CHAPTER XXXIV
IN THE SAME GRAVE WITH SKAGGS
Down in the village of Aratat there were signs of a vast commotion.Early risers and the guards were flying from house to house, shoutingthe news. The citizens piled from their couches and raced pell-mell intothe streets, unbelieving, demoralised. With one accord they rushed tothe water front--men, women and children. Consternation was succeeded byutter panic. Rasula's wild shouts went unheeded. He screamed and foughtto secure order among his people, but his efforts were as nought againstthe storm of terror that confronted him.
Outside the harbour lay the low, savage-looking ship. Its guns werepointed directly at the helpless town; its decks were swarming withwhite-clothed men; it was alive and it glowered with rage in its evileyes.
The plague was forgotten! The strategy that had driven off the ships ofpeace was lost in the face of this ugly creature of war. No mangrovelled on the dock with the convulsions of death; no man hearkened tothe bitter, impotent words of the single wise man among them. Rasula'sreign of strategy was ended.
Howling like a madman, he tried to drive the company's tug out to meetthe sailors and urge them to keep away from the pest-ridden island. Itwas like pleading with a mountain avalanche.
"They will not fire! They dare not!" he was shrieking, as he dashed backand forth along the dock. "It is chance! They do not come for Chase!Believe in me! The tug! The tug! They must not land!" But others wereraging even more wildly than he, and they were calling upon Allah forhelp, for mercy; they were shrieking maledictions upon themselves andscreaming praises to the sinister thing of death that glowered upon themfrom its spaceless lair.
The crash of the long-unused six-pounder at the chateau, followed almostimmediately by a great roar from one of the cruiser's guns, brought thepanic to a crisis.
The islanders scattered like chaff before the wind, looking wild-eyedover their shoulders in dread of the pursuing cannon-ball, dodging inand out among the houses and off into the foothills.
Rasula, undaunted but crazed with disappointment, stuck to his colourson the deserted dock. He cursed and raved and begged. In time, two orthree of the more canny, realising that safety lay in an early peaceoffering, ventured out beside him. Others followed their example andstill others slunk trembling to the fore, their voices ready to protestinnocence and friendship and loyalty.
They had heard of the merciless American gunner and they knew, in theirsouls, that he could shoot the island into atoms before nightfall.
The native lawyer harangued them and cursed them and at last broughtthem to understand, in a feeble way, that no harm could come to them ifthey faced the situation boldly. The Americans would not land on Britishsoil; it would precipitate war with England. They would not dare toattempt a bombardment: Chase was a liar, a mountebank, a dog! Aftershouting himself hoarse in his frenzy of despair, he finally succeededin forcing the men to get up steam in the company's tug. All this time,the officers of the American warship were dividing their attentionbetween land and sea. Another vessel was coming up out of the mistyhorizon. The men on board knew it to be a British man-of-war! At laststeam was up in the tug. A hundred or more of the islanders had venturedfrom their hiding places and were again huddled upon the dock.
Suddenly the throng separated as if by magic, opening a narrow path downwhich three white men approached the startled Rasula. A hundred eagerhands were extended, a hundred voices cried out for mercy, a hundredMohammedans beat their heads in abject submission.
Hollingsworth Chase, Lord Deppingham and a familiar figure in anill-fitting red jacket and forage cap strode firmly, defiantly betweenthe rows of humble Japatites. Close behind them came a tall, resolutegrenadier of the Rapp-Thorberg army.
"Make way there, make way!" Mr. Bowles was crying, brandishing theantique broadsword that had come down to Wyckholme from the dark ages."Stand aside for the British Government! Make way for the American!"
Rasula's jaw hung limp in the face of this amazing exhibition of courageon the part of the enemy. He could not at first believe his eyes.Hoarse, inarticulate cries came from his froth-covered lips. He wasglaring insanely at the calm, triumphant face of the man from Brodney's,who was now advancing upon him with the assurance of a conqueror.
"You see, Rasula, I have called for the cruiser and it has come at mybidding." Turning to the crowd that surged up from behind, cowed andcringing, Chase said: "It rests with you. If I give the word, that shipwill blow you from the face of the earth. I am your friend, people. Iwould you no harm, but good. You have been misled by Rasula. Rasula, youare not a fool. You can save yourself, even now. I am here as theservant of these people, not as their master. I intend to remain hereuntil I am called back by the man who sent me to you. You have----"
Rasula uttered a shriek of rage. He had been crouching back among hiscohorts, panting with fury. Now he sprang forward, murder in his eyes.His arm was raised and a great pistol was levelled at the breast of theman who faced him so coolly, so confidently. Deppingham shouted and tooka step forward to divert the aim of the frenzied lawyer.
A revolver cracked behind the tall American and Rasula stopped in histracks. There was a great hole in his forehead; his eyes were bursting;he staggered backward, his knees gave way; and, as the blood filled thehole and streamed down his face, he sank to the ground--dead!
The soldier from Rapp-Thorberg, a smoking pistol in his hand, the otherraised to his helmet, stepped to the side of Hollingsworth Chase.
"By order of Her Serene Highness, sir," he said quietly.
"Good God!" gasped Chase, passing his hand across his brow. For a fullminute there was no sound to be heard on the pier except the lapping ofthe waves. Deppingham, repressing a shudder, addressed the stunnednatives.
"Take the body away. May that be the end of all assassins!"
* * * * *
The _King's Own_ came alongside the American vessel in less than anhour. Accompanied by the British agent, Mr. Bowles, Chase and Deppinghamleft the dock in the company's tug and steamed out toward the twomonsters. The American had made no move to send men ashore, nor had theBritish agent deemed it wise to ask aid of the Yankees in view of thefact that a vessel of his own nation was approaching.
Standing on the forward deck of the swift little tug, Chaseunconcernedly accounted for the timely arrival of the two cruisers.
"Three weeks ago I sent out letters by the mail steamer, to be deliveredto the English or American commanders, wherever they might be found.Undoubtedly they were met with in the same port. That is why I was sopositive that help would come, sooner or later. It was very simple. LordDeppingham, merely a case of foresightedness. I knew that we'd need helpand I knew that if I brought the cruisers my power over these peoplewould never be disturbed again."
"My word!" exclaimed the admiring Bowles.
"Chase, you may be theatric, but you are the most dependable chap theworld has ever known," said Deppingham, and he meant it.
The warships remained off the harbour all that day. Officers from bothships were landed and escorted to the chateau, where joy reignedsupreme, notwithstanding the fact that the grandchildren of the old menof the island were morally certain that their cause was lost. TheBritish captain undertook to straighten out matters on the island. Heconsented to leave a small detachment of marines in the town to protectChase and the bank, and he promised the head men of the village, whom hehad brought aboard the ship, that no mercy would be shown if he or theAmerican captain was compelled to make a second visit in response to acall for aid. To a man the islanders pledged fealty to the cause ofpeace and justice: they shouted the names of Chase and Allah in the samebreath, and demanded of the latter that He preserve the former's beardfor all eternity.
The _King's Own_ was to convey the liberated heirs, their goods andchattels, their servants and their penates (if any were left inviolate)to Aden, whither the cruiser was bound. At that port a P. & O. steamerwould pick them up. One white man elected to stay on the island wit
hHollingsworth Chase, who steadfastly refused to desert his post untilSir John Brodney indicated that his mission was completed. That one manwas the wearer of the red jacket, the bearer of the King's commission inJapat, the undaunted Mr. Bowles, won over from his desire to sit oncemore on the banks of the Serpentine and to dine forever in the OldCheshire Cheese.
The Princess Genevra, the wistful light deepening hourly in herblue-grey eyes, avoided being alone with the man whom she was leavingbehind. She had made up her mind to accept the fate inevitable; he hadreconciled himself to the ending of an impossible dream. There wasnothing more to say, except farewell. She may have bled in her soul forhim and for the happiness that was dying as the minutes crept on to thehour of parting, but she carefully, deliberately concealed the woundsfrom all those who stood by and questioned with their eyes.
She was a princess of Rapp-Thorberg!
The last day dawned. The sun smiled down upon them. The soft breeze ofthe sea whispered the curse of destiny into their ears; it crooned thesong of heritage; it called her back to the fastnesses where love maynot venture in.
The chateau was in a state of upheaval; the exodus was beginning.Servants and luggage had departed on their way to the dock. Palanquinswere waiting to carry the lords and ladies of the castle down to thesea. The Princess waited until the last moment. She went to him. He wasstanding apart from the rest, coldly indifferent to the pangs he wassuffering.
"I shall love you always," she said simply, giving him her hand."Always, Hollingsworth." Her eyes were wide and hopeless, her lips werewhite.
He bowed his head. "May God give you all the happiness that I wish foryou," he said. "The End!"
She looked steadily into his eyes for a long time, searching his soulfor the hope that never dies. Then she gently withdrew her hands andstood away from him, humbled in her own soul.
"Yes," she whispered. "Good-bye."
He straightened his shoulders and drew a deep breath through compressednostrils. "Good-bye! God bless you," was all that he said.
She left him standing there; the wall between them was too high, tooimpregnable for even Love to storm.
Lady Deppingham came to him there a moment later. "I am sorry," she saidtenderly. "Is there no hope?"
"There is no hope--for _her_!" he said bitterly. "She was condemned toolong ago."
On the pier they said good-bye to him. He was laughing as gaily and asblithely as if the world held no sorrows in all its mighty grasp.
"I'll look you up in London," he said to the Deppinghams. "Remember, thereal trial is yet to come. Good-bye, Browne. Good-bye, all! You _may_come again another day!"
The launch slipped away from the pier. He and Bowles stood there, sideby side, pale-faced but smiling, waving their handkerchiefs. He feltthat Genevra was still looking into his eyes, even when the launch creptup under the walls of the distant ship.
Slowly the great vessel got under way. The American cruiser was alreadylow on the horizon. There was a single shot from the _King's Own_: areverberating farewell!
Hollingsworth Chase turned away at last. There were tears in his eyesand there were tears in those of Mr. Bowles.
"Bowles," said he, "it's a rotten shame they didn't think to saygood-bye to old man Skaggs. He's in the same grave with us."