Читать книгу The Robe of Lucifer - Fred M. White - Страница 6

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MORNING came with a wind fresh from the North- west. The sea lay bright and crisp; the sunshine danced on the blue jewels of the waters. Ray, early astir, dragged Greenstrand from the snug somnolence of the coarse brown sheets, and placed a towel in his hand.

"We are going to bathe before breakfast," he explained. "Into your garments quickly. Do not tarry for the sleep-berries to leave your eyes, but dress and come."

Greenstrand complied laggardly. A heavy surf was plunging upon the crisp sand, the rocks were dank and chill to his unfamiliar feet. Like a white arrow shot from a bow, Ray flashed into the grey bath of spume, shimmering like some great fish in a fathom of crystal flood. Greenstrand followed down to the tangled sea- wrack. The flying spume lashed his shoulders; the salt sting was on his forehead, wild and glorious. A new vigour thrilled in every limb; Samson before meeting Delilah felt no stronger.

"That's fine!" he gasped, as he emerged from the bath. "I feel like another man. I shall be quite ready for breakfast by the time we get back."

"Death is cooking the soles," Ray replied. "I forgot to tell you that he turned up an hour ago. He got a conveyance from Port Jacob, and drove."

"So like him," Greenstrand murmured, as they started back. "Now, at Port Jacob, yesterday, I could get no conveyance for love or money. If Death and I were stranded in the Great Sahara, and I asked him to do his best, he would find me a caravan in half an hour. And if I requested the same day's Times under the same circumstances, it would be forthcoming. I——"

Greenstrand suddenly paused. Like some predatory Adam under parallel circumstances, he felt comparatively startled by what he saw. For, coming towards them, of a verity, was Eve in the guise of Aphrodite. She was tall and dark and queenly. She wore a dress of rough grey cloth with a divine grace. Her long hair was streaming in the breeze; her bare white feet kissed the sand. But for the milky feet, Aphrodite might have been the bride of broad acres. She carried her head haughtily and well. A smile cleft her red lips, and lingered in her splendid eyes. She seemed to see nothing strange in the two figures before her.

"Can't we go and hide ourselves?" Greenstrand suggested. "The lady might——"

But Ray was innocent of confusion. From his point of view, the situation was natural enough. At Port Gwyn they had gone back to the better part of nature. He shook hands with the glowing goddess, who blushed not, for the simple reason that she saw nothing whereat to blush in her lack of hose, and extended her taper fingers to Greenstrand.

"I have heard of you," she said. "I am glad to meet you. But you must not keep me now, because I am going down to the lobster pots."

"What a lovely lunatic!" Greenstrand remarked, as the stately figure passed on. "Have you any more eccentric angels of the same kind here, Julien?"

"There is very little of the lunatic about Margaret Trefroch," Ray said seriously. "You are a bit annoyed because her simple virtue and innocent chastity were too much for your boasted self- possession. You may admire that "front of brass" contact with the world brings, but it is nothing compared to the pure gaze of a little child. And yet Margaret is no child, apart from her unworldliness. Her father was accounted fairly well off until these cottages were deserted. Now he has to work like the rest. But Margaret and her brother Mark—for whom I have procured a situation in London—possess a rare intelligence. I educated Margaret myself; for five years she has been my pupil."

"Take care that she does not become your mistress," Greenstrand laughed. "Nay, man, I mean in the Elizabethan sense of the word, not as it is perverted to-day."

"I shall never marry again," Ray said gravely. "I buried my heart in my wife's grave. Yet Margaret could be a mate for any man. She has beauty and intellect. Few women in England are better educated, though I say it."

Greenstrand pursued the subject no further. Yet this chance meeting with the ocean goddess occupied his sole attention whilst dressing. Not that his speculations prevented a complete enjoyment of the fish and coffee prepared by Death.

The latter greeted his employer quietly enough. George Death never spoke unless spoken to first; he sat through the simple meal, his face disguised as a mask. There was no expression there, no speculation in his hard steel-grey eyes. He allowed himself to be quietly ignored; the others took no notice of his presence there.

After breakfast he rose, and quietly proceeded to wash the dishes. He appeared to be perfectly at home at the task, as he would have been waiting upon a Cabinet Minister. He was equally ready to negotiate the purchase of an estate for his employer. Liberally paid, everything came in the day's work.

Death invariably dressed in black; he wore no jewellery; he had no tastes or habits, and no dislikes or prejudices. What he did with his money, Greenstrand neither knew nor cared. He did know that Death was scrupulously honest in all his dealings; he was quite aware that his right-hand man could have robbed him of thousands had he liked. And Death professed no liking for or gratitude to his employer. His keen sense of justice told him that the arrangement between them was perfectly mutual.

The morning passed quickly with an examination of the place, and an inspection of the house where the lace-manufacture was in progress. Ray was doing a good work, perhaps, but it smacked of professional philanthropy too much for Greenstrand.

"Let us go on the cliffs and smoke," he said presently. "I'm getting somewhat tired of these ceaseless expressions of gratitude one hears from these people. Besides, I have been dragged over these kind of places so often before. I shall give you nothing."

Ray led the way up the cliffs. The boyish gaiety contrasted strongly with Greenstrand's sombre mood. They sat looking over the wrinkled sea, flushed with the love of the sunshine. The great heart beat and throbbed upon the rocks; there were voices in the wind.

"Why can't I be happy like you?" Greenstrand cried suddenly. "Why am I so full of discontent?"

"Because you have nothing to do," Ray replied. "And yet you have a fine intellect. With your opportunities and advantages you might become anything. Literature——"

"I might become a minor poet," Greenstrand sneered. "I can write verses sufficiently badly for that. And I should certainly be exploited in the evening papers. The more rude I was to them, the more they would extol my virtues. A rich man's failings are a poor man's vices. No; on the whole, I think I will steer clear of literature."

"Then why not politics ? It is the pastime of tin prosperous."

"Because I could succeed in attaining any position I required. My dear Julien, consider the want of stimulus politics offer to one in my position. With the millions at my disposal, I could actually found a party. Suppose I take up the occupation of waste lands. I might establish industries in the desert; whether they paid or not would matter little, because the subsidy would be always fattening. With money I could bribe the electors. I could choose my own candidates, and endow them with ample funds. There are hundreds of men of influence, apparently in a prosperous condition, who are tottering to ruin. Indirectly, I could buy the electorate as I would a flock of sheep. In five years I should become Premier. And where would the satisfaction be? My wealth, and not myself, would deserve the praise. No; I can see nothing in politics."

"Then why not deprive yourself of your money altogether?" Ray asked.

Greenstrand hesitated for a moment before he replied.

"Because I dare not," he murmured with the tone of one who makes a humiliating confession. "I lack the necessary belief in myself. So many better men never rise superior to circumstance. Should I, given your genius, have ever forced my way to the front? I think not. I have had a better opportunity of judging the greed of humanity than yourself. I have but one weapon, and I dare not lay that aside. And yet its might is crushing me. I want some mission, some occupation that money cannot buy. Everything has been tried. I thought I had found it once in philanthropy, but I was mistaken. On the whole, that seems to me to be the most sordid business of the lot."

"It seems to be a pitiable state of things," Ray remarked.

"Pitiable is no word for it. I am without hope, and without faith. Julien, do you believe, really and truly believe, that there is a God directing us somewhere?"

"I am certain of it," Ray cried. "I have proved it. I feel that God is, and will be. I feel His presence now; I seem to see evidence of it in the great waters. Without the help of Christ I should have gone down into desolation and darkness. Do not mistake what I say for the Shibboleth of the Churches; in the cant phrase of the day, I am not a religious man. For instance, I never by any chance enter a place of worship. The set parrot prayers day by day drive me to madness. The sermon is an invention of the devil. Fancy the smug, narrow sectarian preaching Christ's holy charity, and denying a dissenter burial in his churchyard—God's Acre, mind you! Picture the Nonconformist minister yelling his hideous secular politics, and quoting the Deity in support of his argument, as if God were a Gladstonian. See the prelate at the altar marrying innocent crushed May to scrofulous December, and telling his perfumed gallery that whom God has joined together no man shall put asunder. Oh, the pity of it! And yet one can feel the life of Christ to be the true one. God is everywhere, the just kind God that Jesus spoke of, and He prevails."

"I don't believe a word of it," Greenstrand retorted. "You evoke all this out of your brilliant imagination. If things are as you say, why is Satan all-powerful? I could be Satan myself. I could spoil your Arcadia here in a week. If I could but put a dozen men to the test, place in their way blazing temptations, and find them come out of the ordeal unscathed, I think I could believe myself."

"You think all men are corrupt at heart, then?"

"I am absolutely certain of it. My worldly experience has never shown me a single instance to the contrary. Mind, I grant there are certain instances where you must make the bribe big enough, or disguise the bait carefully. Julien, I have a great mind to turn devil, and test my theory practically."

"You would fail," Ray cried—"fail miserably. And if you did succeed in breaking up and ruining a home or two, what then? What would you do with your victims?"

"Send them down here to make lace," Greenstrand smiled grimly. "I should feel that I owed them something for the sport they had given me, in which case I should not mind giving you money for an extension of the colony."

Ray caught his breath quickly. He saw a way to extending his scheme, and confounding his friend at the same time. It might also be possible to fill Greenstrand with the faith through which real happiness alone lies.

"I have a great mind to accept your challenge," he said thoughtfully. "There are other places besides Port Gwyn along the coast where help is sorely needed, and I confess to a great desire to handle some of the thousands which represent so little to you. But what a Nemesis would be yours, were you to make the attempt."

"Why? The devil flourishes after the lapse of countless years. He has revolted successfully. There is no reason why I should not go and do likewise."

"You really are prepared to make the attempt, then?"

"Since you challenge me, I may say that I am both willing and eager."

Ray's eyes glowed with the light of battle. He was for humanity against mammon.

"So be it, then," he cried. "You shall go out into the world and tempt man, you shall play upon his weakness and his vanity, you shall fall like Lucifer. The collapse will be great, but God is merciful to all. I believe you will not succeed in one solitary instance, arrogant as the power of your money renders you. But who is to select the victims?"

"That shall be Death's portion," Greenstrand said eagerly. "And I will inform him that none but the strongest are to be chosen. My intention is not to pick out those who are in difficulties or dangers. Let us see what the best are made of. Death's strong sense of justice will be your safeguard; you can rely upon him thoroughly. He shall have carte blanche to go through the country and select subjects for my experiment, as a collector of old china goes afield for curios. And you will judge as to fair play."

"I shall certainly live to rejoice in your discomfiture," Ray replied.

"The challenge is made and accepted," Greenstrand cried. "Already I feel that I have an object in life. I am itching to be at work. Let us dispatch Death upon his errand without delay. Meanwhile, I shall remain here till Death returns. He will show no surprise when he hears what he has to do."

Greenstrand did not exaggerate. Death listened to the commands of his employer with no signs of animation or surprise upon his graven face.

"I am to start at once," he replied, "and I have no limit as to space, provided that I confine myself to England. It will cost a deal of money."

"It will," Greenstrand agreed. "You will want a blank signed cheque-book, and use your own discretion as to what you spend. And take your time."

Death departed like a shadow. For good or evil the die was cast. Ray's face was grave, whilst Greenstrand's features were flushed and triumphant.

"You fear for me?" be demanded.

"It is in God's hands," the poet replied. "I tell you I am frightened. Whether I have done right or wrong, the future alone will show. There is no turning back now."