Part 114 (1/2)

”Some one you have never thought of--some one you have respected and even held in honour----”

”Who, then?” said Caesar huskily.

”Mr. Cregeen,” said Philip, ”it is hard for me to speak. I had not intended to speak yet; but I should hold myself in horror if I were silent now. You have been living in awful error. Whatever the cost, whatever the consequences, you must not remain in that error a moment longer. It was not Ross who took away your daughter.”

”Who was it?” cried Caesar. His voice had the sound of a cracked bell.

Philip struggled hard. He tried to confess. His eyes wandered about the walls. ”As you have cherished a mistaken resentment,” he faltered, ”so you have nourished a mistaken grat.i.tude.”

”Who? who?” cried Caesar, looking fixedly into Philip's face.

Philip's rigid fingers were crawling over the papers on the table like the claws of crabs. They touched the summons from the Chancery Court, and he picked it up.

”Read this,” he said, and held it out to Caesar.

Caesar took it, but continued to look at Philip with eyes that were threatening in their wildness. Philip felt that in a moment their positions had been changed. He was the judge no longer, but only a criminal at the bar of this old man, this grim fanatic, half-mad already with religious mania.

”The Lord of Hosts is mighty,” muttered Caesar; and then Philip heard the paper crinkle in his hand.

Caesar was feeling for his spectacles. When he had liberated them from the sheath, he put them on the bridge of his nose upside down. With the two gla.s.ses against the wrinkles of his forehead and his eyes still uncovered, he held the paper at arm's length and tried to read it. Then he took out his red print handkerchief to dust the spectacles. Fumbling spectacles and sheath and handkerchief and paper in his trembling hands together, he muttered again in a quavering voice, as if to fortify himself against what he was to see, ”The Lord of Hosts is mighty.”

He read the paper at length, and there was no mistaking it. ”Quilliam v.

Quilliam and Christian (Philip).”

He laid the summons on the table, and returned his spectacles to their sheath. His breathing made noises in his nostrils. ”_Ugh cha nee!_” (woe is me), he muttered. ”_Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!_”

Then he looked helplessly around and said, ”Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

The vengeance that he had built up day by day had fallen in a moment into ruins. His hypocrisy was stripped naked. ”I see how it is,” he said in a hoa.r.s.e voice. ”The Lord has de-ceaved me to punish me. It is the public-house. Ye cannot serve G.o.d and mammon. What's gained on the devil's back is lost under his belly. I thought I was a child of G.o.d, but the deceitfulness of riches has choked the word. _Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!_ My prosperity has been like the quails, only given with the intent of choking me. _Ugh cha nee!_”

His spiritual pride was broken down. The Almighty had refused to be made a tool of. He took up his hat and rolled his arm over it the wrong way of the nap. Half-way to the door he paused. ”Well, I'll be laving you; good-day, sir,” he said, nodding his head slowly. ”The Lord's been knowing what you were all the time seemingly. But what's the use of His knowing--He never tells on n.o.body. And I've been calling on sinners to flee from the wrath, and He's been letting the devils make a mock at myself! _Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!_”

Philip had slipped back in his chair, and his head had fallen forward'

on the table. He heard the old man go out; he heard his heavy step drop slowly down the stairs; he heard his foot dragging on the path outside.

”_Ugh cha nee! Ugh cha nee!_” The word rang in his heart like a knell.

Jem-y-Lord, who had been out in the town, came back in great excitement.

”Such news, your Honour! Such splendid news!”

”What is it?” said Philip, without lifting his head.

”They're signing pet.i.tions all over the island, asking the Queen to make you Governor.”

”G.o.d in heaven!” said Philip; ”that would be frightful.”

XIV.