The Manxman Part 87

The Governor frowned, and the pockmarks on his forehead seemed to swell.

"The wisest and strongest man on this island will have to leave it," he said.

Philip made no answer. He had come to plead, but he saw that it was hopeless. The Governor put his right hand in the breast, of his white waistcoat--he was alone in the dining-room after dinner--and darted at Philip a look of anger and command.

"Deemster," he said, "if, as you say, you cannot stop this low-bred rascal, there's one thing you can do--leave him to himself."

"That is to say," said Philip out of a corner of his mouth, "to you."

"To me be it, and who has more right?" said the Governor hotly.

Philip held himself in hand. He was silent, and his silence was taken for submission. Cracking some nuts and munching them, the Governor began to take another tone.

"I should be sorry, Mr. Christian, if anything came between you and me--very sorry. We've been good friends thus far, and you will allow that you owe me something. Don't you see it yourself--this man is dishonouring me in the eyes of the island? If you have tried your best to keep his neck out of the halter, let the consequences be his own."

"Eh?" said Philip, with his eyes on the floor.

"You have done your duty by the man, I say. Help yourself to a gla.s.s of wine."

Still Philip did not speak. The Governor saw his advantage, but little did he guess the pitiless power of it.

"The fellow is your kinsman, Deemster, and I shall not ask you to deal with him. That would be inhuman. If there is no hope of restraining him to-morrow--wise as he is, if he will not listen to saner counsels, I will only beg of you--but this is a matter for the police. You are a high official now. It would be a pity to give you pain. Stay at home--I'll gladly excuse you--you look as if a day's rest would do you good."

Philip drank two gla.s.ses of the wine in quick succession. The Governor poured him a third, and went on--

"I don't know what you're feeling for the man may be--it can't be friends.h.i.+p. I'm sure he's a thorn in your flesh. And as long as he's here he will always be."

Philip looked up with inquiry, doubt, and fear.

"Ah! I knew it. Even if this matter goes by, your time will come. You'll quarrel with the fellow yet--you know you will--it's in the nature of things--if he's the man you say."

Philip drank the third gla.s.s of wine and rose to go.

"Leave him to me--I'll deal with him. You'll be done with him, and a good riddance, too, I reckon. And now come in to the ladies--they'll know you're here."

Philip excused himself and went off with feverish gestures and an excited face.

"The Governor is right," he thought, as he went home over the dark roads. Pete was a thorn in his flesh, and always would be; his enemy, his relentless enemy, notwithstanding his love for him.

The misery of the past month could not be supported any longer.

Perpetual fear of discovery, perpetual guard of the tongue, keeping watch and ward on every act of life--to-day, to-morrow, the next day, on and on until life's end in wretchedness or disgrace--it was insupportable, it was impossible, it could not be attempted.

Then came thoughts that were too fearful to take form-too awful to take words. They were like the flapping of unseen wings going by him in the night, but the meaning of them was this: If Pete persists in his purpose, there will be a riot. If any one is injured, Pete will be transported. If any one is killed, Pete will be indicted for his life.

"Well, I have done my duty by him," his heart whimpered. "I have tried to restrain him. I have tried to restrain the Governor. It isn't my fault. What more can I do?"

Philip walked fast. Here was the way of escape from the evil that beset his path. Fate was stretching out her hands to him. When men had done wrong, they did yet more wrong to elude the consequences of their first fault; but there was no need for that in his case.

The hour was late. A strong breeze was blowing off the sea. It flicked his face with salt as he went swinging down the hill into the town. His blood was a-fire. He had a feeling, never felt before, of courage and even ferocity. Something told him that he was not so good a man as he had been, but it was a tingling pleasure to feel that he was a stronger man than before.

Should he tell Kate? No! Let the thing go on; let it end. After it was over she would see where their account lay. Thinking in this way, he laughed aloud.

The town was quiet when he came to it. So absorbed had he been that, though the air was sharp, he had been carrying his cloak over his arm. Now he put it on, and drew the hood close over his head. A dog, a homeless cur, had begun to follow at his heels. He drove it off, but it continued to hang about him. At last it got in front of his feet, and he stumbled over it in one of his large, quick strides. Then he kicked the dog, and it crossed the dark street yelping. He was a worse man, and he knew it.

He let himself into the house with his latch-key, and banged the door behind his back. But no sooner had he breathed the soft, woolly, stagnant air within than a change came over him. His ferocious strength ebbed away, and he began to tremble.

The hall pa.s.sage and staircase were in darkness. This was by his orders--coming in late, he always forgot to put out the gas. But the lamp of his room was burning on the candle rest at the stairhead, and it cast a long sword of light down the staircase well.

Chilled by some unknown fear, he had set one foot on the first tread when he thought he heard the step of some one coming down the stairs. It was a familiar step. He was sure he knew it. It must be a step he heard daily.

He stopped, and the step seemed to stop also. At that moment there was a shuffling of slippered feet on an upper landing, and Jem-y-Lord called down, "Is it you, your Honour?"

With an effort he answered, "Yes."

"Is anything the matter?" called the man-servant.

"There's somebody coming downstairs, isn't there?" said Philip.

"Somebody coming downstairs?" repeated the man-servant, and the light s.h.i.+fted as if he were lifting the lamp.

"Is it you coming down, Jem?"

"Me coming down? I'm here, holding the lamp, your Honour."

"Another of my fancies," thought Philip; and he laid hold of the handrail, and started afresh. The step came on. He knew it now; it was his own step. "An echo," he told himself. "A dream," he thought, "a mirage of the mind;" and he compelled himself to go up. The step came down. It pa.s.sed him on the stairs, going by the wall as he went by the rail, with an irresistible down-drive, headlong, heavily.

Then came one of those moments of partial unconsciousness in which the sensation of a sound takes shape. It seemed to Philip that the figure of a man had pa.s.sed him. He remembered it instantly. It was the same that he had seen in the lobby to the Council Chamber, his own figure, but wrapped in a cloak like the one he was then wearing, and with the hood drawn over the head. The body had been half turned aside, the face had been hidden, and the whole form had expressed contempt, repugnance, and loathing.

"Not well to-night, your Honour?" said the far-off voice of Jem-y-Lord.

He was holding the dazzling lamp up to the Deemster's face.

"A little faint--that's all. Go to bed."

Then Philip was alone in his room. "Conscience!" he thought. "Pete may go, but _this_ will be with me to the end. Which, O G.o.d?--which?"

He poured out half a tumbler from the bottle on the table, and gulped it down at a draught. At the same moment he heard a light foot overhead. It was a woman's foot; it crossed the floor, and then ceased.

IX.

Next morning the Deemster was still sleeping while the sun was s.h.i.+ning into his room. He was awakened by a thunderous clamour, which came as from a nail driven into the back of his head. Opening his eyes, he realised that somebody was knocking at his door, and shouting in a robustious ba.s.s--

"Christian, I say! Ever going to get up at all?"

It was the Clerk of the Rolls. Under one of his heavy poundings the catch of the door gave way, and he stepped into the room.

"Degenerate Manxman!" he roared. "In bed on Tynwald morning. Pooh! this room smells of dead sleep, dead spirits, and dead everything. Let me get at that window--you pitch your clothes all over the floor. Ah! that's fresher! Headache? I should think so. Get up, then, and I'll drive you to St. John's."