Читать книгу King of The Rocks - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 7

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AT the Governor's dinner-party, given in honour of the birthday of the Prince of Wales, Miss Hescombe was placed between Captain Stardee, an officer of the British Navy, and Mr. Cecil Vane, a Sydney barrister, two gentlemen with whom she was already slightly acquainted. She found herself soon conversing almost exclusively with the Australian.

"The ne plus ultra of the average Colonial's social ambition is an invitation to any quasi-private function at Government House," observed the Q.C., with a languid and somewhat didactic drawl.

The remark interested the girl.

"I have wondered why there seemed to be so few men in society here; are the vice-regal functions so exclusive, then?"

"They pretend to be," returned Mr. Vane, "but they are not really; the governors whom Her Gracious Majesty sends to rule over us come here with but one idea, and that is, to make themselves popular, at all hazards, with the cornstalks; consequently, they shower their invitations right and left, although mind you, they affect all the time a very pretty exclusiveness."

"Then why the scarcity of men?"

"Pure laziness; the male Australian is an animal whose whole soul is wrapped up in business; when his day's work is over he goes home to sit and read in dressing-gown and slippers, to smoke or to sleep, quite satisfied that his wife or his other women-folk should go out alone to enjoy themselves."

"How uninteresting; but surely the younger men go about more?"

"How long have you been in Sydney, Miss Hescombe?"

"Not quite a month. Why?"

"A month here, and you have not yet discovered that we have no young men in this colony! You have been surely dreaming your time away."

"Oh, you are jesting! I have met dozens; why, you are young yourself."

"I am growing young certainly, but then I am barely fifty; you should see me ten years hence, I shall be quite a boy then, I hope. You must know that all the brainy Australians are born tired and very, very old; they commence to grow young about the time that an Englishman feels himself getting middle-aged."

"Mr. Vane, you are trying to amuse yourself at the expense of my innocence."

"Not I; you will find it out for yourself later on."

"I am sure that you are laughing at me. I shall talk to the captain."

"Very well; but one day you will offer me an apology."

Captain Stardee had been making signals for some time to attract the girl's attention.

"Are you interested in the coming American cum Hispano struggle?" he inquired.

"I am more interested in Australia, Captain Stardee. Have you been long on this station?"

"About three years; may I help you with my experience?"

"Please; I want to know about Australian young men——"

"Ah, an exciting subject to discuss with a young lady," he replied, smiling; "how can I assist you?"

"First, there are young men here, aren't there?"

"I seem to have met quite a number, if I remember rightly."

"Well, are they as 'chivalrous, brave, and obliging' as the English papers described them at the time of the Queen's Jubilee?"

"Now you have set me a task; you see, I didn't read those papers you speak of. However, so far as my experience goes, the men here compare quite favourably with those of any other race; of course, I speak of gentlemen."

"Could you conceive of an Australian, apparently a gentleman, so far as speech and appearance are concerned, being wantonly discourteous to a woman?"

"Frankly, no. I have many friends among the Sydney born, and they are all courteous and civil to a fault. Surely you can have suffered no discourtesy?"

Miss Hescombe did not feel called upon to make a confidence.

"Oh, no," she replied, smiling, "but a lady friend of mine informed me of an unpleasant chance experience she had encountered at the hands of an Australian, seemingly a gentleman, and I wondered; that was all."

"Of course," observed the captain, "this being a democratic country, and education being both free and compulsory, it would be hard to determine off-hand, from a man's appearance or manner, whether he was a gentleman or not. Many of the Sydney larrikins have had college educations, I have heard."

"Larrikins?"

"Equivalent to our English term 'roughs,' Miss Hescombe; they form the lowest element of society here."

"Oh, I am sure the man my friend told me of was not a larrikin; he was wonderfully handsome and spoke like a polished gentleman, although he was so rude."

The captain smiled.

"The gentleman on your right hand, Mr. Vane, could tell you some strange tales about polished scamps here, if he would; he is a criminal pleader."

Mr. Vane overheard this remark, and replied:

"Our friend Savage, for instance, eh, captain?" whereupon both men laughed as at some common amusing recollection.

"Savage," echoed Miss Hescombe, deeply interested on mention of a name quite near her thoughts at that very moment.

"Yes, Julian Savage; in my opinion the cleverest rascal in Australia; though," and he lowered his voice, "I am guilty of slander in making the remark, and I daresay I should be made to pay dearly for my incautiousness if the scamp in question could ever know I made it."

"Oh, do tell me about him," said Miss Hescombe eagerly.

"He would interest you as a type since you are studying Australia, eh?"

"Yes, I am writing a book," replied Miss Hescombe a little affectedly.

"Well, for my sake, if you put this man in your book, pray disguise him well; I confess that he is the only man in Christendom I pay the compliment of feeling at all afraid of."

"That makes him doubly interesting; please commence."

"Well, my friend Stardee there, met him first; he ran across him down in the South Seas under rather curious circumstances. The Admiralty had heard that the natives of some of the islands (names are of no consequence) were being secretly supplied with arms and ammunition by some enterprising trader contrary to the British laws in that behalf, so the Pelican was ordered down to the South Seas to investigate, and, if possible, capture and punish the offenders.

"Captain Stardee, having arrived there, made many inquiries, and finally found the reports correct. He consequently put forth every effort to ascertain the names of the enterprising and lawless traffickers, but for a long time fruitless; however, he did at last manage to discover, by judicious bribery, that a shipment of rifles was shortly expected by the natives to be landed on the shores of a certain island harbour. Accordingly he made careful preparation to catch the lawbreakers flagrante delicto.

"A day or two before the expected denouement, however, who should arrive in the very harbour where Stardee's gunboat was lying concealed, but Julian Savage, in command of a little steam sloop, and, of course, he very shortly discovered from the natives the fact of Stardee's presence there. Well, he presented himself on board the Pelican in response to a command, and later his vessel was examined, but everything was shipshape and his papers were found to be correct. Stardee, however, laid an embargo on his leaving the harbour, for he did not want to run any risks of our friend communicating with the ship expected to arrive with the arms; the captain was aware, you see, of a certain free-masonry existing between these island traders. However, Savage not only raised no demur, but on the contrary, indeed, indignantly inveighed against the practice of supplying irresponsible islanders with weapons, as he declared it made legitimate trading dangerous.

"Well, to cut a long story short, they waited several days, three weeks, in fact, lying perdu in a little inlet of the harbour, and during that time Savage made himself simply worshipped by every man jack on board the Pelican, from the captain to the cabin boy. I assure you, our friend Stardee there still has a soft corner in his heart for the handsome scamp; eh, captain?"

The captain, thus appealed to, shrugged his shoulders and smiled, but answered nothing.

"Was he so handsome?" asked Miss Hescombe innocently.

"The best-looking fellow I ever met, and the most entertaining," replied Captain Stardee. "He had more words at the tip of his tongue than any man or woman I have ever known, and he could say the smartest and most cutting things to the accompaniment of the sweetest and most engaging manner in the world."

"Was he educated?" still more innocently.

"A perfect savant; there seemed to be nothing in the world's history he was not conversant with, from the love affairs of Dionysius to the latest secret in the manufacture of gun metal. The man was a walking lexicon."

"To proceed with my story," struck in Cecil Vane, "this Admirable Crichton practically lived on board the Pelican as Stardee's guest during his stay in the harbour, and lived, too, on the best; he drank nothing but champagne, and displayed an epicurean taste for foie gras and truffles. Meanwhile, a watch was kept on the highest point of the island for the arrival of the ship that never came. At last one of the terrible hurricanes common in those latitudes showed signs of visiting the island, and it was deemed advisable to get the Pelican immediately to sea, for the harbour, although filled with small bays and inlets, was little better than an open roadstead for a vessel of any tonnage."

"However, the hurricane came on quicker than was expected, and amongst his other excellencies Julian Savage, who was on board at the moment, proved an expert pilot, and it was mainly through his knowledge of the various channels that the Pelican was guided to safety.

"Returning a few days later they found that Savage's sloop, the Sea Fowl, was a complete wreck, having been actually smashed to pieces on the foreshore of the bay. Captain Stardee, moreover, discovered to his disgust that during the storm a ship had visited the island, had landed a cargo of arms and ammunition, and disappeared without leaving a sign.

"It was soon afterwards found necessary to return to dock for repairs to the Pelican, and Stardee gave Savage and his crew, who had been saved to a man, a passage with their belongings to Suva. His first suspicion of his guest arose from the fact of the extraordinary value of his belongings, for Savage brought on board quite a respectable cargo of island money and other marketable commodities. Subsequently, on another trip to the island, Stardee learned from closer examination of the Sea Fowl's wreckage that the sloop had once possessed a private hold, concealed by a sliding panelled covering, which could have easily contained a large supply of arms and stores. Stardee understood then the native's strange story of the ship which had landed her stock of arms during the hurricane."

"How very clever," laughed Miss Hescombe; "how completely he must have deceived you, Captain Stardee. But did you never secure redress?"

The captain gave a vexed shrug, but Cecil Vane roared with laughter.

"That is the best part of the story, Miss Hescombe. Redress, by Jove, he got redress! That scamp Savage, as soon as he reached Sydney, entered an action-at-law against the Admiralty to recover the value of his sloop, which he declared he had lost through being compelled to remain in the harbour during the hurricane owing to the embargo laid upon him by our friend here. I acted for the beggar, and he got a verdict of £1,500 damages."

"But you knew that he had broken the laws by selling arms to the natives."

"Yes, but we had no evidence against him," replied Captain Stardee sadly, "except our suspicions, and a few broken pieces of wreckage. We put him on his trial, and did all we could to convict him, but the natives were impossible witnesses, and his crew stuck to him like wax. We could get nothing incriminating from them. We discovered afterwards that they (his crew, not the natives) were all members of a secret society in Sydney here, of which he is the head."

"A secret society; that sounds mysterious," said the young lady, who did not trouble to conceal the strong interest she experienced in the narrative.

"A species of Australian Mafia, Miss Hescombe," explained the barrister, "organised by the man we are discussing out of a section of Sydney larrikins called a push or gang; but I weary you—shall we talk of something else?"

"Oh, please not, you are helping me so much with my book, and I am longing for instruction in Australian ways and habits. Are those secret societies common?"

"Well, no, pushes are common enough, but one could hardly define them as secret societies, rather as bands of young scoundrels banded together for the love of mischief; every suburb of Sydney reluctantly suffers under the tyranny of a push."

"But why is that; what do these pushes do, Mr. Vane?"

"Oh, nothing in particular—everything bad they can think of that is just inside the pale of the law. They are generally brats of boys and young men who collect together of a night at street corners under the leadership of the worst blackguard of the lot. They insult women and passers-by whenever they see a chance of doing so and escaping scot free. If any man is foolish enough to resent their insults the push attacks the unfortunate in a body, sometimes indeed half murder him."

"But the police?" cried Miss Hescombe, horrified.

"The police are generally powerless, for the blackguards choose time and place, and besides, always keep sentinels posted to warn them of the approach of the guardians of the law, whereupon they vanish into the air. In the worst infected districts the police are actually afraid of the ruffians, and never venture on their beats after nightfall except in pairs."

"Good heavens! what a horrible state of things," cried the girl; "it seems almost incredible that such an evil could exist in the midst of a civilised community at the end of the nineteenth century."

"Nevertheless it does exist, Miss Hescombe; and what is more, no one has yet been able to devise a remedy."

"But are there not laws, Mr. Vane?"

"Certainly there are laws, but you must first catch your criminal before you can hang him. These pushes, moreover, exercise a terrorism over most private citizens whom they come in contact with. Why, I can assure you that, in my own experience, I have known some of the greatest rogues, even when arrested and put on trial, escape scot free owing to their very prosecutors being afraid to testify against them for fear of the subsequent vengeance of the push to which the rogues belonged. Sounds like a story of the Middle Ages, doesn't it? but it's true enough."

"And this secret society you spoke of just now headed by this Mr. Savage" (Miss Hescombe did not blush) "do its members commit the same atrocious deeds that you have just described?"

Mr. Vane considered for a moment.

"I can't quite say," he answered, somewhat undecidedly. "I have not heard of 'The Rocks' doing that sort of thing; at all events, not since Julian Savage became their king."

"King?" echoed the girl, surprised.

"That is the name these pushes always give their leader, and although 'The Rocks' have long developed from a push into a political society, I fancy they would still claim their old customs."

"What are this society's objects, Mr. Vane?"

"My dear young lady, if I knew, I could sell my knowledge for a good round sum to the police."

"What an extraordinary man this Mr. Savage must be," observed the girl reflectively. "I wonder what sort of a woman his wife is?"

She considered that she had put the question artfully, and plumed herself with a secret smile when her fish took the bait.

"Oh, Savage is a woman-hater, Miss Hescombe; he's not married, nor ever likely to be, from what I have heard."

Captain Stardee interrupted from her other side:

"What, still talking about Savage?" he asked.

"He is worth discussing, Captain Stardee," declared Miss Hescombe; "I never have heard of a more complex or romantically interesting character. From your and Mr. Vane's description, he must be utterly charming. I should like to meet him."

Both men laughed.

"Half the women in Sydney are in love with him," said the captain.

"Decidedly I must meet him; you make me more and more curious."

"You won't find him a beetle, though, who will sit quietly on a pin while you make a copy of him for your book," declared Vane, still laughing.

"Ah, you only see him from a man's point of view," said the young lady, with a saucy smile.

"You mean that he might allow you to dissect him?"

"He would not know he was undergoing an operation at all. My methods are quite too soothing for that."

"Are they, indeed? Perhaps you have been dissecting me."

"It is quite possible, Mr. Vane," returned the girl, laughing, and mentally referring to a chapter of her book.

"I call that distinctly unfair. Here have I been attending to your frightfully defective education all the dinner, and you ungrateful one—ah, words fail me!"

"I have drawn a most charming portrait of you."

"H'm, will you let me see it?" demanded the Q.C.

"I shall send you a copy, with the author's compliments."

"In proof, I meant."

"Ah, now you ask too much."

"I have my revenge made to hand. I shall merely have to remember when I see your book in print that I instructed your ignorance, and my vanity will be instantly soothed."

"You could easily have been much ruder than that," said Miss Hescombe. "You must be one of those 'chivalrous, brave, and obliging' Australians of the Pall Mall Budget. However, I know what you mean."

"Dear lady, tell me what I meant."

"You intended to insinuate that knowing so little about Australia, I am guilty of profound impertinence in writing about Australians."

"How crude you must think me," sighed Mr. Vane. "Permit me to disabuse your mind of such an idea. It is one of my pet theories that in literature the person who knows the least about a subject is the one who possesses the best right to descant upon it."

"There is something that sounds sarcastic in that speech," observed Miss Hescombe, somewhat dubiously. "I wish you would explain it a little."

"Why, I mean that what such a person can write must be more or less imaginative, whereas the man who knows relates facts, and facts are such stodgy things—don't you agree?"

"I see very plainly that you are laughing at me; but as Lady Killingworth is collecting eyes, I shall delay reprisals for a little."

"Laughing at you, my dear young lady! Heaven forbid!"

"My vengeance shall be pitiless."

"Peccavi. Avert the punishment, I implore you, your timid slave entreats!"

The girl looked at him with an assumption of tragic hauteur.

"On one condition, minion."

"Anything, most noble. I kneel to you in spirit."

"Then place beneath my microscope another victim without delay! Promise!"

"Poor beetle! Who is it to be?"

"Your heroic scamp, Mr. Julian Savage."

Cecil Vane gave a low whistle as the gentlemen arose to honour the departure of the ladies.

"Great Scott!" he muttered to himself. "Here's a pretty kettle of fish to fry; I've let myself in for something spicy this time."

In the ballroom a little later Miss Hescombe encountered Cuthbert Stone, whose appearance certainly excused remark. He was standing aimlessly beside a window, pale, and extremely agitated, while he crushed and crumpled a piece of pink paper between his hands without apparently knowing that his emotion created comment. The girl commanded her partner to lead her to him.

"Goodness, Mr. Stone," she said merrily, but nevertheless with a kind note of inquiry in her voice, "one would think you had been recently confronted with a ghost."

The American tugged at his long yellow moustachios nervously with one hand, with the other he half extended the pink paper towards her.

"It's a cable," he muttered hoarsely; "and it seems to tell me that I'm ruined."

He watched the girl hungrily as he spoke, then of a sudden swung on his heel and strode off among the promenaders.

"Cuthbert!" Miss Hescombe's musical voice called out softly after him, but the American did not hear her, nor did he see the sudden tender pity of her eyes.

The girl went straight to her mother, and murmured something in Lady Hescombe's ear which gave the old lady the greatest pleasure she had known for months; for what she heard promised the fulfilment of her dearest hopes.

Miss Hescombe had said: "Mother, if Cuthbert Stone asks me to-night to be his wife, I shall answer 'Yes.'"

But although Lady Hescombe searched throughout the evening, and sent her husband into all the rooms and corridors of Government House in quest of him, Cuthbert Stone was not to be found. In such manner do the Fates in their disposition of human lives sometimes create the cups of chance and circumstances, and Folly spills them to the ground.