Part 5 (1/2)
A week after, the big native rice boat that slowly made its way up the river to Rangoon bore with it two pa.s.sengers. One, seated among a heap of bra.s.s pots and pans, surrounded by eatables, princ.i.p.ally fruit, could be recognised as Mr. Iyer; the other, who crouched on a coil of rope, was Anthony Pozendine. Neither spoke to the other, but in their eyes was a sullen hatred which showed what their thoughts were, and if either had the courage there would have been murder on the big boat that worked its sluggish way upstream. One morning, however, the Madra.s.see spoke to his companion.
”We are both ruined, Pozendine,” he said. ”What will you do?” Anthony made no answer, and Iyer went on. ”There is only one chance--let us join together in Rangoon and tell all about Hawkshawe. We know true things, and government will give us back our posts. I swear by Krishna that I will be true; give me your hand.”
Pozendine stretched out his sticky fingers, and the hands of the two men met. Then they sat together and talked all day as if there never had been any enmity between them, planning the coup which was to get them back their post, with a mental reservation that when this was accomplished there was yet another account to settle.
CHAPTER VII.
THE RUBY BRACELET.
Once was my s.h.i.+eld as white as driven snow, Once was mine honour clean, and I, a man, Could gaze upon my fellows, meet their eyes With eyes as honest--but all that is past.
_Old Play_.
”See,” said Ma Mie, holding her arm to the light and displaying the splendour of the bracelet, ”is it not beautiful, Hawkshawe?” The pale amber of her silken robe fell partially on the jewels as she said this, and flinging it back with a graceful gesture Ma Mie again raised the soft outline of her arm, and with lips half parted gazed upon the red glow of the rubies with a childish delight. They were standing near a window of Hawkshawe's house, at the very window from which the light streamed out, a long banner of brightness, when Jackson went back from his solitary ramble on the jetty. The glare that dazzled outside fell softly through the bamboo _jalousie_, and warmed the scarlet of the rubies on Ma Mie's arm to a thousand different tints.
A curious steely blaze came into Hawkshawe's eyes, and the wrinkles around them gathered into deeper folds as he bent over the gems. For the time the look of avarice in his features gave them a wondrously Jewish cast. His aquiline nose seemed to fall over his lips, and the lips themselves tightened into a long, hard outline. He gently unclasped the bracelet and held it in his hand, then he tossed it lightly in the air, and as it fell back like a star he caught it deftly. ”The stones are of the purest water, Ma Mie, but I alone have the right to clasp them on you. Let me do so now.” He fastened the jewel once more on her. ”Now,” he said, ”they look perfect--now that I have put them on you myself, and you can feel that they have come from me. Is it not so?” He drew her toward himself, while all the time his eyes remained fixed on the gems with a terrible greed in their expression. She remained as he had placed her, her head leaning against his shoulder and her eyes half closed. ”Shall I break it to her?” muttered Hawkshawe. ”It has to be done very soon, and might be done now.” They remained for a moment silent. ”Ma Mie,” said Hawkshawe, ”would you be very sorry if I were to go away for a short time?”
She looked up at him with a startled air and drew back. ”You go away; you are not ill, are you? Yes, I think you are ill. You were ill that night when that man Jackson came to dine here and cast his spell on you. You have never been well since. At night I have heard you call out strange things. Yes, if you like, we will go away--you and I, to Ava; it is cool and pleasant there, and you will get well. You want rest, and you are tired. Is it not so? You said so that night.” The woman seemed to know of the evil that hung over her, and was making a desperate fight. All the pleasure that had brightened her face left it, and left it in a moment haggard and wan. She had expected this crisis a hundred times, and a hundred times nothing had come. Still, the feeling that she was on the brink of a precipice never left her.
She knew that some day would come to her, as it came to all women of her cla.s.s, that parting which left the man free as air and the woman in reality still in an abyss. This spectre was always in shadow before her, unseen but felt, and now--she knew that it was coming--she gave a quick gasp after her speech and waited.
”No, Ma Mie,” said Hawkshawe, and he threw a very tender inflection in his voice. ”No, we can not go together this time. I want to go home to my own country. I have not seen it for many years. I will come back again, and in the meantime you must wait for me at your home. You have money. This”--he touched the bracelet on the shuddering arm--”and other things. Besides, I will see that you have more. I intend to go in about a month, and it would be well if you were to start for Ava in, say, a fortnight. Bah Hmoay will take you--or shall I send for some of your people? There, don't cry!” He tried to draw her again toward him, but she broke from his arms with an angry sob.
”You! you! you! To do this!” she gasped. ”You, the father of my dead child! You, who vowed and swore--you, who came with humble entreaty to me! Oh, I was a fool, a fool! All women are fools, and all men liars!
Do you think my heart is a stone? Have I not been faithful? Ah, Hawkshawe, do not send me away! See, I will follow you as a slave to the uttermost parts of the earth. Don't go; I know you are not coming back--don't,” and she sank on her knees with a cry that came from the soul. It would have melted any heart but Alban Hawkshawe's.
”Confound it!” he said, pulling savagely at his mustache, ”I must end this somehow.--Look here, Ma Mie, look at the matter sensibly; don't be a fool.”
”Fool!” and she sprang up--”fool! Yes, I am a fool to have trusted you--trust a liar to lie!” and she laughed bitterly. ”See, I have given you my all, I have given my soul for you, worthless as you are, and you are mine. You say you are going for a short time and that you will come back to me. You lie, and you know it! You never mean to come back. To think that you should perjure yourself at such a moment! You are mine, I say; I have paid too great a price for you.
Where you go, I am; where you live, there shall I be. We shall never part--never--until that which we call death comes between us!”
”Be sensible! I will give you plenty.”
”Ah, heart of stone! It is nothing but gold with you. Yes, I will buy you. Here, take this. Is it a fair price?” and, unclasping the bracelet, she tossed it to him with an imperial gesture, and it fell with a tinkling crash on the polished wood of the floor. Hawkshawe paled to an ashy gray. He raised his hand as if to strike the proud face before him, but his eyes sank as he met Ma Mie's fearless gaze, and his hand slowly drooped again. Then he stooped and picked up the bracelet. ”It is worth ten thousand,” he murmured to himself, and the elvish light in his eyes answered the wicked sparkle of rubies in his hand.
Gathering up her robe, Ma Mie stepped out of the room with a breaking heart and head held erect and defiant, and when Hawkshawe looked up he was alone. He slipped the jewel into his pocket, and, going to a side-table, poured himself out a gla.s.s of brandy, and then another and another, and while he stood near the table drinking feverishly Ma Mie watched him through the curtain from the door of her room, her hand clasping the jade hilt of the stiletto she wore at her girdle.
”Ah!” she thought aloud, ”I could kill him now as he soddens himself with drink. But he is mine, and---- Oh, the shame of it! I love him!
He is mine, and will remain mine if I have to drag his soul to h.e.l.l!”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SIRKAR'S SALT.
Have I not eaten the Sirkar's salt?
Wherefore then shall I tell a lie?