Dragon's blood Part 16

"And the day?"

Heywood pressed his ear against the c.h.i.n.k, and listened, his five senses fused into one.

No answer came, but presently a rapid, steady clicking, strangely familiar and commonplace. He peered in again. The Red Wand stood by the abacus, rattling the brown beads with flying fingers, like a shroff.

Plainly, it was no real calculation, but a ceremony before the answer.

The listener clapped his ear to the crevice. Would that answer, he wondered, be a month, a week, to-morrow?

The shutter banged, the light streamed, down went Heywood against the plaster. Thick dregs from the goblet splashed on the tiles. A head, the flattened profile of the brisk man in yellow, leaned far out from the little port-hole. Grunting, he shook the inverted cup, let it dangle from his hands, stared up aimlessly at the stars, and then--to Heywood's consternation--dropped his head to meditate, looking straight down.

"He sees me," thought Heywood, and held himself ready, trembling. But the fellow made no sign, the broad squat features no change. The pose was that of vague, comfortable thought. Yet his vision seemed to rest, true as a plumb-line, on the hiding-place. Was he in doubt?--he could reach down lazily, and feel.

Worst of all, the greenish pallor in the eastern sky had imperceptibly turned brighter; and now the ribbed edge of a roof, across the way, began to glow like incandescent silver. The moon was crawling up.

The head and the dangling goblet were slowly pulled in, just before the moonlight, soft and sullen through the brown haze of the heat, stole down the wall and spread upon the tiles. The shutter remained open. But Heywood drew a free breath: those eyes had been staring into vacancy.

"Now, then," he thought, and sat up to the cranny; for the rattle of the abacus had stopped.

"The counting is complete," announced the Red Wand slowly, "the hours are numbered. The day--"

Movement, shadow, or nameless instinct, made the listener glance upward swiftly. He caught the gleam of yellow silk, the poise and downward jab, and with a great heave of muscles went shooting down the slippery channel of the c.o.c.k's blood. A spearhead grazed his scalp, and smashed a tile behind him. As he rolled over the edge, the spear itself whizzed by him into the dark.

"The chap saw," he thought, in mid-air; "beastly clever--all the time--"

He landed on the spear-shaft, in a pile of dry rubbish, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the weapon, and ran, dimly conscious of a quiet scurrying behind and above him, of silent men tumbling after, and doors flung violently open.

He raced blindly, but whipped about the next corner, leaving the moon at his back. Westward, somebody had told him, to the gate where dragons met.

There had been no uproar; but running his hardest down the empty corridors of the streets, he felt that the pack was gaining. Ahead loomed something gray, a wall, the end of a blind alley. Scale it, or make a stand at the foot,--he debated, racing. Before the decision came, a man popped out of the darkness. Heywood s.h.i.+fted his grip, drew back the spear, but found the stranger bounding lightly alongside, and muttering,--

"To the west-south, quick! A brother waits. I fool those who follow--"

Obeying, Heywood dove to the left into the black slit of an alley, while the other fugitive pattered straight on into the seeming trap, with a yelp of encouragement to the band who swept after. The alley was too dark for speed. Heywood ran on, fell, rose and ran, fell again, losing his spear. A pair of trembling hands eagerly helped him to his feet.

"My cozin's boy, he ron quick," said Wutzler. "Dose fellows, dey not catch him! Kom."

They threaded the gloom swiftly. Wutzler, ready and certain of his ground, led the tortuous way through narrow and greasy galleries, along the side of a wall, and at last through an unlighted gate, free of the town.

In the moonlight he stared at his companion, cackled, clapped his thighs, and bent double in unholy convulsions.

"My gracious me!" He laughed immoderately. "Oh, I wait zo fearful, you kom zo fonny!" For a while he clung, shaking, to the young man's arm.

"My friendt, zo fonny you look! My gootness me!" At last he regained himself, stood quiet, and added very pointedly, "What did _yow_ lern?"

"Nothing," replied Heywood, angrily. "Nothing. Fragrant Ones! Not a bad name. Phew!--Oh, I say, what did they mean? What Black Dog is to bark?"

"Black Dog? Black Dog iss cannon." The man became, once more, as keen as a gossip. "What cannon? When dey shoot him off?"

"Can't tell," said his friend. "That's to be their signal."

"I do not know," The conical hat wagged sagely. "I go find out." He pointed across the moonlit s.p.a.ces. "Ofer dere iss your house. You can no more. _Schlafen Sie wohl_."

The two men wrung each other's hands.

"Shan't forget this, Wutz."

"Oh, for me--all you haf done--" The outcast turned away, shaking his head sadly.

Never did Heywood's fat water-jar glisten more welcome than when he gained the vaulted bath-room. He ripped off his blood-stained clothes, scrubbed the sacrificial clots from his hair, and splashed the cool water luxuriously over his exhausted body. When at last he had thrown a kimono about him, and wearily climbed the stairs, he was surprised to see Rudolph, in the white-washed room ahead, pacing the floor and ardently twisting his little moustache. As Heywood entered, he wheeled, stared long and solemnly.

"I must wait to tell you." He stalked forward, and with his sound left hand grasped Heywood's right. "This afternoon, you--"

"My dear boy, it's too hot. No speeches."

But Rudolph's emotion would not be hindered.

"This afternoon," he persisted, with tragic voice and eyes, "this afternoon I nearly was killed."

"So was I.--Which seems to meet that." And Heywood pulled free.

"Oh," cried Rudolph, fervently. "I know! I feel--If you knew what I--My life--"

The weary stoic in the blue kimono eyed him very coldly, then plucked him by the sleeve.--"Come here, for a bit."

Both men leaned from the window into the hot, airless night. A Chinese rebeck wailed, monotonous and nasal. Heywood pointed at the moon, which now hung clearly above the copper haze.

"What do you see there?" he asked dryly.

"The moon," replied his friend, wondering.

"Good.--You know, I was afraid you might just see Rudie Hackh."

The rebeck wailed a long complaint before he added:--

"If I didn't like you fairly well--The point is--Good old Cynthia! That bally orb may not see one of us to-morrow night, next week, next quarter. 'Through this same Garden, and for us in vain.' Every man Jack.

Let me explain. It will make you better company."

CHAPTER XII

THE WAR BOARD

"Rigmarole?" drawled Heywood, and abstained from glancing at Chantel.

"Dare say. However, Gilly, their rigmarole _may_ mean business. On that supposition, I made my notes urgent to you chaps."

"Quite right," said Mr. Forrester, tugging his gray moustache, and studying the floor. "Obviously. Rigmarole or not, your plan is thoroughly sound: stock one house, and if the pinch comes, fortify."

Chantel drummed on Heywood's long table, and smiled quaintly, with eyes which roved out at window, and from mast to bare mast of the few small junks that lay moored against the distant bank. He bore himself, to-day, like a lazy c.o.c.k of the walk. The rest of the council, Nesbit, Teppich, Sturgeon, Kempner, and the great snow-headed padre, surrounded the table with heat-worn, thoughtful faces. When they looked up, their eyes went straight to Heywood at the head; so that, though deferring to his elders, the youngest man plainly presided.