Chapter IX · (continued 2)

The gong persisted, seeming to rise in intensity until its beats sounded like the far-off blows of a hammer on a forge. With an exclamation of annoyance, Garon swung about, facing the window; stood there, an amorphous blot against the lattice. Sensing a sudden tenseness in his attitude, she joined him. At first she saw only the wharf and the ashen expanse of the river, but presently the flicker of a white garment gave her a clue to the shape that was merged with the landing. Her breathing quickened.

"I didn't hear them," she whispered.

"Muffled paddles"—laconically.

There were other flickers now. The occupants of the canoe had disembarked, and several were approaching the fort, moving so silently that she doubted their reality. She could make out pale jackets. Malays, not Dyaks.

"What can we do?" she breathed.

Garon's shoulders rose and fell. He had plucked out his revolver. As she noticed it, she had an insane impulse to laugh. How could that ridiculously small thing protect them? Fantastic to believe it would! Desperation numbed her. But she was not too stupefied to sort out a coherent idea and give voice to it.

"Tell me"—recklessly—"tell me what happened that night at the doctor's house! This may be the last——"

His hand closed over her mouth, and he drew her into a corner. Resentment smoldered, but she did not resist, for, suddenly, her body felt dead, her spirit seeming to exist outside its sheath but with the power to see and hear.

From below came indistinguishable sounds.

Garon pulled off his white jacket and flung it into the opposite corner, then pushed her behind him. His touch awakened veins of cold fire. Over his shoulder, she could see the stair-head and the moon-stains on the floor. The latter she likened, fantastically, to a chess-board; pictured hands moving pawns upon the black and gray squares.

Below, now, was absolute quiet, a premonitory quiet.

The Malays were searching the inclosure, she told herself. It was inevitable that they would come to the watch-tower eventually. And then.... If she only knew what had happened that night in Bangkok! His ear was close to her lips; she might whisper——But his stolid shoulder, pressed against her, commanded silence.

The chess-board of moonlight stood out in ultra-clarity. She wished, desperately, that those unseen pawns were visible. Anything to distract, to put down the inquisition of suspense! She could feel Garon's heart beating; could hear it. But was it his heart she heard? A prickly sensation played over her spine.

Footsteps; below; now on the stair.

She felt the muscles in Garon's back harden. Something of his courage flowed into her and gave her the strength to watch the stairway.

Nearer drew the footsteps.

A grayish blot appeared in the darkness, growing magically into a head and a pair of shoulders that rose into the light falling through the lattice. At sight of the man's face, splotched with moonlight, and the glittering barrel in his hand, a strangling surge filled her throat. She gasped.

Instantly Salazar wheeled out of the moonlight; and instantly the crashing detonation of two revolvers ruptured the silence.

Garon seemed hurled back upon her, the force of his body expelling the breath from her lungs. For a moment she was lost in heaving darkness. When her vision returned she saw a face lying in the checkering moonlight: Garon's. Something snapped in her brain. She felt that a whip had curled about her, lashing the blood into her very eyes; that it was jerking her forward; swinging her toward Salazar.

Her attack was so unexpected, so furious, that she had struck him twice, had sunk her fingers into his face, before he made any move other than a recoil. Then one of his great arms fell upon her shoulders, encircling her neck; the other sought to protect his eyes. She heard him cursing. His breath was hot upon her face.

They staggered into the middle of the room. She clung, gripping his hair, while he crushed her wrists in an attempt to break her hold. The sudden chill of metal, an icy shock that electrified her, recalled the fact that he was armed, and, releasing his hair, she snatched at the weapon. Her fingers closed over it; twisted. In desperation she buried her teeth in his hand. A blow sent her backward, gasping. Hazily, she saw Salazar stooping to recover his revolver, and she flung herself upon him, clutching his arm in both hands. As he sprang erect the violence of the movement, together with his strength, swung her behind him. Thus locked, they swayed and tottered.

She realized, despairingly, that he must conquer eventually. Already a flame played before her. Back of the smoke in her mind, a spark glowed: if she knew a sharp thrust or some other means of paralyzing a vital nerve there would be a chance for victory. Jiu-jitsu; wrestling. Vulgar sports ... prize-rings ... men with pachydermal skin.... An inner consciousness groped.

Salazar was clawing at her wrist now. She sensed his purpose and tried to wrench away. The silk over one shoulder parted like taut paper. Following that, she felt fingers creep about her wrist and fasten. The man laughed. For a second of blinding agony she thought her arm had snapped. Her hand slipped from his grasp; encountered his neck. The contact ignited the spark. Jiu-jitsu; wrestling.... It came, a flash out of smoky obscurity.

With a jerk she tore her other hand free and seized him about the neck, sinking her thumbs into the hollows under his ears; clung while, cursing, he dragged her across the room. They thudded against a wall. But her grip did not loosen. She held—held. Time and feeling did not exist; she was no longer conscious of the pain in her hands, where his nails dug cruelly into the flesh. All the power of her being was drawn into one purpose. It ceased to be a struggle between herself and Salazar: she was fighting against something old and lustful, an evil that had menaced earth-creatures since the beginning of life. And she held—held. Numbness tugged at her muscles. She felt it crawling over them, deadly as paralysis. Suddenly she knew she was slipping. Salazar's face seemed to be floating away, sinking; then, it was staring at her from below the lattice.

Sobbing with exhaustion, she fell to her knees; dropped upon the floor. The blood, leaping into her brain, threatened to burst it. She did not faint, but there followed an interval during which she seemed suspended from life. She could hear her tumultuous breathing amidst awful silence. It was a clue to her body, and she found it and raised herself, gazing, not at the face below the window, but at Garon.

After a moment she crawled to him. The beating of his heart awakened a responsive tremor in her fingers. She shook him; spoke his name. He stirred. Bending closer, she whispered what she had done, adding:

"We must go below. The others are there; no use to resist. And I can't stay in this room. You remember ... stifles me."

She helped him to his feet, slipping one of his arms over her shoulder and gripping him about the waist. He almost bore her to the floor, but she managed to stagger to the stair with him. As they passed the window she glimpsed the wharf and the river, and thought she saw another canoe. But it did not matter; let a hundred more come. She had temporarily drifted out of the realm of feeling.

Somehow they descended; emerged into moonlight. As she expected, the Malays were waiting, grouped near the gate. Garon straightened and spoke feebly in Malayan. Several natives stepped forward, thrusting their swords into the earth. Followed a brief exchange of words; then the Frenchman laughed weakly.

"He says"—his body sagged and she gripped him tighter—"he says we are safe. The village ... they...."

She clung to one arm as he slipped to the ground; his weight almost pulled her down beside him. Two Malays approached, and she heard herself asking what to do; heard one of the natives reply that a canoe was waiting to take them to the village. Garon was lifted.

Dazedly, she followed to the wharf; allowed the Malays to help her into the proa; sank beside Garon. As one not fully awake, she realized that a miracle had been wrought, that, somehow, Stephen Conquest had succeeded. Her impulse was to relax, but she fought the weakness. Not yet, not until she had definite assurance of their safety.

The moon hung just above the trees; to her, a lamp in a gray basilica. In a moment it would be gone.

She shivered in anticipation of the darkness.

9

They had reached the village.

Massed figures on the bank; and torches. As the proa touched shore, the throng parted before a huge-muscled Malay who came down to the water's edge. Lhassa dimly remembered having seen him before. The sultan? He spoke to the boatmen, several of whom bent over Garon. She understood that they had been instructed to carry him inside the stockade. Hands assisted her out of the boat.

A wider lane opened in the mass, and up this she moved, scarcely conscious of the many stares. The apathy following suspense had settled upon her. In her world, her world of throbbing pain, there was but one other.

At the gate she paused automatically. Behind were the men bearing Garon; also the large Malay who had ordered his removal. In response to her inquisitive look the latter told her that she and Tuan Muda were safe; told her that Abu Hassan was dead and that he, Nakoda Mubin, was sultan now. She said:

"Where can we take him?"

Nakoda Mubin led the way to a house not far from the gate. Within, by the light of a torch, she saw Garon's wound; asked:

"Will he die?"—raising a blurred gaze to the new ruler of Kawaras.

He said something about a clean wound; a poultice of wood-ash; cleansing; a bandage. She heard him giving orders to the other Malays, and she remained seated, one hand on Garon's hot forehead. Not until the Malays returned did the memory of Conquest pierce her fogged consciousness.

"Where is he?" she demanded abruptly, then explained, "Mr. Conquest, the Tuan Rajah."

He had requested to see her when she arrived, the Malay replied, but she was probably too late: the Tuan Rajah had lapsed into that unconsciousness that precedes death.

His words had a maiming effect: she felt severed from some vital member. For a moment she wavered between the man at her side and him who had sacrificed himself for her. She knew intuitively that Stephen Conquest had made his last gesture, undoubtedly a romantic gesture, to preserve the beauty which he loved, her beauty. That love, she realized, was a strange thing, a love of her physical perfection without the desire to possess; a worship of some mysterious essence of beauty, elusive as Art.

"Take me to him," she said decisively.

Nakoda Mubin guided her past groups of staring natives to a house near the palace. He waited on the gallery while she entered.

It was dark within, and a damp, musty draft brushed her face. In one corner lay a white shroud. As she saw it a suffocating sensation closed her throat. She knew that she was too late. But she bent and touched the cold forehead. At the contact, a great, bitter flood rose past her throat and overflowed. She remained kneeling, still as the body beside her.

The story of Pi-noi, the bayadere, crowding into her mind now, seemed unsubstantial as mist, a wisp of fog that had floated past, leaving only a memory to prove that it had existed. She felt defeat with a conviction that was final. Gone was her grandfather, gone was Dr. Garth, gone was Stephen Conquest; all who might have told. The woman of the peacock shawl, that flaming symbol of the mysterious forces that she had sought desperately to understand, drew her gaudy silks about her and melted into the shadows of her frame, to become eternally obscure. Her smile, that unforgettable smile, assumed, in retrospect, a touch of irony. It suggested that there might have been another reason for her grandfather's obsession: some intrigue, an affair of the bazaars, too sordid to be disclosed. Yes, Lhassa repeated to herself, she was defeated; she would never know the truth. In the years to come she would dream and wonder; dream of the dead city locked in Siamese jungles; wonder if between herself and the stone woman on its temple-wall was even the slightest bond. And always hovering over these fancies, mocking them, would be the creature in the peacock shawl, with her smile of irony.

And it came to Lhassa, suddenly, that this was the true Romance, to never really know, but to conjure out of dream-fog events as she wished them; to believe that in her was the royal blood of the Khmers; or that Conquest had merely painted her features into the portrait of Pi-noi, and that her secret was locked for ever in the smile of a canvas woman.

10

To Lhassa, the next two days were a sequence of superheated hours, divided into moments of doubt and strain and anxiety. Although Garon's wound was not fatal, there was, as always in such cases, the danger of a relapse or infection because of the lack of professional care. Most of the time he was unconscious; often he was delirious. Whenever he spoke (words and sounds harsh as the crackling of isinglass) a strange breathlessness seized Lhassa; fear of what the fever-talk might disclose. Nakoda Mubin assigned three Malay women to her, and she kept them busy fanning and bathing Garon. She herself attended to the dressing of his wound. As she watched him suffer—he lay still as a bronze figure under the haze of mosquito-netting—his agony seemed to extend and envelop her. He possessed her with such tyranny that her own bruises were absorbed in a greater pain, a pain as deep as motherhood. She would not believe him guilty of the crime that circumstance fastened upon him. He was a thief, yes, but not a murderer. And the fact that he had stolen, a fact that she kept before herself deliberately, did not shock her. His transgressions melted in the flame of suffering, and tempered, became pure metal. The end of the first day found her seated beside the sleeping man, her skin pale as ivory beneath the corona of copperish hair. Outside, gauze-winged creatures wheeled through the dusk, and a Mohammedan chanted toward Mecca. And, suddenly, she understood the beauty of blind forgiveness.

With morning Garon's temperature was lower. He awakened early and tried to talk, but she closed his lips with her cool hand. When he persisted she retreated to her quarters, leaving him in the charge of the native women. At noon (heat and a sultry blue sky) she returned. She was heavy with the weariness that muffles all pains. But she drew strength from the knowledge that nightfall would ease the strain. Conquest's men were due then; white men from the yacht. She could rest—rest.

Dusk had drenched the earth with lilac when shouts brought her outside. Natives were hurrying toward the gate. In the clearing, a fire was meshed in dull gold against violet shadows, and its light flickered upon the men who were surging through the gateway. She saw white faces, and broke into a run, trembling with excitement. As she approached, one of these faces turned and stared.

"Miss Camber!"

She heard her name with something of a shock. The man who spoke it wore white clothes and a pith-helmet. However, now that she was closer, his skin seemed dark as a native's. When he raised his head-gear she caught the flash of a familiar smile.

"You don't recognize me, eh?" he asked, with an accent as familiar as his smile. "The stain, probably; you know it has to wear off."

And then she knew. She tried to speak, but the words slipped back in her throat. Finally she forced a hysterical laugh.

"Captain Barthélemy...."

Vertigo clouded his face. But she heard him exclaim:

"Mon Dieu! I did not know it would be such a shock! I thought.... Then he has not told you?"

She grasped his arm and clung until the dizziness passed.

"Garon? No."

"Garon!" he repeated. "You don't know who he is?"

His words seemed to beat down upon her brain and break into bits; she tried to pick up the fragments, to piece them together. For a moment she could only shake her head. Finally:

"You mean"—incredulously—"the money he stole ... Hanoi...."

He spread out his hands in a very Latin manner, smiling.

"That was a clever plan of one of the cleverest men in the colonies. Major Lestron is his name—Lestron of the secret service. At least, that was his rank; now"—a shrug—"perhaps head of the department or a resident superior—even a governor. After this, he can become almost anything he wishes!"

She caught his arm and held, for she was weak and flecks danced before her.

"Come to my house," she managed to say. "He's in the next one, wounded. You must tell me everything—everything—now—without delay. I—I—why, I thought you were.... Come!"

When they reached the veranda she sank into a chair, motioning him into another. About them the darkness was purple, swarming with brilliant fireflies. Reflections from the near-by fire stained the contours of her face and form; hinted at Barthélemy's dark skin and eyes.

"The ship," she began confusedly; "the report that you had—had died. I don't know where to tell you to start—only start quickly! The money ... Hanoi...."

"As I said, a very clever hoax," he resumed. "Only Major Lestron and the governor knew the truth. It was arranged that Lestron should take the money, be convicted, and sentenced to exile in Cayenne. Not even the officials there were to know. As a prisoner, he would have a better chance to clear the Black Parrot mystery, and, incidentally, work on the governor's greatest hobby, prison reform. If the present system of penal colonization could be proved faulty and inefficient, it would be a victory for the governor, a score against his political enemies. So Lestron went—as a convict. The situation was so precarious that after he was freed by the Black Parrot and left Guiana, he abandoned communication with the governor except through a rather ingenious method involving the buying and selling of birds. Oh, Lestron had a difficult rôle! You see, Conquest, who was at the bottom of it all, was on the boat that came to take Lestron and the escaped convicts away from Guiana; and evidently he suspected Lestron, for he put him ashore on Thursday Island. Lestron believed he was being tested, so he pretended to—well, to go to the devil. He drank. And it was a wise move, for he was followed—by Conquest himself! But he had passed the test, and was accepted."

Barthélemy paused; shrugged.

"May I smoke? You won't join me?" He lighted a cigarette before he continued. "As to what happened on the Cambodia: I recognized Lestron, and, believing him an escaped convict, put him under arrest." She saw his white shoulders move in another shrug. "Lestron was in a corner; I sha'n't go into the details. At Kep, a port on the Cambodian coast, he went ashore, but swam back and hid in my cabin. I thought he had broken parole—until I found him there. He told me everything; said the affair was larger than he had anticipated; and outlined a plan whereby we could coöperate. After arranging my clothes in a manner to make it appear that I had committed suicide, we swam ashore; it was necessary that I vanish completely. We went overland to Pnom-penh, and there telegraphed the governor for permission to put our plan into action. It was granted, and I, transformed into an East Indian, accompanied Lestron to Saigon as his servant. He told Conquest, whom we met there, that a Captain Barthélemy had recognized him on shipboard and he had killed him....

"Of course, you were a complication. Before we left the Cambodia it was decided that it would be better to let you go on to Saigon, and, if no other course opened up after you arrived, let you be held prisoner by Conquest. You see, we were playing a desperate game. Soon after you reached Saigon, Lestron and I left for Sadok. Conquest had agreed to confine you in a house in Cholon, in the care of some woman he knew; otherwise, we would have taken some measure to protect you. We had a plan, but, sacré gars! it was disrupted when Conquest suddenly carried you off on his yacht!

"The night you reached Sadok I came to your veranda—you remember?—to tell you the truth. I acted against Lestron's orders, for he believed you would be a better ally if you were kept in ignorance. I disagreed. But—he happened to catch me. The next morning he sent me to Kuching to get help from the rajah of Sarawak. Conquest, you comprehend, was a British subject; so the aid of a British officer would prevent any possible entanglements. I went and ... well, there is little more, except that when I returned, with help, I heard what had happened, and we started for the village immediately. Yesterday we reached the camp down the river and learned of the new trouble. Naturally, we expected to have to fight, but this morning a messenger from the sultan brought news of what had taken place. Needless to say, I was greatly relieved. I thought ... ah, a thousand terrible things, dear mademoiselle! Now tell me your story. I am more than anxious to hear."

She shuddered. "Salazar," she began, and recounted her grim adventures.

"Mon Dieu!" Barthélemy exclaimed when she had finished; and, "Dieu de Dieu!"

She sat still for a moment, gazing at the fireflies that punctuated the gloom. Then she rose.

"I shall have to go to him now," she announced. "Wait!"—as Barthélemy started to rise—"I would rather go alone. Come in—in a few minutes. You understand?"

That he did was evident by his silence. He stood at the top of the ladder while she descended, the tip of his cigarette augmenting the glow of the fireflies.

When she entered the room where Garon lay—she still thought of him as Garon—the Malay woman fanning him put down the palm-leaf and moved out. It was dark, but not too dark for her to see that his eyes were open. Her hand trembled as she felt his forehead. It was moist.

"Have they come?" he asked.

"Yes."

She seated herself on the side of the bed, looking over him and through the window. Warm stars jetted the darkness, and a muffled clamor—subdued voices and indistinguishable sounds—floated in from the night. After a brief hesitation, she said:

"I have seen Captain Barthélemy. He is coming in a moment." She paused, then added, "It was cruel to keep me in ignorance, cruel. You did it just to make me suffer, didn't you? Yet"—she relented—"yet I suppose you thought it was wise—and perhaps it was."

She heard him sigh. But he did not speak.

"Haven't you anything to tell me before he comes?" Another sigh. "You mean"—his voice husky—"about Bangkok and the doctor?"

She smiled to herself faintly. But her heart contracted. "I mean anything you wish."

After a seemingly interminable silence he spoke.

"The Buddha. A green devil; you remember I called it that? It caused it all. I took it out of Siam strapped to my back. That was my—my hump. Grim humor, eh? Yes, a green devil. We went to the doctor's house to get it, my boy and I. He had.... But I told you that. We entered through a gate opening into the garden. I had warned Sua-Mok—Sua-Mok was my boy—I had warned him against violence. Before we entered I saw the doctor sitting at a table with a toy ship in his hands. His back was toward us. I had to get the Buddha; it was the price of admittance to Conquest's household. I knew it could be returned to the temple after the affair. So I instructed Sua-Mok to bind the doctor while I covered him with a pistol. I told him to have care. I gave him my slendong and...."

She suppressed a shudder. The stars in the window suddenly froze to points of ice. Garon raised himself on one elbow, and she started to press him back, but the impulse was overcome by a deadly inertia.

"And...."

"No!" she commanded. "Don't say it!"

He made a strangled sound, sharp with bitterness.

"The law!" he declared savagely. "The law! It begins with clean hands, but before the finish they are as black as the criminal's!"

He broke off, exhausted; sank upon the pillows; lay there, breathing heavily.

She got up, seeming to float away in a mist of silk. In the doorway she halted, her hands groping for the frame, her eyes raised to the sky. A sense of tremendous catastrophe fell upon her; the temple that she had built came crashing down, gilded spires, ivory minarets, and all. The blue slendong had betrayed her to a reality more brutal than disillusion. And yet that very tragedy, she realized, was an initiation into a higher arcanum. The gods had fallen; but they were only images. Romance was not dead. The memory of Stephen Conquest lived to deny that. In some mysterious way he reclaimed the blue slendong ... Stephen Conquest, a flash on a dark sea, a glimmer too incredible to be real....

As she stood there, gazing into world-sprayed darkness, she felt something of the ache and immensity of space; something of the smallness of earth-man as compared to the endless chains of stars and the still but ever moving machinery of universe upon universe. Frightened, she turned—turned to Garon.

In the window above his bed, seen between black branches, were stars, gleaming as through prison bars. They brought to mind a remark Barthélemy had made; and a great surge rose in her, a surge that carried her to the bedside.

"Do you remember," she asked in a voice of thrilling timbre; "that I said I would learn the truth, and, if circumstances justified it, see that you were sent back to Guiana? Do you remember?" He did not answer, and she continued. "Captain Barthélemy said you could become a resident or even a governor. A governor, Garon! Don't you see?" She paused; caught her breath. "Go back to Guiana! Go back and pay in mercy for that night in Bangkok. Go back and wipe out the filth and fever, the injustice and cruelty! Go back—for me!"

The flame of her fervency must have touched him, for he raised himself again, and she could hear the quickened tempo of his breathing.

"Go back?" he repeated. "Go back ... alone?"

For an instant she stood motionless; then, her eyes filled with inscrutable wisdom, she lifted her arms in a gesture exultant and possessive.

"You go alone," she pronounced softly.