The Black Rider (27 page)

“Yes, yes! I had done my best….”

“And it was better than you knew. The poor girl loved
you, Gerald. On my soul, I sorrowed for her when I heard her talk. But she it was who came to me at last. With her own hand she opened the doors for me. She guided me to the last threshold. She put a purse fat with gold in my pocket. She pointed out the way to escape, and she gave me the blessing of Allah and this little letter in French for you…for her beloved…her hero of fire and steel.”

“Be still, Banti, in the name of heaven!”

He took the little wrinkled envelope. He tore open the end of it. Then, pausing, he lighted a match and touched it to the paper. The flame flared. The letter burned to red-hot ash, fluttered from his finger tips, and reached the floor as a crumbling and wrinkled sheet of gray. A draft caught it and whirled it into nothingness.

And that is the end?” quietly said Banti, who had watched all this from a little distance. “And yet there was an aroma in the words of that letter, I dare swear, that would have drawn the winged angels lower out of heaven to hear them!”

“It is better this way,” said Gerald. “I burn the letter, and I send the fair thoughts back to the fair lady.”

And her fat papa,” said Banti.

And to her fat papa. And now…Banti, you have not changed. You are the same!”

“The very same,” said Banti, and drew himself up proudly to the full of his height. He was a glorious figure of a man. And the cunning of his hand was second only to the cunning of his brain. Well did Gerald know it. Had he not, for three long months in wintry Moscow, dueled with this man a duel in the dark, a thousand shrewd strokes delivered and parried under cover of the darkness of polite intrigue? They had learned to read each other then, and they had learned to dread and respect each other, also. Victory in that battle had fallen to Gerald, but it was a Pyrrhic conquest.

“It is gold, then,” said Banti. “It is gold that keeps you here?”

“No.”

“A mystery, then?”

Gerald shrugged his shoulders.

“No matter. You will come with me?”

Gerald shook his head.

“No?” and Banti smiled. “But listen…there is a kingdom in the sea!”

“Damn the sea and its kingdoms,” said Gerald. “This is my country. And here I stay!”

“There is a kingdom waiting in the sea,” said Banti. “Ah, I laugh with the joy of it, monsieur, when I think! Gerald, dear fellow, we are rich men, great men. The task awaits us!”

“Banti, I shall not listen. And it is useless for you to talk.”

“In two words, Gerald, what has happened to you?”

“I have a charm against your temptations. I have a flower to defy Circe, Louis.”

“A woman?”

“My wife-to-be.”

“She shall go with us, then. Where there is a king, may there not be a queen?”

“You are talking to the wind.”

“You have not heard me yet.”

“I don’t wish to.”

“You are afraid, then, in spite of your charm?”

“Talk if you must, and the devil take you.”

“There is a kingdom in the sea…there is an island in the sea, Monsieur Caprice. Four great powers of Europe and Asia have reached for it…their hands met…and not a finger touched it. So, in mortal fear of one another, they withdrew. They made a compact. They erected the savage chief into a king. They erected the island into a
kingdom in the sea, and they swore neutrality. But kings need wars for diversion and, since he could do no better, this amiable idiot of a fat man-eater began to fight with his own subjects. In a trice, a musical comedy set.

“Yonder stands the commerce of the world licking its chops at the sight of the spices of that island and the river dripping with unmined gold and the mountains charged with iron ores and coal, the swamps foul with oil…but yonder is the king fighting his subjects. The island is split into halves. The king holds all the lowlands and the rich towns. The young cousin, with more brains in his little finger than in the whole sconce of the king, holds the uplands with a few hundred stout brigands and makes a living by inroad. Commerce is at a standstill. They kill a white man for the sake of his shoes. And the great, neutral nations and the great, neutral merchants stand about like a circle of lions and find one consolation…that no one is getting a piece of the dainty

“But now, Gerald, enters a man of brains and money. He sees inspiration. He comes to me. He says: ‘I give you money and a shipload of arms and a score of good men. Not too many, or my hand will be too apparent. I send you away. Your ship is wrecked…by unlucky chance…on the shore of the island. You go inland. You open communication with the young prince in the highlands. You offer him money and guns if he will give you the direction of his war. You, with your tact and your diplomacy, make a conquest of that young prince, who is man enough to appreciate a man. He takes you to his heart and into his councils. He turns over his army to you. The guns and the money are brought up. Your few white men are your bodyguard. You train the army of natives for a month. When they can strike the side of a mountain at fifty paces, you invade the domains
of the king. In another month, you have routed him. You establish a new regime. You admit my money into your interior. And of the profits which come out of my ventures, one half goes to the kingdom…that is, to you…and the other half goes to me.’

“This, Gerald, is what the man of money and brains says to me. And I reply: ‘This is all very well. If I were a Napoleon, I should undertake the task. I should agree to do all these things, ingratiate myself with the colored potentate, become ruler of him and his army, and conquer the kingdom. But I am not Napoleon. I am, however, one of his marshals. In a word, I know the man. Give me only six months to bring him to you!’

“That, Gerald, was my reply, and here I am. Pack up your luggage. Pay your bills…I have ten thousand, and half of it is yours…and come with me at once. We can reach a train by tomorrow morning!”

He stopped, panting with the effort, and he found that Gerald was twining his hands together and then tearing them apart and staring down at the floor. But at last he raised his head.

“No,” he said, “I cannot.”

“In the name of heaven, Gerald! It is all as I have said! All that is needed to turn the dream into real gold is your matchless hand, your brain!”

“No again. A month ago, I should have gone with you. Today, not if you offered me England and its empire! Banti, you waste words!”

Banti was pale with despair, but he had learned long years before that words are sometimes worse than wasted. He maintained a long silence.

“Gerald,” he said at last, “if I may see the lady, my long trip will not have been wasted!”

F
ootfalls stormed up the stairs, clumped down the I hall, and a heavy hand beat on the door.

“Come!” said Gerald as Banti discreetly turned his face to the window.

The door was thrown open by Canton himself.

“Kern,” he said, “there’s some devilish bad luck! Young Vance….”

He stopped as he caught sight of Banti.

“This is my friend, Mr. George Ormonde,” said Gerald. “And this is my friend, Canton Douglas.”

Gravely, having received a glance, Banti advanced, bowed, and shook hands.

“You may say anything you wish,” said Gerald,” before Mr. Ormonde.”

“It’s Vance come back raving and crazy,” said Canton. “He’s been out, and he struck it rich…rich as the very devil. He came back, went to see Kate Maddern, and then came down to town like a lion. I dunno what happened between them two. Maybe you know that better than me. But Vance calls you all kinds of names and says that he’ll prove ’em on you when he meets you. He’s been in my place, saying that he’ll come there again at eight tonight, and that he expects to find you there.”

“Very well,” said Gerald. “I’ll meet him.”

Was it not better, once and for all, to have the matter ended and poor Tommy Vance out of the way?

“It’s got to be that?” said Canton sadly. “But Tommy’s white, Kern. Ain’t there any other way?”

“There would have been,” said Gerald, “if the fool had come in private to me. But now that he’s challenged me before the town, can I do anything but meet him?”

“It don’t look like there’s no way,” and Canton sighed. “But it’s a mighty big shame.”

“It is” said Gerald. “He’s a fine fellow. I’ve no desire to meet him with a gun.”

“Suppose he were to be arrested and locked up till he got over this.…”

“Do you think he ever will get over it?” asked Gerald.

Canton hung his head.

“It’s a mess,” he muttered. “I dunno what to think…except that it’s the devil.”

“Go back and tell the boys that I’ll be there,” said Gerald, and Canton left the room sadly.

Banti sat down again, whistling softly to himself.

“I suppose this man Vance is the former lover?” he asked.

“He is,” said Gerald.

“He will depart from this sorrowful world tonight, then?”

“He will,” said Gerald.

“And then,” said Banti, “I shall take you and the lady of your heart away with me.”

Gerald paused in his walking, then frowned upon Banti.

“Louis,” he said, “let me make this clear to you: I would give up a kingdom rather than take a chance which might harm her. Carry her into an adventure like that? I had rather be burned alive.”

“Really?” said Banti, arching his brows. “But, my dear Gerald, if you marry the lady, do you think that you will be able to trust yourself thereafter?”

“Louis, you have never seen her.”

“To be sure. But marriage is a great blunder of good resolutions. They vanish like the rainbow under the sun. One never comes to the pot of gold. Consider yourself. Here in the full flush of a new love, Gerald, when I paint the picture of that kingdom which is waiting for you in the sea, I notice that your eyes roll and your lip twitches and your hand jumps as though you were already in the fight. And in your heart of hearts you are already down yonder in the fight, scheming, plotting, learning a Negro tongue, working your way into Negro hearts, drilling a savage army. Tush! I can see the pull on you. It almost shakes you even now. You are on the verge of saying that you will take the wife with you. But after marriage, Gerald, when time dulls the gold…what then,
monsieur!”

“Then there will be no devil named Banti bringing temptations.”

“I? I am only one weak ship bringing a single cargo to port. But you, Gerald! What of you? Your own mind is the fruitful hatchery of strange schemes. The love of adventure is born in the blood. It is in yours. The time will come, lad, the time will come. The good Lord watches! He will whisper into your ear of some strange land…by the pole…an oasis in the desert…a shrine in Persia…and you must be gone. The tiger cannot be tamed. It may be wounded. It may be subdued by pain and kept quiet for the moment. But when it is healed, when you are past the first pangs of love, what then, Gerald?”

“Curse you and your tongue, Louis. I’ll hear no more of this!”

“You love her, do you not?”

“Like a part of heaven…like all of heaven…and she is all of it that I shall ever see.”

“If there is such a thing as punishment for sin, why yes, Gerald, she is all of it that you will see. But, if you love her, you care for her happiness more than for yours.”

“A thousand times!”

“Then give her up!”

“Ah?” “

“I say give her up. Come. You are capable of noble action. This will be one of them. Step out of her life while you may. Step out before you break her heart.”

“Banti___”

“I shall not come back.”

“No. no! I have to thrash this out with you!”

“Talk it over with yourself. You are a better judge than I!”

“Banti, stay for five minutes!”

“I shall be waiting…at eight o’clock…on the edge of the town. I shall have a horse. Bring your own. And we will ride all night into the lowlands. Remember!”

“Banti, for the sake of our friendship….”

“Adieul”

The door closed in the face of Gerald. He leaned against it until a tumult of new thoughts rushed into his brain—things which he should have said. He tore the door open, but Banti was already out of sight, and Gerald turned slowly back into the room.

N
ight came early on that Christmas Eve. The steep shadow dropped from the western peaks over the [little town, and by four o’clock it was dusk, with a wild wind screaming about the hotel. It shook the crazy building. It blew a vagary of drafts through the cracks in the floor, through the cracks in the walls. But through it all Gerald lay forward on his bed with his hands over his face.

There had never been a torment like this before. Not that march across the desert when the mirage floated before them with its blue, cool promise of water—not that moment earlier in this same day when he had told the truth to Kate—nothing compared with that long time of loneliness.

If Banti had been there, if one human being had been near to argue with and convince and thereby convince himself—but there was no one, and the solitude was a terrible judge hearing his thoughts one by one and spurning them away.

He looked at his watch suddenly and saw that it was seven o’clock. In a single hour he must face poor Tom Vance in Canton Douglas’s place and kill him. There would be no chance to shoot for the hip or the shoulder, for Tom Vance would himself shoot to kill his treacherous enemy, and it was life or death for Gerald.

Not that he doubted the outcome. He had met sterner men than Tom Vance and killed them. And he would drop Tom with the suddenness of mercy.

And yet his soul rebelled against it. Rather any other man he had ever met than this fellow whom he had so wronged. But suppose he could meet him and talk with him, man to man, for ten minutes, might not something be done?

He hurried out into the night, filled with the blind hope. Through the slowly falling sleet—for the wind had fallen to a whisper—he went up the street to the cabin of Tom Vance far at the end. He could look past it up the hillside to the glimmer of light in the cabin of old Maddern. In that house were the only people in the town who did not know, for the story would be kept from their ears surely.