The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Old Meerschaum, by David Christie Murray This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: An Old Meerschaum From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) Author: David Christie Murray Release Date: August 1, 2007 [EBook #22206] Last Updated: September 16, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OLD MEERSCHAUM *** Produced by David Widger AN OLD MEERSCHAUM By David Christie Murray From: Coals Of Fire And Other Stories By David Christie Murray In Three Volumes Vol. II. Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly 1882 Contents CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER I. The market-place at Trieste lay in a blaze of colour under the June sunlight. The scent of fruits and flowers was heavy on the air. A faint-hearted breeze which scarcely dared to blow came up from the harbour now and again, and made the heat just bearable. Mr. William Holmes Barndale, of Barndale in the county of Surrey, and King’s Bench Walk-, Temple, sat in shadow in front of a restaurant with his legs comfortably thrust forth and his hat tilted over his eyes. He pulled his tawny beard lazily with one hand, and with the other caressed a great tumbler of iced beer. He was beautifully happy in his perfect idleness, and a sense was upon him of the eternal fitness of things in general. In the absolute serenity of his beatitude he fell asleep, with one hand still lazily clutching his beard, and the other still lingering lovingly near the great tumbler. This was surely not surprising, and on the face of things it would not have seemed that there was any reason for blushing at him. Yet a young lady, unmistakably English and undeniably pretty, gave a great start, beholding him, and blushed celestial rosy red. She was passing along the shady side of the square with papa and mamma, and the start and the blush came in with some hurried commonplace in answer to a commonplace. These things, papa and mamma noted not— good, easy, rosy, wholesome people, who had no great trouble in keeping their heads clear of fancies, and were chiefly engaged just then with devices for keeping cool. Two minutes later, or thereabouts, came that way a young gentleman of whom the pretty young lady seemed a refined and feminine copy, save and except that the young lady was dearly and daintily demure, whilst from this youth impudence and mischief shone forth as light radiates from a lantern. He, pausing before the sleeping Barndale, blushed not, but poked him in the ribs with the end of his walking-stick, and regarded him with an eye of waggish joy, as who should say that to poke a sleeping man in the ribs was a stroke of comic genius whereof the world had never beheld the like. He sat on his stick, cocked Mr. Barndale’s hat on one side, and awaited that gentleman’s waking. Mr. Barndale, languidly stretching himself, arose, adjusted his hat, took a great drink of iced beer, and, being thereby in some degree primed for conversation, spoke. ‘That you, Jimmy?’ said Mr. Barndale. ‘Billy, my boy?’ said the awakener, ‘how are you?’ ‘Thought you were in Oude, or somewhere,’ said Mr. Barndale. ‘Been back six months,’ the other answered. ‘Anybody with you here?’ ‘Yes,’ said the awakener, ‘the Mum, the Pater, and the Kid.’ Mr. Barndale did not look like the sort of man to be vastly shocked at these terms of irreverence, yet it is a fact that his brown and bearded cheeks flushed like any schoolgirl’s. ‘Stopping at the Hotel de la Ville,’ said the awakener, ‘and adoing of the Grand Tower, my pippin. I’m playing cicerone. Come up and have a smoke and a jaw.’ ‘All right,’ said Mr. Barndale languidly. Nobody, to look at him now, would have guessed how fast his heart beat, and how every nerve in his body fluttered. ‘I’m at the same place. When did you come?’ ‘Three hours ago. We’re going on to Constantinople. Boat starts at six.’ ‘Ah!’ said Barndale placidly. ‘I’m going on to Constantinople too.’ ‘Now that’s what I call jolly,’ said the other. ‘You’re going to-night of course?’ ‘Of course. Nothing to stay here for.’ At the door of the hotel stood Barndale’s servant, a sober-looking Scotchman dressed in dark tweed. ‘Come with me, Bob,’ said Barndale as he passed him. ‘See you in the coffee-room in five minutes, Jimmy.’ In his own room Barndale sat down upon the bedside and addressed his servant. ‘I have changed my mind about going home. Go to Lloyd’s office and take places for this evening’s boat to Constantinople. Wait a bit. Let me see what the fare is. There you are. Pack up and get everything down to the boat and wait there until I come.’ The man disappeared, and Barndale joined his friend. He had scarce seated himself when a feminine rustling was heard outside. The door opened, a voice of singular sweetness cried, ‘Jimmy, dear!’ and a young lady entered. It was the young lady who blushed and started when she saw Barndale asleep in front of the restaurant. She blushed again, but held her hand frankly out to him. He rose and took it with more tenderness than he knew of. The eyes of the third person twinkled, and he winked at his own reflection in a mirror. ‘This,’ Barndale said, ‘is not an expected pleasure, and is all the greater on that account. By a curious coincidence I find we are travelling together to Constantinople.’ Her hand still lingered in his whilst he said this, and as he ceased to speak he gave it a little farewell pressure. Her sweet hazel eyes quite beamed upon him, and she returned the pressure cordially. But she answered only— ‘Papa will be very pleased,’ ‘Isn’t it singular,’ said the guilty Barndale with an air of commonplace upon him, ‘that we should all be making this journey together?’ ‘Very singular indeed,’ said pretty Miss Le-land, with so bright a sparkle of mirth in those demure hazel eyes that Barndale, without knowing why, felt himself confounded. Mr. James Leland winked once more at his reflection in the mirror, and was discovered in the act by Barndale, who became signally disconcerted in manner. Miss Leland relieved his embarrassment by taking away her brother for a conference respecting the package of certain treasures purchased a day or two before in Venice. The lone one smoked, and lounged, and waited. He tried to read, and gave it up. He strayed down to the harbour, and, finding his servant solemnly mounting guard over his luggage on board the boat, he himself went aboard and in-spected his berth, and chatted with the steward, in whom he discovered an old acquaintance. But the time went drearily; and Barndale, who was naturally a man to be happy under all sorts of circumstances, suffered all the restlessness, chagrin, and envy with which love in certain of its stages has power to disturb the spirit. He had made up a most heroic mind on this question of Miss Leland some three months ago, and had quite decided that she did not care for him. He wasn’t going to break his heart for a woman who didn’t care for him. Not he. If she be not fair for me, What care I how fair she be? She had made fun of him in her own demure way. He ventured once on a little touch of sentiment, which she never neglected to repeat, when opportunity offered, in his presence. She repeated it with so serious an air, so precisely as if it were an original notion which had just then occurred to her, that Barndale winced under it every time she used it. His mind was quite made up on this matter. He would go away and forget her. He believed she liked him, in a friendly sisterly sort of way, and that made him feel more hopeless. There were evidences enough to convince you or me, had we been there to watch them, that this young lady was caught in the toils of love quite as inextricably as this young gentleman; but, with the pigheaded obstinacy and stupidity incident to his condition, he declined to see it, and voluntarily betook himself to misery, after the manner of young men in love from time immemorial. A maiden who can be caught without chasing is pretty generally not worth catching; and cynics have been known to say that the pleasure of stalking your bride is perhaps the best part of matrimony. This our young Barndale would not have believed. He believed, rather, that the tender hopes and chilling fears of love were among the chief pains of life, and would have laughed grimly if anyone had prophesied that he would ever look back to them with longing regret. We, who are wiser, will not commiserate but envy this young gentleman, remembering the time when those tender hopes and chilling fears were ours—when we were happier in our miseries than we have now the power to be in our joys. The Lelands came at last, and Barndale had got the particular form of love’s misery which he most coveted. The old gentleman was cordial, the old lady was effusive, the awakener was what he had always been, and Lilian was what she had always been to Barndale —a bewildering maddening witchery, namely, which set him fairly beside himself. Let it not be prejudicial to him in your judgment that you see him for the first time under these foolish circumstances. Under other conditions you would find much to admire in him. Even now, if you have any taste for live statuary, you shall admire this upright six feet two inches of finely-modelled bone and muscle. If manly good-nature can make a handsome sun-browned face pleasant to you, then shall Barndale’s countenance find favour in your eyes. Of his manly ways, his good and honest heart, this story will tell you something, though perchance not much. If you do not like Barndale before you part with him, believe me, it is my fault, who tell his story clumsily, and not his. For the lady of his love there might be more to say, if I were one of those clever people who read women. As it is, you shall make your own reading of her, and shall dislike her on your own personal responsibility, or love her for her transparent merits, and for the sake of no stupid analysis of mine. Do you know the Adriatic? It pleases me to begin a love story over its translucent sapphire and under its heavenly skies. I shall rejoice again in its splendours as I hover in fancy over these two impressionable young hearts, to whom a new glamour lives upon its beauties. Papa and Mamma Leland are placidly asleep on the saloon deck, beneath the flapping awning. Leland Junior is carrying on a pronounced flirtation with a little Greek girl, and Lilian and Barndale are each enjoying their own charming spiritual discomforts. They say little, but, like the famous parrot, they think the more. Concerning one thing, however, Mr. Barndale thinks long and deeply, pulling his tawny beard meanwhile. Lilian, gazing with placid-seeming spirit on the deep, is apparently startled by the suddenness of his address. ‘Miss Leland!’ ‘How you startled me!’ she answers, turning her hazel eyes upon him. She has been waiting these last five minutes for him to speak, and knew that he was about it. But take notice that these small deceits in the gentle sex are natural, and by no means immoral. ‘I am disturbed in mind,’ says Barndale, blushing a httle behind his bronze, ‘about an incident of yesterday.’ ‘Conscience,’ says Lilian, calmly didactic, ‘will assert herself occasionally.’ ‘Conscience,’ says Barndale, blushing a httle more perceptibly, ‘has httle to do with this disturbance. Why did you laugh when I said that it was singular that we should be making this pleasant journey together?’ ‘Did I laugh?’ she asked demurely. Then quite suddenly, and with an air of denunciation. ‘Ask James.’ Barndale rises obediently. ‘No, no,’ says the lady. ‘Sit down, Mr. Barndale. I was only joking. There was no reason.’ And now the young lady is blushing. ‘Did I really laugh?’ ‘You smiled,’ says the guilty Barndale. ‘At what?’ inquires she with innocent inadvertency. ‘Oh!’ cries the young fellow, laughing outright, ‘that is too bad. Why did you laugh when I said it was singular?’ ‘I am not prepared,’ she answers, ‘to account for all my smiles of yesterday.’ ‘Then,’ says Barndale, ‘I’ll go and ask Jimmy.’ ‘You will do nothing of the kind.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because you are too polite, Mr. Barndale, to pry into a lady’s secrets.’ ‘There is a secret here, then?’ ‘No.’ ‘You are contradictory, Miss Leland?’ ‘You are obtuse, Mr. Barndale. If there be a secret it is as open as——’ ‘As what?’ ‘As your door was yesterday when you spoke to your servant.’ ‘Then you——?’ ‘Yes,’ responds Miss Lilian, severely. I know you gentlemen. You were going home until you met that idle and dissolute James, by accident. Then you suddenly change your mind, and go out to Constantinople.’ There for a moment she pauses and follows up her victory over the now crimson Barndale with a terrible whisper. ‘On the spree! Oh, you need scarcely look surprised. I have learned your vulgar terms from James.’ ‘I hope I am not so criminal as you fancy,’ says Barndale, finding the proof of his guilt fall less heavily than he had feared. ‘If you were thrice as criminal, this is not the tribunal,’ and she waves her parasol round her feet, ‘at which the felon should be tried.’ ‘But, Miss Leland, if it were not because I met your brother that—I came out here! If there were another reason!’ ‘If there were another reason I confess my smile out of time and apologise for it.’ And therewith she shot him through and through with another smile. It was fatal to both, for he in falling caught her with him. These things have a habit of occurring all at once, and in anything rather than the meditated fashion. ‘Lilian,’ said the young Barndale, inwardly delirious at his own daring and the supernal beauty of her smile, but on the outside of him quite calm and assured, and a trifle masterful, ‘I came because I learned that you were com-ing. If you are displeased with me for that, I will land at Corfu and go home. And bury my misery,’ he added in a tone so hollow and sepulchral that you or I had laughed. Miss Leland sat quite grave with downcast eyes. ‘Are you displeased?’ ‘I have no right to be displeased,’ she murmured. Of course you and I can see quite clearly that he might have kissed her there and then, and settled the business, murmuring ‘Mine own!’ But he was in love, which we are not, and chose to interpret that pretty murmur wrongly. So there fell upon the pair an awkward silence. He was the first to break it. ‘I will land at Corfu,’ he said, with intense penitence. ‘But not—not because of my displeasure,’ she answered; a little too gaily for the gaiety to be quite real. ‘Ah, then!’ he said, catching at this ark of perfect safety, which looked like a straw to his love-blinded eyes, ‘you are not displeased?’ ‘No,’ she answered lightly, still playing with him, now she felt so sure of him, and inwardly melting and yearning over him; ‘I am not displeased.’ ‘But are you pleased?’ said he, growing bolder.’ Are you pleased that I came because you came—because I———?’ There he paused, and she took a demure look at him. He burst out all at once in a whisper— ‘Because I love you?’ She did not answer him; but when next she looked at him he saw that the tears had gathered thickly in her lovely eyes. ‘You are not pained at that,’ he said. ‘I have loved you ever since that day you were at my place in Surrey, when you came down with Jimmy, and my poor old dad was there.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, looking up again, and smiling through the dimness of her eyes, ‘I know.’ And so it came about that, when Leland Senior awoke, Barndale held a conference with him, which terminated in a great shaking of hands. There was another conference between Lilian and her mother, which ended, as it began, in tears, and kisses, and smiles. Tears, and kisses, and smiles made a running accompaniment to that second conference, and tender embraces broke in upon it often. It was settled between them all—papa, and mamma, and the lovers—that they should finish the journey together, and that the marriage should be solemnised a year after their arrival at home. It goes without saying that Barndale looked on this delay with very little approval. But Leland Senior insisted on it stoutly, and carried his point. And even in spite of this the young people were tolerably happy. They were together a good deal, and, in the particular stage at which they had arrived, the mere fact of being together is a bliss and a wonder. Leigh Hunt—less read in these days than he deserves to be—sings truly— Heaven’s in any roof that covers On any one same night two lovers. They went about in a state of Elysian beatitude, these young people. Love worked strange metamorphoses, as he does always. They found new joys in Tennyson, and rejoiced in the wonderful colours of the waves. I am not laughing at them for these things. I first read Tennyson when I was in love, and liked him, and understood him a great deal better than I have been able to do since I came out of Love’s dear bondages. To be in love is a delicious and an altogether admirable thing. I would be in love again to-morrow if I could. You should be welcome to your foolish laugh at my raptures. Ah me! I shall never know those raptures any more; and the follies you will laugh at in me will be less noble, less tender, less innocently beautiful than those of young love. But to them, who were so sweet to each other, the moonlight was a revelation of marvellous sanctity, and the sea was holy by reason of their passionate hearts that hallowed it. CHAPTER II. Incidental mention has been made of the fact that Leland Junior engaged in a pronounced flirtation with a little Greek girl aboard the vessel wherein Barndale made love so stupidly and so successfully. It was out of this incident that the strange story which follows arose. It would not have been easy to tell that story without relating the episode just concluded; and when one has to be tragic it is well to soften the horrors by a little love-making, or some other such emollient. I regret to say that the little Greek girl—who was tyrannously pretty by the way—was as thorough-paced a little flirt as ever yet the psychic philosopher dissected. She had very large eyes, and very pretty lips, and a very saucy manner with a kind of inviting shyness in it. Jimmy Leland’s time had not yet come, or I know no reason why he should not have succumbed to this charming young daughter of Hellas. As it was, he flirted hugely, and cared not for her one copper halfpenny. She was a little taken with him, and was naturally a little indiscreet. Otherwise surely she would never have consented to meet James at the Concordia Garden on the evening of their arrival at Constantinople. He had been in Constantinople before, and was ‘down to the ropes,’ as he preferred to say. He made his appointment with the young lady and kept it, slipping out from Misserie’s, and leaving the other members of his party trifling with their dessert at that dreary table d’hôte, and lost in wonder at the execrable pictures which are painted in distemper upon the walls of that dismal salle à manger. He strolled down the Grande Rue de Pera, drank a liqueur at Valori’s, and turned into the Concordia in the summer dusk. He sat down at one of the little wooden tables, and aired his Turkish before the waiter by orders for vishnap, limoni, and attesh. Then he crossed his legs, lit his cigar, and waited and watched for the little Greek lady. The little Greek lady came not; but in her stead, as he watched the entrance place, appeared the manly form of his chum Barndale, clad in loose white serge. Barndale caught sight of Leland almost at the moment of his own entrance, and took a seat beside him. ‘Lilian has gone to bed,’ said Barndale, ‘and I came in here by accident. Glad I found you.’ He looked about him with no great interest. The stream of people flowed round and round the little circle, and repeated itself once in five minutes or thereabouts, until he got to know nearly all the faces in the crowd. He noted one face especially, where many were notable. It was the face of a Greek of a very severe and commanding type, shadowed in some strange way by a look which made the owner of the face absolutely irritating to Barndale. There are some opposites in nature—human nature—which can only meet to hate each other. These two crossed glances once, and each was displeased with what he saw in the other. The Greek saw a handsome, good- natured, bronzed face, the thoughtful eyes whereof looked at him with an expression of curiosity and analysis. The Englishman saw a pair of languid eyes, which flashed instantaneous defiance and anger back to scrutiny. The Greek went by, and in his after passages looked no more at Barndale, who continued to watch him with an unaccountable, disliking regard. The crowd had completed its circle some half score of times, and Barndale missed his Greek from it. Turning to address Leland, he missed him too. He rose and mingled with the circling procession, and listened to the music of the band, and speculated idly on the people who surrounded him, as lazy and unoccupied men will at times. Suddenly, in the shadow of the projecting orchestra, he caught sight of a figure which he fancied was familiar to him. Scarcely had he noticed it when it was joined by another figure, recognisable at once even in that deep shadow—Mr. James Leland. And the other personage was of course the pretty little Greek girl. ‘No affair of mine,’ said Barndale, who was slow to meddle, even in thought, with other people’s doings; ‘but neither wise nor right on Jimmy’s side,’ He walked round the little circle discontentedly, thinking this matter over with deepening displeasure. When he came to the orchestra again the handsome Greek was there, with an expression so devilish on his face that Barndale regarded him with amazement. Demetri Agryopoulo, salaried hanger-on to the Persian embassy, was glaring like a roused wild beast at these two shadowy figures in the shadow of the orchestra. The band was crashing away at the overture to ‘Tannhäuser,’ the people were laughing and chattering as they circled, and not an eye but Barndale’s regarded this drama in the corner. The Greek’s hand was in his bosom, where it clutched something with an ugly gesture. His face was in the sideway glare of the footlights which illumined the orchestra. Leland, unconscious of observation, stooped above the girl and chatted with her. He had one arm about her waist. She was nestling up to him in a trustful sort of way. Barndale’s eyes were on the Greek, and every muscle in his body was ready for the spring which he knew might have to be made at any minute. Leland stooped lower, and kissed the face upturned to his. At that second the band gave its final crash, and dead silence fell. Out of that dead silence came a shriek of wrath, and hatred, and anguish from Demetri Agryopoulo’s lips, and he leaped into the shadow with a hand upraised, and in the hand a blade that glittered as he raised it, One impulse seemed to shoot forth the jealous Greek and his watcher, and before Demetri Agryopoulo could form the faintest notion as to how the thing had happened, a sudden thunderbolt seemed launched against him, and he was lying all abroad with a sprained wrist. The stiletto flew clean over the wall, so swift and dexterous was the twist which Barndale gave the murderous hand that held it. ‘Get the girl away,’ said Barndale rapidly to Leland. The crowd gathered round, alarmed, curious, eager to observe. Barndale helped the Greek to his feet. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked. Demetri glared at him, felt his sprained right wrist with his left hand, picked up his hat, shook off the dust from his disordered clothes, and went his way without a word. Barndale went his way also. The band crashed out again, and the crowd once more began its circle. When a torpedo is lowered into the sea, the wound it makes in the water is soon healed. But the torpedo goes on and explodes by-and-by, with terrible likelihood of damage. Barndale came down heavily on Leland, in the latter’s bedroom at the hotel, that night. ‘Well,’ said Jimmy, in sole answer to his friend’s remonstrance and blame; ‘there’s one thing about the matter which may be looked on as a dead certainty. The beggar would have had my blood if it hadn’t been for you, old man. It’s only one more good turn out of a million, Billy, but I shan’t forget it.’ With that he arose and shook Barndale’s hand. ‘What did you do with the girl?’ asked Barndale. ‘Took her home. The Bloke who had such strong objections to me is her sweetheart. He’s engaged to her; but she says she hates him, and is afraid of him. She’ll be more afraid of him now than ever, and with better reason. I suppose I shall have to stop here a time, and see that she isn’t murdered. Suppose I went to that Greek sweep, Billy—I’ve got his address—and explained to him politely that it was all a mistake, and that I’m sorry I went poaching on his manor, and told him that if he liked to have a pot at me he’d be quite welcome! D’ye think that would be of any use, old man?’ ‘Leave ill alone!’ said Barndale, pulling solemnly away at his pipe. ‘I can’t,’ answered Leland. ‘That cove’s likelier to murder her than not, if he hasn’t got me to murder. Look here, Billy, I’ll marry the girl.’ ‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Barndale. ‘What do you know about the girl?’ ‘Lots,’ answered the imperturbable James. ‘Highly connected. Lots of tin. Character irreproachable. That elderly Bulgarian party, Kesanlyk Attar of Roses man, knew all about her. The fat Bloke aboard the boat. You know.’ ‘He won’t hurt her,’ said Barndale, thinking of the Greek lover, ‘and you’re well out of it. Why should you marry the girl? There’s nothing worse than I know, is there?’ ‘There’s nothing at all in it but that confounded meeting at the Concordia.’ ‘Keep out of the way of the man in future,’ Barndale counselled his friend,’ and leave him and his ladylove to make this matter up between them. That’ll all blow over in time.’ With that he said good-night, and rose to go. At the door he turned and asked— ‘Who is the man?’ Leland produced his pocket-book, searched for a page, found it, and handed it over to. Barndale. There, in a delicate but tremulous hand, was written, ‘Demetri Agryopoulo, Hotel Misserie, Grande Rue de Pera.’ ‘He lives in this house,’ said Barndale gravely. ‘Lock your door before you go to bed.’ Leland took his advice. The next morning at table d’hôte they met the Greek. He was evidently well known at the table, and was popular. His right wrist was bandaged, and in answer to many friendly inquiries, he said it had been sprained by a fall. He never looked at either Barndale or Leland, but chatted with his friends in a free and unembarrassed way which extorted the admiration of the two Englishmen, who were both somewhat silent and uncomfortable. But in Lilian’s society it was not possible for Barndale to be gravely thoughtful just now. The business of the day was a trip to the Sweet Waters of Europe. Jimmy, who had been caught by that charming title on a former visit, proclaimed the show a swindle, and the Sweet Waters a dreary and dirty canal; but Lilian and her mother must needs go and see what everybody else went to see; and so an open vehicle having with infinitude of trouble been procured, and George Stamos, best of dragomans and staunchest of campaigning comrades, being engaged, Barndale and Leland mounted and rode behind the carriage. Papa Leland, in white serge and a big straw hat with a bigger puggaree on it, winked benevolent in the dazzling sunlight.’ The party crawled along the Grande Rue, and once off its execrable pavement took the road at a moderately good pace, saw the sights, enjoyed the drive, and started for home again, very much disappointed with the Sweet Waters, and but poorly impressed with the environs of Constantinople on the whole. On the return journey an accident happened which sent grief to Barn-dale’s soul. Five or six years ago, wandering aimlessly in Venice, Barndale had an adventure. He met a sculptor, a young Italian, by name Antoletti, a man of astonishing and daring genius. This man was engaged on a work of exquisite proportions—‘Madeline and Porphyro’ he called it. He had denied himself the very necessaries of life, as genius will, to buy his marble and to hire his studio. He had paid a twelvemonth’s rent in advance, not daring to trust hunger with the money. He lived, poor fellow, by carving meerschaum pipes for the trade, but he lived for ‘Madeline and Porphyro’ and his art. It took Barndale a long time to get into this young artist’s confidence; but he got there at last, and made a bid for ‘Madeline and Porphyro,’ and paid something in advance for it, and had the work completed. He sold it to a connoisseur at an amazing profit, handed that profit to young Antoletti, and made a man of him. ‘What can I do for you?’ the artist asked him with all his grateful Italian soul on fire, and the tears sparkling in his beautiful Italian eyes. Barn- dale hesitated awhile: ‘You won’t feel hurt,’ he said at length, ‘if I seem to ask too small a thing. I’m a great smoker, and I should like a souvenir now I’m going away. Would you mind carving me a pipe, now? It would be pleasant to have a trifle like that turned out by the hands of genius. I should prize it more than a statue.’ ‘Ah!’ said Antoletti, beaming on him, ‘ah, signor! you shall have it. It shall be the last pipe I will ever carve, and I will remember you whilst I carve it.’ So the pipe was carved—a work of exquisitely intricate and delicate art. On the rear of the bowl, in view of the smoker, was a female face with a wreath of flowers about the forehead, and with flowers and grapes hanging down in graceful intermingling with flowing bands of hair. These flowers ran into ragged weeds and bedraggled-looking grasses on the other side, and from these grinned a death’s head. In at the open mouth of the skull and out at the eyes, and wrapped in sinuous windings at the base, coiled a snake. The pipe was not over large, for all its wealth of ornamentation. Barndale had hung over it when he smoked it first with the care of an affectionate nurse over a baby. It had rewarded his cares by colouring magnificently until it had grown a deep equable ebony everywhere. Not a trace of burn or scratch defaced its surface, and no touch of its first beauty was destroyed by use. Apart from its memories, Barndale would not have sold that pipe except at some astounding figure, which nobody would ever have been likely to bid for it. The precious souvenir was in his pocket, snug in its case. In an evil hour he drew it out, tenderly filled it and lit it. He and Leland were riding at a walk, and there seemed no danger, when suddenly his horse shied violently, and with the shock crash went Barndale’s teeth through the delicate amber, and the precious pipe fell to the roadway. Barndale was down in a second, and picked it up in two pieces. The stem was broken within an inch of the marvellous bowl. He lamented over it with a chastened grief which here and there a smoker and an enthusiast will understand. The pathos of the situation may be caviare to the general, but the true amateur in pipes will sympathise with him. I have an ugly old meerschaum of my own which cheered me through a whole campaign, and, poor as I am, I would not part with it or break it for the price of this story. Barndale was displaying his mangled darling to Papa Leland in the salle à manger, when Demetri Agryopoulo came in with a friend and went out again after a stay of two or three minutes. Barndale did not notice him, but Jimmy met him point-blank at the door, and made way for him to pass. The two friends crossed over to Stamboul and went to the bazaar with their dragoman, and there chaffered with a skilled old Turkish artificer who asked just ten times what he meant to take for the job, and finally took it at only twice his bottom price. A silver band was all it needed to restore it, and it was promised that the work should be done and the pipe ready to be called for at noon on the morrow. It chanced that as the friends left the bazaar they ran full against their Greek enemy, who raised his hat with well-dissembled rage, and stalked on. The Greek by ill hap passed the stall of the man to whom the precious pipe had been entrusted. Barn-dale had smoked this remarkable pipe that morning in the Greek’s view in the reading-room, and Demetri knew it again at a glance. It lay there on the open stall in its open case. Now Demetri Agryopoulo was not a thief, and would have scorned theft under common circumstances. But, for revenge, and its sweet sake, there was no baseness to which he would not stoop. The stall’s phlegmatic proprietor drowsed with the glass mouthpiece of his narghilly between his lips. The opposite shops were empty. Not a soul observed. Demetri Agryopoulo put forth his hand and seized the pipe. The case closed with a little snap, the whole thing went like lightning into his breast pocket, and he sauntered on. He had heard Barndale’s lament to Leland Senior: ‘I wouldn’t have done it,’ said Barndale, ‘for a hundred pounds—for five hundred. It was the most valued souvenir I have.’ So Agryopoulo Bey marched off happy in his revengeful mind. There was quite a whirlwind of emotion in the old Turk’s stall at noon on the following day. The precious wonderful pipe, souvenir of dead Antoletti, greatest of modern sculptors, had disappeared, none could say whither. The old Turk was had up before the British Consul; but his character for honesty, his known wealth, the benevolence of his character, his own good honest old face, all pleaded too strongly for him. He was ordered to pay the price set on the pipe; but Barndale refused to take a price for it, and the old artificer and tradesman thereupon thanked him with flowing and beautiful Oriental courtesy. It was settled that the pipe had been stolen from the stall by some passer-by, but, as a matter of course, no suspicion fell upon the Greek. Why should it? When the time came for the little party to leave Constantinople, and to take the boat for Smyrna, Barndale and his friend went first aboard with packages of Eastern produce bought for Lilian; and Lilian herself with her father and mother followed half-an-hour later, under the care of the faithful George, whom I delight to remember. The Greek was aboard when the two young Englishmen reached the boat. To their surprise he addressed them. Lifting his hat formally he said, in admirable English: ‘Gentlemen, our quarrel is not over, but it can wait for a little time. We shall meet again.’ With that he bowed and turned away. Leland ran after him, and, uncovering, stood bareheaded before him. ‘I owe you an apology,’ he said. ‘I am extremely sorry and very much ashamed of my part in the quarrel.’ ‘I care little for your shame,’ said Demetri Agryopoulo, with his voice quite low and calm and his eyes ablaze. ‘I do not care about your shame, but you shall live to be more sorry than you are.’ He went down the ladder by the side of the boat, and was pulled away in a caique. As he went he laughed to himself, and pulled out Barndale’s pipe—remembrancer of his mean triumph, since repaired by his own hands. He filled and lit it, smoking calmly as the sturdy caiquejee pulled him across the Golden Horn. Suddenly the caique fouled with another, and there came a volley of Turkish oaths and objurgations. The Greek looked up, and saw Miss Leland in the other boat. Her eyes were fixed upon him and the pipe. He passed his hand lazily over the bowl and took the pipe indolently from his lips, and addressed himself to the caiquejee. The boats got clear of each other. Lilian, coming aboard the boat, could not get speech with Barndale until the steamer was well under way. By then, she had time to think the matter over, and had come to the conclusion that she would say nothing about it. For, womanlike, she was half jealous of the pipe, and she was altogether afraid of two things—first, that Barndale would leave her to go back to Constantinople; and next, that the Greek and he would enter on a deadly quarrel. For she had a general belief that all Orientals were bloodthirsty. But the meerschaum pipe was not yet done with, and it played its part in a tragedy before its tale was fully told. CHAPTER III. The English party reached London in the middle of July, and made haste out of it—Lilian and her elders to peaceful Suffolk, where they had a house they visited rarely; and her lover and her brother to Thames Ditton, where these two inseparables took a house-boat, aboard which they lived in Bohemian and barbaric ease, like rovers of the deep. Here they fished, and swam, and boated, and grew daily more and more mahogany coloured beneath the glorious summer sun. They cooked their own steaks, and ate with ravenous appetites, and enjoyed themselves like the two wholesome young giants they were, and grew and waxed in muscle, and appetite, and ruddiness until a city clerk had gone wild with envy, beholding them. Their demands for beer amazed the landlord of the historic ‘Swan,’ and their absorption of steaks left the village butcher in astonishment. But in the midst of all this a purpose came upon Barndale quite suddenly one day as he lay beneath the awning, intent on doing nothing. He had not always been a wealthy man. There had been a time when he had had to write for a living, or, at least, to eke a not over-plentiful living out. At this time his name was known to the editors of most magazines. He had written a good deal of graceful verse, and one or two pretty idyllic stories, and there were people who looked very hopefully on him as a rising light of literature. His sudden accession to wealth had almost buried the poor taper of his genius when the hands of Love triumphant took it suddenly at the time of that lazy lounge beneath the awning, and gave it a chance once more. He was meditating, as lovers will, upon his own unworthiness and the all-worthy attributes of the divine Lilian. And it came to him to do something—such as in him lay—to be more worthy of her. ‘I often used to say,’ he said now within himself, ‘that if I had time and money I would try to write a comedy. Well then, here goes. Not one of the flimsy Byron or Burnand frivolities, but a comedy with heart in it, and motive in it, and honest, patient labour.’ So, all on fire with this laudable ambition, he set to work at once. The plot had been laid long since, in the old impecunious hardworking days. He revised it now and strengthened it. Day after day the passers by upon the silent highway came in sight of this bronzed young giant under his awning, with a pipe in his mouth and a vast bottle by his side, and beheld him enthusiastically scrawling, or gazing with fixed eye at nothing in particular on the other side of the river. Once or twice being caught in the act of declaiming fragments of his dialogue, by easy-going scullers who pulled silently round the side of the houseboat, he dashed into the interior of that aquatic residence with much precipitation. At other times his meditations were broken in upon by the cheery invitations and restless invasions of a wild tribe of the youth of Twickenham and its neighbourhood who had a tent in a field hard by, and whose joy at morning, noon, and night, was beer. These savages had an accordion and a penny whistle and other instruments of music wherewith to make the night unbearable and the day a heavy burden. They were known as ‘The Tribe of the Scorchers,’ and were a happy and a genial people, but their presence was inimical to the rising hopes of the drama. Nevertheless, Barndale worked, and the comedy grew little by little towards completion. James, outwardly cynical regarding it, was inwardly delighted. He believed in Barndale with a full and firm conviction; and he used to read his friend’s work at night, or listen to it when Barndale read, with internal enthusiasm and an exterior of coolness. Barndale knew him through and through, and in one scene in the comedy had drawn the better part of him to the life. Hearing this scene read over, it occurred to the genial youth himself that he would like to play the part. ‘Billy, old man,’ said he, ‘I think Sir What’s-his-name there’s about my style of man. Before you put that immortal work upon the public stage you’d better try an amateur performance carefully rehearsed. You play George Rondel. I’ll play Sir What’s-his-name. Easily fill up the other characters. Ladies from London. Week’s rehearsals. Bring it out at your own place at Christmas.’ Barndale caught at this idea so eagerly that he sat down that evening and wrote to a London manager requesting him to secure the services of three famous actresses, whom he named, for the first week of the next year. He stipulated also for the presence of a competent stage manager through the whole week, and promised instructions with respect to scenery, and so forth, later on. In his enthusiasm he drew up a list of critics and authors to invite, and he and Leland straightway began to study their respective parts. It was getting near the end of August now, and the evenings began to close in rapidly. The river was quite deserted as a rule by eight o’clock, and then the two friends used to rehearse one especial scene. There was a quarrel in this scene which, but for the intervening hand of the deux ex machinâ, bade fair to be deadly. When, after repeated trials, they warmed to their work, and got hold of something like the passion of their part, a listener might have acquitted them of all play-acting, and broken in himself to prevent bloodshed. For they both started from the assumption that the tones of the stage must be gradually built up into power from those used in ordinary speech, and so they avoided the least taint of staginess, and were on their way to become rather better actors than the best we have just now. Leland’s temperament was not of a nature to persuade him to perpetual effort in any direction; and so, whilst Barndale worked, the other amateur relieved vacuity with billiards. It got into a settled habit with him at last to leave Barndale nightly at his comedy, and to return to the house-boat at an hour little short of midnight. He would find Barndale still at work writing by the light of a lamp grown dim with incrustations of self-immolated insects. Moths fluttered to this light in incredible numbers, and literal thousands of lives were thus sacrificed nightly at the drama’s shrine. It was nearly midnight, and as black as a wolfs mouth, when Leland sculled up from the ‘Swan’ to spend his last night but one aboard the house-boat. ‘Billy, old man,’ he cried, bursting in suddenly; ‘look here! Ain’t I in for it now? Read this!’ He handed to his friend a letter which Barndale read in silence. ‘This is awkward,’ the latter said after a long, grave pause. Leland sat in constrained solemnity for awhile, but by-and-by a genial grin spread over his features, and he chuckled in deep enjoyment. ‘It’s a lark for all that, Billy. We shall have the noble Demetri here next, I suppose. Let’s hire him for the great Christmas show. “Signor Demetri Agryopoulo will appear in his great stiletto trick, frustrated by Billy Barndale, the Bounding Brother of the Bosphorus.”’ ‘What is to be done?’ said Barndale, ignoring his companion’s flippancies. ‘Yes,’ said Leland, sitting down and growing suddenly grave. ‘What’s to be done? Read the letter out, Billy, and let’s consider the thing seriously.’ Barndale read aloud. ‘My very dear Friend,—At what time you was at Constantinople, when trouble came, you made promise that you would not forget me if my poor Demetri should trouble about you. When you last wrote to me this was made again—the promise. My life for not one moment is safe. My aunt is dead and my possessions are now mine, but there is no friend in all the world. Demetri is mad. Of him I know not when I am safe. I fly then to London, where all is safe. But there it is not possible that I should be alone. If there is any lady in the circle of your knowledge who would be kind with me, and permit that I should live with her, it will have for ever my gratitude. I shall go as of old to the Palace Hotel at Westminster. Two days beyond this letter I shall be there. ‘Always your friend, ‘Thecla Perzio.’ After the reading of this epistle, the friends sat in silence, regarding each other with grave looks. In the silence they could hear the river lapping against the bank, and the rustling of the boughs on the roof, and the moaning and sighing of the wind. But they could not hear the suppressed breathing of Demetri Agryopoulo where he stood knee-deep in water below the house-boat window, listening to their talk. Yet there he stood, not knowing that he was not on dry land; drunk with rage and jealousy; with murder plainly written in his heart and eyes, and all his blood on fire. He threw his soul into his ears, and listened. ‘This letter has been a long time on its way, surely,’ said Barndale, referring to the date. ‘It can’t take three weeks to bring a letter from Constantinople.’ ‘Where’s the envelope?’ asked. Leland. ‘Look at that, and see what the London date is.’ The home stamp made it clear that the letter had reached England ten days back. ‘My man brought it down this afternoon, the lazy scamp!’ said Leland. ‘He has never been near those blessed chambers since I left till now. A pile of letters came together, but I took no notice.’ ‘Listen to me,’ said Barndale. ‘You have done harm enough in this matter already, Jimmy, and you must do no more. You must keep clear of her. I will send her down to my sister for a time. Sophy is a good girl, and will be glad to have a companion whilst I am away. I will go up to town to-morrow and see Miss Perzio. You stay here. I shall either wire to you or come back in the evening.’ The weather had been hot and clear for weeks together, and the traditions of English summer were preparing to enforce themselves by the common thunderstorm. The wind moaned in swift and sudden gusts, and the distant thunder rumbled threateningly. The listener outside misheard this speech thus: ‘You will be glad of a companion whilst I am away. I will go up to town to-morrow and see Miss Perzio.’ He ground his teeth, and clenched his hands, and held himself in resolute silence, fighting against the instinct which prompted him to cry aloud and dash in upon the two, and either slay them both, or sell his own life, then and there. But reflecting on the certainty of defeat, unarmed as he was, and dreading to declare himself too soon, and so put his enemy upon his guard, he fought the instinct down. Yet so strong was it upon him that he knew that sooner or later it would master him. He waded to the shore and crept along the field in the thick darkness, groping his way with both hands. Turning, he could see the dull gleam of the river, and the house-boat bulking black against it. He stood watching, whilst within and without the storm swept swiftly up. Dead silence. Then a creeping whisper in the grass at his feet and in the trees about him, but no wind. Then the slow dropping of heavy rain—drop, drop, drop—like blood. Then a fierce and sudden howl from the wind, like some hoarse demon’s signal, and the storm began. But what a puny storm was that which raged outside could one have seen the tempest in this murderous soul! Not all the tones of great material nature’s diapason could find this tortured spirit voice enough. Yet to find the very heavens in tune with his mood brought the Greek to a still madder ecstasy of passion. At such times the mind, fearful for herself, catches at phrases and fancies, as drowning men catch at straws. So now, with terrible irrelevance, his mind caught at the simple couplet:— Nenni, nenni, vattienne, non me stà chiù’ à seccar Sta rosa che pretienne non la sto manco à gardar! There was nothing for the mind to hold to except that it was the last song the runaway Thecla had sung to him. He did not remember this, and had only a half consciousness of the words themselves. But in this mad whirl of the spiritual elements the mind was glad to cling to anything, and turned the refrain over, and over, and over, Nenni, nenni, vattienne, non me stà chiù’ à seccar Sta rosa che pretienne non la sto manco à gardar! Rain, and wind, and thunder, and Lightning, had their time without and within. Peace came to the summer heavens, and the pale stars took the brief night with beauty. But to the firmament of his soul no star of peace returned. There dwelt night and chaos. If his passion were blind, the blindness was wilful. For he saw clearly the end of what he meant to do, and chose it. Whatever his love might have been worth, he had been robbed of it, and for him life ended there. He was but an automaton of vengeance now. So having set resolve before him, and having done with it, he went his way. His plan was long since laid, and was simple enough. Demetri Agryopoulo was not the man to perplex himself with details until the time came for them to be useful. When that time came he could rely upon himself for invention. And so his plan was simply to take James Leland alone, and then and there to put an end to him. He had taken a room in a river-side public-house near Kingston, and thither he walked. He made some grim excuse for the lateness of the hour and his bedraggled garment...