Part 8

“The following day Stewart had the Count and Countess to luncheon, and after a very well-ordered repast asked if they would enjoy a drive into the country.

“‘You would enjoy it,’ said the Count to his wife. ‘Myself, I dread the dust and the heat. Go with Mr. Stewart, if you wish’—his smile was nothing short of angelic as he said this—‘and I will remain and talk with Dr. Leyden, if he will permit me.’

“The dark blue eyes of the Countess swept upward, and as they met the cold gleam in Stewart’s she turned her face from us, but I could see the crimson creeping to the tip of her ear, partly hid by the mass of her hair. Stewart nodded indifferently and ordered his pony and chaise.

“When they had gone the Count turned to me. His fine face was serene, but there was a wistfulness in his lustrous eyes.

“‘What a delightful thing it is to be young, Doctor!’ he remarked. Then, in the same voice: ‘You were telling me last night about the Dyaks....’

“It was almost dark when they returned. The Countess was very pale and seemed nervous and irritable, while Stewart was in a state of suppressed and concentrated fury. I fancy that he had taken too much for granted and got himself well snubbed. At any rate, his manners were those of a sulky coal-trimmer, and I was much embarrassed.

“This sort of thing went on for over a week; we visited back and forth. Stewart’s presence put rather a taboo on the yacht as far as the garrison was concerned. The Count and I became intimate. Stewart pursued the Countess with a sort of cold and reckless fury, and while she was certainly swayed by his dominant force, it was quite evident that he was not progressing. I guessed that his roughness, while it fascinated her, at the same time aroused her antagonism. After all, Doctor, I am not sure but that passion provides its anti-toxine in a temper. I have no doubt they fought like cats; at any rate the strain began to tell upon the Countess. One could see that she was growing haggard. Then one fine day they disappeared!

“I was breakfasting alone when Count Asquin rushed into the room, weeping and wringing his hands, quite beside himself with grief and shock.

“‘They have gone!’ he cried. ‘M. Stewart and my wife! They have fled in one of the pearling yawls!’

“‘I am very sorry for you,’ said I, ‘but I cannot say that I am surprised.’

“‘He did not seem to hear me; he wrung his hands and the tears ran down his sallow cheeks.

“‘I am desolated!’ he wailed. ‘Was there ever such ingratitude? But think of my indulgence!—my consideration!—the unselfishness of my behavior!’

“‘My dear fellow,’ said I, ‘you are quite incomprehensible! As a man of the world, could you not see that Stewart was madly in love with the Countess——’

“‘And she with him!’ he cried. ‘What could have been more evident? But why this flight? Did she not have everything heart could desire? Has her single wish been unfulfilled? Only yesterday I bought her a pearl of Stewart for twenty thousand francs. How could she so deceive me?’ Upon my word, Doctor, he yelped like a coyote!

“‘And have you lived all of this time,’ I interrupted, quite out of patience with the old fool, ‘and not discovered that yachts and pearls and kindness do not count for everything with a beautiful woman like the Countess when——’

“‘But you do me injustice!’ he protested. ‘Of course, I saw that she desired M. Stewart for her lover’—he mopped his eyes—‘it was most natural that she should! One does not retain his youth forever, Doctor—his voice was deprecating. ‘Stewart is a charming fellow—handsome, dashing, _libertin_. Few women could resist him. But since she so much desired him, why in heaven’s name did she not take him, instead of growing pale and _maigre_ and finally bolting off on a stinking oyster boat! I ask you, my friend, was not my attitude most obviously that of _mari complaisant_?’

“Doctor, I got up without a word and lit my big china pipe, and as I struck the head of the match against the wall I felt tempted to strike my own head after it. I felt like a fool. The whole thing became so obvious—should have been so obvious from the very start—and yet, here these two young savages had run away because it seemed the only thing to do, when they might just as well have remained and cheered the soul of the poor old Count, to say nothing of enjoying his hospitality! Here again was I myself blaming the Count for an infatuated old cuckold—and he, the only really logical and sensible person in the whole affair, wailing beside his empty cage!

“Then the humor of the thing struck me and I almost laughed outright. It was so ridiculous, and such a joke on the runaways, who were cooped up in a little fifty-foot pearling yawl or stowed away in a Nipa hut in some little island, when they might have been so comfortable!

“‘Did you ever explain your sentiments regarding this affair to the Countess?’ I inquired.

“‘Doctor!’ he protested, ‘one cannot be indelicate! Certainly not! Could she not have inferred it from my behavior?’

“‘I am afraid,’ said I, ‘that her inferences were less flattering. Mine were—permit me to apologize.’

“He began to yelp again. ‘She was so beautiful!—so interesting—such a typical American woman—a frank and ignorant young savage! It was a joy to be with her, Doctor; a joy to watch the primitive workings of her mind—and her little efforts at deception I found adorable. She was transparent as a naughty child——’ He began to blubber.

“‘She appears to have possessed certain rudiments of guile,’ I replied. ‘You have taken too much for granted. A Parisienne would have understood; the ethical situation was too delicate for an American; she was too narrow-minded to combine adultery and domestic tranquillity.’

“‘They are so crude, these Americans!’ he wailed. ‘So crude!’

“An extraordinary situation, Doctor, and yet reasonable when one pauses to consider. The Count was highly esthetic; his wife charmed him in really a very elevated way; he enjoyed her beauty, her society, her _bonhomie_, no doubt her care and strength, for she was kind-hearted where her passions were not concerned; he may have leaned upon her vigorous young vitality. She and the tomb could not be pictured in the same frame. He appreciated her; wanted her to be happy; was thoroughly good to her, and did not mean that because she was tied to a broken invalid she should be deprived of the fullness of life. An archaic and rather pathetic casuistry, was it not?

“I pondered. ‘They are in a small sail-boat,’ thought I, and glanced at the map of the archipelago hanging from the wall. ‘They will, of course, make for Zamboanga, but on the way they are apt to stop at Port Isabella.’ You know the place, Doctor—in Basilan; a beautiful spot: the little village, the hot slope of open country rolling gradually upward to meet the cool forests on the heights; the late sun painting it all golden and shining back from the towering boles that form the ramparts of the primeval woods? They were most apt to be in Basilan.

“‘I think we can find them,’ said I. ‘There should be no great difficulty in coaxing back two naughty children with the sweets you have to offer.’

“He kissed me on both cheeks; then nothing would do but I must go with him; a cruise _de luxe_ would set me on my feet, clinch the nail of my convalescence. He began to plan a touching reconciliation, the little dinner which would attend this _fête d’amour_, the wines, the touching speech which he would make, all of which so overcame him that he wept upon my shoulder.

“Of course, I promised to go with him; one could scarcely do otherwise; and, indeed, Doctor, I had a real esteem for the poor fellow, who in many ways had the heart of a child. But the excitement of the whole affair proved too much for his organically diseased heart, and that night he nearly died.

“His steward came in to tell me that he feared his master was moribund, so I got a Spanish surgeon and we worked over him throughout the night. It was several days before he was out of immediate danger, and then there came a typhoon, and his captain wished to put to sea to ride it out. The yacht took the gale like a gull, but altogether it was two weeks before the Count was fit to proceed on the quest of his errant wife.

“We left Jolo early in the morning, and when I awoke the next day we were lying off Port Isabella. I took the gig and went ashore, leaving the Count taking digitalis and almost in a syncope. I was firm in refusing to allow him to land, and, to tell the truth, I did not much expect to find the couple. Having found the local padre, a Mestizo, I asked after the fugitives.

“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they were here, but they have gone, blessed be the name of the Virgin! A pair of devils—with apologies to the Señor if he should be so unfortunate as to be a friend. Myself, I believe them to be quite mad. First they would quarrel, then they would kiss—then they would quarrel again. Never have I seen so many quarrels—nor so much kissing,’ he added, thoughtfully.

“‘When did they leave?’ I asked.

“‘But three days ago; St. Christopher grant that they do not return! He was a devil—a white devil, this man—they were both devils.’ He shuddered. ‘The kissings were growing less and the quarrels more. The night before they left she came flying to the convent and begged for an asylum. I was tempted, Señor, for she was very beautiful, like the women of Paris, where I was educated, and a poor priest grows weary of nothing but native women—but I thought of this purple-eyed devil and refused her sanctuary. It was fortunate, for as we were discussing it he came up and ordered her to return to the house which they were occupying. I do not know by what powers she cursed him, but it must have been very terrible, for he seized her by the shoulder and thrashed her with a bamboo until she howled like a beaten bitch.

“‘I have no doubt it did her a world of good,’ I answered. In fact, Doctor, this was the most cheering intelligence which I had received. I began to believe that the Providence which had ordered these things was not unwise.

“‘The Señor is correct,’ replied the priest, gravely, ‘for when I passed the house on the way to mass they were on the verandah, and she was crouching at his feet, with her head upon his knee. There is nothing like a bamboo shoot for a bad-tempered woman, no matter how beautiful,’ he added, thoughtfully.

“I returned to the schooner and told the Count I thought that we would find them in Zamboanga; I told him also of the discipline which his wife was under. He looked pensive.

“‘Perhaps it will do her no harm,’ said he. ‘She is strong as a young donkey, and it may be well for her to lick the paint off her toy.’

“You see, Doctor, he did not love this woman in any sense, conjugal or paternal. He was grieved at her loss, as one might be at the loss of a pretty and interesting pet—a Persian cat—and he was determined to get her back, no matter how large the reward he was compelled to offer. When he got her he might confine, but not punish her. Stewart really was far the more practical of the two.

“Early the following morning we reached Zamboanga, and hardly had the anchor splashed when a boat from the shore shot alongside, and, to my utter amazement whom should I see in the stern but Stewart himself.

“The Count, who was below, sent word asking him to descend, which he did, with a curt salutation to me. He was a blackguard of direct methods, was Stewart, employing the weight of his vitality to project his purpose and driving it to the mark with sheer physical force; with him logic filled the place of imagination.

“He entered that cabin and confronted the outraged husband precisely as if their relative situations had been reversed—certainly a cool hand, utterly fearless and indifferent to possible redress.

“The Count regarded him mildly. I was amazed at his composure.

“‘I suppose you are looking for your wife,’ said Stewart, bluntly.

“‘Monsieur is correct,’ replied the Count, politely, but I saw a shadow cross his face. It was evident that his sensitive nature found the other’s manner offensive.

“‘Then I’ll fetch her back,’ said Stewart. ‘She won’t come without.’

“‘I am pained,’ murmured the Count, gently, but I could see the pupils of his reddish-brown eyes dilate. One could not conceive of the man in a rage; yet he looked quietly dangerous. ‘Is it that the Countess fears my anger—my reproaches?’ His grizzled eyebrows were lifted in concern.

“Stewart gave a laugh of such coarse brutality that one longed to kick him.

“‘No,’ he said, contemptuously, ‘hardly! I fancy she’s taken a bit of a liking to me.’ There was no braggadocio mixed with his brutality, Doctor; in fact, he colored as he said this and seemed embarrassed. I believe that he was telling the truth.

“‘In that case,’ replied the Count, thoughtfully, and his face resumed its former expression of indulgence, ‘why do you not return with her?’ He leaned back in his chair, brought the tips of his fingers together, rested his chin on the indices and looked cordially at Stewart, who was staring at him in angry bewilderment. ‘You have been acting under a misconception, Mr. Stewart. I find you agreeable; you have done much to relieve my _ennui_; besides this, you appear to be necessary to the contentment of Madame the Countess.’ He was putting Stewart with the servants, you see, Doctor, or lower. ‘Go fetch the Countess,’ he continued, briskly, ‘and we will forget this folly; we will take our dear friend Dr. Leyden to Singapore. If it is that you cannot afford to lose the time from your affairs, I will make you my secretary at a salary of your own choosing.’

“Stewart for the moment was stricken dumb, too utterly amazed to speak; then the blood came pouring into his florid face and his eyes narrowed to mere slits—and then I grieve to say that all of his blackguardism came ripping out. He cursed the Count, the Countess, the schooner, himself; in fact, he gave such an exhibition of savage and unbridled rage as I have never seen before but once. You see, Doctor, the man was sufficiently intelligent to appreciate that he was several very undesirable things—a scoundrel, an ass, and an object, as it appeared to him, of such utter contempt to this French nobleman as to be quite beneath his resentment—and he felt that when a man’s behavior crawled beneath the contempt of a Frenchman he was quite a way down! As Stewart read it, and I wonder to this day if he was right, he represented a toy to be purchased for the amusement of a pet—a sort of sub-plaything.

“As all of this struck Stewart in a sort of final, knockout insult he leaped up so suddenly as to capsize his chair and rushed from the cabin, a stream of curses standing out behind him like the tail of a comet.

“I glanced at the Count to see how he had stood the shock of the interview, and, would you believe it, Doctor, his face wore the flush of actual health and there was an entirely new glow in the depths of his lustrous eyes. His valet was standing at his elbow, and he leaned back and said a quick word, which I did not catch. The man slipped into the pantry and I heard him skipping up the ladder to the deck.

“The Count looked at me. ‘The _canaille_!’ he said. ‘I knew that he was theoretically a scoundrel, but I did not suspect that he was the low-bred pig which he has proved himself. He once told me that his father was a lord; if so, his mother must have been a fish-wife!... Ah!’

“I sprang to my feet, for there came from above the sounds of a most terrific struggle, the impact of wicked blows, hoarse bellows of rage; then there was a crash, followed by silence, save for labored breathings.

“‘Sit down, Doctor, I beg of you!’ exclaimed the Count, and there was a note of apology in his voice. ‘It has seemed best to me to detain this fellow until we are able to obtain custody of the Countess. A deplorable state of affairs’—he spread both hands palm downward in front of him—‘but what is one to do? Have I not offered this young man every courtesy—every hospitality? Yet you have heard his insults. Evidently he came aboard because he was anxious to be rid of the Countess.’ (It is my private belief, Doctor, that the scoundrel had some design of selling her back to her husband.) ‘He has taxed my forbearance excessively——’

“‘What shall you do with him?’ I inquired.

“He shrugged his shoulders and made a wave of the hand. ‘I do not know—that is immaterial; the important thing is to secure my wife. Is it too much to ask you to go in and look for her, my dear Doctor?’

“I went in, of course, but in the meantime she had learned that Stewart had gone off to the schooner, and, fearing violence for him at the hands of her husband, she had gone out herself. When I returned the situation was interesting. Madame was confined to her room in a state of frantic and screaming defiance; Stewart was double-ironed in the lazarette, and, although I did not see him again, I learned afterwards that he had not been over gently handled by the sailors, and the Count was sipping absinthe in the saloon and listening to the ravings of his wife with an expression of amused indulgence.

“‘But listen to her, Doctor,’ he observed, gently stroking his gray imperial. ‘Primitive woman howling for her mate; Eve, haled back from outer darkness, screaming to Adam, whose admittance is denied. My faith! she is more beautiful than ever—although,’ and his brow clouded, ‘bearing the marks of ill usage.’ He arose and began to slowly pace the beam of the saloon; his scholarly face seamed in thought, the lustre gone from his eyes. It was evident that he was thinking deeply. From the other side of the after bulkhead came the short, angry sobs of the Countess. He listened for an instant, and at the sound of a sudden little snarl of rage he slowly shook his head and smiled.

“‘Interesting, Doctor, is it not? It would be beautiful in a way, primevally beautiful—an idyll of the callow world when the rocks were jagged like molten lead thrown into water, the vegetation chiefly fungoid, and it was necessary to clip the wings of one’s horned cattle. But for the man—he is a late, mongrel, low-grade production, with merely a few primitive impulses.’ He paused to ponder. Madame’s sobs continued rhythmically, broken now and then by a little _‘gr’r’r’_—pure rage—the sounds which babies make when too angry to scream.

“‘Oh, these children—it is hard to know what course to take.’ The Count turned to me in his perplexity. ‘As far as this man is concerned, I suppose that the best thing would be to give him a good flogging and let him go—eh, Doctor?’

“‘A flogging!’ I echoed, with a sort of horror.

“‘Why not? He is not a gentleman. He has endangered my life, which I forgive; he has seduced my wife, for which I make due allowance; he has insulted me to my face, for which I do not bear malice; but—he is _canaille_, which makes it impossible for him to do all of these things which one might forgive in a gentleman. He uses the wrong sort of profanity; he chastises his mistress with his fists instead of his wit; he forgets his dignity before my servants; when disarmed he disgorged a _knife_—and he an Englishman! _Br’r’rgh!_ he is a nauseous animal. Let him have a few lashes and be set ashore.’

“Perhaps I was wrong, Doctor, but I could not forget the rascal’s care of me when I was ill. I told the Count flatly that I would not permit it, and when he proved obstinate told him outright that to flog Stewart he would first have to use violence towards me. He broke down and wept at the bare suggestion of this, commemorated my treatment and care of him when he was ill, and then embraced me and swore that he loved me like a brother, and in the same breath gave orders that Stewart be immediately set ashore, with no further ill-treatment.

“Stewart was accordingly landed and went his way in peace. The Countess got over her fit of temper in about an hour, ate a hearty dinner, drank several glasses of champagne, cheered up, and when I retired she was sitting on the arm of her husband’s chair and, assured of his unqualified forgiveness, was _relating her adventure_, while he chuckled to himself like a mischievous schoolboy.

“The savage was back on the reservation; glad to be there; fed, forgiven, petted and quite content to be good—until the next time.”

TWO GENTLEMEN

“LOOK at that cat, Doctor,” said Leyden, “but do not let her see that you are looking. There!—did you see the beast crouch, and glance at us, and then begin to wash its face?”

I glanced at the ship’s cat—an interesting beast, as are most ship’s cats, either because one has more time to study their actions, or because a limited sphere develops the animal’s ingenuity. Some one had brought aboard a _tulu-pial_ bird and hung its cage over the hand steering-gear, where the pineapples are strung out to ripen. The cat had lost no time in locating the bird and was busy measuring distances when we interrupted.

“That cat,” said Leyden, “would be typified by a sneak-thief among men. Do you know, Doctor, I believe that domestic animals, like men, have their grades of honesty. Have you not seen a finely bred dog of high courage subdue an animal impulse which he feels to be degrading?”

I _had_ observed this thing, but, seeing that the subject had suggested something to Leyden’s mind, I merely nodded. Few men had looked as deeply into the nature of all things made as had this keen-sensed Teuton collector, who seemed equally at home in any part of the civilized or savage world. He had at times played the same quiet, modest part in the founding of empires as in the advancement of science; his friends were to be found from the palm tree to the palace, and I fear that a great many of his enemies were dead.

“I had once an occasion to watch a striking case of _noblesse oblige_ in an animal,” Leyden continued. “I would not tell the story if it were a simple animal yarn, as such tales are, as a rule, tiresome and untruthful. This story concerns people, principally, but as those upon whom it reflects discreditably are dead—with certain others—there is no reason why it should not be told.

“This was a good many years ago, Doctor, when the steamer transportation in the Pacific was less efficient than to-day. I had engaged passage from ‘Frisco to Samoa on a schooner which was owned and captained by the son of one of those early blackguards who used to land their crews upon an island full of harmless cannibals, show them the way of civilization, demonstrate the wickedness of their present lives, and then go off and leave them to infect each other with constitutional disease in the place of eating one another. I hope there is an interesting corner of hell reserved for all such! Our captain, whose name was Deshay, was the frequent handsome outcrop of a vicious sire; his father had eloped with his mother, who was the half-caste wife of a missionary in the Marquesas and one of the most beautiful women I ever saw. Later, Deshay, senior, had made a good bit of money in the island trade, sent his son to England to be educated, and while the boy was there the parents had been lost in a typhoon.

“When I went down to the schooner on the morning of her sailing date I found aboard her a young man of very pleasing appearance, who introduced himself as Claud Dillingham and told me that we were to be shipmates.

“‘You are related to Claud Dillingham, the owner of the Great Bear Mine?’ I asked. This Dillingham was a Virginia gentleman, who had made a great fortune in mining claims, and was at that time the richest man on ‘the Slope.’

“‘I am his son,’ said he; and as he was speaking, a magnificent bloodhound walked from behind the house, his fine, velvety head raised, the delicate nostrils twitching and the dreamy, half-closed eyes reinforcing the more potent sense of smell.

“‘What a magnificent animal!’ said I.