Foe-Farrell Part 37

"But the apparition, just there, and at that moment, was a miracle to me. I sat staring at it even when the boat's stem took the beach gently, and it was Farrell who first crawled over her side to land.

His knees shook, and the dog, leaping against him, nearly bowled him over. Then the sight of water seemed to galvanise his legs, and he tottered frantically up the small foresh.o.r.e to the cascade, beside which he fell and drank, letting the spray drench his head, neck, and shoulders. The animal had gone with him, gambolling and barking, and now ran to and fro and leapt over his body three or four times, still barking. All his welcome was for Farrell. To me, as I followed, staggering, the animal paid no heed at all, until he saw me drawing close, when he suddenly turned about, showed his teeth and started to growl. His tail stiffened, the hairs on his chine bristled up, and I believe in another moment he would have flown at me.

"Partly of knowledge, however, and partly of weakness, I checked this. My feet had no sooner felt firm ground than I found myself weak as a year-old child. The strength of will that had held me up through that awful voyage--and it was awful, Roddy--went draining out of me, and the last of my bodily strength with it, like grain through a hole in a sack. As the dog bristled up, I fell forward on hands and knees, laughing hysterically, and the dog winced back as if before a whip, and cringed. . . . You know, I dare say, that no dog will ever attack a man who falls forward like that, or crouches as if to sit, _and laughs_? . . . So I dropped from this posture right p.r.o.ne by the edge of the basin hollowed by the little waterfall, and drank my fill.

"What next do you guess we did? . . . We rolled over on the sand under the shade of the cliff, and slept. . . .

"We slept for three mortal hours. I've no doubt we should have slept oblivious for another three, had not the making tide aroused me with its cool wash around my ankles. The sun, too, was stealing our resting-place from us, or the comfort of it, cutting away the cliff's shadow as it neared the meridian. . . . The boat, utterly neglected by us, had floated up, broadside on, with the quiet tide, almost to our feet. The dog sat on his haunches, waiting and watching for one or other of us to give sign of life.

"I roused up Farrell. . . . My first thought was for Santa's body, laid within the boat on the bottom-boards. 'Are we man enough, between us, to lift her out?' I asked. 'Or shall we moor the boat and climb for help? . . . There are certainly people on this island, since this dog must have a master somewhere.'

"'She is a light weight,' said Farrell simply. 'Let us try. . . .

Her soul forgive me for leaving her, even so long as I have, in that horrible boat!'

"So, weak as we were, we managed to lift Santa's body ash.o.r.e and carry it up the few yards of sand beyond what we judged to be a faint tide-mark, close under the ferns. . . . After this we fetched ash.o.r.e the tool-chest and some loose articles that we judged to be necessary--such as the cooking-pot, binoculars, and a spare coil or two of rope and a s.h.i.+p's mallet; and Farrell searched the undercliff for sea-birds' eggs, whilst I gave the boat a cleansing with baler and sponge, redded her up after a fas.h.i.+on, and finally moored her off with a sh.o.r.e-line, some twenty yards out on the placid water.

While thus occupied, my mind was wondering what kind of people inhabited this island, and why they kept such poor watch. . . .

We had run in openly in daylight, and yet it would seem that only this dog had spied us.

"If they were savages, why, then, I had only my revolver with a fair number of cartridges. . . . Some of my stock I had blazed away during the last two days in vain attempts upon the life of the sea-birds that ever wheeled out of fair range. The tool-chest, indeed, contained a shot-gun, or the parts of one: but I had never pieced them together, for the simple reason that all the cartridges belonging to it had, through Grimalson's careless stowage, been soaked and spoilt during the night of the gale. . . . Somehow, I could not mentally connect savages with the owners.h.i.+p of this dog.

But the day wore on, and still no one hailed us from the cliffs or the green slope.

"Now I must tell you that the boat's locker yet held a chunk or two--less than a pound--of brined pork, hard as wood and salt as the Dead Sea, that none of the crew at the last had a thought to boil in the sea water, which only made it more intolerable. None of us, indeed, after a trial, had been able to get a morsel past our swollen tonsils. But I had a boxful of matches in my trouser pocket, half-emptied: and, as it turned out, Farrell had preserved another.

So in this most vital necessary we were well supplied. Therefore, when Farrell, with the dog at his heels, came back along the sh.o.r.e, holding up two cray-fish that he had taken in a rock-pool at the turn of the tide, I tossed the gobbets of pork overboard to desecrate the clear depth. Indeed, apart from fish and fowl, I had seen as we neared the island that we had no fear of starving: for an abundance of cocos and palms grew all around the ridge of the crater and had but to be climbed for as soon as we found strength. The tool-chest contained a saw and a hatchet.

"It also contained an engineering-tool, part pick, part digger.

I handed it to Farrell, and he understood. 'But first,' said I, 'let's make a fire and fill the pot. There's a plenty of small dead wood everywhere, and we're too weak just yet to heave this gear any distance up the slope before sunset. We'd best light a fire here; and when we have it started, I'll mount the slope some little way where I see a plenty of limes growing. I may go some way farther, to prospect. The smoke of the fire ought to attract the attention of these very careless islanders; and if they turn out to be unfriendly, well, I have my revolver and you'll have ample warning to clear off to the boat.'

"'Savages?' muttered Farrell. 'I never thought of that. . . . Go you up, if you will, and take the dog for company. You can leave me to light the fire, and--'tisn't a request I've dared to make to you since G.o.d knows when--but if you've any pity anywhere in your bowels, just now I'd like to be alone.'

"'I haven't,' said I: 'but I have some sense in my head, and I'm going to prospect. I'll leave you at anchor here for an hour or so.'

"I whistled to the dog, and the dog, after long hesitation and having been thrice shoo'd in my wake by Farrell, followed. But he hung some twenty yards behind, and showed no sign of desire to lead me to the people to whom he belonged. By and by he came to a dead halt and, for all my whistling and calling, broke back for the beach again and disappeared at a gallop. . . .

"I held my ascent, still beside the downward-pouring stream, and on my way noted fruit-bearing trees in plenty. I reached a point where the volcanic hill ran down landward in rounded ridges, and crossed two or three of these: but no sign of human habitation could I discern.

"When I descended again to the beach, with the lap of my jumper full of limes and wild grapes, it was to find the dog stretched beside a sizable fire and Farrell busy nailing together some lengths of long timber. I had heard the sound of his hammer from half-way down the slope.

"'Good Lord, man!' said I, staring. For he had pulled in the boat and sawn almost the whole of the port-side out of her. 'You have cut us off now, whatever happens!'

"'You don't imagine,' said he, 'that I'd ever set foot in that blasted boat again?'

"What is more, he had cut a couple of cloths out of the sail, for a winding-sheet. . . . But the pot was near to boiling; and after we had supped on the crayfish and the fruit, he fell to work again, nailing together a rough coffin. He explained that he had served his time in quite a humble way before embarking in business, on borrowed capital, as a tradesman. Then, under the risen moon, by the scarcely audible plash of the beach, he told me quite a lot about himself and his early days, as he fas.h.i.+oned a coffin for the woman into whose arms I had driven him, as I had driven him with her corpse to this lost isle.

"In the midst of it I said, 'You know, I suppose, that she saved your life?'

"He checked his hammer midway in a stroke, and stared at me, the moonlight white on his face.

"'You know,' I repeated, 'that she gave her life to save yours?' and I told him how. At the end of the tale, if ever hatred shone in a man's eyes, it shone in Farrell's; and yet there was incredulity in them too.

"'What!" he gasped. 'And you let her do it, there in front of you, when with a turn of the hand--O my G.o.d!' he broke off. 'I've thought at times you must be the Devil himself, you Foe: but I never reckoned you for as bad as all that! The wonder to me is I don't kill you where you sit.' He clenched the hammer, and twice again he called on his G.o.d. The dog growled.

"'Steady!' said I, showing him the revolver. 'Steady, and sit down.

You can't kill me, my good man, unless you do it in my sleep--against which I'll take precautions. So you may quit wondering on that score. . . . And I can't kill you; for you're too precious--doubly precious now, _having been bought with that price_. . . . Sit down, I tell you, and order that infernal dog to be quiet: else I'll pump some lead into him and, dog against dog, you may count it quits.'

"'Quits?' he echoed.

"'In the matter of two yellow dogs only: and I have given up keeping pets, having _you_. . . . Now listen: Did you ever guess that I loved your wife?'

"It took him like a blow between the eyes. 'No, I didn't,' he answered slowly, and then with a sudden rush of malignity, 'I wonder it didn't occur to you, then--I wonder you didn't try to--to--tamper with her.'

"'You would,' said I. 'It's the sort of man you are, you Farrell.

The next thing, you'll be capable of wondering if I didn't. . . .

Pah! and _you_ call _me_ Satan!' I spat. 'Now, take hold on your fool head and think. For _her_ sake I grant you ease of that suspicion, though in dealing with you it would be priceless to me.

Think what a peck of torture I'm letting run to waste, as that waterfall yonder runs to waste in its basin. But it wouldn't be true. Your wife was an angel. Drink that comfort--drink it into every cranny of your soul. . . . And now hold your head again.

I loved Santa, I tell you.'

"'You let her die,' he muttered sullenly.

"'Think, you fool--think!' I commanded. 'If she had lived, you would have died, and she would be sitting where you are sitting at this moment, and I here, and the moon swimming above us two--Would you have had it so?'

"'My G.o.d!' he blurted, wiping the back of a hand across his eyes.

'This is too much for me. . . .'

"I stood and picked up the engineering tool. 'For me, too,' said I, 'it is enough. . . . Now come and choose the spot, and I will fall to my part of the work.'

"But to this he demurred, saying vaguely that he was upset; that the spot for the grave must be chosen with care and by daylight; that he must first finish the coffin, and then take some rest. There would be time enough after we had breakfasted.

"I believed that I understood. . . . He wished to wash and wind the body. So at dawn--by which time the coffin was ready--I told him that he should be alone for a couple of hours, and went up the hill again in the first light, to prospect. Again I tried to whistle the dog after me: but this time he refused even to budge.

"I climbed no farther than before; that is, a little beyond the ridge. For it gave upon a wide undulating valley to the slopes of the second crater, which again partly overlapped the cone of the third or highest. To descend and cross this first vale would cost from two to three hours' hard walking, and my design was merely to con the prospect for sign of those inhabitants to whom the dog must belong. For he was little more than a puppy in age. Also, though lean, he was not at all emaciated: but the traces of rabbit-dung on the slopes told that a deserted dog might manage to sustain life here. Also it promised that the island was inhabited, and by white men, for rabbits are not indigenous anywhere in the South Pacific.

They must be brought.

"I studied the hollow and searched it with my binoculars for some while: but without picking up any trace of mankind. Far below me a sizable stream here showed itself through the tropical vegetation as it hurried down to a hidden cove. The wide ocean spread southward to my right. Of how far the island might stretch beyond the taller and more distant cone I could make no guess.

"A desire for sleep came upon me, and I stretched myself in the shade of a bush under the lee of the ridge. After an hour's nap I rose and descended again to the beach.

"Farrell sat by the fire, cooking breakfast, the dog watching him.

There was no coffin, nor any sign of a grave, and the tide was making. He had made haste to bury Santa during my absence. . . .

He said not a word about it, and I did not question him. But he had played me this trick. Henceforth I felt no further pity."

"You may remember my saying, Roddy, when I first started to tell you about Santa, that it was impossible for me to hate Farrell worse than I did. Well, I thought so at the time. But now on the island I was to find myself mistaken, and this trick of his set me off hating him in a new and quite different way.

"I believe now, looking back, that this was the real beginning of Santa's revenge; or the first evident sign of its working; unless you count the behaviour of the dog--of which I will say more presently.

At any rate I had no longer that cool G.o.dlike sense of mastery over the man which had sustained me in the boat. It may sound incredible: but whereas, cooped in that narrow sh.e.l.l of boards, I had found his presence gratifying, here on an island of wide prospects, where we could have parcelled out a kingdom apiece and lived by the year without sight of one another, I found it irritating and at times even intolerably so. He had found power, through her dead body, to give me a grievance against him, when I had supposed him too low and myself too high for anything to affect me that he could do. . . .

It is always a mistake, Roddy, to falter once in an experiment.

It is disloyalty in a man of science to renounce one at any point.

Now, I had renounced, in handing Santa the flask; and again I had faltered, in a moment of generosity when I left him beside her corpse. . . . And of that act of generosity--and of delicacy, too, by the way--this thief had taken advantage.

"Oh, yes--I know what you will be wanting to say--that the man was her husband, hang it all! . . . I answer that he _had been_ her husband and my darling's flesh I had resigned to him, as was meet and right. . . . But if you'll understand--if you've ever read what the Gospel quite truly says about marriage, to take it in--the man had no tyrant's monopoly beyond the grave. She was mine now--his, too, if he would--but mine also by right of my great love for her.