Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces

by Charles Felix

  CHAPTER XXII

  It is strange how, in moments of stress and trial, even in times oftragedy, the most commonplace thoughts will intrude themselves and themind separate itself from the immediate events. As Merode put the coldmuzzle of the revolver to Ailsa's temple and she ought, one would havesupposed, to have been deaf and blind to all things but the horror ofher position, one of these strange mental lapses occurred, and her mind,travelling back over the years of her early schooldays, dwelt on apunishment task set her by her preceptress--the task of copying threehundred times the phrase "Discretion is the better part of valour."

  As the recollection of that time rose before her mental vision, thevalue of the phrase itself forced its worth upon her and, huddling backin the corner of the limousine, she clutched the frightened child to herand gave implicit obedience to Merode's command to make no effort toattract attention either by word or deed. And he, fancying that he hadthoroughly cowed her, withdrew the touch of the weapon from her temple,but held it ready for possible use in the grip of his thin, strong hand.

  For a time the limousine kept straight on in its headlong course, then,of a sudden, it swerved to the left, the gleam of a river--all silverwith moonlight--struck up through a line of trees on one side of thecar, the blank unbroken dreariness of a stretch of waste land spread outupon the other; and presently, by the slowing down of the motor, Ailsaguessed that they were nearing their destination. They reached it a fewmoments later, and a peep from the window, as the vehicle stopped,showed her the outlines of a ruined watermill--ghostly, crumbling,owl-haunted--looming black against the silver sky.

  A crumbled wheel hung, rotten and moss-grown, over a dry water-course,where straggling willows stretched out from the bank and trailed theirlong, feathery ends a yard or so above the level of the weeds andgrasses that carpeted the sandy bed of it, and along its edge--oncebuilt as a protection for the heedless or unwary, but now a ruin and awreck--a moss-grown wall with a narrow, gateless archway made anirregular shadow on the moon-drenched earth. She saw that archway andthat dry water-course, and a new, strong hope arose within her.Discretion had played its part; now it was time for Valour to take thestage.

  "Come, get out--this is the end," said Merode, as he unlatched the doorof the limousine and alighted. "You may yell here until your throatsplits, for all the good it will do you. Lanisterre, show us a light;the path to the door is uncertain, and the floor of the mill is unsafe.This way, if you please, Miss Lorne. Let me have the boy--I'll lookafter him!"

  "No, no!--not yet! Please, not yet!" said Ailsa, with a little catch inher voice as she plucked his little lordship to her and smothered hisfrightened cries against her breast. "Let me have him whilst I may--letme hold him to--the last, Monsieur Merode. His mother trusts me. Shewill want to know that I--I stood by him until I could stand no longer.Please!--we are so helpless--I am so fond of him, and--he is such a verylittle boy. Listen! You want me to write to Mr. Cleek; you want me toask something of him. I won't do it for myself--no, not if you kill mefor refusing. I'll never do it for myself; but--but I will do it if youwon't separate us until he has had time to say his prayers."

  "Oh, all right, then," he agreed. "If it's any consolation doing afool's trick like that, why--do it! Now come along, and let's get insidethe mill without any more nonsense. Lanisterre, bring that lantern hereso that mademoiselle can see the path to the door. This way, if youplease, Miss Lorne."

  "Thank you," she said as she alighted and moved slowly in the directionof the door, soothing the child as they crept along almost within touchof the crumbling wall. "Ceddie, darling, don't cry. You are a bravelittle hero, I know, and heroes are never afraid to die." From the tailof her eye she watched Merode. He seemed to realise from these words tothe child that she was reconciled to the inevitable, and with an air ofsatisfaction he put the pistol back into his pocket and walked besideher. She kept straight on with her soothing words; and, in thehalf-shadow, neither Merode nor Lanisterre could see that one hand waslost in the folds of her skirt.

  "Ceddie, darling, let Miss Lorne be able to tell mummie that her littleman was a hero; that he died, as heroes always die, without a fear or aweakening to the very last. I'll stand by you, precious; I'll hold yourhand; and, when the time comes--"

  It came then! The gateless archway was reached at last; and the thingshe had been planning all along now became possible. With one suddenpush she sent the boy reeling down the incline into the drywater-course, flashed round sharply, and before Merode really knew howthe thing happened, she was standing with her back to the arch and arevolver in her levelled hand.

  "Throw up your arms--throw them up at once, or, as God hears me, I'llshoot!" she cried. "Run, Ceddie--run, baby! He shan't follow you--I'llkill him if he tries!"

  "You idiot!" began Merode, and made a lurch toward her. But the pistolbarked, and something white-hot zigzagged along his arm and bit like aflame into his shoulder.

  "Up with your hands--up with them!" she said in a voice that shook withexcitement as he howled out and made a reeling backward step. "Next timeit will be the head I aim at, not the arm!" Then, lifting up her voicein one loud shriek that made the echoes bound, she called with all herstrength; "Help, somebody--for God's sake help! Scream, Ceddie--scream!Help! Help!"

  And lo! as she called, as if a miracle had been wrought, out of thedarkness an answering voice called back to her, and the wild, swiftnotes of a motor horn bleated along the lonely road.

  "I'm coming--I--Cleek!" that voice rang out. "Hold your own--hold it tothe last, Miss Lorne, and God help the man who lays a finger on you!"

  "Mr. Cleek! Mr. Cleek, oh, thank God!" she flung back with all therapture a human voice could contain. "Come on, come on! I've gothim--got that man Merode, and the boy is safe, the boy is safe! Come on!come on! come on!"

  "We're a-comin', miss, you gamble on that--and the lightnin's a fool tous!" shouted Dollops in reply. "Let her have it, Gov'nor! Bust thebloomin' tank. Give her her head; give her her feet; give her herblessed merry-thought if she wants it! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"

  And then, just then, when she most needed her strength and her courage,Ailsa's evaporated. The reaction came and with the despairing cries ofMerode and Lanisterre ringing in her ears, she sank back, weak, white,almost fainting--and, leaning against the side of the archway, began tolaugh and to sob hysterically. Merode seized that one moment and sprangto the breach.

  Realising that the game was all but up, that there was nothing for himnow but to save his own skin if he could, he called out to Lanisterre tofollow him, then plunged into the mill, swung over the lever whichcontrolled the sluice gates, and, darting out by the back way, fledacross the waste.

  But behind him he left a scene of indescribable horror, and the shrillscreaming of a little child told him when that horror began. For as thesluice gates opened a sullen roar sounded; on one side the divertedmillstream, and on the other the river, rose as two solid walls ofwater, rushed forward and--met; and in the twinkling of an eye the oldwater-course was one wild, leaping, roaring, gyrating whirlpool ofup-flung froth and twisting waves that bore in their eddying clutch thebattling figure of a drowning child.

  Even before he came in sight of it the roaring waters and the fearfulsplash of their impact told Cleek what had been done. He could hearAilsa's screams; he could hear the boy's feeble cries, and a momentlater, when the whizzing motor panted up through the moonlight and spedby the broken wall, there was Ailsa, fairly palsied with fright,clinging weakly to the crumbling arch and uttering little sobbing,wordless, incoherent moans of fright as she stared down into the hell ofwaters; and below, in the foam, a little yellow head was spinning roundand round and round, in dizzying circles of torn and leaping waves.

  "Heavens, Gov'nor!" began Dollops in a voice of appalling despair; butbefore he could get beyond that, Cleek's coat was off, Cleek's body haddescribed a sort of semi-circle, and--the child was no longer alone inthe whirlpool!

  Battling, struggling, fairly leaping, as a fish leaps i
n a torrent, onemoment half out of the water, the next wholly submerged, Cleek struckfrom eddy to eddy, from circle to circle; until that little yellow headwas within reach, then put forth his hand and gripped it, pulled it tohim, and in another moment he was whirling round and round thewhirlpool's course with the child clutched to him and his wet, whiteface gleaming wax-like over the angle of his shoulder.

  They had not made the half of the first circle thus before Dollops hadleaped to the bending willows, had scrambled up the rough trunk of thenearest of them, and, pushing his weight out upon a strong and supplebough, bent it downward until the half of its strongest withes were deepin the whirling waters.

  "Grab 'em, Gov'nor--grab 'em when you come by!" he sang out over theroar of the waters. "They'll hold you, sir--hold a dozen like you; andif--Well played! Got 'em the first grab! Hang on! Get a tight grip! Nowthen, sir, hand over hand till you're at the bank! Good biz! Good biz!Blest if you won't be goin' in for the circus trade next! Steady doesit, sir--steady, steady! Goal, by Jupiter! Now then, hand me up thenipper--I should say the young gent--and in two minutes' time--Right!Got him! 'Ere you are, Miss Lorne--lay hold of his little lordship, willyou? I've got me blessed hands full a keepin' to me perch whilst theguv'nor's a-wobbling of the branch like this. Good biz! Now then, sir,another 'arf a yard. That's the call! Hands on this bough and foot onthe bank there. One, two, three--knew you'd do it! Safe as houses, Gawdbless yer bully heart!"

  And then as Cleek, wet, white, panting, dragged himself out of theclutch of the whirlpool and lay breathing heavily on the ground:

  "By gums, Gov'nor," Dollops added as he looked down on the whirlingwaters, "what an egg-beater it would make, wouldn't it, sir? Ain't gotsuch a thing as a biscuit about yer, have you? Me spine's a raspingholes in me necktie, and I'm so flat you could slip me into a pillar boxand they'd take me home for a penny stamp."

  But Cleek made no reply. Wet and spent after his fierce struggle withthe whirling fury he had just escaped, he lay looking up into Ailsa'seyes as she came to him with the sobbing child close pressed to herbosom and all heaven in her beaming face.

  "It is not the 'funeral wreath' after all, you see, Miss Lorne," hesaid. "It came near to being it; but--it is not, it is not. I wonder,oh, I wonder!"

  Then he laughed the foolish, vacuous laugh of a man whose thoughts aretoo happy for the banality of words.