Mrs. Falchion Part 34

"Never."

"Nor in Australia?"

"Yes, in 1876."

"I wasn't there then."

Roscoe grew a shade paler, but he was firm and composed. He was determined to answer truthfully any question that was asked him, wherever it might lead.

"Nor in Samoa?"

There was the slightest pause, and then the reply came:

"Yes, in Samoa."

"Not a missionary, by gracious! Not a mickonaree in Samoa?"

"No." He said nothing further. He did not feel bound to incriminate himself.

"No? Well, you wasn't a beachcomber, nor trader, I'll swear. Was you there in the last half of the Seventies? That's when I was there."

"Yes." The reply was quiet.

"By Jingo!" The man's face was puzzled. He was about to speak again; but at that moment two river-drivers--boon companions, who had been hanging about the door--urged him to come to the tavern. This distracted him. He laughed, and said that he was coming, and then again, though with less persistency, questioned Roscoe.. "You don't remember me, I suppose?"

"No, I never saw you, so far as I know, until yesterday."

"No? Still, I've heard your voice. It keeps swingin' in my ears; and I can't remember.... I can't remember!... But we'll have a spin about it again, Padre." He turned to the impatient men. "All right, bully-boys, I'm comin'."

At the door he turned and looked again at Roscoe with a sharp, half-amused scrutiny, then the two parted. Kilby kept his word. He was liberal to Viking; and Phil's memory was drunk, not in silence, many times that day. So that when, in the afternoon, he made up his mind to keep his engagement with Mrs. Falchion, and left the valley for the hills, he was not entirely sober. But he was apparently good-natured. As he idled along he talked to himself, and finally broke out into singing:

"'Then swing the long boat down the drink, For the lads as pipe to go; But I sink when the 'Lovely Jane' does sink, To the mermaids down below.'

"'The long boat bides on its strings,' says we, 'An' we bides where the long boat bides; An' we'll bluff this equatorial sea, Or swallow its hurricane tides.'

"But the 'Lovely Jane' she didn't go down, An' she anch.o.r.ed at the Spicy Isles; An' she sailed again to Wellington Town-- A matter of a thousand miles."

It will be remembered that this was part of the song sung by Galt Roscoe on the Whi-Whi River, the day we rescued Mrs. Falchion and Justine Caron. Kilby sang the whole song over to himself until he reached a point overlooking the valley. Then he stood silent for a time, his glance upon the town. The walk had sobered him a little. "Phil, old pal," he said at last, "you ain't got the taste of raw whiskey with you now. When a man loses a pal he loses a grip on the world equal to all that pal's grip was worth.... I'm drunk, and Phil's down there among the worms--among the worms!... Ah!" he added in disgust, and, das.h.i.+ng his hand across his eyes, struck off into the woods again, making his way to the summer hotel, where he had promised to meet Mrs. Falchion. He inquired for her, creating some astonishment by his uncouth appearance and unsteady manner.

He learned from Justine that Mrs. Falchion had gone to see Roscoe, and that he would probably meet her if he went that way. This he did. He was just about to issue into a partly open s.p.a.ce by a ravine near the house, when he heard voices, and his own name mentioned. He stilled and listened.

"Yes, Galt Roscoe," said a voice, "Sam Kilby is the man that loved Alo--loved her not as you did. He would have given her a home, have made her happy, perhaps. You, when Kilby was away, married her--in native fas.h.i.+on--which is no marriage--and KILLED her."

"No, no, I did not kill her--that is not so. As G.o.d is my Judge, that is not so."

"You did not kill her with the knife?... Well, I will be honest now, and say that I believe that, whatever I may have hinted or said before. But you killed her just the same when you left her."

"Mercy Falchion," he said desperately, "I will not try to palliate my sin. But still I must set myself right with you in so far as I can. The very night Alo killed herself I had made up my mind to leave the navy. I was going to send in my papers, and come back to Apia, and marry her as Englishmen are married. While I remained in the navy I could not, as you know, marry her. It would be impossible to an English officer. I intended to come back and be regularly married to her."

"You say that now," was the cold reply.

"But it is the truth, the truth indeed. Nothing that you might say could make me despise myself more than I do; but I have told you all, as I shall have to tell it one day before a just G.o.d. You have spared me: He will not."

"Gait Roscoe," she replied, "I am not merciful, nor am I just. I intended to injure you, though you will remember I saved your life that night by giving you a boat for escape across the bay to the 'Porcupine', which was then under way. The band on board, you also remember, was playing the music of La Grande d.u.c.h.esse. You fired on the natives who followed. Well, Sam Kilby was with them. Your brother officers did not know the cause of the trouble. It was not known to any one in Apia exactly who it was that Kilby and the natives had tracked from Alo's hut."

He drew his hand across his forehead dazedly.

"Oh, yes I remember!" he said. "I wish I had faced the matter there and then. It would have been better."

"I doubt that," she replied. "The natives who saw you coming from Alo's hut did not know you. You wisely came straight to the Consul's office--my father's house. And I helped you, though Alo, half-caste Alo, was--my sister!"

Roscoe started back. "Alo--your--sister!" he exclaimed in horror.

"Yes, though I did not know it till afterwards, not till just before my father died. Alo's father was my father; and her mother had been honestly married to my father by a missionary; though for my sake it had never been made known. You remember, also, that you carried on your relations with Alo secretly, and my father never suspected it was you."

"Your sister!" Roscoe was white and sick.

"Yes. And now you understand my reason for wis.h.i.+ng you ill, and for hating you to the end."

"Yes," he said despairingly, "I see."

She was determined to preserve before him the outer coldness of her nature to the last.

"Let us reckon together," she said. "I helped to--in fact, I saved your life at Apia. You helped to save my life at the Devil's Slide. That is balanced. You did me--the honour to say that you loved me once. Well, one of my race loved you. That is balanced also. My sister's death came through you. There is no balance to that. What shall balance Alo's death? ... I leave you to think that over. It is worth thinking about.

I shall keep your secret, too. Kilby does not know you. I doubt that he ever saw you, though, as I said, he followed you with the natives that night in Apia. He was to come to see me to-day. I think I intended to tell him all, and s.h.i.+ft--the duty--of punishment on his shoulders, which I do not doubt he would fulfil. But he shall not know. Do not ask why. I have changed my mind, that is all. But still the account remains a long one. You will have your lifetime to reckon with it, free from any interference on my part; for, if I can help it, we shall never meet again in this world--never.... And now, good-bye."

Without a gesture of farewell she turned and left him standing there, in misery and bitterness, but in a thankfulness too, more for Ruth's sake than his own. He raised his arms with a despairing motion, then let them drop heavily to his side....

And then two strong hands caught his throat, a body pressed hard against him, and he was borne backward--backward--to the cliff!

CHAPTER XX. AFTER THE STORM

I was sitting on the verandah, writing a letter to Belle Treherne. The substantial peace of a mountain evening was on me. The air was clear, and full of the scent of the pines and cedars, and the rumble of the rapids came musically down the canon. I lifted my head and saw an eagle sailing away to the snow-topped peak of Trinity, and then turned to watch the orioles in the trees. The hour was delightful. It made me feel how grave mere living is, how n.o.ble even the meanest of us becomes sometimes--in those big moments when we think the world was built for us. It is half egotism, half divinity; but why quarrel with it?

I was young, ambitious; and Love and I were at that moment the only figures in the universe really deserving attention! I looked on down a lane of cedars before me, seeing in imagination a long procession of pleasant things; of--As I looked, another procession moved through the creatures of my dreams, so that they shrank away timidly, then utterly, and this new procession came on and on, until--I suddenly rose, and started forward fearfully, to see--unhappy reality!--the body of Galt Roscoe carried towards me.

Then a cold wind seemed to blow from the glacier above and killed all the summer. A man whispered to me: "We found him at the bottom of the ravine yonder. He'd fallen over, I suppose."

I felt his heart. "He is not dead, thank G.o.d!" I said.

"No, sir," said the other, "but he's all smashed." They brought him in and laid him on his bed. I sent one of the party for the doctor at Viking, and myself set to work, with what appliances I had, to deal with the dreadful injuries. When the doctor came, together we made him into the semblance of a man again. His face was but slightly injured, though his head had received severe hurts. I think that I alone saw the marks on his throat; and I hid them. I guessed the cause, but held my peace.

I had sent round at once to James Devlin (but asked him not to come till morning), and also to Mrs. Falchion; but I begged her not to come at all. I might have spared her that; for, as I afterwards knew, she had no intention of coming. She had learned of the accident on her way to Viking, and had turned back; but only to wait and know the worst or the best.

About midnight I was left alone with Roscoe. Once, earlier in the evening, he had recognised me and smiled faintly, but I had shaken my head, and he had said nothing. Now, however, he was looking at me earnestly. I did not speak. What he had to tell me was best told in his own time.