when the heart speaks, glory itself is an illusion.
the mahanaddy had just turned her blunt prow out westward from the harbour of port said, sniffing her native north wind, with a gentle rising movement to that old mediterranean eastward-tending swell. the lights of the most iniquitous town on earth were fading away in the mist of the desert on the left hand, and on the right the gloom of the sea merged into a grey sky.
the dinner-hour had passed, and the passengers were lolling about on the long quarter-deck, talking lazily after the manner of men and women who have little to say and much time wherein to say it.
it was quite easy to perceive that they had left a voyage of many days behind them, for the funny man had exhausted himself and the politicians were asleep. the lifeless, homeward-bound flirtations had waned long ago, and no one looked twice at any one else. they all knew each other's dresses and vices and little aggravating habits, and only three or four of them were aware that human nature runs deeper than such superficial details.
away forward, behind the sheep-pens, an italian gentleman in the ice industry was scraping on a yellow fiddle which looked sticky. but like many things of plain exterior this unprepossessing instrument had something in it, something that the italian gentleman knew how to extract, and all the ship was hushed into listening. such as had conversation left spoke in low tones, and even the stewards in the pantry ceased for a time to test the strength of the dinner-plates.
on a small clear space of deck between the door of the doctor's cabin and the saloon gangway two men were walking slowly backwards and forwards. they were both tall men, both large, and consequently both inclined to taciturnity. they had said, perhaps, as little as any two persons on board, which may have accounted for the fact that they were talking now, and still seemed to have plenty to say.
one was dark and clean-shaven, with something of the sea in his mien and gait. his nose and chin were singularly clean cut, and suggestive of an ancestral type. this was the ship's doctor, a man who probed men's hearts as well as their bodies, and wrote of what he found there. his companion was an antitype—a representative of the fair race found in england by the ancestors of the other when they came and conquered. he wore a beard, and his face was burnt to the colour of mahogany, which had a strange effect in contrast to the bluest of saxon eyes.
the doctor was talking.
“then,” he was saying, “who the devil are you?”
the other smiled, a gentle, triumphant smile. the smile of a man who, humbly recognising himself at a just estimation, is conscious of having outwitted another, cleverer than himself.
“you finish your pipe,” he said, and he walked away with long firm strides towards the saloon stairs. the doctor went to the rail, where, resting his arms on the solid teak, he leant, gazing thoughtfully out over the sea, which was part of his life. for he knew the great waters, and loved them with all the quiet strength of a slow-tongued man.
before very long some one came behind and touched him on the shoulder. he turned, and in the fading light looked into the smiling face of his late companion—the same and yet quite different, for the beard was gone, and there only remained the long fair moustache.
“yes,” said dr. mark ruthine, “jem agar. i was a fool not to know you at first.”
a sort of shyness flickered for a moment in the blue eyes.
“i have been practising so hard during the last ten months to look like some one else that i hardly feel like myself,” he said.
“um-m! there was something uncanny about you when you first came on board. i used to watch you at meals, and wonder what it was. by god, agar, i am glad!”
“thanks,” replied jem agar. he was looking round him rather nervously. “you don't think there is anybody on board who will know me, do you?”
“no one, barring the captain.”
“oh,” said agar calmly, “he is all right. he can keep his mouth shut.”
“there is no doubt about that,” replied the doctor.
a little pause followed, during which they both listened involuntarily to the ice-cream merchant's musical voice, which was now floating over the silent decks, raised in song.
“i should like to hear all about it some day,” said the ship's surgeon at last. he knew his man, and no detail of the strange lives that passed the horizon of his daily existence was ever forgotten. only he usually found that those who had the most to tell required a little assistance in their narration.
“it is rather a rum business,” answered jem agar, not displeased.
at this moment the ship's bell rang four clear notes into the night.
“ten o'clock,” said the doctor. “come into my cabin and have a smoke; the captain will be in soon. he would like to hear the story too.”
so they passed into the cabin, and before they had been there many minutes the captain joined them. for a moment he stood in the doorway, then he came forward with outstretched hand.
“well,” he said, “all that i can say is that you ought to be dead. but it's not my business.”
he had seen too many freaks of fortune to be surprised at this.
“i thought,” he continued, “that there was something familiar about the back of your head. back of a man's head never changes. it's a funny thing.”
he sat down in his usual chair, and looked with a cheery smile upon him who had risen from the death column of the times. then he turned to his pipe.
“you know, agar,” he said, “i was beastly sorry about that—death of yours. cut me up wonderfully for a few minutes. that is saying a lot in these days.”
agar laughed.
“it is very kind of you to say so,” he said rather awkwardly.
“and i,” added dr. ruthine from behind the whisky and soda tray, in the deliberate voice of a man who is saying something with an effort, “felt that it was a pity. that is how it struck me—a pity.”
then, very disjointedly, and in a manner which could scarcely be set down here, major james agar told his singular story. there are—thank heaven!—many such stories still untold; there are, one would be inclined to hope, many such still uncommenced. as a nation we may be on the decline, but there is something to go on with in us yet.
once when the narrator paused, dr. ruthine went to the side table and opened some bottles.
“whisky?” he inquired, with curt hospitality, “or anything else your fancy may paint, down to tea.”
agar rose to pour out his own allowance, and for a moment the two men stood together. with the critical eye of a soldier, which seems to weigh flesh and blood, he looked his host for the time being up and down.
“they don't make men like you and me on tea,” he said, reaching out his hand towards a tumbler.
then the story went on. at first the ship's doctor listened to it with interest but without absorption, then suddenly something seemed to catch his attention and hold it riveted. when a pause came he leant forward, pointing an emphasising finger.
“when you spoke just now of the chief,” he said, “did you mean michael?”
“yes.”
“what! seymour michael?”
“yes.”
the captain tapped his pipe against his boot and leant back with the shrug of the shoulders awaiting further developments.
“and you mean to tell me that you put yourself entirely in the hands of seymour michael?” pursued the doctor.
“yes, why not?”
mark ruthine shook his head with a little laugh. “i always thought, agar, that you were a bit of a fool!”
“i have sometimes suspected it myself,” admitted the soldier meekly.
“why, man,” said ruthine, “seymour michael is one of the biggest rascals on god's earth. i would not trust him with fourpence round the corner.”
“nor would i,” put in the captain, “and the sum is not excessive.”
jem agar was sipping his whisky and soda with the placidity of a giant who fears no open fight and never thinks of foul play.
“i don't see,” he muttered, “what harm he can do me.”
“no more do i, at the moment,” replied the doctor; “but the man is a liar and an unscrupulous cad. i have kept an eye on him for years because he interests me. he has never run a straight course since he came into the field; he has consistently sacrificed truth, honour, and his best friend to his own ambition ever since the beginning.”
jem agar smiled at the doctor's vehemence, although he was aware that such a display was far from being characteristic of the man.
“of course,” he admitted, “in the matter of honour and glory i expect to be swindled. but i don't care. i know the chap's reputation, and all that, but he can hardly get rid of the fact that i have done the thing and he has not.”
“i was not thinking so much of that,” replied the other. “men sell their souls for honour and glory and never get paid.”
he paused; then with the sure touch of one who has dabbled with pen and ink in the humanities, he laid his finger on the vulnerable spot.
“i was thinking more,” he said, “of what you had trusted him to do—telling certain persons, i mean, that you were not dead. he is just as likely as not to have suppressed the information.”
jem agar was looking very grave, with a sudden pinched appearance about the lips which was only half concealed by his moustache.
“why should he do that?” he asked sharply.
“he would do it if it suited his purpose. he is not the man to take into consideration such things as feelings—especially the feelings of others.”
“you're a bit hard on him, ruthine,” said jem doubtfully. “why should it suit his convenience?”
“secrecy was essential for your purpose and his; in telling a secret one doubles the risk of its disclosure each time a new confidant is admitted. besides, the man's nature is quite extraordinarily secretive. he has jewish and scotch blood in his veins, and the result is that he would rather disseminate false news than true on the off chance of benefiting thereby later on. for men of that breed each piece of accurate information, however trivial, has a marketable value, and they don't part with it unless they get their price.”
there followed a silence, during which jem agar went back in mental retrospection to the only interview he had ever had with seymour michael, and the old lurking sense of distrust awoke within his heart.
“but,” said the captain, who was an optimist—he even applied that theory to human nature—“i suppose it is all right now. everybody knows now that you are among the quick—eh?”
“no,” replied jem, “only michael; it was arranged that i should telegraph to him.”
“of course,” the doctor hastened to say, for he had perceived a change in agar's demeanour, “all this is the purest supposition. it is only a theory built upon a man's character. it is wonderful how consistent people are. judge how a man would act and you will find that he has acted like it afterwards.”
as if in illustration of the theory jem agar looked gravely determined, but uttered no threat directed towards seymour michael. his quiet face was a threat in itself.
“well,” he said, rising, “i am keeping you fellows from your slumbers. i am still sleeping on deck; can't get accustomed to the atmosphere below decks after six months' sleeping in the open.”
he nodded and left them.
“rum chap!” muttered the captain, looking at his watch when the footsteps had died away over the silent decks.
“one of the queerest specimens i know,” retorted dr. mark ruthine, who was fingering a pen and looking longingly towards the inkstand. the captain—a man of renowned discretion—quietly departed.
there is no more distrustful man than the simple gentleman of honour who finds himself deceived and tricked. it is as if the bottom suddenly fell out of his trust in all mankind, and there is nothing left but a mocking void. jem agar lay on his mattress beneath the awning, and stared hard at a bright star near the horizon. he was realising that life is, after all, a sorry thing of chance, and that all his world might be hanging at that moment on the word of an untrustworthy man.
before morning he had determined to telegraph from malta to seymour michael to meet him at plymouth on the arrival of the mahanaddy at that port.
