Part 5

“A man of method, as the order of his effects proclaimed him to be, would never have left his house without putting away his personal effects, Doctor, so I decided to rummage. I knew that missionaries invariably kept journals, for the sake of subsequent writing, if nothing else. I reasoned that this diary would be in the desk, probably under lock and key, so I tried the different drawers and found one of them locked. When I had pried it open with my hunting knife I found the journal.”

Leyden paused to light a fresh cigar, which I knew would go out after the first three puffs. Some of the smoke must have found its way into his trachea, for he coughed once or twice before proceeding.

“I am a hardened old campaigner, Doctor, and I have never had much sympathy with missionaries, who have usually impressed me as inspired asses, but I will confess that as I read the poor chap’s journal my throat swelled until it was difficult to swallow. Perhaps it was because I was weakened by my fever; at any rate, I must confess that when I had finished it the tears were pouring down my face. It was the record of a Christian hero, Doctor, a Christian martyr as well, as I discovered on reading the record of the last four days.

“First, there had been three in the family—the missionary, his wife and a daughter, who, as I read on, I discovered to be a deaf-mute. Within the last year the wife had died, and not long after her death McAdoo had come up the river, ‘prospecting,’ as he said. At this time the missionary was planning to return to England.

“McAdoo had remained a month with the missionary, during which time their relations had grown ‘somewhat strained.’ He had then departed, as Mr. Cullen hoped, for good, but _only a fortnight_ before our arrival, Doctor, he had returned with the news that there was a trading schooner at the mouth of the river, and that the captain had agreed to give Mr. Cullen and his daughter a passage to Batavia, whence they could take a steamer to Amsterdam. McAdoo kindly offered to assume charge of the mission until he should hear from Mr. Cullen. In the meantime, however, the missionary had decided to remain, at hearing which McAdoo ‘was unable to conceal his disappointment!’

“The following day McAdoo came to Mr. Cullen and advised him to leave, saying that he feared there was a plot among the natives to kill him. Mr. Cullen scoffed at these fears. The day after that he had a quarrel with McAdoo and ordered him to leave the premises finally. The last words in the diary were: ‘To my intense relief the man McAdoo has gone down the river, and I pray that I may never see his wicked face again!’

“So much for the efficacy of prayer! I arose quickly, shoved the diary in my pocket and made for the rear of the house. I passed through what had been the dining-room on my way—_Ach!_ that was where the swine had nested! Something—superstition, distaste; I do not know what—had kept him away from the more intimate retreats of his victim; but the dining-room—I have seen more cleanly barracoons!

“Rustlings had preceded me as I had moved through the house; they do in Oriental houses, you know, Doctor, just as they do in the forest, wherever furtive beings hold their existence. Now, I moved too rapidly for these rustlings, and in the kitchen I flushed some frightened Dyak servants—three women and an old man.

“‘Take me to your mistress,’ I said to one of the women, and I said it kindly, but I do think I have never seen more fright on a woman’s face. After all, Doctor, to witness the horror of some one else is far more gruesome than the thing itself, is it not?”

I thought of the look I had once seen in the eyes of a man whose shoulder had been carried away by a piece of shrapnel, as he had glanced down and seen his wound.

“Nothing is more contagious than dread,” I murmured.

“So I discovered a few moments later,” muttered Leyden. “The woman led me to a hut a hundred yards behind the bungalow—a well-furnished hut; I think it may have been the mission hospital—and there I found the daughter, the deaf-mute——”

Leyden’s voice had dropped until it was almost inaudible. I could not see his face in the dark, but I shivered.

“Of course,” he went on, in a careless sort of way, “I could talk with her, for, although my ten modern languages and some twenty dialects all are spoken with the mouth, there is one dialect which is universal—and that is spoken with the eyes. We had a little conversation in this tongue, and then I sat down beside her and patted her hands and made her actually smile. They are simple folk—those on whom the hand of God has been heavy in this regard. Perhaps they are above these mundane things—but at the time I did not look at it in this way. Instead I went back to the bungalow and waited in some impatience for the return of Lynch and McAdoo—and, will you believe it, Doctor—just at this time, when I needed myself the most, these accursed _plasmodia malariæ_, or whatever kind of species of _fission-fungi_ it may be, began to start their segmentation, and segregation, and proliferation in my blood vessels, and I could feel the delirium creeping up my spine to my brain, just as some poor devil of a Passamaquoddy might have felt the fifty-foot rise of the Fundy tide creeping up _his spine_ when some coterie of tribal enemies had staked him out on the flats at low water—except that in his case it was cold and in mine it was red-hot!

“I had not long to wait, however. Back they came, McAdoo sullen but studious, and Lynch smiling and talking as if he were the honored guest. I noticed that his holster was unbuckled, however, and while he had been away I had entertained no fears for his safety—because, you see, I had heard no shot. Our co-operation was really quite admirable!

“‘Lynch,’ said I, and it seemed to me as if my voice came from a very great distance—the fever, Doctor, not emotion, I beg you to believe; I was never more composed mentally in my life. ‘Lynch,’ said I, ‘will you and Mr. McAdoo kindly come into the library—there are some matters which I wish to discuss with you both.’ It was growing dark then, so I clapped my hands, quite softly, but a servant flittered out of the shadow like a bat. The tension was high in that bungalow that night.

“‘Bring lights,’ I said in the vernacular.

“‘And food?’ suggested Lynch.

“‘The food can wait,’ I muttered, fighting hard against the inclination to sleep—to drowse—to be let alone, to enjoy my intoxication in peace. ‘Come into the parlor!’ I said, and Lynch told me afterwards that my manner was as snappish as a dog with distemper.

“‘After you, friend McAdoo!’ said Lynch, rhymingly, and the accursed jingle got caught up in the swirl of ideas racing through my fevered brain, so that while I talked I kept hearing over and over, ‘After you, friend McAdoo—after you, friend McAdoo—after you’—_b’r’rgh_! What is more frightful than trying to do mental work in the face of a delirium?

“I am not clear as to just what McAdoo said; it was Lynch who made the opening move, and this time he did not say, ‘After you, friend McAdoo!’ He drew his revolver and waved McAdoo to a large lounging chair. I shall never forget that chair; it was a home-made, or rather a native-made chair like those one sees to-day, with a back the angle of which is regulated by a rod behind, which is dropped into notches—you know the kind. At the top there was a little pillow for the head to rest against—a little ‘baby-blue’ pillow—and it was hollowed in the middle where poor Cullen’s head had rested, and worn until the fabric held in a streaky sort of way that showed the white beneath. It was probably made in England by some girl parishioner, and there was something in its homeliness that made me feel as the diary had.

“It was crushed beneath McAdoo’s great shoulders as he sank into it—and he _did_ sink, Doctor, as if he had been hamstrung. In the middle of the room there was a little bamboo table, on which the servant was about to set the lamp, but Lynch motioned to place it on a shelf behind him. He himself sat at the table, facing McAdoo, his back straight, as the back of a thoroughbred should be, and the revolver lying in his hand near the middle of the table.

“I walked up to him, staggering a little, and threw down the diary.

“‘What is this?’ asked Lynch.

“‘After you, friend—the diary of the Rev. R. M. Cullen! What do you think it is—a skull?’ I snapped. He raised his eyebrows.

“‘There is a divan at the end of the room, Doctor,’ he said, without taking his eyes from McAdoo. ‘Lie there, if you please, during our proceedings.’ There was a cold, official note in his voice which seemed to recall the shuffle of heavy feet, whispers, whimpers, somnolence on one side of the room and nerves stretched like the strings of a violin on the other. Dulled as I was, I could see that it brought back something to McAdoo, for it was at these very first words that he began to slump—doubly armed from the start as he had been, surrounded by his servants and in the house which he had claimed as his own.

“Then Lynch began to read—intently and with no apparent thought of the man opposite him. I had sunk in a heap on the divan, deliciously relaxed—leaving it all to Lynch, and humming, ‘After you, friend McAdoo,’ to myself, as I thought, until Lynch remarked, coldly: ‘Doctor, kindly refrain from interrupting the reading of the testimony.’ Then I subsided, very much embarrassed.

“_Ach!_ how I see it now, Doctor, just as I saw it then; as if I was standing apart—a fourth person regarding the other three: Lynch with the light behind him, his face in the shadow, carefully reading the journal and apparently oblivious to the fully armed giant who appeared to have shrunk on sinking into the chair of his late victim; apparently oblivious to me also as I lay muttering on the divan at the other end of the room, and rousing myself at longer intervals, as the conflagration within my veins gained headway. The servant in placing the lamp upon the shelf had moved a little clock, which had run down, and the jar had set it ticking, and this and the sharp rustle as Lynch turned the leaves were the only noises in that room—unless my mutterings were audible, which may have been.

“Such a fever as mine is like a fire, Doctor; it leaps upward, then sinks, flickers, smoulders for a while, and then bursts out to rage with fresh fury. It was in one of these lapses, one of these returns almost to the normal, that Lynch finished his perusal.

“I opened my eyes as he laid down the journal with a smart slap. Lynch had turned half-way in his chair, and the yellow light threw out in sharp profile his straight brow, short aquiline nose and firm legal mouth and chin. There is a forensic type, just as there is any other type, and this was Lynch’s, except that there was to him an element of the terse and martial rather than the parliamentary. His revolver was lying in the center of the table, and his sinewy hands were in front of him, just beneath his chin, the finger-tips touching, the elbows on the arms of his chair.

“McAdoo was in the same position—the position of the rabbit confronted by the stoat; shoulders hunched, head sunk, muscle-heavy arms hanging limp outside the arms of the chair, utterly relaxed, yet held half-bent by the tonic contraction of the biceps, and so utter was this relaxation that the hands seemed swollen, the veins on the dorsum stretched to bursting. His bloodshot eyes were fastened on the revolver in front of him, which was nickeled and threw the limpid lamp-light from its separate planes in steady tongues of flame. Perhaps it was this that held him—the hypnosis, the somnambulizing of the optic nerve.

“‘Where is the daughter of Robert Cullen?’ asked Lynch, crisply. McAdoo started; his great head was raised with a jerk of such suddenness that one could almost hear the creak of the cervical vertebræ. And his voice! Ah! it was ridiculous. You have heard the whistle of this steamer, Doctor, when on entering a port the cord is pulled while the whistle is still filled with the water of condensation? It was such a noise.

“‘Where is the daughter?—answer me, man!’ said Lynch, sharply.

“I clapped my hands and one of the soft-footed women slithered to the door of the room. It was the same who had taken me to the deaf-mute girl.

“‘Bring your mistress hither,’ said I. The woman vanished.

“Our speech had brought a change in McAdoo. The lusterless look had left his eyes, and even in my benumbed condition I detected a twitching of his thick fingers.

“‘After you——’ I began, thickly, then realized that I was talking nonsense, but Lynch also had seen the movement. His hand fell upon the revolver.

“‘If you move a muscle you are a dead man, friend McAdoo,’ he said, softly. ‘I fear that you are no better than a dead man as it is—but I should advise you not to bring the matter to a climax until all of the evidence is in.’

“We waited in silence; even the clock had stopped its ticking; the journal was lying on the table. Lynch, I remember, was twisting the ends of his wiry mustache with his free hand. Perhaps the tension had cleared my head; perhaps the drugs, taken, as usual, four hours before the paroxysm was due, were beginning to act; at any rate, my mind was active—abnormally so.

“The crisis had passed with McAdoo; he was no longer held by shock, surprise, rage, the psychic force of the man in front of him, or the hypnotizing force of the shining weapon. The little bullet _in_ the weapon was all that held him now—and I do not think that it would have held him long—in that position, for he had the pluck of a pig, and his eyes were beginning to dance again, when there was a rustle in the doorway and a white-clad figure paused on the threshold.

“I looked at her face—and the sight of it chilled the fever in my blood and whipped the mist of delirium from my brain. When I had seen her before it had been the face of a beautiful child—a frightened, wretched child—but now it was different, matured. Lynch saw it, too—just the swiftest glance, and then his keen eyes flew back to the man, who was only awaiting his opportunity. Afterwards I learned that Lynch possessed the science of the sign language practiced by these folk; he possessed also the science of developing upon his brain an instantaneous photograph taken with the eyes, and _this_ science made the first unnecessary, for you see, Doctor, the girl was looking at her father’s murderer—and who knows what beside! Ah, how true it is, as you said a little while ago, that the horror reflected from the eyes of another is far more dreadful than the thing itself!

“Lynch made a movement of dismissal with his hand—a judicial gesture which told me that it was over; the verdict rendered; sentence pronounced. But I was puzzled for the next—eh—step.

“‘Take her back,’ I said to the servant.

“‘Dr. Leyden,’ said Lynch, ‘do you feel that you are in possession of your faculties?’ My head was roaring like a cataract, my skin like ice, and my bones were smouldering coals, but my brain was clear—for the moment—too clear.

“‘Quite,’ I answered—‘in so far as this man is concerned.’

“‘What is your opinion? What course would you advise in the matter?’

“‘I would advise shooting him,’ said I. ‘He requires to be shot, and I do not think that we should waste much time about it. If you do not care to shoot him, I will do so myself,’ I added. Personally, his death was necessary to our safety in a way, yet that did not occur to me. I was thinking of the diary, the little blue pillow and the deaf-mute girl.

“‘It makes no difference,’ said Lynch, and his hand tightened on the stock of the revolver; then he suddenly paused—and I guessed why.

“‘She cannot hear,’ I said. ‘She is deaf.’

“‘That is so—I overlooked the fact,’ softly.

“McAdoo was watching Lynch in a fascinated way—and I was watching McAdoo. When the report came he pitched forward, and I scrambled to my feet and rescued the little blue pillow.”

Leyden was silent—and so was I. He did nothing, said nothing, but we both sat and watched the growing lights in the sea, the increase in the phosphorescence as the moon set.

“It was really a very simple matter,” said Leyden, lightly, “and it has always been a source of satisfaction to me. It was all so sensible; so many fools would have wanted to give the brute a chance. Lynch had the right idea; he did not even invite any closing remarks; the only one that was really apropos was made by his Colt, and was quite unanswerable.

“Would you believe it, Doctor, the people were sufficiently Christianized to regard the whole thing as a visitation. Not a soul was in sight when we left, taking the girl with us. Lynch himself conducted her back to England and placed her in an institution.

“Yes—the trip was a success. My anthropologist thought so, I thought so, Lynch thought so, and I have not the slightest doubt that the semi-civilized Dyaks, who still slip through the shadows and peer between the jalousies of the ruined mission-house at the thing which is, perhaps, still held in that ample chair, think so as well.”

ROSENTHAL THE JEW

LEYDEN and I paused in our conversation and, leaning our backs against the steamer’s rail, listened in some amusement to an argument between a group of our fellow-passengers. That is to say, I was thoughtless enough to be amused; Leyden listened with his usual quiet consideration.

At Paramaribo there had taken passage for New York a wiry little Jew named Gonzalez. He was a cheerful little man, who was pleasing from his sincere politeness. The other passengers, especially the Dutch, had rather made a butt of his provincialism, and it seemed to me that their attitude toward him was edged with a bit of malice. Apparently they resented his claim as a fellow-countryman.

The argument grew warmer; I could not follow it, as they spoke Dutch, but it was easy to see that Gonzalez was growing angry; the others were laughingly sarcastic. Presently the Jew, whose shrill voice had risen in key, said something bitter and walked rapidly away, and as he passed us I saw that his thin face was working with emotion. The others frowned; one gave a short laugh, then looked at us a bit sheepishly. Leyden made a little gurgle in his throat, a sound which carried disapproval. I glanced at him inquiringly.

“They are baiting him because he claims to be a Dutchman,” said Leyden. “It is a shame; he is a good little man. He told me yesterday why he was going to New York. It seems that he has a half-sister with Pott’s disease of the spine, and he is going to consult a specialist to determine whether anything can be done for her, also how much it will cost. Probably there is not a person on this ship whose errand is so unselfish. _Ach!_ They are a much maligned people, the Jews!”

For several moments he drew vigorously at his big porcelain pipe. “Doctor,” he asked, presently, “did you ever meet Isidore Rosenthal?”

“No,” said I. “Who is he?”

“A Jew, a power in the West Indies. This little chap reminds me of him—because he is so different. There are three people in the West Indies who are worth knowing. One is Mallock, another is Arjolas and the third is Isidore Rosenthal.”

Leyden stirred the ashes of his pipe, while I waited. Gonzalez, who passed near me, had swallowed his pique and was talking in bad English to a Portuguese adventuress. “Yes, Madame,” he was saying, “I have traveled a great deal. I have been to Demerara, to Trinidad and to Venezuela. Now I am going to New York. If a man has the means it is his duty to travel; he should see the world, improve his mind—and I, I have the means. I own a chemist’s shop in Paramaribo——”

“Rosenthal,” said Leyden, “is a Czechian Jew, the most malignant type; aggressive as a hotel child. When he dies, if the Hebrew heaven is not up to his ideas, the Christians will have a hard time to keep him out of theirs. He is a big-boned, muscular, hairy brute, with the push of a peccary and the vitality of a dose of Chagres fever. His present occupation is selling the Santo Dominicans expensive things which they don’t want. As soon as he gets _all_ of their money he will go somewhere else.”

“He appears to have qualities,” I observed.

“He has—some of them ones with which you would not credit him. We were once involved in an affair, and there are few men for whom I have more respect.

“I first met Rosenthal in Curaçao, where he and his younger brother, Jacob, as poisonous a cripple as ever drew breath, were doing a nice little business which combined gambling and pawnbroking. Their method was this: Having the _entrée_ to the select circle of South American exiles and refugees and conspirators—for you must know that almost every South and Central American revolution is hatched under the protection of the Dutch flag—Jacob, who was rather expert at cards, would manage to start a game. No doubt the play was honest; his policy was neither to lose nor to win a great deal, but simply to keep things moving. In time some one would lose heavily, for Jacob had a talent for drawing the others out and was liberal with cognac and champagne. These South Americans, as you have observed, possess a passion for jewelry; the first thing which your South American who has made a successful financial _coup_ will buy is a gem; on the other hand, when he loses heavily he is open for a good offer on his solitaire or brilliants, and this was Isidore’s department. He would manage to be about with some stones to show the winner and ready cash with which to purchase from a loser, or perhaps to negotiate a loan, and he was diplomatic enough to accomplish this without becoming unpopular. He had a manner of loud and blatant _camaraderie_, was ready to give way in trifles, and I have even known him to loan out a good round sum without any security whatever. He was a friend of the friendless and had the reputation of being honest and liberal.

“Between them the pair should have done very well had Jacob been designed on the large scale of Isidore, but he was not. I think he envied Isidore’s physique and manner and popularity, whereas the elder brother loved Jacob devotedly and would nurse him like a mother through his occasional attacks of illness, for one of Jacob’s lungs was far gone with tuberculosis. I remember Isidore’s boarding the steamer once in Vera Cruz when I was returning from an expedition into Yucatan. It seems that he had heard of my being aboard, and he came to me haggard with watching and worry and told me that he feared that Jacob was dying of fever.

“‘These doctors are a set of fools!’ he cried, in his big, discordant bass. ‘They do not know the fever when they see it; they say it is the lung, but I know that it is the fever, also.’

“‘But, my dear fellow,’ I protested, ‘I am not a physician; I am nothing but a collector.’

“‘_Peste!_’ he answered, for, as he was an Austrian and I a Hollander, we talked in French. ‘There is no one who knows more of the pernicious malaria than yourself. Will you come and see the little Jacob?’

“‘But I am already overdue with my specimens,’ I objected.

“‘_Diable!_’ he growled. ‘What are weeds and stones and ancient rubbish to the life of my dear little Jacob? You shall lose nothing, and if you save his life’—he hauled a chamois bag from some recess of himself and threw a glittering handful of gems upon my bunk—‘help yourself; take them all, if you like. Some of them I hold as security, but it makes no difference’—the man grinned—‘I get them all in the end.’

“‘Put up your ill-gotten gains,’ said I, much provoked. ‘I’ll wait over a steamer and see what I can do because I like your affection for your brother.’