XXVII
THE BAG OF LIGHT
Rebekah, having excused herself from three ladies, her guests, alone inher room opened her letter.
Glanced first at the "R. H.", and was not surprised. He had "escaped",had "come into great power": that seemed natural; but he "summoned" herto meet him, and she saw no connection between his "great power" and hisright to summon her.
She held the paper to a fire, and, as it began to burn, in a panicof flurry extinguished the edge, and hustled it into her bosom; thenperambulated; then fell to a chair-edge with staring gaze; then, rockingher head which she had dropped upon a little table, moaned: "He ismad...."
"My flames of fire! Rebekah! I am dying...."
He suffered; and a pussy's wail mewed from her; but with a gasp of angerwhich said "Ho!" she sprang straight, and went ranging, with a stampinggait, through the chamber, filling it with passion. "I _won't go_!" shewent with fixed lips, as something within her whispered: "You must".
To escape herself, she went again to see what had happened with regardto the convict, whose face would carry to the grave the scars of hernails.
There were no signs of any disturbance; and she asked a footman: "Whereis the man who was here?"
"With your father in the study".
That seemed a strange proceeding: she felt a touch of alarm for herfather, and, passing again by the study, peeped; could see nothing forthe key, but heard voices.
This messenger of Hogarth, she next thought, was a criminal: he mightbetray...so she stole into an adjacent room, to peep by a side door ofthe study, and though a key projecting toward her barred her vision, thetalkers were near this point, and she could hear.
"The diamond block", O'Hara said, "is the same which he rolled acrossthe bridge this morning; to that I'll swear".
"Then it must be the very same block he showed me", Frankl said in awhisper; "that thing was worth millions....!"
"Undoubtedly it was the same".
"Oh, but Lord", groaned the Jew in an anguish of self-deprecation,"where were my _eyes_? where were my _wits_? I must have been_dreaming_! No, that's hard!"
"Well--_nil desperandum_! Let us be acting, sir!"
"My own land--!"
"They are still safe enough: come--"
"He may have lost one or two--in his excitement. Thousands gone! He mayhave hidden some!"
"Tut, he has hidden none", said O'Hara; "we may have all. Let us make amove".
"But he is a strong man, this Hogarth. Why do you object to theassistance of the police?"
"What have the police to do with such a matter? Hogarth would simplybribe. And there are three of us--"
"Who is this Harris?"
"He is a Cockney--assassin".
Frankl took snuff, with busy pats at alternate nostrils.
"What will you tell him is in the bag?"
"Anything--rings--something prized by you for sentimental reasons. Weoffer him a thousand--two thousand pounds. And he will not fail. Hestrikes like lightning".
"And we share--how?"
"Come--let us not talk of that again, sir. What could be more generousthan my offer? You divide the diamonds into two heaps, and I chooseone; or I divide, you choose; and, before I leave you, you give me adeclaration that it was by your contrivance that I escaped prison, andthat the gems which I have, once yours, are duly made over to me".
"And you collar half!" gibed the Jew with an ogle of guile; "that'sabout as cool a stroke of business as I've come across. You don'ttake into account that the whole is mine, if the concern fell, as youconfess, on my own land! And just ask yourself the question: what is toprevent me handing you over this minute to the police, and grabbing thelot? Only I'm not that sort of man--"
O'Hara drew a revolver.
"You talk to me as though I was a schoolboy, sir", said he sternly. "Begood enough to learn to respect me. I am not less a man of the worldthan you are, and quite competent to safeguard my own interests.Supposing I was weak enough to permit you to send for the police, themoment they had me I should tell of Hogarth in hiding; they would go forhim, and he, after bribing, may be trusted to take wing with the stones,leaving you whistling. Or perhaps you would care to tackle himin person? He would wheel you by the beard round his arm like aCatherine-wheel, I do assure you. All this you see well, and pretend notto. Do let us be honest with each other!"
"Well, I don't want to be hard", said Frankl, looking sideward anddownward, plotting behind an unwrinkled brow, intending to have everyone of the diamonds; so did O'Hara, who already had his plot.
"No, don't be hard", said O'Hara: "_I_ am not. I give you anincalculable fortune; I take the same. Live and let live! Why should twoshrewd old fellows like you and me be like the dog which, wanting twobones, lost the one he had? Come, now--give me your hand on it".
"Well, I'm hanged if you are not right!" cried Frankl, looking up withdiscovery: "Share and share alike, and shame the devil! That's the kindof little man I am, frank, bluff, and stalwart--Ha! ha! Give me yourhand on it, sir!"
"Ha! ha! you are very kind. That is the only way--absolute sincerity--"and they shook hands, hob-nobbing and fraternizing, with laughs andlittle nods, like cronies.
"Stop--I'll just ring for a drop of brandy--" said Frankl.
"No! no ringing!--thanks, thanks, no brandy--"
"Well, you are as cautious as they make them. Oh, perfectly right, youknow--perfectly right"--he touched O'Hara's chest--"not a word to sayagainst that. I am the same kind of man myself--"
"Come; are you for making a move?"
"Agreed. Where is my hat? I suppose a man may get his hat!--ha! ha!--Ican't very well go in this cap---"
"You use mine--with the greatest pleasure. I do not need--Ah? quite thefit, quite the fit".
"Why, so it is. Ha! ha! why, it's a curate's hat, and--_I'm a Jew_!"
"Excellent, excellent, ha! ha!"
So they made merry, and, with the bitter lip-corners of forcedmerriment, went out, while Rebekah, who had caught a great deal of thatdialogue, crouched a long time there, agitated, uncertain what to do.
That her father should coolly look on at an assassination for afortune was no revelation to her: she had long despised, yet, with aninconsistency due to the tenderness of Jewish family ties, still lovedhim; the notion of appealing to the police, therefore, who might ruinHogarth, too, did not enter her head.
She ran and wrote: "Your life and bag of gems are _at this moment_ indanger"; and sent it by a mounted messenger addressed to "The Guest atthe Paper Shop".
But in twenty minutes the messenger returned to her with it, Hogarthhaving gone to the _rendezvous_ at the elm--long before the appointedtime.
When, accordingly, Frankl, O'Hara, and Harris arrived at the paper-shopback yard, and Harris had stolen up the back stairs, he presently, tothe alarm and delight of the others, sent a whisper from the window: "Noone 'ere as I can see!"
And the search for the diamonds was short: for Hogarth had actually leftthe bag containing them on the trunk, and Frankl and O'Hara returnedwith it to Westring, holding it out at arm's length, one with the right,one with the left hand, like standard-bearers.
Hogarth, meantime, was striding about the elm, and once fell to hisknees, adoring a vision, and once, at a fancied step, his teeth-edgeschattered.
Rebekah! He called, groaned, hissed that name, while his to-and-froranging quickened to a trot.
And now, fancying that he heard a call "_Come !_" he stood startled,struck into a twisting enquiry to the four winds; but could not locatethe call, ran hither and thither, saw no one.
"Come to me, little sister", he wailed tenderly, while to swallow was adoubtful spasm for him, her name a mountain in his bosom.
When he was certain that it must be nearer ten than "nine", he set outin the sway of a turbulent impulse to spurt for the Hall: but as hereached the point of proximity between path and park, just there whereher father had stood that morning he saw her patiently waiting--eversince that "_Come!_"
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bsp; He flew, and was about to skip up the bank, when, with forbidding arm,she cried: "Don't you approach me!"--and he stood checked and abject,one foot planted on the bank, looking up, ready to dart for her in herOriental dress, flimsy, baggy at the girdle, her arms bare, her fingersclasped before her, making convex the two tassels of the girdle, fromher ears depending circles of gold large enough to hoop with, a saffronheaddress, stuck backward, showing her hair in front, falling upon ashawl which sheltered her frank recumbent shoulders. She did not seeHogarth at all, but stood averted, implacable, unapproachable, lookingacross the park, while Hogarth occupied a long silence in gazing up towhere, like a show, she stood, illumined by the moon.
At last he sent to her the whisper, "Did you call just now? Did you say'_Come_'?"
"What is it you want with me, Hogarth? You have '_summoned_' me: but bevery quick".
"I told you: I am wealthier than all the princes--"
"Well, let me inform you that your life is in danger here; if you are awise man, you will not fail to leave this neighbourhood this night".
"But no one knows--"
"It is known, Hogarth: your friends are false, and your enemies crafty.You will have to walk with your eyes open, my friend. What will you dowith all the money?"
"I will buy the world, because _you_ are in it".
Now she flashed upon him one glance, in which there was astonishment,and judgment.
"You said that so like my father! Hogarth among the dealers? I thoughtyou would be more squeamish, and arduous, and complex".
"But if a man is famished, he is not complex, he runs to the baker's.You can have no conception how I perish! And I cannot be contradicted-Iclaim you-I have the right-I am the lord of this lower world--"
"But you do not see the effect of your words: you disappoint me Richard.How of what the poet sings:
...this is my favoured lot, My exaltation to afflictions high?
That is more in your line, you know, but you are dazzled, Hogarth-fie.To _buy me_! And how would you like me afterwards, having renounced myobligations? And how would I like _you_-I whose name is Rebekah, whowill mate with none but a wrestler, a fellow of heroic muscle? I feelcertain that you are dazzled. It is natural, I suppose--But are all thepeople in the world so happy, that _you_ too, can find nothing to occupyyou but the market-place, with its buying and selling? And to buy _me_?I am _not_ for sale! How dare you, Hogarth?"
With this she walked off; but, having a creepy instinct in her backthat he was on the point to follow, catch, and snatch her away, she spanround again, crying: "Do not follow me! Mind you! If you like, be atthe elm-tree again at half-past ten-and I will communicate with you.Goodbye--"
Now she did not once look back; and he had not heard that fainting"Good-bye", it had fainted so.
He found himself presently in his room at the paper-shop, and lay bitingthe bed-clothes, spasm after spasm traversing his body.
Then, turning on his back, he lay with his face now toward the trunk,and a little clock ticked ten more minutes before the fact stole intohis consciousness that the bag was not on the trunk.
For some time the disappearance was too stupendous to find room in hisbrain. He got up and paced, stunned, just conscious of a feeling ofunease.
Now he was searching the room mechanically. It was not there....
And again he paced, tapping his top teeth with a finger-nail; and now hecalled down the stair: "Have you seen, Mrs. Sturgess, the calico bag yougave me to-day?"
"Why, no".
"Has anyone been in my room?"
"Why, _no_, sir! Only myself".
Again he began to pace, and suddenly the grand reality stabbed his brainlike a dagger: he was poor....
O'Hara! Where was he....?
His forehead dropped upon the mantel-board, and he leant staringdownward there, a miserable man.
But suddenly the man said quietly aloud, raising himself: "All right:better so. O, I have not been myself--virtue has gone out of me--!"
Presently he noticed that it was near the hour of her unexpected_rendezvous_ under the elm....
And nearly all the way he ran--wild to see her again--until he nearedthe tree, when, descrying a female form, he came stooping with humility,but soon saw that it was a girl, her head in a shawl, whom he did notknow.
And she, coming to meet him, said: "What is your name, sir?"
"Why?"
"I am Miss Frankl's messenger".
"My name is Hogarth".
"Will you turn this way that I may see your eyes?...All right: MissFrankl directs me to give you these".
The girl, who had been weighted down toward the left, handed him anenvelope, and a steel box.
Never was he so bewildered! On the way home, he observed that the boxhad three knobs of gold, surrounded by rays, and, inlaid in the top, theletters "R. F."; when he tore open the envelope in his room he found inpencil on one half-sheet:
"Turn the 10 of the right knob to the ray 5; the 5 of the middle knobto the ray 0; the 15 of the left knob to the ray 10: and the box willopen".
No more. When he had set wildly to work, and the lid turned back, hiseyes beheld the calico bag.
Rebekah had, in fact, before setting out to the _rendezvous_ at nine,seen her father and O'Hara return to the Hall, bearing the bag betweenthem; and, she, crouching at the side door, as before, had heard themtalk, arranging details. Her father had then said that before he couldwrite any document, he must either ring or go search for paper: andsuddenly she had heard an oath, a thud, a scuffle, had turned thekey, softly entered, seen the men struggling against the other door, arevolver, held by the muzzle, in O'Hara's hand; and before she had beensighted by the two desperate men, had had the bag, lying near on anescritoire, and was gone. She had then sent some servants to the scene,and hurried to her chamber.
Later she had heard that O'Hara had escaped through a window, and thather father was raving below in a sort of fit: for Frankl supposed thatO'Hara had the jewels, as O'Hara that Frankl had them; and after tendingher father, she had dashed out to the _rendezvous_, the jewels then inher room.
As for Hogarth, he did not neglect her warning: and, having left a notefor O'Hara, telling him where to find him, at Loveday's, took a latetrain southwards.
By what marvel Rebekah had become possessed of the jewels he did noteven seek to fathom; but one of his uppermost feelings was shame forhaving suspected O'Hara of stealing them: and for years could never begot to believe in the bad faith of the prelate, his tutor.
Near midnight, on reaching the obscure townlet of Hadston, he there tooka bed--not to sleep.
At the tiny inn-window he made periodic arrivals, looked out unseeing ata cart, a wall of flint and Flemish brick, and a moonlit country, thenweighed anchor, and swerved away on another voyage; then arrived anew,looked out, saw nothing, and weighed.
He walked now in the dark of the valley of humiliation, with those wordswritten in flame in his brain: "This is my favoured lot--my exaltationto afflictions high": he had allowed a woman to say them to him, and hewent "_I!_"
He, the richest of men, was, therefore, that night poorer than anywretch, brought right down, naked, exposed to death, and he filled thatchamber with his moans: "God have mercy upon me! a vulgar rich man...adreadful contented clown...."
But toward morning he lay calmer, weeping like Peter, and at peace.
Being without money, he sent the next day a small stone to Loveday,asking him to sell it; also to meet old Tom Bates on the nightappointed, and keep him till he, Hogarth, came to London.
Four days later he received the money in the name of "Mr. Beech",but the old Bates had not kept the _rendezvous_; and a month later adetective agency discovered that the fisher was dead.
At Hadston Hogarth remained two months, the most occupied man anywhere,yet passing for a lounger in the townlet.
Here and now he was descended deep into himself, aspiring to greatness,set on high designs; and, as the days passed, his thoughts more and moretook form, though
sometimes, with a sudden heart-pang, he would flinchand shrink, pierced by a consciousness of the unwieldy thing which hewas at; and he would mutter: "I _must_ be mad". Anon he would start andcower at a distinct sound of cannon in his ears.
Usually, during the day, he had with him an atlas, a pair of compasses.
One day he took train, to see the sea.
Another day, happening to look into the goat-hair trunk, he saw thataccount-book, containing the addresses of the signatories to his old"association", and was overjoyed. "Quite a little army", he tenderlysaid: "I won't forget them".
After two months he left Hadston for London, having in his head a newage hatched.