Part 7 (1/2)
CHAPTER X.
AN ATONEMENT.
_Ruys_.--Can I give back? Well, then I will restore.
Death pays all debts.
_Maraffa: A Tragedy_.
In a solitary room of his house, shut out from the light of day, Hawkshawe was drinking himself to madness and to death. The weary weeks dragged themselves on, one after the other, in connection with his case, and yet nothing was done beyond the order which kept him under judgment. The government had not as yet even decided what steps they were to take in the matter. Called upon for an explanation, Hawkshawe had sent up a long memorial, full, as memorials always are, of points that did not bear on the question. He clutched at any straw to save himself, and there was without doubt a good record of good work done by him. Practically, however, he was already condemned, and the governor had made up his mind almost as soon as he heard of the case. He was a man whose muscular morality could endure no backsliding, and the taint of the old days still hung around Burma. He had sworn to purify it, and he meant to keep his word. ”These are the men,” he said, referring to Hawkshawe, ”that we want to get rid of, and any excuse should be seized upon, for they have dragged the name of Englishmen in the mud; of course, however, Mr. Hawkshawe must have every opportunity of defending himself.”
The head of the police, to whom these words were spoken, went away with misgivings in his heart about Hawkshawe. ”He'll get over the bribery and corruption part of the affair,” he said to a confidential friend--in other words, to his wife. ”There's no real proof except the statements of those dismissed scoundrels and half a dozen other blackguards; but the other thing will smash him, and, with all his faults, he is very nearly my best man.”
”And he ought to be turned out,” said the lady. ”I have no pity for men like Mr. Hawkshawe.”
The chief remained silent, knowing that here argument was unavailing, but nevertheless he still regretted Hawkshawe's fate. And from this it will be inferred that a long connection with the seamy side of mankind had more or less blunted the fine edge of his susceptibilities, and that he was prepared to use any tools if they served his business, which was the suppression and detection of crime; and perhaps he was right.
In the meantime Alban Hawkshawe slipped down with frightful rapidity.
He was like a man sliding down a snowy slope beneath which yawned a precipice, and he was reaching the abyss at a frightful pace. He would have killed himself had he dared; once he had almost done so, but the little hole in the muzzle of the revolver he held to his mouth looked so pitiless that he drew it back shrinking. His nerves were weakened, and there was a terrible bodily fear of that death which he felt could alone be his release. It was open to him to have left Pazobin and run the chance of arrest; but the very attempt at flight would establish his guilt, and he was quick-witted enough to see that his only chance was to fight, and, although the waters were over him, yet his arm was stretched out to grasp the one little straw in which there might be safety. Strange as it may seem, he began to feel an injured man. There was the shame and indignity of being kept a prisoner at large, to feel that every one around him knew of his fall, to know that they knew him guilty, to know that they who crouched before him formerly were laughing over their opium pipes at his downfall. The very servants knew it. He saw this in their faces. These thoughts drove him faster and faster on his course, and he vainly tried to flee from himself in the stupor of drink. And then the time came when drink did not produce forgetfulness. But Ma Mie clung to him with the affection of a dog.
She endured his abuse and his blows, for Hawkshawe had reached a stage when he was no longer restrained from violence because the object was a woman. The poor creature tried to keep him from his besetting vice; she brought out all her little arts which were once wont to please and to beguile, but to no purpose. Hawkshawe insisted on having her about him, but it was not to console; it was because he wanted some one upon whom to work off the fits of semi-madness that came on him. His servants fled in terror, and after a time he began to feel that he could not bear to be alone. His excited brain conjured up strange images about him, and finally the wild beast within the man awoke in its full strength, and he was no longer a human being, but had gone back to that early time when man was as savage as a tiger is now. It seemed as if the soul had flitted from him while he still lived. He had now got out of hand entirely, and Ma Mie dared not approach him, but she hung around trying to antic.i.p.ate his wants and watching his progress with a sickening heart. Finally the time came when she went mad also, for one night Hawkshawe put a fearful insult on her. She drew her dagger to kill him, but he had strength to wrench it from her grasp and flung her to the corner of the room, where she lay stunned and bleeding. After a time she picked herself up and stepped out of the room without a look at the wretched Hawkshawe and his still more vile companion.
”Order her to come back,” said the woman who was with Hawkshawe; ”I want her to attend on me.”
”So she shall,” was the brutal reply. ”Here, Ma Mie!” he shouted, but there was no answer. He got up and staggered to her room. It was empty, but from the open window he saw her figure as it flitted down the road, and a wailing sob reached his ears. ”By G.o.d, she shall come back!” he yelled, and, bareheaded as he was, reeled out of the house, followed by the mocking laughter of the she-devil within.
They had just dined, and Peregrine, leaning back in his chair, was listening to a plaintive little melody played by Phipson on his fiddle. Phipson fiddled; he did not play the violin, but his fiddling was very sweet and good to hear. He finished his little air with a flourish, and, resting the instrument lightly on the table before him, said, ”I wonder you don't play something or other; it is a great distraction!”
Jackson had no time to answer; almost as the words left Phipson they heard footsteps rus.h.i.+ng up the stairs, and Ah-Geelong's voice raised in expostulation. The next moment Ma Mie burst into the room. She held in her hand a bundle of papers, which she flung before Jackson.
”There,” she half screamed, ”I give him up; he is a double traitor! O Hawkshawe, Hawkshawe!”
”Yes, Hawkshawe, Hawkshawe!” answered a mocking voice, and Hawkshawe stepped in, holding Ah-Geelong out at arm's length before him with a grip of iron. He shook the Chinaman like a rat, and, flinging him behind him, sprang straight at Ma Mie and struck a terrible blow at her. It was well that Phipson saw what was coming and hit up Hawkshawe's arm. The next moment the madman had flung himself on him, and the two rolled over together. ”He's choking me, Jackson!” and Peregrine woke up as from a dream. With the a.s.sistance of Ah-Geelong he managed to free Phipson, but it took the united efforts of all three to hold the maniac down. Hawkshawe, when he found that he was overpowered, lay perfectly still for a moment, a white foam round his lips and his eyes s.h.i.+fting nervously about in their deep sockets like those of an ape. He then said quite quietly, ”Let me up; the game is played out. I can do no more.” Ah-Geelong gave a warning glance, and whispered to Jackson, ”Plenty dlunk.” But both Peregrine and Phipson felt that he would attempt no more violence, and, ordering the Chinaman to stand back, helped him to rise, which he did slowly, and then glared round him with his restless, fiery eyes. ”Where is my wife?” he asked, and then they saw for the first time that Ma Mie had gone. The thought that she had escaped him seemed to rouse him to fury again. ”Devil!” he shrieked, and made a dash for the door. Peregrine and Phipson were before him, however. ”For G.o.d's sake, sit still and pull yourself together, Hawkshawe!” said Phipson. He looked at them and, throwing his head back, laughed, and his voice was as the howl of a beast. ”Sit still! How can I sit still? There is something broken in my head; there are the fires of h.e.l.l in my heart. A devil is ever leaning over my shoulder, and---- Ma Mie, you traitress, where are you? Let me pa.s.s,” he shouted, ”or I will---- Ugh! there it is!” He turned and, glancing over his shoulder, saw Ah-Geelong moving softly toward him, and then with a bitter curse sprang backward out into the veranda, and the next moment there was a dull thud below, and all was very still. They picked him up gently and bore him to Jackson's own room. Phipson ran for Smalley, and when Habakkuk came he looked at the man carefully. ”I will do what I can,” he said, ”but no human art can save him; he is most fearfully injured. I doubt if he will live through until the morning.” But when the morning came Hawkshawe was still alive, and when the sun sank he was not dead. There was one who came and took her place by the sick-bed as if it was her right, and neither of the three men had the heart to forbid Ma Mie. All through the long hours she never left him, and they were her hands that lifted his head as the last breath came and Alban Hawkshawe pa.s.sed away. He never once regained consciousness, and it was only his extraordinary muscular vitality that kept him living for so long a time.
When it was all over and Smalley had gone, promising to come again with the morning, Phipson and Peregrine went back downstairs to the dining-room and there sat up together. Sleep was impossible, and to both of them death like this was a new and terrible thing. It was then that Ah-Geelong came in softly and brought a message from Ma Mie to say that she wished to see them. ”Ask her to come in,” said Peregrine, and she came. She held in her hands a small inlaid casket, which she placed on the s.h.i.+ning woodwork of the table. Her eyes were tearless, but her voice trembled as she spoke. ”See,” she said, ”what was my husband is lying dead above, and dead in dishonour. I have come to make his memory clean and to restore----” With a quick movement of her hands she opened the casket and scattered its contents on the table.
It was full of precious stones, and above them all coiled the ruby bracelet, and the evil light of the gems seemed to blaze and sputter through the night. ”I restore, as he would have restored if G.o.d did not make him mad; here they are, jewels for which he sold his honour and I my soul. And now good-bye. You were good to him, and you saved my life. Ma Mie will never forget.”
They let her go without a word, and she pa.s.sed out into the darkness forever from their sight.
CHAPTER XI.
THE PATIENCE OF HABAKKUK SMALLEY.
To-night I pa.s.s the narrow straits Which lead unto the Unknown Sea.
G.o.d, who knoweth the hearts of man, Make Thou my pathway clear to me!