For Fortune and Glory Part 4

Of course they had to go into a very small house, and could not take the whole of that. And Harry did not go back to Harton, but began to try at once for immediate employment which might bring some little grist to the mill. And he was more fortunate than young fellows generally are when starting on that heart-breaking search, for he had something to go upon.

He went straight to the London representative of the Egyptian house of business with which his father had been connected, told his story, and asked for employment.

"But your father was bought out fully, and you have no claim on us, you know," said the merchant.

"I make no claim, sir," replied Harry; "I ask a favour. I don't know why you should employ me more than anybody else, but still I thought the connection might interest you. My father had a hand in establis.h.i.+ng the business, and I had a hope that that might weigh with you, if you have found it a good one."

"Well, you have had a hard trial, and it is to your credit that you want to go to work at once instead of sitting down in despair. The worst of it is that you have been educated at Harton, and can know nothing of what is useful in an office. What sort of hand do you write?"

"A shocking bad one, I fear, but any one can read it. And I am not so very bad at figures. And I am ready to learn. Won't you give me a chance, and pay me nothing till I am useful?"

"There is one thing, at any rate, you have learned at Harton," said the other, with a smile, "and that is to speak up boldly, and to speak out plainly. I was a friend of your poor father's, and shall be glad to help you, since you are reasonable and see matters in their right light.

But you must not expect much."

So Harry was taken into the office as a clerk just for a month on trial.

And he showed so much zeal and intelligence that he was taken into regular employment at the end of it, and received a five-pound note for his work during the time of probation. And the joy and triumph with which he brought home this, the first money he had ever earned, to his mother and sister in the evening, cheered them all up in a manner to which they had been strangers since ruin and death had fallen upon the household.

Many castles did they build in the air that evening, but they were not extravagant, their highest present ambition being to have the whole cottage, which was but eight-roomed, to themselves, and to keep two maids instead of one. And this, if Harry's salary rose to a hundred and fifty, they thought they might manage. Of course it was a dreary life for him after what he had been accustomed to, but he made the best of it, and really interested himself in Egyptian trade, till he became a connoisseur in gum. His princ.i.p.al recreation was shooting at the Wimbledon b.u.t.ts on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, he having joined a volunteer corps for that purpose. He had done so at Harton, and was the best shot there. He now had to compete with the best in the world, but he had a marvellous eye, and up to three hundred yards could hold his own with anybody. At any rate he won enough in prizes to pay all his expenses, and a little over.

Even when their resources looked lowest, he never thought of selling the sapphires his mysterious uncle had given him. He did not look upon them as his own till the ten years were up, or to be used for any purpose but that of going to find him. They, together with the silver case containing the parchment and the ring, were locked up in his old- fas.h.i.+oned, bra.s.s-bound desk which he kept in his bedroom. n.o.body, not even Trix, knew anything about them.

That was the one secret the brother and sister did not share. Beatrice was disrespectful to her Mohammedan relative, and always called him Uncle Renegade till Harry read Byron's "Siege of Corinth" aloud one evening. After that she called him Uncle Alp.

But Harry Forsyth was destined to go to Egypt without needing his uncle.

He became more and more trusted by the firm which employed him, and at last it was determined to send him out to the house at Cairo on important business. His absence was a desolation for Mrs Forsyth and Beatrice; but it meant money for one thing, and, what was far more important in the mother's estimation, it was a change for Harry from the gloomy monotony of a London office. As for the future she was under no concern. She knew of Richard Burke's will, and that her children at all events would be comfortably provided for by it, though she herself might not outlive her elder brother.

Harry, as he was actually going to the country to which his uncle had prophesied he would, took to wearing his ring, and carried the silver case in an inner waistcoat pocket. The sapphires he left in his desk.

CHAPTER FOUR.

"WAYS THAT ARE DARK AND TRICKS THAT ARE VAIN."

While the Forsyth family was pa.s.sing through its time of trial there had been other chops and changes going on in the lives of those with whom their fortunes were more or less connected. Mr Richard Burke had still further declined in health, and could not be expected to last long; but what was unexpected by those who knew them both was that he outlived his legal adviser, Mr Burrows, who was attacked with pleurisy, which carried him off soon after he had made Mr Richard Burke's last will.

His son came into his place, but he was a mild and not very intelligent young man, not long out of his articles, and very dependent upon Daireh, who knew all the details of his father's clients' business, and was so deferential and obsequious, that he made him think very often that he had originated the course of conduct which the wily Egyptian had suggested. As for the other partner, f.a.gan, he confined himself entirely, as he always had done, to the criminal and political part of the business.

Daireh was a bachelor, living in lodgings, and might have saved money to a reasonable extent in a modest way. But he was anything but modest in his desire for wealth, and the law would have given a very ugly name to some of the transactions by which he sought to acquire it if they had but come to light.

One February afternoon he left the office rather earlier than usual, and after a hurried dinner repaired to his lodgings, where he mixed himself a strong gla.s.s of whisky. Then he took a flask of gla.s.s and leather with a metal cup fitting to the bottom, and, unlocking a bureau, took out of a drawer a small phial.

He listened; went to the door--opened it, and looked out on the staircase; shut it again, locked it, and returned to the bureau. His hand shook so that he took another pull at his grog, and then uncorking the phial he poured the contents into the flask, filled it up with whisky, screwed the top on, and put it into his pocket.

Then he went out once more, and bent his steps to a railway station, where he took a ticket to a small country place about an hour's ride from Dublin. It was growing dark when he arrived, but there was a moon, and the sky was fairly clear from clouds.

He walked for a mile along the road, and then turned off by a path which crossed a moor, and pursued this until he came within sight of a small disused quarry, from which all the valuable stone had been long ago carried.

As Daireh approached the place he clapped his hands three times, and a man came out of the shadow into the moonlight.

"Stebbings, is that you?" said Daireh.

"Yes, it is," replied the other, sulkily. "No thanks to you for having to skulk like a fox. As I told you in my letter, the police are after me, and if I cannot get out of the country I'm done."

"What made you come to Ireland, then? It would have been just as easy to have s.h.i.+pped abroad."

"Because I wanted to see you, for I couldn't trust you to send me a farthing."

"How was it? You must have managed very badly."

"The numbers of those bonds were known, though you were so sure they could not be, and they are advertised, and traced to having pa.s.sed through my hands. That is certain to bring it out that I pa.s.sed the forged cheque, too. Bad management yourself! However, there's no good in blaming one another. Have you got the two hundred?"

"It is a large sum; but still, if it will get you out of your sc.r.a.pe, I will make the sacrifice. Only--"

"Get _me_ out of my sc.r.a.pe! If I am taken, my fine fellow, you will be taken too."

"Why, what good would it do you to pull me in with you?" asked Daireh.

"You know precious well. If all the facts came out I should get about two years, and you fourteen at least. You actually took the bonds; you forged the cheque. I was only your tool, employed to cash the things."

"And am I to have you sucking me like a leech all my life?" cried Daireh in a shrill voice, stamping his foot.

"That is as it may be; you must take your chance of that. Perhaps you had sooner I gave myself up and told the whole story. I am not sure that it would not be the best thing for me to do."

"That is nonsense. Here is the money. You know how to get to South America, you said."

"Ay, I know. If the police have not tracked me here; and I think I have given them the slip," said Stebbings, counting the notes before putting them away. "Now the sooner you are off the better."

"It is a chilly night," said Daireh, producing his flask, "and I am going to have a sup of whisky. Will you have a drop?"

"Don't mind if I do," replied Stebbings.

And the Egyptian filled the metal cup and handed it to him.

"Here's better luck," he said, taking a mouthful.

Then suddenly he spat it out again.

"No, hang me, if I will trust you!" he cried. "And there is a queer taste about it, too!"

"What nonsense!" said Daireh, forcing a laugh. "It is good whisky, very good; I had a gla.s.s just before I left. Well, good-night, for all your bad suspicions."

And Daireh walked quickly away in the direction of the road which led to the station. When he was well hidden from the quarry he poured away the rest of what was in the flask.

"If he had but swallowed it," he muttered fiercely between his teeth, "I should have been two hundred pounds richer, and safe!"

When he went to the office in the morning, one of the under clerks told him that Mr Burke was dead, and Mr Burrows was wanted to go over as soon as he could.

"All right," said Daireh, "I will tell him when he comes. Where are those papers about the Ballyhoonish Estates? In his private room, I think."