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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6294.txt b/6294.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1327be5 --- /dev/null +++ b/6294.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4878 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook No Defense, by Gilbert Parker, v3 +#121 in our series by Gilbert Parker + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: No Defense, Volume 3. + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6294] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on December 12, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NO DEFENSE, BY PARKER, V3 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + +NO DEFENSE + +By Gilbert Parker + +Volume 3. + + +BOOK III + +XVI. A LETTER +XVII. STRANGERS ARRIVE +XVIII. AT SALEM +XIX. LORD MALLOW INTERVENES +XX. OUT OF THE HANDS OF THE PHILISTINES +XXI. THE CLASH OF RACE +XXII. SHEILA HAS HER SAY +XXIII. THE COMING OF NOREEN +XXIV. WITH THE GOVERNOR +XXV. THEN WHAT HAPPENED + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A LETTER + +With a deep sigh, the planter raised his head from the table where he was +writing, and looked out upon the lands he had made his own. They lay on +the Thomas River, a few hours' horseback travelling from Spanish Town, +the capital, and they had the advantage of a plateau formation, with +mountains in the far distance and ravines everywhere. + +It was Christmas Day, and he had done his duty to his slaves and the folk +on his plantation. He had given presents, had attended a seven o'clock +breakfast of his people, had seen festivities of his negroes, and the +feast given by his manager in Creole style to all who came--planting +attorneys, buccras, overseers, bookkeepers, the subordinates of the local +provost-marshal, small planters, and a few junior officers of the army +and navy. + +He had turned away with cynicism from the overladen table, with its +shoulder of stewed wild boar in the centre; with its chocolate, coffee, +tea, spruce-beer, cassava-cakes, pigeon-pies, tongues, round of beef, +barbecued hog, fried conchs, black crab pepper-pod, mountain mullet, and +acid fruits. It was so unlike what his past had known, so "damnable +luxurious!" Now his eyes wandered over the space where were the +grandilla, with its blossom like a passion-flower, the black Tahiti plum, +with its bright pink tassel-blossom, and the fine mango trees, loaded +half with fruit and half with bud. In the distance were the guinea +cornfields of brownish hue, the cotton-fields, the long ranges of negro +houses like thatched cottages, the penguin hedges, with their beautiful +red, blue, and white convolvuluses; the lime, logwood, and breadfruit +trees, the avocado-pear, the feathery bamboo, and the jack-fruit tree; +and between the mountains and his own sugar-estates, negro settlements +and pens. He heard the flight of parrots chattering, he watched the +floating humming-bird, and at last he fixed his eyes upon the cabbage +tree down in the garden, and he had an instant desire for it. It was a +natural and human taste--the cabbage from the tree-top boiled for a +simple yet sumptuous meal. + +He liked simplicity. He did not, as so many did in Jamaica, drink claret +or punch at breakfast soon after sunrise. In a land where all were bon- +vivants, where the lowest tradesmen drank wine after dinner, and rum, +brandy and water, or sangaree in the forenoon, a somewhat lightsome view +of table-virtues might have been expected of the young unmarried planter. +For such was he who, from the windows of his "castle," saw his domain +shimmering in the sun of a hot December day. + +It was Dyck Calhoun. + +With an impatient air he took up the sheets that he had been reading. +Christmas Day was on his nerves. The whole town of Kingston, with its +twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants, had but one church. If he entered +it, even to-day, he would have seen no more than a hundred and fifty to +two hundred people; mostly mulattoes--"bronze ornaments"--and peasants in +shag trousers, jackets of coarse blue cloth, and no waistcoats, with one +or two magistrates, a dozen gentlemen or so, and probably twice that +number of ladies. It was not an island given over to piety, or to +religious habits. + +Not that this troubled Dyck Calhoun; nor, indeed, was he shocked by the +fact that nearly every unmarried white man in the island, and many +married white men, had black mistresses and families born to the black +women, and that the girls had no married future. They would become the +temporary wives of white men, to whom they were on the whole faithful and +devoted. It did not even vex him that a wretched mulatto might be +whipped in the market-square for laying his hands upon a white man, and +that if he was a negro-slave he could be shot for the same liberty. + +It all belonged to the abnormal conditions of an island where black and +white were in relations impossible in the countries from which the white +man had come. It did not even startle Dyck that all the planters, and +the people generally in the island, from the chief justice and custos +rotulorum down to the deckswabber, cultivated amplitude of living. + +But let Dyck tell his own story. The papers he held were sheets of a +letter he was writing to one from whom he had heard nothing since the +night he enlisted in the navy, and that was nearly three years before. +This was the letter: + + MY DEAR FRIEND: + + You will see I address you as you have done me in the two letters I + have had from you in the past. You will never read this letter, but + I write it as if you would. For you must know I may never hope for + personal intercourse with you. I was imprisoned for killing your + father, Erris Boyne, and that separates us like an abysss. It + matters little whether I killed him or not; the law says I did, and + the law has taken its toll of me. I was in prison for four years, + and when freed I enlisted in the king's navy, a quota man, with my + servant-friend, Michael Clones. That was the beginning of painful + and wonderful days for me. I was one of the mutineers of the Nore, + and-- + +Here followed a description of the days he had spent on the Ariadne and +before, and of all that happened down to the time when he was arrested by +the admiral in the West Indian Sea. He told how he was sent over to the +Ariadne with Captain Ivy to read the admiral's letter to the seamen, and +then, by consent of the admiral, to leave again with Michael Clones for +Jamaica, where he was set ashore with twenty pounds in his pocket--and +not on parole, by the admiral's command. Here the letter shall again +take up the story, and be a narrative of Dyck Calhoun's life from that +time until this Christmas Day. + + What to do was the question. I knew no one in Jamaica--no one at + all except the governor, Lord Mallow, and him I had fought with + swords in Phoenix Park five years before. I had not known he was + governor here. I came to know it when I first saw him riding over + the unpaved street into Kingston from Spanish Town with his suite, + ornate with his governorship. He was a startling figure in scarlet, + with huge epaulets on his lieutenant-general's uniform, as big a pot + as ever boiled on any fire-chancellor, head of the government and of + the army, master of the legislature, judging like one o'clock in the + court of chancery, controller of the affairs of civil life, and + maker of a policy of which he alone can judge who knows what + interests clash in the West Indies. + + English, French, Spanish, and Dutch are all hereabout. All struggle + for place above the other in the world of commerce and society, + though chiefly it is the English versus the French in these days; + and the policy of the governor is the policy of the country. He + never knows whether there will be a French naval descent or whether + the blacks in his own island will do as the blacks in St. Domingo + did--massacre the white people in thousands. Or whether the free + blacks, the Maroons, who got their freedom by treaty with Governor + Trelawney, when the British commander changed hats with Cudjoe, the + Maroon chief, as the sealing of the bargain--whether they will rise + again, as they before have risen, and bring terror into the white + settlement; and whether, in that case, all negro-slaves will join + them, and Jamaica become a land of revolution. + + Of what good, then, will be the laws lately passed regulating the + control of slaves, securing them rights never given before, even + forbidding lashes beyond forty-nine! Of what use, then, the + punishment of owners who have ill-used the slaves? The local + councils who have power to punish never proceed against white men + with rigour; and to preserve a fair balance between the white man up + above and the black down below is the responsibility of the fair- + minded governor. If, like Mallow, he is not fair-minded, then is + the lash the heavier, and the governor has burdens greater than + could easily be borne in lands where the climate is more friendly. + + Lord Mallow did not see me when I passed him in the street, but he + soon came to know of me from the admiral and Captain Ivy, who told + him all my story since I was freed from jail. Then he said I should + be confined in a narrow space near to Kingston, and should have no + freedom; but the admiral had his way, and I was given freedom of the + whole island till word should come from the Admiralty what should be + done with me. To the governor's mind it was dangerous allowing me + freedom, a man convicted of crime, who had been imprisoned, had been + a mutineer, had stolen one of his majesty's ships, and had fled to + the Caribbean Sea. He thought I should well be at the bottom of the + ocean, where he would soon have put me, I make no doubt, if it had + not been for the admiral, and Captain Ivy--you do not know him, I + think--who played a good part to me, when men once close friends + have deserted me. + + Well, we had, Michael and I, but twenty pounds between us; and if + there was not plenty of free food in the island, God knows what + would have become of us! But there it was, fresh in every field, by + every wayside, at every doorway. We could not starve, or die of + thirst, or faint for lack of sleep, since every bush was a bed in + spite of the garapatos or wood-ticks, the snore of the tree-toad, + the hoarse shriek of the macaw, and the shrill gird of the guinea- + fowl. Every bed was thus free, and there was land to be got for a + song, enough to grow what would suffice for two men's daily wants. + But we did not rest long upon the land--I have it still, land which + cost me five pounds out of the twenty, and for the rest there was an + old but on the little place--five acres it was, and good land too, + where you could grow anything at all. Heaven knows what we might + have become in that tiny plantation, for I was sick of life, and the + mosquitos and flying ants, and the chattering parroquets, the grim + gallinazo, and the quatre, or native bed--a wooden frame and canvas; + but one day at Kingston I met a man, one Cassandro Biatt, who had an + obsession for adventure, and he spoke to me privately. He said he + knew me from people's talk, and would I listen to him? What was + there to do? He was a clean-cut rogue, if ever there was one, but + a rogue of parts, as he proved; and I lent an ear. + + Now, what think you was his story? Well, but this--that off the + coast of Haiti, there was a ship which had been sunk with every man + on board, and with the ship was treasure without counting-jewels + belonging once to a Spaniard of high place, who was taking them to + Paris. His box had been kept in the captain's cabin, and it could + be found, no doubt, and brought to the surface. Even if that were + not possible, there was plenty of gold on the ship, and every piece + of it was good money. There had been searching for the ship, but + none had found it; but he, Cassandro Biatt, had sure knowledge, got + from an obi-man, of the place where it lay. It would not be an + expensive business, but, cheap as it was, he had no means of raising + cash for the purpose; while I could, no doubt, raise the needed + money if I set about it. That was how he put it to me. Would I do + it? It was not with me a case of "no shots left in the locker, no + copper to tinkle on a tombstone." I was not down to my last + macaroni, or quarter-dollar; but I drank some sangaree and set about + to do it. I got my courage from a look towards Rodney's statue in + its temple--Rodney did a great work for Jamaica against Admiral de + Grasse. + + Why should I tell Biatt the truth about myself? He knew it. + Cassandro was an accomplished liar, and a man of merit of his kind. + This obi-man's story I have never believed; yet how Biatt came to + know where that treasure-ship was I do not know now. + + Yes, out we went through the harbour of Kingston, beyond the + splendid defences of Port Royal and the men-of-war there, past the + Palisadoes and Rock Fort, and away to the place of treasure-trove. + We found it--that lost galleon; and we found the treasure-box of the + captain's cabin. We found gold too; but the treasure-box was the + chief thing; and we made it ours after many a hard day. Three + months it was from the day Biatt first spoke to me to the day when, + with an expert diver, we brought the box to the surface and opened + it. + + How I induced one of the big men of Jamaica to be banker and skipper + for us need not be told; but he is one of whom men have dark + sayings--chiefly, I take it, because he does bold, incomprehensible + things. That business paid him well, for when the rent of the ship + was met, and the few men on it paid--slaves they were chiefly--he + pocketed ten thousand pounds, while Biatt and I each pouched forty + thousand, and Michael two thousand. Aye, to be sure, Michael was in + it! He is in all I do, and is as good as men of ten times his birth + and history. Michael will be a rich man one day. In two years his + two thousand have grown to four, and he misses no chance. + + But those days when Biatt and I went treasure-ship hunting were not + without their trials. If we had failed, then no more could this + land have been home or resting-place for us. We should only have + been sojourners with no name, in debt, in disgrace, a pair of + braggart adventurers, who had worked a master-man of the island for + a ship, and money and men, and had lost all except the ship! Though + to be sure, the money was not a big thing--a, few hundred pounds; + but the ship was no flea-bite. It was a biggish thing, for it could + be rented to carry sugar--it was, in truth, a sugar-ship of four + hundred tons--but it never carried so big a cargo of sugar as it did + on the day when that treasure-box was brought to the surface of the + sea. + + I'm bound to say this--one of the straightest men I ever met, liar + withal, was Cassandro Biatt. He took his jewels and vanished up the + seas in a flourish. He would not even have another try at the gold + in the bowels of the ship. + + "I've got plenty to fill my paunch, and I'll go while I've enough. + It's the men not going in time that get left in the end"--that's + what he said. + + And he was right; for other men went after the gold and got some of + it, and were caught by French and South American pirates and lost + all they had gained. Still another group went and brought away ten + thousand pounds, and lost it in fighting with Spanish buccaneers. + So Biatt was right, and went away content, while I stayed here-- + because I must--and bought the land and house where I have my great + sugar-plantation. It is an enterprise of volume, and all would be + well if I were normal in mind and body; but I am not. I have a past + that stinks to heaven, as Shakespeare says, and I am an outlaw of + the one land which has all my soul and name and heritage. Yes, that + is what they have done to me--made a convict, an outlaw of me. I + may live--but not in the British Isles; and if any man kills me, he + is not liable to the law. + + Men do not treat me badly here, for I have property and money, and + this is a land where these two things mean more than anywhere else, + even more than in a republic like that where you live. Here men + live according to the law of the knife, fork, and bottle, yet + nowhere in the world is there deeper national morality or wider + faith or endurance. It is a land where the sea is master, where + naval might is the chief factor, and weighs down all else. + + Here the navies of the great powers meet and settle their disputes, + and every being in the island knows that life is only worth what a + hundred-ton brig-of-war permits. I have seen here in Jamaica the + off-scourings of the French and Spanish fleets on parole; have seen + them entering King's House like loyal citizens; have even known of + French prisoners being used as guards at the entrance of King's + House, and I have informed the chief justice of dismal facts which + ought to have moved him. But what can you expect of a chief justice + who need not be a lawyer, as this one is not, and has other means of + earning income which, though not disloyal, are lowering to the + status of a chief justice? And not the chief justice alone. I have + seen French officers entertained at Government House who were guilty + of shocking inhumanities and cruelties. The governor, Lord Mallow, + is much to blame. On him lies the responsibility; to him must go + the discredit. For myself, I feel his enmity on every hand. I + suffer from his suggestions; I am the victim of his dark moods. + + If I want a concession from a local council, his hand is at work + against me; if I see him in the street, I get a courtesy tossed, as + you would toss a bone to a dog. If I appear at the king's ball, + which is open to all on the island who are respectable, I am treated + with such disdain by the viceroy of the king that all the island is + agog. I went one day to the king's ball the same as the rest of the + world, and I went purposely in dress contrary to the regulations. + Here was the announcement of the affair in the Royal Gazette, which + was reproduced in the Chronicle, the one important newspaper in the + island: + + KING'S HOUSE, + October 27th, 1797. + + KING'S BALL. + + There will be a Ball given by His Honour the Lieutenant- + Governor, on Tuesday evening, the 6th day of December next, + in honour of + + HIS MAJESTY'S BIRTHDAY. + + To prevent confusion, Ladies and Gentlemen are requested to + order their carriages to come by the Old Court House, and go + off by the Long Room. + + N.B.--No gentlemen can possibly be admitted in boots, or + otherwise improperly dressed. + + + Well, in a spirit of mutiny--in which I am, in a sense, an expert-- + I went in boots and otherwise "improperly dressed," for I wore my + hair in a queue, like a peasant. What is more, I danced with a + negress in the great quadrille, and thereby offended the governor + and his lady aunt, who presides at his palace. It matters naught to + me. On my own estate it was popular enough, and that meant more to + me than this goodwill of Lord Mallow. + + He does not spare me in his recitals to his friends, who carry his + speech abroad. His rancour against me is the greater, I know, + because of the wealth I got in the treasure-ship, to prevent which + he tried to prohibit my leaving the island, through the withholding + of a leave-ticket to me. His argument to the local authorities was + that I had no rights, that I am a murderer and a mutineer, and + confined to the island, though not on parole. He almost succeeded; + but the man to whom I went, the big rich man intervened, + successfully--how I know not--and I was let go with my permit- + ticket. + + What big things hang on small issues! If my Lord Mallow had + prevented me leaving the island, I shouldn't now own a great + plantation and three hundred negroes. I shouldn't be able to pay + my creditors in good gold Portuguese half-johannes and Spanish + doubloons, and be free of Spanish silver, and give no heed to the + bitt, which, as you perhaps know, is equal to fivepence in British + money, such as you and I used to spend when you were Queen of + Ireland and I was your slave. + + Then I worshipped you as few women have been worshipped in all the + days of the world--oh, cursed spite of life and time that I should + have been jailed for killing your bad father! Aye, he was a bad + man, and he is better in his grave than out of it, but it puts a + gulf between you and me which nothing will ever bridge--unless it + should some day be known I did not kill him, and then, no doubt, it + will be too late. + + On my soul, I don't believe I put my sword into him; but if I did, + he well deserved it, for he was worse than faithless to your mother, + he was faithless to his country--he was a traitor! I did not tell + that story of his treachery in court--I did not tell it because of + you. You did not deserve such infamy, and the truth came not out at + the trial. I, in my view, dared not, lest it might injure you, and + you had suffered enough--nay, more than enough--through him. + + I wonder how you are, and if you have changed--I mean in appearance. + I am sure you are not married; I should have felt it in my bones, + if you were. No, no, my sweet lass, you are not married. But + think--it is more than seven long years since we met on the hills + above Playmore, and you put your hand in mine and said we should be + friends for all time. It is near three years since a letter came to + me from you, and in the time I have made progress. + + I did not go to the United States, as you asked me to do. Is it not + plain I could not? My only course was to avoid you. You see, your + mother knows the truth--knows that I was jailed for killing your + father and her divorced husband. Therefore, the only way to do was + as I did. I could not go where you were. There should be hid from + you the fact that Erris Boyne was a traitor. This is your right, in + my mind. Looking back, I feel sure I could have escaped jail if I + had told what I knew of Erris Boyne; and perhaps it would have been + better, for I should, no doubt, have been acquitted. Yet I could + not have gone to you, for I am not sure I did not kill him. + + So it is best as it is. We are as we are, and nothing can make all + different for us. I am a dissolute planter of Jamaica who has + snatched from destiny a living and some riches. I have a bad name + in the world. Yet by saving the king's navy from defeat out here I + did a good turn for my country and the empire. + + So much to the good. It brought me freedom from the rope and pardon + for my chief offence. Then, in company with a rogue, I got wealth + from the depths of the sea, and here I am in the bottom of my + luxury, drunken and obscene--yes, obscene, for I permit my overseers + and my manager to keep black women and have children by them. That + I do not do so myself is no virtue on my part, but the virtue of a + girl whom I knew in Connemara. I fill myself with drink. I have a + bottle of madeira or port every night, and pints of beer or claret. + I am a creature of low habits, a man sodden with self-indulgence. + And when I am in drink, no slaver can be more cruel and ruthless. + + Yet I am moderate in eating. The meals that people devour here + almost revolt me. They eat like cormorants and drink like dry + ground; but at my table I am careful, save with the bottle. This + is a land of wonderful fruits, and I eat in quantities pineapple, + tamarind, papaw, guava, sweet-sop, star-apple, granadilla, hog-plum, + Spanish-gooseberry, and pindal-nut. These are native, but there are + also the orange, lemon, lime, shaddock, melon, fig, pomegranate, + cinnamon, and mango, brought chiefly from the Spanish lands of South + America. The fruit-market here is good, Heaven knows, and I have my + run of it. Perhaps that is why my drink does not fatten me greatly. + Yes, I am thin--thinner even than when you saw me last. How + wonderful a day it was! You remember it, I'm sure. + + We stood on the high hills, you and I, looking to the west. It was + a true Irish day. A little in front of us, in the sky, were great + clusters of clouds, and beyond them, as far as eye could see, were + hills so delicately green, so spotted with settlements, so misty and + full of glamour, and so cheerful with the western light. And the + storm broke--do you remember it? It broke, but not on us. It fell + on the middle of the prospect before us, and we saw beyond it the + bright area of sunny country where men work and prophesy and slave, + and pray to the ancient gods and acclaim the saints, and die and + fructify the mould; where such as Christopher Dogan live, and men a + thousand times lower than he. Christopher came to the jail the day + I was released--with Michael Clones he came. He read me my bill of + life's health--what was to become of me--the black and the white of + it, the good and the bad, the fair and the foul. Even the good + fortune of the treasure from the sea he foresaw, and much else that + has not come to me, and, as I think, will never come; for it is too + full a cup for me so little worthy of it. + + It seems strange to me that I am as near to the United States here + in Jamaica, or almost as near, as one in London is to one in Dublin; + and yet one might as well be ten thousand leagues distant for all it + means to her one loves in the United States. Yes, dear Sheila, I + love you, and I would tear out the heart of the world for you. I + bathe my whole being in your beauty and your charm. I hunger for + you--to stand beside you, to listen to your voice, to dip my prison + fingers into the pure cauldron of your soul and feel my own soul + expand. I wonder why it is that to-day I feel more than I ever felt + before the rare splendour of your person. + + I have always admired you and loved you, always heard you calling + me, as if from some sacred corner of a perfect world. Is it that + yesterday's dissipation--yes, I was drunk yesternight, drunk in a + new way. I was drunk with the thought of you, the longing for you. + I picked a big handful of roses, and in my mind gave them into your + hands. And I thought you smiled and said: + + "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter Paradise." So I + followed you to your home there in the Virginian country. It was a + dream, all except the roses, and those I laid in front of the box + where I keep your letters and a sketch I made of you when we were + young and glad--when I was young and glad. For I am an old man, + Sheila, in all that makes men old. My step is quick still, my eye + is sharp, and my brain beats fast, but my heart is ancient. I am an + ancient of days, without hope or pleasure, save what pleasure comes + in thinking of one whom I worship, yet must ever worship from afar. + + I wonder why I seem to feel you very near to-day! Perhaps it's + because 'tis Christmas Day. I am not a religious man but Christmas + is a day of memories. + + Is it because of the past in Ireland? Am I only--God, am I only to + be what I am for the rest of my days, a planter denied the pleasure + of home by his own acts! Am I only a helpless fragment of a world + of lost things? + + I have no friends--but yes, I have. I have Michael Clones and + Captain Ivy, though he's far away-aye, he's a friend of friends, is + Captain Ivy. These naval folk have had so much of the world, have + got the bearings of so many seas, that they lose all littleness, and + form their own minds. They are not like the people who knew me in + Ireland--the governor here is one of them--and who believe the worst + of me. The governor--faugh, he was made for bigger and better + things! He is one of the best swordsmen in the world, and he is + out against me here as if I was a man of importance, and not a + commonplace planter on an obscure river. I have no social home + life, and yet I live in what is called a castle. A Jamaica castle + has none of the marks of antiquity, chivalry, and distinction which + castles that you and I know in the old land possess. + + What is my castle like? Well, it is a squarish building, of + bungalow type, set on a hill. It has stories and an attic, with a + jutting dormer-window in the front of the roof; and above the lowest + story there is a great verandah, on which the livingrooms and + bedrooms open. It is commodious, and yet from a broad standpoint it + is without style or distinction. It has none of those Corinthian + pillars which your homesteads in America have. Yet there is in it a + simple elegance. It has no carpets, but a shining mahogany floor, + for there are few carpets in this land of heat. It is a place where + music and mirth and family voices would be fitting; but there are no + family voices here, save such as speak with a negro lisp and + oracularly. + + I can hear music at this moment, and inside my castle. It comes + from the irrepressible throats of my cook and my housemaid, who have + more joy in the language of the plantation than you could have in + the songs of St. Angelus. The only person in this castle out of + spirits is its owner. + + My castle is embowered in a loose grove of palms and acacias, + pimento shrubs, spendid star-apples, and bully-trees, with wild + lemon, mahogany, dogwood, Jerusalem-thorn, and the waving plumes of + bamboo canes. There is nothing British in it--nothing at all. It + stands on brick pillars, is reached by a stair of marble slabs, and + has a great piazza on the front. You enter a fine, big hall, dark- + you will understand that, though it is not so hot in Virginia, for + the darkness makes for coolness. From the hall the bedrooms open + all round. We are not so barbaric here as you might think, for my + dining-room, which lies beyond the hall, with jalousies or movable + blinds, exposed to all the winds, is comfortable, even ornate. + There you shall see waxlights on the table, and finger-glasses with + green leaves, and fine linen and napkins, and plenty of silver--even + silver wine-coolers, and beakers of fame and beauty, and flowers, + flowers everywhere, and fruit of exquisite charm. I have to live + in outward seeming as do my neighbours, even to keeping a black + footman, gorgeously dressed, with bare legs. + + Here at my window grows a wild aloe, and it is in flower. Once only + in fifty years does this aloe flower, and I pick its sweet verdure + now and offer it to you. There it lies, beside this letter that I + am writing. It is typical of myself, for only once has my heart + flowered, and it will be only once in fifty years. The perfume of + the flower is like an everlasting bud from the last tree of Time. + See, my Sheila, your drunken, reckless lover pulls this sweet + offering from his garden and offers it to you. He has no virtues; + and yet he would have been a thousand times worse, if you had not + come into his life. He had in him the seeds of trouble, the + sproutings of shame, for even in the first days of his love there in + Dublin he would not restrain himself. He drank, he played cards, he + fought and went with bad company--not women, never that; but he kept + the company of those through whom he came at last to punishment for + manslaughter. + + Yet, without you, who can tell what he might have been? He might + have fallen so low that not the wealth of ten thousand treasure- + boxes could give him even the appearance of honesty. And now he + offers you what you cannot accept--can never accept--a love as deep + as the life from which he came; a love that would throttle the world + for you, that would force the doors of hell to bring you what you + want. + + What do you want? I know not. Perhaps you have inherited the vast + property to which you were the heir. If you have, what can you want + that you have not means to procure? Ah, I have learned one thing, + my friend 'one can get nearly everything with money. It is the + hidden machinery which makes the world of success go round. With + brains, you say? Yes, money and brains, but without the money + brains seldom win alone. Do not I know? When I was in prison, with + estate vanished and home gone and my father in his grave, who was + concerned about me? + + Only the humblest of all God's Irish people; but with them I have + somehow managed to win back lost ground. I am a stronger man than I + was in all that men count of value in the world. I have an estate + where I work like any youth who has everything before him. I have + nothing before me, yet I shall go on working to the end. Why? + Because I have some faculties which are more than bread and butter, + and I must give them opportunity. + + Yet I am not always sane. Sometimes I feel I could march out and + sweep into the sea one of the towns that dot the coast of this + island. I have the bloody thirst, as said the great Spanish + conquistador. I would like--yes, sometimes I would like to sweep + to a watery grave one of the towns that are a glory to this island, + as Savanna la Mar was swept to oblivion in the year 1780 by a + hurricane. You can still see the ruins of the town at the bottom of + the sea--I have sailed over it in what is now the harbour, and there + beneath, on the deep sands, lost to time and trouble, is the slain + and tortured town of Savanna la Mar. Was the Master of the World + angry that day when, with a besom of wind and a tidal wave, He swept + the place into the sea? Or was it some devil's work while the Lord + of All slept? As the Spanish say, Quien sabe? + + Then there was that other enormous incident which made a man to be + swallowed by an earthquake, then belched out again into the sea and + picked up and restored to life again, and to live for many years. + Indeed, yes, it is so. His tombstone may be seen even at this day + at Green Bay, Kingston. His name was Lewis Galdy, and he is held in + high repute in this land. + + I feel sometimes as Beelzebub may feel, and I long to do what + Beelzebub might do as part of his mission. Sometimes a madness + of revolt comes over me, and I long to ravage all the places I see, + all the people I know--or nearly all. Why I do not have negroes + thrashed and mutilated, as some do, I know not. Over against the + southern shore in the parish of St. Elizabeth is an estate called + Salem, owned, it is said, by an American, where the manager does + such things. I am told that savageries are found there. There + are too many absentee owners of land in this island, and the wrongs + done by agents who have no personal honour at stake are all too + plentiful. If I could, I would have no slavery, would set all the + blacks free, making full compensation to the owners, and less to the + absentee owners. + + I look out on a world of summer beauty and of heat. I see the sheep + in hundreds on the far hills of pasturage--sheep with short hair, + small and sweet as any that ever came from the South Downs. I see + the natives in their Madras handkerchiefs. I see upon the road some + planter in his ketureen--a sort of sedan chair; I see a negro + funeral, with its strange ceremony and its gumbies of African drums. + I see yam-fed planters, on their horses, making for the burning, + sandy streets of the capital. I see the Scots grass growing five + and six feet high, food unsurpassed for horses--all the foliage too + --beautiful tropical trees and shrubs, and here and there a huge + breeding-farm. Yet I know that out beyond my sight there is the + region known as Trelawney, and Trelawney Town, the headquarters of + the Maroons, the free negroes--they who fled after the Spanish had + been conquered and the British came, and who were later freed and + secured by the Trelawney Treaty. I know that now they are ready to + rise, that they are working among the slaves; and if they rise the + danger is great to the white population of the island, who are + outnumbered ten to one. + + The governor has been warned, but he gives no heed, or treats it all + lightly, pointing out how few the Maroons are. He forgets that a + few determined men can demoralize a whole state, can fight and + murder and fly to dark coverts in the tropical woods, where they + cannot be tracked down and destroyed; and, if they have made + supporters of the slaves, what consequences may not follow! + + What do the Maroons look like? They are ferocious and isolated, + they are proud and overbearing, they are horribly cruel, but they + are potent, and are difficult to reach. They are not small and + meagre, but are big, brawny fellows, clothed in wide duck trousers + and shirts, and they are well-armed--cutlass, powder-horn, + haversack, sling, shot-gun, and pouch for ball. They dress as the + country requires, and they are strong fighters against our soldiers + who are burdened with heavy muskets, and who defy the climate, with + their stuffed coats, their weighty caps, and their tight cross- + belts. The Maroons are not to be despised. They have brains, the + insolence of freedom among natives who are not free, and vast + cruelty. They can be mastered and kept in subjection, can be made + allies, if properly handled; but Lord Mallow goes the wrong way + about it all. He permits things that inflame the Maroons. + + One thing is clear to me--only by hounds can these people be + defeated. So sure am I upon this point, that I have sent to Cuba + for sixty hounds, with which, when the trouble comes--and it is not + far off--we shall be able to hunt the Maroons with the only weapon + they really fear--the dog's sharp tooth. It may be the governor may + intervene on the arrival of the dogs; but I have made friends with + the provost-marshal-general and some members of the Jamaica + legislature; also I have a friend in the deputy of the provost- + marshal-general in my parish of Clarendon here, and I will make a + good bet that the dogs will be let come into the island, governor + or no governor. + + When one sets oneself against the Crown one must be sure of one's + ground, and fear no foe, however great and high. Well, I have won + so far, and I shall win in the end. Mallow should have some respect + for one that beat him at Phoenix Park with the sword; that beat him + when he would have me imprisoned here; that beat him in the matter + of the ship for Haiti, and that will beat him on every hazard he + sets, unless he stoops to underhand acts, which he will not do. + That much must be said for him. He plays his part in no small way, + and he is more a bigot and a fanatic loyalist than a rogue. + Suppose--but no, I will not suppose. I will lay my plans, I will + keep faith with people here who trust me, and who know that if I am + stern I am also just, and I will play according to the rules made by + better men than myself. + +But what is this I see? Michael Clones--in his white jean waistcoat, +white neckcloth and trousers, and blue coat--is coming up the drive in +hot haste, bearing a letter. He rides too hard. He has never carried +himself easily in this climate. He treats it as if it was Ireland. He +will not protect himself, and, if penalty followed folly, should now be +in his grave. I like you, Michael. You are a boon, but-- + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +STRANGERS ARRIVE + +Dyck Calhoun's letter was never ended. It was only a relic of the years +spent in Jamaica, only a sign of his well-being, though it gave no real +picture of himself. He did not know how like a tyrant he had become in +some small ways, while in the large things he remained generous, urbane, +and resourceful. He was in appearance thin, dark-favoured, buoyant in +manner, and stern of face, with splendid eyes. Had he dwelt on Olympus, +he might have been summoned to judge and chastise the sons of men. + +When Michael Clones came to the doorway, Dyck laid down his quill-pen and +eyed the flushed servant in disapproval. + +"What is it, Michael? Wherefore this starkness? Is some one come from +heaven?" + +"Not precisely from heaven, y'r honour, but--" + +"But--yes, Michael! Have done with but-ing, and come to the real +matter." + +"Well, sir, they've come from Virginia." + +Dyck Calhoun slowly got to his feet, his face paling, his body +stiffening. From Virginia! Who should be come from Virginia, save she +to whom he had just been writing? + +"Who has come from Virginia?" He knew, but he wanted it said. + +"Sure, you knew a vessel came from America last night. Well, in her was +one that was called the Queen of Ireland long ago." + +"Queen of Ireland--well, what then?" Dyck's voice was tuneless, his +manner rigid, his eyes burning. "Well, she--Miss Sheila Llyn and her +mother are going to the Salem Plantation, down by the Essex Valley +Mountain. It is her plantation now. It belonged to her uncle, Bryan +Llyn. He got it in payment of a debt. He's dead now, and all his lands +and wealth have come to her. Her mother, Mrs. Llyn, is with her, and +they start to-morrow or the next day for Salem. There'll be different +doings at Salem henceforward, y'r honour. She's not the woman to see +slaves treated as the manager at Salem treated 'em." + +Dyck Calhoun made an impatient gesture at this last remark. + +"Yes, yes, Michael. Where are they now?" + +"They're at Charlotte Bedford's lodgings in Spanish Town. The governor +waited on them this morning. The governor sent them flowers and--" + +"Flowers--Lord Mallow sent them flowers! Hell's fiend, man, suppose he +did?" + +"There are better flowers here than in any Spanish Town." + +"Well, take them, Michael; but if you do, come here again no more while +you live, for I'll have none of you. Do you think I'm entering the lists +against the king's governor?" + +"You've done it before, sir, and there's no harm in doing it again. One +good turn deserves another. I've also to tell you, sir, that Lord Mallow +has asked them to stay at King's House." + + +"Lord Mallow has asked Americans to stay at King's House!" + +"But they're Irish, and he knew them in Ireland, y 'r honour." + +"Well, he knew me in Ireland, and I'm proscribed!" + +"Ah, that's different, as you know. There's no war on now, and they're +only good American citizens who own land in this dominion of the king; so +why shouldn't he give them courtesy?" + +"From whom do you get your information?" asked Dyck Calhoun with an air +of suspicion. + +"From Darius Boland, y'r honour," answered Michael, with a smile. "Who +is Darius Boland, you're askin' in y'r mind? Well, he's the new manager +come from the Llyn plantations in Virginia; and right good stuff he is, +with a tongue that's as dry as cut-wheat in August. And there's humour +in him, plenty-aye, plenty. When did I see him, and how? Well, I saw +him this mornin', on the quay at Kingston. He was orderin' the porters +about with an air--oh, bedad, an air! I saw the name upon the parcels-- +Miss Sheila Llyn, of Moira, Virginia, and so I spoke to him. The rest +was aisy. He looked me up and down in a flash, like a searchlight +playin' on an enemy ship, and then he smiled. 'Well,' said he, 'who +might you be? For there's queer folks in Jamaica, I'm told.' So I said +I was Michael Clones, and at that he doffed his hat and held out a hand. +'Well, here's luck,' said he. 'Luck at the very start! I've heard of +you from my mistress. You're servant to Mr. Dyck Calhoun--ain't that +it?' And I nodded, and he smiled again--a smile that'd cost money +annywhere else than in Jamaica. He smiled again, and give a slow hitch +to his breeches as though they was fallin' down. Why, sir, he's the +longest bit of man you ever saw, with a pointed beard, and a nose that's +as long as a midshipman's tongue-dry, lean, and elastic. He's quick and +slow all at once. His small eyes twinkle like stars beatin' up against +bad weather, and his skin's the colour of Scots grass in the dead of +summer-yaller, he'd call it if he called it anything, and yaller was what +he called the look of the sky above the hills. Queer way of talk he has, +that man, as queer as--" + +"I understand, Michael. But what else? How did you come to talk about +the affairs of Mrs. and Miss Llyn? He didn't just spit it out, did he?" + +"Sure, not so quick and free as spittin', y'r honour; but when he'd +sorted me out, as it were, he said Miss Llyn had come out here to take +charge of Salem; her own estate in Virginia bein' in such good runnin' +order, and her mind bein' active. Word had come of the trouble with the +manager here, and one of the provost-marshal's deputies had written +accounts of the flogging and ill-treatment of slaves, and that's why +she come--to put things right at Salem!" + +"To put things wrong in Jamaica, Michael, that's why she's come. To +loose the ball of confusion and free the flood of tragedy--that's why +she's come! Man, Michael, you know her history--who she was and what +happened to her father. Well, do you think there's no tragedy in her +coming here? I killed her father, they say, Michael. I was punished for +it. I came here to be free of all those things--lifted out and away from +them all. I longed to forget the past, which is only shame and torture; +and here it is all spread out at my door again like a mat, which I must +see as I go in and out. Essex Valley--why, it's less than a day's ride +from here, far less than a day's ride! It can be ridden in four or five +hours at a trot. Michael, it's all a damnable business. And here she is +in Jamaica with her Darius Boland! There was no talk on Boland's part of +their coming here, was there Michael?" + +"None at all, sir, but there was that in the man's eye, and that in his +tone, which made me sure he thought Miss Llyn and you would meet." + +"That would be strange, wouldn't it, in this immense continent!" Dyck +remarked cynically. + +"She knew I was here before she came?" + +"Aye, she knew. She had seen your name in the papers--English and +Jamaican. She knew you had regained your life and place, and was a man +of mark here." + +"A marked man, you mean, Michael--a man whom the king has had to pardon +of a crime because of an act done that served the State. I am forbidden +to return to the British Isles or to the land of my birth, forbidden free +traffic as a citizen, hammered out of recognition by the strokes of +enmity. A man of mark, indeed! Aye, with the broad arrow on me, with +the shame of prison and mutiny on my name!" + +"But if she don't believe?" + +"If she don't believe! Well, she must be told the truth at last. I +wonder her mother let her come here. Her mother knew part of the truth. +She hid it all from the girl--and now they are here! I must see it +through, but it's a wretched fate, Michael." + +"Perhaps her mother didn't know you were here, sir." + +Dyck laughed grimly. "Michael, you've a lawyer's mind. Perhaps you're +right. The girl may have hid from her mother all newspapers referring to +me. That may well be; but it's not the way that will bring +understanding." + +"I think it's the truth, sir, for Darius Boland spoke naught of the +mother--indeed, he said only what would make me think the girl came with +her own ends in view. Faith, I'm sure the mother did not know." + +"She will know now. Your Darius Boland will tell her." + +"By St. Peter, it doesn't matter who tells her, sir. The business must +be faced." + +"Michael, order my horse, and I will go to Spanish Town. This matter +must be brought to a head. The truth must be told. Order my horse!" +"It is the very heat of the day, sir." + +"Then at five o'clock, after dinner, have my horse here." + +"Am I to ride with you, sir?" + +Dyck nodded. "Yes, Michael. There's only one thing to do--face all the +facts with all the evidence, and you are fact and evidence too. You know +more of the truth than any one else." + +Several hours later, when the sun was abating its force a little, after +travelling the burning roads through yams and cocoa, grenadillas and all +kinds of herbs and roots and vagrant trees, Dyck Calhoun and Michael +Clones came into Spanish Town. Dyck rode the unpaved streets on his +horse with its high demipicque Spanish saddle, with its silver stirrups +and heavy bit, and made his way towards Charlotte Bedford's lodgings. + +Dyck looked round upon the town with new eyes. He saw it like one for +the first time visiting it. He saw the people passing through the wide +verandahs of the houses, like a vast colonnade, down the street, to be +happily sheltered from the fierce sun. As he had come down from the +hills he thought he had never seen the houses look more beautiful in +their gardens of wild tamarinds, kennips, cocoa-nuts, pimentos, and +palms, backed by negro huts. He had seen all sorts of people at the +draw-wells of the houses-British, Spanish, French, South American, +Creoles, and here and there a Maroon, and the everlasting negro who sang +as he worked: + + "Come along o' me, my buccra brave, + You see de shild de Lord he gave: + You drink de sangaree, + I make de frichassee--" + +Here a face peeped out from the glazed sash of the jalousies of the +balconies above--a face that could never be said to be white, though it +had only a tinge of black in its coaxing beauty. There a workman with +long hair and shag trousers painted the prevailing two-storied house the +prevailing colour, white and green. There was a young naval officer in +full dress, gold-buckled shoes, white trousers, short jacket with gold +swab on shoulders, dress-sword and smart gait making for supper at King's +House. + +A long-legged "son of a gun" of a Yankee had a "clapper-claw," or +handshake, with a planting attorney in a kind of four-posted gig, +canopied in leather and curtained clumsily. The Yankee laughed at the +heavy straight shafts and the mule that drew the volante, as the gig was +called, and the vehicle creaked and cried as it rolled along over the +road, which was like a dry river-bed. There a French officer in Hessian +boots, white trousers, blue uniform, and much-embroidered scarlet cuffs +watched with amusement a slave carrying a goglet, or earthen jar, upon +his head like an Egyptian, untouched by the hand, so adding dignity to +carriage. He was holding a "round-aboutation" with an old hag who was +telling his fortune. + +As they passed King's House, they saw troops of the viceroy's guests +issuing from the palace-officers of the king's navy and army, officers +and men of the Jamaica militia, pale-faced, big-eyed men of the Creole +class, mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons, Samboes with their wives in +loose skirts, white stockings, and pinnacle hats. There also passed, in +the streets, black servants with tin cases on their heads, or carrying +parcels in their arms, and here and there processions of servants, each +with something that belonged to their mistresses, who would presently be +attending the king's ball. + +Snatches of song were heard, and voices of men who had had a full meal +and had "taken observations"--as looking through the bottom of a glass of +liquor was called by people with naval spirit--were mixed in careless +carousal. + +All this jarred on Dyck Calhoun and gave revolt to his senses. Yet he +was only half-conscious of the great sensuousness of the scene as he +passed through it. Now and then some one doffed a hat to him, and very +occasionally some half-drunken citizen tossed at him a remark meant to +wound; but he took no notice, and let things pleasant and provocative +pass down the long ranges of indifference. + +All was brought to focus at last, however, by their arrival at Charlotte +Bedford's lodgings, which, like most houses in the town, had a lookout or +belfry fitted with green blinds and a telescope, and had a green-painted +wooden railing round it. + +At the very entrance, inside the gate, in the garden, they saw Sheila +Llyn, her mother, and Darius Boland, who seemed to be enduring from the +mother some sharp reprimand, to the amusement of the daughter. As the +gate closed behind Dyck and Michael, the three from Virginia turned round +and faced them. As Dyck came forward, Sheila flushed and trembled. She +was no longer a young girl, but her slim straightness and the soft lines +of her figure, gave her a dignity and charm which made her young +womanhood distinguished--for she was now twenty-five, and had a carriage +of which a princess might have been proud. Yet it was plain that the +entrance of Dyck at this moment was disturbing. It was not what she had +foreseen. + +She showed no hesitation, however, but came forward to meet her visitor, +while Michael fell back, as also did Darius Boland. Both these seemed to +realize that the less they saw and heard the better; and they presently +got together in another part of the garden, as Dyck Calhoun came near +enough almost to touch Sheila. + +Surely, he thought, she was supreme in appearance and design. She was +like some rare flower of the field, alert, gentle, strong, intrepid, with +buoyant face, brown hair, blue eyes and cream-like skin. She was touched +by a rose on each cheek and made womanly by firm and yet generous +breasts, tenderly imprisoned by the white chiffon of her blouse in which +was one bright sprig of the buds of a cherry-tree-a touch of modest +luxuriance on a person sparsely ornamented. It was not tropical, this +picture of Sheila Llyn; it was a flick of northern life in a summer sky. +It was at once cheerful and apart. It had no August in it; no oil and +wine. It was the little twig that grew by a running spring. It was +fresh, dominant and serene. It was Connemara on the Amazon! It was +Sheila herself, whom time had enriched with far more than years and +experience. It was a personality which would anywhere have taken place +and held it. It was undefeatable, persistent and permanent; it was the +spirit of Ireland loose in a world that was as far apart from Ireland as +she was from her dead, dishonoured father. + +And Dyck? At first she felt she must fly to him--yes, in spite of the +fact that he had suffered prison for manslaughter. But a nearer look at +him stopped the impulse at its birth. Here was the Dyck Calhoun she had +known in days gone by, but not the Dyck she had looked to see; for this +man was like one who had come from a hanging, who had seen his dearest +swinging at the end of a rope. His face was set in coldness; his hair +was streaked with grey; his forehead had a line in the middle; his manner +was rigid, almost frigid, indeed. Only in his eyes was there that which +denied all that his face and manner said--a hungry, absorbing, hopeless +look, the look of one who searches for a friend in the denying desert. + +Somehow, when he bowed low to her, and looked her in the eyes as no one +in all her life had ever done, she had an almost agonized understanding +of what a man feels who has been imprisoned--that is, never the same +again. He was an ex-convict, and yet she did not feel repelled by him. +She did not believe he had killed Erris Boyne. As for the later crime +of mutiny, that did not concern her much. She was Irish; but, more than +that, she was in sympathy with the mutineers. She understood why Dyck +Calhoun, enlisting as a common sailor, should take up their cause and run +risk to advance it. That he had advanced it was known to all the world; +that he had paid the price of his mutiny by saving the king's navy with +a stolen ship had brought him pardon for his theft of a ship and mutiny; +and that he had won wealth was but another proof of the man's power. + +"You would not come to America, so I came here, and--" She paused, her +voice trembling slightly. "There is much to do at Salem," he added +calmly, and yet with his heart beating, as it had not beaten since the +day he had first met her at Playmore. + +"You would not take the money I sent to Dublin for you--the gift of a +believing friend, and you would not come to America!" + +"I shall have to tell you why one day," he answered slowly, "but I'll pay +my respects to your mother now." So saying he went forward and bowed low +to Mrs. Llyn. Unlike her daughter, Mrs. Llyn did not offer her hand. +She was pale, distraught, troubled--and vexed. She, however, murmured +his name and bowed. "You did not expect to see me here in Jamaica," he +said boldly. + +"Frankly, I did not, Mr. Calhoun," she said. + +"You resent my coming here to see you? You think it bold, at least." + +She looked at him closely and firmly. "You know why I cannot welcome +you." + +"Yet I have paid the account demanded by the law. And you had no regard +for him. You divorced him." + +Sheila had drawn near, and Dyck made a gesture in her direction. "She +does not know," he said, "and she should not hear what we say now?" + +Mrs. Llyn nodded, and in a low tone told Sheila that she wished to be +alone with Dyck for a little while. In Dyck's eyes, as he watched Sheila +go, was a thing deeper than he had ever known or shown before. In her +white gown, and with her light step, Sheila seemed to float away--a +picture graceful, stately, buoyant, "keen and small." As she was about +to pass beyond a clump of pimento bushes, she turned her head towards the +two, and there was that in her eyes which few ever see and seeing are +afterwards the same. It was a look of inquiry, or revelation, of emotion +which went to Dyck's heart. + +"No, she does not know the truth," Mrs. Llyn said. "But it has been hard +hiding it from her. One never knew whether some chance remark, some +allusion in the papers, would tell her you had killed her father." + +"Did I kill her father?" asked Dyck helplessly. "Did I? I was found +guilty of it, but on my honour, Mrs. Llyn, I do not know, and I do not +think I did. I have no memory of it. We quarrelled. I drew my sword on +him, then he made an explanation and I madly, stupidly drank drugged wine +in reconciliation with him, and then I remember nothing more--nothing at +all." + +"What was the cause of your quarrel?" + +Dyck looked at her long before answering. "I hid that from my father +even, and hid it from the world--did not even mention it in court at the +trial. If I had, perhaps I should not have gone to jail. If I had, +perhaps I should not be here in Jamaica. If I had--" He paused, a flood +of reflection drowning his face, making his eyes shine with black sorrow. + +"Well, if you had! . . . Why did you not? Wasn't it your duty to +save yourself and save your friends, if you could? Wasn't that your +plain duty?" + +"Yes, and that was why I did not tell what the quarrel was. If I had, +even had I killed Erris Boyne, the jury would not have convicted me. +Of that I am sure. It was a loyalist jury." + +"Then why did you not?" + +"Isn't it strange that now after all these years, when I have settled the +account with judge and jury, with state and law--that now I feel I must +tell you the truth. Madam, your ex-husband, Erris Boyne, was a traitor. +He was an officer in the French army, and he offered to make me an +officer also and pay me well in French Government money, if I would break +my allegiance and serve the French cause--Ah, don't start! He knew I was +on my last legs financially. He knew I had acquaintance with young rebel +leaders like Emmet, and he felt I could be won. So he made his proposal. +Because of your daughter I held my peace, for she could bear it less than +you. I did not tell the cause of the quarrel. If I had, there would +have been for her the double shame. That was why I held my peace--a +fool, but so it was!" + +The woman seemed almost robbed of understanding. His story overwhelmed +her. Yet what the man had done was so quixotic, so Celtic, that her +senses were almost paralysed. + +"So mad--so mad and bad and wild you were," she said. "Could you not see +it was your duty to tell all, no matter what the consequences. The man +was a villain. But what madness you were guilty of, what cruel madness! +Only you could have done a thing like that. Erris Boyne deserved death +--I care not who killed him--you or another. He deserved death, and it +was right he should die. But that you should kill him, apart from all +else--why, indeed, oh, indeed, it is a tragedy, for you loved my +daughter, and the killing made a gulf between you! There could be +no marriage in such a case. She could not bear it, nor could you. But +please know this, Mr. Calhoun, that she never believed you killed Erris +Boyne. She has said so again and again. You are the only man who has +ever touched her mind or her senses, though many have sought her. +Wherever she goes men try to win her, but she has no thought for any. +Her mind goes back to you. Just when you entered the garden I learned-- +and only then-that you were here. She hid it from me, but Darius Boland +knew, and he had seen your man, Michael Clones, and she had then made him +tell me. I was incensed. I was her mother, and yet she had hid the +thing from me. I thought she came to this island for the sake of Salem, +and I found that she came not for Salem, but for you. . . . Ah, Mr. +Calhoun, she deserves what you did to save her, but you should not have +done it." + +"She deserves all that any better man might do. Why don't you marry her +to some great man in your Republic? It would settle my trouble for me +and free her mind from anxiety. Mrs. Llyn, we are not children, you and +I. You know life, and so do I, and--" + +She interrupted him. "Be sure of this, Mr. Calhoun, she knows life even +better than either of us. She is, and has always been, a girl of sense +and judgment. When she was a child she was my master, even in Ireland. +Yet she was obedient and faithful, and kept her head in all vexed things. +She will have her way, and she will have it as she wants it, and in no +other manner. She is one of the world's great women. She is unique. +Child as she is, she still understands all that men do, and does it. +Under her hands the estates in Virginia have developed even more than +under the hands of my brother. She controls like another Elizabeth. +She has made those estates run like a spool of thread, and she will +do the same here with Salem. Be sure of that." + +"Why does she not marry? Is there no man she can bear? She could have +the highest, that's sure." He spoke with passion and insistence. If she +were married his trouble would be over. The worst would have come to +him--like death. His eyes were only two dark fires in a face that was as +near to tragic pain crystallized as any the world has seen. Yet there +was in it some big commanding thing, that gave it a ghastly handsomeness +almost; that bathed his look in dignity and power, albeit a reckless +power, a thing that would not be stayed by any blandishments. He had the +look of a lost angel, one who fell with Belial in the first days of sin. + +"There is no man she can bear--except here in Jamaica. It is no use. +Your governor, Lord Mallow, whom she knew in Ireland, who is distant kin +of mine, he has already made advances here to her, as he did in Ireland +--you did not know that. Even before we left for Virginia he came to see +us, and brought her books and flowers, and here, on our arrival, he +brought her choicest blooms of his garden. She is rich, and he would be +glad of an estate that brings in scores of thousands of pounds yearly. +He has asked us to stay at King's House, but we have declined. We start +for Salem in a few hours. She wants her hand on the wheel." + +"Lord Mallow--he courts her, does he?" His face grew grimmer. "Well, +she might do worse, though if she were one of my family I would rather +see her in her grave than wedded to him. For he is selfish--aye, as few +men are! He would eat and keep his apple too. His theory is that life +is but a game, and it must be played with steel. He would squeeze the +life out of a flower, and give the flower to his dog to eat. He thinks +first and always of himself. He would--but there, he would make a good +husband as husbands go for some women, but not for this woman! It is not +because he is my enemy I say this. It is because there is only one woman +like your daughter, and that is herself; and I would rather see her +married to a hedger that really loved her than to Lord Mallow, who loves +only one being on earth--himself. But see, Mrs. Llyn, now that you know +all, now that we three have met again, and this island is small and +tragedy is at our doors, don't you think your daughter should be told the +truth. It will end everything for me. But it would be better so. It is +now only cruelty to hide the truth, harsh to continue a friendship which +will only appal her in the end. If we had not met again like this, then +silence might have been best; but as she is not cured of her tender +friendship made upon the hills at Playmore, isn't it well to end it all? +Your conscience will be clearer, and so will mine. We shall have done +the right thing at last. Why did you not tell her who her father was? +Then why blame me! You held your peace to save your daughter, as you +thought. I held my tongue for the same reason; but she is so much a +woman now, that she will understand, as she could not have understood +years ago in Limerick. In God's name, let us speak. One of us should +tell her, and I think it should be you. And see, though I know I did +right in withholding the facts about the quarrel with Erris Boyne, yet I +favour telling her that he was a traitor. The whole truth now, or +nothing. That is my view." + +He saw how lined and sunken was her face, he noted the weakness of her +carriage, he realized the task he was putting on her, and his heart +relented. "No, I will do it," he added, with sudden will, "and I will do +it now, if I may." + +"Oh, not to-day-not to-day!" she said with a piteous look. "Let it +not be to-day. It is our first day here, and we are due at King's House +to-night, even in an hour from now." + +"You want her at her glorious best, is that it?" It seemed too strange +that the pure feminine should show at a time of crisis like this, but +there it was. It was this woman's way. But he added presently: "When +she asks you what we have talked about, what will you say?" + +"Is it not easy? I am a mother," she said meaningly. + +"And I am an ex-convict, and a mutineer--is that it?" + +She inclined her head. "It should not be difficult to explain. When you +came I was speaking as I felt, and she will not think it strange if I +give that as my reason." + +"But is it wise? Isn't it better to end it all now? Suppose Lord Mallow +tells her." + +"He did not before. He is not likely now," was the vexed reply. "Is it +a thing a gentleman will speak of to a lady?" + +"But you do not know Mallow. If he thought she had seen me to-day, he +would not hesitate. What would you do if you were Lord Mallow?" + +"No, not to-day," she persisted. "It is all so many years ago. It can +hurt naught to wait a little longer." + +"When and where shall it be?" he asked gloomily. "At Salem--at Salem. +We shall be settled then--and steady. There is every reason why you +should consider me. I have suffered as few women have suffered, +and I do not hate you. I am only sorry." + +Far down at the other end of the garden he saw Sheila. Her face was in +profile--an exquisite silhouette. She moved slowly among the pimento +bushes. + +"As you wish," he said with a heavy sigh. The sight of the girl +anguished his soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +AT SALEM + +The plantation of Salem was in a region below the Pedro Plains in the +parish of St. Elizabeth, where grow the aloe, and torch-thistle, and +clumps of wood which alter the appearance of the plain from the South +Downs of England, but where thousands of cattle and horses even in those +days were maintained. The air of the district was dry and elastic, and +it filtered down to the valleys near like that where Salem was with its +clusters of negro huts and offices, its mills and distilleries where +sugar and rum were made. Salem was situated on the Black River, +accessible by boats and canoes. The huts of negro slaves were near the +sugar mills, without regard to order, but in clusters of banana, avocado- +pear, limes and oranges, and with the cultivated land round their huts +made an effective picture. + +One day every fortnight was allowed the negroes to cultivate their crops, +and give them a chance to manufacture mats for beds, bark-ropes, wicker- +chairs and baskets, earthen jars, pans, and that kind of thing. The huts +themselves were primitive to a degree, the floor being earth, the roof, +of palm-thatch or the leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, the sides hard-posts +driven in the ground and interlaced with wattle and plaster, and inside +scarcely high enough for its owner to walk upright. The furniture was +scant--a quatre, or bed, made of a platform of boards, with a mat and a +blanket, some low stools, a small table, an earthen water-jar, and some +smaller ones, a pail and an iron pot, and calabashes which did duty for +plates, dishes and bowls. In one of the two rooms making the hut, there +were always the ashes of the night-fire, without which negroes could not +sleep in comfort. + +These were the huts of the lowest grade of negro-slaves of the fields. +The small merchants and the domestics had larger houses with boarded +floors, some even with linen sheets and mosquito nets, and shelves with +plates and dishes of good ware. Every negro received a yearly allowance +of Osnaburgh linen, woollen, baize and checks for clothes, and some +planters also gave them hats and handkerchiefs, knives, needles and +thread, and so on. + +Every plantation had a surgeon who received a small sum for attendance on +every slave, while special cases of midwifery, inoculation, etc., had a +particular allowance. The surgeon had to attend to about four hundred to +five hundred negroes, on an income of L150 per annum, and board and +lodging and washing, besides what he made from his practice with the +whites. + +Salem was no worse than some other plantations on the island, but it was +far behind such plantations as that owned by Dyck Calhoun, and had been +notorious for the cruelties committed on it. To such an estate a lady +like Sheila Llyn would be a boon. She was not on the place a day before +she started reforms which would turn the plantation into a model scheme. +Houses, food, treatment of the negroes, became at once a study to her, +and her experience in Virginia was invaluable. She had learned there not +to work the slaves too hard in the warm period of the day; and she showed +her interest by having served at her own table the favourite olio the +slaves made of plantains, bananas, yams, calalue, eddoes, cassavi, and +sweet potatoes boiled with salt fish and flavoured with cayenne pepper. +This, with the unripe roasted plantain as bread, was a native relish and +health-giving food. + +Ever since the day when she had seen Dyck Calhoun at Spanish Town she had +been disturbed in mind. Dyck had shown a reserve which she felt was not +wholly due to his having been imprisoned for manslaughter. In one way he +looked little older. His physique was as good, or better than when she +first saw him on the hills of Playmore. It was athletic, strenuous, +elastic. Yet there was about it the abandonment of despair--at least +of recklessness. The face was older, the head more powerful, the hair +slightly touched with grey-rather there was one spot in the hair almost +pure white; a strand of winter in the foliage of summer. It gave a touch +of the bizarre to a distinguished head, it lent an air of the singular to +a personality which had flare and force--an almost devilish force. That +much was to be said for him, that he had not sought to influence her to +his own advantage. She was so surrounded in America by men who knew her +wealth and prized her beauty, she was so much a figure in Virginia, that +any reserve with regard to herself was noticeable. She was enough +feminine to have pleasure in the fact that she was thought desirable +by men; yet it played an insignificant part in her life. + +It did not give her conceit. It was only like a frill on the skirts +of life. It did not play any part in her character. Certainly Dyck +Calhoun had not flattered her. That one to whom she had written, as she +had done, should remove himself so from the place of the deserving +friend, one whom she had not deserted while he was in jail as a criminal +--that he should treat her so, gave every nerve a thrill of protest. +Sometimes she trembled in indignation, and then afterwards gave herself +to the work on the estate or in the household--its reform and its +rearrangement; though the house was like most in Jamaica, had adequate +plate, linen, glass and furniture. At the lodgings in Spanish Town, +after Dyck Calhoun had left, her mother had briefly said that she had +told Dyck he could not expect the conditions of the Playmore friendship +should be renewed; that, in effect, she had warned him off. To this +Sheila had said that the killing of a man whose life was bad might be +punishable. In any case, that was in another land, under abnormal +conditions; and, with lack of logic, she saw no reason why he should be +socially punished in Jamaica for what he had been legally punished for +in Ireland. As for the mutiny, he had done what any honest man of spirit +would do; also, he had by great bravery and skill brought victory to the +king's fleet in West Indian waters. + +Then it was she told her mother how she had always disobeyed her commands +where Dyck was concerned, that she had written to him while he was in +jail; that she had come to Jamaica more to see him than to reform Salem; +that she had the old Celtic spirit of brotherhood, and she would not be +driven from it. In a sudden burst of anger her mother had charged her +with deceit; but the girl said she had followed her conscience, and she +dismissed it all with a gesture as emphatic as her mother's anger. + +That night they had dined with Lord Mallow, and she saw that his +attentions had behind them the deep purpose of marriage. She had not +been overcome by the splendour of his retinue and table, or by the +magnificence of his guests; though the military commander-in-chief and +the temporary admiral on the station did their utmost to entertain her, +and some of the local big-wigs were pompous. Lord Mallow had ability and +knew how to use it; and he was never so brilliant as on this afternoon, +for they dined while it was still daylight and hardly evening. He told +her of the customs of the country, of the people; and slyly and +effectively he satirized some of his grandiloquent guests. Not unduly, +for one of them, the most renowned in the island, came to him after +dinner as he sat talking to Sheila, and said: "I'm very sorry, your +honour, but good Almighty God, I must go home and cool coppers." Then he +gave Sheila a hot yet clammy hand, and bade her welcome as a citizen to +the island, "alien but respected, beautiful but capable!" Sheila had +seen a few of the Creole ladies present at their best-large-eyed, simple, +not to say primitive in speech, and very unaffected in manner. She had +learned also that the way to the Jamaican heart was by a full table and a +little flattery. + +One incident at dinner had impressed her greatly. Not far away from +her was a young lady, beautiful in face and person, and she had seen a +scorpion suddenly shoot into her sleeve and ruthlessly strike and strike +the arm of the girl, who gave one cry only and then was still. Sheila +saw the man next to the girl--he was a native officer--secure the +scorpion, and then whip from his pocket a little bag of indigo, dip it in +water, and apply the bag to the wounded arm, immediately easing the +wound. This had all been done so quickly that it was over before the +table had been upset, almost. + +"That is the kind of thing we have here," said Lord Mallow. "There is a +lady present who has seen in one day a favourite black child bitten by a +congereel, a large centipede in her nursery, a snake crawl from under her +child's pillow, and her son nearly die from a bite of the black spider +with the red spot on its tail. It is a life that has its trials--and its +compensations." + +"I saw a man's head on a pole on my way to King's House. You have to use +firm methods here," Sheila said in reply. "It is not all a rose-garden. +You have to apply force." + +Lord Mallow smiled grimly. "C'est la force morale toujours." + +"Ah, I should not have thought it was moral force always," was the +ironical reply. + +"We have criminals here," declared the governor with aplomb, "and they +need some handling, I assure you. We have in this island one of the +worst criminals in the British Empire." + +"Ah, I thought he was in the United States!" answered the girl sedately. + +"You mean General George Washington," remarked the governor. "No, it is +one who was a friend and fellow-countryman of yours before he took to +killing unarmed men." + +"You refer to Mr. Dyck Calhoun, I doubt not, sir? Well, he is still a +friend of mine, and I saw him today--this afternoon, before I came here. +I understood that the Crown had pardoned his mutiny." + +The governor started. He was plainly annoyed. + +"The crime is there just the same," he replied. "He mutinied, and he +stole a king's ship, and took command of it, and brought it out here." + +"And saved you and your island, I understand." + +"Ah, he said that, did he?" + +"He said nothing at all to me about it. I have been reading the Jamaica +Cornwall Chronicle the last three years." + +"He is ever a source of anxiety to me," declared the governor. + +"I knew he was once in Phoenix Park years ago," was the demure yet sharp +reply, "but I thought he was a good citizen here--a good and well-to-do +citizen." + +Lord Mallow flushed slightly. "Phoenix Park--ah, he was a capable fellow +with the sword! I said so always, and I'd back him now against a +champion; but many a bad man has been a good swordsman." + +"So, that's what good swordsmanship does, is it? I wondered what it was +that did it. I hear you fight him still--but with a bludgeon, and he +dodges it." + +"I do not understand," declared Lord Mallow tartly. "Ah, wasn't there +some difference over his going for the treasure to Haiti? Some one told +me, I think, that you were not in favour of his getting his ticket-of- +leave, or whatever it is called, and that the provost-marshal gave it to +him, as he had the right to do." + +"You have wide sources of information in this case. I wonder--" + +"No, your honour need not wonder. I was told that by a gentleman on the +steamer coming here. He was a native of the island, I think--or perhaps +it was the captain, or the mate, or the boatswain. I can't recall. Or +maybe it came to me from my manager, Darius Boland, who hears things +wherever he is, one doesn't know how; but he hears them. He is to me +what your aide-de-camp is to you," she nodded towards a young man near by +at the table. + +"And do you dress your Darius Boland as I dress my aide in scarlet, with +blue facings and golden embroidery, and put a stiff hat with a feather on +his head?" + +"But no, he does not need such things. I am a Republican now. I am a +citizen of the United States, where men have no need of uniform to tell +the world what they are. You shall see my Darius Boland--indeed, you +have seen him. He was there to-day when you gave me the distinction of +your presence." + +"That dry, lean, cartridge of a fellow, that pair of pincers with a +face!" + +"And a tongue, your honour. If you did not hear it yet, you will hear +it. He is to be my manager here. So he will be under your control-- +if I permit him." + +"If you permit him, mistress?" + +"If I permit him, yes. You are a power, but you are not stronger than +the laws and rules you make. For instance, there was the case of Mr. +Dyck Calhoun. When he came, you were for tying him up in one little +corner of this island--the hottest part, I know, near to Kingston, where +it averages ninety degrees in the shade at any time of the year. But the +King you represent had not restricted his liberties so, and you being the +King, that is, yourself, were forced to abide by your own regulations. +So it may be the same with Darius Boland. He may want something, and +you, high up, looking down, will say, "What devilry is here!" and +decline. He will then turn to your chief-justice or provost-marshal- +general, or a deputy of the provost-marshal, and they will say that +Darius Boland shall have what he wants, because it is the will of the +will you represent." + +Almost the last words the governor used to her were these: "Those only +live at peace here who are at peace with me"; and her reply had been: +"But Mr. Dyck Calhoun lives at peace, does he not, your honour?" + +To that he had replied: "No man is at peace while he has yet desires." +He paused a minute and then added: "That Erris Boyne killed by Dyck +Calhoun--did you ever see him that you remember?" + +"Not that I remember," she replied quickly. "I never lived in Dublin." + +"That may be. But did you never know his history?" She shook her head +in negation. His eyes searched her face carefully, and he was astonished +when he saw no sign of confusion there. "Good God, she doesn't know. +She's never been told!" he said to himself. "This is too startling. +I'll speak to the mother." + +A little later he turned from the mother with astonishment. "It's +madness," he remarked to himself. "She will find out. Some one will +tell her. . . . By heaven, I'll tell her first," he hastily said. +"When she knows the truth, Calhoun will have no chance on earth. Yes, +I'll tell her myself. But I'll tell no one else," he added; for he felt +that Sheila, once she knew the truth, would resent his having told abroad +the true story of the Erris Boyne affair. + +So Sheila and her mother had gone to their lodgings with depression, but +each with a clear purpose in her mind. Mrs. Llyn was determined to tell +her daughter what she ought to have known long before; and Sheila was +firm to make the one man who had ever interested her understand that he +was losing much that was worth while keeping. + +Then had followed the journey to Salem. Yet all the while for Sheila +one dark thought kept hovering over everything. Why should life be so +complicated? Why should this one man who seemed capable and had the +temperament of the Irish hills and vales be the victim of punishment and +shame--why should he shame her? + +Suddenly, without her mother's knowledge, she sent Darius Boland through +the hills in the early morning to Enniskillen, Dyck Calhoun's place, with +a letter which said only this: "Is it not time that you came to wish us +well in our new home? We shall expect you to-morrow." + +When Dyck read this note he thought it was written by Sheila, but +inspired by the mother; and he lost no time in making his way down across +the country to Salem, which he reached a few hours after sunrise. At the +doorway of the house he met Mrs. Llyn. + +"Have you told her?" he asked in anxiety. Astonished at his presence +she could make no reply for a moment. "I have told her nothing," she +answered. "I meant to do so this morning. I meant to do it--I must." + +"She sent me a letter asking if it was not time I came to wish you well +in your house, and you and she would expect me to-day." + +"I knew naught of her writing you," was the reply--"naught at all. But +now that you are here, will you not tell her all?" + +Dyck smiled grimly. "Where is she?" he asked. "I will tell her." + +The mother pointed down the garden. "Yonder by the clump of palms I saw +her a moment ago. If you go that way you will find her." + +In another moment Dyck Calhoun was on his way to the clump of palms, and +before he reached it, the girl came out into the path. She was dressed +in a black silk skirt with a white bodice and lace, as he had seen her on +her arrival in Kingston, and at her throat was a sprig of the wild pear- +tree. When she saw him, she gave a slight start, then stood still, and +he came to her. + +"I have your letter," he said, "and I came to say what I ought to say +about your living here: you will bring blessings to the place." + +She looked at him steadfastly. "Shall we talk here," she said, +"or inside the house? There is a little shelter here in the trees"-- +pointing to the right--"a shelter built by the late manager. It has the +covering of a hut, but it is open at two sides. Will you come?" As she +went on ahead, he could not fail to notice how slim and trim she was, how +perfectly her figure seemed to fit her gown-as though she had been poured +into it; and yet the folds of her skirt waved and floated like silky +clouds around her! Under cover of the shelter, she turned and smiled at +him. + +"You have seen my mother?" + +"I have just come from her," he answered. "She bade me tell you what +ought to have been told long ago, and you were not, for there seemed no +reason that you should. You were young and ignorant and happy. You had +no cares, no sorrows. The sorrows that had come to your mother belonged +to days when you were scarce out of the cradle. But you did not know. +You were not aware that your mother had divorced your father for crime +against marital fidelity and great cruelty. You did not know even who +that father was. Well, I must tell you. Your father was a handsome man, +a friend of mine until I knew the truth about him, and then he died--I +killed him, so the court said." + +Her face became ghastly pale. After a moment of anguished bewilderment, +she said: "You mean that Erris Boyne was my father?" + +"Yes, I mean that. They say I killed him. They say that he was found +with no sword drawn, but that my open sword lay on the table beside me +while I was asleep, and that it had let out his life-blood." + +"Why was he killed?" she asked, horror-stricken and with pale lips. + +"I do not know, but if I killed him, it was because I revolted from the +proposals he made to me. I--" He paused, for the look on her face was +painful to see, and her body was as that of one who had been struck by +lightning. It had a crumpled, stricken look, and all force seemed to be +driven from it. It had the look of crushed vitality. Her face was set +in paleness, her eyes were frightened, her whole person was, as it were, +in ghastly captivity. His heart smote him, and he pulled himself +together to tell her all. + +"Go on," she said. "I want to hear. I want--to know all. I ought to +have known--long ago; but that can't be helped now. Continue--please." + +Her words had come slowly, in gasps almost, and her voice was so frayed +he could scarcely recognize it. All the pride of her nature seemed +shattered. + +"If I killed him," he said presently, "it was because he tried to tempt +me from my allegiance to the Crown to become a servant of France, to--" + +He stopped short, for a cry came from her lips which appalled him. + +"My God--my God!" she said with bloodless lips, her eyes fastened on his +face, her every look and motion the inflection of despair. "Go on--tell +all," she added presently with more composure. + +Swiftly he described what happened in the little room at the traitor's +tavern, of the momentary reconciliation and the wine that he drank, +drugged wine poured out but not drunk by Erris Boyne, and of his later +unconsciousness. At last he paused. + +"Why did these things not come out at the trial?" she asked in hushed +tones. + +He made a helpless gesture. "I did not speak of them because I thought +of you. I hid it--I did not want you to know what your father was." + +Something like a smile gathered at her pale lips. "You saved me for the +moment, and condemned yourself for ever," she said in a voice of torture. +"If you had told what he was--if you had told that, the jury would not +have condemned you, they would not have sent you to prison." + +"I believe I did the right thing," he said. "If I killed your father, +prison was my proper punishment. But I can't remember. There was no +other clue, no other guide to judgment. So the law said I killed him, +and--he had evidently not drawn his sword. It was clear he was killed +defenceless." + +"You killed a defenceless man!" Her voice was sharp with agony. "That +was mentioned at the trial--but I did not believe it then--in that long +ago." She trembled to her feet from the bench where she was sitting. +"And I do not believe it now--no, on my soul, I do not." + +"But it makes no difference, you see. I was condemned for killing your +father, and the world knows that Erris Boyne was your father, and here +Lord Mallow, the governor, knows it; and there is no chance of friendship +between you and me. Since the day he was found dead in the room, there +was no hope for our friendship, for anything at all between us that I had +wished to be there. You dare not be friends with me--" + +Her face suddenly suffused and she held herself upright with an effort. +She was about to say, "I dare, Dyck--I do dare!" but he stopped her with +a reproving gesture. + +"No, no, you dare not, and I would not let you if you would. I am an +ex-convict. They say I killed your father, and the way to understanding +between us is closed." + +She made a protesting gesture. "Closed! Closed!--But is it closed? No, +no, some one else killed him, not you. You couldn't have done it. You +would have fought him--fought him as you did Lord Mallow, and in fighting +you might have killed him, but your sword never let out his life when he +was defenceless--never." + +A look of intense relief, almost of happiness, came to Dyck's face. +"That is like you, Sheila, but it does not cure the trouble. You and I +are as far apart as noon and midnight. The law has said the only thing +that can be said upon it." + +She sank down again upon the wooden bench. "Oh, how mad you were, not to +tell the whole truth long ago! You would not have been condemned, and +then--" + +She paused overcome, and his self-control almost deserted him. With +strong feeling he burst out: "And then, we might have come together? +No, your mother--your friends, myself, could not have let that be. See, +Sheila, I will tell you the whole truth now--aye, the whole absolute +truth. I have loved you since the first day I saw you on the hills when +you and I rescued Christopher Dogan. Not a day has passed since then +when you were not more to me than any other woman in all the world." + +A new light came into her face, the shadows left her eyes, and the pallor +fled from her lips. "You loved me?" she said in a voice grown soft- +husky still, but soft as the light in a summer heaven. "You loved me +--and have always loved me since we first met?" + +Her look was so appealing, so passionate and so womanly, that he longed +to reach out his arms to her, and say, "Come--come home, Sheila," but the +situation did not permit that, and only his eyes told the story of what +was in his mind. + +"I have always loved you, Sheila, and shall do so while I have breath and +life. I have always given you the best that is in me, tried to do what +was good for us both, since my misfortune--crime, Lord Mallow calls it, +as does the world. Never a sunrise that does not find you in the +forefront of all the lighted world; never a flower have I seen that does +not seem sweeter--it brings thoughts of you; never a crime that does not +deepen its shame because you are in the world. In prison, when I used to +mop my floor and clean down the walls; when I swept the dust from the +corners; when I folded up my convict clothes; when I ate the prison food +and sang the prison hymns; when I placed myself beside the bench in the +workshop to make things that would bring cash to my fellow-prisoners in +their need; when I saw a minister of religion or heard the Litany; when I +counted up the days, first that I had spent in jail and then the days I +had still to spend in jail; when I read the books from the prison library +of the land where you had gone, and of the struggle there; when I saw +you, in my mind's eye, in the cotton-fields or on the verandah of your +house in Virginia--I had but one thought, and that was the look in your +face at Playmore and Limerick, the sound of your voice as you came +singing up the hill just before I first met you, the joyous beauty of +your body." + +"And at sea?" she whispered with a gesture at once beautiful and +pathetic, for it had the motion of helplessness and hopelessness. What +she had heard had stirred her soul, and she wanted to hear more--or was +it that she wished to drain the cup now that it was held to her lips? +-drain it to the last drop of feeling. + +"At sea," he answered, with his eyes full of intense feeling--"at sea, I +was free at last, doomed as I thought, anguished in spirit, and yet with +a wild hope that out of it would come deliverance. I expected to lose my +life, and I lived each day as though it would be my last. I was chief +rogue in a shipful of rogues, chief sinner in a hell of sinners, and yet +I had no remorse and no regret. I had done all with an honest purpose, +with the good of the sailors in my mind; and so I lived in daily touch +with death, honour, and dishonour. Yet I never saw a sailor in the +shrouds, or heard the night watch call 'All's well!' in the midst of +night and mutiny, that I did not long for a word from you that would take +away the sting of death. Those days at sea for ten long weeks were never +free from anxiety, not anxiety for myself, only for the men who had put +me where I was, had given me captain's rank, had--" + +Suddenly he stopped, and took from his pocket the letter he was writing +on the very day she landed in Jamaica. He opened it and studied it for a +moment with a dark look in his face. + +"This I wrote even as you were landing in Jamaica, and I knew naught of +your coming. It was an outbreak of my soul. It was the truth written +to you and for you, and yet with the feeling that you would never see it. +I was still writing it when Michael Clones came up the drive to tell me +you and your mother were here. Now, I know not what Christopher Dogan +would say of it, but I say it is amazing that in the hour you were first +come to this land I should be moved to tell you the story of my life +since I left prison; since, on receiving your letter in London, forwarded +from Dublin, I joined the navy. But here it is with all the truth and +terror in it.--Aye, there was terror, for it gave the soul of my life to +one I never thought to see again; and, if seeing, should be compelled to +do what I have done--tell her the whole truth at once and so have it +over. + +"But do not think that in telling it now I repent of my secrecy. +I repent of nothing; I would not alter anything. What was to be is, and +what is has its place in the book of destiny. No, I repent nothing, yet +here now I give you this to read while still my story of the days of +which you know is in your ears. Here it is. It will tell the whole +story; for when you have read it and do understand, then we part to meet +no more as friends. You will go back to Virginia, and I will stay here. +You will forgive the unwilling wrong I have done you, but you will make +your place in life without thought of me. You will marry some one--not +worthy of you, for that could not be; but you will take to yourself some +man from among the men of this world. You will set him apart from all +other men as yours, and he will be happy, having been blessed beyond +deserving. You will not regret coming here; but you will desire our +friendship to cease; and what has been to be no more, while the tincture +of life is in your veins. Sheila, read this thing, for it is the rest of +the story until now." + +He handed her the papers, and she took them with an inclination of the +head which said: "Give it to me. I will read it now while my eyes can +still bear to read it. I have laid on my heart the nettle of shame, and +while it is still burning there I will read all that you have to teach +me." + +"I will go out in the garden while you read it," he said. "In a half- +hour I will come back, and then we can say good-bye," he added, with pain +in his voice, but firmly. + +"No, do not go," she urged. "Sit here on the bench--at the end of it +here," she said, motioning with her hand. + +He shook his head in negation. "No, I will go and say to your mother +that I have told you, and ease her mind, for I know she herself meant to +tell you." + +As he went he looked at her face closely. It was so young, so pathetic, +so pale, yet so strangely beautiful, and her forehead was serene. That +was one of her characteristics. In all her life, her forehead remained +untroubled and unlined. Only at her mouth and in her eyes did misery or +sorrow show. He looked into her eyes now, and he was pleased with what +he saw; for they had in them the glow of understanding and the note of +will which said: "You and I are parted, but I believe in you, and I will +not show I am a weak woman by futile horror. We shall meet no more, but +I shall remember you." + +That was what he saw, and it was what he wished to see. He knew her +character would stand the test of any trial, and it had done so. Horror +had struck her, but had not overwhelmed her. She had cried out in her +agony, but she had not been swept out into chaos. She had no weak +passions and no futilities. But as he turned away now, it was with the +sharp conviction that he had dealt a blow from which the girl would +recover, but would never be the same again. She was rich "beyond the +dreams of avarice," but that would not console her. She had resources +within herself, had what would keep her steady. Her real power and +force, her real hope, were in her regnant soul which was not to be +cajoled by life's subterfuges. Her lips opened now, as though she would +say something, but nothing came from them. She only shook her head +sadly, as if to say: "You understand. Go, and when you come again, it +will be for us to part in peace--at least in peace." + +Out in the garden he found her mother. After the first agitated +greeting-agitated on her part, he said: "The story has been told, and she +is now reading--" + +He told her the story of the manuscript, and added that Sheila had +carried herself with courage. Presently the woman said to him: "She +never believed you killed Erris Boyne. Well, it may not help the +situation, but I say too, that I do not believe you did. I cannot +understand why you did not deny having killed him." + +"I could not deny. In any case, the law punished me for it, and the book +is closed for ever." + +"Have you never thought that some one--" + +"Yes, I have thought, but who is there? The crowd at the Dublin hotel +where the thing was done were secret, and they would lie the apron off a +bishop. No, there is no light, and, to tell the truth, I care not now." + +"But if you are not guilty--it is not too late; there is my girl! If the +real criminal should appear--can you not see?" + +The poor woman, distressedly pale, her hair still abundant, her eyes +still bright, her pulses aglow, as they had ever been, made a gesture of +appeal with hands that were worn and thin. She had charm still, in a way +as great as her daughter's. + +"I can see--but, Mrs. Llyn, I have no hope. I am a man whom some men +fear--" + +"Lord Mallow!" she interjected. + +"He does not fear me. Why do you say that?" + +"I speak with a woman's intuition. I don't know what he fears, but he +does fear you. You are a son of history; you had a duel with him, and +beat him; you have always beaten him, even here where he has been supreme +as governor--from first to last, you have beaten him." + +"I hope I shall be even with him at the last--at the very last," was Dyck +Calhoun's reply. "We were made to be foes. We were from the first. I +felt it when I saw him at Playmore. Nothing has changed since then. He +will try to destroy me here, but I will see it through. I will try and +turn his rapier-points. I will not be the target of his arrows without +making some play against him. The man is a fool. I could help him here, +but he will have none of it, and he is running great risks. He has been +warned that the Maroons are restive, that the black slaves will rise if +the Maroons have any initial success, and he will listen to no advice. +He would not listen to me, but, knowing that, I got the provost-marshal +to approach him, and when he knew my hand was in it, he stiffened. He +would have naught to do with it, and so no preparations are made. And up +there"--he turned and pointed--"up there in Trelawney the Maroons are +plotting and planning, and any day an explosion may occur. If it occurs +no one will be safe, especially if the blacks rise too--I mean the black +slaves. There will be no safety then for any one." + +"For us as well, you mean?" + +"For you as well as all others, and you are nearer to Trelawney than most +others. You are in their path. So be wise, Mrs. Llyn, and get back to +Virginia as soon as may be. It is a better place than this." + +"My daughter is mistress here," was the sorrowful reply. "She will have +her own way." + +"Your daughter will not care to stay here now," he answered firmly. + +"She will do what she thinks her duty in spite of her own feelings, or +yours, or mine. It is her way, and it has always been her way." + +"I will tell her what I fear, and she may change her mind." + +"But the governor may want her to stay," answered Mrs. Llyn none too +sagely, but with that in her mind which seemed to justify her. + +"Lord Mallow--oh, if you think there is any influence in him to keep +her, that is another question," said Dyck with a grim smile. "But, +nevertheless, I think you should leave here and go back to Virginia. +It is no safe place for two ladies, in all senses. Whatever Lord Mallow +thinks or does, this is no place for you. This place is your daughter's +for her to do what she chooses with it, and I think she ought to sell it. +There would be no trouble in getting a purchaser. It is a fine +property." + +"But the governor might not think as you do; he might not wish it sold." + +Mrs. Llyn was playing a bold, indeed a reckless game. She wanted to show +Dyck there were others who would interest themselves in Sheila even if +he, Dyck, were blotted from the equation; that the girl could look high, +if her mind turned towards marriage. Also she felt that Dyck should know +the facts before any one else, so that he would not be shocked in the +future, if anything happened. Yet in her deepest heart she wished him +well. She liked him as she had never liked any of Sheila's admirers, and +if the problem of Erris Boyne had been solved, she would gladly have seen +him wedded to Sheila. + +"What has the governor to do with it!" he declared. "It is your +daughter's own property, and she is free to hold or to part with it. +There is no Crown consent to ask, no vice-regal approval needed." + +Suddenly he became angry, almost excited. His blood pounded in his +veins. Was this man, Mallow, to come between his and her fate always, +come into his problem at the most critical moment? "God in heaven!" he +said in a burst of passion, "is this a land of the British Empire or is +it not? Why should that man break in on every crisis? Why should he do +this or that--say yea or nay, give or take away! He is the king's +representative, but he is bound by laws as rigid as any that bind you or +me. What has he to do with your daughter or what concerns her? Is there +not enough trouble in the world without bringing in Lord Mallow? +If he--" + +He stopped short, for he saw coming from the summerhouse, Sheila with his +paper in her hand. She walked slowly and with dignity. She carried her +head high and firmly, and the skin of her face was shining with light +as she came on. Dyck noticed how her wide skirts flicked against the +flowers that bordered the path, and how her feet seemed scarcely to touch +the ground as she walked--a spirit, a regnant spirit of summer she +seemed. But in her face there was no summer, there was only autumn and +winter, only the bright frost of purpose. As she came, her mother turned +as though to leave Dyck Calhoun. She called to her to wait, and Mrs. +Llyn stood still, anxious. As Sheila came near she kept her eyes fixed +on Dyck. When she reached them, she held out the paper to him. + +"It is wonderful," she said quietly, "that which you have written, but it +does not tell all; it does not say that you did not kill my father. You +are punished for the crime, and we must abide by it, even though you did +not kill Erris Boyne. It is the law that has done it, and we cannot +abash the law." + +"We shall meet no more then!" said Dyck with decision. + +Her lips tightened, her face paled. "There are some things one may not +do, and one of them is to be openly your friend--at present." + +He put the letter carefully away in his pocket, his hand shaking, then +flicking an insect from the collar of his coat, he said gently, yet with +an air of warning: "I have been telling Mrs. Llyn about the Maroons up +there"--he pointed towards Trelawney--"and I have advised your going back +to Virginia. The Maroons may rise at any moment, and no care is being +taken by Lord Mallow to meet the danger. If they rise, you, here, would +be in their way, and I could not guarantee your safety. Besides, +Virginia is a better place--a safer place than this," he added with +meaning. + +"You wish to frighten me out of Jamaica," she replied with pain in her +voice. "Well, I will not go till I have put this place in order and +brought discipline and good living here. I shall stay here in Jamaica +till I have done my task. There is no reason why we should meet. This +place is not so large as Ireland or America, but it is large enough to +give assurance we shall not meet. And if we meet, there is no reason why +we should talk. As for the Maroons, when the trouble comes, I shall not +be unprepared." She smiled sadly. "The governor may not take your +advice, but I shall. And remember that I come from a land not without +its dangers. We have Red Indians and black men there, and I can shoot." + +He waved a hand abruptly and then made a gesture--such as an ascetic +might make-of reflection, of submission. "I shall remember every word +you have said, and every note of your voice will be with me in all the +lonely years to come. Good-bye--but no, let me say this before I go: +I did not know that Erris Boyne was your father until after he was dead. +So, if I killed him, it was in complete ignorance. I did not know. But +we have outlived our friendship, and we must put strangeness in its +place. Good-bye--God protect you!" he added, looking into Sheila's +eyes. + +She looked at him with sorrow. Her lips opened but no words came forth. +He passed on out of the garden, and presently they heard his horse's +hoofs on the sand. + +"He is a great gentleman," said Mrs. Llyn. + +Her daughter's eyes were dry and fevered. Her lips were drawn. "We must +begin the world again," she said brokenly. Then suddenly she sank upon +the ground. "My God--oh, my God!" she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +LORD MALLOW INTERVENES + +Two months went by. In that time Sheila and Dyck did not meet, though +Dyck saw her more than once in the distance at Kingston. Yet they had +never met since that wonderful day at Salem, when they had parted, as +it might seem, for ever. Dyck had had news of her, however, for Darius +Boland had come and gone between the two plantations, and had won Michael +Clones' confidence. He knew more perhaps than he ever conveyed to Dyck, +who saw him and talked with him, gave him advice as to the customs of +Jamaica, and let him see the details in the management of Enniskillen. + +Yet Dyck made no inquiries as to how Mrs. Llyn and Sheila were; first +because he chose not to do so, and also because Darius Boland, at one +time or another, would of his own accord tell what Mrs. Llyn and Sheila +were doing. One day Boland brought word that the governor had, more than +once, visited Salem with his suite; that he had sat in judgment on a case +in Kingston concerning the estate of Salem, and had given decision in its +favour; and that Mrs. Llyn and Sheila visited him at Spanish Town and +were entertained at King's House at second breakfast and dinner--in +short, that Lord Mallow was making hay in Salem Plantation. This was no +surprise to Dyck. He had full intuition of the foray the governor would +make on Sheila, her estate and wealth. + +Lord Mallow had acted with discretion, and yet with sufficient passion to +warrant some success. He was trying to make for himself a future which +might mean the control of a greater colony even. If he had wealth, that +would be almost a certainty, and he counted Sheila's gold as a guarantee +of power. He knew well how great effect could be produced at Westminster +and at the Royal Palace by a discreet display of wealth. He was also +aware that no scandal could be made through an alliance with Sheila, for +she had inherited long after the revolutionary war and with her skirts +free from responsibility. England certainly would welcome wealth got +through an Irish girl inheriting her American uncle's estates. So, +steadily and happily, he pressed his suit. At his dinner-parties he +gave her first place nearly always, and even broke the code controlling +precedence when his secretary could be overruled. Thus Sheila was given +honour when she did not covet it, and so it was that one day at Salem +when the governor came to court her she was able to help Dyck Calhoun. + +"Then you go to Enniskillen?" Lord Mallow said to Darius Boland, as he +entered the plantation, being met by the astute American. + +"Sometimes, your honour," was the careful reply. "I suppose you know +what Mr. Calhoun's career has been, eh?" + +"Oh, in a way, your honour. They tell me he is a good swordsman." + +The governor flushed. "He told you that, did he?" + +"No, no, your honour, never. He told me naught. He does not boast. +He's as modest as a man from Virginia. He does not brag at all." + +"Who told you, then?" + +"Ah, well, I heard it in the town! They speak of him there. They all +know that Kingston and Spanish Town, and all the other places, would have +been French by now, if it hadn't been for him. Oh, they talk a lot about +him in Kingston and thereabouts!" + +"What swordsmanship do they speak of that was remarkable?" + +"Has your honour forgotten, then? Sure, seven years is a poor limit for +a good memory." The blow was a shrewd one, for Darius Boland knew that +Phoenix Park must be a galling memory to his honour. But Darius did not +care. He guessed why the governor was coming to Salem, and he could not +shirk having his hand in it. He had no fear of the results. + +"Aye, seven years is a poor limit," he repeated. + +The governor showed no feeling. He had been hit, and he took it as part +of the game. "Ah, you mean the affair in Phoenix Park?" he said with no +apparent feeling. + +Darius tossed his head a little. "Wasn't it a clever bit of work? +Didn't he get fame there by defeating one of the best swordsmen--in +Ireland?" + +Lord Mallow nodded. "He got fame, which he lost in time," he answered. + +"You mean he put the sword that had done such good work against a +champion into a man's bowels, without 'by your leave,' or 'will you draw +and fight'?" + +"Something like that," answered the governor sagely. + +"Is it true you believed he'd strike a man that wasn't armed, sir?" + +The governor winced, but showed nothing. "He'd been drinking--he is a +heavy drinker. Do you never drink with him?" + +Darius Boland's face took on a strange look. Here was an intended insult +to Dyck Calhoun. Right well the governor knew their relative social +positions. Darius pulled at the hair on his chin reflectively. "Yes, +I've drunk his liquor, but not as you mean, your honour. He'd drink with +any man at all: he has no nasty pride. But he doesn't drink with me." +"Modest enough he is to be a good republican, eh, Boland?" + +"Since your honour puts it so, it must stand. I'll not dispute it, me +being what I am and employed by whom I am." + +Darius Boland had a gift of saying the right thing in the right way, and +he had said it now. The governor was not so dense as to put this man +against him, for women were curious folk. They often attach importance +to the opinion of a faithful servant and let it weigh against great men. +He had once lost a possible fortune by spurning a little terrier of the +daughter of the Earl of Shallow, and the lesson had sunk deep into his +mind. He was high-placed, but not so high as to be sure of success where +a woman was concerned, and he had made up his mind to capture Sheila +Llyn, if so be she could be caught flying, or settled, or sleeping. + +"Ah, well, he has drunk with worse men than republicans. Boland. He was +a common sailor. He drank what was given him with whom it chanced in the +fo'castle." + +Darius sniffed a little, and kept his head. "But he changed all that, +your honour, and gave sailormen better drink than they ever had, I hear. +In Jamaica he treats his slaves as though they were men and not +Mohicans." + +"Well, he'll have less freedom in future, Boland, for word has come from +London that he's to keep to his estate and never leave it." + +Darius looked concerned, and his dry face wrinkled still more. "Ah, and +when was this word come, your honour?" + +"But yesterday, Boland, and he'll do well to obey, for I have no choice +but to take him in hand if he goes gallivanting." + +"Gallivanting--here, in Jamaica! Does your honour remember where we +are?" + +"Not in a bishop's close, Boland." + +"No, not in a bishop's close, nor in an archdeacon's garden. For of all +places on earth where they defy religion, this is the worst, your honour. +There's as much religion here as you'll find in a last year's bird's- +nest. Gallivanting--where should he gallivant?" + +The governor waved a contemptuous hand. "It doesn't need ingenuity to +find a place, for some do it on their own estate. I have seen it." + +Darius spoke sharply. "Your honour, there's naught on Mr. Calhoun's +estate that's got the taint, and he's not the man to go hunting for it. +Drink--well, suppose a gentleman does take his quartern, is it a crime? +I ask your honour, is that a crime in Jamaica?" + +"It's no crime, Boland; nevertheless, your Mr. Calhoun will have to take +his fill on his own land from the day I send him the command of the +London Government." + +"And what day will that be, your honour?" + +To be questioned by one who had been a revolutionary was distasteful to +the governor. "That day will be when I find the occasion opportune, my +brave Boland," he said sourly. + +"Why 'brave,' your honour?" There was an ominous light in Darius' eye. + +"Did you not fight with George Washington against the King of England-- +against King George? And if you did, was that not brave?" + +"It was true, your honour," came the firm reply. "It was the one right +good thing to do, as we proved it by the victory we had. We did what we +set out to do. But see, if you will let a poor man speak his mind, if I +were you I'd not impose the command on Mr. Calhoun." + +"Why, Boland?" + +Darius spoke courageously. "Your honour, he has many friends in Jamaica, +and they won't stand it. Besides, he won't stand it. And if he contests +your honour, the island will be with him." + +"Is he popular here as all that?" asked the governor with a shrug of the +shoulders. + +"They don't give their faith and confidence to order, your honour," +answered Darius with a dry inflection. + +The burr in the voice did not escape the other's attentive ear. He swung +a glance sharply at Darius. "What is the secret of his popularity--how +has it been made?" he asked morosely. + +Darius' face took on a caustic look. "He's only been in the island a +short time, your honour, and I don't know that I'm a good judge, but I'll +say the people here have great respect for bravery and character." + +"Character! Character!" sniffed the governor. "Where did he get that?" + +"Well, I don't know his age, but it's as old as he is--his character. +Say, I'm afraid I'm talking too much, your honour. We speak our minds +in Virginia; we never count the cost." + +The governor waved a deprecating hand. "You'll find the measure of your +speech in good time, Boland, I've no doubt. Meanwhile, you've got the +pleasure of hunting it. Character, you say. Well, that isn't what the +judge and jury said." + +Darius took courage again. Couldn't Lord Mallow have any decency? + +"Judge and jury be damned, your honour," he answered boldly. "It was an +Irish verdict. It had no sense. It was a bit of ballyhack. He did not +kill an unarmed man. It isn't his way. Why, he didn't kill you when he +had you at his mercy in Phoenix Park, now, did he, governor?" + +A flush stole up the governor's face from his chin. Then he turned to +Boland and looked him straight in the eyes. "That's true. He had me at +his mercy, and he did not take my life." + +"Then, why do you head the cabal against him? Why do you take joy in +commanding him to stay on his estate? Is that grateful, your honour?" + +The governor winced, but he said: "It's what I am ordered to do, my man. +I'm a servant of the Crown, and the Crown has ordained it." + +Again Darius grew stronger in speech. "But why do you have pleasure in +it? Is nothing left to your judgment? Do you say to me that if he keeps +the freedom such as he has enjoyed, you'd punish him? Must the governor +be as ruthless as his master? Look, your honour, I wouldn't impose that +command--not till I'd taken his advice about the Maroons anyway. There's +trouble brewing, and Mr. Calhoun knows it. He has warned you through the +provost-marshal. I'd heed his warning, your honour, or it may injure +your reputation as a ruler. No, I'd see myself in nethermost hell before +I'd meddle with Mr. Calhoun. He's a dangerous man, when he's moved." + +"Boland, you'll succeed as a schoolmaster, when all else fails. You +teach persistently." + +"Your honour is clever enough to know what's what, but I'd like to see +the Maroons dealt with. This is not my country, but I've got interests +here, or my mistress has, and that's the same to me. . . . Does your +honour travel often without a suite?" + +The governor waved a hand behind him. "I left them at the last +plantation, and rode on alone. I felt safe enough till I saw you, +Boland." + +He smiled grimly, and a grimmer smile stole to the lean lips of the +manager of Salem. "Fear is a good thing for forward minds, your honour," +he said with respect in the tone of his voice and challenge in the words. + +"I'll say this, Boland, your mistress has been fortunate in her staff. +You have a ready tongue." + +"Oh, I'm readier in other things, your honour, as you'd find on occasion. +But I thank you for the compliment in a land where compliments are few. +For a planter's country it has few who speak as well as they entertain. +I'll say this for the land you govern, the hospitality is rich and rare." + +"In what way, Boland?" + +"Why, your honour, it is the custom for a man and his whole family to go +on a visit to a neighbour, perhaps twenty or forty miles away, bring +their servants--maybe a dozen or more--and sit down on their neighbour's +hearthstone. There they eat his food, drink his wine, exhaust his fowl- +yard and debilitate his cook--till all the resources of the place are +played out; then with both hands round his friend's neck the man and his +people will say adieu, and go back to their own accumulated larder and +await the return visit. The wonder is Jamaica is so rich, for truly the +waste is harmful. We have the door open in Virginia, but not in that +way. We welcome, but we don't debauch." + +The governor smiled. "As you haven't old friends here, you should make +your life a success--ah, there is the open door, Boland, and your +mistress standing in it. But I come without my family, and with no fell +purposes. I will not debilitate the cook; I will not exhaust the fowl- +yard. A roasted plantain is good enough for me." + +Darius' looks quickened, and he jerked his chin up. "So, your honour, +so. But might I ask that you weigh carefully the warning of Mr. Calhoun. +There's trouble at Trelawny. I have it from good sources, and Mr. +Calhoun has made preparations against the sure risings. I'd take heed of +what he says. He knows. Your honour, it is not my mistress in the +doorway, it is Mrs. Llyn; she is shorter than my mistress." + +The governor shaded his brow with his hands. Then he touched up his +horse. "Yes, you are right, Boland. It is Mrs. Llyn. And look you, +Boland, I'll think over what you've said about the Maroons and Mr. +Calhoun. He's doing no harm as he is, that's sure. So why shouldn't he +go on as he is? That's your argument, isn't it?" + +Boland nodded. "It's part of my argument, not all of it. Of course he's +doing no harm; he's doing good every day. He's got a stiff hand for the +shirker and the wanton, but he's a man that knows his mind, and that's a +good thing in Jamaica." + +"Does he come here-ever?" + +"He has been here only once since our arrival. There are reasons why he +does not come, as your honour kens, knowing the history of Erris Boyne." + +A quarter of an hour later Darius Boland said to Sheila: "He's got an +order from England to keep Mr. Calhoun to his estate and to punish him, +if he infringes the order." + +Sheila started. "He will infringe the order if it's made, Boland. But +the governor will be unwise to try and impose it. I will tell him so." + +"But, mistress, he should not be told that this news comes from me." + +"No, he should not, Boland. I can tempt him to speak of it, I think. +He hates Mr. Calhoun, and will not need much prompting." + +Sheila had changed since she saw Dyck Calhoun last. Her face was +thinner, but her form was even fuller than it was when she had bade him +good-bye, as it seemed to him for ever, and as it at first seemed to her. +Through anxious days and nights she had fought with the old passion; and +at last it seemed the only way to escape from the torture was by making +all thought of him impossible. How could this be done? Well, Lord +Mallow would offer a way. Lord Mallow was a man of ancient Irish family, +was a governor, had ability, was distinguished-looking in a curious lean +way; and he had a real gift with his tongue. He stood high in the +opinion of the big folk at Westminster, and had a future. He had a +winning way with women--a subtle, perniciously attractive way with her +sex, and to herself he had been delicately persuasive. He had the +ancient gift of picturesqueness without ornamentation. He had a strong +will and a healthy imagination. He was a man of mettle and decision. + +Of all who had entered her field outside of Dyck Calhoun he was the most +attractive; he was the nearest to the possible husband which she must one +day take. And if at any day at all, why not now when she needed a man as +she had never done--when she needed to forget? The sardonic critic might +ask why she did not seek forgetfulness in flight; why she remained in +Jamaica where was what she wished to forget. There was no valid reason, +save a business one, why she should remain in Jamaica, and she was in a +quandary when she put the question. There were, however, other reasons +which she used when all else failed to satisfy her exigeant mind. There +was the question of vessels to Virginia or New York. They were few and +not good, and in any case they could have no comfortable journey to the +United States for several weeks at least, for, since the revolutionary +war, commerce with the United States was sparse. + +Also, there was the question of Salem. She did not feel she ought to +waste the property which her Uncle Bryan had nurtured with care. In +justice to his memory, and in fairness to Darius Boland, she felt she +ought to stay--for a time. It did not occur to her that these reasons +would vanish like mist--that a wilful woman would sweep them into the +basket of forgetfulness, and do what she wished in spite of reason: that +all else would be sacrificed, if the spirit so possessed her. Truth was +that, far back in her consciousness, there was a vision of better days +and things. It was as though some angel touched the elbow of her spirit +and said: "Stay on, for things will be better than they seem. You will +find your destiny here. Stay on." + +So she had stayed. She was deluding herself to believe that what she was +doing was all for the best; that the clouds were rising; that her fate +had fairer aspects than had seemed possible when Dyck Calhoun told her +the terrible tale of the death of her father, Erris Boyne. Yet memory +gave a touch of misery and bitterness to all she thought and did. For +twenty-five years she had lived in ignorance as to her paternity. It +surely was futile that her mother should have suffered all those years, +with little to cheer her, while her daughter should be radiant in health +and with a mind free from care or sadness. Yet the bitterest thing of +all was the thought that her father was a traitor, and had died +sacrificing another man. When Dyck had told her first, she had shivered +with anger and shame--but anger and shame had gone. Only one thing gave +her any comfort--the man who knew Erris Boyne was a traitor, and could +profit by telling it, held his tongue for her own sake, kept his own +counsel, and went to prison for four years as the price of his silence. +He was now her neighbour and he loved her, and, if the shadow of a grave +was not between them, would offer himself in marriage to her. This she +knew beyond all doubt. He had given all a man can give--had saved her +and killed her father--in ignorance had killed her father; in love had +saved herself. What was to be done? + +In a strange spirit Sheila entered the room where the governor sat with +her mother. She had reached the limit of her powers of suffering. Soon +after her mother had left the room, the governor said: + +"Why do you think I have come here to-day?" + +He added to the words a note of sympathy, even of passion in his voice. + +"It was to visit my mother and myself, and to see how Salem looks after +our stay on it, was it not?" + +"Yes, to see your mother and yourself, but chiefly the latter. As for +Salem, it looks as though a mastermind had been at work, I see it in +everything. The slaves are singing. Listen!" + +He held up a finger as though to indicate attention and direction. + + "One, two, three, + All de same; + Black, white, brown, + All de same; + All de same. + One, two, three--" + +They could hear the words indistinctly. + +"What do the words mean?" asked Sheila. "I don't understand them." + +"No more do I, but I think they refer to the march of pestilence or +plague. Numbers, colour, race, nothing matters, the plague sweeps all +away. Ah, then, I was right," he added. "There is the story in other +words. Listen again." + +To clapping of hands in unison, the following words were sung: + + "New-come buckra, + He get sick, + He tak fever, + He be die; + He be die. + New-come buckra--" + +"Well, it may be a chant of the plague, but it's lacking in poetry," she +remarked. "Doesn't it seem so to you?" + +"No, I certainly shouldn't go so far as that. Think of how much of a +story is crowded into those few words. No waste, nothing thrown away. +It's all epic, or that's my view, anyhow," said the governor. "If you +look out on those who are singing it, you'd see they are resting from +their labours; that they are fighting the ennui which most of us feel +when we rest from our labours. Let us look at them." + +The governor stood up and came to the open French windows that faced the +fields of sugar-cane. In the near distance were clumps of fruit trees, +of hedges of lime and flowering shrubs, rows of orange trees, mangoes, +red and purple, forbidden-fruit and grapefruit, the large scarlet fruit +of the acqui, the avocado-pear, the feathering bamboo, and the Jack-fruit +tree, with its enormous fruit like pumpkins. Parrots were chattering in +the acacia and in the Otaheite plum tree, with its bright pink blossoms +like tassels, and flanking the negro huts by the river were bowers of +grenadilla fruit. Around the negro huts were small individual +plantations kept by the slaves, for which they had one day a fortnight, +besides Sundays, free to work on their own account. Here and there also +were patches of "ground-fruit," as the underground vegetables were +called, while there passed by on their way to the open road leading to +Kingston wains loaded with sugar-casks, drawn by oxen, and in two cases +by sumpter mules. + +"Is there anything finer than that in Virginia?" asked the governor. +"I have never been in Virginia, but I take this to be in some ways like +that state. Is it?" + +"In some ways only. We have not the same profusion of wild fruits and +trees, but we have our share--and it is not so hot as here. It is a +better country, though." + +"In what way is it better?" the governor asked almost acidly. + +"It is better governed." + +"What do you mean by that? Isn't Jamaica well governed?" + +"Not so well that it couldn't be improved," was Sheila's reply. + +"What improvements would you suggest?" Lord Mallow asked urbanely, for +he was set to play his cards carefully to-day. + +"More wisdom in the governor," was the cheerful and bright reply. + +"Is he lacking in wisdom?" + +"In some ways, yes." + +"Will you mind specifying some of the things?" + +"I think he is careless." + +"Careless--as to what?" + +Sheila smiled. "He is indifferent to good advice. He has been told of +trouble among the Maroons, that they mean to rise; he has been advised to +make preparations, and he makes none, and he is deceived by a show of +loyalty on the part of the slaves. Lord Mallow, if the free Maroons +rise, why should not the black slaves rise at the same time? Why do you +not act?" + +"Is everybody whose good opinion is worth having mad?" answered the +governor. "I have sent my inspectors to Trelawney. I have had reports +from them. I have used every care--what would you have me do?" + +"Used every care? Why don't you ensure the Maroons peaceableness by +advancing on them? Why don't you take them prisoners? They are enraged +that two of their herdsmen should be whipped by a negro-slave under the +order of one of your captains. They are angry and disturbed and have +ambushed the roads to Trelawney, so I'm told." + +"Did Mr. Calhoun tell you that when he was here?" + +"It was not that which Mr. Calhoun told me the only time he came here. +But who Erris Boyne was. I never knew till, in his honour, he told me, +coming here for that purpose. I never knew who my father was till he +told me. My mother had kept it from me all my life." + +The governor looked alert. "And you have not seen him since that day?" + +"I have seen him, but I have not spoken to him. It was in the distance +only." + +"I understand your manager, Mr. Boland, sees him." + +"My manager does not share my private interests--or troubles. He is free +to go where he will, to speak to whom he chooses. He visits Enniskillen, +I suppose--it is a well-managed plantation on Jamaican lines, and its +owner is a man of mark." + +Sheila spoke without agitation of any kind; her face was firm and calm, +her manner composed, her voice even. As she talked, she seemed to be +probing the centre of a flower which she had caught from a basket at the +window, and her whole personality was alight and vivifying, her good +temper and spirit complete. As he looked at her, he had an overmastering +desire to make her his own--his wife. She was worth hundreds of +thousands of pounds; she had beauty, ability and authority. She was the +acme of charm and good bearing. With her he could climb high on the +ladder of life. He might be a really great figure in the British world- +if she gave her will to help him, to hold up his hands. It had never +occurred to him that Dyck Calhoun could be a rival, till he had heard of +Dyck's visit to Sheila and her mother, till he had heard Sheila praise +him at the first dinner he had given to the two ladies on Christmas Day. + +On that day it was clear Sheila did not know who her father was; but +stranger things had happened than that she should take up with, and even +marry, a man imprisoned for killing another, even one who had been +condemned as a mutineer, and had won freedom by saving the king's navy. +But now that Sheila knew the truth there could be no danger! Dyck +Calhoun would be relegated to his proper place in the scheme of things. +Who was there to stand between him and his desire? What was there to +stay the great event? He himself was a peer and high-placed, for it +was a time when the West Indian Islands were a centre of the world's +fighting, where men like Rodney had made everlasting fame; where the +currents of world-controversy challenged, met and fought for control. + +The West Indies was as much a cock-pit of the fighting powers as ever +Belgium was; and in those islands there was wealth and the power which +wealth buys; the clash of white and black and coloured peoples; the naval +contests on the sea; the horrible massacres and enslavement of free white +peoples, as in St. Domingo and Grenada; the dominating attacks of people +fighting for control--peoples of old empires like France and Spain, and +new empires like that of Britain. These were a centre of colonial life +as important as had been the life in Virginia and New York and the New +England States and Canada--indeed, more important than Canada in one +sense, for the West Indies brought wealth to the British Isles, and had a +big export trade. He lost no time in bringing matters to an issue. + +He got to his feet and came near to her. His eyes were inflamed with +passion, his manner was impressive. He had a distinguished face, become +more distinguished since his assumption of governorship, and authority +had increased his personality. + +"A man of mark!" he said. "You mean a marked man. Let me tell you I +have an order from the British Government to confine him to his estate; +not to permit him to leave it; and, if he does, to arrest him. That is +my commanded duty. You approve, do you not? Or are you like most women, +soft at heart to bold criminals?" + +Sheila did not reply at once. The news was no news to her, for Darius +Boland had told her; but she thought it well to let the governor think +he had made a new, sensational statement. + +"No," she said at last, looking him calmly in the eyes. "I have no soft +feelings for criminals as criminals, none at all. And there is every +reason why I should be adamant to this man, Dyck Calhoun. But, Lord +Mallow, I would go carefully about this, if I were you. He is a man who +takes no heed of people, high or low, and has no fear of consequences. +Have you thought of the consequences to yourself? Suppose he resists, +what will you do?" + +"If he resists I will attack him with due force." + +"You mean you will send your military and police to attack him?" The +gibe was covered, but it found the governor's breast. He knew what she +was meaning. + +"You would not expect me to do police work, would you? Is that what your +president does? What your great George Washington does? Does he make +the state arrests with his own hand?" + +"I have no doubt he would if the circumstances were such as to warrant +it. He has no small vices, and no false feelings. He has proved +himself," she answered boldly. + +"Well, in that case," responded Lord Mallow irritably, "the event will be +as is due. The man is condemned by my masters, and he must submit to my +authority. He is twice a criminal, and--" + +"And yet a hero and a good swordsman, and as honest as men are made in a +dishonest world. Your Admiralty and your government first pardoned the +man, and then gave him freedom on the island which you tried to prevent; +and now they turn round and confine him to his acres. Is that pardon in +a real sense? Did you write to the government and say he ought not to be +free to roam, lest he should discover more treasure-chests and buy +another estate? Was it you?" + +The governor shook his head. "No, not I. I told the government in +careful and unrhetorical language the incident of his coming here, and +what I did, and my reasons for doing it--that was all." + +"And you being governor they took your advice. See, my lord, if this +thing is done to him it will be to your own discomfiture. It will hurt +you in the public service." + +"Why, to hear you speak, mistress, it would almost seem you had a +fondness for the man who killed your father, who went to jail for it, +and--" + +"And became a mutineer," intervened the girl flushing. "Why not say all? +Why not catalogue his offences? Fondness for the man who killed my +father, you say! Yes, I had a deep and sincere fondness for him ever +since I met him at Playmore over seven years ago. Yes, a fondness which +only his crime makes impossible. But in all that really matters I am +still his friend. He did not know he was killing my father, who had no +claims upon me, none at all, except that through him I have life and +being; but it is enough to separate us for ever in the eyes of the world, +and in my eyes. Not morally, of course, but legally and actually. He +and I are as far apart as winter and summer; we are parted for ever and +ever and ever." + +Now at last she was inflamed. Every nerve in her was alive. All she had +ever felt for Dyck Calhoun came rushing to the surface, demanding +recognition, reasserting itself. As she used the words, "ever and ever +and ever," it was like a Cordelia bidding farewell to Lear, her father, +for ever, for there was that in her voice which said: "It is final +separation, it is the judgment of Jehovah, and I must submit. It is the +last word." + +Lord Mallow saw his opportunity, and did not hesitate. "No, you are +wrong, wholly wrong," he said. "I did not bias what I said in my report +--a report I was bound to make--by any covert prejudice against Mr. +Calhoun. I guarded myself especially"--there he lied, but he was an +incomparable liar--"lest it should be used against him. It would appear, +however, that the new admiral's report with mine were laid together, and +the government came to its conclusion accordingly. So I am bound to do +my duty." + +"If you--oh, if you did your duty, you would not obey the command of the +government. Are there not times when to obey is a crime, and is not this +one of them? Lord Mallow, you would be doing as great a crime as Mr. +Dyck Calhoun ever committed, or could commit, if you put this order into +actual fact. You are governor here, and your judgment would be accepted +--remember it is an eight weeks' journey to London at the least, and what +might not happen in that time! Are you not given discretion?" + +The governor nodded. "Yes, I am given discretion, but this is an order." + +"An order!" she commented. "Then if it should not be fulfilled, break +it and take the consequences. The principle should be--Do what is right, +and have no fear." + +"I will think it over," answered the governor. "What you say has immense +weight with me--more even than I have words to say. Yes, I will think it +over--I promise you. You are a genius--you prevail." + +Her face softened, a new something came into her manner. "You do truly +mean it?" she asked with lips that almost trembled. + +It seemed to her that to do this thing for Dyck Calhoun was the least +that was possible, and it was perhaps the last thing she might ever be +able to do. She realized how terrible it would be for him to be shorn of +the liberty he had always had; how dangerous it might be in many ways; +and how the people of the island might become excited by it--and +troublesome. + +"Yes, I mean it," answered Lord Mallow. "I mean it exactly as I say it." + +She smiled. "Well, that should recommend you for promotion," she said +happily. "I am sure you will decide not to enforce the order, if you +think about it. You shall be promoted, your honour, to a better place," +she repeated, half-satirically. + +"Shall I then?" he asked with a warm smile and drawing close to her. +"Shall I? Then it can only be by your recommendation. Ah, my dear, my +beautiful dear one," he hastened to add, "my life is possible +henceforward only through you. You have taught me by your life and +person, by your beauty and truth, by your nobility of mind and character +how life should be lived. I have not always deserved your good opinion +nor that of others. I have fought duels and killed men; I have aspired +to place; I have connived at appointment; I have been vain, overbearing +and insistent on my rights or privileges; I have played the dictator here +in Jamaica; I have not been satisfied save to get my own way; but you +have altered all that. Your coming here has given me a new outlook. +Sheila, you have changed me, and you can change me infinitely more. +I who have been a master wish to become your slave. I want you--beloved, +I want you for my wife." + +He reached out as though to take her hand, but she drew back from him. +His thrilling words had touched her, as she had seldom been touched, as +she had never been touched by any one save the man that must never be +hers; she was submerged for the moment in the flood of his eloquence, and +his yielding to her on the point of Dyck's imprisonment gave fresh accent +to his words. Yet she could not, she dared not yet say yes to his +demand. + +"My lord," she said, "oh, you have stirred me! Yet I dare not reply to +you as you wish. Life is hard as it is, and you have suddenly made it +harder. What is more, I do not, I cannot, believe you. You have loved +many. Your life has been a covert menace. Oh, I know what they said of +you in Ireland. I know not of your life here. I suppose it is +circumspect now; but in Ireland it was declared you were notorious with +women." + +"It is a lie," he answered. "I was not notorious. I was no better and +no worse than many another man. I played, I danced attendance, I said +soft nothings, but I was tied to no woman in all Ireland. I was +frolicsome and adventurous, but no more. There is no woman who can +say I used her ill or took from her what I did not--" + +"Atone for, Lord Mallow?" + +"Atone--no. What I did not give return for, was what I was going to +say." + +The situation was intense. She was in a place from which there was no +escape except by flight or refusal. She did not really wish to refuse. +Somehow, there had come upon her the desire to put all thought of Dyck +Calhoun out of her mind by making it impossible for her to think of him; +and marriage was the one sure and complete way--marriage with this man, +was it possible? He held high position, he was her fellow countryman and +an Irish peer, and she was the daughter of an evil man, who was, above +all else, a traitor to his country, though Lord Mallow did not know that. +The only one she knew possessed of the facts was the man she desired to +save herself from in final way--Dyck Calhoun. Her heart was for the +moment soft to Lord Mallow, in spite of his hatred of Dyck Calhoun. The +governor was a man of charm in conversation. He was born with rare +faculties. Besides, he had knowledge of humanity and of women. He knew +how women could be touched. He had appealed to Sheila more by ability +than by aught else. His concessions to her were discretion in a way. +They opened the route to her affections, as his place and title could not +do. + +"No, no, no, believe me, Sheila, I was a man who had too many temptations +--that was all. But I did not spoil my life by them, and I am here a +trusted servant of the government. I am a better governor than your +first words to me would make you seem to think." + +Her eyes were shining, her face was troubled, her tongue was silent. She +knew not what to say. She felt she could not say yes--yet she wanted to +escape from him. Her good fortune did not desert her. Suddenly the door +of the room opened and her mother entered. + +"There is a member of your suite here, your honour, asking for you. It +is of most grave importance. It is urgent. What shall I say?" + +"Say nothing. I am coming," said the governor. "I am coming now." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +OUT OF THE HANDS OF THE PHILISTINES + +That night the Maroons broke loose upon Jamaica, and began murder and +depredation against which the governor's activities were no check. +Estates were invaded, and men, women and children killed, or carried into +the mountains and held as hostages. In the middle and western part of +the island the ruinous movements went on without being stayed; planters +and people generally railed at the governor, and said that through his +neglect these dark things were happening. It was said he had failed to +punish offences by the Maroons, and this had given them confidence, +filling them with defiance. They had one advantage not possessed by the +government troops and militia--they were masters of every square rod of +land in the middle and west of the island. Their plan was to raid, to +ambush, to kill and to excite the slaves to rebel. + +The first assault and repulse took place not far from Enniskillen, Dyck +Calhoun's plantation, and Michael Clones captured a Maroon who was +slightly wounded. + +Michael challenged him thus: "Come now, my blitherin' friend, tell us +your trouble--why are you risin'? You don't do this without cause-- +what's the cause?" + +The black man, naked except for a cloth about his loins, and with a small +bag at his hip, slung from a cord over his shoulder, showed his teeth in +a stark grimace. + +"You're a newcomer here, massa, or you'd know we're treated bad," he +answered. "We're robbed and trod on and there's no word kept with us. +We asked the governor for more land and he moved us off. We warned him +against having one of our head young men flogged by a slave in the +presence of slaves--for we are free men, and he laughs. So, knowing a +few strong men can bring many weak men to their knees, we rose. I say +this--there's plenty weak men in Jamaica, men who don't know right when +they see it. So we rose, massa, and we'll make Jamaica sick before we've +done. They can't beat us, for we can ambush here, and shoot those that +come after us. We hide, one behind this rock and one behind that, two or +three together, and we're safe. But the white soldiers come all together +and beat drums and blow horns, and we know where they are, and so we +catch 'em and kill 'em. You'll see, we'll capture captains and generals, +and we'll cut their heads off and bury them in their own guts." + +He made an ugly grimace, and a loathsome gesture, and Michael Clones felt +the man ought to die. He half drew his sword, but, thinking better of +it, he took the Maroon to the Castle and locked him up in a slave's hut, +having first bound him and put him in the charge of one he could trust. +But as he put the man away, he said: + +"You talk of your people hiding, and men not being able to find you; but +did you never hear of bloodhounds, that can hunt you down, and chew you +up? Did you never hear of them?" + +The man's face wrinkled like a rag, for there is one thing the native +fears more than all else, and that is the tooth of the hound. But he +gathered courage, and said: "The governor has no hounds. There ain't +none in Jamaica. We know dat--all of us know dat--all of us know dat, +massa." + +Michael Clones laughed, and it was not pleasant to hear. "It may be the +governor has no bloodhounds, and would not permit their being brought +into the island, but my master is bringing them in himself--a lot with +their drivers from Cuba, and you Maroons will have all you can do to +hide. Sure, d'ye think every wan in the island is as foolish as the +governor? If you do, y'are mistaken, and that's all there is to say." + +"The hounds not here--in de island, massa!" declared the Maroon +questioningly. + +"They'll be here within the next few hours, and then where will you and +your pals be? You'll be caught between sharp teeth--nice, red, sharp, +bloody teeth; and you'll make good steak-better than your best olio." + +The native gave a moan--it was the lament of one whose crime was come +tete-a-tete with its own punishment. + +"That's the game to play," said Michael to himself as he fastened the +door tight. "The hounds will settle this fool-rebellion quicker than +aught else. Mr. Calhoun's a wise man, and he ought to be governor here. +Criminal? As much as the angel Gabriel! He must put down this +rebellion--no wan else can. They're stronger, the Maroons, than ever +they've been. They've planned this with skill, and they'll need a lot of +handlin'. We're safe enough here, but down there at Salem--well, they +may be caught in the bloody net. Bedad, that's sure." + +A few moments afterwards he met Dyck Calhoun. "Michael," said Dyck, +"things are safe enough here, but we've prepared! The overseers, +bookkeepers and drivers are loyal enough. But there are others not so +safe. I'm going to Salem-riding as hard as I can, with six of our best +men. They're not so daft at Salem as we are, Michael. They won't know +how to act or what to do. Darius Boland is a good man, but he's only had +Virginian experience, and this is different. A hundred Maroons are as +good as a thousand white soldiers in the way the Maroons fight. There +are a thousand of them, and they can lay waste this island, if they get +going. So I shall stop them. The hounds are outside the harbour now, +Michael. The ship Vincent, bringing them, was sighted by a sloop two +days ago, making slowly for Kingston. She should be here before we've +time to turn round. Michael, the game is in our hands, if we play it +well. Do you go down to Kingston and--" + +He detailed what Michael was to do on landing the hounds, and laid out +plans for the immediate future. "They're in danger at Salem, Michael, so +we must help them. The hounds will settle this whole wretched business." + +Michael told him of his prisoner, and what effect the threat about the +hounds had had. A look of purpose came into Dyck's face. + +"A hound is as fair as a gun, and hounds shall be used here in Jamaica. +The governor can't refuse their landing now. The people would kill him +if he did. It was I proposed it all." + +"Look, sir--who's that?" asked Michael, as they saw a figure riding +under the palms not far away. + +It was very early morning, and the light was dim yet, but there was +sufficient to make even far sight easy. Dyck shaded his forehead with +his hand. + +"It's not one of our people, Michael. It's a stranger." + +As the rider came on he was stopped by two of the drivers of the estate. +Dyck and Michael saw him hold up a letter, and a moment later he was on +his way to Dyck, galloping hard. Arrived, he dropped to the ground, and +saluted Dyck. + +"A letter from Salem, sir," he said, and handed it over to Dyck. + +Dyck nodded, broke the seal of the letter and read it quickly. Then he +nodded again and bade the man eat a hearty breakfast and return with him +on one of the Enniskillen horses, as his own would be exhausted. "We'll +help protect Salem, my man," said Dyck. + +The man grinned. "That's good," he answered. "They knew naught of the +rising when I left. But the governor was there yesterday, and he'd +protect us." + +"Nonsense, fellow, the governor would go straight to Spanish Town where +he belongs, when there is trouble." + +When the man had gone, Dyck turned to his servant. "Michael," he said, +"the news in the letter came from Darius Boland. He says the governor +told him he had orders from England to confine me here at Enniskillen, +and he meant to do it. We'll see how he does it. If he sends his +marshals, we'll make Gadarene swine of them." + +There was a smile at his lips, and it was contemptuous, and the lines of +his forehead told of resolve. "Michael," he added, "we'll hunt Lord +Mallow with the hounds of our good fortune, for this war is our war. +They can't win it without me, and they shan't. Without the hounds it may +be a two years' war--with the hounds it can't go beyond a week or so." + +"If the hounds get here, sir! But if they don't?" + +Dyck laid his hand upon the sword at his side. "If they don't get here, +Michael, still the war will be ours, for we understand fighting, and the +governor does not. Confine me here, will he? If he does, he'll be a +better man than I have ever known him, Michael. In a few hours I shall +be at Salem, to do what he could not, and would not, do if he could. His +love is as deep as water on a roof, no deeper. He'll think first of +himself, and afterwards of the owner of Salem or any other. Let me show +you what I mean to do once we've Salem free from danger. Come and have a +look at my chart." + +Some hours later Dyck Calhoun, with his six horsemen, was within a mile +or so of Salem. They had ridden hard in the heat and were tired, but +there was high spirit in the men, for they were behind a trusted leader +--a man who ate little, but who did not disdain a bottle of Madeira or +a glass of brandy, and who made good every step of the way he went-- +watchful, alert, careful, determined. They cared little what his past +had been. Jamaica was not a heaven for the good, but it was a haven for +many who had been ill-used elsewhere; where each man, as though he were +really in a new world, was judged by his daily actions and not by any +history of a hidden or an open past. As they came across country, Dyck +always ahead, they saw how he responded to every sign of life in the +bush, how he moved always with discretion where ambush seemed possible. +They knew how on his own estate he never made mistakes of judgment; +that he held the balance carefully, and that his violences, rare and +tremendous, were not outbursts of an unregulated nature. "You can't fool +Calhoun," was a common phrase in the language of Enniskillen, and there +were few in the surrounding country who would not have upheld its truth. + +Now, to-day, he was almost moodily silent, reserved and watchful. None +knew the eddies of life which struggled for mastery in him, nor of his +horrible disappointments. None knew of his love for Sheila. Yet all +knew that he had killed--or was punished for killing--Erris Boyne. None +of them had seen Sheila, but all had heard of her, and the governor's +courtship of her, and all wondered why Dyck Calhoun should be doing what +clearly the governor should do. + +Somehow, in spite of the criminal record with which Calhoun's life was +stained, they had a respect for him they did not have for Lord Mallow. +Dyck's life in Jamaica was clean; and his progress as a planter had been +free from black spots. He even kept no mistress, and none had ever known +him to have to do with women, black, brown, or white. He had never gone +a-Maying, as the saying was, and his only weakness or fault--if it was a +fault--was a fondness for the bottle of good wine which was ever open on +his table, and for tobacco in the smoking-leaf. To-day he smoked +incessantly and carefully. He threw no loose ends of burning tobacco +from cigar or pipe into the loose dry leaves and stiff-cut ground. Yet +they knew the small clouds floating away from his head did not check his +observation. That was proved beyond peradventure when they were within +sight of the homestead of Salem on an upland well-wooded. It was in +apparently happy circumstances, for they could see no commotion about the +homestead; they saw men with muskets, evidently keeping guard--yet too +openly keeping guard, and so some said to each other. + +Presently Dyck reined his horse. Each man listened attentively, and eyed +the wood ahead of them, for it was clear Dyck suspected danger there. +For a moment there seemed doubt in Dyck's mind what to do, but presently +he had decided. + +"Ride slow for Salem," he said. "It's Maroons there in the bush. They +are waiting for night. They won't attack us now. They're in ambush--of +that I'm sure. If they want to capture Salem, they'll not give alarm by +firing on us, so if we ride on they'll think we haven't sensed them. If +they do attack us, we'll know they are in good numbers, for they'll be +facing us as well as the garrison of Salem. But keep your muskets ready. +Have a drink," he added, and handed his horn of liquor. "If they see us +drink, and they will, they'll think we've only stopped to refresh, and +we'll be safe. In any case, if they attack, fire your muskets at them +and ride like the devil. Don't dismount and don't try to find them in +the rocks. They'll catch us that way, as they've caught others. It's a +poor game fighting hidden men. I want to get them into the open down +below, and that's where they'll be before we're many hours older." + +With this he rode on slightly ahead, and presently put his horse at a +gentle canter which he did not increase as they neared the place where +the black men ambushed. Every man of the group behaved well. None +showed nervousness, even when one of the horses, conscious of hidden +Maroons in the wood, gave a snort and made a sharp movement out of the +track, in an attempt to get greater speed. + +That was only for an instant, however. Yet every man's heart beat +faster as they came to the place where the ambush was. Indeed, Dyck saw +a bush move, and had a glimpse of a black, hideous face which quickly +disappeared. Dyck's imperturbable coolness kept them steady. They even +gossiped of idle things loud enough for the hidden Maroons to hear. No +face showed suspicion or alarm, as they passed, while all felt the +presence of many men in the underbrush. Only when they had passed the +place, did they realize the fulness of the danger through which they had +gone. Dyck talked to them presently without turning round, for that +might have roused suspicion, and while they were out of danger now, +there was the future and Dyck's plan which he now unfolded. + +"They'll come down into the open before it's dark," he said quietly, +"and when they do that, we'll have 'em. They've no chance to ambush in +the cane-fields now. We'll get them in the open, and wipe them out. +Don't look round. Keep steady, and we'll ride a little more quickly +soon." + +A little later they cantered to the front door of the Salem homestead. + +The first face they saw there was that of Darius Boland. It had a look +of trouble. Dyck explained. "We thought you might not have heard of the +rise of the Maroons. We have no ladies at Enniskillen. We prepared, and +we're safe enough there, as things are. Your ladies must go at once to +Spanish Town, unless--" + +"Unless they stay here! Well, they would not be unwise, for though the +slaves under the old management might have joined the Maroons, they will +not do so now. We have got them that far. But, Mr. Calhoun, the ladies +aren't here. They rode away into the hills this morning, and they've not +come back. + +"I was just sending a search party for them. I did not know of the rise +of the Maroons." + +"In what direction did they go?" asked Dyck with anxiety, though his +tone was even. + +Darius Boland pointed. "They went slightly northwest, and if they go as +I think they meant to do, they would come back the way you came in." + +"They were armed?" Dyck asked sharply. + +"Yes, they were armed," was the reply. "Miss Llyn had a small pistol. +She learned to carry one in Virginia, and she has done so ever since we +came here." + +"Listen, Boland," said Dyck with anxiety. "Up there in the hills by +which we came are Maroons hidden, and they will invade this place to- +night. We were ready to fight them, of course, as we came, but it's a +risky business, and we wanted to get them all if possible. We couldn't +if we had charged them there, for they were well-ambushed. My idea was +to let them get into the open between there and here, and catch them as +they came. It would save our own men, and it would probably do for them. +If Mrs. and Miss Llyn come back that way, they will be in greater danger +than were we, for the Maroons were coming here to capture the ladies and +hold them as hostages; and they would not let them pass. In any case, +the risk is immense. The ladies must be got to Spanish Town, for the +Maroons are desperate. They know we have no ships of the navy here now, +and they rely on their raiding powers and the governor's weakness. They +have placed their men in every part of the middle and western country, +and they came upon my place last evening and were defeated. Several were +killed and one taken prisoner. They can't be marched upon like an army. +Their powers of ambush are too great. They must be run down by +bloodhounds. It's the only way." + +"Bloodhounds--there are no bloodhounds here!" said Darius Boland. "And +if there were, wouldn't pious England make a fuss?" + +Dyck Calhoun was about to speak sharply, but he caught sarcasm in Darius +Boland's face, and he said: "I have the bloodhounds. They're outside the +harbour now, and I intend to use them." + +"If the governor allows you!" remarked Darius Boland ironically. "He +does not like you or your bloodhounds. He has his orders, so he says." + +Dyck made an impatient gesture. "I will not submit to his orders. +I have earned my place in this is land, and he shall not have his way. +The ladies must be brought to Spanish Town, and placed where the +governor's men can protect them." + +"The governor's men! Indeed. They might as well stay here; we can +surely protect them." + +"Perhaps, for you have skill, Boland, and you are cautious, but is it +fair for ladies to stay in this isolated spot with murderers about? When +the ladies come back, they must be sent at once to Spanish Town. Can't +you see?" + +Darius Boland bowed. "What you say goes always," he remarked, "but tell +me, sir, who will take the ladies to Spanish Town?" + +Dyck Calhoun read the inner meaning of Darius Boland's words. They did +not put him out of self-control. It was not a time to dwell on such +things. It was his primary duty to save the ladies. + +"Come, Boland," he said sharply, "I shall start now. We must find the +ladies. What sort of a country is it through which they pass?" He +pointed. + +"Bad enough in some ways. There's an old monastery of the days of the +Spaniards up there"--he pointed or the ruins of one, and it is a pleasant +place to rest. I doubt not they rested there, if--" + +"If they reached it!" remarked Dyck with crisp inflection. "Yes, they +would rest there--and it would be a good place for ambush by the Maroons, +eh?" + +"Good enough from the standpoint of the Maroons," was the reply, the +voice slightly choked. + +"Then we must go there. It's a damnable predicament--no, you must not +come with me! You must keep command here." + +He hastily described the course to be followed by those of his own men +who stayed to defend, and then said: "Our horses are fagged. If you loan +us four I'll see they are well cared for, and returned in kind or cash. +I'll take three of my men only, and loan you three of the best. We'll +fill our knapsacks and get away, Boland." + +A few moments later, Calhoun and his three men, with a guide added by +Boland, had started away up the road which had been ridden by Mrs. Llyn +and Sheila. One thing was clear, the Maroons on the hill did not know of +the absence of Sheila and her mother, or they would not be waiting. He +did not like the long absence of the ladies. It was ominous at such a +time. + +Dyck and his small escort got away by a road unseen from where the +Maroons were, and when well away put their horses to a canter and got +into the hills. Once in the woods, however, they rode alertly, and +Dyck's eyes were everywhere. He was quick to see a bush move, to observe +the flick of a branch, to catch the faintest sound of an animal origin. +He was obsessed with anxiety, for he had a dark fear that some ill had +happened to the two. His blood almost dried in his veins when he thought +of the fate which had followed the capture of ladies in other islands +like Haiti or Grenada. + +It did not seem possible that these beautiful women should have fallen +into the outrageous hands of savages. He knew the girl was armed, and +that before harm might come to her she would end her own life and her +mother's also; but if she was caught from behind, and the opportunity of +suicide should not be hers--what then? + +Yet he showed no agitation to his followers. His eyes were, however, +intensely busy, and every nerve was keen to feel. Life in the open had +developed in him the physical astuteness of the wild man, and he had all +the gifts that make a supreme open-air fighter. He sensed things; but +with him it was feeling, and not scent or hearing; his senses were such +perfect listeners. He had the intense perception of a delicate plant, +those wonderful warnings which only come to those who live close to +nature, who study from feeling the thousand moods and tenses of living +vegetables and animal life. He was a born hunter, and it was not easy to +surprise him when every nerve was sharp with premonition. He saw the +marks of the hoofs of Sheila's and her mother's horses in the road, +knowing them by the freshness of the indentations. An hour, two hours +passed, and they then approached the monasterial ruin of which Boland had +spoken. Here, suddenly, Dyck dropped to the ground, for he saw +unmistakable signs of fright or flurry in the hoofmarks. + +He quickly made examination, and there were signs of women's feet and +also a bare native foot, but no signs of struggle or disturbance. The +footprints, both native and white, were firmly placed, but the horses' +hoof-prints showed agitation. Presently the hoofmarks became more +composed again. Suddenly one of Dyck's supporters exclaimed he had +picked up a small piece of ribbon, evidently dropped to guide those who +might come searching. Presently another token was found in a loose bit +of buckle from a shoe. Then, suddenly, upon the middle of the road was a +little pool of blood and signs that a body had lain in the dust. + +"She shot a native here," said Dyck to his men coolly. "There are no +signs of a struggle," remarked the most observant. + +"We must go carefully here, for they may have been imprisoned in the +ruin. You stay here, and I'll go forward," he added, with a hand on his +sword. "I've an idea they're here. We have one chance, my lads, and +let's keep our heads. If anything should happen to me, have a try +yourselves, and see what you can do. The ladies must be freed, if +they're there. There's not one of you that won't stand by to the last, +but I want your oath upon it. By the heads or graves of your mothers, +lads, you'll see it through? Up with your hands!" + +Their hands went up. "By our mothers' heads or graves!" they said in low +tones. + +"Good!" he replied. "I'll go on ahead. If you hear a call, or a shot +fired, forward swiftly." + +An instant later he plunged into the woods to the right of the road, by +which he would come upon the ruins from the rear. He held a pistol as he +stole carefully yet quickly forward. He was anxious there should be no +delay, but he must not be rash. Without meeting anyone he came near the +ruins. They showed serene in the shade of the trees. + +Then suddenly came from the ruin a Maroon of fierce, yet not cruel +appearance, who laid a hand behind his ear, and looked steadfastly +towards that part of the wood where Dyck was. It was clear he had heard +something. Dyck did not know how many Maroons there might be in the +ruins, or near it, and he did not attack. It was essential he should +know the strength of his foe; and he remained quiet. Presently the +native turned as though to go back into the ruins, but changed his mind, +and began to tour the stony, ruined building. Dyck waited, and presently +saw more natives come from the ruins, and after a moment another three. +These last were having an argument of some stress, for they pulled at +each other's arms and even caught at the long cloths of their +headdresses. + +"They've got the ladies there," thought Dyck, "but they've done them no +harm yet." He waited moments longer to see if more natives were coming +out, then said to himself: "I'll make a try for it now. It won't do to +run the risk of going back to bring my fellows up. It's a fair risk, but +it's worth taking." + +With that he ran softly to the entrance from which he had seen the men +emerge. Looking in he saw only darkness. Then suddenly he gave a soft +call, the call of an Irish bird-note which all people in Ireland--in the +west and south of Ireland--know. If Sheila was alive and in the place +she would answer it, he was sure. He waited a moment, and there was no +answer. Then he called again, and in an instant, as though from a great +distance, there came the reply of the same note, clearer and more bell- +like than his own. + +"She's there!" he said, and boldly entered the place. It was dark and +damp, but ahead was a break in the solid monotony of ruined wall, and he +saw a clear stream of light beyond. He stole ahead, got over the stone +obstructions, and came on to a biggish room which once had been a +refectory. Looking round it he saw three doors--one evidently led into +the kitchen, one into a pantry, and one into a hall. It was clear the +women were alone, or some one would have come in answer to his call. Who +could tell when they would come? There was no time to be lost. With an +instinct, which proved correct, he opened the door leading into the old +kitchen, and there, tied, and with pale faces, but in no other sense +disordered, were Sheila and her mother. He put his fingers to his lips, +then hastily cut them loose from the ropes of bamboo, and helped them to +their feet. + +"Can you walk?" he whispered to Mrs. Llyn. She nodded assent, and +braced herself. "Then here," he said, "is a pistol. Come quickly. We +may have to fight our way out. Don't be afraid to fire, but take good +aim first. I have some men in the wood beyond where you shot the +native," he added to Sheila. "They'll come at once if I call, or a shot +is fired. Keep your heads, and we shall be all right. They're a +dangerous crew, but we'll beat them this time. Come quickly." + +Presently they were in the refectory, and a moment after that they were +over the stones, and near the entrance, and then a native appeared, +armed. Without an instant's hesitation Dyck ran forward, and as he +entered, put his sword into the man's vitals, and he fell, calling out as +he fell. + +"The rest will be on us now," said Dyck, "and we must keep going." + +Three more natives appeared, and he shot two. + +Catching a pistol from Sheila he aimed at the third native and wounded +him, but did not kill him. The man ran into the wood. Presently more +Maroons came--a dozen or more, and rushed for the entrance. They were +met by Dyck's fire, and now also Sheila fired and brought down her man. +Dyck wounded another, and in great skill loaded again, but at that moment +three of the Maroons rushed down into the ruins. + +They were astonished to see Dyck there, and more astonished to receive-- +first one and then another--his iron in their bowels. The third man made +a stroke at Dyck with his lance, and only gashed Dyck's left arm. Then +he turned and fled out into the open, and was met by a half-dozen others. +They all were about to rush the entrance when suddenly four shots behind +them brought three of them down, and the rest fled into the wood +shouting. In another moment Dyck and the ladies were in the open, and +making for the woods, the women in front, the men behind, loading their +muskets as they ran, and alive to the risks of the moment. + +The dresses of the ladies were stained and soiled with dust and damp, but +otherwise they seemed little the worse for the adventure, save that Mrs. +Llyn was shaken, and her face was pale. + +"How did you know where we were, and why did you come?" she said, after +they had got under way, having secured the horses which Sheila and her +mother had ridden. + +Briefly Dyck explained how as soon as he had dealt with the revolt of the +Maroons at his own place he came straight to Salem. + +"I knew you were unused to the ways of the country and to our sort of +native here, and I felt sure you would not refuse to take help--even mine +at a pinch. But what happened to you?" he added, turning to Sheila. + +It was only yesterday Sheila had determined to cut him wholly out of her +life by assenting to marry Lord Mallow. Yet here he was, and she could +scarcely bear to look into his face. He was shut off from her by every +fact of human reason. These were days when the traditions of family life +were more intense than now; when to kill one's own father was not so bad +as to embrace, as it were, him or her who had killed that father. Sheila +felt if she were normal she ought to feel abhorrence against Dyck; yet +she felt none at all, and his saving them had given a new colour to +their relations. If he had killed her father, the traitor, he had saved +themselves from death or freed them from a shameful captivity which might +have ended in black disaster. She kept herself in hand, and did not show +confusion. + +"We had not heard of the rising of the Maroons," she said. "The governor +was at Salem yesterday and a message came from his staff to say would he +come at once. His staff were not at Salem, but at the next plantation +nearer to Spanish Town. Lord Mallow went. If he suspected the real +trouble he said naught, but was gone before you could realize it. The +hours went by, night came and passed, then my mother and I, this morning, +resolved to ride to the monastery, and then round by the road you +travelled back to Salem." + +"There are Maroons now on that hill above your place. They were in +ambush when we passed, but we took no notice. It was not wise to invite +trouble. Some of us would have been killed, but--" + +He then told what had been in his mind, and what might be the outcome-- +the killing or capture of the whole group, and safety for all at Salem. + +When he had finished, she continued her story. "We rode for an hour +unchallenged, and then came the Maroons. At first I knew not what to do. +We were surrounded before we could act. I had my pistol ready, and there +was the chance of escape--the faint chance--if we drove our horses on; +but there was also the danger of being fired at from behind! So we sat +still on our horses, and I asked them how they dared attack white ladies. +I asked them if they had never thought what vengeance the governor would +take. They did not understand my words, but they grasped the meaning, +and one of them, the leader, who understood English, was inclined to have +reason. As it was, we stopped what might have been our murder by saying +it would be wiser to hold us as hostages, and that we were Americans. +That man was killed--by you. A shot from your pistol brought him down as +he rushed forward to enter the ruins. But he took care of us as we went +forward, and when I shot one of his followers for laying his hand upon me +in the saddle--he caught me by the leg under my skirt--he would allow no +retaliation. I knew boldness was the safe part to play. + +"But in the end we were bound with ropes as you found us, while they +waited for more of their people to come, those, no doubt, you found +ambushed on the hill. As we lay, bound as you saw us, the leader said to +us we should be safe if he could have his way, but there were bad +elements among the Maroons, and he could not guarantee it. Yet he knew +the government would pay for our release, would perhaps give the land for +which they had asked with no avail. We must, therefore, remain +prisoners. If we made no efforts to escape, it would be better in the +end. "Keep your head steady, missy, try no tricks, and all may go well; +but I have bad lot, and they may fly at you." That was the way he spoke. +It made our blood run cold, for he was one man, with fair mind, and he +had around him men, savage and irresponsible. Black and ruthless, they +would stop at nothing except the sword at their throats or the teeth in +their flesh." + +"The teeth in their flesh!" said Dyck with a grim smile. "Yes, that is +the only way with them. Naught can put the fear of God into them except +bloodhounds, and that Lord Mallow will not have. He has been set against +it until now. But this business will teach him. He may change his mind +now, since what he cares for is in danger--his place and his ladies!" + +Mrs. Llyn roused herself to say: "No, no, Mr. Calhoun, you must not say +that of him. His place may be in danger, but not his ladies. He has no +promise of that. . . . And see, Mr. Calhoun, I want to say that, in +any case, you have paid your debt, if you owe one to us. For a life +taken you have given two lives--to me and my girl. I speak as one who +has a right to say it! Erris Boyne was naught to me at all, but he was +my daughter's father, and that made everything difficult. I could make +him cease to be my husband, and I did; but I could not make him cease to +be her father." + +"I had no love for Erris Boyne," said Sheila. Misery was heavy on her. +"None at all, but he was my father." + +"See, all's well still at Salem," said Dyck waving a hand as though to +change the talk. "All's as we left it." + +There in the near distance lay Salem, serene. All tropical life about +seemed throbbing with life and soaking with leisure. + +"We were in time," he added. "The Maroons are still in ambush. The sun +is beginning to set though, and the trouble may begin. We shall get +there about sundown--safe, thank God!" + +"Safe, thank God--and you," said Sheila's mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CLASH OF RACE + +In the King's House at Spanish Town the governor was troubled. All his +plans and prophecies had come to naught. He had been sure there would be +no rebellion of the Maroons, and he was equally sure that his career +would be made hugely successful by marriage with Sheila Llyn--but the +Maroons had revolted, and the marriage was not settled! + +Messages had been coming from the provost-marshal-general of reports from +the counties of Middlesex and Cornwall, that the Maroons were ravaging +everywhere and that bands of slaves had joined them with serious +disasters to the plantation people. Planters, their wives and children +had been murdered, and in some districts the natives were in full +possession and had destroyed, robbed and ravaged. He had summoned his +commander of the militia forces, had created special constables, and +armed them, and had sent a ship to the Bahamas to summon a small British +fleet there. He had also mapped out a campaign against the Maroons, +which had one grave demerit--it was planned on a basis of ordinary +warfare and not with Jamaica conditions in mind. The provost-marshal +warned him of the futility of these plans, but he had persisted in them. +He had later been shocked, however, by news that the best of his colonels +had been ambushed and killed, and that others had been made prisoners and +treated with barbarity. From everywhere, except one, had come either +news of defeat or set-back. + +One good thing he immediately did: he threw open King's House to the +wounded, and set the surgeons to work, thereby checking bitter criticism +and blocking the movement rising against him. For it was well known he +had rejected all warnings, had persisted in his view that trust in the +Maroons and fair treatment of themselves and the slaves were all that was +needed. + +As he walked in the great salon or hall of audience where the wounded +lay--over seventy feet long and thirty wide, with great height, to which +beds and conveniences had been hastily brought--it seemed to him that he +was saving, if barely saving, his name and career. Standing beside one +of the Doric pillars which divided the salon from an upper and lower +gallery of communications, he received the Custos of Kingston. As the +Custos told his news the governor's eyes were running along the line of +busts of ancient and modern philosophers on the gilt brackets between the +Doric pilasters. They were all in bronze, and his mind had the doleful +imagination of brown slave heroes placed there in honour for services +given to the country. The doors at the south end of the great salon +opened now and then into the council chambers beyond, and he could see +the surgeons operating on the cases returned from the plantations. + +"Your honour," said the Custos, "things have suddenly improved. The +hounds have come from Cuba and in the charge of ten men--ten men with +sixty hounds. That is the situation at the moment. All the people at +Kingston are overjoyed. They see the end of the revolt." + +"The hounds!" exclaimed the governor. "What hounds?" + +"The hounds sent for by Dyck Calhoun--surely your honour remembers!" + +Surely his honour did, and recalled also that he forbade the importation +of the hounds; but he could not press that prohibition now. "The +mutineer and murderer, Dyck Calhoun!" he exclaimed. "And they have +come!" + +"Yes, your honour, and gone with Calhoun's man, Michael Clones, to +Salem." + +"To Salem--why Salem?" + +"Because Calhoun is there fighting the Maroons in that district. The +Maroons first captured the ladies of Salem as they rode in the woods. +They were beaten at that game by Calhoun and four men; the ladies then +were freed and taken back to Salem. Then the storm burst on Salem-- +burst, but did not overwhelm. Calhoun saved the situation there; and +when his hounds arrive at Salem he will range over the whole country. +It is against the ideas of the people of England, but it does our work +in Jamaica as nothing else could. It was a stroke of genius, the hounds, +your honour!" + +Lord Mallow was at once relieved and nonplussed. No doubt the policy of +the hounds was useful, and it might save his own goose, but it was, in a +sense, un-English to hunt the wild man with hounds. Yet was it un- +English? What was the difference between a sword and a good sharp tooth +save that the sword struck and let go and the tooth struck and held on? +It had been said in England that to hunt negroes with hounds was +barbarous and cowardly; but criminals were hunted with bloodhounds +in all civilized countries; and as for cowardice, the man who had sent +for these hounds was as brave as any old crusader! No, Dyck Calhoun +could not be charged with cowardice, and his policy of the hounds might +save the island and the administration in the end. They had arrived in +the very hour of Jamaica's and Lord Mallow's greatest peril. They had +gone on to the man who had been sane enough to send for them. + +"Tell me about the landing of the hounds," said Lord Mallow. + +"It was last night about dusk that word came from the pilot's station +at Port Royal that the vessel Vincent was making for port, and that she. +came from Cuba. Presently Michael Clones, the servant of Dyck Calhoun, +came also to say that the Vincent was the ship bringing Calhoun's hounds +from Cuba, and asking permit for delivery. This he did because he +thought you were opposed to the landing. In the light of our position +here, we granted the delivery. + +"When the vessel came to anchor, the hounds with their drivers were +landed. The landing was the signal for a great display on the part of +the people and the militia--yes, the militia shared in the applause, your +honour! They had had a taste of war with the Maroons and the slaves, and +they were well inclined to let the hounds have their chance. Resolutions +were then passed to approach your honour and ask that full powers be +given to Calhoun to pursue the war without thought of military precedent +or of Calhoun's position. He has no official place in the public life +here, but he is powerful with the masses. It is rumoured you have an +order to confine him to his plantation; but to apply it would bring +revolution in Jamaica. There are great numbers of people who love his +courage, what he did for the King's navy, and for his commercial success +here, and they would resent harsh treatment of him. They are aware, your +honour, that he and you knew each other in Ireland, and they think you +are hard on him. People judge not from all the facts, but from what they +see and hear." + +During the Custos' narrative, Lord Mallow was perturbed. He had the +common sense to know that Dyck Calhoun, ex-convict and mutineer as he +was, had personal power in the island, which he as governor had not been +able to get, and Dyck had not abused that power. He realized that Dyck's +premonition of an outbreak and sending for the hounds was a stroke +of genius. He recalled with anger Dyck's appearance, in spite of +regulations, in trousers at the King's ball and his dancing with a black +woman, and he also realized that it was a cool insult to himself. It was +then he had given the home authorities information which would poison +their mind against Dyck, and from that had come the order to confine him +to his plantation. + +Yet he felt the time had come when he might use Dyck for his own +purposes. That Dyck should be at Salem was a bitter dose, but that could +amount to nothing, for Sheila could never marry the man who had killed +her father, however bad and mad her father was. Yet it gravelled his +soul that Dyck should be doing service for the lady to whom he had +offered his own hand and heart, and from whom he had had no word of +assent. It angered him against himself that he had not at once sent +soldiers to Salem to protect it. He wished to set himself right with +Sheila and with the island people, and how to do so was the question. + +First, clearly, he must not apply the order to confine Dyck to his +plantation; also he must give Dyck authority to use the hounds in +hunting down the Maroons and slaves who were committing awful crimes. +He forthwith decided to write, asking Dyck to send him outline of his +scheme against the rebels. That he must do, for the game was with Dyck. + +"How long will it take the hounds to get to Salem?" he asked the Custos +presently in his office, with deepset lines in his face and a determined +look in his eyes. He was an arrogant man, but he was not insane, and he +wished to succeed. It could only be success if he dragged Jamaica out of +this rebellion with flying colours, and his one possible weapon was the +man whom he detested. + +"Why, your honour, as we sent them by wagons and good horses they should +be in Dyck Calhoun's hands this evening. They should be there by now +almost, for they've been going for hours, and the distance is not great." + +The governor nodded, and began to write. A halfhour later he handed to +the Custos what he had written. + +"See what you think of that, Custos," he said. "Does it, in your mind, +cover the ground as it should?" + +The Custos read it all over slowly and carefully, weighing every word. +Presently he handed back the paper. "Your honour, it is complete and +masterly," he said. "It puts the crushing of the revolt into the hands +of Mr. Calhoun, and nothing could be wiser. He has the gifts of a +leader, and he will do the job with no mistake, and in a time of crisis +like this, that is essential. You have given him the right to order the +militia to obey him, and nothing could be better. He will organize like +a master. We haven't forgotten his fight on the Ariadne. Didn't the +admiral tell the story at the dinner we gave him of how this ex-convict +and mutineer, by sheer genius, broke the power of the French at the +critical moment and saved our fleet, though it was only three-fourths +that of the French?" + +"You don't think the French will get us some day?" asked the governor +with a smile. + +"I certainly don't since our defences have been improved. Look at the +sixty big cannon on Fort Augusta! They'd be knocked to smithereens +before they could get into the quiet waters of the harbour. Don't forget +the narrows, your honour. Then there's the Apostle's Battery with its +huge shot, and the guns of Fort Royal would give them a cross-fire that +would make them sick. Besides, we could stop them within the shoals and +reefs and narrow channels before they got near the inner circle. It +would only be the hand of God that would get them in, and it doesn't work +for Frenchmen these days, I observe. No, this place is safe, and King's +House will be the home of British governors for many a century." + +"Ah, that's your gallant faith, and no doubt you are right, but go on +with your tale of the hounds," said Lord Mallow. + +"Your honour, as the hounds went away with Michael Clones there was +greater applause than I have ever seen in the island except when Rodney +defeated De Grasse. Imagine a little sloop in the wash of the seas and +the buccaneers piling down on him, and no chance of escape, and then a +great British battleship appearing, and the situation saved--that was how +we were placed here till the hounds arrived. + +"Your honour, this morning's--this early morning's exit of the hounds was +like a procession of veterans to Walhalla. There was the sun breaking +over the tops of the hills, a crimsonish, greyish, opaline touch of soft +sprays or mists breaking away from the onset of the sunrise; and all the +trees with night-lips wet sucking in the sun and drinking up the light +like an overseer at a Christmas breakfast; and you know what that is. +And all the shore, rocky and sandy, rough and smooth, happy and homely, +shimmering in the radiance. And hundreds of Creoles and coloured folk +beating the ground in agitation, and slaves a-plenty carrying boxes to +the ships that are leaving, and white folk crowding the streets, and +bugles blowing, and the tramp of the militia, and the rattle of carts on +the cobble-stones, and the voices of the officers giving orders, and +turmoil everywhere. + +"Then, suddenly, the sharp sound of a long whip and a voice calling, and +there rises out of the landing place the procession--the sixty dogs in +three wagons, their ten drivers with their whips, but keeping order by +the sound of their voices, low, soft, and peculiar, and then the horses +starting into a quick trot which presently would become a canter--and the +hounds were off to Salem! There could be no fear with the hounds loose +to do the hunting." + +"But suppose when they get to Salem their owner is no more." + +The Custos laughed. "Him, your honour--him no more! Isn't he the man +of whom the black folk say: "Lucky buckra--morning, lucky new-comer!" +If that's his reputation, and the coming of his hounds just when the +island most needed them is good proof of it, do you think he'll be killed +by a lot of dirty Maroons! Ah, Calhoun's a man with the luck of the +devil, your honour! He has the pull--as sure as heaven's above he'll +make success. If you command your staff to have this posted as a +proclamation throughout the island, it will do as much good as a thousand +soldiers. The military officers will not object, they know how big a man +he is, and they have had enough. The news is not good from all over the +island, for there are bad planters and bad overseers, and they've +poisoned large fields of men in many quarters of the island, and things +are wrong. + +"But this proclamation will put things right. It will stop the slaves +from revolting; it will squelch the Maroons, and I'm certain sure Calhoun +will have Maroons ready to fight for us, not against us, before this +thing is over. I tell you, your honour, it means the way out--that's +what it means. So, if you'll give me your order, keeping a copy of it +for the provost-marshal, I'll see it's delivered to Dyck Calhoun before +morning--perhaps by midnight. It's not more than a six hours' journey +in the ordinary way." + +At that moment an aide-de-camp entered, and with grave face presented to +the governor the last report from the provost-marshal-general. Then he +watched the governor read the report. + +"Ten more killed and twenty wounded!" said the governor. "It must be +stopped." + +He gave the Custos the letter to Dyck Calhoun, and a few moments later +handed the proclamation to his aide-de-camp. + +"That will settle the business, your honour," said the aide-de-camp as he +read the proclamation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +SHEILA HAS HER SAY + +"Then, tell me please, what you know of the story," said the governor to +Sheila at King's House one afternoon two weeks later. "I only get meagre +reports from the general commanding. But you close to the intimate +source of the events must know all." + +Sheila shrank at the suggestion in the governor's voice, but she did not +resent it. She had purposes which she must carry out, and she steeled +herself. She wanted to get from Lord Mallow a pledge concerning Dyck +Calhoun, and she must be patient. + +"I know nothing direct from Mr. Calhoun, your honour!" she said, "but +only through his servant, Michael Clones, who is a friend of my Darius +Boland, and they have met often since the first outbreak. You know, of +course, what happened at Port Louise--how the Maroons seized and murdered +the garrison, how families were butchered when they armed first, how +barbarism broke loose and made all men combine to fight the rebels. Even +before Mr. Calhoun came they had had record of a sack of human ears, cut +from the dead rebel-slaves, when they had been killed by faithful slaves, +and good progress was made. But the revolters fixed their camps on high +rocks, and by blowing of shells brought many fresh recruits to the +struggle. It was only when Mr. Calhoun came with his hounds that +anything decisive was done. For the rebels--Maroons and slaves--were +hid, well entrenched and cautious, and the danger was becoming greater +every day. On Mr. Calhoun's arrival, he was almost caught in ambush, +being misled, and saved himself only by splendid markmanship. He was +attacked by six rebels of whom he killed four, and riding his wounded +horse over the other two he escaped. Then he set the hounds to work and +the rebellion in that district was soon over." + +"It was gathering strength with increasing tragedy elsewhere," remarked +the governor. "Some took refuge in hidden places, and came out only to +steal, rob, and murder--and worse. In one place, after a noted slave, +well known for his treachery, had been killed--Khoftet was his name-- +his head was cut off by slaves friendly to us and his heart roasted and +eaten. There is but one way to deal with these people. No gaming or +drinking must be allowed, blowing of shells or beating of drums must be +forbidden, and every free negro or mulatto must wear on his arm a sign-- +perhaps a cross in blue or red." + +"Slavery is doomed," said Sheila firmly. "Its end is not far off." + +"Well, they still keep slaves in the land of Washington and Alexander +Hamilton. They are better off here at any rate than in their own +country, where they were like animals among whom they lived. Here they +are safe from poverty, cared for in sickness, and have no fear of being +handed over to the keepers of carrion, or being the food of the +gallinaso. They can feed their fill on fricasees of macaca worms and +steal without punishment teal or ring-tailed pigeons and black crabs from +the massa." + +"But they are not free. They are atoms in heaps of dust. They have no +rights--no liberties." + +Sheila was agitated, but she showed no excitement. + +She seemed to Lord Mallow like one who had perfect control of herself, +and was not the victim of anticipation. She seemed, save for her dark +searching eyes, like one who had gone through experience which had +disciplined her to control. Only her hands were demonstrative--yet +quietly so. Any one watching her closely would have seen that her hands +were sensitive, expressed even more markedly than her eyes or lips what +were her feelings. Her tragedy had altered her in one sense. She was +paler and thinner than ever she had been, but there was enough of her, +and that delicately made, which gave the governor a thrill of desire to +make her his own for the rest of his life or hers. He had also gone +through much since they had last met, and he had seen his own position in +the balance--uncertain, troubled, insecure. He realized that he had lost +reputation, which had scarcely been regained by his consent to the use of +the hounds and giving Dyck Calhoun a free hand, as temporary head of the +militia. He could not put him over the regular troops, but as the +general commanding was, in effect, the slave of Dyck Calhoun, there was +no need for anxiety. + +Dyck Calhoun had smashed the rebellion, had quieted the island, had +risen above all the dark disturbances of revolt like a master. He had +established barracks and forts at many points in the island, and had +stationed troops in them; he had subdued Maroons and slaves by the +hounds. Yet he had punished only the chief of those who had been in +actual rebellion, and had repressed the violent punishments of the +earlier part of the conflict. He had forbidden any one to be burned +alive, and had ordered that no one should be executed without his first +judging--with the consent of the governor!--the facts of the case. + +Dyck had built up for himself a reputation as no one in all the history +of the island had been able to do. He commanded by more than official +authority--by personality and achievement. There was no one in the +island but knew they had been saved by his prudence, foresight and skill. +It was to their minds stupendous and romantic. Fortunately they showed +no strong feeling against Lord Mallow. By placing King's House at +disposal as a hospital, and by gifts of food and money to wives and +children of soldiers and civilians, the governor had a little eradicated +his record of neglect. + +Lord Mallow had a way with him when he chose to use it. He was not +without the gift for popularity, and he saw now that he could best attain +it by treating Dyck Calhoun well. He saw troops come and go, he listened +to grievances, he corrected abuses, he devised a scheme for nursing, he +planned security for the future, he gave permission for buccaneer trading +with the United States, he had by legislative order given the Creoles a +better place in the civic organism. This was a time for broad policy-- +for distribution of cassavi bread, yams and papaws, for big, and maybe +rough, display of power and generosity. He was not blind to the fact +that he might by discreet courses impress favourably his visitor. All he +did was affected by that thought. He could not but think that Sheila +would judge of him by what he did as much as by what he said. + +He looked at her now with interest and longing. He loved to hear her +talk, and she had information which was no doubt truer than most he +received--was closer to the brine, as it were. + +"What more can you tell me of Mr. Calhoun and his doings?" he asked +presently. "He is lucky in having so perfect a narrator of his +histories--yet so unexpected a narrator." + +A flush stole slowly up Sheila's face, and gave a glow even to the roots +of her hair. She could not endure these references to the dark gulf +between her and Dyck Calhoun. + +"My lord," she said sharply, "it is not meet that you should say such +things. Mr. Calhoun was jailed for killing my father--let it be at that. +The last time you saw me you offered me your hand and heart. Well, do +you know I had almost made up my mind to accept your hand, when the news +of this trouble was brought to you, and you left us--to ourselves and our +dangers!" + +The governor started. "You are as unfriendly as a 'terral garamighty,' +you make me draw my breath thick as the blackamoors, as they say. I did +what I thought best," he said. "I did not think you would be in any +danger. I had not heard of the Maroons being so far south as Salem." + +"Yet it is the man who foresees chances that succeeds, as you should know +by now, your honour. I was greatly touched by the offer you made me-- +indeed, yes," she added, seeing the rapt eager look in his face. "I had +been told what had upset me, that Dyck Calhoun was guilty of killing my +father, and all the world seemed dreadful. Yes, in the reaction, it was +almost on my tongue to say yes to you, for you are a good talker, you had +skill in much that you did, and with honest advice from a wife might do +much more. So I was in a mind to say yes. I had had much to try me, +indeed, so very much. Ever since I first saw Dyck Calhoun he had been +the one man who had ever influenced me. He was for ever in my mind even +when he was in prison--oh, what is prison, what is guilt even to a girl +when she loves! Yes, I loved him. There it was. He was ever in my +mind, and I came here to Jamaica--he was here--for what else? Salem +could have been restored by Darius Boland or others, or I could have sold +it. I came to Jamaica to find him here--unwomanly, perhaps, you will +say." + +"Unusual only with a genius--like you." + +"Then you do not speak what is in your mind, your honour. You say what +you feel is the right thing to say--the slave of circumstances. I will +be wholly frank with you. I came here to see Dyck Calhoun, for I knew he +would not come to see me. Yes, there it was, a real thing in his heart. +If he had been a lesser man than he is, he would have come to America +when he was freed from prison. But he did not, would not, come. He knew +he had been found guilty of killing my father, and that for him and me +there could be no marriage--indeed he never asked me to marry him. + +"Yet I know he would have done so if he could. When I came to know +what he was jailed for doing, I felt there was no place for him and me +together in the world. Yet my heart kept crying out to him, and I felt +there was but one thing left for me to do, and that was to make it +impossible for me to think of him even, or for him to think of me. Then +you came and offered me your hand. It was a hand most women might have +been glad to accept from the standpoint of material things. And you were +Irish like myself, and like the boy I loved. I was sick of the robberies +of life and time, and I wanted to be out of it all in some secure place. +What place so secure from the sorrow that was eating at my heart as +marriage! It said no to every stir of feeling that was vexing me, to +every show of love or remembrance. So I listened to you. It was not +because you were a governor or a peer--no, not that! For even in +Virginia I had offers from one higher than yourself--and younger, and a +peer also. No, it was not material things that influenced me, but your +own intellectual eminence; for you have more brains than most men, as you +know so well." + +The governor interrupted her with a gesture. "No, no, I am not so vain +as you think. If I were I should have seen at Salem that you meant to +say yes." + +"Yet you know well you have gifts, though you have made sad mistakes +here. Do not think it was your personality, your looks that induced me +to think of you, to listen to you. When Mr. Calhoun told me the truth, +and gave me a letter he had written to me--" + +"A letter--to you?" + +There was surprise in the governor's voice--surprise and chagrin, for the +thing had moved him powerfully. "Yes, a letter to me which he never +meant me to have. It was a kind of diary of his heart, and it was +written even while I was landing on the island on Christmas Day. It was +the most terribly truthful thing, opening his whole soul to the girl whom +he had always loved, but from whom he was separated by a thing not the +less tragical because it was merely technical. He gave it me to read, +and when I read it I saw there was no place for me in the world except +a convent or marriage. The convent could not be, for I was no Catholic, +and marriage seemed the only thing possible. That day you came I saw +only one thing to do--one mad, hopeless thing to do." + +"Mad and hopeless!" burst out Lord Mallow. "How so? Your very reason +shows that it was sane, well founded in the philosophy of the heart." + +He was eager to win her yet, and he did not see the end at which she +aimed. He felt he must tell her all the passion and love he felt. But +her look gave no encouragement, her eyes were uninviting. + +Sheila smiled painfully. "Yes, mad and hopeless, for be sure of this: we +cannot kill in one day the growth of years. I could not cure myself of +loving him by marrying you. There had to be some other cure for that. +I never knew and never loved my father. But he was my father, and if +Mr. Calhoun killed him, I could not marry him. But at last I came to +know that your love and affection could not make me forget him-- +no, never. I realize that now. He and I can never come together, +but I owe him so much--I owe him my life, for he saved it; he must ever +have a place in my heart, be to me more than any one else can be. I want +you to do something for him." + +"What do you wish?" + +"I want you to have removed from him the sentence of the British +Government. I want him to be free to come and go anywhere in the world +--to return to England if he wishes it, to be a free man, and not a +victim Off Outlawry. I want that, and you ought to give it to him." + +"Why?" + +Indignation filled her eyes. "You ask why. He has saved your +administration and the island from defeat and horrible loss. He has +prevented most of the slaves from revolting, and he conquered the +Maroons. The empire is his debtor. Will you do this for one who has +done so much for you?" + +Lord Mallow was disconcerted, but he did not show it. "I can do no more +than I have done. I have not confined him to his plantation as the +Government commanded; I cannot go beyond that." + +"You can put his case from the standpoint of a patriot." + +For a moment the governor hesitated, then he said: "Because you ask me--" + +"I want it done for his sake, not for mine," she returned with decision. +"You owe it to yourself to see that it is done. Gratitude is not dead in +you, is it?" + +Lord Mallow flushed. "You press his case too hard. You forget what he +is--a mutineer and a murderer, and no one should remember that as you +should." + +"He has atoned for both, and you know it well. Besides, he was not a +murderer. Even the courts did not say he was. They only said he was +guilty of manslaughter. Oh, your honour, be as gallant as your name and +place warrant." + +He looked at her for a moment with strange feelings in his heart. Then +he said: "I will give you an answer in twenty-four hours. Will that do, +sweet persuader?" + +"It might do," she answered, and, strange to say, she had a sure feeling +that he would say yes, in spite of her knowledge that, in his heart of +hearts, he hated Calhoun. + +As she left the room, Lord Mallow stood for a moment looking after her. + +"She loves the rogue in spite of all!" he said bitterly. "But she must +come with me. They are apart as the poles. Yet I shall do as she wishes +if I am to win her." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE COMING OF NOREEN + +The next day came a new element in the situation: a ship arrived from +England. On it was one who had come to Jamaica to act as governess to +two children of the officer commanding the regular troops in the island. +She had been ill for a week before nearing Kingston, and when the Regent +reached the harbour she was in a bad way. The ship's doctor was +despondent about her; but he was a second-rate man, and felt that perhaps +an island doctor might give her some hope. When she was carried ashore +she was at once removed to the home of the general commanding at Spanish +Town, and there a local doctor saw her. + +"What is her history?" he asked, after he had seen the haggard face of +the woman. + +The ship's doctor did not know; and the general commanding was in the +interior at the head of his troops. There was no wife in the general's +house, as he was a widower; and his daughters, of twelve and fourteen, +under a faithful old housekeeper, had no knowledge of the woman's life. + +When she was taken to the general's house she was in great dejection, and +her face had a look of ennui and despair. She was thin and worn, and her +eyes only told of the struggle going on between life and death. + +"What is her name?" asked the resident doctor. "Noreen Balfe," was the +reply of the ship's doctor. + +"A good old Irish name, though you can see she comes of the lower ranks +of life." + +"Married?" + +The ship's doctor pointed to her hand which had a wedding-ring. "Ah, +yes, certainly . . . what hope have you of her?" + +"I don't know what to say. The fever is high. She isn't trying to live; +she's got some mental trouble, I believe. But you and I would be of no +use in that kind of thing." + +"I don't take to new-fangled ideas of mental cure," said the ship's +doctor. "Cure the body and the mind will cure itself." + +A cold smile stole to the lips of the resident doctor. Those were days +of little scientific medical skill, and no West Indian doctor had +knowledge enough to control a discussion of the kind. "But I'd like to +see some one with brains take an interest in her," he remarked. + +"I leave her in your hands," was the reply. "I'm a ship's medico, and +she's now ashore." + +"It's a pity," said the resident doctor reflectively, as he watched a +servant doing necessary work at the bedside. "She hasn't long to go as +she is, yet I've seen such cases recover." + +As they left the room together they met Sheila and one of the daughters +of the house. "I've come to see the sick woman from the ship, if I may," +Sheila said. "I've just heard about her, and I'd like to be of use." + +The resident doctor looked at her with admiration. She was the most +conspicuous figure in the island, and her beauty was a fine support to +her wealth and reputation. It was like her to be kind in this frank way. + +"You can be of great use if you will," he said. "The fever is not +infectious, I'm glad to say. So you need have no fear of being with her +--on account of others." + +"I have no fear," responded Sheila with a friendly smile, "and I will go +to her now--no, if you don't mind, I'd prefer to go alone," she added as +she saw the doctor was coming with her. + +The other bowed and nodded approvingly. "The fewer the better," he said. +"I think you ought to go in alone--quite alone," he said with gentle +firmness, for he saw the girl with Sheila was also going with her. + +So it was that Sheila entered alone, and came to the bed and looked at +the woman in the extreme depression of fever. "Prepare some lime-juice, +please," she said to the servant on the other side of the bed. "Keep it +always beside the bed--I know what these cases are." + +The servant disappeared, and the eyes of the sick woman opened and looked +at Sheila. There shot into them a look of horror and relief in one, if +such a thing might be. A sudden energy inspired her, and she drew +herself up in bed, her face gone ghastly. + +"You are Sheila Boyne, aren't you?" she asked in a low half-guttural +note. + +"I am Sheila Llyn," was the astonished reply. "It's the same thing," +came the response. "You are the daughter of Erris Boyne." + +Sheila turned pale. Who was this woman that knew her and her history? + +"What is your name?" she asked--"your real name--what is it?" + +"My name is Noreen Balfe; it was Noreen Boyne." For a moment Sheila +could not get her bearings. The heavy scent of the flowers coming in at +the window almost suffocated her. She seemed to lose a grip of herself. +Presently she made an effort at composure. "Noreen Boyne! You were then +the second wife of Erris Boyne?" + +"I was his second wife. His first wife was your mother--you are like +your mother!" Noreen said in agitation. + +The meaning was clear. Sheila laid a sharp hand on herself. "Don't get +excited," she urged with kindly feeling. "He is dead and gone." + +"Yes, he is dead and gone." + +For a moment Noreen seemed to fight for mastery of her emotion, and +Sheila said: "Lie still. It is all over. He cannot hurt us now." + +The other shook her head in protest. "I came here to forget, and I find +you--his daughter." + +"You find more than his daughter; you find his first wife, and you find +the one that killed him." + +"The one that killed him!" said the woman greatly troubled. "How did +you know that?" + +"All the world knows it. He was in prison four years, and since then he +has been a mutineer, a treasure-hunter, a planter, and a saviour of these +islands!" + +The sick woman fell back in exhaustion. At that moment the servant +entered with a pitcher of lime-juice. Sheila took it from her and +motioned her out of the room; then she held a glass of the liquid to the +stark lips. + +"Drink," she said in a low, kind voice, and she poured slowly into the +patient's mouth the cooling draught. A moment later Noreen raised +herself up again. + +"Mr. Dyck Calhoun is here?" she asked. + +"He is here, and none to-day holds so high a place in the minds of all +who live here. He has saved the island." + +"All are here that matter," said Noreen. "And I came to forget!" + +"What do you remember?" asked Sheila. "I remember all--how he died!" + +Suddenly Sheila had a desire to shriek aloud. This woman--did this woman +then see Erris Boyne die? Was she present when the deed was done? If +so, why was she not called to give evidence at the trial. But yes, she +was called to give evidence. She remembered it now, and the evidence had +been that she was in her own home when the killing took place. + +"How did he die?" she asked in a whisper. + +"One stroke did it--only one, and he fell like a log." She made a motion +as of striking, and shuddered, covering her eyes with trembling hands. + +"You tell me you saw Dyck Calhoun do this to an undefended man--you tell +me this!" + +Sheila's anger was justified in her mind. That Dyck Calhoun should + +"I did not see Dyck Calhoun strike him," gasped the woman. "I did not +say that. Dyck Calhoun did not kill Erris Boyne!" + +"My God!--oh, my God!" said Sheila with ashen lips, but a great light +breaking in her eyes. "Dyck Calhoun did not kill Erris Boyne! Then who +killed him?" + +There was a moment's pause, then--"I killed him," said the woman in +agony. "I killed him." + +A terrible repugnance seized Sheila. After a moment she said in +agitation: "You killed him--you struck him down! Yet you let an innocent +man go to prison, and be kept there for years, and his father go to his +grave with shame, with estates ruined and home lost--and you were the +guilty one--you--all the time." + +"It was part of my madness. I was a coward and I thought then there were +reasons why I should feel no pity for Dyck Calhoun. His father injured +mine--oh, badly! But I was a coward, and I've paid the price." + +A kinder feeling now took hold of Sheila. After all, what this woman had +done gave happiness into her--Sheila's-hands. It relieved Dyck Calhoun +of shame and disgrace. A jail-bird he was still, but an innocent jail- +bird. He had not killed Erris Boyne. Besides, it wiped out forever the +barrier between them. All her blind devotion to the man was now +justified. His name and fame were clear. Her repugnance of the woman +was as nothing beside her splendid feeling of relief. It was as though +the gates of hell had been closed and the curtains of heaven drawn for +the eyes to see. Six years of horrible shame wiped out, and a new world +was before her eyes. + +This woman who had killed Erris Boyne must now suffer. She must bear the +ignominy which had been heaped upon Dyck Calhoun's head. Yet all at once +there came to her mind a softening feeling. Erris Boyne had been rightly +killed by a woman he had wronged, for he was a traitor as well as an +adulterer--one who could use no woman well, who broke faith with all +civilized tradition, and reverted to the savage. Surely the woman's +crime was not a dark one; it was injured innocence smiting depravity, +tyranny and lust. + +Suddenly, as she looked at the woman who had done this thing, she, whose +hand had rid the world of a traitor and a beast, fell back on the pillow +in a faint. With an exclamation Sheila lifted up the head. If the woman +was dead, then there was no hope for Dyck Calhoun; any story that she-- +Sheila--might tell would be of no use. Yet she was no longer agitated in +her body. Hands and fingers were steady, and she felt for the heart with +firm fingers. Yes, the heart was still beating, and the pulse was +slightly drumming. Thank God, the woman was alive! She rang a bell and +lifted up the head of the sick woman. + +A moment later the servant was in the room. Sheila gave her orders +quickly, and snatched up a pencil from the table. Then, on a piece of +paper, she wrote the words: "I, not Dyck Calhoun, killed Erris Boyne." + +A few moments later, Noreen's eyes opened, and Sheila spoke to her. +"I have written these words. Here they are--see them. Sign them." + +She read the words, and put a pencil in the trembling fingers, and, on +the cover of a book Noreen's fingers traced her name slowly but clearly. +Then Sheila thrust the paper in her bosom, and an instant later a nurse, +sent by the resident doctor, entered. + +"They cannot hang me or banish me, for my end has come," whispered Noreen +before Sheila left. + +In the street of Spanish Town almost the first person Sheila saw was +Dyck Calhoun. With pale, radiant look she went to him. He gazed at her +strangely, for there was that in her face he could not understand. There +was in it all the faith of years, all the truth of womanhood, all the +splendour of discovery, all that which a man can see but once in a human +face and be himself. + +"Come with me," she said, and she moved towards King's House. He obeyed. +For some moments they walked in silence, then all at once under a +magnolia tree she stopped. + +"I want you to read what a woman wrote who has just arrived in the island +from England. She is ill at the house of the general commanding." + +Taking from her breast the slip of paper, she handed it to him. He read +it with eyes and senses that at first could hardly understand. + +"God in heaven--oh, merciful God!" he said in great emotion, yet with a +strange physical quiet. + +"This woman was his wife," Sheila said. + +He handed the paper back. He conquered his agitation. The years of +suffering rolled away. "They'll put her in jail," he said with a strange +regret. He had a great heart. + +"No, I think not," was the reply. Yet she was touched by his compassion +and thoughtfulness. + +"Why?" + +"Because she is going to die--and there is no time to lose. Come, we +will go to Lord Mallow." + +"Mallow!" A look of bitter triumph came into Dyck's face. "Mallow--at +last!" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +WITH THE GOVERNOR + +Lord Mallow frowned on his secretary. "Mr. Calhoun to see me! What's +his business?" + +"One can guess, your honour. He's been fighting for the island." + +"Why should he see me? There is the general commanding." + +The secretary did not reply, he knew his chief; and, after a moment, Lord +Mallow said: "Show him in." When Dyck Calhoun entered the governor gave +him a wintry smile of welcome, but did not offer to shake hands. "Will +you sit down?" he said, with a slow gesture. + +Calhoun made a dissenting motion. "I prefer to stand, your honour." + +This was the first time the two men had met alone since Dyck had arrived +in Jamaica, or since his trial. Calhoun was dressed in planter's +costume, and the governor was in an officer's uniform. They were in +striking contrast in face and figure--the governor long, lanky, ascetic +in appearance, very intellectual save for the riotous mouth, and very +spick and span--as though he had just stepped out of Almack's; while +Calhoun was tough and virile, and with the air of a thorough outdoor man. +There was in his face the firm fighting look of one who had done things +and could tackle big affairs--and something more; there was in it quiet +exultation. Here he was now at last alone with the man who had done him +great harm, and for whom he had done so much; who had sought to wipe him +off the slate of life and being; who had tried to win the girl from whom +he himself had been parted. + +In spite of it all--of his life in jail, of his stark mutiny, of the +oppression of the governor, he had not been beaten down, but had +prospered in spite of all. He had by his will, wisdom and military +skill, saved the island in its hour of peril, saved its governor from +condemnation; and here he was facing the worst enemy of his life with the +cards of success in his hands. + +"You have done the island and England great service, Mr. Calhoun," said +the governor at last. + +"It is the least I could do for the land where I have made my home, where +I have reaped more than I have sown." + +"We know your merit, sir." + +A sharp satirical look came into Calhoun's face and his voice rang out +with vigour. "And because you knew my merit you advised the crown to +confine me to my estate, and you would have had me shot if you could. +I am what I am because there was a juster man than yourself in Jamaica. +Through him I got away and found treasure, and I bought land and have +helped to save this island and your place. What do I owe you, your +honour? Nothing that I can see--nothing at all." + +"You are a mutineer, and but that you showed your courage would have been +hung at the yard-arm, as many of your comrades in England were." + +A cold smile played at Calhoun's lips. "My luck was as great as my +courage, I know. I have the luck of Enniscorthy!" + +At the last words the governor winced, for it was by that touch Calhoun +had defeated him in the duel long ago. It galled him that this man whom +he detested could say such things to him with truth. Yet in his heart of +hearts he had for Calhoun a great respect. Calhoun's invincible will had +conquered the worst in Mallow's nature, had, in spite of himself, created +a new feeling in him. There was in Mallow the glimmer of greatness, and +only his supreme selfishness had made him what he was. He laid a hand on +himself now, though it was not easy to do so. + +"It was not the luck of Enniscorthy that sent Erris Boyne to his doom," +he said, however, with anger in his mind, for Dyck's calm boldness +stirred the worst in him. He thought he saw in him an exultancy which +could only come from his late experiences in the field. It was as though +he had come to triumph over the governor. Mallow said what he had said +with malice. He looked to see rage in the face of Dyck Calhoun, and was +nonplussed to find that it had only a stern sort of pleasure. The eyes +of Calhoun met his with no trace of gloom, but with a valour worthy of a +high cause--their clear blue facing his own with a constant penetration. +Their intense sincerity gave him a feeling which did not belong to +authority. It was not the look of a criminal, whatever the man might be- +-mutineer and murderer. As for mutineer, all that Calhoun had fought for +had been at last admitted by the British Government, and reforms had been +made that were due to the mutiny at the Nore. Only the technical crime +had been done by Calhoun, and he had won pardon by his bravery in the +battle at sea. Yes, he was a man of mark, even though a murderer. + +Calhoun spoke slowly. "Your honour, you have said what you have a right +to say to a man who killed Erris Boyne. But this man you accuse did not +do it." The governor smiled, for the assumption was ridiculous. He +shrugged a shoulder and a sardonic curl came to his lip. + +"Who did it then?" + +"If you will come to the house of the general commanding you will see." + +The governor was in a great quandary. He gasped. "The general +commanding--did he kill Erris Boyne, then?" + +"Not he, yet the person that did it is in this house. Listen, your +honour. I have borne the name of killing Erris Boyne, and I ought to +have killed him, for he was a traitor. I had proofs of it; but I did not +kill him, and I did not betray him, for he had alive a wife and daughter, +and something was due to them. He was a traitor, and was in league with +the French. It does not matter that I tell you now, for his daughter +knows the truth. I ought to have told it long ago, and if I had I should +not have been imprisoned." + +"You were a brave man, but a fool--always a fool," said the governor +sharply. + +"Not so great a fool that I can't recover from it," was the calm reply. +"Perhaps it was the best thing that ever happened to me, for now I can +look the world in the face. It's made a man of me. It was a woman +killed him," was Calhoun's added comment. "Will your honour come with me +and see her?" + +The governor was thunderstruck. "Where is she?" + +"As I have told you-in the house of the general commanding." + +The governor rose abashed. "Well, I can go there now. Come." + +"Perhaps you would prefer I should not go with you in the street. The +world knows me as a mutineer, thinks of me as a murderer! Is it fair to +your honour?" + +Something in Calhoun's voice roused the rage of Lord Mallow, but he +controlled it, and said calmly: "Don't talk nonsense, sir; we shall walk +together, if you will." + +At the entrance to the house of the general, the man to whom this visit +meant so much stopped and took a piece of paper from his pocket. "Your +honour, here is the name of the slayer of Erris Boyne. I give it to you +now to see, so you may not be astonished when you see her." + +The governor stared at the paper. "Boyne's wife, eh?" he said in a +strange mood. "Boyne's wife--what is she doing here?" + +Calhoun told him briefly as he took the paper back, and added: "It was +accident that brought us all together here, your honour, but the hand of +God is in it." + +"Is she very ill?" + +"She will not live, I think." + +"To whom did she tell her story?" + +"To Miss Sheila Llyn." + +The governor was nettled. + +"Oh, to Miss Llyn When did you see her?" + +"Just before I came to you." + +"What did the woman look like--this Noreen Boyne?" + +"I do not know; I have not seen her." + +"Then how came you by the paper with her signature?" + +"Miss Llyn gave it to me." + +Anger filled Lord Mallow's mind. Sheila--why now the way would be open +to Calhoun to win--to marry her! It angered him, but he held himself +steadily. + +"Where is Miss Llyn?" + +"She is here, I think. She came back when she left me at your door." + +"Oh, she left you at my door, did she? . . . But let me see the woman +that's come so far to put the world right." + +A few moments later they stood in the bedroom of Noreen Boyne, they two +and Sheila Llyn, the nurse having been sent out. + +Lord Mallow looked down on the haggard, dying woman with no emotion. +Only a sense of duty moved him. + +"What is it you wished to say to me?" he asked the patient. + +"Who are you?" came the response in a frayed tone. + +"I am the governor of the island--Lord Mallow." + +"Then I want to tell you that I killed Erris Boyne--with this hand I +killed him." She raised her skinny hand up, and her eyes became glazed. +"He had used me vilely and I struck him down. He was a bad man." + +"You let an innocent man bear punishment, you struck at one who did you +no harm, and you spoiled his life for him. You can see that, can't you?" + +The woman's eyes sought the face of Dyck Calhoun, and Calhoun said: "No, +you did not spoil my life, Noreen Boyne. You have made it. Not that I +should have chosen the way of making it, but there it is, as God's in +heaven, I forgive you." + +Noreen's face lost some of its gloom. "That makes it easier," she said +brokenly. "I can't atone by any word or act, but I'm sorry. I've kept +you from being happy, and you were born to be happy. Your father had +hurt mine, had turned him out of our house for debt, and I tried to pay +it all back. When they suspected you I held my peace. I was a coward; +I could not say you were innocent without telling the truth, and that I +could not do then. But now I'll tell it--I think I'd have told it +whether I was dying or not, though. Yes, if I'd seen you here I'd have +told it, I'm sure. I'm not all bad." + +Sheila leaned over the bed. "Never mind about the past. You can help a +man back to the good opinion of the world now." + +"I hurt you too," said Noreen with hopeless pain. "You were his friend." + +"I believed in him always--even when he did not deny the crime," was the +quiet reply. + +"There's no good going on with that," said the governor sharply. "We +must take down her statement in writing, and then--" + +"Look, she is sinking!" said Calhoun sharply. The woman's head had +dropped forward, her chin was on her breast, and her hands became +clenched. + +"The doctor at once-bring in the nurse," said Calhoun. "She's dying." + +An instant later, the nurse entered with Sheila, and in a short time the +doctor came. + +When later the doctor saw Lord Mallow alone he said: "She can't live more +than two days." + +"That's good for her in a way," answered the governor, and in reply to +the doctor's question why, he said: "Because she'd be in prison." + +"In prison--has she broken the law?" + +"She is now under arrest, though she doesn't know it. + +"What was her crime, your honour?" + +"She killed a man." + +"What man?" + +"Him for whom Dyck Calhoun was sent to prison--Erris Boyne." + +"Mr. Calhoun was not guilty, then?" + +"No. As soon as the woman is dead, I mean to announce the truth." + +"Not till then, your honour?" + +"Not till then." + +"It's hard on Calhoun." + +"Is it? It's years since he was tried and condemned. Two days cannot +matter now." + +"Perhaps not. Last night the woman said to me: 'I'm glad I'm going to +die.'" Then he added: "Calhoun will be more popular than ever now." + +The governor winced. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THEN WHAT HAPPENED + +An hour after Noreen Boyne had been laid in her grave, there was a +special issue of the principal paper telling all the true facts of the +death of Erris Boyne. Thus the people of Jamaica came to know that Dyck +Calhoun was innocent of the crime of killing Erris Boyne, and he was made +the object of splashing admiration, and was almost mobbed by admirers in +the street. It all vexed Lord Mallow; but he steeled himself to +urbanity, and he played his part well. He was clever enough to see it +would pay him to be outwardly gracious to Calhoun. So it was he made a +speech in the capital on the return of the general commanding and the +troops from subduing the Maroons, in which he said: "No one in all the +King's dominions had showed greater patriotism and military skill than +their friend Mr. Dyck Calhoun, who had been harshly treated by a mistaken +Government." + +A few hours later, in the sweet garden of the house where Sheila and her +mother lodged, Calhoun came upon the girl whose gentle dignity and beauty +seemed to glow. + +At first all she said to him was, "Welcome, old friend," and at last she +said, "Now you can come to the United States, Dyck, and make a new life +there." + +Presently he said: "I ought to go where you wish me to go, for you came +to me here when I was rejected of men. I owe you whatever I am that's +worth while, if anything I am is worth while. Your faith kept me alive +in my darkest days--even when I thought I had wronged you." + +"Then you will come to Virginia with me--as my husband, Dyck?" She +blushed and laughed. "You see I have to propose to you, for you've never +asked me to marry you. I'm throwing myself at your head, sir, you +observe!" + +He gave an honest smile of adoration. "I came to-day to ask you to be +my wife--for that reason only. I could not do it till the governor had +declared my innocence. The earth is sweeter to-day than it has been +since time began." + +He held out his arms, and an instant later the flowers she carried were +crushed to her breast, with her lips given to his. + +A little later she drew from her pocket a letter. "You must read that," +she said. "It is from the great Alexander Hamilton--yes, he will be +great, he will play a wondrous part in the life of my new country. +Read it Dyck." + +After he had read it, he said: "He was born a British subject here in +these islands, and he goes to help Americans live according to British +principles. With all my sane fellow-countrymen I am glad the Americans +succeeded. Do you go to your Virginia, and I will come as soon as I have +put my affairs in order." + +"I will not go without you--no, I will not go," she persisted. + +"Then we shall be married at once," he declared. And so it was, and all +the island was en fete, and when Sheila came to Dyck's plantation the +very earth seemed to rejoice. The slaves went wild with joy, and ate +and drank their fill, and from every field there came the song: + + "Hold up yo hands, + Hold up yo hands, + Bress de Lord for de milk and honey! + De big bees is a singin', + My heart is held up and de bells is a ringin'; + Hold up yo hands, + Hold up yo hands!" + +And sweetly solitary the two lived their lives, till one day, three +months later, there came to the plantation the governor and his suite. + +When they had dismounted, Lord Mallow said: "I bring you the pay of the +British Government for something of what you have suffered, sir, and what +will give your lady pleasure too, I hope. I come with a baronetcy given +by the King. News of it came to me only this morning." + +Calhoun smiled. "Your honour, I can take no title, receive no honour. +I have ended my life under the British flag. I go to live under the +Stars and Stripes." + +The governor was astounded. "Your lady, sir, do you forget your lady?" + +But Sheila answered: "The life of the new world has honours which have +naught to do with titles." + +"I sail for Virginia by the first ship that goes," said Calhoun. "It is +good here, but I shall go to a place where things are better, and where I +shall have work to do. I must decline the baronetcy, your honour. I go +to a land where the field of life is larger, where Britain shall remake +herself." + +"It will take some time," said the governor tartly. "They'll be long +apart." + +"But they will come together at last--for the world's sake." + +There was silence for a moment, and through it came the joy-chant from +the fields: + + "Hold up yo hands, + Hold up yo hands, + Bress de Lord for de milk and honey." + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Without the money brains seldom win alone + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NO DEFENSE, BY PARKER, V3 *** + +******* This file should be named 6294.txt or 6294.zip ******* + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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