Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “It’s all up,” he said, soberly.

  “Let’s come back to camp and talk it over,” I said.

  Together we traversed the square under the stars, and entered the field of clover. In the dim, smoky camp all lights were out except one oil-drenched torch stuck in the ground between the two tents. Byram had gone to rest, so had Kelly Eyre. But my lions were awake, moving noiselessly to and fro, eyes shining in the dusk; and the elephant, a shapeless pile of shadow against the sky, stood watching us with little, evil eyes.

  Speed had some cigarettes, and he laid the pink package on the table. I lighted one when he did.

  “Do you really think there’s a chance?” he asked, presently.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Well, we can try.”

  “Oh yes.”

  Speed dropped his elbows on the table. “Poor old governor,” he said.

  Then he began to talk of our own prospects, which were certainly obscure if not alarming; but he soon gave up speculation as futile, and grew reminiscent, recalling our first acquaintance as discharged soldiers from the African battalions, our hand-to-mouth existence as gentlemen farmers in Algiers, our bankruptcy and desperate struggle in Marseilles, first as dock-workmen, then as government horse-buyers for the cavalry, then as employés of the Hippodrome in Paris, where I finally settled down as bareback rider, lion-tamer, and instructor in the haute-école; and he accepted a salary as aid to Monsieur Gaston Tissandier, the scientist, who was experimenting with balloons at Saint-Cloud.

  He spoke, too, of our enlistment in the Imperial Police, and the hopes we had of advancement, which not only brought no response from me, but left us both brooding sullenly on our wrongs, crouched there over the rough camp-table under the stars.

  “Oh, hell!” muttered Speed, “I’m going to bed.”

  But he did not move. Presently he said, “How did you ever come to handle wild animals?”

  “I’ve always been fond of animals; I broke colts at home; I had bear cubs and other things. Then, in Algiers, the regiment caught a couple of lions and kept them in a cage, and — well, I found I could do what I liked with them.”

  “They’re afraid of your eyes, aren’t they?”

  “I don’t know — perhaps it’s that; I can’t explain it — or, rather, I could partly explain it by saying that I am not afraid of them. But I never trust them.”

  “You drag them all around the cage! You shove them about like sacks of meal!”

  “Yes,... but I don’t trust them.”

  “It seems to me,” said Speed, “that your lions are getting rather impudent these days. They’re not very much afraid of you now.”

  “Nor I of them,” I said, wearily; “I’m much more anxious about you when you go sailing about in that patched balloon of yours. Are you never nervous?”

  “Nervous? When?”

  “When you’re up there?”

  “Rubbish.”

  “Suppose the patches give way?”

  “I never think of that,” he said, leaning on the table with a yawn. “Oh, Lord, how tired I am!... but I shall not be able to sleep. I’m actually too tired to sleep. Have you got a pack of cards, Scarlett? or a decent cigar, or a glass of anything, or anything to show me more amusing than that nightmare of an elephant? Oh, I’m sick of the whole business — sick! sick! The stench of the tan-bark never leaves my nostrils except when the odor of fried ham or of that devilish camel replaces it.

  “I’m too old to enjoy a gypsy drama when it’s acted by myself; I’m tired of trudging through the world with my entire estate in my pocket. I want a home, Scarlett. Lord, how I envy people with homes!”

  He had been indulging in this outburst with his back partly turned toward me. I did not say anything, and, after a moment, he looked at me over his shoulder to see how I took it.

  “I’d like to have a home, too,” I said.

  “I suppose homes are not meant for men like you and me,” he said. “Lord, how I would appreciate one, though — anything with a bit of grass in the yard and a shovelful of dirt — enough to grow some damn flower, you know.... Did you smell the posies in the square to-night?... Something of that kind,... anything, Scarlett — anything that can be called a home!... But you can’t understand.”

  “Oh yes, I can,” I said.

  He went on muttering, half to himself: “We’re of the same breed — pariahs; fortunately, pariahs don’t last long,... like the wild creatures who never die natural deaths,... old age is one of the curses they can safely discount,... and so can we, Scarlett, so can we.... For you’ll be mauled by a lion or kicked into glory by a horse or an ox or an ass,... and I’ll fall off a balloon,... or the camel will give me tetanus, or the elephant will get me in one way or another,... or something....”

  Again he twisted around to look at me. “Funny, isn’t it?” 189

  “Rather funny,” I said, listlessly.

  He leaned over, pulled another cigarette from the pink packet, broke a match from the card, and lighted it.

  “I feel better,” he observed.

  I expressed sleepy gratification.

  “Oh yes, I’m much better. This isn’t a bad life, is it?”

  “Oh no!” I said, sarcastically.

  “No, it’s all right, and we’ve got to pull the poor old governor through and give a jolly good show here and start the whole country toward the tent door! Eh?”

  “Certainly. Don’t let me detain you.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “if we only had that poor little girl, Miss Claridge, we’d catch these Bretons. That’s what took the coast-folk all over Europe, so Grigg says.”

  Miss Claridge had performed in a large glass tank as the “Leaping Mermaid.” It took like wildfire according to our fellow-performers. We had never seen her; she was killed by diving into her tank when the circus was at Antwerp in April.

  “Can’t we get up something like that?” I suggested, hopelessly.

  “Who would do it? Miss Claridge’s fish-tights are in the prop-box; who’s to wear them?”

  He began to say something else, but stopped suddenly, eyes fixed. We were seated nearly opposite each other, and I turned around, following the direction of his eyes.

  Jacqueline stood behind me in the smoky light of the torch — Jacqueline, bare of arm and knee, with her sea-blue eyes very wide and the witch-locks clustering around the dim oval of her face. After a moment’s absolute silence she said: “I came from Paradise. Don’t you remember?” 190

  “From Paradise?” said Speed, smiling; “I thought it might be from elf-land.”

  And I said: “Of course I remember you, Jacqueline. And I have an idea you ought to be in bed.”

  There was another silence.

  “Won’t you sit down?” asked Speed.

  “Thank you,” said Jacqueline, gravely.

  She seated herself on a sack of sawdust, clasping her slender hands between her knees, and looked earnestly at the elephant.

  “He won’t harm you,” I assured her.

  “If you think I am afraid of that,” she said, “you are mistaken, Monsieur Scarlett.”

  “I don’t think you are afraid of anything,” observed Speed, smiling; “but I know you are capable of astonishment.”

  “How do you know that?” demanded the girl.

  “Because I saw you with your drum on the high-road when we came past Paradise. Your eyes were similar to saucers, and your mouth was not closed, Mademoiselle Jacqueline.”

  “Oh — pour ça — yes, I was astonished,” she said. Then, with a quick, upward glance: “Were you riding, in armor, on a horse?”

  “No,” said Speed; “I was on that elephant’s head.”

  This appeared to make a certain impression on Jacqueline. She became shyer of speech for a while, until he asked her, jestingly, why she did not join the circus.

  “It is what I wish,” she said, under her breath.

  “And ride white horses?”

  “Wil
l you take me?” she cried, passionately, springing to her feet.

  Amazed at her earnestness, I tried to explain that such an idea was out of the question. She listened anxiously at first, then her eyes fell and she stood there in the torch-light, head hanging. 191

  “Don’t you know,” said Speed, kindly, “that it takes years of practice to do what circus people do? And the life is not gay, Jacqueline; it is hard for all of us. We know what hunger means; we know sickness and want and cold. Believe me, you are happier in Paradise than we are in the circus.”

  “It may be,” she said, quietly.

  “Of course it is,” he insisted.

  “But,” she flashed out, “I would rather be unhappy in the circus than happy in Paradise!”

  He protested, smiling, but she would have her way.

  “I once saw a man, in spangles, turning, turning, and ever turning upon a rod. He was very far away, and that was very long ago — at the fair in Bannalec. But I have not forgotten! No, monsieur! In our net-shed I also have fixed a bar of wood, and on it I turn, turn continually. I am not ignorant of twisting. I can place my legs over my neck and cross my feet under my chin. Also I can stand on both hands, and I can throw scores of handsprings — which I do every morning upon the beach — I, Jacqueline!”

  She was excited; she stretched out both bare arms as though preparing to demonstrate her ability then and there.

  “I should like to see a circus,” she said. “Then I should know what to do. That I can swing higher than any girl in Paradise has been demonstrated often,” she went on, earnestly. “I can swim farther, I can dive deeper, I can run faster, with bare feet or with sabots, than anybody, man or woman, from the Beacon to Our Lady’s Chapel! At bowls the men will not allow me because I have beaten them all, monsieur, even the mayor, which he never forgave. As for the farandole, I tire last of all — and it is the biniou who cries out for mercy!” 192

  She laughed and pushed back her hair, standing straight up in the yellow radiance like a moor-sprite. There was something almost unearthly in her lithe young body and fearless sea-blue eyes, sparkling from the shock of curls.

  “So you can dive and swim?” asked Speed, with a glance at me.

  “Like the salmon in the Läita, monsieur.”

  “Under water?”

  “Parbleu!”

  After a pause I asked her age.

  “Fifteen, M’sieu Scarlett.”

  “You don’t look thirteen, Jacqueline.”

  “I think I should grow faster if we were not so poor,” she said, innocently.

  “You mean that you don’t get enough to eat?”

  “Not always, m’sieu. But that is so with everybody except the wealthy.”

  “Suppose we try her,” said Speed, after a silence. “You and I can scrape up a little money for her if worst comes to worst.”

  “How about her father?”

  “You can see him. What is he?”

  “A poacher, I understand.”

  “Oh, then it’s easy enough. Give him a few francs. He’ll take the child’s salary, anyway, if this thing turns out well.”

  “Jacqueline,” I said, “we can’t afford to pay you much money, you know.”

  “Money?” repeated the child, vacantly. “Money! If I had my arms full — so! — I would throw it into the world — so!” — she glanced at Speed— “reserving enough for a new skirt, monsieur, of which I stand in some necessity.”

  The quaint seriousness, the resolute fearlessness of this little maid of Paradise touched us both, I think, as she stood there restlessly, balancing on her slim bare feet, finger-tips poised on her hips.

  “Won’t you take me?” she asked, sweetly.

  “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Jacqueline,” said I. “Very early in the morning I’ll go down to your house and see your father. Then, if he makes no objection, I’ll get you to put on a pretty swimming-suit, all made out of silver scales, and you can show me, there in the sea, how you can dive and swim and play at mermaid. Does that please you?”

  She looked earnestly at me, then at Speed.

  “Is it a promise?” she asked, in a quivering voice.

  “Yes, Jacqueline.”

  “Then I thank you, M’sieu Scarlett,... and you, m’sieur, who ride the elephant so splendidly.... And I will be waiting for you when you come.... We live in the house below the Saint-Julien Light.... My father is pilot of the port.... Anybody will tell you.” ...

  “I will not forget,” said I.

  She bade us good-night very prettily, stepped back out of the circle of torch-light, and vanished — there is no other word for it.

  “Gracious,” said Speed, “wasn’t that rather sudden? Or is that the child yonder? No, it’s a bush. Well, Scarlett, there’s an uncanny young one for you — no, not uncanny, but a spirit in its most delicate sense. I’ve an idea she’s going to find poor Byram’s lost luck for him.”

  “Or break her neck,” I observed.

  Speed was quiet for a long while.

  “By-the-way,” he said, at last, “are you going to tell the Countess about that fellow Buckhurst?”

  “I sent a note to her before I fed my lions,” I replied.

  “Are you going to see her?”

  “If she desires it.” 194

  “Who took the note, Scarlett?”

  “Jacqueline’s father,... that Lizard fellow.”

  “Well, don’t let’s stir up Buckhurst now,” said Speed. “Let’s do what we can for the governor first.”

  “Of course,” said I. “And I’m going to bed. Good-night.”

  “Good-night,” said Speed, thoughtfully. “I’ll join you in a moment.”

  When I was ready for bed and stood at the tent door, peering out into the darkness, I saw Speed curled up on a blanket between the elephant’s forefeet, sound asleep.

  XII

  JACQUELINE

  The stars were still shining when I awoke in my blanket, lighted a candle, and stepped into the wooden tub of salt-water outside the tent.

  I shaved by candle-light, dressed in my worn riding-breeches and jacket, then, candle in hand, began groping about among the faded bits of finery and tarnished properties until I found the silver-scaled swimming-tights once worn by the girl of whom we had heard so much.

  She was very young when she leaped to her death in Antwerp — a slim slip of a creature, they said — so I thought it likely that her suit might fit Jacqueline.

  The stars had begun to fade when I stepped out through the dew-soaked clover, carrying in one hand a satchel containing the swimming-suit, in the other a gun-case, in which, carefully oiled and doubly cased in flannel, reposed my only luxury — my breech-loading shot-gun.

  The silence, intensified by the double thunder of the breakers on the sands, was suddenly pierced by a far cock-crow; vague gray figures passed across the square as I traversed it; a cow-bell tinkled near by, and I smelt the fresh-blown wind from the downs.

  Presently, as I turned into the cliff-path, I saw a sober little Breton cow plodding patiently along ahead; beside her moved a fresh-faced maid of Paradise in snowy collarette and white-winged head-dress, knitting as she walked, fair head bent.

  As I passed her she glanced up with tear-dimmed eyes, murmuring the customary salutation: “Bonjour d’ac’h, m’sieu!” And I replied in the best patois I could command: “Bonjour d’ec’h a laran, na œled Ket! Why do you cry, mademoiselle?”

  “Cry, m’sieu? They are taking the men of Paradise to the war. France must know how cruel she is to take our men from us.”

  We had reached the green crest of the plateau; the girl tethered her diminutive cow, sat down on a half-imbedded stone, and continued her knitting, crying softly all the while.

  I asked her to direct me to the house where Robert, the Lizard, lived; she pointed with her needles to a large stone house looming up in the gray light, built on the rocks just under the beacon. It was white with sea-slime and crusted salt, yet heavily and solidly built as
a fort, and doubtless very old, judging from the traces of sculptured work over portal and windows.

  I had scarcely expected to find the ragged Lizard and more ragged Jacqueline housed in such an anciently respectable structure, and I said so to the girl beside me.

  “The house is bare as the bones of Sainte-Anne,” she said. “There is nothing within — not even crumbs enough for the cliff-rats, they say.”

  So I went away across the foggy, soaking moorland, carrying my gun and satchel in their cases, descended the grassy cleft, entered a cattle-path, and picked my way across the wet, black rocks toward the abode of the poacher.

  The Lizard was standing on his doorsill when I came up; he returned my greeting sullenly, his keen eyes of a sea-bird roving over me from head to foot. A rumpled and sulky yellow cat, evidently just awake, sat on the doorstep beside him and yawned at intervals. The pair looked as though they had made a night of it.

  “You took my letter last night?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Was there an answer for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Couldn’t you have come to the camp and told me?”

  “I could, but I had other matters to concern me,” he replied. “Here’s your letter,” and he fished it out of his tattered pocket.

  I was angry enough, but I did not wish to anger him at that moment. So I took the letter and read it — a formal line saying the Countess de Vassart would expect me at five that afternoon.

  “You are not noted for your courtesy, are you?” I inquired, smiling.

  Something resembling a grin touched his sea-scarred visage.

  “Oh, I knew you’d come for your answer,” he said, coolly.

  “Look here, Lizard,” I said, “I intend to be friends with you, and I mean to make you look on me as a friend. It’s to my advantage and to yours.”

  “To mine?” he inquired, sneeringly, amused.

  “And this is the first thing I want,” I continued; and without further preface I unfolded our plans concerning Jacqueline.

  “Entendu,” he said, drawling the word, “is that all?”

  “Do you consent?”

  “Is that all?” he repeated, with Breton obstinacy.

  “No, not all. I want you to be my messenger in time of need. I want you to be absolutely faithful to me.”