Dead Men Tell No Tales - E. W. Hornung (ereader for comics txt) 📗

The cellar was a strange scene to revisit within an hour of my deliverance from that very torture-chamber. It had been something more before I left it, but in it I could think only of the first occupant of the campstool. The lantern still burned upon the floor. There was the mattress, still depressed where I had lain face to face with insolent death. The bullet was in the plaster; it could not have missed by the breadth of many hairs. In the corner was the shallow grave, dug by Harris for my elements. And Harris was dead. And Santos was dead. But life and love were mine.

I would have gone through it all again!

And all at once I was on fire to be back in the library; so much so, that half a minute at the manhole, lantern in hand, was enough for me; and a mere funnel of moist brown earth - a terribly low arch propped with beams - as much as I myself ever saw of the subterranean conduit between Kirby House and the sea. But I understood that the curious may traverse it for themselves to this day on payment of a very modest fee.

As for me, I returned as I had come after (say) five minutes’ absence; my head full once more of Eva, and of impatient anxiety for the wild young squire’s final flight; and my heart still singing with the joy of which my beloved’s kindness seemed a sufficient warranty. Poor egotist! Am I to tell you what I found when I came up those steep stairs to the chamber where I had left him on his knees to her? Or can you guess?

He was on his knees no more, but he held her in his arms, and as I entered he was kissing the tears from her wet, flushed cheek. Her eyelids drooped; she was pale as the dead without, so pale that her eyebrows looked abnormally and dreadfully dark. She did not cling to him. Neither did she resist his caresses, but lay passive in his arms as though her proper paradise was there. And neither heard me enter; it was as though they had forgotten all the world but one another.

“So this is it,” said I very calmly. I can hear my voice as I write.

They fell apart on the instant. Rattray glared at me, yet I saw that his eyes were dim. Eva clasped her hands before her, and looked me steadily in the face. But never a word.

“You love him ?” I said sternly.

The silence of consent remained unbroken.

“Villain as he is?” I burst out.

And at last Eva spoke.

“I loved him before he was one,” said she. “We were engaged.”

She looked at him standing by, his head bowed, his arms folded; next moment she was very close to me, and fresh tears were in her eyes. But I stepped backward, for I had had enough.

“Can you not forgive me?”

“Oh, dear, yes.”

“Can’t you understand?”

“Perfectly,” said I.

“You know you said - “

“I have said so many things!”

“But this was that you - you loved me well enough to - give me up.”

And the silly ego in me - the endless and incorrigible I - imagined her pouting for a withdrawal of those brave words.

“I not only said it,” I declared, “but I meant every word of it.”

None the less had I to turn from her to hide my anguish. I leaned my elbows on the narrow stone chimney-piece, which, with the grate below and a small mirror above, formed an almost solitary oasis in the four walls of books. In the mirror I saw my face; it was wizened, drawn, old before its time, and merely ugly in its sore distress, merely repulsive in its bloody bandages. And in the mirror also I saw Rattray, handsome, romantic, audacious, all that I was not, nor ever would be, and I “understood” more than ever, and loathed my rival in my heart.

I wheeled round on Eva. I was not going to give her up - to him. I would tell her so before him - tell him so to his face. But she had turned away; she was listening to some one else. Her white forehead glistened. There were voices in the hall.

“Mr. Cole! Mr. Cole! Where are you, Mr. Cole?”

I moved over to the locked door. My hand found the key. I turned round with evil triumph in my heart, and God knows what upon my face. Rattray did not move. With lifted hands the girl was merely begging him to go by the door that was open, down the stair. He shook his head grimly. With an oath I was upon them.

“Go, both of you!” I whispered hoarsely. “Now - while you can - and I can let you. Now! Now!”

Still Rattray hung back.

I saw him glancing wistfully at my great revolver lying on the table under the lamp. I thrust it upon him, and pushed him towards the door.

“You go first. She shall follow. You will not grudge me one last word? Yes, I will take your hand. If you escape - be good to her!”

He was gone. Without, there was a voice still calling me; but now it sounded overhead.

“Good-by, Eva, I said. “You have not a moment to lose.”

Yet those divine eyes lingered on my ugliness.

“You are in a very great hurry,” said she, in the sharp little voice of her bitter moments.

“You love him; that is enough.”

“And you, too!” she cried. “And you, too!”

And her pure, warm arms were round my neck; another instant, and she would have kissed me, she! I know it. I knew it then. But it was more than I would bear. As a brother! I had heard that tale before. Back I stepped again, all the man in me rebelling.

“That’s impossible,” said I rudely.

“It isn’t. It’s true. I do love you - for this!”

God knows how I looked!

“And I mayn’t say good-by to you,” she whispered. “And - and I love you - for that!”

“Then you had better choose between us,” said I.