New Arabian Nights

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  CHAPTER VITELLS OF MY INTRODUCTION TO THE TALL MAN

  WE were admitted to the pavilion by Clara, and I was surprised by thecompleteness and security of the defences. A barricade of greatstrength, and yet easy to displace, supported the door against Anyviolence from without; and the shutters of the dining-room, into which Iwas led directly, and which was feebly illuminated by a lamp, were evenmore elaborately fortified. The panels were strengthened by bars andcross-bars; and these, in their turn, were kept in position by a systemof braces and struts, some abutting on the floor, some on the roof, andothers, in fine, against the opposite wall of the apartment. It was atonce a solid and well-designed piece of carpentry; and I did not seek toconceal my admiration.

  “I am the engineer,” said Northmour. “You remember the planks in thegarden? Behold them?”

  “I did not know you had so many talents,” said I.

  “Are you armed?” he continued, pointing to an array of guns and pistols,all in admirable order, which stood in line against the wall or weredisplayed upon the sideboard.

  “Thank you,” I returned; “I have gone armed since our last encounter.But, to tell you the truth, I have had nothing to eat since earlyyesterday evening.”

  Northmour produced some cold meat, to which I eagerly set myself, and abottle of good Burgundy, by which, wet as I was, I did not scruple toprofit. I have always been an extreme temperance man on principle; butit is useless to push principle to excess, and on this occasion I believethat I finished three-quarters of the bottle. As I ate, I stillcontinued to admire the preparations for defence.

  “We could stand a siege,” I said at length.

  “Ye-es,” drawled Northmour; “a very little one, per-haps. It is not somuch the strength of the pavilion I misdoubt; it is the doubled angerthat kills me. If we get to shooting, wild as the country is some one issure to hear it, and then—why then it’s the same thing, only different,as they say: caged by law, or killed by _carbonari_. There’s the choice.It is a devilish bad thing to have the law against you in this world, andso I tell the old gentleman upstairs. He is quite of my way ofthinking.”

  “Speaking of that,” said I, “what kind of person is he?”

  “Oh, he!” cried the other; “he’s a rancid fellow, as far as he goes. Ishould like to have his neck wrung to-morrow by all the devils in Italy.I am not in this affair for him. You take me? I made a bargain forMissy’s hand, and I mean to have it too.”

  “That by the way,” said I. “I understand. But how will Mr. Huddlestonetake my intrusion?”

  “Leave that to Clara,” returned Northmour.

  I could have struck him in the face for this coarse familiarity; but Irespected the truce, as, I am bound to say, did Northmour, and so long asthe danger continued not a cloud arose in our relation. I bear him thistestimony with the most unfeigned satisfaction; nor am I without pridewhen I look back upon my own behaviour. For surely no two men were everleft in a position so invidious and irritating.

  As soon as I had done eating, we proceeded to inspect the lower floor.Window by window we tried the different supports, now and then making aninconsiderable change; and the strokes of the hammer sounded withstartling loudness through the house. I proposed, I remember, to makeloop-holes; but he told me they were already made in the windows of theupper story. It was an anxious business this inspection, and left medown-hearted. There were two doors and five windows to protect, and,counting Clara, only four of us to defend them against an unknown numberof foes. I communicated my doubts to Northmour, who assured me, withunmoved composure, that he entirely shared them.

  “Before morning,” said he, “we shall all be butchered and buried inGraden Floe. For me, that is written.”

  I could not help shuddering at the mention of the quicksand, but remindedNorthmour that our enemies had spared me in the wood.

  “Do not flatter yourself,” said he. “Then you were not in the same boatwith the old gentleman; now you are. It’s the floe for all of us, markmy words.”

  I trembled for Clara; and just then her dear voice was heard calling usto come upstairs. Northmour showed me the way, and, when he had reachedthe landing, knocked at the door of what used to be called _My Uncle’sBedroom_, as the founder of the pavilion had designed it especially forhimself.

  “Come in, Northmour; come in, dear Mr. Cassilis,” said a voice fromwithin.

  Pushing open the door, Northmour admitted me before him into theapartment. As I came in I could see the daughter slipping out by theside door into the study, which had been prepared as her bedroom. In thebed, which was drawn back against the wall, instead of standing, as I hadlast seen it, boldly across the window, sat Bernard Huddlestone, thedefaulting banker. Little as I had seen of him by the shifting light ofthe lantern on the links, I had no difficulty in recognising him for thesame. He had a long and sallow countenance, surrounded by a long redbeard and side whiskers. His broken nose and high cheekbones gave himsomewhat the air of a Kalmuck, and his light eyes shone with theexcitement of a high fever. He wore a skull-cap of black silk; a hugeBible lay open before him on the bed, with a pair of gold spectacles inthe place, and a pile of other books lay on the stand by his side. Thegreen curtains lent a cadaverous shade to his cheek; and, as he satpropped on pillows, his great stature was painfully hunched, and his headprotruded till it overhung his knees. I believe if he had not diedotherwise, he must have fallen a victim to consumption in the course ofbut a very few weeks.

  He held out to me a hand, long, thin, and disagreeably hairy.

  “Come in, come in, Mr. Cassilis,” said he. “Anotherprotector—ahem!—another protector. Always welcome as a friend of mydaughter’s, Mr. Cassilis. How they have rallied about me, my daughter’sfriends! May God in heaven bless and reward them for it!”

  I gave him my hand, of course, because I could not help it; but thesympathy I had been prepared to feel for Clara’s father was immediatelysoured by his appearance, and the wheedling, unreal tones in which hespoke.

  “Cassilis is a good man,” said Northmour; “worth ten.”

  “So I hear,” cried Mr. Huddlestone eagerly “so my girl tells me. Ah, Mr.Cassilis, my sin has found me out, you see! I am very low, very low; butI hope equally penitent. We must all come to the throne of grace atlast, Mr. Cassilis. For my part, I come late indeed; but with unfeignedhumility, I trust.”

  “Fiddle-de-dee!” said Northmour roughly.

  “No, no, dear Northmour!” cried the banker. “You must not say that; youmust not try to shake me. You forget, my dear, good boy, you forget Imay be called this very night before my Maker.”

  His excitement was pitiful to behold; and I felt myself grow indignantwith Northmour, whose infidel opinions I well knew, and heartily derided,as he continued to taunt the poor sinner out of his humour of repentance.

  “Pooh, my dear Huddlestone!” said he. “You do yourself injustice. Youare a man of the world inside and out, and were up to all kinds ofmischief before I was born. Your conscience is tanned like SouthAmerican leather—only you forgot to tan your liver, and that, if you willbelieve me, is the seat of the annoyance.”

  “Rogue, rogue! bad boy!” said Mr. Huddlestone, shaking his finger. “I amno precisian, if you come to that; I always hated a precisian; but Inever lost hold of something better through it all. I have been a badboy, Mr. Cassilis; I do not seek to deny that; but it was after my wife’sdeath, and you know, with a widower, it’s a different thing: sinful—Iwon’t say no; but there is a gradation, we shall hope. And talking ofthat—Hark!” he broke out suddenly, his hand raised, his fingers spread,his face racked with interest and terror. “Only the rain, bless God!” headded, after a pause, and with indescribable relief.

  For some seconds he lay back among the pillows like a man near tofainting; then he gathered himself together, and, in somewhat tremuloustones, began once more to thank me for the share I was prepared to takein his defence.

  “One question, sir,” said
I, when he had paused. “Is it true that youhave money with you?”

  He seemed annoyed by the question, but admitted with reluctance that hehad a little.

  “Well,” I continued, “it is their money they are after, is it not? Whynot give it up to them?”

  “Ah!” replied he, shaking his head, “I have tried that already, Mr.Cassilis; and alas that it should be so! but it is blood they want.”

  “Huddlestone, that’s a little less than fair,” said Northmour. “Youshould mention that what you offered them was upwards of two hundredthousand short. The deficit is worth a reference; it is for what theycall a cool sum, Frank. Then, you see, the fellows reason in their clearItalian way; and it seems to them, as indeed it seems to me, that theymay just as well have both while they’re about it—money and bloodtogether, by George, and no more trouble for the extra pleasure.”

  “Is it in the pavilion?” I asked.

  “It is; and I wish it were in the bottom of the sea instead,” saidNorthmour; and then suddenly—“What are you making faces at me for?” hecried to Mr. Huddlestone, on whom I had unconsciously turned my back.“Do you think Cassilis would sell you?”

  Mr. Huddlestone protested that nothing had been further from his mind.

  “It is a good thing,” retorted Northmour in his ugliest manner. “Youmight end by wearying us. What were you going to say?” he added, turningto me.

  “I was going to propose an occupation for the afternoon,” said I. “Letus carry that money out, piece by piece, and lay it down before thepavilion door. If the _carbonari_ come, why, it’s theirs at any rate.”

  “No, no,” cried Mr. Huddlestone; “it does not, it cannot belong to them!It should be distributed _pro rata_ among all my creditors.”

  “Come now, Huddlestone,” said Northmour, “none of that.”

  “Well, but my daughter,” moaned the wretched man.

  “Your daughter will do well enough. Here are two suitors, Cassilis andI, neither of us beggars, between whom she has to choose. And as foryourself, to make an end of arguments, you have no right to a farthing,and, unless I’m much mistaken, you are going to die.”

  It was certainly very cruelly said; but Mr. Huddlestone was a man whoattracted little sympathy; and, although I saw him wince and shudder, Imentally endorsed the rebuke; nay, I added a contribution of my own.

  “Northmour and I,” I said, “are willing enough to help you to save yourlife, but not to escape with stolen property.”

  He struggled for a while with himself, as though he were on the point ofgiving way to anger, but prudence had the best of the controversy.

  “My dear boys,” he said, “do with me or my money what you will. I leaveall in your hands. Let me compose myself.”

  And so we left him, gladly enough I am sure. The last that I saw, he hadonce more taken up his great Bible, and with tremulous hands wasadjusting his spectacles to read.