CHAPTER XXIII
AFTER William had spoken to Ruth there was a second tableau which lasted about two minutes. The girl was holding herself up by the last shred of her will. Now that the danger was over, now that the horrible hours of suspense were done with, it seemed as though every nerve in her body had gone slack, like violin strings suddenly touched by night dampness. He had come! All along she had known that he would come. The confidence which this prescience had instilled in her heart had stood like a rock between her and self-destruction. "Call to me, and I'll come." He had said that.
The smile on Colburton's face slowly faded. His mind, fuddled by wine and dizzied by the fury of the recent struggle, refused to accept as a reality the advent of this Irishman. It was not humanly possible for him to be in this room, to arrive at this precise moment. Colburton made a slight gesture, as if to dismiss the apparition.
Then William moved. He walked backward to the door, found the key, transferred it to the inside, and turned it. A hysterical sob rose and died in Ruth's throat. She had never thought of running to the door while struggling with Colburton. She saw William drop the key into a pocket. There was nothing hasty about his movements; all was deliberately done ; and this very deliberateness held the other man in thraldom.
"I've got something here that belongs to you."
With an unexpected gesture William flung the chamois bag into Colburton's face. The thread snapped; the pearls cascaded to the floor and bounded and ran about.
William drew off his coat and flung it aside; and then Colburton knew that what he saw was made of solids. Trapped!
"Don't … don't kill him!" whispered Ruth. She could not stand any more horrors.
"Kill him? Not much! But I'm going to put the fear of God in his heart, believe me. …"
"Look out!" she warned.
William laughed as he leaped forward. Colburton succeeded in drawing the automatic, but not in leveling it. William gripped Colburton's wrist and shook it. The weapon fell near the bed.
"Pick that up, sister; it may come in handy later."
Ruth laid the automatic on the bed.
"Well, Handsome-Is, we meet again. You call yourself a white man!"
William struck, not with the fist, but with the palm. A clenched hand, used with the same force, would have knocked Colburton down. He was a rogue, but he was not a physical coward as is usual with men in his breed. But he knew that for once he would need the strength of ten men and the cunning of a were-wolf.
"Millions, huh? Call on them, white man!" snarled William.
Instinctively Colburton knew what those palms promised in the way of torture. Nothing stings like the flat of the human hand. A blow of the fist numbs and bruises, but the palm crucifies the nerves, keeps them alive and dancing with pain.
It was a singular combat, Colburton smashing out blindly and hopelessly, and William using only his palms. They were terrible buffets. Bare knuckles would have been merciful in comparison. Thwack! thwack! across the eyes, the mouth, the nose, the cheeks, and the side of the head, all stinging like hell fire. Some of Colburton's wild blows got home, but so savage was William's mood that he scarcely felt them. His eyes were like polar ice; his cruelty was feline. Into this corner and that Colburton stumbled, soon half-blind, cursing and sobbing. Duck and dodge as he would he could not escape those palms. He flung chairs at William's feet; he tipped over the table and the supper-tray; he picked up and threw small objects, more or less accurately. One of these, a little bronze god for incense sticks, struck William on the forehead, laying it open. But none of these efforts served. The blows kept falling. To the girl the impact of those plams was like pistol-shots.
There was another sound; only the girl heard it—the snap of the pearls as the scuffling boots crunched them into powder. Her subsequent act had no meaning; she was not conscious of it. She stooped and gathered those pearls which had rolled to her feet, all the while her direct gaze never leaving the two men. She stood up, the pearls clutched tightly in her hand.
In Udaipur she had seen a spectacular battle between an enormous tiger and a leopard which had accidentally strayed into the tiger's den. To her mind, shocked from its balance by the happenings of this night, William began to assume the shape of that tiger, and Colburton became the leopard. Presently she cried out. She could not stand the sight or sound any longer.
"Don't! don't!" she begged. "Let him go!"
Mercy? How like a woman that was! William heard the call and understood. She wanted mercy for the man, now that he was reeling about, beaten. Mercy? Had Colburton ever shown any? Did he know what the word meant? How many women had begged mercy hopelessly at the feet of this man? And so William began to strike for them. His hands were red and beginning to swell.
"God! kill me, kill me!" sobbed the wretch.
"The door!" Ruth screamed. "They are breaking in the door!" She saw the panels warp.
William drew back for the real finishing blow, when Colburton stumbled, struck his temple against the marble top of the bureau, and crumpled up.
At the same moment the door crashed inward and five husky Chinamen crowded over the threshold. With a deep sense of chagrin William understood that in his pitiless vengeance he had overreached. Five! Their thick, yellow torsos were naked.
With a Herculean effort William stooped and picked up the insensible victim and hoisted him to the front as a bulwark. He did not wait. He was a true fighting-man, and he knew from experience that generally the first blow decided a rough-and-tumble conflict. He rushed Colburton's body straight toward the Orientals, who stopped, not knowing how to handle such a manœuver. William heaved the body forward as from a catapult. The yellow men were bowled about like tenpins. One made a frantic endeavor to catch Colburton; but he lost his footing and both he and his burden crashed against the banister, which gave. There was a wild yell, and the two bodies disappeared.
The remaining four, recovering quickly, rushed forward. Had they been Japs William would have gone out broken or dead. But the Chinese are not athletes, they are not natural fighters. They do well enough in numbers if armed; but they possess an inherent distaste for the white man's methods of using his fists.
William never missed a point in this game of fists and wits. He fought with his head quite as much as with his hands. They call that generalship in the ring. He had stamina, skill, and brains. No doubt, had he taken up the sport as a business instead of a pastime, he would have found a distinguished niche in the sporting pages of the newspapers. But he fought for the fun of it when necessity did not compel him to fight otherwise.
William mapped out his campaign without an instant's hesitation. He had played the fool with Colburton; he had forgotten where he was or that the man would have henchmen somewhere about the house. Moreover, he was tired, and he could not close his puffed hands as tightly as he would have liked. He must keep the yellow devils in front, near the door, where he could see them all. If one succeeded in getting in the rear, out of range, that would be the wind-up. Sticking to his tactics of carrying the fight to the enemy, he ran to meet the onrush, crying out his final advice to Ruth.
"When I got 'em outside, be ready to shove the bed against the door. If I fall, shoot to kill!"
"Dear God!" cried Ruth. She couldn't help him; she had all she could do to stand and she hardly knew which end of the automatic was the death-dealing one.
As the battle against odds began, she recalled in a flash that curious desire of hers, one day in Naples, to see this Irishman fighting with his bare fists for his life. From her vantage on the far side of the bed she watched this incredible contest. She was in the grip of a trance. It was not possible to stir. She was conscious of being able to breathe with difficulty—that was all. One hand held the automatic, the other still clutched the pearls.
The shock of the bodies, the panting, the shaking of the floor—it was like a scene transposed from the Iliad. The oil-lamp (which had in the previous battle escaped miraculously) contributed a weird theatricality to the movement of the struggling group, throwing it here into dead, black shadow, there into flashes of yellow-white.
And all for her! She had dreamed of such moments, but life itself had been singularly free of thrills. Men had fought for her in her daydreams, sometimes with rapier, sometimes with lance, sometimes with musket at the cabin's loop-holes, and just as the last shot had sped they had heard the bugle of the cavalry. It was very pleasant to dream like that. But this! …
He was like a madman; he was here, there, everywhere, unexpectedly, jabbing, swinging, heaving. Frequently there was a screech of ripping cloth. His shirt was hanging on his shoulders in shreds and streamers. It was impossible to follow his arms clearly; all she could identify was that shock of red hair surging among the swinging pigtails.
All at once he tripped and went down, and she was sure that the end had come. But no! There he was, like a swimmer caught and buried for a second by a toppling surge. This time he broke away from the milling, yellow bodies. He clutched the teak stand, heavy and tough, and swung it high above his head.
The yellow men paused; and well they might. They had been sent against a man; but yonder blue-eyed was not a man, he was a half-god, for all his bloody face, for all his tatters. They had had enough. As William whirled the stand and let go, they broke and made for the hallway. William slammed the door and leaned against it.
"The bed!" he cried, thickly.
How she was able to push it against the door was something she never could explain. The instant this feat was accomplished she fell upon the bed in a faint. William did not turn to her at once. He hauled the bureau over to the foot of the bed and stood it endways. To open the door now they would have to push out the side of the house.
He then turned to Ruth. Her arms lay extended on each side. The pearls had run into the depression made by the hand which had held them. Pearls! His expression became grim and sad. She had picked them up while he had fought for her liberty and honor. He was seized with a violent desire to go about the room and crush all the pearls he could find, stamp and twist his heel upon them. Instead, he rubbed her wrists energetically. After a little while she opened her eyes.
"All right now, sister?" He was breathing deep and fast. He bolstered her up with the pillows, and she smiled wanly. "Gee! if I'd only had one of those Ajax beefsteaks under my vest, I'd have cleaned 'em up in jig-time. Some little scrap, though, believe me—some … little … scrap!"
He sat down on the bed and held his head in his hands. He was groggy and a bit sick at his stomach. He had had nothing to eat since morning. One of his small ribs hurt badly; an eye was closed; his tongue found a loose tooth. It they had come at him once again and the teak stand had failed to stop them! …
The next thing he knew she was standing at his side, one arm around his head, and a cool towel was being tenderly applied to his burning, throbbing face.
"I wasn't worth it!" he heard her say. "I wasn't worth it!"
He looked up.
"Aw, sister! It's all over. That rat 'll never bother you again."
"That isn't it." And then she told him the whole sordid story.
It was not a very coherent tale, but he understood. To him there was nothing sordid in it. It was human, every-day temptation.
"Aw, what are you worrying about? Don't we all stumble around most of the time? Aren't we all good and bad in spots? Sure. Some time or other everybody gets the idea that the easy route's the only one left. The thing is to get back in time. You did that."
She tied the towel around his forehead and stepped off a little way.
He was as broad in the mind as he was in the shoulders. He continued. "Why shouldn't you want good things to wear, clothes and all that? Don't we all want something just a little better than we've got? Sure. And then, you'd gone through a pretty tough disappointment. You had musical genius, and you couldn't make it lie down and roll over. That 'd make any one kind of desperate. You ran into that skunk the wrong time—that was all. He was handsome, he had money, and he was smooth. Being a genius, you've got one of those consciences that was worse 'n none at all. Always sticking pins in you—huh? No human being ever lived that didn't think bad once in a while. But thinking and doing 's two different things. It's stepping back that brings home the bacon; and you … stepped back. Say, do you know what to-night is?" He smiled. It was the smile of a gargoyle.
"No. I've forgotten to keep track of the days."
"Well, it's little old Christmas Eve, and I'm as homesick as … as hell! Can't you see the good old clean snow coming down, and the Salvation Army Santy Claus hopping about to keep his feet warm and watching the nickels and dimes dropping into his kettle? Huh? And the kids with their little red smellers pasted against the toy-shop windows? 'I choose that!' Can't you hear 'em arguing? Aw, little old New York on Christmas Eve!"
"Don't." Her throat filled suddenly, and she was very close to a passionate storm of tears. It would have been well for her if she had cried abandonedly.
"To-morrow we're going to have the greatest Christmas spread they can turn out at Raffles's And after that we're going to see how fast we can get back to those two chairs behind the deck-houses. The old Ajax—huh? I could have cried when I had to leave her at Hong-Kong."
"Why did you come back for me?" The question came involuntarily.
"You want to know?" He looked down at his swollen hands. "Well, because I love you, not like a brother, but like a man who loves one woman once in his life. I know. I'm not exactly your kind. I grew up among the rough-necks, maybe. My education's a joke. But I'll tell you this much: if they'd dragged you down to hell before I got here, I'd 've gone down into hell and dragged you back. You're a good woman. What's one mistake? … Will you marry me?"
He dared not look at her. He continued to stare at his hands. The towel, drawn a bit too tightly, dripped water which trickled down the end of his nose.
Who shall say that these were not the first honest words of love ever spoken in this drab house of bondage? This thought came into the girl's mind as she gazed down at his head. She was dreadfully tired. … Some one to take care of her, some one who loved her to stand between her and all future buffets, to wait upon her and to serve her. Why not? She felt that all her fortresses had been smashed; there was not a single barrier; there was neither dream nor illusion left.
There was a long interval of silence.
"I … I will marry you," she said.
I have remarked that William was fine in the grain, and that the harsh environments of his earlier years had not in any way coarsened that grain. All he did was to reach out, take her hand in his, and pat it. The most natural act in the world would have been to take her in his arms and kiss her. He merely patted her hand. Why? Because he knew that Ruth did not love him. Later you will understand the supreme sacrifice he had in mind when he made that proposal.
"All right, sister. We'll hunt up the parson to-morrow. But just now suppose we think up some way of getting out of this shebang? Where's your sleeve?"
She found it by the window.
"Got any pins? We'll have to patch up a bit; can't go into the streets like this."
She plucked some pins from the cushion on the bureau. As he touched the cool flesh of her arm he trembled. He was going to fight a battle beside which the recent one was as nothing. Would he be strong enough to win it? Maybe, with God's help. After the sleeve had been pinned on he got his coat.
"Where's the revolver? Here it is, on the bed. Gee! but I'm a hick with these things. I couldn't hit the broadside of an elephant. But they won't know that."
He turned the automatic over and over in his hands, curiously. But he was a natural mechanic, and it wasn't long before he had mastered the mechanism of the gun.
"All aboard!"
"The pearls," she said, dully.
"What?" He stared at her, dumfounded. It was unbelievable. "You want them … now?"
"To return them. Oh, I couldn't live otherwise! I couldn't!"
He understood at once. She wanted a clean slate.
"But Camden stole them."
"So did I. I had no right to them. I tried a thousand times to convince myself that I had; but I really hadn't. I was just a cheat. I … I hadn't paid for them."
"How many did you have?"
"There were forty-eight in all. I unstrung them. I was going to sell one whenever I needed money."
"All right."
William crawled about on his hands and knees and eventually recovered thirty-two. The others were little white patches of dust on the threadbare carpet.
"How much were they worth?" he asked, curiously.
"Twelve thousand, at least. I priced a necklace like it, and they said it was worth that."
A doctor would have given her a serious glance; but William was at this moment unobservant. Little beads like that worth twelve thousand!
"That's a lot of money. Let's see; sixteen missing; something over four thousand. All right; a clean slate it is. We'll match 'em up and send 'em back. And now let's get out of this."
He pushed aside the bureau and bed and opened the door cautiously. The hallway was deserted. He beckoned to her to go on ahead. They went down the stairs quietly, pausing every other step to listen. As they reached the lower hall the door to the parlor opened about three inches. Instantly he leveled the automatic.
"No, no!" cried Ruth. "It's the little Japanese girl who was kind to me."
"G'by!" said Saki San, her almond-shaped eyelids as nearly round as they possibly could be. "Madame say you go damn fast velly well. G'by!" The door closed.
William and Ruth stepped out into the street.