The Wild Geese

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE KEY

  Colonel John rose and walked unsteadily to the window. He rested a handon either jamb and looked through it, peering to right and left withwistful eyes. He detected no one, nothing, no change, no movement, and,with a groan, he straightened himself. But he still continued to lookout, gazing at the bare sward below the window, at the sparkling sheetof water beyond and beneath it, at the pitiless blue sky above, inwhich the sun was still high, though it had begun to decline.

  Presently he grew weary, and went back to his chair. He sat down withhis elbows on his knees and his head between his hands. Again his earshad deceived him! Again hope had told her flattering tale! How manymore times would he start to his feet, fancying he heard the footstepthat did not fall, calling aloud to those who were not there,anticipating those who, more hard of heart than the stone walls abouthim, more heedless than the pitiless face of nature without, would notcome before the appointed time! And that was hours away, hours ofthirst and hunger, almost intolerable; of patience and waiting, wearywaiting, broken only by such a fancy, born of his weakened senses, ashad just drawn him to the window.

  The suffering which is inevitable is more easy to bear than that whichis caused by man. In the latter case the sense that the misery felt maybe ended by so small a thing as another's will; that another may, bylifting a finger, cut it short, and will not; that to persuade him isall that is needful--this becomes at the last maddening, intolerable, athing to upset the reason, if that other will not be persuaded.

  Colonel John was a man sane and well-balanced, and assuredly not one todespair lightly. But even he had succumbed more than once during thelast twelve hours to gusts of rage, provoked as much by the futility ofhis suffering as by the cruelty of his persecutors. After each of thesestorms he had laughed, in wonder at himself, had scolded himself andgrown calm. But they had made their mark upon him, they had left hiseyes wilder, his cheeks more hollow; his hand less firm.

  He had burned, in fighting the cold of the past night, all that wouldburn, except the chair on which he sat; and with the dawn the lastspark of his fire had died out. Notwithstanding those fits of rage hewas not light-headed. He could command his faculties at will, he couldstill reflect and plan, marshal the arguments and perfect the reasonsthat must convince his foes, that, if they inflicted a lingering deathon him, they did but work their own undoing. But at times he foundhimself confounding the present with the past, fancying, for a while,that he was in a Turkish prison, and turning, under that impression, toaddress Bale; or starting from a waking dream of some cold camp inRussian snows--alas! starting from it only to shiver with thatpenetrating, heart-piercing, frightful cold, which was worse to bearthan the gnawing of hunger or the longing of thirst.

  He had not eaten for more than seventy hours. But the long privationwhich had weakened his limbs and blanched his cheeks, which had evengone some way towards disordering his senses, had not availed to shakehis will. The possibility of surrender did not occur to him, partlybecause he felt sure that James McMurrough would not be so foolish asto let him die; but partly, also, by reason of a noble stubbornness inthe man, a fixedness that for no pain of death would leave a woman or achild to perish. More than once Colonel Sullivan had had to make thatchoice, amid the horrors of a retreat across famished lands, withwolves and Cossacks on his skirts; and perhaps the choice then made hadbecome a habit of the mind. At any rate, whether that were the cause orno, in this new phase he gave no thought to yielding.

  He had sat for some minutes in the attitude of depression, or bodilyweakness, which has, been described, when once more a sound startledhim. He raised his head and turned his eyes, sharpened by hunger, onthe window. But this time, distrusting his senses, he did not riseuntil the sound was repeated. Then he faltered to his feet, and onceagain went unsteadily to the window, and, leaning a hand on each jamb,looked out.

  At the same moment Flavia looked in. Their eyes met. Their faces wereless than a yard apart.

  The girl started back with a low cry, caused either by alarm on findinghim so near her or by horror at the change in his aspect. If thelatter, there was abundant cause. For she had left him hungry, shefound him starving; she had left him haggard, she found him with eyesunnaturally large, his temples hollow, his lips dry, his chin unshaven.It was indeed a mask rather than a face, a staring mask of famine, thatlooked out of the dusky room at her, and looked not the less pitifully,not the less wofully, because, as soon as its owner took in heridentity, the mask tried to smile.

  "Mother of God!" she whispered. Her face had grown nearly as white ashis. "O Mother of God!" She had imagined nothing like this.

  And Colonel John, believing--his throat was so dry that he could notspeak at once--that he read pity as well as horror in her face, felt asob rise in his breast. He tried to smile the more bravely for that,and presently he found his voice, a queer, husky voice.

  "You must not leave me--too long," he said. His smile was becomingghastly.

  She drew in her breath, and averted her face, to hide, he hoped, theeffect of the sight upon her. Or perhaps--for he saw her shudder--shewas mutely calling the sunlit lake on which her eyes rested, the bluesky, the smiling summer scene, to witness against this foul cruelty,this dark wickedness.

  But it seemed that he deceived himself. For when she turned her face tohim again, though it was still colourless, it was hard and set.

  "You must sign," she said. "You must sign the paper."

  His parched lips opened, but he did not answer. He was as one struckdumb.

  "You must sign!" she repeated insistently. "Do you hear? You mustsign!"

  Still he did not answer; he only looked at her with eyes of infinitereproach. The pity of it! The pity of it! She, a woman, a girl, whomcompassion should have constrained, whose tender heart should have bledfor him, could see him tortured, could aid in the work, and cry "Sign!"

  She could indeed, for she repeated the word--fiercely, feverishly."Sign!" she cried. And then, "If you will," she said, "I will giveyou--see! See! You shall have this. You shall eat and drink; only sign!For God's sake, sign what they want, and eat and drink!"

  And, with fingers that trembled with haste, she drew from ahiding-place in her cloak, bread and milk and wine. "See what I havebrought," she continued, holding them before his starting eyes, hiscracking lips, "if you will sign."

  He gazed at them, at her, with anguish of the mind as well as of thebody. How he had mistaken her! How he had misread her! Then, with agroan, "God forgive you!" he cried, "I cannot! I cannot!"

  "You will not sign?" she retorted.

  "Cannot, and will not!" he said.

  "And why? Why will you not?"

  On that his patience, sorely tried, gave way; and, swept along by oneof those gusts of rage, he spoke. "Why?" he cried in hoarse accents."You ask me why? Because, ungrateful, unwomanly, miserable as youare--I will not rob you or the dead! Because I will not be false to anold man's trust! I will not give to the forsworn what was meant for theinnocent--nor sell my honour for a drink of water! Because,"--helaughed a half-delirious laugh--"there is nothing to sign, nothing! Ihave burned your parchments these two days, and if you tempt me twomore days, if you make me suffer twice as much as I have suffered, youcan do nothing! If your heart be as hard as--it is, you can donothing!" He held out hands which trembled with passion. "You can donothing!" he repeated. "Neither you, who--God forgive you, are nowoman, have no woman's heart, no woman's pity!--nor he who would havekilled me in the bog to gain that which he now starves me to get! But Ifoiled him then, as I will foil him to-day, ingrate, perjured,accursed, as he is, accursed----"

  He faltered and was silent, steadying himself by resting one handagainst the wall. For a moment he covered his eyes with the other hand.Then "God forgive me!" he resumed in a lower tone, "I know not what Isay! God forgive me! And you--Go! for you too--God forgive you--knownot what you do. You do not know what it is to hunger and thirst, oryou would not try me thus! Nor do you know what you were
to me, or youwould not try me thus! Yet I ought to remember that--that it is not foryourself you do it!"

  He turned his back on her then, and on the window. He had taken threesteps towards the middle of the room, when she cried, "Wait!"

  "Go!" he repeated with a backward gesture of the hand. "Go! and Godforgive you, as I do!"

  "Wait!" she cried. "And take them! Oh, take them! Quick!" He turnedabout slowly, almost with suspicion. She was holding the food and thedrink through the window, holding them out for him to take. But itmight be another deception. He was not sure, and for a moment a cunninglook gleamed in his eyes, and he took a step in a stealthy fashiontowards the window, as if, were she off her guard, he would snatch themfrom her. But she cried again, "Take them! Take them!" with tears inher voice. "I brought them for you. May God indeed forgive me!"

  The craving was so strong upon him that he took them then without aword, without answering her or thanking her. He turned his back on her,as soon as he had possessed himself of them, as if he dared not let hersee the desire in his face; and standing thus, he drew the stopper fromthe bottle of milk, and drank. He would fain have held the bottle tohis lips until he had drained the last drop: but he controlled himself,and when he had swallowed a few mouthfuls, he removed it. Then, withthe solemnity of a sacrament, perhaps with the feeling that shouldattend one, he broke off three or four small fragments of the bread,and ate them one by one and slowly--the first with difficulty, thesecond more easily, the third with an avidity which he checked only bya firm effort of the will. "Presently!" he told himself. "Presently!There is plenty, there is plenty." Yet he allowed himself two moremouthfuls of bread and another sip of milk--milk that was nectar,rather than any earthly drink his lips had ever encountered.

  At length, with new life running in his veins, and not new life only,but a pure thankfulness that she had proved herself very woman at thelast, he laid his treasures on the chair, and turned to her. She wasgone.

  His face fell. For while he had eaten and drunk he had felt herpresence at his back, and once he was sure that he had heard her sob.But she was gone. A chill fell upon his spirits. Yet she might not begone far. He staggered--for he was not yet steady on his feet--to thewindow, and looked to right and left.

  She had not gone far. She was lying prone on the sward, her face hiddenon her arms; and it was true that he had heard her sob, for she wasweeping without restraint. The change in him, the evidence of sufferingwhich she had read in his face, to say nothing of his reproaches, haddone something more than shock her. They had opened her eyes to thetrue nature--already dimly seen--of the plan to which she had lentherself. They had torn the last veil from the selfishness of those withwhom she had acted, their cupidity and their ruthlessness. And they hadshown the man himself in a light so new and startling, that even thelast twenty-four hours had not prepared her for it. The scales ofprejudice which had dimmed her sight fell at length, and wholly, fromher eyes; and, for the first time, she saw him as he was. For the firsttime she perceived that, in pursuing the path he had followed, he mighthave thought himself right; he might have been moved by a higher motivethan self-interest, he might have been standing for others rather thanfor himself. Parts of the passionate rebuke which suffering andindignation had forced from him remained branded upon her memory; andshe wept in shame, feeling her helplessness, her ignorance, herinexperience, feeling that she had no longer any sure support or prop.For how could she trust those who had drawn her into this hideous, thiscruel business? Who, taking advantage at once of her wounded vanity,and her affection for her brother, had led her to this act, from whichshe now shrank in abhorrence?

  There was only, of all about her, Uncle Ulick to whom she could turn,or on whom she could depend. And he, though he would not have stoopedto this, was little better, she knew, than a broken reed. The sense ofher loneliness, the knowledge that those about her used her for theirown ends--and those the most unworthy--overwhelmed her; and inproportion as she had been proud and self-reliant, was her presentabasement.

  When the first passion of self-reproach had spent itself, she heard himcalling her by name, and in a voice that stirred her heart-strings. Sherose, first to her knees and then to her feet, and, averting her face,"I will open the door," she said, humbly and in a broken voice. "I havebrought the key."

  He did not answer, and she did not unlock. For as, still keeping herface averted that he might not see her tears, she turned the corner ofthe Tower to gain the door, her brother's head and shoulders rose abovethe level of the platform. As The McMurrough stepped on to the latterfrom the path, he was in time to see her skirt vanishing. He saw nomore. But his suspicions were aroused. He strode across the face of theTower, turned the corner, and came on her in the act of putting the keyin the lock.

  "What are you doing?" he cried, in a terrible voice. "Are you mad?"

  She did not answer, but neither did he pause for her answer. Theimminence of the peril, the thought that the man whom he had so deeplywronged, and who knew him for the perjured thing he was, might inanother minute be free--free to take what steps he pleased, free toavenge himself and punish his foes, rose up before him, and he thrusther roughly from the door. The key, not yet turned, came away in herhand, and he tried to snatch it from her.

  "Give it me!" he cried. "Do you hear? Give it me!"

  "I will not!" she cried. "No!"

  "Give it up, I say!" he retorted. And this time he made good his holdon her wrist. He tried to force the key from her. "Let it go!" hepanted, "or I shall hurt you!"

  But he made a great mistake if he thought that he could coerce Flaviain that way. Her fingers only closed more tightly on the key. "Never!"she cried, struggling with him. "Never! I am going to let him out!"

  "You coward!" a voice cried through the door. "Coward! Coward!" Therewas a sound of drumming on the door.

  But Colonel John's voice and his blows were powerless to help, asJames, in a frenzy of rage and alarm, gripped the girl's wrist, andtwisted it. "Let it go! Let it go, you fool!" he cried brutally, "or Iwill break your arm!"

  Her face turned white with pain, but for a moment she endured insilence. Then a shriek escaped her.

  It was answered instantly. Neither he nor she had had eyes for aughtbut one another; and the hand that fell, and fell heavily, on James'sshoulder was as unexpected as a thunderbolt.

  "By Heaven, man," a voice cried in his ear. "Are you mad? Or is thisthe way you treat women in Kerry? Let the lady go! Let her go, I say!"

  The command was needless, for at the first sound of the voice James hadfallen back with a curse, and Flavia, grasping her bruised wrist withher other hand, reeled for support against the Tower wall. For a momentno one spoke. Then James, with scarcely a look at Payton--for he itwas--bade her come away with him. "If you are not mad," he growled,"you'll have a care! You'll have a care, and come away, girl!"

  "When I have let him out, I will," she answered, her eyes glowingsombrely as she nursed her wrist. In her, too, the old Adam had beenraised.

  "Give me the key!" he said for the last time.

  "I will not," she said. "And if I did--" she continued, with a glanceat Payton that reminded the unhappy McMurrough that, with the secretknown, the key was no longer of use--"if I did, how would it serveyou?"

  The McMurrough turned his rage upon the intruder. "Devil take you, whatbusiness will it be of yours?" he cried. "Who are you to come betweenus, eh?"

  Payton bowed. "If I offend," he said airily, "I am entirely at yourservice." He tapped the hilt of his sword. "You do not wear one, but Ihave no doubt you can use one. I shall be happy to give yousatisfaction where and when you please. A time and place----"

  But James did not stop to hear him out. He turned with an oath and asnarl, and went off--went off in such a manner that Flavia could notbut see that the challenge was not to his taste. At another time shewould have blushed for him. But his brutal violence had done moreduring the last ten minutes to depose his image from her heart thanyears of neglect and rudeness.
r />   Payton saw him go, and, blessing the good fortune which had put him ina position to command the beauty's thanks, he turned to receive them.But Flavia was not looking at him, was not thinking of him. She had putthe key in the lock and was trying to turn it. Her left wrist, however,was too weak, and the right was so strained as to be useless. Shesigned to him to turn the key, and he did so, and threw open the door,wondering much who was there and what it was all about.

  He did not at once recognise the man who, pale and haggard, a mereghost of himself, dragged himself up the three steps, and, exhausted bythe effort, leant against the doorpost. But when Colonel John spoke andtried to thank the girl, he knew him.

  He whistled. "You are Colonel Sullivan!" he said.

  "The same, sir!" Colonel John murmured mechanically.

  "Are you ill?"

  "I am not well," the other replied with a sickly smile. The indignationwhich he had felt during the contest between the girl and her brotherhad been too much for his strength. "I shall be better presently," headded. He closed his eyes.

  "We should be getting him below," Flavia said in an undertone.

  Payton looked from one to the other. He was in a fog. "Has he been herelong?" he asked.

  "Nearly four days," she replied, with a shiver.

  "And nothing to eat?"

  "Nothing."

  "The devil! And why?"

  She did not stay to think how much it was wise to tell him. In herrepentant mood she was anxious to pour herself out in self-reproach."We wanted him to convey some property," she said, "as we wished."

  "To your brother?"

  "Ah, to him!" Then, seeing his astonishment, "It was mine," she added.

  Payton knew that estates were much held in trust in that part, and hebegan to understand. He looked at her; but no, he did not understandnow. For if the idea had been to constrain Colonel Sullivan to transferher property to her brother, how did her interest match with that? Hecould only suppose that her brother had coerced her, and that she hadgiven him the slip and tried to release the man--with the result he hadwitnessed.

  One thing was clear. The property, large or small, was still hers. TheMajor looked with a thoughtful face at the smiling valley, with itscabins scattered over the slopes, at the lake and the fishing-boats,and the rambling slate-roofed house with its sheds and peat-stacks. Hewondered.

  No more was said at that moment, however, for Flavia saw that ColonelSullivan's strength was not to be revived in an hour. He must beassisted to the house and cared for there. But in the meantime, and tolend some strength, she was anxious to give him such wine and food ashe could safely take. To procure these she entered the room in which hehad been confined.

  As she cast her eyes round its dismal interior, marked the poor handfulof embers that told of his long struggle with the cold, marked the onechair which he had saved--for to lie on the floor had beendeath--marked the beaten path that led from the chair to the window,and spoke of many an hour of painful waiting and of hope deferred, shesaw the man in another, a more gentle, a more domestic aspect. She hadseen the heroism, she now saw the pathos of his conduct, and tears cameafresh to her eyes. "For me!" she murmured. "For me! And how had Itreated him!"

  Her old grievance against him was forgotten, wiped out of remembranceby his sufferings. She dwelt only on the treatment she had meted out tohim.

  When they had given him to eat and drink he assured them, smiling, thathe could walk. But when he attempted to do so he staggered. "He willneed a stronger arm than yours," Payton said, with a grin. "May I offermine?"

  For the first time she looked at him gratefully "Thank you," she said.

  "I can walk," the Colonel repeated obstinately. "A little giddy, thatis all." But in the end he needed all the help that both could givehim. And so it happened that a few minutes later Luke Asgill, standingat the entrance to the courtyard, a little anxious indeed, but aware ofno immediate danger, looked along the road, and saw the threeapproaching, linked in apparent amity.

  The shock was great, for James McMurrough had fled, cursing, intosolitude and the hills, taking no steps to warn his ally. The sight,thus unforeseen, struck Asgill with the force of a bullet. Colonel Johnreleased, and in the company of Flavia and Payton! All his craft, allhis coolness forsook him. He slunk out of sight by a back way, but notbefore Payton had marked his retreat.