CHAPTER XXXIX
THE UNCOVERING OF GORDON ORME
It is not necessary for me to state that dinner in the Sheraton hall,with its dull mahogany and its shining silver and glass, was barelybetter than a nightmare to me, who should have been most happy. At leastthere remained the topic of politics and war; and never was I more gladto plunge into such matters than upon that evening. In some way thedinner hour passed. Miss Grace pleaded a headache and left us; my motherasked leave; and presently our hostess and host departed. Harry and Iremained to stare at each other moodily. I admit I was glad when finallyhe announced his intention of retiring.
A servant showed me my own room, and some time before midnight I wentup, hoping that I might sleep. My long life in the open air had made allrooms and roofs seem confining and distasteful to me, and I slept badlyin the best of beds. Now my restlessness so grew upon me that, some timepast midnight, not having made any attempt to prepare for sleep, Iarose, went quietly down the stair and out at the front door, to see ifI could find more peace in the open air. I sat down on the grass with myback against one of the big oaks, and so continued brooding moodily overmy affairs, confused as they had now become.
By this time every one of the household had retired. I was surprised,therefore, when I saw a faint streak of light from one of the windowsflash out across the lawn. Not wishing to intrude, I rose quietly andchanged my position, passing around the tree. Almost at that instant Isaw the figure of a man appear from the shrubbery and walk directlytoward the house, apparently headed for the window from which emergedthe light.
I watched him advance, and when I saw him reach the heavily barredtrellis which ran up to the second gallery, I felt confirmed in mysuspicion that he was a burglar. Approaching carefully in the shadow, Imade a rapid run at him, and as his head was turned at the time, managedto catch him about the neck by an arm. His face, thus thrown back, wasilluminated by the flare of light. I saw him plainly. It was GordonOrme!
The light disappeared. There was no cry from above. The great house,lying dark and silent, heard no alarm. I did not stop to reason aboutthis, but tightened my grip upon him in so fell a fashion that all hisarts in wrestling could avail him nothing. I had caught him from behind,and now I held him with a hand on each of his arms above the elbow. Noman could escape me when I had that hold.
He did not speak, but struggled silently with all his power. At lengthhe relaxed a trifle. I stood close to him, slipped my left arm under hisleft along his back, and caught his right arm in my left hand. Then Itook from his pocket a pistol, which I put into my own. I felt in hisclothing, and finally discovered a knife, hidden in a scabbard at theback of his neck. I drew it out--a long-bladed, ivory thing I found itlater, with gold let into the hilt and woven into the steel.
He eased himself in my grip as much as he could, waiting; as I knew,for his chance to twist and grapple with me. I could feel him breathingdeeply and easily, resting, waiting for his time, using his brains toaid his body with perfect deliberation.
"It's no use, Orme," I said to him, finally. "I can wring your neck, orbreak your back, or twist your arms off, and by God! I've a notion to dothem all. If you make any attempt to get away I'm going to kill you. Nowcome along."
I shoved him ahead of me, his arms pinioned, until we found a seat faraway in a dark portion of the great front yard. Here I pushed him downand took the other end of the seat, covering him with his own pistol.
"Now," I demanded, "tell me what you are doing here."
"You have your privilege at guessing," he sneered, in his easy, mockingway. "Have you never taken a little adventure of this sort yourself?"
"Ah, some servant girl--at your host's house. Excellent adventure. Butthis is your last one," I said to him.
"Is it so," he sneered. "Then let me make my prayers!" He mocked at me,and had no fear of me whatever.
"In Virginia we keep the shotgun for men who prowl around houses atnight. What are you doing here?"
"You have no right to ask. It is not your house."
"There was a light," said I. "For that reason I have a right to ask. Iam a guest, and a guest has duties as well as a host."
A certain change in mood seized him. "If I give you parole," he asked,"will you believe me, and let us talk freely?"
"Yes," said I at length, slowly. "You are a liar; but I do not think youwill break parole."
"You gauge me with perfect accuracy," he answered. "That is why I wishto talk."
I threw the pistol on the seat between us. "What is it you want toknow," I asked. "And again I ask you, why are you here, when you aresupposed to be in South Carolina?"
"I have business here. You cost me my chance out there in the West," heanswered, slowly. "In turn I cost you your chance there. I shall costyou other things here. I said you should pay my debt." He motionedtoward my neck with his slim finger.
"Yes, you saved my life," I said, "and I have hated you for that eversince."
"Will you make me one promise?" he asked.
"Perhaps, but not in advance."
"And will you keep it?"
"If I make it."
"Will you promise me to do one thing you have already promised to do?"
"Orme, I am in no mood to sit here and gossip like an old woman."
"Oh, don't cut up ugly. You're done out of it all around, in any case.Belknap, it seems, was to beat both you and me. Then why should not youand I try to forget? But now as to this little promise. I was only goingto ask you to do as much as Belknap, or less."
"Very well, then."
"I want you to promise to marry Grace Sheraton."
I laughed in his face. "I thought you knew me better than that, Orme.I'll attend to my own matters for myself. I shall not even ask you whyyou want so puerile a promise. I am much of a mind to shoot you. Tellme, who are you, and what are you, and what are you doing in thiscountry?"
"Do you really want to know?" he smiled.
"Assuredly I do. I demand it."
"I believe I will tell you, then," he said quietly. He mused for a timebefore he raised his head and went on.
"I am Charles Gordon Orme, Marquis of Bute and Rayne. Once I lived inEngland. For good reasons I have since lived elsewhere. I am what isknown as a black sheep--a very, very black one."
"Yes, you are a retrograde, a renegade, a blackguard and a murderer," Isaid to him, calmly.
"All of those things, and much more," he admitted, cheerfully andcalmly. "I am two persons, or more than two. I can't in the least makeall this plain to you in your grade of intelligence. Perhaps you haveheard of exchangeable personalities?"
"I have heard of double personalities, and double lives," I said, "but Ihave never admired them."
"We will waive your admiration. Let me say that I can exchange mypersonality. The Jews used to say that men of certain mentality werepossessed of a devil. I only say that I was a student in India. Onephrase is good as another. The Swami Hamadata was my teacher."
"It would have been far better for you had you never known him, andbetter for many others," was my answer to his astonishing discourse.
"Perhaps; but I am only explaining as you have requested. I am a RajaYogi. I have taken the eight mystic steps. For years, even here in thiscountry, I have kept up the sacred exercises of breath, of posture, ofthought."
"All that means nothing to me," I admitted simply.
"No, it means nothing for me to tell you that I have learned Yama,Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dyhana and Samadhi! Yes,I was something of an adept once. I learned calm, meditation,contemplation, introspection, super-conscious reasoning--how to cast myown mind to a distance, how to bring other minds close up to me.But,"--he smiled with all his old mockery--"mostly I failed onPratyahara, which says the senses must be quelled, subdued and setaside! All religions are alike to me, but they must not intrude on myown religion. I'd liefer die than not enjoy. My religion, I say, is toplay the great games--to adventure, and above all, to enjoy! That is whyI am in th
is country, also why I am in these grounds to-night."
"You are playing some deeper game than I know?"
"I always am! How could you be expected to understand what it took meyears to learn? But I suppose in your case you need a few practical andconcrete proofs. Let me show you a few things. Here, put your hand on myheart."
I obeyed. "You feel it beat?" he said. "Now it stops beating, does itnot?" And as I live, it _had slopped_!
"Feel on the opposite side," he commanded. I did so, and there was hisheart, clear across his body, and beating as before! "Now I shall stopit again," he remarked, calmly. And I swear it did stop, and resumedwhen he liked!
"Put your hand upon my abdomen," he said. I did so. All at once his bodyseemed thin and empty, as a spent cocoon.
"I draw all the organs into the thorax," he explained. "When one hasstudied under the Swami, as I have, he gains control over all hisdifferent muscles, voluntary and involuntary. He can, to a great extent,cut off or increase the nerve force in any muscle. Simple tricks inmagic become easy to him. He gains, as you may suppose, a certaininfluence over men, and more especially over women, if that be a part ofhis religion. It was not with the Swami. It is with me!"
"You are a strange man, Orme," I said, drawing a long breath. "The mostdangerous man, the most singular, the most immoral I ever knew."
"No," he said, reaching for his cigar case, "I was only born withoutwhat you call morals. They are not necessary in abstruse thought. Yet insome ways I retain the old influences of my own country. For instance, Ilie as readily as I speak the truth, because it is more convenient; butthough I am a liar, I do not break my word of honor. I am a renegade,but I am still an English officer! You have caught that distinction."
"Yes, I would trust you," I said, "if you gave me your word of honor."
He turned full upon me. "By Jove, old chap," he said, with a queer notein his voice, "you touch me awfully close. You're like men of my ownfamily--you stir something in me that I used to know. The word of afighting man--that's the same for yours and mine; and that's why I'vealways admired you. That's the sort of man that wins with the best sortof women."
"You were not worth the best sort of woman," I said to him. "You had nochance with Ellen Meriwether."
"No, but at least every fellow is worth his own fight with himself. Iwanted to be a gentleman once more. Oh, a man may mate with a woman ofany color--he does, all over the world. He may find a mistress in anynationality of his own color, or a wife in any class similar to hisown--he does, all over the world. But a sweetheart, and a wife, and awoman--when a fellow even like myself finds himself honestly gone likethat--when he begins to fight inside himself, old India against oldEngland, renegade against gentleman--say, that's awfully bitter--when hesees the other fellow win. You won--"
"No," said I, "I did not win. You know that perfectly well. There is noway in the world that I can win. All I can do is to keep parole--well,with myself, I suppose."
"You touch me awfully close," he mused again. "You play big and fair.You're a fighting man and a gentleman and--excuse me, but it's true--anawful ass all in one. You're such an ass I almost hesitate to play thegame with you."
"Thank you," said I. "But now take a very stupid fellow's advice. Leavethis country, and don't be seen about here again, for if so, you will bekilled."
"Precisely," he admitted. "In fact, I was just intending to arrange apermanent departure. That was why I was asking you to promise me to--inshort, to keep your own promise. There's going to be war next spring.The dreams of this strange new man Lincoln, out in the West, are goingto come true--there will be catastrophies here. That is why I am here.War, one of the great games, is something that one must sometimes crossthe globe to play. I will be here to have a hand in this one."
"You have had much of a hand in it already," I hazarded. He smiledfrankly.
"Yes," he said, "one must live. I admit I have been what you call asecret agent. There is much money behind me, big politics, bigcommercial interests. I love the big games, and my game and my task--myduty to my masters, has been to split this country along a clean linefrom east to west, from ocean to ocean--to make two countries of it! Youwill see that happen, my friend."
"No one will ever see it happen," I said to him, soberly.
"Under which flag, then, for you?" he asked quickly.
"The flag you saw on the frontier, Orme," I answered him. "That is theflag of America, and will be. The frontier is free. It will make Americafree forever."
"Oh, well," he said, "the argument will be obvious enough by nextspring--in April, I should guess. And whatever you or I may think, thegame will be big, very big--the biggest until you have your real warbetween black and white, and your yet bigger one between yellow andwhite. I imagine old England will be in that with you, or with one ofyou, if you make two countries here. But I may be a wandering Jew onsome other planet before that time."
He sat for a time, his chin dropped on his breast. Finally he reached mehis hand.
"Let me go," he said. "I promise you to leave."
"To leave the State?"
"No, I will not promise that."
"To leave the County?"
"Yes, unless war should bring me here in the course of my duty. But Iwill promise to leave this town, this residence--this girl--in short, Imust do that. And you are such an ass that I was going to ask you topromise to keep your promise--up there." He motioned toward the windowwhere the light lately had been.
"You do not ask that now?" I queried.
"You are a fighting man," he said, suddenly. "Let all these questionsanswer themselves when their time comes. After all, I suppose a woman isa woman in the greatest of the Barnes, and one takes one's chances.Suppose we leave the debt unsettled until we meet some time? You know,you may be claiming debt of me."
"Will you be ready?" I asked him.
"Always. You know that. Now, may I go? Is my parole ended?"
"It ends at the gate," I said to him, and handed him his pistol. Theknife I retained, forgetfully; but when I turned to offer it to him hewas gone.