jim spent the night at the police-station, where a military camp-bed was provided for him in an empty whitewashed room. late in the evening his overcoat, guitar-case and kit-bag were brought to him from the hotel, the latter containing a few clothes and necessaries; and, pinned to his pyjamas, was a sheet of notepaper upon which, in monimé’s handwriting, were the pencilled words: “keep up your spirits. i shall come to england with you, my beloved.”
a surprising languor had descended upon him after the excitements of the evening, and it was not long before he fell into a profound sleep, from which he was aroused before daybreak by the entrance of a native policeman, who deposited a candle upon the cement floor and informed him that he was to be taken down to cairo by the day train due to depart at dawn. a cup of native coffee was presently brought in, together with a pile of stale sandwiches, which, he was told, had been sent from the hotel on the previous evening; but, having no appetite, he placed these in the pocket of his coat.
after the lapse of a dreary and bitterly cold half hour, the consul entered the cell, bluntly bidding him good morning. “i have orders,” he said, “to bring you down to cairo myself.”
“that will be jolly,” jim answered gloomily.
the consul adjusted his eyeglasses and stared at[305] him coldly. “i must warn you,” he mumbled, “that anything you say may be taken down in evidence against you.”
“that’ll make the journey jollier still,” said jim. now that monimé knew all, and had declared that she loved and trusted him, he was in much happier mood, and could face the shadow of death with sufficient equanimity to permit him to jest with his captors. but exasperation returned to his mind when in answer to his inquiry he was told that his wife had not been informed of his immediate departure, nor had the authorities any concern with her or her movements.
“‘the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one,’” quoted the consul, to whom kipling was as the bible.
“oh, shut up!” said jim. “get out your notebook and write down that i declare i’m innocent and that the police are bungling fools.”
on the journey down to cairo he and the consul occupied a compartment which had been reserved for them. a policeman was stationed in the corridor, and the windows on the opposite side were screened by the wooden shutters which serve as blinds in egyptian railway trains. there was nothing to do except smoke the cigarettes he had been permitted to buy at the station, or doze in his corner, while his companion complacently read a novel and smoked his pipe on the opposite seat, occasionally glancing at him over the top of his eyeglasses.
fourteen hours of this sort of thing was enough to reduce him to a condition of complete desperation, and when at last the train jolted over the points[306] into the terminus at cairo, he had almost made up his mind to bolt and to attempt to return to england on his own account. he was well guarded, however, and soon he was deposited for the night at the consulate. next day he was taken, handcuffed, to the station, where he was pushed into the train for port said under the eyes of a gaping crowd. he was now in the charge of a scotch ex-sergeant serving in the egyptian police, who had been lent for the purpose; and on the following morning this man, assisted by native policemen, conveyed him to the liner which was to carry him to england.
here an interior cabin had been assigned to him, a small glass panel in the door having been removed so that he might be at all times under observation; and here for the twelve weary days of the journey he was confined, with nothing to relieve the tedium except an occasional visit from the kindly captain, a nightly breath of fresh air on the deserted deck, the reading of the novels which were considerately sent down to him from the ship’s library, and the playing of his guitar, which by favour of the cairene authorities he had been allowed to retain.
his depression was deepened by his inability to obtain any news of monimé, but he presumed that she would know his whereabouts, and she had said that she would follow him to england. at any rate there would be no lack of money for her journey and the ultimate expenses of the trial; for he was now, of course, once more owner of the eversfield property, and tundering-west was again his name.
during these days his mind dwelt for hours together upon the problems of life as they presented[307] themselves to a man of his bedouin temperament, and clearly he began to see that it was not enough merely to live and let live. as he lay sprawling upon his berth, staring at the white-painted walls and at the locked door of the cabin, or as he paced the narrow area of flooring or sat listening to the rhythmic throbbing of the engines, it became apparent to him that the recognition of some sort of obligation to society at large was essential, if only for the sake of his son.
he had always been an outlaw, hating organized society, and naming it, like the wise giacomo leopardi, “that extoller and enjoiner of all false virtues; that detractor and persecutor of all true ones; that opponent of all essential greatness which can become a man, and derider of every lofty sentiment unless it be spurious; that slave of the strong and tyrant of the weak.”
yet he saw now that to some extent it was necessary to conform to its ways. the art of life, in fact, was to conform without being consumed, to submit without being submerged. but in his case he had, by his inconsideration, managed to put people’s backs up on all sides, and now, when he needed their friendship, for his wife and his child if not for himself, he was friendless.
he had contributed nothing, he felt, to his fellow men. he had carried his dreams locked in his head, and only occasionally had he troubled to write them down in the form of verse. he had squandered the gifts with which he was endowed; he had wasted the years; and now, in his desperate plight, there was no one to come forward to say a[308] word in his defence. public opinion would declare him guilty, and he would have to fight for his life not only against an absence of sympathy, but against a bias in his disfavour.
monimé, too, had gone her own way, ignoring the conventions, following with him the law of nature and not respecting that law in the form into which man has had to twist and limit it to meet the conditions of civilized society. and now they and their son would be the sufferers. they were a pair of outcasts; and yet she, as individually he understood her, was a personification of the glory of womanhood. they were vagrants; their love, at the outset, had been bedouin love; and how they must pay the price.
the troubles by which he was surrounded had had a salutary effect upon his character, and had aroused him to his shortcomings. before he had inherited the family property his life had been of an indefinite and dreamy character; at eversfield he had been suppressed and rendered ineffectual; but since he had come to love monimé he had emerged from this stagnation, and in the strongly contrasted turmoil of his subsequent life he had, as the saying is, found himself.
as the vessel passed up the thames and approached its moorings at tilbury, he had the feeling that, grasped in the relentless tentacles, he was being drawn in towards the cold, fat body of the octopus against which he had always fought. perhaps he would be devoured, perhaps he would be vomited forth unharmed; but, whatever the issue, he had no power to resist, and must assuredly be sucked[309] into that horrible mouth. there had been times during the voyage when he lay in his berth, sick with the dread of it; but now that his destination was nearly reached he felt an eager desire to be up and fighting for his life and liberty.
there had been times, too, when he had turned with aching heart to his guitar, and had sat for hours on the edge of his berth, playing and singing melancholy ditties and songs of love. he was ever unaware of the beauty of his voice, and he would have been surprised had he been able to see the wrapt faces of the stewards and others who used to gather at the door to listen, and who would sometimes peep at the wild figure bending over the strings.
at tilbury he had to face an army of cameramen who ran before him snapping him as he came down the gangway in charge of two policemen. a motor police-van conveyed him thence to the prison where he was to await the formal proceedings in the magistrate’s court; and here at last he experienced the full rigour of the criminal’s lot. until now he had been confined in rooms not intended for imprisonment; but here he found himself in an actual cell, designed and built to cage the arbitrary and the recalcitrant. the iron bars, the ingenious mechanism of the lock and bolt, the inaccessible window, the uniformed warder in the passage outside—these were all instruments of the great octopus, and obedient to its word: “thou shalt have none other gods but me.”
in the late afternoon he lay upon his bed in a comatose state, due to his nervous exhaustion; but whenever sleep came upon him his active brain[310] created a picture of his coming trial, so dreadful that he had to fight his way, so it seemed, back to consciousness to avoid it. he saw the crowded court, and the hundreds of eyes that watched him as he stood in the dock, and it appeared to him that the judge was none other than the fat, leering spectre which at eversfield had come to represent his married life and its respectable surroundings. but now the creature no longer coaxed and wheedled; it was impelled only by malice and revenge, and the flabby hand was pointed at him in cold accusation, or raised with a sweeping gesture to indicate the all-embracing power of the great octopus.
in momentary dreams and in half-conscious thought his fevered brain gradually formed into words this monstrous judge’s summary of his actions, so that he seemed to be listening to the story of his life as interpreted by his fellow men. “vile creature,” the voice droned, “coward, bully, and assassin, let me recount to you the steps which have led you to the scaffold. as a young man you deserted the post at which your good father had placed you, and, unable to do an honest day’s work, you fled over the seas and attached yourself to the world’s riff-raff, thereby breaking the parental heart. having squandered your patrimony, you came at last to some low haunt in the city of alexandria, and there, meeting a woman of loose morals, you cohabited with her, but deserted her when she was with child.”
“it’s a lie!” he heard himself screaming, as he struggled to loose himself from the grip of the attendant policemen.
“the facts speak for themselves,” the accusing[311] voice continued. “you deserted her because you had inherited your uncle’s money, and were lured back to england by the love of gold. in your own ancestral village you used your position to bully your tenants; you assaulted one of your honest farmers, you insulted the saintly vicar, and the local medical officer; you incurred the mistrust of the simple villagers. your only friend was a filthy poacher and thief. you pursued the most comely maiden in the neighbourhood, and did not desist until you had encompassed her downfall. but, having married her, you treated her like a bully, and at length you deserted her, too, as you had deserted your former mistress.”
“lies! lies!” he shouted. “i will not listen!”
“returning to your disreputable life in low haunts, you were involved in a cut-throat affray in italy; and, escaping from this, you pretended to have been murdered, and allowed your assailant to stand his trial on that charge. thus you thought to escape from the bonds of wedlock, and with a lie upon your lips you returned to the arms of your mistress, proposing to her a bigamous marriage. but, fearing detection, and needing money, you sneaked home; lured into the woods the sorrowing woman who, deeming herself a widow, mourned your memory; and there did her to death.”
“i am innocent!” he gasped, looking about him in desperation at the hard faces which surrounded him and hemmed him in. “of her death at any rate i am innocent.”
“you fled, then, back to your lover,” the voice went on, “and ruthlessly involved her in your coming[312] débacle. when the officers of the law had hunted you down you threatened them with death; but presently, running from them like a coward, and being too craven to take your own life, you were ignominiously captured, and brought trembling to this place of justice. enemy of society, lazy and useless member of the community, wretched victim of your own lusts, have you anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon you?”
wildly he struggled to free himself, and so awoke, bathed in perspiration and shaking in every limb. “o god!” he cried, beating his fists upon the bed, “take away from me this vision of myself as others see me. because i have turned in contempt from the great sham, because i have dared to be independent, must i pay the penalty with my life, and go accursed to my grave? must monimé, must ian suffer for my mistakes, and bear the burden of my sins?”
for an hour and more he paced his cell in torment; but at last the door was opened and a clergyman entered, announcing himself as the prison chaplain, and politely asking whether he might be of service.
“yes,” said jim without hesitation, looking at him with bloodshot eyes, “go away and pray for me.”
but his visitor was too accustomed to the bitterness of the prisoner’s heart to accept this rebuff, and held his ground. “i am one of those who believe in your innocence,” he said, “and that being so, i should like to say that i am proud to meet you.”
jim pushed the hair back from his damp forehead[313] and glanced quickly at him. “is that a figure of speech?” he asked, menacingly.
“why, of course not: i mean it,” the chaplain replied. “the whole english-speaking world is under the deepest debt to you.”
jim stared at him in astonishment. “i don’t understand,” he muttered.
“well, you are the james easton who wrote songs of the highroad, are you not?”
“oh, that!” jim smiled. “the book is out, is it? i thought they were going to publish late in the spring.”
“my dear sir,” the visitor exclaimed, “do you mean to say you haven’t seen the reviews?”
“no, i don’t know anything about it,” jim answered.
“but every man of letters in the country is talking about it. we have all hailed you as the greatest poet of modern times. why, the one poem, ‘the nile,’ is enough to bring you immortality. my dear sir, do you really mean that this is news to you?”
“of course it is,” said jim. “i haven’t read the papers for weeks.” he sat down suddenly upon his bed, his knees refusing their office.
the chaplain spread out his hands in wonder. “but don’t you know that your arrest has caused the biggest sensation ever known in recent years? first comes the book, and you are hailed as a public benefactor, the friend and interpreter of struggling humanity, the genius of the age, the uncrowned laureate of england; and then the discovery is made that you are one with the james tundering-west, alias james easton, wanted on the charge of murder.[314] why, it has been dumbfounding to us all. nobody can believe that you are guilty.”
“i’m not, padre,” said jim quietly. “but the evidence is pretty damning, you know. i was there in the woods with my wife.”
“well, you will have public opinion on your side,” the chaplain continued. “a man like you, who has given so much to the world, will certainly receive the maximum of consideration.”
“but ... but,” jim stammered, a lump in his throat, “i’ve given nothing. i’ve been a selfish beast, going my own way, ignoring my obligation to society. why, all the way home in the steamer i’ve been telling myself that my life has been useless. and just now the judge said.... oh, padre, the things he said!... no, that was only a dream; but the fact remains, i’ve been useless.”
“useless!” his visitor laughed. “why, man, you will be beloved and thanked for generations to come. how little do we realize when we are being of use!”
long after his visitor had gone jim sat dazed and overawed. he cared nothing for his actual triumph, but there were no bounds to his thankfulness that at last he might appear worthy of the love of monimé. he slept little that night. he was alternately miserable and exultant, and there were moments when he could with difficulty refrain from battering at the door with his fists, in a frenzy to be out and away over the hills.
daylight brought no relief to the confusion of his mind; and by mid-morning, as he sat waiting for something to happen, hovering between hope and dread, his head seemed nigh to bursting.
[315]
but suddenly all things were changed. the door of his cell was opened and a warder entered. jim did not look up: his face was buried in his hands in a vain effort to collect his thoughts.
“there’s your wife to see you, sir,” said the warder, tapping his shoulder. “you are to come with me.”
jim sprang to his feet, his eyes blinking, his hair tossed about his forehead. down the corridor he was led, and up a flight of stairs. the door of the visitor’s room was opened, and a moment later the beloved arms were about his neck, and the warder had stepped back into the passage.
“it’s all right, my darling!” she cried. “we’ve found the murderer. the order for your release will come through at once: you’ll be out of this in an hour or so. oh, jim, jim, jim, my darling, my darling!”
he was incredulous, and in breathless haste she told him what had happened. she had come back to england by the quick route, and, travelling across country, had arrived some days before his ship had completed the long sea route by way of the peninsula.
“mrs. darling came with me,” she said. “oh, jim, she’s been splendid.”
“what d’you mean?” he asked in astonishment. “she is my accuser.”
“oh, that was only natural,” monimé explained. “that was a mother’s instinctive feeling. but we talked all through that terrible night at luxor, and long before we left egypt i think she realized she had made a mistake. you see, as soon as the police were able to prove that merrivall’s housekeeper[316] was not guilty she at once thought it must have been you after all, and she swore she’d hunt you down. she came to egypt with the concurrence of the police, who had an unconfirmed report about your having been seen at abu simbel.”
“never mind about all that,” jim interrupted. “tell me who did it.... oh, for god’s sake tell me they’ve really got the man!”
monimé reassured him. “listen,” she went on. “as soon as we arrived in england i made mrs. darling take me down to eversfield, and we started our own inquiries. you had spoken of having sent your poacher friend off to get mrs. darling’s address from the postman; so of course we went first to the post-office, and mr. barnes was quite emphatic that smiley-face was only with him for a few minutes early in the afternoon.”
jim’s face fell. “i feared as much,” he groaned. “you’re on the wrong scent. you’re suggesting that smiley did it.”
“i’m not suggesting,” she answered with triumph. “he did do it. he has confessed.”
he stared at her in dismay. “good lord!” he exclaimed, and, turning away, stood lost in thought. he had not believed it possible that the poacher was in any way connected with the crime, for his errand in the village had seemed to account for his time, and later in the afternoon he had returned with perfect composure.
“has the poor chap been arrested?” he asked at length.
monimé shook her head. “no,” she said, “he is in the infirmary at oxford. they hardly expected him to live yesterday, after all the strain of making[317] his confession to us and then to the police.” it was his heart, it seemed, that had given out, a fact at which jim was not surprised, for when he had met him on that memorable day it was evident that he was very ill.
“poor old smiley!” he murmured. “he did it for my sake.”
monimé’s eyes filled with tears. “oh, jim,” she said. “i’m so cross with you. to think that you never let me know you were a great poet. you said you only scribbled doggerel. when i read this book of your poems i cried my eyes out, with pride and temper and love and fear. didn’t you realize you were writing things that would live?”
“good lord, no!” he answered. “i thought you’d think them awful rot.”
the order from the home secretary for jim’s release was not long delayed, and soon after midday he was a free man once more, enjoying a bath and a change of clothes at the hotel where his wife was staying. here, when his toilet was complete, mrs. darling came to see him, and he was surprised to observe the affectionate relationship which seemed to exist between her and monimé.
“jim, my dear,” she said, when the somewhat difficult greetings were exchanged. “i am a wicked old woman to have brought such unhappiness upon you; but you will know what i felt about my dolly’s cruel end.” she passed her plump hand over her eyes. “i can’t yet bear to think of it.”
“yes, i know,” he answered. “but you might have realized that i would not have done such a thing.”
“i see that now,” she said. “this dear girl has[318] explained you to me, so that i see you as clear as crystal. she has pointed out that you will neither let anybody interfere with your life nor will you interfere with theirs. you just live and let live. i hadn’t quite understood that, but i see it now, and your poems, too, have helped me to understand. isn’t it true that if you once remove understanding from life you get every kind of complication! it is our business as women to make a study of the workings of men’s minds; but in this case i made a miserable hash of it.... oh dear, oh dear!” she muttered, and suddenly, sitting down heavily upon a chair, she wept loudly, rocking her fat little body to and fro.
jim was not able to remain long to comfort her. he had determined to catch an afternoon express to oxford to try to see the dying smiley-face before the end; and he had arranged to return by the late evening train, so that he and monimé might go down next morning to join their little son on the south coast.
he evaded a mob of journalists at the door of the hotel, and reached oxford after the winter sun had set, driving to the infirmary in a scurry of snow. in an ante-room he explained his mission to the matron, who seemed much relieved that he had come.
“he’s been asking about you all day, and begging us to tell him if you had been released,” she said. “it’s almost as though he were clinging on to life until he knew you were safe. he’s a poor, half-witted creature. it’s a mercy he is dying.”
jim was taken into a small room leading from one of the large wards; and here, in the dim light[319] of a green-shaded electric globe, he saw a nurse leaning over the sick man’s bed. he saw the poacher’s red hair, now less towsled than he had known it in the open, and of a more pronounced colour by reason of its washing and combing; he saw the drawn features, and the shut eyes; he saw the rough, hairy hands lying inert upon the white quilt: and for a moment he thought he had arrived too late.
the matron, however, exchanged a whispered word with the nurse; and presently a sign was made to him to approach. he thereupon seated himself at the bedside, and laid his hand upon smiley’s arm.
for some moments there was silence in the room; but at length the little pig-like eyes opened, and jim could see the sudden expression of relief and happiness which at once lit up the whole face.
“forgive me, forgive me,” the dying man whispered. “i didn’t know they’d taken you. if i’d ha’ known that, i’d ha’ told them at once. i thought you was safe in them furrin lands; and when your lady come yesterday and said they’d cotched you and put you in the lock-up, i thought i’d go clean off it, i did.”
jim pressed his hand. “smiley,” he said, “why did you do it?”
“seemed like it was the only way,” he replied. “when i come back into the woods to wait for you, i heerd you and her talking, and i listened; and then i heerd her say as ’ow she’d make your name stink in the nostrils of every gen’l’man, and i knew you couldn’t never be rid o’ she. then her come running past where i was a-hiding, and her tripped up and fell. fair stunned, her was. i thought her[320] was dead, her lay that still. so i reckoned i’d make sure. i did it quick, with a stone. her made no sound.”
“but why did you do it?” jim repeated.
smiley-face grinned. “because you was my friend, and her was your enemy. because i remembered your face that day when you was a-weeping down there in the woods, and a-longing to be free again.”
he closed his eyes and for some moments he did not speak. at length, however, he looked at jim once more, and his lips moved. “parson do say god be werry merciful,” he whispered. “maybe he’ll understand why i done it. but i don’t care if he send i into hell fire, now i know you’re happy. tell me, sir, what be you going to do?”
“i’m going away, smiley,” replied jim. “i’ve got a lot of work to do. we are going to find a little house overlooking the mediterranean, and in the years to come, when all this is forgotten, we shall come back here, perhaps, and get the place ready for my son. you’d like my son, smiley: he’s a fine little lad.”
the poacher nodded. “when you come back here,” he said, “go down into the woods and whistle to me the same as you used to do. i shall hear. i shall say: ‘there’s my dear a-calling of me. friends sticks to friends through thick and thin.’ and maybe they’ll let me answer you....”
his voice trailed off, but his lips smiled. “oh, them little rabbits,” he chuckled.
