Command Part 39

"You go!" said Esther savagely. "You make him take you to the town to see your fellow."

"Oh!" exclaimed Evanthia, stopping again and stifling a laugh. She had not thought of such a thing. "What you must think of me!" she murmured.

"And then tell him you are finished. You have a heart, yes, as big as that ring on your finger. You take everything from him, and now you...."

With a sudden gesture of rage the girl flung the things away and stood up to her friend.

"I'll kill you!" she growled through her teeth. "I know you! You are jealous, jealous, jealous! I see you talk, talk English to him at the bath-house. I see you go out with him for the walk through the village.

I hear you talk to him about that girl Vera he saw once in Odessa. All right! Go with him! Go! Here are the things. Take them! I spit at you.

You...."

She fell back, exhausted with the ferocity of her pa.s.sion, her hands still making gestures of dismissal to the silent and scornful Esther who remained motionless yet alert, ready to take her own part.

"You are altogether mad!" she said at last in her husky tones. "Here is your husband. Tell him, tell him...."

Evanthia spun round where she stood with her hands on her bosom.

"We must go, dear," said Mr. Spokesly and paused in astonishment at the scene. With a convulsive movement the girl tore at her dress and then flung out her hand towards the sh.o.r.e.

"Go then, go! Why do you come here any more? You want her. There she is, jealous because all the men want me. Look at her. She ask you with her eyes. Oh, yah! I hate you! I never love you. It is finish. Go!"

"Eh!" he called, swallowing hard. He looked at Esther in amazement.

"What is this?" he asked. "What have you said to her? My dear!"

"You better go," said Esther sullenly. "She won't go with you. Can't you see?"

"But how can I go without her?" he exclaimed.

"I kill myself before I go. This is my place. Go back, you. I hate you."

Esther came over to him and, taking up the satchel, thrust him out before her. Down the steps and across the dark garden she went with him, and only when the great gate clanged did he make an effort to break through the dreadful paralysis of mind that had a.s.sailed him.

"What made her go on like that?" he demanded drearily.

"Go on. I tell you in a minute. You men, you got no sense."

"But what did she mean, about you?"

"Nothing. She's crazy. You no understand."

"You said yourself she'd come," he insisted.

"Yes, I _say_ so. I tell her she better come. But you no understand women."

He was destined to find out, as years went by, that this was true. And when they stood on the jetty and looked down into the obscurity where Mr. Ca.s.sar sat in the boat patiently awaiting his pa.s.sengers, Mr.

Spokesly began to regain command of himself. For a moment, up there, he had been all abroad. The sudden emotional upheaval hardened his resolve.

"Well!" he said with a sudden intake of breath, and paused, once more overwhelmed by the change in his affairs. "I don't know what to say, Esther." He put his hand on her shoulder and she twisted away a little.

"I feel as if I'd been having a long dream, and just woke up."

"Go!" she said huskily. "Good-bye. Good fortune. There is a carriage coming. My 'usban'."

"Anyhow ... Esther. I did what I promised her to do ... not my fault."

He got down into the boat "Where's your hand? Good-bye ... good-bye....

Push off, son, push off.... After all I done...."

They saw, from a little way off, the white form of Esther spring forward and vanish behind the buildings as a feeble yellow flicker from a carriage lamp crawled slowly along the road and stopped. They heard laughter and confused arguments.

"Drunk!" whispered Mr. Ca.s.sar without either envy or malice.

"Full to the guards," a.s.sented his commander. "Hark!"

Someone was singing, a full youthful voice of brazen vibrant quality, a voice with an ineluctable and derisive challenge to confident hearts.

Though he did not understand the words, Mr. Spokesly was aware of this challenge as he listened:

"_Auf, deutches Volk, du stark Geschlecht Es schlug die grosse Stunde, Steh auf und sei nicht langer Knecht Mit Kraft und mut steh fur dein Recht Im heilgen Volke bunde!_"

There was a pause, with protests and guttural amus.e.m.e.nt which were suddenly engulfed in a clarion shout:

"_Die Freiheit bricht die Ketten!_"

"Go ahead," said Mr. Spokesly, looking back as he sat in the stern, "and make as little noise as you can."

Out of the darkness came the faint clarion call he had already heard that night:

"_Isolde! Geliebte! Bist du mein?_"

and the sound, with its echoes from the mountain, seemed to stream out of that open window he had left. Suddenly, with a resolute movement, he turned and bent to the business of steering. The boat was moving through the water.

"Let her out," he muttered, looking at his watch. "We've got four hours to daylight."

And the dawn found him there, still crouching motionless at the tiller, while behind them the mountains of Lesbos rose enormous, the sun rising over Asia. And ahead lay the dark sparkle of an empty sea.

CONCLUSION

"All I can say is," said the elderly lieutenant, and he applied himself a.s.siduously to the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of his nails, "you were in luck all through."

"Yes," said Mr. Spokesly. "I suppose you can call it that."

He was not entirely satisfied that this const.i.tuted an adequate description of his experiences. Luck is a slippery word. As witness the old lieutenant, intent on his nails, like some red-nosed old animal engaged in furbis.h.i.+ng his claws, who proceeded without looking up:

"Why, what else could you call it? You surely didn't want that woman hanging round your neck all your life like a mill-stone, did you? What if she did keep hold of the money? I call it cheap at the price. And suppose you'd brought her. How could you have squared things? _I_ call it lucky."

Mr. Spokesly, however, did not feel that way. He looked round at the green expanse of St. James's Park and up towards the enormous arch which enshrines the dignity and c.u.mbrous power of the Victorian Age, and wondered if the taste of life would ever come back. It was now eighteen months since he had experienced what the elderly lieutenant called uncommon luck, when a sloop of war, hurrying on her regular patrol from Lemnos to Malta had found him and Mr. Ca.s.sar in their boat some ten miles east of Psara Island, a black spot on a blue sea, over which there fluttered a patch of white. And on coming cautiously alongside, the commander of that sloop was surprised to discover a Maltee engineer somewhat in disarray through his struggles with his engine, and under a blanket in the bilge forward a sick Englishman.