A Transient Guest, and Other Episodes Part 5

In a corner was a trunk. In another a s.h.i.+rt-box. Tancred gathered his traps together, and tossed some into the one, some into the other, a proceeding at which Zut yelped and fawned with delight. Evidently on him at least the attractions of the bungalow had begun to pall.

"Yes, Zut, we are going."

And at this the dog yelped again and curveted sheer across the room.

"But you must be quiet," Tancred added. "There, be still."

He was thinking of Mrs. Lyeth, and wondering whether he should see her before he went. If he could exchange but one word with her, surely, he told himself, she would understand. He lounged to the window and leaned on the sill.

It was one of those afternoons, brutal and terrible in beauty, which only the equator provides. The sky was like the curtain of an alcove, the sun a vomiter of living glare. Beyond was a riot of color such as Delacroix never dreamed, a combination more insolent than the Quetzal possesses, all the primaries interstriated, a rainbow of insolent hues.

And there, in white, a parasol over her head, a basket dangling from her wrist, Liance appeared, emerging, as her father had, from the coppice beyond.

Instinctively he drew back: he had no wish to see her eyes charged with hate again. She was not one to forgive, he knew; the beauty of the equator was in her, and its pitilessness as well. And yet, he reflected, if I could but tell her not alone how she and I have erred, but how sorry I am for it all. But no; manifestly an explanation was impossible.

Did he attempt one it might inculpate another. He was not alone solely to blame, he was blockaded in his own disgrace. He told himself this; he repeated it even in varying keys; but beneath it all he felt that some redress should be. The idea that the house he had entered as an honored guest would see him depart in shame had already brought the blood to his cheeks. And that blood now was leaving a stain that years would not efface. "I must write," he decided; "I must write some word." And he was about to seat himself at the table, when Atcheh appeared.

"Tuan," he murmured, in the soft vocables of his tongue. "The gharry waits your lords.h.i.+p."

At this Zut, who was surprisingly polyglot of ear, yelped with renewed delight. Tancred pointed to his effects, and waited until they had been removed. It was possible, he reflected, that he might meet Liance or Mrs. Lyeth in the hall. Yet should he not do so, then, he told himself, he would write from Singapore.

But when he reached the veranda, only the general was there. Beyond, the gharry stood in readiness, and by it was Atcheh, the trunk and s.h.i.+rt-box already strapped in place. Tancred stretched his hand.

"General--"

"I wish you a pleasant journey, sir," that gentleman answered, and lifted his hat.

Mechanically Tancred raised his own.

"I thank you," he said. And with a backward glance he called to Zut and entered the conveyance.

A whip cracked, the gharry started; in a moment it was on the road.

Tancred turned to take another and a parting look. Already the general had disappeared, but from a window he caught a glimpse of some one robed in white. A curve was rounded and the bungalow disappeared.

For an hour over a road beside which the Corniche is commonplace indeed, the gharry rolled on. To Tancred, however, its beauties were remote and undiscerned. If he noticed them at all it was only as accessories. He was wholly absorbed in his own discomfiture, and the gharry drew up and halted at the wharf before he was aware that Siak had been reached and the journey was done.

About him was the same a.s.sortment of fat-faced Celestials and gaunt Malays that he had noticed before. Apparently nothing had happened to them; they had contented themselves with continuing to be. Before him was a glistening sea, a limitless horizon. To the left the sh.o.r.e extended, fairer and more brilliant than the courtyard of a royal domain. Just beyond, one of the s.h.i.+ps of the Dutch East India service was moored, her funnels lengthening and fading in spirals of smoke. And when Tancred had attended to the transfer of his luggage, and was about to step into the sampan that was to convey him to the steamer, there came a clatter of horse's hoofs, and on a black and panting pony Atcheh suddenly appeared.

"Tuan," he cried, and waved something in the air. "Tuan, a moment more."

In that moment he had sprung from the pony and run to where Tancred stood.

"From the little lady, Lord," he said, and, handing a basket to his master's guest, bowed to the ground.

Tancred found a bit of gold.

"For you," he said, and the Malay bowed again. "To the lady, give my thanks."

And at once his heart gave an exultant throb; his departure was regretted. As he lowered himself into the boat his excess of joy was so acute he nearly fell. Truly, if it be pleasant to appreciate, it is also pleasant to be appreciated. He still clutched at the basket, his hands moist with excitement, his face aglow, and it was not until the s.h.i.+p was reached that he noticed that Zut was sniffing at it.

"Behave," he ordered. But his voice was so kindly that the little fellow only sniffed the more. It was easy to see that he was jubilating too.

On deck Tancred experienced some difficulty in securing a cabin. But for what were rupees coined and tips invented? The steward consulted the purser, the purser consulted the first officer, and in five minutes the cabin of the latter functionary was at Tancred's disposal. It was roomy and cool; or perhaps it would be more exact to say that it was fully as large as a closet and that the thermometer did not mark one degree above ninety. In short, Tancred had every reason to consider himself in luck.

He shut the door and throwing himself on a wicker settee he opened the basket, which until now he had kept tight clasped in his hand.

It was, he saw, filled with sweetmeats such as he had eaten at the bungalow. On top, pinned to the interior of the basket, was a slip of paper that contained a single line--_Souvenir et bon voyage_--and for signature, _Liance_. He read the message twice, and, it may be, he would have repeated the message aloud, but Zut kept bothering him with little hungry yelps. To quiet the dog be tossed him a sweet and put the basket down.

In some mysterious manner his joy had taken itself away. It was not from Liance he had expected a remembrance. When Atcheh placed the basket in his hand, he had told himself that, whatever it might contain, it was at least a gift from Mrs. Lyeth, a token expressive of her regret at his departure. And instead of that there was a handful of bonbons that might have been sent to a child, and a meaningless message from one to whose solicitude he was indifferent. The disappointment, indeed, was great.

For a while he let it intensify within him. But presently he stood up: it was getting dark; long since the sob of water displaced had told him that the s.h.i.+p had started; a turn on deck might do him good, he thought; and as he moved to the door he called to his dog.

"Zut!"

And as the dog did not immediately appear, Tancred wondered could he have got out. But no, the door was closed.

"What the d.i.c.kens can have become of him?" he muttered, and turning again he caught sight of Zut stretched on the floor. "h.e.l.lo!" he exclaimed, "there you are. Why don't you come when you're called?"

Even at this, however, the dog did not move. Tancred bent over and touched him, and then suddenly kneeled down. "Why, what is the matter with him? A moment ago he was right enough; it is impossible that--Zut!

Zut Alors!"

And raising the dog's head up he stared at it. The eyes were convulsed, the tongue was swollen and distorted. "He is dead," he murmured. "He is dead. But how?"

To this question no answer was vouchsafed. In his bewilderment he stood up again and leaned at the port-hole. Already Siak had faded. Above was a splatter of callous stars, beneath was the sea, black now and almost chill.

"But how?" he repeated. Then at once he clutched at the woodwork; his eyes had fallen on the basket; he remembered the sweet he had tossed to the dog. The cabin seemed to be turning round.

At his side the door opened, and the steward looked in. "Supper is ready, sir; will you come?"

"The rafflesia!" Tancred gasped at him. But what he meant by that absurd reply the steward did not think it necessary to ask.

"Very good, sir," he answered, and shut the door.

THE GRAND DUKE'S RUBIES.

There is in New York a club called the Balmoral, which has two peculiarities--no one ever goes there much before midnight, and it is the only place in town where you can get anything fit to eat at four o'clock in the morning. The members are politicians of the higher grade, men about town, and a sprinkle of nondescripts. In the unhallowed inspiration of a moment, Alphabet Jones, the novelist,--in polite society Mr. A. B. Fenwick Chisholm-Jones,--baptized it the Smallpox, a name which has stuck tenaciously, the before-mentioned members being usually pitted--against each other. Of the many rooms of the club, one, it should be explained, is the most enticing. It is situated on an upper floor, and the siren that presides therein is a long table dressed in green. Her name is Baccarat.

One night last February, Alphabet Jones rattled up to the door in a vagabond hansom. He was thirsty, impecunious, and a trifle tired. He had been to a cotillon, where he had partaken of champagne, and he wanted to get the taste of it out of his throat. He needed five hundred dollars, and in his card-case there were only two hundred and fifty. The bar of the Athenaeum Club he knew at that hour was closed, possible money-lenders were in bed, and it was with the idea of killing the two birds of the legend that he sought the Balmoral.

He encountered there no difficulty in slaking his thirst; and when, in one draught, which brought to his tonsils a suggestion of art, science, and Wagner combined, he swallowed a brandy-and-soda, he felt better, and looked about to see who might be present. The room which he had entered was on what is called the parlor floor. It was long, high-ceiled, comfortably furnished, and somewhat dim. At the furthermost end three men were seated, two of whom he recognized, the one as Sumpter Leigh, the other as Colonel Barker; but the third he did not remember to have seen before. Some Westerner, he thought; for Jones prided himself on knowing every one worth knowing in New York, and, it may be added, in several other cities as well.

He took out his card-case and thumbed the roll of bills reflectively.

If he went upstairs, he told himself, he might double the amount in two minutes. But then, again, he might lose it. Yet, if he did, might not five hundred be as easily borrowed as two hundred and fifty?

"It's brutal to be so hard up," he mused. "Literature doesn't pay. I might better set up as publisher, open a drug-shop, turn grocer, do anything, in fact, which is brainless and remunerative, than attempt to earn a living by the sweat of my pen. There's that _Interstate Magazine_: the editor sent me a note by a messenger this morning, asking for a story, adding that the messenger would wait _while I wrote it_.

Evidently he thinks me three parts stenographer and the rest kaleidoscope. What is a good synonym for an editor, anyway?"

And as Jones asked himself this question he glared fiercely in a mirror that extended from cornice to floor. Then, mollified, possibly, by his own appearance, for he was a handsome man, tall, fair, and clear of skin, he threw himself on a sofa, and fell to thinking about the incidents of the ball.