurably relieved when Lawless came in.
“It requires an answer, sir,” he said, as he presented the note.
Lawless ripped open the envelope, and withdrawing the contents, glanced his eye down the page.
“Very good,” he said. “Tell Mrs Lawless I will be with her in about an hour’s time.”
The messenger looked at him calculatingly.
“There’s the car outside, sir. If you’d like it to wait—”
“I shouldn’t,” Lawless interrupted curtly.
He tipped the man and went to his room to dress. He wondered why she should wish to see him, and recalled with an unaccountable irritation what Julie Weeber had confided to him as the result of her unaided observation. He had a natural antipathy towards scenes, and he disliked above all things listening to a dissertation on his moral delinquencies.
When he had dined he hired a taxi and drove to Rondebosch. He told the driver to wait for him, and went inside the garden and up the path to the door. His visit was expected. The servant who admitted him helped him out of the light overcoat he wore to cover his dress suit, and conducted him to the drawing-room, where Mrs Lawless waited to receive him, pacing restlessly up and down, up and down, her face white even in the warm glow of the lights, and her eyes darkly luminous in their pale setting.
She came to a halt when she heard his step in the hall, and took up a book as though she would appear to occupy herself, but put it down again with instinctive dislike towards posing. His step came nearer, she put out a hand and grasped the back of a chair, gripping it tightly, her nervousness painfully apparent in the trembling of her lips.
And then the door opened...
A sudden calm overspread her features at sight of him, her stiffened attitude relaxed. The hand that had gripped the chair-back rested upon it easily; the other, that hung clenched at her side, fell loosely open. It seemed as though the appearance of this man for whom she had waited in a state of great nervous excitement quieted her agitation, as though his ready response to the summons that conflicting emotions had dictated and held her back from sending before, brought relief. It was a very composed and dignified woman that confronted Lawless’ gaze, a woman gowned simply in black, which suited her brilliant beauty, with a single deep red rose at her breast where the slight opening revealed the slender throat.
He advanced into the room and stood quite close to her, looking steadily into the dark glowing eyes.
“I don’t know whether this prompt response to your note is inconvenient,” he said. “But it was now or not at all. Had you left it until to-morrow you would have missed me.”
“You are leaving Cape Town again?” she asked... “When?”
“To-morrow morning.”
“And where do you go?”
“Up the line,” he answered... “Not very far.”
She flushed quickly. Some instinct told her that he was going to rejoin the companion in whose society he had left Cape Town before. A chilled look came into her eyes. It seemed that whenever she held out a hand across the distances that separated them a great wall of his making rose between them to divide them more certainly than before. And he invariably made her aware of this wall at the very outset, so that her every effort during the difficult interviews between them was but an ineffectual hurling of herself against this impassable barrier. She moved from behind the chair and seated herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said simply. “Won’t you sit down?” He accepted the invitation, and leaning back surveyed her with a thoughtful interest that was critical rather than admiring, and intensely curious. She had some purpose in sending for him, he supposed. He wondered, with a slight impatience, why she distressed herself so unnecessarily. They had come long ago to the parting of the ways,—it was a mistake to go out of one’s road in order that the paths should recross merely to separate again.
“I had no idea you would be leaving—so soon,” she said. “I wasn’t aware you were in Cape Town until I passed you that morning in the car.”
“I had only just got back,” he explained.
“Afterwards I was sorry—that I didn’t stop,” she went on slowly, labouring somewhat over the sentences. “But—I was surprised. And I felt a little diffident about asking you to come out... I knew you would come, of course... That’s why, perhaps.”
“My only wonder is that you take the trouble,” he returned. “Plainly, you don’t get any joy of it... And hasn’t it ever occurred to you that it’s painful for me as well? My life hasn’t been wholly without regrets. You remind me of the old Inquisitorial system—continually stretching a man on the rack for some imaginary good purpose. And you rack yourself in the process... Where’s the sense in it, anyway?”
“I have thought,” she said,—“I have tried—”
She got up abruptly from her seat and turned her back on him and walked slowly down the long room, and stood by the fireplace with her elbow on the mantel and her face dropped on her hand. He remained seated where he was, and leaning forward, his hands between his knees, watched her with interest. She made a curiously striking and graceful picture, standing there with her half-averted face, the warm lamp-light falling on her black-robed figure. There was a restrained yet dramatic appeal in her attitude that touched him, and in the long drooping line of neck and shoulder as it was turned towards him was a suggestion of weakness that commended itself to his masculine mind. She looked lonely, and sad, he considered.
“I know what you thought,” he said. “I know what you tried to do. It was praiseworthy in many respects... But it was too late. If you would fashion the clay into a goodly shape you should hasten to do so while it is pliable. When once it is set you can only break it.”
“You always make me feel,” she said, without changing her position, “that I am directly responsible for the waste of your life.”
“I don’t admit that my life stands for waste,” he replied coldly.
She lifted her face, and turning it slightly looked steadily in his direction.
“Perhaps,” she said, “I am not qualified to judge. I only judge from what I see—from what I know you might have done if only you had willed it. And now—”
She looked away from him, and once more dropped her face upon her hand.
“Hugh,” she said, and her voice was so low as to be scarcely louder than a whisper, “I asked you to come here to-night, because I felt that there was much in the past on my side that needed your forgiveness. I was hard... I see that now... When you wanted sympathy I failed you. And things happened to separate us. Perhaps it was less your fault than I imagined. But—there are certain things a woman finds it difficult to pardon.”
“I have never blamed you,” he interposed harshly.
He too got up, but he did not follow her. He stood leaning against one of the windows with his back to the outer air.
“I have blamed myself,” she answered gently,—“often.”
“You would,” he said. “You’re made like that. You’d bow your back to any burden you believed it to be your duty to bear. But you needn’t imagine it your especial mission to undertake any burden on my account. I wish from the bottom of my soul you could bring yourself to forget my existence.”
“I can’t do that,” she answered... “I don’t want to.”
She moved from her position and came to a standstill in front of him with her hands locked together in an attitude that was like a supplication in the nervous entwining of her fingers.
“I want you to lead a life more worthy of yourself,” she said... “worthier of the man I knew and loved. Oh, my dear! if you only knew how all these years you have been steadily breaking my heart... I can’t bear it... I can’t bear it, that you should lead the life you are leading... You are going back to that woman to-morrow... I know it. Give her up, Hugh,—and this life of adventure,—for my sake—because I ask it. Don’t go to-morrow. I hate the thought of your going... Stay here.”
“Impossible,” he answered with quiet decision. “I am pledged. I must go. I have no choice in the matter.”
Her hands fell apart. She made a quick, almost a despairing gesture.
“And do I count for nothing in your life?” she asked passionately. “You loved me once... in the years that are past—when you were younger. And I was young too—a girl. Ah! life, life! How full of promise it seems, and how each successive year fades and dims that promise! You were a king among men to me then... And now—you lead the life of a common adventurer, following reckless and dangerous enterprises, and enjoying your idle moments after the manner of a loose liver. Oh! my God! need this thing be? ... Why will you wantonly subjugate all that is fine in your nature? It was those finer qualities in you that I loved, and you are deliberately killing them.”
Lawless had drawn himself instinctively straighter under the shower of words. He looked at her with hard, unresponsive eyes.
“I have no use for that kind of love,” he said coldly. “It is of no human value. To love the imaginary saint in a man is not going to help the man when you make the inevitable discovery that the saint isn’t there. If love is to be of any use it must be for the sinner as well.”
He went nearer to her, and laughed harshly when he observed how she drew back involuntarily from his advance.
“When you can bring yourself,” he said, “to suffer my touch without flinching; when you can feel glad for my lips to rest upon yours without consideration for where last they may have rested; when you can love me for myself—as I am—as you know me, a common adventurer, a profligate, then we may wipe out the intervening years... not before.”
She was silent for a while after he had finished; and he knew that she was considering what he had uttered with such brutal frankness, weighing it in her mind.
Presently she said, moistening her dry lips before speaking:
“Will you promise not to go to-morrow? ... to break with the old life finally?”
“Bargain for bargain,” he returned cynically. “You can’t give freely, you see.”
His face hardened, became more resolute.
“I can’t do what you ask... It is out of the question. I am pledged irrevocably—promised. I can’t draw back.”
She moved away with a gesture of bitterness, and with her back towards him, stood, a reluctant tragic figure, with one hand on the back of the chair where she had stood when he entered.
“It is always the same,” she whispered... “Always the same. Your desires—the desire of the moment, first. I don’t believe you ever loved me, though at one time you professed so much.”
“At least, I did not love an ideal,” he answered. “I loved the flesh and blood that is you.”
She turned her head slowly and looked at him.
“That is it,” she answered bitterly... “The flesh and blood! ... The fairness of the flesh... All that the flesh means you care for.”
“Oh! I’m materialistic,” he admitted. “I’ve no fancy for falling in love with a dream.”
He followed her, and took up his position again close to her, with his hands behind him, looking steadily into her eyes.
“Until I met you,” he said, “I never realised how closely allied vice and virtue are. You are so very virtuous that to knock up against your purity flings a man back on himself and inclines him to the other extreme. I’ve always looked on intolerance as a vice. ... You are intolerant—most good people are. If only intolerance realised the amount of evil it is directly responsible for! But you’ll wonder at my impertinence in preaching to you... Indeed, I wonder at myself.”
“Go on,” she said hoarsely. “Perhaps—when you are gone—I shall remember.”
“Good Lord!” he cried. “I don’t want you to remember. Put me out of your thoughts altogether.”
“Ah! if we could command our thoughts,” she said.
His face suddenly lost its hard look, a kinder light came into the keen eyes. For a brief moment he rested a hand on the chair-back beside hers, then, recollecting, as suddenly removed it.
“When I go out of this room to-night,” he said, “I go out of your life finally. If you send for me again, I shall not obey the summons. God knows, I have injured you enough... The least that I can do is to help you to forget. This raking among the ashes is unprofitable. You can’t step down from your pedestal. I can’t stand with you on the heights. We look at life from different points of view, at different elevations. You see things from a height that obscures your perspective; I look upon life from a lower level, and behold its naked realities. What seems to me natural, you would regard as gross. It is one of the essential differences—only exaggerated—between man and woman. I can’t see the use in reviving through these unsatisfactory meetings all the stresses we lived through in the past... I’ll keep out of Cape Town as much as possible, and when my job here is ended I’ll leave the country.”
“There is no need for that,” she replied in so low a voice that he only just heard what she said. “I came out because I knew you were out here. I wanted to see you. Now that I have seen you I shall go Home.”
She looked at him quite calmly and held out her hand.
“Good-bye,” she said, that was all.
He felt grateful to her after he had left that she had spared him a more emotional scene. Could he have looked back into the room when he was speeding towards Cape Town he would have known that the emotion had merely been held in check.
Chapter Twenty Four.
Lawless reached Kraaifontein to find that there was neither word from nor sign of Tottie. No person answering Tottie’s description had been seen in the neighbourhood recently.
He engaged a room at the hotel and prepared to wait. Plainly, Tottie had not found Van Bleit come to heel as readily as she had supposed. He found the waiting extraordinarily dull. There was nothing for it but to tramp over the veld between meals. That, the eating of the meals, and sleeping, were the sole means of enjoyment provided by the neighbourhood, so far as he could judge. The sleeping, in Lawless’ opinion, was the most amusing of these recreations. During meals he was bored almost beyond endurance by the schoolmaster for the district, who had his lodging there; and the tramping, with no object beyond the exercise, proved a poor pastime.
“It is good to meet a man of education in a place like this,” the schoolmaster observed on the first day. “Are you making any length of stay, may I inquire?”
“God forbid!” Lawless ejaculated.
The other smiled a trifle deprecatingly.
“We have not much to offer—no,” he admitted thoughtfully. “But if you are here for a few days I can show you some good walks, and introduce you to one or two nice families—quite nice, where you will be well received.”
“Your quite nice families may not be so glad of my acquaintance as you imagine,” Lawless answered.
“With my recommendation that will be all right,” the other said.
“What the devil do you know about me,” Lawless demanded, “that you offer me a passport to the houses of your friends? My good sir, you should be more discreet in the matter of your introductions.”
The schoolmaster, who had taken a liking to the new-comer, looked hurt.
“I don’t know anything about you,” he replied. “But during a fairly long and varied life I have learnt to trust my judgment of men.”
Lawless suddenly smiled.
“And you judge a man as you find him,” he said, “without looking beneath the surface? You countenance him, even to introducing him to your friends... quam diu se bene gesserit.”
“What more is necessary?” inquired the schoolmaster promptly.
“True!” acquiesced Lawless. “If a man have seven devils what need their possession matter to anyone save himself so long as he keep them out of sight?”
On the second day after his arrival the letter of instructions reached him. It bore the Wellington postmark. Tottie was gradually working her way down the line. It was a scrawling, lengthy epistle, containing many interlineations and corrections and succinct marginal notes. Lawless carried it to the garden, and sat on a bench under a huge eucalyptus tree while he deciphered the contents. Properly adjusted, and omitting the evil spelling, it read:
Dear old Grit,—I know you’ll be chafing horribly at the delay; but there have been difficulties, and it was no use ringing up the curtain on this act before we had got things thoroughly in order, and every man knowing the part he has to play. Poor old Karl is under the delusion he is to play hero to my heroine. I have him properly in tow. He tumbled to his part beautifully at our first accidental encounter. He pursued, and I eluded. I got him as far as Ceres Road in this manner. Then one evening in the dusk I met and had a talk with him... Such a talk! ... He kissed me... He kept on kissing me—keep your hair on. Grit. I told him I was afraid of you,—that I’d bolted from you, and were scared to death you’d find me out. I said you were mad to get me back, but I wasn’t taking any. He offered to take me under his protection. I declined, but with less firmness than virtue should have displayed. He fancied I only needed pressing. I told him my idea was to get back to Cape Town and take the first boat up the coast, only I was scared of happening across you. And then he said some fine brave manly things that made one feel your life wasn’t worth an hour’s purchase. Bombastic fool! Always crowing and flapping his wings when he gets among the hens...
I let him talk. The next day I left Ceres Road and came on here. Of course he turned up almost immediately. We met again in the dusk and had another talk. Karl’s a hot one... The difficulty I have to keep him at arm’s length! ... I gave in to his pleading after a decent show of reluctance... He fancies I was only holding out for personal gain. We are going to a little place across the river about ten miles from Kraaifontein. It’s known as Jager’s Rest. By the time you get this we shall be on our road thither in a Cape cart. I’ve arranged with the nigger what route he drives, so if you follow my instructions all will be well; if you fail me now, devil knows what will happen.
I enclose a map I’ve drawn of the route. Just half-way between here and Kraaifontein—see my mark on the map—you’ll take your stand, and wait for us to pass somewhere about noon. There’s cover there, and one can play highwayman without risk. If I can get hold of Karl’s revolver I’ll spoil it for him, if I can’t I’ll hamper him in more feminine mode. In any case, I am not afraid you won’t be equal to him. If you murder him, I’ll stop and help you bury him. Tottie.
Lawless folded the letter, and carefully examined the map. Then he folded that also, put both in his pocket, and went in to breakfast. The schoolmaster, who had all but finished his meal, looked up to nod.
“You are indefatigable,” he said. “You have been exercising before breakfast?”
“Only loafing in the garden,” Lawless answered as he sat down.
“Yes.” The other glanced wistfully at the undisturbed end of the table, and then out through the window at the brilliant sunshine. “I’d been counting on your company this morning,” he said. “But of course now.” ... He looked keenly disappointed. “It’s going to be a hot day,” he remarked.
“Looks like it.”
Lawless unfolded his napkin and began on the eggs and bacon which the coloured boy placed before him. In his preoccupation he was scarcely conscious of the presence of the other man, save when he spoke, and then it was to feel a slight irritation at the inconsequent remarks that called for attention and response.
“Perhaps to-morrow,” the little insignificant shabby man proceeded tentatively, “you might feel inclined to accompany me. It’s a pleasant walk, and—”
Lawless looked up suddenly.
“To-morrow, I am returning to the coast,” he said.
“So soon!”
The speaker’s increased disappointment was too marked to pass unnoticed. Lawless looked at him in some surprise, and was rather ashamed of himself because he found the little man such a bore.
“It may seem soon to you,” he said. “You see, you lead a useful life; but when a man has nothing to occupy his time he quickly tires of a place like this. I never intended to stay more than a day or two.”
“I shall miss your company,” the other said, and rising from the table, lingered for a few moments with his hand upon it. “I suppose the place has not many attractions for visitors. For those who live here it is different. I drifted here. I scarcely know how. I began at Port Nolleth, but the west coast fever drove me inland. This little place suits me, and I suit it. We’re neither go-ahead.”
He smiled at his mild joke, but without mirth. His lonely life appeared lonelier contrasted with the break which the vigorous personality of this chance acquaintance had made in the monotony of his days. He had never met anyone whose going he so much regretted.
“Well, I won’t interrupt you at your breakfast any longer,” he said apologetically. “I must be starting. We shall meet this evening.”
“We’ll have our walk to-morrow, if it’s agreeable to you,” Lawless returned, and wondered at himself for being such a fool, yet was not ill-pleased with his folly when he caught the eager look that shone in the mild eyes behind the spectacles.
“Awful bore, old Burton,” he mused, looking through the window after the shabby figure as it disappeared in the sunshine. “But I’m damned if he isn’t rather a fine simple soul, after that!”
When he had finished his breakfast he went out to see about a horse to ride. There was a mare in the stable which, according to the proprietor, could go like the wind. Appearance is not everything to judge by in the matter of a horse’s paces. The animal in question looked languid, Lawless considered; but that alone could not disprove her reputation as a racer. He ordered the mare to be saddled, and went indoors to examine his revolver and make certain preparations for the encounter with Van Bleit. He had very vividly in his mind the last encounter in which he had been so cunningly outwitted. He meant to settle that score, which, like a debt of honour, weighed upon his mind.
When he was ready he went to the stables, and, having made full inquiries as to the direction of Jager’s Rest, rode off, a feeling of exhilaration swaying him as he felt the wind in his teeth, and listened to the rhythm of his horse’s hoofs thudding over the veld. After his compulsory inactivity the present adventure was particularly welcome. From choice he would have preferred to face Van Bleit with the odds equal; but in the circumstances, with all there was at stake, it had ceased to be a personal matter, it was a matter calling for the utmost discretion.
When he arrived at the place marked for him by Tottie on the map, which, following her directions, he found without difficulty, he dismounted, and, being ahead of time, hobbled his horse and allowed it to graze while he enjoyed a pipe, lying full length on the veld with his eye fixed attentively along the line of route the Cape cart would travel, according to the information in his letter. In many respects the lie of the land reminded him of the spot where Van Bleit had so cleverly tricked him. The open, undulating stretch of veld, save that it was more thickly overgrown with scrub, was much the same, it presented the same wide desolate appearance; and in place of the dense bush was a belt of wattles,—the cover Tottie had mentioned, where a horseman could conceal himself without fear of detection. Lawless approved the choice of ground. Tottie had evidently been over the route and arranged it all beforehand. So far everything had been contrived with the greatest forethought and discretion.
He rose after a while, and pocketing his pipe, whistled to the mare, which, feeding on the veld some yards distant, lifted her head at the sound, and moved farther away. Lawless followed her, and untying the rein with which he had hobbled her, patted her lean sides encouragingly. She had carried him well, thus disproving her appearance, and verifying to some extent her reputation.
He led her into the shade of the trees, and standing with his shoulders resting against one of the trunks waited with the rein over his arm, peering between the interlacing branches for a sign of the cart. It was late. Tottie had mentioned noon. He looked at his watch. It was after the half-hour.
And then, far off, he saw it coming.
He remained quite still, not a muscle of his tense face relaxed, only into the grey eyes there leapt a sudden flash of stern, fierce joy.
The cart came on at a fair pace. It was drawn by two horses with a coloured man driving. In the back seat, under the hood, were the figures of a man and woman.
While it was still some distance off Lawless mounted, and keeping well under cover of the trees, rode his horse as near to the opening as he considered safe, and sat motionless in the saddle, waiting. A shaft of sunlight that pierced its way between the branches glinted brightly on the barrel of a revolver which was gripped in his right hand.
The cart drew nearer. The sound of the wheels was audible,—nearer still. Lawless could hear distinctly Tottie’s deep, rather vulgar laugh. She was talking incessantly in a high-pitched, unnatural voice that suggested a nervous desire to distract her companion’s attention. When they drew parallel with the belt of trees, Lawless observed her call Van Bleit to look at something on the other side of the cart, something which was plainly not there, and which therefore Van Bleit, following her pointing finger with every desire in the world to oblige her, failed utterly to see. What he did see the next minute, bringing his head round with a jerk at the unexpected sound of a horse’s hoofs, was the barrel of Lawless’ revolver unpleasantly close to his head.
“Hands up?” cried Lawless. “Or, by Jove! you’re a dead man.”
Tottie shrieked, and flung her arms around Van Bleit with a grip the strength of which considerably surprised him. He was quite convinced in his own mind that if she had not hampered him he could have defended himself. He swore at her. Then, his eye on the revolver, he nodded sulkily.
“All right?” he said. “You score this round.”
Lawless spoke to the driver, who, staring at the shining weapon in the stranger’s hand with distended eyes and fallen jaw, reluctantly pulled in his horses and brought the cart to a standstill.
“You’ll oblige me,” he then said to his discomfited foe in a voice like the click of steel, “by getting out of the cart. I have business with you.”
Van Bleit obeyed with an alacrity he did not often display. He recognised the seriousness of his case, but, unaware of Tottie’s treachery, hoped rather forlornly that with her aid he might yet contrive some device whereby to get even with his assailant. It was a bold game for a man to play, to hold up three persons, and one of them armed.
Tottie alighted after him. After the first shriek she had subsided into an extraordinary calm, and all that could be seen of her face through the thick blue veil gave no indication of alarm. She was indeed broadly smiling. She sidled up to Van Bleit and slipped a hand into his pocket. For the moment he imagined she was playing his game for him, the next he was quick to suspect she was not, and his hand came down spontaneously and grasped her wrist. At the same time he felt something cold against his temple, and instantly perceived she held a revolver in her other hand.
“I don’t want to shoot you,” Lawless said curtly; “but if you don’t put your hands up I shall be forced to.”
Van Bleit’s hands went up again, and he coughed and spat in disgust. He realised fully now that he had been tricked. It was apparent to the meanest intelligence that Lawless and the woman were acting in concert.
The woman took his weapon from him and flung it out of reach. Then an extraordinary thing happened. It was the most humiliating and the most astounding moment in his life. The woman put up a hand to her hat and dragged at it so that it seemed to him she was pulling, not only her hat, but her head with it. And then the hat with its crown of roses and its big blue veil, and the wonderful golden hair, which Van Bleit had believed to be dyed but had never suspected of being a wig, hit him in the face, and so fell at his feet; and he stood with his upraised arms, his face purple with rage, staring into a painted, grinning, vaguely familiar countenance which, with its short fair hair, and prominent ears that the golden curls had hidden, he guessed at rather than recognised for Tom Hayhurst’s.
“There’s a lock of my hair for remembrance, dear boy,” said Tottie.
Chapter Twenty Five.
The amazement of Van Bleit was equalled by that of the Kaffir driver. He nearly tumbled out of his seat in his astonishment; but the child that is in the African was more tickled than anything else at this rapid change of sex. He chuckled audibly, and uttered a succession of rapid clicks in expression of his appreciation. With the cunning of his race he quickly perceived which was the winning side, and decided forthwith that if a choice had to be made he would submit himself to the orders of the new baas, and the baas-missis. The native does not willingly risk his skin or his ultimate chance of reward. Having arrived at this decision he settled himself comfortably in his seat, and with the reins held loosely in his hands, prepared to watch developments. If there was to be murder done, which he firmly believed, he was going to see it.
The same belief was in the mind of Van Bleit. He looked into the hard cold face of the man on horseback, and recalled with very real regret how he had slashed that same thin, scarred face with his whip when he had the man at his mercy. With still greater regret he remembered how he had refrained from shooting him on that occasion. If he had only killed him then he would not be in this mess.
He blinked stupidly, and dropped his eyes, and fell to thinking. There was no way out. He was fairly trapped, and that by two men who owed him each a very considerable grudge. He thought of Tom Hayhurst’s broken head. It was easily seen where the blow had fallen by the deeper shade of the new hair that had grown over the place. Then later thoughts of Tom Hayhurst in connection with his disguise obtruded themselves, and again the angry purple showed in his greying face.
“Did you bring a length of rope, Grit?” he heard a voice inquire, and started involuntarily at the unfamiliar sound. It was the voice of Hayhurst, no longer high-pitched in the affected drawl that was assumed and discarded with the wonderful golden wig, but the sharp clear tones of the young engineer as he had heard them in Cape Town.
There was no verbal answer, but the man addressed took a short coil of rope from his coat pocket and threw it to the speaker. Hayhurst caught it and approached Van Bleit.
“Now, darling,” he said, in the accents that were Tottie’s, “put your hands behind you.”
Van Bleit complied because he dared not refuse.
“I’d like,” he said, and his hands wavered till the click of Lawless’ revolver set at half-cock reluctantly compelled him to bring them into the required position, “to throttle you.”
Hayhurst laughed.
“I don’t doubt it,” he answered.
Not being particularly soft-hearted, and having in mind, besides his own injuries, those raw wrists of Lawless’ which he had unbound in the early morning by the obscure light in the Kaffir hut, he drew the rope tightly about Van Bleit’s thick wrists and fastened it securely with a vindictive satisfaction in the knowledge of the discomfort he caused.
“You ought to feel flattered,” he said, “that we admired your methods sufficiently to copy them.”
He stepped from behind and stood in front of him, jeering.
“Wouldn’t you like to kiss me? ... It may be your last opportunity.”
Van Bleit’s ashen face turned brick red, and from red changed again slowly to the dirty grey colour that told of the terror that possessed him. He did not answer, but he spat at his tormentor in his rage.
Lawless dismounted and hitched the rein of his horse to a limb of a tree. He pocketed his weapon, and approached Van Bleit, who, expecting a personal attack, fell back hurriedly before his advance.
“Stand still,” he commanded. And Van Bleit obeyed.
“What are you up to?” he asked nervously... “You’re remembering things against me. You’ve got a grudge—both of you. Well, just you remember that I might have murdered you that morning—without risk... and I didn’t.”
“I’m remembering,” Lawless answered, “everything.”
He turned to Hayhurst.
“Change your rig, Tom,” he said quietly. “And clean your face, if you can. I may need you presently.”
And to the huge delight of the Kaffir, and the further mortification of Van Bleit, Hayhurst proceeded in a business-like manner, with an occasional lapse into fooling, to divest himself of pointed shoes, skirt and blouse, corsets and artificial bust, until with an exaggerated sigh of relief he stood in his pants and shirt and stretched himself luxuriously.
“No, I wouldn’t be a woman,” he remarked,—“not even a successful woman... And I’ve enjoyed a fair amount of popularity in the rôle.”
While he went to the cart for the portmanteau of male attire he had brought with him, Lawless occupied himself in going through the contents of Van Bleit’s pockets, who, while asserting with a contemptuous laugh that there was nothing there of the least value to anyone beside himself, seemed none the less uneasy at being searched.
“I suppose you don’t believe me,” he said sneeringly, “when I say that I don’t carry that packet you want about with me?”
“Oh! I believe you,” Lawless answered, calmly continuing the search. “I’ve a great faith in your veracity.”
He came upon Van Bleit’s pocket-book, and withdrew a few paces to examine the contents at his leisure. He had a strong idea that if Van Bleit carried what he was looking for, he would find it somewhere between the closely packed covers. Van Bleit watched him with hardly controlled anxiety.
“I don’t see what concern you have with my private papers,” he remarked bitterly.
“Your vision will be clearer if I happen across what I want,” Lawless replied. “If I don’t it will be so much the worse for you.”
He went through the contents carefully while Van Bleit looked on in almost painful interest, and Tom Hayhurst, having changed into a light-coloured suit, proceeded to remove by the aid of much grease the bloom of a complexion that had helped to Van Bleit’s undoing. The grinning native held a looking-glass for him, which Hayhurst carried with his make-up box. He had studied the art of making-up from a professional for the innocent purpose of amateur theatricals at which he was remarkably clever. He had acquired his knowledge of the manners and appearance of the demi-mondaine also at first hand, and had conceived the idea of turning his knowledge to practical account as a means of retrieving his former failure and avenging his broken head.
As he stood in the brilliant sunshine in his shirt sleeves and removed the extraordinary quantity of grease paint with a soft rag, he felt satisfied that he had played a difficult part, and played it exceedingly well. Anyone but a genius might have overplayed the part and given the thing away. The finish of the game was in Grit’s hands.
He had an immense admiration for Lawless. It had been aroused in the first instance by the tales Simmonds had told Colonel Grey of the man with the scar and the queer nickname and the reputation for courage. Other accounts he had heard later had fostered it, and his subsequent personal knowledge of the man had led to a hero-worship which, being shy of showing affection for his own sex, he contrived fairly successfully to hide. But it was sufficiently real to allow him to contemplate without envy Lawless’ final success in the matter of the letters. He was satisfied that the credit of the affair should be his. Moreover, he was curiously anxious that Colonel Grey should be forced to acknowledge the integrity of the man whose trustworthiness he seemed to doubt.
He was in the act of removing the last traces of make-up from his eyebrows when a sudden exclamation from Lawless caused him to look up from his occupation.
“Got the letters?” he asked.
Lawless stood with a slip of paper in his hand. The pocket-book and its further contents lay on the veld at his feet.
“Yes,” he answered briefly.
Hayhurst whistled. Then he stared at the slip of paper in the other’s possession.
“Clue to ’em, I suppose?” he said, a trifle disappointedly.
“Hurry up, Tom, and finish. I want you,” Lawless returned, without vouchsafing any explanation.
Van Bleit looked at the slip of paper, and scowled darkly.
“That’s no use to you,” he said, with an attempt at bluff. “If you hand in that receipt they won’t give you the packet.”
“I know all about that,” Lawless answered, and smiled quietly. “Ever since you put it into my mind to guess where those letters were I’ve been waiting to get hold of this. Are you ready, Tom?”
He ran his eye over the metamorphosed figure, as Hayhurst, having removed the last of the paint, came forward in response to his inquiry, and the smile on his face deepened.
“By Jove!” he said.
Hayhurst laughed.
“Old Karl don’t seem to like me nearly so well,” he complained, grinning at Van Bleit’s scowling visage. “Don’t seem to want to tickle my ribs now? ... Well, baas, what’s my job?”
“Get round to the left side and keep him covered while I free his hands. He’s going to do a little writing, and if he attempts any tricks you have my orders to fire.”
“You don’t try that game. I’ll see you to hell first,” Van Bleit shouted.
“You’ll find yourself in hell very shortly, if you give trouble,” Lawless answered grimly, as he proceeded to undo the ropes that bound his captive’s arms.
Van Bleit looked green.
“You daren’t do it,” he stammered... “There’s the nigger for a witness.”
“I’ll risk that. Besides, there’s such a thing as sending the nigger out of it... and the boy too.”
“Not much. Grit,” Hayhurst interposed, with his glance on Van Bleit and his finger on the trigger. “If there’s going to be any fun I’m in at the finish.”
Van Bleit gritted his teeth, and finding his hands free, looked eagerly round for a means of escape. There was none. Unarmed, he was helpless against these two. The horse, hitched to the tree, was too far away to reach, the cart was not much nearer. Before he could reach either Hayhurst would shoot him down. And if he missed, Lawless was armed and could not fail to hit him. He was like a rat in a trap in sight of the water in which he was to drown. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. Life was very sweet... And the letters! ... The loss of the letters would be almost as great a disaster as the loss of life.
“It’s not a bit of use,” he muttered, as Lawless produced a fountain pen and held it out to him; “the Bank won’t hand the packet over to anyone but myself, even if he tender the receipt.”
“Don’t you exercise your mind as to what the Bank will or will not do,” Lawless remarked. “What you have to think about is to obey orders. You’d better concentrate all your attention on that.”
Van Bleit took the pen.
“You can’t make me sign,” he said.
“I can’t make you—no. But it amounts to this, if you refuse I send that nigger out of earshot and shoot you where you stand... And mind this, if you attempt any tricks the threat holds good. I know your signature. If you don’t write it fair and square on this you’re a dead man. You know me, Karl Van Bleit. I don’t suppose you’ve any reason to imagine I shall go back on my word.”
He held the Bank’s receipt for the safe deposit of the sealed packet of letters on the back of a notebook which he took from his pocket, keeping his hands upon it, and holding it firmly against his chest for Van Bleit’s greater convenience in writing. Van Bleit hesitated. Only the knowledge that Tom Hayhurst’s revolver would go off as an inevitable consequence prevented him having a struggle for the paper.
“My patience is not inexhaustible. I give you one minute,” Lawless said.
The Dutchman started, raised his pen hand nervously, and again drew back. This was slow torture.
“I’ll sell to you... Give me a sum down,” he muttered, thinking vainly of the handsome sum he had several times refused. “They won’t part with the packet in exchange for this... But I’ll sell it to you—for a sum down.”
Hayhurst chuckled.
“Don’t know when you’re beaten, do you, old man?”
“Write,” was all Lawless vouchsafed... “Here, the discharge across the back.”
Van Bleit obeyed. He flung down the pen when he had finished with an oath.
“I hope you are satisfied now,” he remarked with great bitterness, as Lawless carefully placed the receipt in an envelope and slipped it inside his coat.
“Not quite,” he answered. He stooped for the pen and handed it again to Van Bleit. “We are not through yet. You have played your game of bluff very well, but you know perfectly that I could not get that packet from the Bank even with your receipt without a letter of authority from you.”
Van Bleit completely lost his temper. This man knew too much. It was almost like parting with his life’s blood, this plundering him of his treasure.
“Damn you?” he spluttered. “Damn you! May my hand rot off before it writes any such letter for you!”
Lawless took an envelope and paper from his pocket, and calmly placed and held in position the envelope on the improvised writing-pad.
“Now,” he said, presenting it as he had the official receipt, “you will please address this to the Manager.”
“That I never will,” Van Bleit blustered. “S’elp me, I never will.”
“Tom,” said Lawless in a voice of deadly quiet, “when I give the word, don’t hesitate to fire.”
“Right-ho?” Hayhurst answered cheerfully. “My only fear is that this weapon of mine is so eager it may go off on its own account.”
Lawless looked Van Bleit steadily in the eyes.
“I want you to understand,” he said, “that I am in earnest when I say that it is your life against these letters. Personally, I would quite as soon it were your life. The letters are nothing to me; but they are of considerable importance to other people... I doubt, on the whole, whether I should not be doing them and society at large a greater service by putting an end to you. I don’t intend wasting my time in persuasion. Either you write as I direct, or I put a bullet through your heart.”
In his chagrin and utter helplessness Van Bleit began to whimper.
“What have I ever done to you,” he asked, “that you should hunt me down as you have? It’s all spite—and jealousy. I’d like to kill you... I will kill you for this. My turn will come.”
He took out his handkerchief and wiped the tears from his eyes impatiently.
“If you’d only be reasonable,” he said, “and come to terms...”
“I’ve stated my terms,” Lawless interrupted drily. “Count ten, Tom; then if he doesn’t write, blaze away.”
Hayhurst began to count audibly and fairly rapidly. When he reached eight Van Bleit with the tears in his eyes put his pen to the envelope and hurriedly directed it. Lawless examined it, put it away as he had the receipt, and spread, and held, the sheet of notepaper. There was a hard look of satisfaction in his eyes as he fastened them on Van Bleit’s livid convulsed face. The knowledge of the exquisite torture he was inflicting gave him the peculiar pleasure that a man experiences when he is wiping out an injury.
“Write briefly,” he said, “to the Manager to the effect that you will be obliged if he will hand over to the bearer of this letter, Tom Hayhurst, the packet you deposited for safe keeping in the Bank, for which you enclose your receipt.”
With a hand that shook Van Bleit obeyed. But half-way through he hesitated, and, with his shaking hand upraised, looked savagely at Lawless.
“Count ten, Tom.”
The steely tones rang out commandingly, and had scarcely ceased when Hayhurst in audible response started his rapid counting. Van Bleit finished the letter in desperate haste, and signed it. Then with a bitter imprecation he snapped the pen between his hands and flung the broken pieces violently in Lawless’ face.
“Have you done with me now?” he demanded.
“Not quite.”
The reply was unexpected. Van Bleit paused irresolute, and stared with fallen countenance at this man who, not content with robbing him, demanded more. He began to fear that having tricked him out of the letters he would now foully murder him. The knowledge that, if so, he would in all probability hang for the crime was neither reassuring nor consoling.
Lawless read the letter, folded it, and placed it in his breast pocket. Then he looked up and met Van Bleit’s eye.
“What are you after?” Van Bleit asked dully. “You’ve got what you wanted... You let me go.”
The man he addressed smiled quietly, and taking his revolver from his pocket, covered the speaker with it.
“You don’t take me for quite such a fool, I hope?” he said. “All right, Tom! You’re off guard now. Just tie his hands again. I shan’t want him to use them further in my service.”
Van Bleit swung round as Hayhurst approached him, prepared to offer resistance.
“No, no?” he cried quickly. “I know what you’re after... None of that—no?”
“It’s not worth your while to resist,” Lawless returned curtly. “It’s hands behind or a bullet in your leg. I’m not particular which.”
Van Bleit faced round again and stared at him helplessly.
“You b-bully!” he stammered.
But he submitted quietly while Tom Hayhurst secured his wrists as before. And then he gazed about him with his trapped-rat expression, his full cheeks flabby and grey, and his thick lip fallen, showing the big white teeth. He was terribly afraid that his ease-taking, pleasure-loving body was about to suffer hurt. If they did not purpose murdering him, Grit Lawless would wreak his vengeance in some violent manner for the lashing he had received at his hands.
Lawless put the receipt with the letter inside the envelope which, taking Van Bleit’s seed ring off his finger, and some wax and matches from his own pocket, he proceeded to seal.
“You see, I came prepared,” he said.
Van Bleit scowled, but answered nothing. He was now principally concerned for his personal safety. If he could escape in time to wire to Denzil before the Bank opened in the morning, there was still a chance of saving the letters, even if Denzil had to pay for it with a couple of months for assault. Telegraphing to the Bank to stop the delivery of the packet was, he felt, useless.
Lawless gave the letter into Hayhurst’s charge.
“Take the horse, Tom,” he said. “I’ve a fancy for keeping the nigger in sight. We’re not running any risks this trip. Tell ’em at the hotel that I’m spending the night with a friend, and will be back for breakfast in the morning. You’re in plenty of time for the train. Get to the Bank as soon as it opens, and when you receive the packet take it to Colonel Grey, and deliver it into his hands.”
“And you?” Hayhurst asked, eager to undertake the mission; yet firmly convinced that the final delivery of the letters to the Colonel was a privilege that by rights should be Lawless’.
“I’m entertaining Van Bleit,” Lawless replied.
Tom Hayhurst glanced in the direction of their prisoner, and from him towards the cart where the whip stood invitingly in the socket, suggesting thoughts of retribution pleasing to dwell upon.
“I’d like to see you mark his face before I go,” he said. He pointed to the whip. “Shall I fetch it?” he asked.
“You fetch your mount and clear out,” Lawless answered. “When I horsewhip a man I don’t do it with his hands tied.”
Hayhurst gave the speaker a quick look. Then he walked towards the tree where the horse was fastened, unhitched it, and sprang into the saddle.
“So long, Grit,” he sang out.
He blew a kiss to Van Bleit as he cantered past.
“You’ll fancy yourself an Indian Brave when you wear my wig on your watch-chain,” he cried.
Van Bleit scowled yet more fiercely, and consoled himself with planning future vengeance against this impudent impostor to whom he owed his downfall. If ever fortune played into his hands he would have Tom Hayhurst’s life.