VIII
SHOWS HOW THE CLOAK OF DARKNESS OF ONE NIGHT HIDES MANY EMOTIONS, ANDMRS. WILDER IS FRANKLY INQUISITIVE
Darkness brooded everywhere, but the gloom of night is a darkness thatis impenetrable only to our eyes because we creatures of the hard glareof daylight cannot see in the strange clearness that brings out thestars. Only in the houses of men real darkness has its habitation. Underclose roofs, confined within walls, shut into rooms, and lurking incorners: there, darkness may be found, and because man made it, it hasits own special terror, as have all the creatures of man's hand. Dark,menacing and noiseless, the shadows flock in as daylight wanes, filingup like heavy thoughts and sad thoughts, and casting a gloom with theircoming that is not the blackness of earth's restful night.
Mrs. Wilder paced her room with the steps of a woman whose heart drivessleep out with scorpion-whips of memory; and she went softly, for soundtravels far at night, and Draycott Wilder, in the next room, was a lightsleeper. She was thinking steadily, and she was trying to force her willacross the distance into the stronghold of Hartley's innerconsciousness.
Night brought no more rest to Mrs. Draycott Wilder than it did to CravenJoicey, the Banker, but Joicey did not sit in the dark. Madness lies inthe dark for some minds, and he had turned on the electric light, thatshowed his face yellow and weary. On the wall the lizards, awakened bythe sudden glare, resumed their fly-catching, and scuttled with a dry,scurrying sound over the walls, breaking the silence with a perpetual"chuck-chuck" as they chased each other. Joicey looked as though he wasdreaming evil dreams, and nothing of his surroundings was real to him.The room became another room, the tables and chairs grew indistinct, theface of a small _Gaudama_ on the mantel-piece became a living face thatmenaced him, and the "chuck-chuck" of the lizards, the rattle of dicefalling on to a board at some remote distance miles and miles away, andyet strangely audible to his dull ears. Still he sat there, and flashesof fancies came and went. Sometimes he stood in an English garden, witha far-away sunlit glimpse of glittering waters, and a cuckoo crying in awood of waving trees, and then he knew that he was a boy, and that hehad forgotten everything that had happened since; and then, withoutwarning, he was swept out of the garden and stood under Eastern trees,lost in a wild place, with the haunting face of the image at hisshoulder. The face altered. Sometimes it was Mhtoon Pah's pointing man,and what he pointed at was never clear. The mistiness bothered himhorribly.
The _Durwan_ outside played on a wistful little flute, thinking that hismaster was asleep; he heard it, and it did not concern him; he was deadto all outward things just then, and the flute only added to the mysteryof the dream that spun itself in his brain. He wandered in a place sonear actual things and yet so far from them, that the gigantic mistakeof it all, and the consciousness that the inner life could at timesconquer the outer life, made him fall away between the two conditions,lost and helpless. His head nodded forward, and his lower lip dropped,and yet his eyes were open, as he sat facing the small squatting Buddha,whose changeless face changed only for him.
The three little flute-notes tripped out after each other with nosemblance at a tune, repeating and reiterating the sound in the darkoutside, and Joicey listened as though something of weight depended uponhis hearing steadily. The sound was the one thing that made him knowthat he was real, and once it ceased, or he ceased to hear it, he wouldbe across the gulf and terribly lost; a mind without a body, let loosein a world where there were no landmarks, no known roads, nothing butwindy space, and he was afraid of that place, and feared terribly to gothere.
Something shuffled on the stone veranda, another sound, and sound was ofvalue to Craven Joicey, since it made a vital note in the circlingnumbness around him. He could hear whispering voices, and the thump ofthe _Durwan's_ stick, as that musically-minded man walked round to theback of the house, where his lighted window showed that Craven Joiceydid not sleep. Again a voice whispered, and a low sound of discreetknocking followed.
Joicey sprang up and called out hoarsely:
"Who is it?"
"Sahib, Sahib"--the _Durwan's_ whine was apologetic. "Is the Sahibawake?"
"Who wants me?"
"Leh Shin, the Chinaman."
Joicey wiped his face with his handkerchief and pulled open the doorwith a violent movement.
"Come in," he said, trying to speak naturally. "What is it, Leh Shin?"
The Chinaman held a tweed hat in his hand and stole into the room like ashadow.
"What now, Leh Shin?"
Joicey spoke in Yunnanese with the fluency of long habit, and eventhough he was angry he kept his voice low as though he feared to beoverheard.
"The Master of Masters will speak for me," said the Chinaman, standingbefore him. "All day the police stand near to my house, and at nightthey do not leave it. At one word from the Master, whose speech isconstructed of gold and precious metals, they can be withdrawn, and forthat word I wait--" He made a quick gesture with his tweed cap.
"You will gain nothing by coming to my house, you swine," said Joicey,his eyes staring and his veins standing out on his forehead. "I will seewhat Mr. Hartley will do, but if you drag in my name or refer him to meyou will do yourself no good, do you hear? No good."
Leh Shin watched him passively and waited until he had finished.
"I will swear the oath," he said, blinking his eyes. "I will not speakthe name of the Master, but my doors are locked, my house is a house forthe water-rats, and until the big Lord frees me I am a poor man."
Joicey sat down heavily on a low chair.
"It shall be stopped," he said desperately. "I will see that there is nomore of this police supervision; you may take my word for it."
The Chinaman stood still, moving one foot to the other.
"In dreams the Master has spoken these promises to me before. Can I besure that it is not in a dream that the Master speaks again?"
"I am awake," said Joicey, bitterly. "Mr. Hartley is looking for theboy, and if the boy were found, all search would stop,"--he eyed theChinaman carefully, but the mask-like face did not change.
"And the little boy? Perhaps, Ruler and King, the little boy is gonedead."
"You ask me _that_, you devil?"
"It is for the servant to ask," said Leh Shin, dropping his lids for asecond.
"Now, get out," said Joicey, between his clenched teeth. "And if youcome here to me again, at night, I'll kill you."
"The Great One will not do that," said Leh Shin, placidly. "Myassistant waits for me. It would be known as fire is known when theforest is dry. To-morrow or next day, if the police are gone, my littlehouse will be open again." He spoke the words with deep emphasis.
"Get out," said Joicey, turning away his head.
Leh Shin looked at him with a sudden, oblique glance like the flash of aknife.
"Speak no more, Lord of men and elephants; the _Durwan_ is now outsidethe door, and he listens."
"Good-night," said Joicey loudly, and he clicked off the light and wentto bed.
If the darkness was close in the large houses of the Cantonment, it wasshut into the very essence of itself in the curio shop in ParadiseStreet. It hid the carved devils from one another, it obliterated thestone monsters that no one ever bought, and which had grown to belong tothe shop itself; it dropped its black veil over the green dragons, andthe china ladies, and the silver bowls and the little ivories, hidingeverything out of sight; but it did not hide the figure outside in thestreet. The little man, with his pointed headdress and short jacket, hadthe clear darkness all to himself. He was just as polite by night as hewas by day, and he bowed and ushered imaginary buyers up the stone stepswith the same perpetual civility, and the same unceasing smile, thatbagged out his varnished cheeks into joviality.
Dark as it was inside the shop, it must have been darker along therat-burrows of stairs, and the loft-like rooms near the roof, but eitherup above or down below, the scent of cassia and sandal-wood clungeverywhere inside the curio shop, smelling strongest around the gl
asscases and bales of delicate silks.
Mhtoon Pah's _Durwan_ slept across the doorway, and was therefore theonly object for the attention of the little man, and likewise,therefore, he did not point to his master, who came in, in the dead,heavy hours before dawn. He could not have been far; there was hardlyany dust on his red velvet slippers, and he brushed what there was fromthem with a careful hand. As he placed his lamp on the floor, the lightthrew odd shadows up the walls, turning that of Mhtoon Pah himself intoa grotesque and gigantic mass of darkness, and when he stooped and stooderect it jumped with a sudden living spring.
Mhtoon Pah moved about the shop on light feet. He bent here and there toexamine some of the objects closely, with the manner and gesture of aman who loves beautiful things for their own sakes as well as for theprofit he hoped to gain from their sale. When he had twice made a tourof inspection, he placed an alabaster Buddha in the centre of a carvedtable and sat down before it. The Buddha was dead white, with a redchain around his neck, and on his head a gold cap with long, gem-setears hanging to the shoulders, and Mhtoon Pah sat long in front of thefigure, swaying a little and moving his lips soundlessly. He appearedlike a man who is self-mesmerized by the flame of a candle, and his faceworked with suppressed and violent emotion; at any moment it seemed asthough he might break the silence with some awful, passion-tossedsound.
Suddenly, he stopped in his voiceless worship, and, leaning forwardquickly, extinguished the lamp. If he had heard any sound, it wasapparently from below, for he crouched on the ground with his head closeto the teak boarding, and crawled with slow, noiseless care towards thedoor. A silk curtain covered the window, hiding the interior of the shopfrom the street, and, when he reached the low woodwork above which ithung, he twitched the curtain back with a sudden movement of his handand raised himself slowly until his head was on a level with the glass.
Mhtoon Pah grew suddenly rigid, and the thick black hair on his headseemed to bristle. Pressed close against the window, with only a slenderbarrier of glass between them, was the face of Leh Shin, the Chinaman. Aray of white moonlight fell across them both, and its clear radiancelighted up every feature of the curio dealer's face, changing its browninto a strange, ghastly pallor. For a moment they stood immovable,staring into each other's eyes, and the shadows behind Mhtoon Pah in theshop, and the shadows behind Leh Shin in the street, seemed to listenand wait with them, seemed to creep closer and enfold them, seemed todraw up and up on noiseless feet and hang suspended around them. Themoment might have endured for years, so full was it of menace andpassion, and then the man outside moved quickly and the moonlightflooded in across the face and shoulders of the Burman.
For a second longer he remained as though fascinated, and then MhtoonPah wrenched at the door and thundered back the heavy bolts. There wereflecks of foam on his lips, and his eyes rolled as he dashed through thedoor and out down the steps, rending the air with cries of murder. Hewas too late, the Chinaman had gone. When the street flocked out to seewhat the disturbance meant, Mhtoon Pah was crouching on his steps in akind of fit.
"I have seen the face of the slayer of Absalom," he shrieked, when thecrowd had carried him in, and recovered him to his senses.
"Is he a devil?" asked a young Burman, in tones of joyful excitement. "Adevil with iron claws has been seen several nights lately."
"A Chinese devil," groaned Mhtoon Pah, speaking through his clenchedteeth. "One who shall yet be hanged for his crime."
"Ah! ah!" said the watchers. "He dreams that it is a man, but it isknown that a devil has walked in Paradise Street, his jaws open.Certainly he has eaten little Absalom."
Dawn was breaking, the pale, still hour that is often the hour of death;and a cool breeze rippled in the date palms and in the flat green leavesof the rubber plants, and the festoons of succulent green growths thatclimbed up the houses of the Cantonments, and dawn found the Rev.Francis Heath sleeping quietly. He was lying with one arm under hishead, and his worn face in almost child-like repose. Wherever he was,sleep had carried him to a place of peace and refreshment. When he awokehe would have forgotten his dream, but for the moment the dreamsufficed, and he rested in the circle of its charm.
All the time that we are young and careless and happy, we are buildingretreats for memory that make harbours of rest in later years, when thestorms come with force. All the old things that did not count, come backto calm and to restore. The school-room, where the light flickered on aspecial corner of the ceiling, telling the children to come out andplay; the tapping of the laurels outside the church windows, and themusty smell of red rep cushions along the pew where the hours were veryslow in passing; the white clover in the field behind the garden, got ateasily through a hole in the privet hedge. The play of light and shadowover the hills of home, the dusk at nightfall, and the homely cawing ofrooks. All the delicious things that went with the smell of ripestrawberries under nets, where thieving birds fluttered until thegardener let them free again; and the mystery of sparks flying up thechimney when the winter logs blazed. Every simple joy is stored away insome lumber corner of the minds of men, and when sleep comes, sometimesthe old things are taken out again.
The Rev. Francis Heath, like the rest of the world, had his own secretdoorway that led back to wonderland, and it may have been that he wasfar away from Mangadone in this child-world which is so hard to findagain, as he slept, and the outside world grew from grey to green, andfrom green to misty gold. The sunlight flamed on the spire of thePagoda, it danced up the brown river and threw long shadows before itscoming, those translucent shadows that no artist has ever yet been ableto paint. It turned the mohur trees blood-red, and the grass to shiningemerald green, and Mangadone looked as though it had just come freshfrom the hands of its Creator.
Mhtoon Pah, recovered from his fit, was in his shop early, and hehimself went out to cleanse the effigy outside with a white duster, andto set his wares in order. It was a good day for sales, as a liner hadcome in and brought with it many rich Americans, and Mhtoon Pah was gladto sell to such as they. His stock-in-trade was beautiful andattractive, and in the centre of the table, where the unset stonesglittered and shone on white velvet, there stood a bowl, a gold lacquerbowl of perfect symmetry and very great beauty. He poised it on hishands once or twice and examined it carefully. As it was already sold itwas not to remain in the curio shop, but Mhtoon Pah was a careful man,and he desired that Mrs. Wilder should fetch it herself; besides, heliked her car to stand outside his shop, and he liked her to come in andlook at his goods. Very few people who came in to look, went awaywithout having bought several things they did not in the least want.Mhtoon Pah knew exactly how to lure by influence, and he knew that Mrs.Wilder could no more turn away from a grey-and-pink shot silk than Evecould refuse the forbidden fruit.
He spread out a sea-blue Mandarin's coat, embroidered with peaches, andsmall, crafty touches of black here and there, and looked at it with theloving eye of a connoisseur. His whole shop was a fountain of colour,and he was not unworthy of it in his silk petticoat. A ray of sunlightfell in through the door and touched a few threads of gold in the coatas Mhtoon Pah hung it up to good advantage, and turned to see a customercome in. It was the Rev. Francis Heath; and Mhtoon Pah's face fell."Reverends" were not good buyers, specially when they had not any wives,and Mr. Heath took no notice of the attractive display as he stood,black and forbidding, in the centre of the shop.
"I have come here, Mhtoon Pah, to ask for news of Absalom," he said,meeting his eyes forcefully. "Where is he?"
Mhtoon Pah bowed low, as befitted the dignity of his guest, who was,after all, a _Hypongyi_, even though he wore no yellow robes.
"It is unknown," he said, in a heavy voice. "The Reverend himself mightknow, since the Reverend saw my little Absalom that night."
"You _must_ have suspicions?"
Mhtoon Pah's face worked violently.
"Leh Shin," he whispered. "Look there for what is left."
Heath retreated before his fury.
"You yo
urself sent the boy there."
"_Wah! Wah!_ I sent him and he did not return."
"What are you talking about?" said the fresh, gay voice of Mrs. Wilder."Where is my lacquer bowl, Mhtoon Pah?" She came in, bright as themorning outside, and smiled at the Rev. Francis Heath. "So you have gotit for me."
"I did not get it, Lady Sahib," said Mhtoon Pah. "It came here, how Iknow not. I found it outside my shop in the care of the wooden imagewhen I went to dust his limbs this morning."
Mrs. Wilder laughed.
"In that case I shall not have to pay for it. But what do you mean,Mhtoon Pah?"
"It is blood money," said Mhtoon Pah, with a wild gasp. "Only one manknew of the bowl, only one man could have put it there. I shall tellHartley Sahib; the _Thakin_ will strike surely and swiftly."
"He will do nothing of the kind," said Mrs. Wilder, with a quick look atHeath. "Give me my bowl, Mhtoon Pah; you are letting yourself dreamfoolish things. Absalom"--she tapped the polished floor with herwell-shaped foot--"will come back and explain everything himself, andthen--whoever is responsible--will bear the penalty."
"They have tied his head to his elbows, and set snakes to sting him,"said Mhtoon Pah. "This have they done, and worse things, Lady Sahib."
Mrs. Wilder shivered.
"Give me my bowl, you horrible old man. Absalom is blacking boots in aNew York hotel, weeks ago.--Ah! what a coat! Are you buying anything,Mr. Heath?"
"I am going to the school," he answered slowly.
"Then let me drive you there. Send me up the Mandarin's coat, MhtoonPah, and I will haggle another day."
Heath followed her reluctantly down the steps. He wished she had notmade a point of taking him in her motor, but he felt instinctively sorryfor her, which fact, had she known it, would have surprised andaffronted her.
"Will you come and dine with us one night?" she asked, looking at himwith her fine eyes; "it would give us great pleasure, and I do not thinkyou have met my husband."
"I rarely do dine out," said Heath, staring before him as the car backedround in the limited space of Paradise Street.
"Then make this an exception. I won't ask you to a function, just aquiet little family party."
"You are very kind."
He was still abstracted, and hardly seemed to hear her, and, when he gotout and shut the door, she leaned from the window, smiling like wearyroyalty.
"I will write and arrange an evening later on. It is a promise, Mr.Heath."
"I will come," he replied, in the same preoccupied voice, as he raisedhis battered _topi_.
"What has he been doing?" she asked herself, in surprise, and again andagain she put the same question to herself, not only that morning, butoften, later on, and with ever-increasing curiosity.