The Swindler and Other Stories Part 38

"Say," he drawled, "I kind of like Raffold Abbey, sweetheart. Wouldn't it be nice to spend our honeymoon there? Do you think they would let us?" He laid his hand upon both of hers. "Wouldn't it be good?" he said softly. "I should think there would be room for two, eh, sweetheart?"

With an effort she sought to withstand him before he wholly dominated her.

"And every one will call it a _mariage de convenance_!"

"Let them!" he answered, with suppressed indifference. "I reckon we shall have the laugh. But it isn't so unusual, you know. Americans always fall in love at first sight."

He was unanswerable. He was sublime. She marvelled that she could have ever even attempted to resist him.

With a sudden, tremulous laugh, she caught his hand to her, holding it fast.

"Not Americans only!" she said. And swiftly, pa.s.sionately, she bent and pressed her lips to the red, seared scar upon her hero's wrist.

The Example

"And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of G.o.d, which hath power over these plagues; and they repented not to give Him glory."

The droning voice quivered and fell silent. Within the hospital tent, only the buzz of flies innumerable was audible. Without, there sounded near at hand the squeak of a sentry's boots, and in the distance the clatter of the camp.

The man who lay dying was in a remote and quite detached sense aware of these things, but his fevered imagination had carried him beyond. He watched, as it were, the glowing pictures that came and went in his furnace of pain. These little details were to him but the distant humming of the spinning-wheel of time from which he was drawing ever farther and farther away. They did not touch that inner consciousness with which he saw his visions.

Now and then he turned his head sharply on the pillow, as an alien might turn at the sound of a familiar voice, but always, after listening intently, it came back to its old position, and the man's restless eyes returned to the crack high up in the tent canvas through which the sun shone upon him like a piercing eye.

The occupant of the bed next to him watched him furtively, fascinated but uneasy. He was a young soldier of the simple country type, and the wild words that came now and again from the fevered lips startled him uncomfortably. He wished the dying man would cease his mutterings and let him sleep. But every time the prolonged silence seemed to indicate a final cessation of the nuisance, the droning voice took up the tale once more.

"And men were scorched with great heat--and they repented not--repented not."

A soft-stepping native orderly moved to the bedside and paused.

Instantly the wandering words were hushed.

"Bring me some water, Sammy," the same voice said huskily. "If you can't take the sun out of the sky, you can give me a drink."

The native shook his head.

"The doctor will come soon," he said soothingly. "Have patience."

Patience! The word had no meaning for him in that inferno of suffering.

He moved his head, that searching spot of sunlight dancing in his eyes, and cursed deep in his throat the man who kept him waiting.

Barely a minute later the doctor came--a quiet, bronzed man, level-eyed and strong. He bent over the stricken figure on the bed, and drew the tumbled covering up a little higher. He had just written "mortally wounded" of this man on his hospital report, but there was nothing in his manner to indicate that he had no hope for him.

"Get another pillow," he said to the native orderly. And to the dying man: "That will take the sun out of your eyes. I see it is bothering you."

"Curse the sun!" the parched lips gasped. "Can't you give me a drink?"

The eyes of the young soldier in the next bed scanned the doctor's face anxiously. He, too, wanted a drink. He thirsted from the depths of his soul. But he knew there was no water to be had. The supply had been cut off hours before.

"No," the doctor said gravely. "I can't give it you yet. By-and-bye, perhaps----"

"By-and-bye!" There was a dreadful sound like laughter in the husky voice.

The doctor laid a restraining hand on the man's chest.

"Hus.h.!.+" he said, in a lower tone. "It's this sort of thing that shows what a fellow is made of. All these other poor chaps are children. But you, Ford, you are grown up, so to speak. I look to you to help me,--to set the example."

"Example! Man alive!" A queer light danced like a mocking spirit in Private Ford's eyes, and again he laughed--an exceeding bitter laugh.

"I've been made an example of all my life," he said. "I've sometimes thought it was what I was created for. Ah, thanks!" he added in a different tone, as the doctor raised him on the extra pillow. "You're a brick, sir! Sit down a minute, will you? I want to talk to you."

The doctor complied, his hand on the wounded man's wrist.

"That's better," Ford said. "Keep it there. And stop me if I rave. It's a queer little world, isn't it? I remember you well, but you wouldn't know me. You were one of the highfliers, and I was always more or less of an earthworm. But you'll remember Rotherby, the captain of the first eleven? A fine chap--that. He's dead now, eh?"

"Yes," the doctor said, "Rotherby's dead."

He was looking with an intent scrutiny at the scarred and bandaged face on the pillow. He had felt from the first that this man was no ordinary ranker. Yet till that moment it had never occurred to him that they might have met before.

"I always liked Rotherby," the husky voice went on. "He was a big swell, and he didn't think much of small fry. But you--you and he were friends, weren't you?"

"For a time," the doctor said. "It didn't last."

There was regret in his voice--the keen regret of a man who has lost a thing he valued.

"No; it didn't last," Ford agreed. "I remember when you chucked him. Or was it the other way round? I saw a good deal of him in those days. I thought him a jolly good fellow, till I found out what a scoundrel he was. And I had a soft feeling for him even then. You knew he was a scoundrel, didn't you?"

"Yes, I knew."

The doctor spoke reluctantly. The hospital tent, the silent row of wounded men, the stifling atmosphere, the flies, all were gone from his inner vision. He was looking with grave, compa.s.sionate eyes at the picture that absorbed the man at his side.

"He was good company, eh?" the restless voice went on. "But he had his black moments. I didn't know him so well in the days when you and he were friends."

"Nor I," the doctor said. "But--why do you want to talk of him?"

Again he was searching the face at his side with grave intensity. It did not seem to him that this man could ever have been of the sort that his friend Rotherby would have cared to admit to terms of intimacy.

Rotherby--notwithstanding his sins--had been fastidious in many ways.

The answer seemed to make the matter more comprehensible.