Part 6

“No; my informant is not a fool, or a person who supposes that I am lightly to be trifled with.”

The General’s manner had changed again. The sadness had gone from his eyes and the wistfulness from his voice. Pride was the note that sounded now in the carefully suppressed voice. He squared his big shoulders, threw back his massive head, and, indeed, looked somebody who would be extremely unlikely to be trifled with, either by chance acquaintances or old friends.

“I am a soldier, and I think as soldiers used to think in the bygone days, when we were taught that we ought to harden our thoughts until they become as undeviating as instincts. If I’m called upon to guard and defend something placed in my charge, the thought of what to do _is_ an instinct—to go out and meet the danger half-way. The safest method of defence is to deal promptly with the enemy that threatens. Now, where is the enemy? Help me if you can. His name has been withheld from me—for obvious reasons”—and the General snorted scornfully. “I am advised to be moderate, to avoid a scandal. It was a woman who wrote to me. It was Lady Jane”—and he gave another snort. “She didn’t want to make mischief—as she calls it—and she implores me not to be old-fashioned. But I _am_ old-fashioned—I’m not ashamed of it either—so old-fashioned that when I have found my man I shall force him to give me satisfaction.”

“A duel?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Ridsdale laughed deprecatingly.

“That’s all very well; but, really, Sir John, you can’t put back the clock quite so far as that. This is 1912, not 1812, you know.”

“I don’t care whether it is or it isn’t.”

Though he did not raise his voice, the General spoke with so much intensity that Ridsdale started.

“That may be; but—ah—Sir John, you won’t easily get—ah—other people to share your opinions.”

“I’ll get _him_ to share them, and that’ll be enough for me. Ridsdale, you’re not a woman—_you_ needn’t take your cue from Lady Jane and urge moderation. At least you can guess at what I’m feeling.”

“Yes; but I think without cause—quite without cause.”

“This century or the last, it must be the same code when things dearer than life are at stake. That’s how I feel. So you may guess if I’ll follow the mode of 1912, and seek aid from a private detective office, or ask for reparation in a court of law.”

“No, I’d never suggest that you should. What I beg you—what your best friend of either sex would beg you—is not to do anything rash, not to excite yourself needlessly.”

In truth, General Beckford was exciting himself. His voice vibrated harshly; one could see the immense effort required to keep it at its low pitch. He stared and glared, shook his shaggy hair, and looked altogether like some grey old lion who had been brought to bay in a cruel hunt, and was ready to spring upon his closest tormentors.

“All right, Ridsdale. But help me, don’t preach to me. There, I swear I’ll do nothing without thought. I _have_ thought. I have thought it all out. Bring me face to face with my enemy. I answer for the rest. Now, who is he? We don’t know so many people, she and I. Help me to run over their names, or, better still, use your brains on my behalf. She has been more or less under your observation lately. You must have seen her comings and goings—the people she was in touch with. Have you observed anything suspicious?”

“No; nothing whatever.”

“Some too attentive visitor?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter.” The General shook his grey mane and paced to and fro. “I’ll find him unassisted,” and he stopped abruptly. “Ridsdale, so surely as I stand here, I’ll find that man, and compel him to satisfy me.”

Ridsdale drew out the cambric handkerchief and passed it across his forehead. Then he laughed lightly. “General, please forgive me for laughing. But really when any one is so carried away by excitement—well, you yourself will laugh to-morrow when you remember the wild things you have said in your excitement.”

“You think that the fellow perhaps isn’t a gentleman, and that he may try to refuse?”

“I think that, whether he is a gentleman or not, he will certainly refuse to break the law of the land at your bidding.”

“Yes; but I’m prepared.” And the General smiled grimly, and spoke with a kind of sly triumph. “I shall ignore his refusal. I shall put a pistol into his hand and _make_ him fight.”

“I doubt it.”

“An unloaded revolver! Ridsdale, don’t you see? I’ll give him an unloaded revolver, with six cartridges. I’ll have the same myself—and I’ll begin to load. When he sees me load he’ll know that he must do something if he means to save his skin. When he sees me load my weapon, _he’ll load his weapon too_. I shall watch him as a cat watches a mouse. If he raises his arm, up goes mine. If he fires, I fire. We bang at each other at the same moment.”

“Impossible.”

“Why impossible? If I get him alone he can’t help himself.”

“He’d treat you as a madman—give you in charge to the nearest policeman.”

“Oh, no, he wouldn’t. I’d get between him and the door.”

“Apart from the fact that it would be murder if you succeeded, you wouldn’t succeed.”

“I should. You don’t know how the pressure of immediate peril quickens people’s movements. Point by point I’d press him down the line I meant him to take. It’s so simple—not a weak spot in the infallible logic of the thing. The clock would be put back as rapidly as if destiny moved its hands.”

Ridsdale laughed again, very lightly.

“Look here,” said the General, eagerly, “try it. You don’t understand what I mean. Let me show you what I mean. Act it with me.”

“Act it? I—I don’t follow.”

“Rehearse it. Let me show you how it works. We’ll go through it point by point—and if you can show me a weak spot, I’ll thank you with all my heart.”

As he spoke, eagerly and enthusiastically, but still almost in a whisper, the General had hurried across to the chair that held his ugly leather bag.

“See here!” He had opened his bag, and the electric light flashed upon the bright metal of a pistol. “Here—another one,” and the light flashed again. “A revolver for him and for me. Now help me to rehearse the trick. Here. Take your weapon. You see it’s open at the breech.”

He had come to the fireplace and was offering one of the two revolvers.

Mr. Ridsdale hesitated about taking it. “Really, you know, General, I doubt if I ought to encourage you in——”

“Catch hold. You’re not afraid of firearms, are you?” And the General smiled.

“No, of course not.”

Mr. Ridsdale took the pistol, and the General hurried across the room to the door that led into the hall.

“Watch me carefully,” he whispered. “I am locking this door.”

For the second time the aspect of the pleasant, comfortable room had altered; the prettiest things in it looked ungraceful, grim, forbidding; its atmosphere—even the air one breathed—was different. What was happening in the room seemed dream-like, grotesque, quite unreal; and this sense of unreality involved one’s perception of the material, unaltered world outside the room. The sounds of music floated towards one as if from an immeasurable distance.

But probably the queer notion of unsubstantiality in surrounding objects was directly caused by the strangeness and oddness of the General’s antics. He was no longer himself; he was a person acting a part—as it would be acted on a brilliantly lighted stage.

“See!” he whispered, as he came creeping back towards the leather bag. “I have manœuvred you into the worst possible position. I have cut you off from escape. That door is locked. This door I guard.”

One could hear one’s heart beating above the far-off ripple of the music.

“Watch me,” said the General. “Never take your eyes off my hands. See! Here are six cartridges—and I put them down, so—on your side of the table.” He stepped back swiftly and cautiously. “See! Here are six cartridges for me—on my side of the table.” And he sprang away, to his old post in front of the drawing-room door. “It is all fair play. I give as good a chance as I take myself. We stand at equal lengths from our ammunition. You follow it all, don’t you? You catch my meaning?”

Mr. Ridsdale, staring at his empty revolver, nodded.

“Very well. Now, if you value your life, prepare to defend it. See! I am going to load.”

The General’s acting was rather good. Deriving stimulus from his natural emotions, he achieved some fine artistic effects. His flushed face, his bent brows, his fierce attitude and swift movements, indicated the determination of implacable wrath.

And Ridsdale, too, represented his assumed character well enough. His cheeks were livid, his breath came gaspingly, the hand that carried the revolver shook perceptibly—altogether an excellent simulation of surprise, apprehensive doubts, if not of craven fear.

“One!”

The General had crept to the table, taken a cartridge, and was slipping it into the chamber.

“There!” he whispered. “Automatically you have done it too. I told you so. Wait! Lift your hand at your peril. My turn. Two!”

Ridsdale, copying the General’s slightest movement, was loading as the General loaded.

“Three! That’s it. Three left. When you take the last, step back. I’ll not raise my arm till you are back on the hearth. I swear it. Four!”

The music had ceased, but neither of them noticed. In a silence broken only by the sound of panting respirations, they loaded the fifth and sixth cartridges, and simultaneously sprang away from the table.

“Now!” The General had been the quicker. His arm was up. “Now answer me.” The ferocity in the hissing words was terrible to hear. “Are you the man?”

“I—I—— Upon my word, I—don’t understand such folly.”

“You blackguard! This is not acting.” The concentrated passion behind the words seemed to send forth waves that struck one’s beating heart with flame and ice. “Now answer me, or—so help me, God!—I’ll shoot you.”

Then the drawing-room door opened. The General, instinctively dropping his arm and turning, shouted at his wife:

“Go back! Go back, I tell you!”

There was a blaze as if all the electric lamps had exploded, and a crash that seemed to shake the walls. Then again came the flash and the roar. Mr. Ridsdale had fired twice.

For a moment the room was full of smoke. Then the dusty cloud rose, grew thin. The lamplight, shining unimpeded, showed General Beckford still upon his feet, standing square and erect, with Cynthia desperately clinging to his breast.

“What’s this?” said the General, loudly and sternly. “Has the smoke blinded you, Cynthia? Why have you come to me? Your place is not here. Go to your lover’s arms.”

But she clung to him closer. She was stretching her slender figure to its fullest height, trying to cover his limbs with her limbs, his face with her face, madly straining to make a shield of trembling flesh large enough to protect him from danger.

“The coward!” she wailed. “The miserable coward! He shot at you when you weren’t looking. He tried to kill you!”

“Then get out of the way,” said the General, “and let him try again. Can’t you see how you’re hampering him? This is his chance and yours. Don’t spoil it. Let him set you free.”

But Cynthia only trembled, sobbed, and clung.

“Very well,” and the General laughed harshly. “We have been interrupted, and my opponent must kindly understand that his chance is gone. Cynthia, do you hear? He won’t shoot again. Now, stop whimpering, and answer me.”

“Yes, I want to tell you everything.”

“Is this man your lover?”

“No—no.”

“But he has endeavoured to be?”

“Yes.”

“Then why has he remained here?”

“I was afraid to send him away.”

“Why? What were you afraid of?”

“You. I thought if you knew you’d do something dreadful.”

It was curious, but it seemed as if suddenly these two—the husband and the wife—were quite alone. If the man they spoke of had been swept a thousand miles from the room, they could not have disregarded him more completely than they did now. Cynthia had linked her hands round the General’s neck; she was looking up into his stern, unflinching eyes, her voice was strong and clear as she answered each question.

“When did he first insult you?”

“Two days ago.”

“But you knew what he meant before that?”

“No, I didn’t. I knew he admired me—and I thought it rather amusing; but I never dreamed he would dare. And then, when he did dare, I thought if you heard or guessed it would be too dreadful. I blamed myself—yes, I blamed myself. But I thought it was only two days, and then he’d be gone for ever—with no fuss and no scandal. My darling, don’t you believe me?”

“Is there nothing else to tell?”

The General was glaring down into his wife’s eyes.

“Before God, that is all. Oh, don’t you believe me?”

“Before God, I do.”

Very gently Sir John released himself from the clinging hands, held one of them for a moment; then, bowing ceremoniously, kissed it.

“Mr. Ridsdale!” His manner was perfectly calm as he turned to the ignored guest, and he spoke quietly but heavily, with an old-fashioned style of humour that was too pompous to be quite successful. “My wife called you a coward just now; but, honestly, I could not apologise if she had called you a fool as well. Those are blank cartridges that we have been playing with. Oh, yes, it would have been dangerous otherwise. But I’m always careful. In fact, when I have to deal with gentlemen of your kidney, I’m almost as afraid of firearms as you are yourself. And, à propos, the hall door is open I didn’t really lock it.”

Mr. Ridsdale silently crossed the room.

“Then good night to you. Yates will be back directly, and when he has packed your things, where shall he take them?”

“Ah—er—say, the St. Pancras Hotel.”

“And I may send your cheque to that address? Thank you. Good night!”

_The_ Veil _of_ Flying Water

_By_ Theodore Goodridge Roberts

_1st Canadian Expeditionary Force_

I

In those days an active man could not keep on friendly terms with everybody. If he acted honestly by his own clan, or his own village, he was sure to be in bad odour with some other clan or tribe. So it was with Walking Moose, a young chief of that clan of the Maliseets that had a white salmon for its totem.

This Walking Moose was chief of a sub-tribe that had its habitation and hunting-grounds far to the west, within twenty miles of the source of old Woolastook. Here the great river, beloved of Gluskap and his children, which advances seaward so placidly throughout the latter half of its course, dashes between walls of rock and gloomy curtains of spruce-trees that cling with brown, exposed roots that suggest the gripping fingers of giants. Rapids of twisting green and writhing white clang and shout in its narrow valley. Here and there are amber pools and green-black eddies; here and there a length of shallows that flashes silver and gold at noon; and here is that roaring place where the river leaps a sheer fall of thirty feet in one unbroken white curve—the Veil of Flying Water.

This is a rough country, full of shaggy forests and broken hills alive with game, and swift water alive with fish; and in the days of Walking Moose the Mohawks had their black lodges of undressed hides close to its western borders. The Mohawks were the age-old enemies of the Maliseets. Before Walking Moose grew to manhood and power, the peace-loving Maliseets had been content to flee down river and seek the protection of the larger villages whenever word came to them that the Mohawks contemplated a raid. Walking Moose was not content to flee periodically from his good hunting-grounds, however, and so the enmity of the raiders became bitter against him. Walking Moose hemmed three sides of his village with a tangle of fallen trees—the river kept the fourth side—lopped the upper and outer branches of these prostrate trees to within three or four feet of the trunks, and sharpened the ends and hardened them with fire. Also, he dug pits and covered them with brush, and set up many sharp posts in unexpected places. These things were good, but Walking Moose was not satisfied. He brought twenty families from one of the more sheltered villages, built lodges for them within his defences, and gave them equal rights of hunting with the older villagers. During that summer the Mohawks came three times, and three times they went away without so much as a scalp or a back-load of smoked salmon. During the winter Walking Moose’s men were busy at making shields and weapons; and late in March, when the depths of snow were covered with a tough crust, a war party of the people of the White Salmon went swiftly to the westward and fell upon and destroyed a village of the Mohawks. But the only men who died at the hands of the victors were those who fell fighting. No prisoners were made on that occasion. The women and children were not harmed, the lodges and storehouses were spared. Only the weapons of the warriors were taken.

“We do not want your food and furs,” said Walking Moose, “for we have plenty of our own. We do not want your women, for we have better women of our own.”

Then he returned to his own country, with the victorious warriors at his heels. Some of these warriors had to be drawn on toboggans; a few remained behind, their spirits sped to even finer hunting-grounds than those of their nativity.

Walking Moose’s first raid into the land of the Mohawks made a deep impression on that warlike people. History contained no record of any previous outrage of the kind. In the old, old days Gluskap had smitten the Mohawks on more than one occasion, so tradition said, but to be smitten with magic by a god and victoriously invaded by Maliseets were misfortunes of a very different nature. The warriors were furious, and the insulting fact that Walking Moose had left their lodges standing, their storehouses full, and their families beside them added to their fury. They bandaged their wounds, put their dead away, and sent the only uninjured man of the village to carry the outrageous news westward and raise a war-party. But worse than this was planned. Hawk-in-the-Tree, the daughter of the chief of the defeated village, brooded darkly over the scornful words of Walking Moose. His gaze had been upon her face when he had said, “We do not want your women, for we have better women of our own.” Yes, his gaze had been fair upon the face of Hawk-in-the-Tree, and she was the woman whom three great chiefs wanted in marriage, many warriors had fought for, and Long Tongue had made songs about. She sat in her father’s lodge and thought of the words of the young Maliseet and recalled the look in his eyes. Her slim hands were clasped tightly in her lap, her small, sleek head was bowed demurely, and her beautiful eyes were upon the beaded hem of her skirt of dressed moosehide. A tender pink shone in her dusky cheeks, her red lips were parted in a faint smile, but there was no mirth in her vain and angry heart.

Walking Moose was unmarried. All his thoughts were given to the pursuit of power—of power for himself and his tribe. He was great in the chase, and greater on the warpath. His mind and hand were at once subtle and daring. Though he forgot the words he had said about the women of the Mohawk village, he remembered everything else that he had said and done on that expedition; and so he suspected that the enemy would strike back before long, with all their strength and cunning. He sent swift runners down river with word of his raid and victory. These returned after five days with a band of daring young braves from the more sheltered villages of the tribe—adventurous spirits who were attracted by the promise of warfare against the Mohawks under a successful leader. Walking Moose welcomed these reinforcements cordially.

It was not until all the snow was gone from the hills and the ice from the river that the Mohawks returned Walking Moose’s call. They had planned their arrival for the dark hours between midnight and dawn, but the sentries brought word of their approach to Walking Moose, and so it happened that instead of their finding him in his own lodge, he found them in a little valley two miles distant from the village. By dawn all the invaders had vanished save those who had lost command of their legs. And the Maliseets had vanished from the little valley also, on the trail of the retreating Mohawks. They followed that trail all day and half the night, and at last overtook and made an end to that war party. One young man escaped, one whose lungs were stronger than his heart. He carried word of the disaster throughout the Mohawk country.

Spring passed and summer came. The village of which Walking Moose was chief enjoyed quiet and security. The warriors of the White Salmon carried on their fishing in all the swift brooks and rivers, but they kept their shields and war clubs beside them, and far-sighted runners were on guard in the hills, day and night.

In the Mohawk country quiet reigned also. But it was a sinister, brooding quiet. Big chiefs met and parted, only to meet again. Rage gnawed them, but they were afraid to strike openly at the strong village of the Maliseets. About this time, Hawk-in-the-Tree spoke to her father, standing modestly before him with her glance cast down at her beaded moccasins.

“The strength of that village is all in the head and heart of Walking Moose,” she said.

“It is so,” replied the chief.

“Then if death should find him——”

“What death?” returned her father, testily. “The medicine-men have been questioned in this matter. You are but a squaw, my child, and cannot see the truth of these things.”

“True, I am but a squaw,” returned Hawk-in-the-Tree, modestly. “But will not my father tell me the words of the medicine-men?”

So the chief told her what the wise ones of the nation had said about Walking Moose. He did not know that, as usual, their wise words were nothing more than a clever fiction to mystify the warriors and retain the awe of the laity for the dark arts. To soothe the injured pride of the chiefs they had said that the prowess of Walking Moose was due to magic; that he could not be killed in battle, or by the spilling of blood, or by fire; that starvation only could kill him, and that within bowshot of his own village. It was a clever invention. No wonder the chiefs and warriors were puzzled and impressed.

“To be starved within bowshot of his own village?” repeated Hawk-in-the-Tree, reflectively. “Then he must first be caught and bound—then hidden in a place where his warriors cannot find him.”

“It is so,” replied the chief.

Hawk-in-the-Tree drew him into the lodge. The scornful words and heedless glance of the Maliseet were hot and clear in her memory. She talked to her father for a long time. He smiled sneeringly at first, but after a while he began to nod his head.

II

Walking Moose did not devote all his time in the summer months to the catching and smoking of salmon and trout. He wandered about the country, in seeming idleness, but in reality his brain was busy with ambitious plans. And always his eyes were open and his ears alert. He did not expect another attack from the Mohawks before the time of the hunter’s moon, but he continued to place his outposts far and near, and to visit them at unexpected moments. Though his village had doubled in size within the year, and leapt into fame, he was not satisfied. He wanted to drive the Mohawks far to the westward and break them so that they would never again venture into the fringes of the Maliseet country, and he dreamed of the day when all the scattered clans and villages of the Maliseets would name him for their head chief.