Читать книгу The Border Kid - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 8
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It was not a large house, but it was built with wonderful neatness and strength, which made Ricardo think of the lines of a ship. The rooms were small, also, and the ceilings low, so that the monstrous Selim seemed to graze them at the height of every step he took.
Up a narrow stairs, which turned quickly, Ricardo was taken to a little chamber which had a single window not more than two feet square, and yet one would not have complained of the lack of air any more than one would in a ship should a cabin have a port of such dimensions. Here the bed was built against the wall exactly like a ship’s bunk; and there was even a slight curve to the floor, as though it were accommodated to the curve of a ship’s deck!
“Put yourself up here, Ricardo,” said William Benn. “You can be comfortable here!”
“I’ve never seen such a fine place!” exclaimed the boy.
He could have shouted in his enthusiasm, and William Benn brought him up short by saying tersely: “Who taught you English?”
“One listens,” said Ricardo.
“One listens,” said William Benn in the oddest tone. “But sometimes——”
He said no more. He went on abruptly to point out the clothes closet and the two small bookshelves which, as he said, would soon be filled from the books which were in the house.
“What books do you want to read?” he asked.
And Ricardo answered that he never had read a book in his life. This answer seemed to please the other immensely, and William Benn said with actual warmth: “Maybe I’m going to be able to fit the right sort of things into your brain, my boy. I’m going to try, and if you will do what I tell you, you’ll be one of the richest men in the world before you finish!”
He said this with conviction, not in a rush of enthusiasm, but slowly and selecting his words, and Ricardo believed him, and his heart leaped at the promise. He did not doubt. Ever since he had met this man in the street of the village, he had been inclined to doubt him, but now he doubted no longer that William Benn, whatever might be his faults, was totally capable of doing what he pleased in the world—beginning with the life and the fortune of his new protégé.
They had dinner on a small veranda which overhung the river, and William Benn, while he waited for the meal, and even in pauses during it, would start up from his chair and pace backward and forward. He explained, with a short, harsh laugh, that the veranda was very like the bridge of a ship, and Ricardo could see that he was right. It was closed in with a series of small windows, and looking out through these, the river seemed to be rushing straight upon the house with a silent glide of speed; in a moment the water would appear to be standing, and it was the house which moved.
Selim waited on them at dinner. He was not a servant of formal manners, but conversed freely with them both and even lounged with a hand resting against the back of one of their chairs while he talked.
William Benn did not reprove this familiarity, but he said with a smile to Ricardo: “Were you ever waited on before?”
“No,” said Ricardo, “but I have seen people eat in restaurants, and I’ve watched the waiters.”
“So you know how the thing should be done?”
“Yes.”
Benn said no more, but there was a glimmer of greater interest in his eye. “Have you eaten duff?” he asked, as the meal came to a close with the sweet.
“Never,” said Ricardo, looking incuriously at the yellowish mass which was heaped upon his plate.
“This will be a treat for you, then,” said Benn with great eagerness. “I remember a time off the pitch of the Horn——”
As he spoke, he tasted the plum duff, and instantly cried out in a terrible voice: “Wong!”
The gigantic Selim leaped backward as though that great voice were a thunderbolt which might cleave him in twain.
“Wong!” shouted Selim, but in spite of his size, he could not put the same authentic ring of command into his tones.
The door at the other end of the veranda opened, and Ricardo saw the ugliest little Chinaman he ever had laid eyes on. Even the hunchback was a handsome creature compared with the narrow and frozen malice which appeared in the thin face of the Oriental.
“Wong, you’ve spoiled it again!” exclaimed the master of the house.
The Chinaman chattered something unintelligible.
“Speak English, you dog!” boomed William Benn, and leaped across the room. Big Selim cowered back into a corner. The Chinaman slipped a hand into the loose bosom of his coat so that Ricardo instinctively gripped his own knife; but William Benn laid hold upon the long, glimmering, silken, braided pigtail of Wong. He raised his other hand, balled into a massive fist.
“I’ve a mind to beat your face flat!” he said.
The face of Wong worked, but he said not a word.
“And some day,” went on Benn, “I shall beat you to a pulp. Now get back to your galley and thank your stars that you’re not dying to-day!”
He jerked Wong around and kicked him with such force that the Chinaman crashed against the jamb of the door and dropped in a loose pile upon the floor. After a few moments, he stood up, but only after gathering himself together by degrees.
William Benn returned to the table. He was fairly yellow-green with wrath.
“The scoundrel!” exclaimed Benn. “The robbing scoundrel! Is there nobody in the world but me that can make plum duff? I’ve seen the times on shipboard when there was nothing but the duff to comfort a man and to warm the heart of him! I’ve seen the time when——”
He stopped short and bent to the eating of the food, but Ricardo, who had said nothing, felt sure that his new employer was watching him with critically searching glances from time to time to see in what manner he took the scene that he had just passed.
Carefully Ricardo strove to keep a mask upon his emotions. But strive as he might, he could not be sure that he was succeeding in maintaining a false front. For him there had been enough mysteries connected with William Benn before ever they arrived at this house, but since the arrival there was enough to make the head of an older man than young Perez spin. There was the singular situation of the house, fenced off with the impenetrable palisade on the one side, and by the tigerishly swift flow of the river on the other; there was the mystery of the barn and its box stalls—a very odd luxury in the West. Most important, too, was the quality of the horses in that stable, for Ricardo could guess that he had not seen a creature in the place that could be bought for less than a thousand dollars.
There was the house itself, its strange, boatlike construction; the talk of Benn about the sea; the monster Selim; the deformed Lew; the hideous face of Wong; and, above all, tying these elements together, he hardly could explain why, came the final outbreak of passion on the part of the master.
It was a formidable enough exhibition of fury, and yet, strange to say, it lifted a burden from the heart of Ricardo. There had been something concealed, he had felt from the first moment, in the nature of William Benn. If it were sheer physical brutality and no more, then Ricardo was happy. But yet he could not be sure. The savage passion of William Benn seemed to have been sharply controlled. The brutal kicking of Wong had seemed merely a careless gesture, dismissing the offending servant. Had not the wrath of the master been checked, what would he have done to the man?
With these thoughts running rapidly through his mind, Ricardo maintained a polite smile at the corners of his mouth, but he could not help measuring the distance to the windows, and the distance to the doors, with catlike glances.
Suddenly he was terrified.
William Benn reached across the table and touched his arm.
“You can’t get out, Ricardo,” said he. “If you tried to run for it, I could catch you, if I wanted to. And why should I want to? Perhaps I don’t. But now I tell you this, my lad. As long as you’re with me, be honest. If you’re afraid, let it jump into your eyes, the way it does now. And if you’re disgusted, as you were a minute ago, show that also. And if you’re angry, show that. Because I’ll let you know, in the first place, that I’d rather see the heart of a man as it is than have him try to put me off with lies! And there can be a lie in the eye as well as in the mouth.”
After seeing a blow which had struck down Wong, this was a sufficiently terrible speech, and all through it, William Benn kept his great, bony hand upon the arm of the boy. He did not grip it hard, but merely letting it lie there of its own weight, Ricardo had the sense of irresistible power holding him.
“You didn’t like it,” went on Benn in a quieter tone, leaning back in his chair. “You thought I was a brute. Perhaps I was. But all these fellows are rascals. How could I get ordinary men to work for me, living here at the end of the world without a chance to leave me?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“They have to be kept in hand—or under foot, darn them! But they know that I never sleep!”
Then he added, more cheerfully still: “You’ve traveled far enough, for one day. It’s time for you to tumble in, my lad. Turn in soon and tumble out early. You can never stand a proper watch unless you’ve slept yourself out.”
Ricardo said good night and went straight up to his room, and he did not linger on the way! But he was wondering earnestly why it was that the three servants in this house could not leave it!
