Читать книгу A Daughter Of Israel - Fred M. White - Страница 6

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Darkness had fallen on the docks. Gradually the tapering masts had melted into the fading sky till the cordage became faint as gossamer, and the dark shining hulls reposed shimmering against the evening mists coming up from the sea on the breast of the tide. The ghostly light faded away; distance was annulled save where a lantern gleamed in nebulous circles.

There was nothing moving except the shadows, or so it seemed, till a black mass crept out from between the sheltering haven of the wood piles and crept cautiously along the granite quay. In the fell gloom it might have passed for a hunted animal; but it was worse than that, being a hunted man. Presently, he moved on again, crouching close, for a splash of light fell upon him from a ship's deck.

It was not a pleasant face which turned towards the golden light. The eyes were black and tempestuously wild, with defiant fear radiating the purple iris. The skin was darker for the wrinkles graven upon it, the nose curving like a bow from the forehead, horribly aslant to the gibing thin lips. His frame was closely knit and, from the hilarious swing of the arms, powerful; for he tossed them from time to time over his head as if the sensation was a new and pleasing one. For a second he scowled at the light, then plunged into the gloom again, pressing upon his way till he reached the water edge, and, casting away his shoes, dangled his bruised feet in the fair water. At the sound of the gurgling wash, an object standing so still that the fugitive had taken it for a capstan, suddenly moved, whistling softly.

"Is it safe to be sitting there in the darkness?"

"Safer than the sun for some of us," the convict replied with a deep respiration of relief. "Is that you, Phil?"

"Yes, more fool me, when I might have been safe in bed."

"But you dared not stay away, my dear; you dare not when old Saul wants you. Have you brought the tobacco and the brandy?"

He chuckled with dry horrid glee, crowing the more as the new comer produced sundry packets from his pockets. Then, filling up his pipe, he cautiously struck a match, and shading it from sight with his horny claw, ignited the tobacco. As he threw the light away, the wisp-like flame lit up for a second the face of Philip Speedwell.

He was pale and ill at ease; all his flinty assurance gone. The convict sucked his pipe, and applied himself with affectionate zest to the flat bottle in his hand, till he became loquacious under its cheering influence.

"Why don't you talk?" he demanded. "Let me hear your sweet voice. Ah, it is all very well for you, who can show your face anywhere! I haven't spoken to a soul since last night. Been lying under the piles all through this accursed daylight, with every footfall bringing my heart up into my mouth; fancying a hand upon my shoulder every minute. What a fool I've been; and only another eighteen months to wait for my release. And now, if I get caught, it'll mean five years. You were wise to wait till your time was up."

The outcast rambled on in his dry, rusty tones, grateful for the blessing which had brought him someone to talk with. It seemed a positive luxury after those awful quiet hours, to feel the presence of a companion.

"Don't talk like that about me," Speedwell returned, moodily.

"Well, I suppose you won't deny you have been in gaol?"

"And how much the better shall I be for owning it? Besides, now I have a chance to turn honest—ay, and mean to."

The convict lay back, his sides heaving, and face working with every sign of unbounded hilarity, though no sound issued from his cavernous throat.

"Ah, that's just the way you used to gammon the chaplain," he said, in a tone of pleased retrospection. "You always were an artful chap, but no use to try and bamboozle me. Besides, we couldn't spare you. But if there is anything in the wind, let's have it."

Saul Abraham listened in unbounded astonishment to Speedwell's tale. For a time he was perfectly silent, his eyes glaring in the dark like a cat's. Partly he was inclined to envy his companion's good fortune, but more especially he speculated upon the possible advantage that might spring from it.

"There is something in the honesty dodge, after all," he ruminated, softly. "Anyway, you had better stay where you are for the present. If anything happens to me"—here he shuddered—"you might be useful here. If old Lockwood has taken a fancy to you, your fortune is as good as made."

"What are you going to do?" asked Speedwell, with anxiety ill-disguised. "You can't hang about here much longer."

"Don't want reminding of that," the convict growled. "Besides, you don't suppose I found my way here because I was dying for a sight of my family? I came for something better—revenge. And you've got to help me. Listen."

It was only the deep bay of a dog, reverberating in widening echoes on the still night air. Abrahams drew a respiration of relief.

"My nerves are not what they used to be," he continued. "If it hadn't been for what I am bound to do, I should have given myself up long ago. I dare say you wonder what it has got to do with you. And that's why I brought you here. To begin with, your name ain't Speedwell at all."

"That I know," answered the lad, moodily. "The question is, what is it?"

"Just what I'm coming to. Now, being relations——"

"Relations?"

"Nephew, don't make that noise, you gaol bird? Do you want the whole town down upon us? Yes, you're my nephew, and I congratulate you upon your uncle. Your mother was my sister, your father was in the Royal Blues, once Captain Decie, brother of Sir Percival Decie, of The Moat, close here. And that's the man you and I have to crush. Time was when I was young and confiding, though you wouldn't think it now; when I was the Captain's valet, and thought him the finest gentleman alive. Why, even now, if he was to come here and say the word, I believe I should get up and follow him like a dog. But I am talking about what happened years ago, and it is getting late. Well, the Captain was a gay young man, different to his brother, Sir Percival, and lived in London, ruffling it with the best of them, spending his money like water, but pleasant and open-handed to his servants. Lord, we would have gone through fire and water for him. It was one time when we were staying at The Moat that the first thing happened. My mother kept the old shop where you have been to-day, and my sister—your mother that is—lived with her. When I fell in love with my wife, and asked the Captain's permission to get married, he laughed in his pleasant way, and said he must come and salute the bride. So down he came to our house, and made himself at home directly, flirting with Rachel—your mother again—but we thought nothing. And when she disappeared, six months later, I never suspected him.

"So five or six years passed, and we heard nothing of Rachel. In that time I had three children born—those you know. We were backwards and forwards from London so often that I left Rebecca with my mother to manage the shop. By the influence of the Decie's they had made a fair business. Ah! the Meyers; I had almost forgotten them. You will see presently how their jealousy injured me.

"It was about this time that the Captain quarrelled with his brother. It was over money matters, for by this time my master had got into low water; often times he hadn't sufficient to satisfy his debts of honour. Then came one night when he reached home, staggering like a drunken man, with his face like a sheet of paper. When I asked him what was wrong, he just said in a stem, quiet way, we must go to Westport on the morrow, and went to bed.

"So down here we came, and put up at the best hotel in the town. In the afternoon the Captain gave me a note to take to The Moat.

"'On that answer my honour depends,' he said to me.

"Then I knew it was for money, and to The Moat I went. They showed me into Sir Percival's study, where he was writing.

"He read the note through without so much as a change of eyelid, then appeared undecided. After reading the letter again he went out, leaving me alone.

"He was away some time, so to pass the moments I fell to looking round the place. In the wall was an iron safe with the door open, and in there, lying open, was a diamond necklet. Ah! you know what an eye a Jew has for precious stones. Just as I was wondering what the worth of it was Sir Percival came back.

"'Tell your master the answer is 'no,"' he said.

"I should have gone then, only, as ill-luck would have it, Lady Decie came in. I could see that her face was disturbed and uneasy, for as Sir Percival looked at her he shook his head. Presently they got whispering together, she asking some favour, he looking determined. With a look at me she beckoned him out, and then I don't know how it was, but a moment later the diamond necklet was in my pocket."

The speaker paused, his head bent forward in a listening attitude, for in the distance there was a subdued murmur of voices. He slipped on his heavy boots and rose to his feet.

"It's nothing," said Speedwell, impatiently. "Go on."

"I don't know. Sometimes the shadows frighten me," the convict resumed. "Well, I'd hardly done it when Sir Percival returned. He seemed annoyed and restless, but he had not changed."

"'I have nothing to add,' said he. 'You have your message.'

"I was glad enough to go now. When I told the Captain, he just whistled softly, and looked away from me. Then making bold, I asked him how much he wanted to save him.

"'I can't go back to London without 500,' he says.

"It didn't take me long to make up mind. I knew we hadn't half so much money at home, so I determined to try Isha Meyer. When I showed him the bracelet, I saw his eyes shining, but I thought nothing of it then. So the long and short of it was that he agreed to lend me the money, and I was to call again in the afternoon.

"I must have been mad when I did it. So back I went to the Captain, where another surprise awaited me. I heard a sound of voices in the room, so after I'd knocked more than once, I went in, and there was a woman hanging round my master's neck, crying and sobbing. When she heard me she looked round, and I saw it was my sister.

"That was a nice thing, wasn't it? But no need to say more about that. Woman like, she had scented out danger, and come down post haste to warn him. When he had explained all round it was late in the afternoon. As I was starting to Meyer's again there came a knock at the door, and in walked a couple of policemen and old Meyer himself. Directly I caught sight of his face, grinning and chuckling, I knew I was lost. It was awful luck. It appears that the necklet had a peculiar fastening, and Meyer, being a skilled workman, had been once employed to mend it. He spotted it in a moment, and directly my back was turned must have posted over to The Moat and seen Sir Percival. That was his revenge. Mine will come.

"I need not say any more. My mother would have found the money, the Captain would have begged me off on his knees, but Sir Percival was adamant. I was tried and convicted, and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. But my time will come, boy. Every day, every month, every year has added to my hate, till it has become a disease. You will have to help me. I can wait; but the time is coming, and then, Sir Percival, and then——"

Behind the mask of night the convict's face was painted with a black malignant hate. The memory of his wrongs had been cherished till they formed part of his being.

He murmured to himself in his short unkempt beard.

"And how do you know this man was my father?" Speedwell asked.

"Because you bear your mother's assumed name. But mind, that secret is yours and mine. Some day I will tell you how I recognised you for certain. And mind, if you tell Rebecca who you are she will turn you from the door, though you are dying of hunger. There is one thing no Jew ever forgives, and that is love for one of them to a Christian. Your mother could have brought no deeper degradation on her race and name than she did. Even I would have seen her in a coffin first. That noise again?"

It seemed like the softened tread of footsteps; as if the shadows were marching on them in ghostly squadrons. There was a sudden silence, till a bright light flashed out in one long dazzling streak.

"Saul Abrahams, I arrest you in the Queen's name!"

There was a quick rush forward, a sound of a pistol on the startled air, a shimmer of blue, and the quick twinkle of silver buttons. A short struggle, and the iron bands closed on the convict's wrists.

Speedwell stood amazed for a moment, then a hand was laid upon his arm, and a voice whispered, "Into the water—quick. Do not be afraid, I will follow you."

It was not in his nature to be afraid. Under cover of the darkness he slid into the black inky pool striking out, and as he did so his course was guided by an unseen hand. A moment later he was standing on the further bank.

"Who is it?" he whispered.

The unseen hand, still resting on his arm, drew him away towards the town. So they walked on silently till the light began to grow bolder in the distance.

Speedwell glanced at his companion's face. It was Miriam.

"What brings you here?" he cried.

"Your danger. I heard you steal down the stairs and followed you. Something told me where you were going. Tell me, is that man——"

She said no more, but completed her sentence with a backward swing.

"You have repaid me for what I have done for you," he said. "Promise me that what you have seen to-night shall never be repeated—promise. The man I was with is your father."