Part 14 (1/2)
The br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.ses of sparkling, creaming fluid, juice of vines that never grew in the historic soil of France, were pa.s.sed over the bar. A miniature berg clinked in each, the coldness of its contact with the glowing lip forcing slight rapturous shrieks from Emigration Jane.
”We'll drink 'Er 'ealth!” W. Keyse raised his goblet. ”And Friends at 'Ome in our Isle across the Sea!”
He drank, pleased with the sentiment, and set down the empty gla.s.s.
The Dutch bar-keeper leaned across the counter, and tapped him on the arm with a thick, stubby forefinger.
”Mister Engelschman, I think you shall best go out of here.”
”Me? Go out? 'Oo are you gettin' at, Myn'eer Van Dunck?” swaggered W.
Keyse. And he slipped one thin, freckled hand ostentatiously under his coat of shoddy summer tweed. A very cheap revolver lurked in the hip-pocket of which Billy was so proud. In his third-floor back bed-sitting-room in Judd Street, London, W.C., he had promised himself a moment when that hip-pocket should be referred to, just in that way. It was a cheap bit of theatrical swagger, but the saloon was full, not of harmless theatrical pretences, but bitter racial antagonisms, seething animosities, fanged and venomed hatreds, only waiting the prearranged signal to strike and slay.
Emigration Jane tugged at the hero's sleeve, as he felt for an almost invisible moustache, scanning the piled-up, serried faces with pert, pale, hardy eyes.
”'E ain't coddin'. See 'ow black they're lookin'.”
”I see 'em, plyne enough. Waxworks only fit for the Chamber of 'Orrors, ain't 'em?”
”It's a young woman wot arsks you to go, not a bloke! Please! For my syke, if you won't for your own!”
Billy Keyse, with a flourish, offered the thin, boyish arm in the tweed sleeve.
”Righto! Will you allow me, Miss?”
She faltered:
”I--I can't, deer. I--I'm wiv my young man.”
”Looks after you a proper lot, I don't think. Which is 'im? Where's 'e 'id 'isself? There's only one other English-lookin' feller 'ere, an' 'e's drunk, lyin' over the table there in the corner. That ain't 'im, is it?”
”Nah, that isn't 'im. That big Dutchy, lookin' this way, showin' 'is teeth as 'e smiles. That's my young man.”
She indicated the Slabberts, heavily observant of the couple with the muddy eyes under the tow-coloured thatch.
”'Strewth!” W. Keyse whistled depreciatively between his teeth, and elevated his scanty eyebrows. ”That tow-'eaded, bung-nosed, 'ulking, big Dopper. An' you a daughter of the Empire!”
Oh! the thrice-retorted scorn in the sharp-edged c.o.c.kney voice! The scorching contempt in the pale, ugly little eyes of W. Keyse! She wilted to her tallest feather, and the tears came crowding, stinging the back of her throat, compelling a miserable sniff. Yet Emigration Jane was not dest.i.tute of spirit.
”I ... I took 'im to please meself ... not you, nor the Hempire neither.”
”Reckon you was precious 'ard up for a chap. Good-afternoon, Miss.”
He touched the cheap Panama, and swung theatrically round on his heel.
Between him and the saloon-door there was a solid barricade of heavy Dutch bodies, in moleskin, tan-cord, and greasy homespun, topped by lowering Dutch faces. Brawny right hands that could have choked the reedy crow out of the little bantam gamec.o.c.k, clenched in the baggy pockets of old shooting-jackets. Others gripped leaded sjamboks, and others crept to hip-pockets, where German army revolvers were. The bar-keeper and the Slabberts exchanged a meaning wink.
”Gents, I'll trouble you. By your leave?...”
n.o.body moved. And suddenly W. Keyse became conscious that these were enemies, and that he was alone. A little hooliganism, a few street-fights, one scuffle with the police, some rows in music-halls const.i.tuted all his experience. In the midst of these men, burly, brutal, strong, used to shed blood of beast and human, his cheap swagger failed him with his stock of breath. He was no longer the hero in an East End melodrama; his heroic mood had gone, and there was a feel of tragedy in the air. The Boers waited sluggishly for the next move. It would come when there should be a step forward on the part of the little Englishman. Then a clumsy foot in a cow-leather boot or heavy wooden-pegged veldschoen would be thrust out, and the boy would be tripped up and go down, and the crowd would deliberately kick and trample the life out of him, and no one would be able to say how or by whom the thing had been done. And, reading in the hard eyes set in the stolid yellow and drab faces that he was ”up against it,” and no mistake, W. Keyse felt singularly small and lonely.