CHAPTER IX. MATTER AND MIND AND TWO MEN
Promptly at nine o'clock Jethro Fawe knocked at Ingolby's door, and wasadmitted by the mulatto man-servant Jim Beadle, who was to Ingolby likehis right hand. It was Jim who took command of his house, "bossed"his two female servants, arranged his railway tours, superintended hiskitchen--with a view to his own individual tastes; valeted him, kept hiscigars within a certain prescribed limit by a firm actuarial principlewhich transferred any surplus to his own use; gave him good advice,weighed up his friends and his enemies with shrewd sense; and protectedhim from bores and cranks, borrowers and "dead-beats."
Jim was accustomed to take a good deal of responsibility, and had morethan once sent people to the right-about who had designs on his master,even though they came accredited. On such occasions he did not lieto protect himself when called to account, but told the truthpertinaciously. He was obstinate in his vanity, and carried off hismistakes with aplomb. When asked by Ingolby what he called the GovernorGeneral when he took His Excellency over the new railway in Ingolby'sprivate car, he said, "I called him what everybody called him. I calledhim 'Succelency.'" And "Succelency" for ever after the Governor Generalwas called in the West. Jim's phonetic mouthful gave the West a roar oflaughter and a new word to the language. On another occasion Jim gavethe West a new phrase to its vocabulary which remains to this day.Having to take the wife of a high personage of the neighbouring Republicover the line in the private car, he had astounded his master bypresenting a bill for finger-bowls before the journey began. Ingolbysaid to him, "Jim, what the devil is this--finger-bowls in my privatecar? We've never had finger-bowls before, and we've had everybody as wasanybody to travel with us." Jim's reply was final. "Say," he replied,"we got to have 'em. Soon's I set my eyes on that lady I said: 'She's afinger-bowl lady.'"
"'Finger-bowl lady' be hanged, Jim, we don't--" Ingolby protested, butJim waved him down.
"Say," he said decisively, "she'll ask for them finger-bowls--she'll askfor 'em, and what'd I do if we hadn't got 'em."
She did ask for them; and henceforth the West said of any woman who puton airs and wanted what she wasn't born to: "She's a finger-bowl lady."
It was Jim who opened the door to Jethro Fawe, and his first glance wasone of prejudice. His quick perception saw that the Romany wore clothesnot natural to him. He felt the artificial element, the quality ofdisguise. He was prepared to turn the visitor away, no matter what hewanted, but Ingolby's card handed to him by the Romany made him pause.He had never known his master give a card like that more than onceor twice in the years they had been together. He fingered thecard, scrutinized it carefully, turned it over, looked heavenwardreflectively, as though the final permission for the visit remained withhim, and finally admitted the visitor.
"Mr. Ingolby ain't in," he said. "He went out a little while back. Yougot to wait," he added sulkily, as he showed the Romany into Ingolby'sworking-room.
As Jim did so, he saw lying on a chair a suit of clothes on top of whichwere a wig and false beard and moustache. Instantly he got between thevisitor and the make-up. The parcel was closed when he was in the room ahalf-hour before. Ingolby had opened it since, had been called out, andhad forgotten to cover the things up or put them away.
"Sit down," Jim said to the Romany, still covering the disguise. Thenhe raised them in his arms, and passed with them into another room,muttering angrily to himself.
The Romany had seen, however. They were the first things on which hiseyes had fallen when he entered the room. A wig, a false beard, andworkman's clothes! What were they for? Were these disguises for theMaster Gorgio? Was he to wear them? If so, he--Jethro Fawe--wouldwatch and follow him wherever he went. Had these disguises to do withFleda--with his Romany lass?
His pulses throbbed; he was in an overwrought mood. He was ready for anyillusion, susceptible to any vagary of the imagination.
He looked round the room. So this was the way the swaggering, masterfulGorgio lived?
Here were pictures and engravings which did not seem to belong to a newtown in a new land, where everything was useful or spectacular. Herewas a sense of culture and refinement. Here were finished and unfinishedwater-colours done by Ingolby's own hand or bought by him from somehard-up artist earning his way mile by mile, as it were. Here werebooks, not many, but well-bound and important-looking, covering fieldsin which Jethro Fawe had never browsed, into which, indeed, he hadnever entered. If he had opened them he would have seen a profusion ofmarginal notes in pencil, and slips of paper stuck in the pages to markimportant passages.
He turned from them to the welcome array of weapons on the walls-rifles,shotguns, Indian bows, arrows and spears, daggers, and greatsheath-knives such as are used from the Yukon to Bolivia, and a sabrewith a faded ribbon of silk tied to the handle. This was all that MaxIngolby had inherited from his father--that artillery sabre which hehad worn in the Crimea and in the Indian Mutiny. Jethro's eyes wanderedeagerly over the weapons, and, in imagination, he had each one in hishand. From the pained, angry confusion he felt when he looked at thebooks had emerged a feeling of fanaticism, of feud and war, in which hisspirit regained its own kind of self-respect. In looking at the weaponshe was as good a man as any Gorgio. Brains and books were one thing, butthe strong arm, the quick eye, and the deft lunge home with the swordor dagger were better; they were of a man's own skill, not the acquiredskill of another's brains which books give. He straightened hisshoulders till he looked like a modern actor playing the hero in aromantic drama, and with quick vain motions he stroked and twisted hisbrown moustache, and ran his fingers through his curling hair. In truthhe was no coward; and his conceit would not lessen his courage when thetest of it came.
As his eyes brightened from gloom and sullenness to valiant enmity, theysuddenly fell on a table in a corner where lay a black coffin-shapedthing of wood. In this case, he knew, was the Sarasate violin.Sarasate--once he had paid ten lira to hear Sarasate play the fiddle inTurin, and the memory of it was like the sun on the clouds to him now.In music such of him as was real found a home. It fed everything inhim--his passion, his vanity; his vagabond taste, his emotions, hisself-indulgence, his lust. It was the means whereby he raised himself toadventure and to pilgrimage, to love and license and loot and spyingand secret service here and there in the east of Europe. It was theflagellation of these senses which excited him to do all that man may doand more.
He was going to play to the masterful Gorgio, and he would play as hehad never played before. He would pour the soul of his purpose into themusic--to win back or steal back, the lass sealed to him by the StarzkeRiver.
"Kismet!" he said aloud, and he rose from the chair to go to the violin,but as he did so the door opened and Ingolby entered.
"Oh, you're here, and longing to get at it," he said pleasantly.
He had seen the look in the eyes of the Romany as he entered, and notedwhich way his footsteps were tending. "Well, we needn't lose any time,but will you have a drink and a smoke first?" he added.
He threw his hat in a corner, and opened a spirittable where shone ahalf dozen cut-glass, tumblers and several well-filled bottles, whileboxes of cigars and cigarettes flanked them. It was the height of modernluxury imported from New York, and Jethro eyed it with envious inwardcomment. The Gorgio had the world on his key-chain! Every door wouldopen to him--that was written on his face--unless Fate stepped in andclosed all doors!
The door of Fleda's heart had already been opened, but he had not yetmade his bed in it, and there was still time to help Fate, if her mysticfinger beckoned.
Jethro nodded in response to Ingolby's invitation to drink. "But I donot drink much when I play," he remarked. "There's enough liquor in thehead when the fiddle's in the hand. 'Dadia', I do not need the spirit tomake the pulses go!"
"As little as you like then, if you'll only play as well as you did thisafternoon," Ingolby said cheerily. "I will play better," was the reply.
"On Sarasate's violin--well, of course."
"
Not only because it is Sarasate's violin, 'Kowadji'!"
"Kowadji! Oh, come now, you may be a Gipsy, but that doesn't mean thatyou're an Egyptian or an Arab. Why Arabic--why 'kowadji'?"
The other shrugged his shoulders. "Who can tell I speak many languages.I do not like the Mister. It is ugly in the ear. Monsieur, signor,effendi, kowadji, they have some respect in them."
"You wanted to pay me respect, eh?"
"You have Sarasate's violin!"
"I have a lot of things I could do without."
"Could you do without the Sarasate?"
"Long enough to hear you play it, Mr.--what is your name, may I ask?"
"My name is Jethro Fawe."
"Well, Jethro Fawe, my Romany 'chal', you shall show me what a violincan do."
"You know the Romany lingo?" Jethro asked, as Ingolby went over to theviolin-case.
"A little--just a little."
"When did you learn it?" There was a sudden savage rage in Jethro'sheart, for he imagined Fleda had taught Ingolby.
"Many a year ago when I could learn anything and remember anything andforget anything." Ingolby sighed. "But that doesn't matter, for I knowonly a dozen words or so, and they won't carry me far."
He turned the violin over in his hands. "This ought to do a bit morethan the cotton-field fiddle," he said dryly.
He snapped the strings, looking at it with the love of the naturalconnoisseur. "Finish your drink and your cigarette. I can wait," headded graciously. "If you like the cigarettes, you must take some awaywith you. You don't drink much, that's clear, therefore you must smoke.Every man has some vice or other, if it's only hanging on to virtue tootight."
He laughed eagerly. Strange that he should have a feeling of greatercompanionship for a vagabond like this than for most people he met.Was it some temperamental thing in him? "Dago," as he called the Romanyinwardly, there was still a bond between them. They understood the gloryof a little instrument like this, and could forget the world in thelight on a great picture. There was something in the air they breathedwhich gave them easier understanding of each other and of the world.
Suddenly with a toss Jethro drained the glass of spirit, though he hadnot meant to do so. He puffed the cigarette an instant longer, thenthrew it on the floor, and was about to put his foot on it, when Ingolbystopped him.
"I'm a slave," he said. "I've got a master. It's Jim. Jim's a hardmaster, too. He'd give me fits if we ground our cigarette ashes into thecarpet."
He threw the refuse into a flower-pot.
"That squares Jim. Now let's turn the world inside out," he proceeded.He handed the fiddle over. "Here's the little thing that'll let you dothe trick. Isn't it a beauty, Jethro Fawe?"
The Romany took it, his eyes glistening with mingled feelings. Hatredwas in his soul, and it showed in the sidelong glance as Ingolby turnedto place a chair where he could hear and see comfortably; yet he had themusician's love of the perfect instrument, and the woods and the streamsand the sounds of night and the whisperings of trees and the ghosts thatwalked in lonely places and called across the glens--all were pouringinto his brain memories which made his pulses move far quicker than theliquor he had drunk could do.
"What do you wish?" he asked as he tuned the fiddle.
Ingolby laughed good-humouredly. "Something Eastern; something you'dplay for yourself if you were out by the Caspian Sea. Something that haslife in it."
Jethro continued to tune the fiddle carefully and abstractedly. His eyeswere half-closed, giving them a sulky look, and his head was averted. Hemade no reply to Ingolby, but his head swayed from side to side inthat sensuous state produced by self-hypnotism, so common among thehalf-Eastern races. By an effort of the will they send through thenerves a flood of feeling which is half-anaesthetic, half-intoxicant.Carried into its fullest expression it drives a man amok or makes ofhim a howling dervish, a fanatic, or a Shakir. In lesser intensity itproduces the musician of the purely sensuous order, or the dancer thatperforms prodigies of abandoned grace. Suddenly the sensuous exaltationhad come upon Jethro Fawe. It was as though he had discharged into hissystem from some cells of his brain a flood which coursed like a streamof soft fire.
In the pleasurable pain of such a mood he drew his bow across thestrings with a sweeping stroke, and then, for an instant, he ran hitherand thither on the strings testing the quality and finding the rangeand capacity of the instrument. It was a scamper of hieroglyphics whichcould only mean anything to a musician.
"Well, what do you think of him?" Ingolby asked as the Romany loweredthe bow. "Paganini--Joachim--Sarasate--any one, it is good enough," wasthe half-abstracted reply.
"It is good enough for you--almost, eh?"
Ingolby meant his question as a compliment, but an evil look shot intothe Romany's face, and the bow twitched in his hand. He was not Paganinior Sarasate, but that was no reason why he should be insulted.
Ingolby's quick perception saw, however, what his words had done, andhe hastened to add: "I believe you can get more out of that fiddle thanSarasate ever could, in your own sort of music anyhow. I've never heardany one play half so well the kind of piece you played this afternoon.I'm glad I didn't make a fool of myself buying the fiddle. I didn't, didI? I gave five thousand dollars for it."
"It's worth anything to the man that loves it," was the Romany'sresponse. He was mollified by the praise he had received.
He raised the fiddle slowly to his chin, his eyes wandering roundthe room, then projecting themselves into space, from which they onlyreturned to fix themselves on Ingolby with the veiled look whichsees but does not see--such a look as an oracle, or a death-god, or asoulless monster of some between-world, half-Pagan god would wear. Justsuch a look as Watts's "Minotaur" wears in the Tate Gallery in London.
In an instant he was away in a world which was as far off from thisworld as Jupiter is from Mars. It was the world of his soul's origin--aplace of beautiful and yet of noisome creations also; of white mountainsand green hills, and yet of tarns in which crawled evil things; a placeof vagrant, hurricanes and tidal-waves and cloud-bursts, of forestsalive with quarrelling! and affrighted beasts. It was a place wherebirds sang divinely, yet where obscene fowls of prey hovered in theblue or waited by the dying denizens of the desert or the plain; wheredark-eyed women heard, with sidelong triumph, the whispers of passion;where sweet-faced children fled in fear from terrors undefined; whereharpies and witch-women and evil souls waited in ambush; or scurriedthrough the coverts where men brought things to die; or where they fledfor futile refuge from armed foes. It was a world of unbridled will,this, where the soul of Jethro Fawe had its origin; and to it his sensesfled involuntarily when he put Sarasate's fiddle to his chin this Autumnevening.
From that well of the First Things--the first things of his ownlife, the fount from which his forebears drew, backwards through thecenturies, Jethro Fawe quickly drank his fill; and then into the violinhe poured his own story--no improvisation, but musical legends andclassic fantasies and folk-breathings and histories of anguished orjoyous haters or lovers of life; treated by the impressionist whomade that which had been in other scenes to other men the thing of thepresent and for the men who are. That which had happened by the StarzkeRiver was now of the Sagalac River. The passions and wild love andirresponsible deeds of the life he had lived in years gone by were here.
It was impossible for Ingolby to resist the spell of the music. Suchabandonment he had never seen in any musician, such riot of musicalmeaning he had never heard. He was conscious of the savagery and thebestial soul of vengeance which spoke through the music, and drownedthe joy and radiance and almost ghostly and grotesque frivolity of theearlier passages; but it had no personal meaning to him, though at timesit seemed when the Romany came near and bent over him with the ecstaticattack of the music, as though there was a look in the black eyes likethat of a man who kills. It had, of course, nothing to do with him; itwas the abandonment of a highly emotional nature, he thought.
It was only after he had been
playing, practically without ceasing,for three-quarters of an hour, that there came to Ingolby the trueinterpretation of the Romany mutterings through the man's white,wolf-like teeth. He did not shrink, however, but kept his head andwatched.
Once, as the musician flung his body round in a sweep of passion,Ingolby saw the black eyes flash to the weapons on the wall with amalign look which did not belong to the music alone, and he took aswift estimate of the situation. Why the man should have any intentionsagainst him, he could not guess, except that he might be one of themadmen who have a vendetta against the capitalist. Or was he a toolof Felix Marchand? It did not seem possible, and yet if the man waspenniless and an anarchist maybe, there was the possibility. Or--theblood rushed to his face--or it might be that the Gipsy's presence here,this display of devilish antipathy, as though it were all part of themusic, was due, somehow, to Fleda Druse.
The music swelled to a swirling storm, crashed and flooded the feelingswith a sense of shipwreck and chaos, through which a voice seemed tocry-the quiver and delicate shrillness of one isolated string--and thenfell a sudden silence, as though the end of all things had come; and onthe silence the trembling and attenuated note which had quivered onthe lonely string, rising, rising, piercing the infinite distance andsinking into silence again.
In the pause which followed the Romany stood panting, his eyes fixed onIngolby with an evil exaltation which made him seem taller and biggerthan he was, but gave him, too, a look of debauchery like that on theface of a satyr. Generations of unbridled emotion, of license of thefields and the covert showed in his unguarded features.
"What did the single cry--the motif--express?" Ingolby asked coolly. "Iknow there was catastrophe, the tumblings of avalanches, but the voicethat cried-the soul of a lover, was it?"
The Romany's lips showed an ugly grimace. "It was the soul of one thatbetrayed a lover, going to eternal tortures."
Ingolby laughed carelessly. "It was a fine bit of work. Sarasate wouldhave been proud of his fiddle if he could have heard. Anyhow he couldn'thave played that. Is it Gipsy music?"
"It is the music of a 'Gipsy,' as you call it."
"Well, it's worth a year's work to hear," Ingolby replied admiringly,yet acutely conscious of danger. "Are you a musician by trade?" heasked.
"I have no trade." The glowing eyes kept scanning the wall where theweapons hung, and as though without purpose other than to get a pipefrom the rack on the wall, Ingolby moved to where he could be preparedfor any rush. It seemed absurd that there should be such a possibility;but the world was full of strange things.
"What brought you to the West?" he asked as he filled a pipe, his backalmost against the wall.
"I came to get what belonged to me."
Ingolby laughed ironically. "Most of us are here for that purpose. Wethink the world owes us such a lot."
"I know what is my own."
Ingolby lit his pipe, his eyes reflectively scanning the other.
"Have you got it again out here--your own?"
"Not yet, but I will."
Ingolby took out his watch, and looked at it. "I haven't found it easygetting all that belongs to me."
"You have found it easier getting what belongs to some one else," wasthe snarling response.
Ingolby's jaw hardened. What did the fellow mean? Did he refer to money,or--was it Fleda Druse? "See here," he said, "there's no need to saythings like that. I never took anything that didn't belong to me, that Ididn't win, or earn or pay for--market price or 'founder's shares'"--hesmiled grimly. "You've given me the best treat I've had in many a day.I'd walk fifty miles to hear you play my Sarasate--or even old Berry'scotton-field fiddle. I'm as grateful as I can be, and I'd like to payyou for it; but as you're not a professional, and it's one gentlemanto another as it were, I can only thank you--or maybe help you to getwhat's your own, if you're really trying to get it out here. Meanwhile,have a cigar and a drink."
He was still between the Romany and the wall, and by a movement forwardsought to turn Jethro to the spirit-table. Probably this manoeuvring wasall nonsense, that he was wholly misreading the man; but he had alwaystrusted his instincts, and he would not let his reason rule him entirelyin such a situation. He could also ring the bell for Jim, or call tohim, for while he was in the house Jim was sure to be near by; but hefelt he must deal with the business alone.
The Romany did not move towards the spirit-table, and Ingolby becameincreasingly vigilant.
"No, I can't pay you anything, that's clear," he said; "but to get yourown--I've got some influence out here--what can I do? A stranger is upagainst all kinds of things if he isn't a native, and you're not. Yourhome and country's a good way from here, eh?"
Suddenly the Romany faced him. "Yes. I come from places far from here.Where is the Romany's home? It is everywhere in the world, but itis everywhere inside his tent. Because his country is everywhere andnowhere, his home is more to him than it is to any other. He is alonewith his wife, and with his own people. Yes, and by long and by last,he will make the man pay who spoils his home. It is all he has. Good orbad, it is all he has. It is his own."
Ingolby had a strange, disturbing premonition that he was about to hearwhat would startle him, but he persisted. "You said you had come here toget your own--is your home here?"
For a moment the Romany did not answer. He had worked himself into agreat passion. He had hypnotized himself, he had acted for a while asthough he was one of life's realities; but suddenly there passed throughhis veins the chilling sense of the unreal, that he was only actinga part, as he had ever done in his life, and that the man before himcould, with a wave of the hand, raise the curtain on all his disguisesand pretences. It was only for an instant, however, for there sweptthrough him the feeling that Fleda had roused in him--the first realpassion, the first true love--if what such as he felt can be love--thathe had ever known; and he saw her again as she was in the but in thewood defying him, ready to defend herself against him. All his eroticanger and melodramatic fervour were alive in him once more.
He was again a man with a wrong, a lover dispossessed. On the instanthis veins filled with passionate blood. The Roscian strain in him hadits own tragic force and reality.
"My home is where my own is, and you, have taken my own from me, as Isaid," he burst out. "There was all the world for you, but I had only mymusic and my wife, and you have taken my wife from me. 'Mi Duvel', youhave taken, but you shall give back again, or there will be only one ofus in the world! The music I have played for you--that has told you all:the thing that was music from the beginning of Time, the will of theFirst of All. Fleda Druse, she was mine, she is my wife, and you, theGorgio, come between, and she will not return to me."
A sudden savage desire came to Ingolby to strike the man in theface--this Gipsy vagabond the husband of Fleda Druse! It was toomonstrous. It was an evil lie, and yet she had said she was a Romany,and had said it with apparent shame or anxiety. She had given him nopromise, had pledged no faith, had admitted no love, and yet already inhis heart of hearts he thought upon her as his own. Ever since the dayhe had held her in his arms at the Carillon Rapids her voice had soundedin his ears, and a warmth was in his heart which had never been therein all his days. This waif of barbarism even to talk of Fleda Druse asthough he was of the same sphere as herself invited punishment-but toclaim her as his wife! It was shameless. An ugly mood came on him,the force that had made him what he was filled all his senses. Hestraightened himself; contempt of the Ishmael showed at his lips.
"I think you lie, Jethro Fawe," he said quietly, and his eyes were hardand piercing. "Gabriel Druse's daughter is not--never was--any wife ofyours. She never called you husband. She does not belong to the refuseof the world."
The Romany made a sudden rush towards the wall where the weapons hung,but two arms of iron were flung out and caught him, and he was hurledacross the room. He crashed against a table, swayed, missed a chairwhere rested the Sarasate violin, then fell to the floor; but hestaggered to his feet again, all hi
s senses in chaos.
"You almost fell on the fiddle. If you had hurt it I'd have hurt you,Mr. Fawe," Ingolby said with a grim smile. "That fiddle's got too muchin it to waste it."
"Mi Duvel! Mi Duvel!" gasped the Romany in his fury.
"You can say that as much as you like, but if you play any more ofyour monkey tricks here, my Paganini, I will wring your neck," Ingolbyreturned, his six feet of solid flesh making a movement of menace.
"And look," he added, "since you are here, and I said what I meant,that I'd help you to get your own, I'll keep my word. But don't talk indamned riddles. Talk white men's language. You said that Gabriel Druse'sdaughter was your wife. Explain what you meant, and no nonsense."
The Romany made a gesture of acquiescence. "She was made mine accordingto Romany law by the River Starzke seventeen years ago. I was the son ofLemuel Fawe, rightful King of all the Romanys. Gabriel Druse seized theheadship, and my father gave him three thousand pounds that we shouldmarry, she and I, and so bring the headship to the Fawes again whenGabriel Druse should die; and so it was done by the River Starzke in theRoumelian country."
Ingolby winced, for the man's words rang true. A cloud came over hisface, but he said nothing. Jethro saw the momentary advantage. "You didnot know?" he asked. "She did not tell you she was made my wife thoseyears ago? She did not tell you she was the daughter of the Romany King?So it is, you see, she is afraid to tell the truth."
Ingolby's knitted bulk heaved with desire to injure. "Your wife--youmelodious sinner! Do you think such tomfoolery has any effect in thiscivilized country? She is about as much your wife as I am your brother.Don't talk your heathenish rot here. I said I'd help you to get yourown, because you played the fiddle as few men can play it, and I owe youa lot for that hour's music; but there's nothing belonging to GabrielDruse that belongs to you, and his daughter least of all. Lookout--don't sit on the fiddle, damn you!"
The Romany had made a motion as if to sit down on the chair where thefiddle was, but stopped short at Ingolby's warning. For an instantJethro had an inclination to seize the fiddle and break it across hisknees. It would be an exquisite thing to destroy five thousand dollars'worth of this man's property at a single wrench and blow. But the spiritof the musician asserted itself before the vengeful lover could carryout his purpose; as Ingolby felt sure it would. Ingolby had purposelygiven the warning about the fiddle, in the belief that it might breakthe unwelcome intensity of the scene. He detested melodrama, and thescene came precious near to it. Men had been killed before his eyes morethan once, but there had been no rodomontade even when there had been awoman in the case.
This Romany lover, however, seemed anxious to make a Sicilian drama outof his preposterous claim, and it sickened him. Who was the fellow thathe should appear in the guise of a rival to himself! It was humiliatingand offensive. Ingolby had his own kind of pride and vanity, and theywere both hurt now. He would have been less irritable if this rival hadbeen as good a man as himself or better. He was so much a gamester thathe would have said, "Let the best man win," and have taken his chances.
His involuntary strategy triumphed for the moment. The Romany looked atthe fiddle for an instant with murderous eyes, but the cool, quiet voiceof Ingolby again speaking sprayed his hot virulence.
"You can make a good musician quite often, but a good fiddle is aprize-packet from the skies," Ingolby said. "When you get a goodmusician and a good fiddle together it's a day for a salute of a hundredguns."
Half-dazed with unregulated emotion, Jethro acted with indecision fora moment, and the fiddle was safe. But he had suffered the indignityof being flung like a bag of bones across the room, and the microbe ofinsane revenge was in him. It was not to be killed by the cold humour ofthe man who had worsted him. He returned to the attack.
"She is mine, and her father knows it is so. I have waited all theseyears, and the hour has come. I will--"
Ingolby's eyes became hard and merciless again. "Don't talk your Gipsyrhetoric. I've had enough. No hour has come that makes a woman do whatshe doesn't want to do in a free country. The lady is free to do whatshe pleases here within British law, and British law takes no heed ofRomany law or any other law. You'll do well to go back to your Roumeliancountry or whatever it is. The lady will marry whom she likes."
"She will never marry you," the Romany said huskily and menacingly.
"I have never asked her, but if I do, and she said yes, no one couldprevent it."
"I would prevent it."
"How?"
"She is a Romany: she belongs to the Romany people; I will find a way."
Ingolby had a flash of intuition.
"You know well that if Gabriel Druse passed the word, your life wouldn'tbe worth a day's purchase. The Camorra would not be more certain or moredeadly. If you do anything to hurt the daughter of Gabriel Druse, youwill pay the full price, and you know it. The Romanys don't love youbetter than their rightful chief."
"I am their rightful chief."
"Maybe, but if they don't say so, too, you might as well be theirrightful slave. You are a genius in your way. Take my advice and returnto the trail of the Gipsy. Or, there's many an orchestra would give youa good salary as leader. You've got no standing in this country. Youcan't do anything to hurt me except try to kill me, and I'll take mychance of that. You'd better have a drink now and go quietly home tobed. Try and understand that this is a British town, and we don't settleour affairs by jumping from a violin rhapsody to a knife or a gun."He jerked his head backwards towards the wall. "Those things are forornament, not for use. Come, Fawe, have a drink and go home like a goodcitizen for one night only."
The Romany hesitated, then shook his head and muttered chaotically.
"Very well," was the decisive reply. Ingolby pressed a bell, and, inan instant, Jim Beadle was in the room. He had evidently been at thekeyhole. "Jim," he said, "show the gentleman out."
But suddenly he caught up a box of cigars from the table and thrustit into the Romany's hands. "They're the best to be got this side ofHavana," he said cheerily. "They'll help you put more fancy still intoyour playing. Good night. You never played better than you've doneduring the last hour, I'll stake my life on that. Good night. Show Mr.Fawe out, Jim."
The Romany had not time to thrust back the cigars upon his host, anddazed by the strategy of the thing, by the superior force and mindof the man who a moment ago he would have killed, he took the box andturned towards the door, taking his hat dazedly from Jim.
At the door, however, catching sight of the sly grin on the mulattoservant's face, his rage and understanding returned to him, and he facedthe masterful Gorgio once again.
"By God, I'll have none of it!" he exclaimed roughly and threw the boxof cigars on the floor of the room. Ingolby was not perturbed. "Don'tforget there's an east-bound train every day," he said menacingly, andturned his back as the door closed.
In another minute Jim entered the room. "Get the clothes and the wig andthings, Jim. I must be off," he said.
"The toughs don't get going till about this time over at Manitou,"responded Jim. Then he told his master about the clothes having beenexposed in the room when the Romany arrived. "But I don't think he seenthem," Jim added with approval of his own conduct. "I got 'em out quickas lightning. I covered 'em like a blanket."
"All right, Jim; it doesn't matter. That fellow's got other things tothink of than that."
He was wrong, however. The Romany was waiting outside in the darknessnot far away--watching and waiting.