Mrs. Falchion

Chapter 8

A BRIDGE OF PERIL

No more delightful experience may be had than to wake up in the harbour

of Aden some fine morning--it is always fine there--and get the first

impression of that mighty fortress, with its thousand iron eyes, in

strong repose by the Arabian Sea. Overhead was the cloudless sun, and

everywhere the tremulous glare of a sandy shore and the creamy wash of

the sea, like fusing opals. A tiny Mohammedan mosque stood gracefully

where the ocean almost washed its steps, and the Resident's house, far up

the hard hillside, looked down upon the harbour from a green coolness.

The place had a massive, war-like character. Here was a battery with

earthworks; there, a fort; beyond, a signal-staff. Hospitals, hotels, and

stores were incidents in the picture. Beyond the mountain-wall and lofty

Jebel Shamsan, rising in fine pink and bronze, and at the end of a

high-walled path between the great hills, lay the town of Aden proper.

Above the town again were the mighty Tanks, formed out of clefts in the

mountains, and built in the times when the Phoenicians made Aden a great

mart, the richest spot in all Arabia.

Over to the left, on the opposite side of the harbour, were wide

bungalows shining in the sun, and flanking the side of the ancient

aqueduct, the gigantic tomb of an Arab sheikh. In the harbour were the

men-of-war of all nations, and Arab dhows sailed slowly in, laden with

pilgrims for Mecca--masses of picturesque sloth and dirt--and disease

also; for more than one vessel flew the yellow flag. As we looked, a

British man-of-war entered the gates of the harbour in the rosy light. It

was bringing back the disabled and wounded from a battle, in which a

handful of British soldiers were set to punish thirty times their number

in an unknown country. But there was another man-of-war in port with

which we were familiar. We passed it far out on the Indian Ocean. It

again passed us, and reached Aden before we did. The 'Porcupine' lay not

far from the 'Fulvia', and as I leaned over the bulwarks, idly looking at

her, a boat shot away from her side, and came towards us. As it drew

near, I saw that it was filled with luggage--a naval officer's, I knew it

to be. As the sailors hauled it up, I noticed that the initials upon the

portmanteaus were G. R. The owner was evidently an officer going home on

leave, or invalided. It did not, however, concern me, as I thought, and I

turned away to look for Mr. Treherne, that I might fulfil my promise to

escort his daughter and Mrs. Callendar to the general cemetery at Aden;

for I knew he was not fit to do the journey, and there was nothing to

prevent my going.

A few hours later I stood with Miss Treherne and Mrs. Callendar in the

graveyard beside the fortress-wall, placing wreaths of artificial flowers

and one or two natural roses--a chance purchase from a shop at the

port--on the grave of the young journalist. Miss Treherne had brought

some sketching materials, and both of us (for, as has been suggested, I

had a slight gift for drawing) made sketches of the burial-place. Having

done this, we moved away to other parts of the cemetery, looking at the

tombstones, many of which told sad tales enough of those who died far

away from home and friends. As we wandered on, I noticed a woman kneeling

beside a grave. It grew upon me that the figure was familiar. Presently I

saw who it was, for the face lifted. I excused myself, went over to her,

and said:--"Miss Caron, you are in trouble?"

She looked up, her eyes swimming with tears and pointed to the tombstone.

On it I read:

"Yes, monsieur, my one brother." Her tears dropped slowly.

"And Galt Roscoe, who was he?" asked I.

Through her grief her face was eloquent. "I never saw him--never knew

him," she said. "He saved my poor Hector from much suffering; he nursed

him, and buried him here when he died, and then--that!" pointing to the

tombstone. "He made me love the English," she said. "Some day I shall

find him, and I shall have money to pay him back all he spent--all." Now

I guessed the meaning of the scene on board the 'Fulvia', when she had

been so anxious to preserve her present relations with Mrs. Falchion.

This was the secret--a beautiful one. She rose. "They disgraced Hector in

New Caledonia," she said, "because he refused to punish a convict at Ile

Nou who did not deserve it. He determined to go to France to represent

his case. He left me behind, because we were poor. He went to Sydney.

There he came to know this good man,"--her finger gently felt his name

upon the stone,--"who made him a guest upon his ship; and so he came on

towards England. In the Indian Ocean he was taken ill: and this was the

end."

She mournfully sank again beside the grave, but she was no longer

weeping.

"What was this officer's vessel?" I said presently. She drew from her

dress a letter. "It is here. Please read it all. He wrote that to me when

Hector died."

The superscription to the letter was--H.B.M.S. Porcupine.

I might have told her then that the 'Porcupine' was in the harbour at

Aden, but I felt that things would work out to due ends without my

help--which, indeed, they began to do immediately. As we stood there in

silence, I reading over and over again the line upon the pedestal, I

heard footsteps behind, and, turning, I saw a man approaching us, who,

from his manner, though he was dressed in civilian's clothes, I guessed

to be an officer of the navy. He was of more than middle height, had

black hair, dark blue eyes, straight, strongly-marked brows, and was

clean-shaven. He was a little ascetic-looking, and rather interesting and

uncommon, and yet he was unmistakably a sea-going man. It was a face that

one would turn to look at again and again--a singular personality. And

yet my first glance told me that he was not one who had seen much

happiness. Perhaps that was not unattractive in itself, since people who

are very happy, and show it, are often most selfish too, and repel where

they should attract. He was now standing near the grave, and his eyes

were turned from one to the other of us, at last resting on Justine.

Presently I saw a look of recognition. He stepped quickly forward.

"Mademoiselle, will you pardon me?" he said very gently, "but you remind

me of one whose grave I came to see." His hand made a slight motion

toward Hector Caron's resting-place. Her eyes were on him with an

inquiring earnestness. "Oh, monsieur, is it possible that you are my

brother's friend and rescuer?"

"I am Roscoe. He was my good friend," he said to her, and he held out his

hand. She took it, and kissed it impulsively. He flushed, and drew it

back quickly and shyly.

"Some day I shall be able to repay you for all your goodness," she said.

"I am only grateful now--grateful altogether. And you will tell me all

you knew of him--all that he said and did before he died?"

"I will gladly tell you all I know," he answered, and he looked at her

compassionately, and yet with a little scrutiny, as though to know more

of her and how she came to be in Aden. He turned to me inquiringly.

I interpreted his thought by saying: "I am the surgeon of the 'Fulvia'. I

chanced upon Miss Caron here. She is travelling by the 'Fulvia'."

With a faint voice, Justine here said: "Travelling--with my mistress."

"As companion to a lady," I preferred to add in explanation, for I wished

not to see her humble herself so. A look of understanding came into

Roscoe's face. Then he said: "I am glad that I shall see more of you; I

am to travel by the 'Fulvia' also to London."

"Yet I am afraid I shall see very little of you," she quietly replied.

He was about to say something to her, but she suddenly swayed and would

have fallen, but that he caught her and supported her. The weakness

lasted only for a moment, and then, steadying herself, she said to both

of us: "I hope you will say nothing of this to madame? She is kind, most

kind, but she hates illness--and such things."

Galt Roscoe looked at me to reply, his face showing clearly that he

thought "madame" an extraordinary woman. I assured Justine that we would

say nothing. Then Roscoe cordially parted from us, saying that he would

look forward to seeing us both on the ship; but before he finally went,

he put on the grave a small bouquet from his buttonhole. Then I excused

myself from Justine, and, going over to Miss Treherne, explained to her

the circumstances, and asked her if she would go and speak to the

afflicted girl. She and Mrs. Callendar had been watching the incident,

and they eagerly listened to me. I think this was the moment that I first

stood really well with Belle Treherne. Her sympathy for the bereaved girl

flooded many barriers between herself and me.

"Oh," she said quickly, "indeed I will go to her, poor girl! Will you

come also, Mrs. Callendar?"

But Mrs. Callendar timidly said she would rather Miss Treherne went

without her; and so it was. While Miss Treherne was comforting the

bereaved girl, I talked to Mrs. Callendar. I fear that Mrs. Callendar was

but a shallow woman; for, after a moment of excitable interest in

Justine, she rather naively turned the talk upon the charms of Europe.

And, I fear, not without some slight cynicism, I followed her where she

led; for, as I said to myself, it did not matter what direction our idle

tongues took, so long as I kept my mind upon the two beside that grave:

but it gave my speech a spice of malice. I dwelt upon Mrs. Callendar's

return to her native heath--that is, the pavements of Bond Street and

Piccadilly, although I knew that she was a native of Tasmania. At this

she smiled egregiously.

At length Miss Treherne came to us and said that Justine insisted she was

well enough to go back to the vessel alone, and wished not to be

accompanied. So we left her there.

A score of times I have stopped when preparing my notes for this tale

from my diary and those of Mrs. Falchion and Galt Roscoe, to think how,

all through the events recorded here, and many others omitted, Justine

Caron was like those devoted and, often, beautiful attendants of the

heroes and heroines of tragedy, who, when all is over, close the eyes,

compose the bodies, and cover the faces of the dead, pronouncing with

just lips the benediction, fittest in their mouths. Their loves, their

deeds, their lives, however good and worthy, were clothed in modesty and

kept far up the stage, to be, even when everything was over, not always

given the privilege to die as did their masters, but, like Horatio, bade

to live and be still the loyal servant:

Somauli policemen patrolled the streets; Somauli, Arab, and Turkish

guides impeded the way; Arabs in plain white, Arab sheikhs in blue and

white, and gold, lounged languidly about, or drank their coffee in the

shade of the bazaars. Children of the desert, nearly naked, sprinkled

water before the doors of the bazaars and stores and upon the hot

thoroughfare, from long leather bottles; caravans of camels, with dusty

stride, swung up the hillside and beyond into the desert; the Jewish

water-carrier with his donkey trudged down the pass from the cool

fountains in the volcanic hills; a guard of eunuchs marched by with the

harem of a Mohammedan; in the doorways of the houses goats and donkeys

fed. Jews, with greasy faces, red-hemmed skirt, and hungry look, moved

about, offering ostrich feathers for sale, everywhere treated worse than

the c******n in Oregon or at Port Darwin. We saw English and Australian

passengers of the 'Fulvia' pelting the miserable members of a despised

race with green fruit about the streets, and afterwards from the deck of

the ship. A number of these raised their hats to us as they passed; but

Belle Treherne's acknowledgment was chilly.

"It is hard to be polite to cowards," she said.

After having made some ruinous bargains in fezes, Turkish cloths and

perfume, I engaged a trap, and we started for Aden. The journey was not

one of beauty, but it had singular interest. Every turn of the wheels

carried us farther and farther away from a familiar world to one of

yesterday. White-robed warriors of the desert, with lances, bent their

brows upon us as they rode away towards the endless sands, and vagabonds

of Egypt begged for alms. In about three-quarters of an hour we had

passed the lofty barriers of Jebel Shamsan and its comrades, and were

making clouds of dust in the streets of Aden. In spite of the

cantonments, the British Government House, and the European Church, it

was an Oriental town pure and simple, where the slow-footed hours

wandered by, leaving apathy in their train; where sloth and surfeit sat

in the market-places; idle women gossiped in their doorways; and naked

children rolled in the sun. Yet how, in the most unfamiliar places, does

one wake suddenly to hear or see some most familiar thing, and learn

again that the ways of all people and nations are not, after all, so far

apart! Here three naked youths, with trays upon their heads, cried aloud

at each doorway what, interpreted, was: "Pies! Hot pies! Pies all hot!"

or, "Crum-pet! Crumpet! Won't you buy-uy a crum-pet!"

One sees the same thing in Kandy, in Calcutta, in Tokio, in Istamboul, in

Teheran, in Queensland, in London.

To us the great Tanks overlooking the place were more interesting than

the town itself, and we drove thither. At Government House and here were

the only bits of green that we had seen; they were, in fact, the only

spots of verdure on the peninsula of Aden. It was a very sickly green,

from which wan and dusty fig trees rose. In their scant shadow, or in the

shelter of an overhanging ledge of rock, Arabs offered us draughts of

cool water, and oranges. There were people in the sickly gardens, and

others were inspecting the Tanks. Passengers from the ship had brought

luncheon-baskets to this sad oasis.

As we stood at the edge of one of the Tanks, Miss Treherne remarked with

astonishment that they were empty. I explained to her that Aden did not

have the benefits conferred even on the land of the seven fat and seven

lean kine--that there had not been rain there for years, and that when it

did come it was neither prolonged nor plentiful. Then came questions as

to how long ago the Tanks were built.

"Thirteen hundred years!" she exclaimed. "How strange to feel it so! It

is like looking at old graves. And how high the walls are, closing up the

gorge between the hills."

At that moment Mrs. Callendar drew our attention to Mrs. Falchion and a

party from the ship. Mrs. Falchion was but a few paces from us, smiling

agreeably as she acknowledged our greetings. Presently two of her party

came to us and asked us to share their lunch. I would have objected, and

I am certain Belle Treherne would gladly have done so, but Mrs. Callendar

was anxious to accept, therefore we expressed our gratitude and joined

the group. On second thoughts I was glad that we did so, because,

otherwise, my party must have been without refreshments until they

returned to the ship--the restaurants at Aden are not to be trusted. To

me Mrs. Falchion was pleasantly impersonal, to Miss Treherne delicately

and actively personal. At the time I had a kind of fear of her interest

in the girl, but I know now that it was quite sincere, though it began

with a motive not very lofty--to make Belle Treherne her friend, and so

annoy me, and also to study, as would an anatomist, the girl's life.

We all moved into the illusive shade of the fig and magnolia trees, and

lunch was soon spread. As we ate, conversation turned upon the annoying

persistency of Eastern guides, and reference was made to the exciting

circumstances attending the engagement of Amshar, the guide of Mrs.

Falchion's party. Among a score of claimants, Amshar had had one

particular opponent--a personal enemy--who would not desist even when the

choice had been made. He, indeed, had been the first to solicit the

party, and was rejected because of his disagreeable looks. He had even

followed the trap from the Port of Aden. As one of the gentlemen was

remarking on the muttered anger of the disappointed Arab, Mrs. Falchion.

said: "There he is now at the gate of the garden."

His look was sullenly turned upon our party. Blackburn, the Queenslander

said, "Amshar, the other fellow is following up the game," and pointed to

the gate.

Amshar understood the gesture at least, and though he gave a toss of the

head, I noticed that his hand trembled as he handed me a cup of water,

and that he kept his eyes turned on his opponent.

"One always feels unsafe with these cut-throat races," said Colonel

Ryder, "as some of us know, who have had to deal with the n****r of South

America. They think no more of killing a man--"

"Than an Australian squatter does of dispersing a mob of aboriginals or

kangaroos," said Clovelly.

Here Mrs. Callendar spoke up briskly. "I don't know what you mean by

'dispersing.'"

"You know what a kangaroo battue is, don't you?"

"But that is killing, slaughtering kangaroos by the hundred."

"Well, and that is aboriginal dispersion," said the novelist. "That is

the aristocratic method of legislating the native out of existence."

Blackburn here vigorously protested. "Yes, it's very like a novelist, on

the hunt for picturesque events, to spend his forensic soul upon 'the

poor native,'--upon the dirty n****r, I choose to call him: the meanest,

cruellest, most cowardly, and murderous--by Jove, what a lot of

adjectives!--of native races. But we fellows, who have lost some of the

best friends we ever had--chums with whom we've shared blanket and

tucker--by the crack of a nulla-nulla in the dark, or a spear from the

scrub, can't find a place for Exeter Hall and its 'poor native' in our

hard hearts. We stand in such a case for justice. It is a new country.

Not once in fifty times would law reach them. Reprisal and dispersion

were the only things possible to men whose friends had been massacred,

and--well, they punished tribes for the acts of individuals."

Mrs. Falchion here interposed. "That is just what England does. A British

trader is killed. She sweeps a native town out of existence with

Hotchkiss guns--leaves it naked and dead. That is dispersion too; I have

seen it, and I know how far n*****s as a race can be trusted, and how

much they deserve sympathy. I agree with Mr. Blackburn."

Blackburn raised his glass. "Mrs. Falchion," he said, "I need no further

evidence to prove my case. Experience is the best teacher."

"As I wish to join the chorus to so notable a compliment, will somebody

pass the claret?" said Colonel Ryder, shaking the crumbs of a pate from

his coat-collar. When his glass was filled, he turned towards Mrs.

Falchion, and continued: "I drink to the health of the best teacher." And

every one laughingly responded. This impromptu toast would have been

drunk with more warmth, if we could have foreseen an immediate event. Not

less peculiar were Mrs. Falchion's words to Hungerford the evening

before, recorded in the last sentence of the preceding chapter.

Cigars were passed, and the men rose and strolled away. We wandered

outside the gardens, passing the rejected guide as we did so. "I don't

like the look in his eye," said Clovelly.

Colonel Ryder laughed. "You've always got a fine vision for the

dramatic."

We passed on. I suppose about twenty minutes had gone when, as we were

entering the garden again, we heard loud cries. Hurrying forward towards

the Tanks, we saw a strange sight.

There, on a narrow wall dividing two great tanks, were three people--Mrs.

Falchion, Amshar, and the rejected Arab guide. Amshar was crouching

behind Mrs. Falchion, and clinging to her skirts in abject fear. The Arab

threatened with a knife. He could not get at Amshar without thrusting

Mrs. Falchion aside, and, as I said, the wall was narrow. He was bent

like a tiger about to spring.

Seeing Mrs. Falchion and Amshar apart from the others,--Mrs. Falchion

having insisted on crossing this narrow and precipitous wall,--he had

suddenly rushed after them. As he did so, Miss Treherne saw him, and

cried out. Mrs. Falchion faced round swiftly, and then came this tragic

situation.

Some one must die.

Seeing that Mrs. Falchion made no effort to dislodge Amshar from her

skirts, the Arab presently leaped forward. Mrs. Falchion's arms went out

suddenly, and she caught the wrist that held the dagger. Then there was

an instant's struggle. It was Mrs. Falchion's life now, as well as

Amshar's. They swayed. They hung on the edge of the rocky chasm. Then we

lost the gleam of the knife, and the Arab shivered, and toppled over.

Mrs. Falchion would have gone with him, but Amshar caught her about the

waist, and saved her from the fall which would have killed her as

certainly as it killed the Arab lying at the bottom of the tank. She had

managed to turn the knife in the Arab's hand against his own breast, and

then suddenly pressed her body against it; but the impulse of the act

came near carrying her over also.

Amshar was kneeling at her feet, and kissing her gown gratefully. She

pushed him away with her foot, and, coolly turning aside, began to

arrange her hair. As I approached her, she glanced down at the Arab.

"Horrible! horrible!" she said. I remembered that these were her words

when her husband was lifted from the sea to the 'Fulvia'.

Not ungently, she refused my hand or any assistance, and came down among

the rest of the party. I could not but feel a strange wonder at the

powerful side of her character just shown--her courage, her cool daring.

In her face now there was a look of annoyance, and possibly disgust, as

well as of triumph--so natural in cases of physical prowess. Everybody

offered congratulations, but she only showed real pleasure, and that

mutely, at those of Miss Treherne. To the rest of us she said: "One had

to save one's self, and Amshar was a coward."

And so this woman, whose hardness of heart and excessive cruelty

Hungerford and I were keeping from the world, was now made into a

heroine, around whom a halo of romance would settle whenever her name

should be mentioned. Now, men, eligible and ineligible, would increase

their homage. It seemed as if the stars had stopped in their courses to

give her special fortune.

That morning I had thought her appearance at this luncheon-party was

little less than scandalous, for she knew, if others did not, who Boyd

Madras was. After the occurrence with the Arab, the other event was

certainly much less prominent, and here, after many years, I can see that

the act was less in her than it would have been in others. For, behind

her outward hardness, there was a sort of justice working, an iron thing,

but still not unnatural in her.

Belle Treherne awakened also to a new perception of her character, and a

kind of awe possessed her, so masculine seemed her courage, yet so

womanly and feminine her manner. Mrs. Callendar was loud in her

exclamations of delight and wonder at Mrs. Falchion's coolness; and the

bookmaker, with his usual impetuosity, offered to take bets at four to

one that we should all be detained to give evidence in the matter.

Clovelly was silent. He occasionally adjusted his glasses, and looked at

Mrs. Falchion as if he had suddenly come to a full stop in his opinions

regarding her. This, I think, was noticed by her, and enjoyed too, for

she doubtless remembered her conversation with me, in which she had said

that Clovelly thought he understood her perfectly. Colonel Ryder, who was

loyal at all times, said she had the nerve of a woman from Kentucky.

Moreover, he had presence of mind, for he had immediately sent off a

native to inform the authorities of what had occurred; so that before we

had got half-way to the town we were met by policemen running towards us,

followed by a small detachment of Indian soldiers. The officer in command

of the detachment stopped us, and said that the governor would be glad if

we would come to Government House for an hour, while an inquiry was being

held.

To this we cheerfully consented, of course; and, in a room where punkahs

waved and cool claret-cup awaited us, we were received by the governor,

who was full of admiration of Mrs. Falchion. It was plain, however, that

he was surprised at her present equanimity. Had she no nerves at all?

"I can only regret exceedingly," said the governor, "that your visit to

Aden has had such a tragical interruption; but since it has occurred, I

am glad to have the privilege of meeting a lady so brave as Mrs.

Falchion."--The bookmaker had introduced us all with a naivete that, I am

sure, amused the governor, as it certainly did his aide-de-camp. "We

should not need to fear the natives if we had soldiers as fearless," his

excellency continued.

At this point the inquiry began, and, after it was over, the governor

said that there the matter ended so far as we were concerned, and then he

remarked gallantly that the Government of Aden would always remain Mrs.

Falchion's debtor. She replied that it was a debt she would be glad to

preserve unsettled for ever. After this pretty exchange of compliments,

the governor smiled, and offered her his arm to the door, where our 'char

a bans' awaited us.

So impressed was the bookmaker with the hospitable reception the governor

had given us, that he offered him his cigar-case with its contents, said

he hoped they would meet again, and asked his excellency if he thought of

coming to Australia. The governor declined the cigars graciously, ignored

the hoped-for pleasure of another meeting, and trusted that it might fall

to his lot to visit Australia some day. Thereupon the bookmaker insisted

on the aide-de-camp accepting the cigar-case, and gave him his

visiting-card. The aide-de-camp lost nothing by his good-humoured

acceptance, if he smoked, because, as I knew, the cigars were very good

indeed. Bookmakers, gamblers and Jews are good judges of tobacco. And the

governor's party lost nothing in dignity because, as the traps wheeled

away, they gave a polite little cheer for Mrs. Falchion. I, at first, was

fearful how Belle Treherne would regard the gaucheries of the bookmaker,

but I saw that he was rather an object of interest to her than otherwise;

for he was certainly amusing.

As we drove through Aden, a Somauli lad ran from the door of a house, and

handed up a letter to the driver of my trap. It bore my name, and was

handed over to me. I recognised the handwriting. It was that of Boyd

Madras. He had come ashore by Hungerford's aid in the night. The letter

simply gave an address in England that would always find him, and stated

that he intended to take another name.