The Knave of Diamonds - Ethel May Dell (best novels for students txt) 📗

is dead, I tell you that you lie!" Again he faintly smiled. "But I don't like insulting you, old chap. It's poor sport anyway. Besides, I'm wanting you. That's why--"
He stopped abruptly. A curious change had come over Nap, a change so unexpected, so foreign to the man's grim nature, that even he, who knew him as did none other, was momentarily taken by surprise. For suddenly, inexplicably, Nap's hardness had gone from him. It was like the crumbling of a rock that had withstood the clash of many tempests and yielded at last to the ripple of a summer tide.
With a sudden fierce movement he dropped down upon his knees beside the bed, flinging his arms wide over his brother's body in such an agony of despair as Lucas had never before witnessed.
"I wish I were dead!" he cried out passionately. "I wish to Heaven I had never lived!"
It was a cry wrung from the very depths of the soul, a revelation of suffering of which Lucas had scarcely believed him capable. It opened his eyes to much that he had before but vaguely suspected.
He laid a hand instantly and very tenderly upon the bowed head. "Shucks, Boney!" he remonstrated gently. "Just when you are wanted most!"
A great sob shook Nap. "Who wants me? I'm nothing but a blot on the face of creation, an outrage, an abomination--a curse!"
"You're just the biggest thing in that woman's life, dear fellow," answered the tired voice. "You hang on to that. It'll hold you up, as God always meant it should."
Nap made an inarticulate sound of dissent, but the quiet restraint of his brother's touch seemed to help him. He became still under it, as if some spell were upon him.
After a time Lucas went on in the weary drawl that yet held such an infinite amount of human kindness. "Did you think I'd cut you out, Boney? Mighty lot you seem to know of me! It's true that for a time I thought myself necessary to her. Maybe, for a time I was. She hadn't much to live for anyway. It's true that when you didn't turn up in Arizona I left off expecting you to be faithful to yourself or to her. And so it seemed best to take what she gave and to try to make her as happy as circumstances would allow. But I never imagined that I ruled supreme. I know too well that what a woman has given once she can never give again. I didn't expect it of her. I never asked it. She gave me what she could, and I--I did the same for her. But that bargain wouldn't satisfy either of us now. No--no! We'll play the game like men--like brothers. And you must do your part. Believe me, Boney, I desire nothing so earnestly as her happiness, and if when I come to die I have helped to make this one woman happy, then I shall not have lived in vain."
Nap turned his head sharply. "Don't talk of dying! You couldn't die! And do you seriously imagine for a single instant that I could ever give her happiness?"
"I imagine so, dear fellow, since she loves you."
"I tell you she wouldn't have me if I asked her."
"You don't know. Anyway, she must have the chance. If she doesn't take it, well, she isn't the woman I imagine her to be."
"She's a saint," Nap said, with vehemence. "And you, Luke,--you're another. You were made for each other. She would be ten million times happier with you. Why do you want her to marry a blackguard?"
A shadow touched Lucas Errol's face, but it was only for an instant; the next he smiled. "You are not a blackguard, Boney. I always said so. And the love of a good woman will be your salvation. No, you're wrong. I couldn't give her real happiness. There is only one man in the world can give her that. And I--am not that man." He paused; his eyelids had begun to droop, heavily. "Say, Nap, I believe I could sleep now," he said.
"Yes, yes, old chap, you shall." Nap raised himself abruptly, banishing his weakness in a breath; only a certain unwonted gentleness remained. "You shall," he said again. "Guess you won't be afraid now you have got your own way. But just one thing more. You'll be wanting all your strength for yourself for the next few weeks. Will you--for my sake if you like--put all this by till you are winning out on the other side? She would say the same, if she knew."
Lucas opened his eyes again, opened them wide, and fixed them steadily, searchingly, upon his brother's face.
"You'll play the straight game with me, Boney?" he questioned. "You won't try to back out?" Then, in a different tone, "No, don't, answer! Forgive me for asking! I know you."
"I guess you do," Nap said, with the ghost of a smile, "better even than I know myself. You know just how little I am to be trusted."
"I trust you, Boney, absolutely, implicitly, from the bottom of my soul."
The words left Lucas Errol's lips with something of the solemnity of an oath. He held out a quiet hand.
"Now let me sleep," he said.
Nap rose. He stood for a moment in silence, holding the friendly hand, as if he wished to speak, but could not. Then suddenly he bent.
"Good-night, dear chap!" he said in a whisper, and with the words he stooped and kissed the lined forehead of the man who trusted him....
Half an hour later the door of the adjoining room opened noiselessly and Tawny Hudson peered in.
One brother was sleeping, the quiet, refreshing sleep of a mind at rest. The other sat watching by his side with fixed inscrutable eyes.
The latter did not stir, though in some indefinable way he made Tawny Hudson know that he was aware of his presence, and did not desire his closer proximity. Obedient to the unspoken command, the man did not come beyond the threshold; but he stood there for many seconds, glowering with the eyes of a monstrous, malignant baboon.
When at length he retired he left the door ajar, and a very curious smile flickered across Nap's face.
But still he did not turn his head.


CHAPTER XIV
AT THE GATE OF DEATH

The second time that Tawny Hudson was driven from his master's side was on a day of splendid spring--English April at its best.
Till the very last moment he lingered, and it was Lucas himself with his final "Go, Tawny!" who sent him from the room. They would not even let him wait, as Nap was waiting, till the anaesthetic had done its work. Black hatred gripped the man's heart as he crept away. What was Nap anyway that he should be thus honoured? The cloud that had attended his coming had made a deep impression upon Hudson. He had watched the lines upon his master's face till he knew them by heart. He knew when anxiety kept the weary eyes from closing. He knew when the effort of the mind was more than the body could endure. Of Lucas's pleasure at his brother's return he raised no question, but that it would have been infinitely better for him had Nap remained away he was firmly convinced. And he knew with the sure intuition that unceasing vigilance had developed in him that Capper thought the same.
Capper resented as he did the intrusion of the black sheep of the family. But Capper was obviously powerless--even Capper, who so ruthlessly expelled him from his master's presence, had proved impotent when it came to removing Nap.
There was a mysterious force about Nap that no one seemed able to resist. He, Hudson, had felt it a hundred times, had bowed to it in spite of himself. He called it black magic in his own dark heart, and because of it his hatred almost amounted to a mania. He regarded him with superstition, as a devilish being endowed with hellish powers that might at any moment be directed against his enemies. And he feared his influence over Lucas, even though with all his monstrous imaginings he recognised the fact of Lucas's ascendency. He had a morbid dread lest some day his master should be taken unawares, for in Nap's devotion he placed not a particle of faith. And mingled with his fears was a burning jealousy that kept hatred perpetually alive. There was not one of the duties that he performed for his master that Nap had not at one time or another performed, more swiftly, more satisfactorily, with that devilish deftness of his that even Capper had to admire and Hudson could never hope to achieve. And in his inner soul the man knew that the master he idolised preferred Nap's ministrations, Nap's sure and dexterous touch, to his.
And so on that day of riotous spring he waited with murder in his heart to see his enemy emerge from the closed room.
But he waited in vain. No hand touched the door against which he stood. Within the room he heard only vague movements, and now and then Capper's voice, sharp and distinct, giving a curt order. Two doctors and two nurses were there to do his bidding, to aid him in the working of his miracle; two doctors, two nurses, and Nap.
Gradually as the minutes passed the truth dawned upon the great half-breed waiting outside. Against Capper's wish, probably in defiance of it, Nap was remaining for the operation itself. Suspicion deepened swiftly to conviction, and a spasm of indignation akin to frenzy took possession of the man. Doubtless Capper had remonstrated without result, but he--he, Tawny Hudson--could compel. Fiercely he turned and pulled the handle of the door.
It resisted him. He had not heard the key turned upon him, yet undeniably the door was locked. Fury entered into him. Doubtless this also was the work of his enemy. He seized the handle, twisted, dragged, wrenched, till it broke in his hand and he was powerless.
No one within the room paid any attention to him. No one came to open; and this fact served to inflame him further. For a few lurid moments Tawny Hudson saw red. He gathered his huge bull-frame together and flung the whole weight of it against the resisting wood. He was powerless to force the lock, as the door opened towards him, but this fact did not discourage him. It scarcely entered into his reckoning. He was nothing at the moment but a savage beast beyond all reasoning and beyond control.
The panels resisted his violent onslaught, but he was undaunted. With scarcely a pause he drew off and prepared for another. But at the very instant that he was about to hurl himself the second time, a voice spoke on the other side of the door.
"Tawny!"
Tawny stood as if transfixed, his eyes starting, bestial foam upon his lips.
"Tawny!" said the voice again--the voice of his enemy, curt and imperious. "Go and find Mr. Bertie, and tell him he is wanted."
Through the closed door the magic reached the frenzied man. He remained motionless for a few seconds, but the order was not repeated. At the end of the interval the magic had done its work. He turned and slunk away.
A minute later Bertie, very pale and stern, presented himself at the closed door.
"What is it, Nap?"
Contemptuously clear came the answer. "Nothing here. Stay where you are, that's all, and keep that all-fired fool Hudson from spoiling his master's chances."
Bertie turned to look at the man who had come up behind him, and in turning saw the door-handle at his feet.
He pointed to it. "Your doing?"
Hudson shrank under the accusing