The Prey Of The Dragon

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Title:     The Prey Of The Dragon
Author: Ethel May Dell [More Titles by Dell]

I

"Ah! She's off!"

A deafening blast came from the great steamship's siren, and a long sigh went up from the crowd upon the quay. Someone raised a cheer that was quickly drowned in the noise of escaping steam. Very slowly, almost imperceptibly, the vessel began to move.

A black gap appeared, and widened between her and the wharf till it became a stretch of grey water veiled in the dank fog of a murky sea. The fog was everywhere, floating in wreaths upon the oily swell, blotting out all distant objects, making vague those that were near. Very soon the crowd on the shore was swallowed up and the great vessel was heading for the mouth, of the harbour and the wide loneliness beyond.

Sybil Denham hid her face in her hands for a moment and shivered. There was something terrible to her in the thought of those thousands of miles to be traversed alone. It cowed her. It appalled her.

Yet when she looked up again her eyes were brave. She stood committed now to this great step, and she was resolved to take it with a high courage. Whatever lay before her, she must face it now without shrinking. Yet it was horribly lonely. She turned from the deck-rail with nervous haste.

The next instant she caught her foot against a coil of rope and fell headlong, with a violence that almost stunned her. A moment she lay, then, gasping, began to raise herself.

But as she struggled to her knees strong hands lifted her, and a man's voice said gruffly:

"Are you hurt?"

She found herself in the grasp of a powerful giant with the physique of a prize-fighter and a dark face with lowering brows that seemed to wear an habitual scowl.

She was too staggered to speak; the fall had unnerved her. She put her hand vaguely behind her, feeling for the rail, looking up at him with piteous, quivering lips.

"You should look where you are going," he said, with scant sympathy. "Perhaps you will another time."

She found the rail, leaned upon it, then turned her back upon him suddenly and burst into tears which she was too shaken to restrain. She thought he would go away, hoped that he would; but he remained, standing in stolid silence till she managed in a measure to regain her self-control.

"Where did you hurt yourself?" he asked then.

She struggled with herself, and answered him. "I--I am not hurt."

"Then what are you crying for?"

The words sounded more like a rude retort than a question.

She found them unanswerable, and suddenly, while she still stood battling with her tears, something in the utterance touched her sense of humour. She gulped down a sob, and gave a little strangled laugh.

"I don't quite know," she said, drying her eyes. "Thank you for picking me up."

"I should have tumbled over you if I hadn't," he responded.

Again her sense of humour quivered, finally dispelling all desire to cry. She turned a little.

"I'm glad you didn't!" she said with fervour.

"So am I."

The curt rejoinder cut clean through her depression. She broke into a gay, spontaneous laugh.

But the next instant she checked herself and apologized.

"Forgive me! I'm very rude."

"What's the joke?" he asked.

She answered him in a voice that still quivered a little with suppressed merriment.

"There isn't a joke. I--I often laugh at nothing. It's a silly habit of mine."

His moody silence seemed to endorse this remark. She became silent also, and after a moment made a shy movement to depart.

He turned then and looked at her, looked full and straight into her small, sallow face, with its shadowy eyes and pointed features, as if he would register her likeness upon his memory.

She gave him a faint, friendly smile.

"I'm going below now," she said. "Good-bye!"

He raised his hat abruptly. His head was massive as a bull's.

"Mind how you go!" he said briefly.

And Sybil went, feeling like a child that has been rebuked.

 

II

"Do you always walk along with your eyes shut?" asked Brett Mercer.

Sybil gave a great start, and saw him lounging immediately in her path. The days that had elapsed since their first meeting had placed them upon a more or less intimate footing. He had assumed the right to speak to her from the outset--this giant who had picked her up like an infant and scolded her for crying.

It was a hot morning in the Indian Ocean. She had not slept during the night, and she was feeling weary and oppressed. But, with a woman's instinctive reserve, she forced a hasty smile. She would not have stopped to speak had he not risen and barred her progress.

"Sit here!" he said.

She looked up at him with refusal on her lips; but he forestalled her by laying an immense hand on her shoulder and pressing her down into the chair he had just vacated. This accomplished, he turned and hung over the rail in silence. It seemed to be the man's habit at all times to do rather than to speak.

Sybil sat passive, feeling rather helpless, dumbly watching the great lounging figure, and wondered how she should escape without hurting his feelings.

Suddenly, without turning his head, he spoke to her.

"I suppose if I ask what's the matter you'll tell me to go to the devil."

The remark, though characteristic, was totally unexpected. Sybil stared at him for a moment. Then, as once before, his rude address set her sense of humour a-quivering. Depressed, miserable though she was, she began to laugh.

He turned, and looked at her sideways.

"No doubt I am very funny," he observed dryly.

She checked herself with an effort.

"Oh, I know I'm horrid to laugh. But it's not that I am ungrateful. There is nothing really the matter. I--I'm feeling rather like a stray cat this morning, that's all."

The smile still lingered about her lips as she said it. Somehow, telling this taciturn individual of her trouble deprived it of much of its bitterness.

Mercer displayed no sympathy. He did not even continue to look at her. But she did not feel that his impassivity arose from lack of interest.

Suddenly:

"Is it true that you are going to be married as soon as you land?" he asked.

Sybil was sitting forward with her chin in her hands.

"Quite true," she said; adding, half to herself, "so far as I know."

"What do you mean by that?" He turned squarely and looked down at her.

She hesitated a little, but eventually she told him.

"I thought there would have been a letter for me from Robin at Aden, but there wasn't. It has worried me rather."

"Robin?" he said interrogatively.

"Robin Wentworth, the man I am going to marry," she explained. "He has a farm at Bowker Creek, near Rollandstown. But he will meet me at the docks. He has promised to do that. Still, I thought I should have heard from him again."

"But you will hear at Colombo," said Mercer.

She raised her eyes--- those soft, dark eyes that were her only beauty.

"I may," she said.

"And if you don't?"

She smiled faintly.

"I suppose I shall worry some more."

"Are you sure the fellow is worth it?" asked Mercer unexpectedly.

"We have been engaged for three years," she said, "though we have been separated."

He frowned.

"A man can alter a good deal in three years."

She did not attempt to dispute the point. It was one of the many doubts that tormented her in moments of depression.

"And what will you do if he doesn't turn up?" proceeded Mercer.

She gave a sharp shiver.

"Don't--don't frighten me!" she said.

Mercer was silent. He thrust one hand into his pocket, and absently jingled some coins. He began to whistle under his breath, and then, awaking to the fact, abruptly stopped himself.

"If I were in your place," he said at length, "I should get off at Colombo and sail home again on the next boat."

Sybil shook her head slowly but emphatically.

"I am quite sure you wouldn't. For one thing you would be too poor, and for another you would be too proud."

"Are you very poor?" he asked her point blank.

She nodded.

"And very proud."

"And your people?"

"Only my father is living, and I have quarrelled with him."

"Can't you make it up?"

"No," she said sharply and emphatically. "I could never return to my father. There is no room for me now that he has married again. I would sooner sell matches at a street corner than go back to what I have left."

"So that's it, is it?" said Mercer. He was looking at her very attentively with his brows drawn down. "You are not happy at home, so you are plunging into matrimony to get away from it all."

"We have been engaged for three years," she protested, flushing.

"You said that before," he remarked. "It seems to be your only argument, and a confoundedly shaky one at that."

She laughed rather unsteadily.

"You are not very encouraging."

"No," said Mercer.

He was still looking at her somewhat sternly. Involuntarily almost she avoided his eyes.

"Perhaps," she said, with a touch of wistfulness, "when you see my _fiance_ you will change your mind."

He turned from her with obvious impatience.

"Perhaps you will change yours," he said.

And with that surly rejoinder of his the conversation ended. The next moment he moved abruptly away, leaving her in possession.

III

It was early morning when they came at last into port. When Sybil appeared on deck she found it crowded with excited men, and the hubbub was deafening. A multitude of small boats buzzed to and fro on the tumbling waters below them, and she expected every instant to see one swamped as the great ship floated majestically through the throng.

She had anticipated a crowd of people on the wharf to witness their arrival, but the knot of men gathered there scarcely numbered a score. She scanned them eagerly, but it took only a very few seconds to convince her that Robin Wentworth was not among them. And there had been no letter from him at Colombo.

"They don't allow many people on the wharf," said Mercer's voice behind her. "There will be more on the other side of the Customs house."

She looked up at him, bravely smiling, though her heart was throbbing almost to suffocation and she could not speak a word.

He passed on into the crowd and she lost sight of him.

There followed a delay of nearly half-an-hour, during which she stood where she was in the glaring sunshine, dumbly watching. The town, with its many buildings, its roar of traffic; the harbour, with its ships and its hooting sirens; the hot sky, the water that shone like molten brass; all were stamped upon her aching brain with nightmare distinctness. She felt as one caught in some pitiless machine that would crush her to atoms before she could escape.

The gangways were fixed at last, and there was a general movement. She went with the crowd, Mercer's last words still running through her brain with a reiteration that made them almost meaningless. On the other side of the Customs house! Of course, of course she would find Robin there, waiting for her!

She said it to herself over and over as she stepped ashore, and she began to picture their meeting. And then, suddenly, an awful doubt assailed her. She could not recall his features. His image would not rise before her. The memory of his face had passed completely from her mind. It had never done so before, and she was scared. But she strove to reassure herself with the thought that she must surely recognize him the moment her eyes beheld him. It was but a passing weakness this, born of her agitation. Of course, she would know him, and he would know her, too, mightily though she felt she had changed during those three years that they had not met.

She moved on as one in a dream, still with that nightmare of oppression at her heart. The crowd of hurrying strangers bewildered her. Her loneliness appalled her. She had an insane longing to rush back to her cabin and hide herself. But she pressed on, on into the Customs house, following her little pile of luggage that looked so ludicrously insignificant among all the rest.

The babel here was incessant. She felt as if her senses would leave her. Piteously, like a lost child, she searched every face within her scope of vision; but she searched in vain for the face of a friend.

Later, she found herself following an official out into an open space like a great courtyard, that was crammed with vehicles. He was wheeling her luggage on a trolley. Suddenly he faced round and asked her whither she wanted to go.

She looked at him helplessly. "I am expecting someone to meet me," she said.

He stared at her in some perplexity, and finally suggested that he should set down her luggage and leave her to wait where she was.

To this she agreed, and when he had gone she seated herself on her cabin trunk and faced the situation. She was utterly alone, with scarcely any money in her possession, and no knowledge whatever of the place in which she found herself. Robin would, of course, come sooner or later, but till he came she was helpless.

What should she do, she wondered desperately? What could she do? All about her, people were coming and going. She watched them dizzily. There was not one of them who seemed to be alone. The heat and glare was intense. The clatter of wheels sounded in her ears like the roar of great waters. She felt as if she were sinking down, down through endless turmoil into a void unspeakable.

How long she had sat there she could not have said. It seemed to her hours when someone came up to her with a firm and purposeful stride, and stooping, touched her shoulder. She looked up dazedly, and saw Brett Mercer.

He said something to her, but it was as if he spoke in an unknown language. She had not the faintest idea what he meant. His face swam before her eyes. She shook her head at him vaguely, with quivering lips.

He stooped lower. She felt his arm encircle her, felt him draw her to her feet. Again he seemed to be speaking, but his words eluded her. The roar of the great waters filled her brain. Like a lost child she turned and clung to the supporting arm.

 

IV

Later, it seemed to her that her senses must have deserted her for a time, for she never remembered what happened to her next. A multitude of impressions crowded upon her, but she knew nothing with distinctness till she woke to find herself lying in a room with green blinds half-drawn, with Mercer stooping over her, compelling her to drink a nauseating mixture in a wine-glass.

As soon as full consciousness returned to her she refused to take another drop.

"What is it? It--it's horrible."

"It's the best stuff you ever tasted," he told her bluntly. "You needn't get up. You are all right as you are."

But she sat up, nevertheless, and looked at him confusedly. "Where am I?" she said.

He seated himself on the corner of a table that creaked loudly beneath his weight. It seemed to her that he looked even more massive than usual--a bed-rock of strength. His eyes met hers with a certain mastery.

"You are in a private room in a private hotel," he said. "I brought you here."

"In a hotel!" She stared at him for a moment, stricken silent by the information; then quickly she rose to her feet. "Oh, but I--I can't stay!" she said. "I have no money."

"I know," said Mercer. He remained seated on the table edge, his hands in his pockets, his eyes unwaveringly upon her. "That's where I come in," he told her, with a touch of aggressiveness, as though he sighted difficulties ahead. "I have money--plenty of it. And you are to make use of it."

She stood motionless, gazing at him. His eyes never left her. She could not quite fathom his look, but it was undoubtedly stern.

"Mr. Mercer," she said at last, rather piteously, "I--indeed I am grateful to you, much more than grateful. But--I can't!"

"Rubbish!" said Mercer curtly. "If you weren't a girl, I should tell you not to be a fool!"

She was clasping and unclasping her hands. It was to be a battle of wills. His rough speech revealed this to her. And she was ill-equipped for the conflict. His dominant personality seemed to deprive her of even the desire to fight. She remembered, with a sudden, burning flush, that she had clung to him only a little while before in her extremity of loneliness. Doubtless he remembered it too.

Yet she braced herself for the struggle. He could not, after all, compel her to accept his generosity.

"I am sorry," she said; "I am very sorry. But, you know, there is another way in which you can help me."

"What is that?" said Mercer.

"If you could tell me of some respectable lodging," she said. "I have enough for one night if the charges are moderate. And even after that--if Robin doesn't come--I have one or two little things I might sell. He is sure to come soon."

"And if he doesn't?" said Mercer.

Her fingers gripped each other.

"I am sure he will," she said.

"And if he doesn't?" said Mercer again.

His persistence became suddenly intolerable. She turned on him with something like anger--the anger of desperation.

"Why will you persist in trying to frighten me? I know he will come. I know he will!"

"You don't know," said Mercer. "I am not frightening you. You were afraid before you ever spoke to me."

He spoke harshly, without pity, and still his eyes dwelt resolutely upon her. He seemed to be watching her narrowly.

She did not attempt to deny his last words. She passed them by.

"I shall write to Bowker Creek. He may have mistaken the date."

"He may," said Mercer, in a tone she did not understand. "But, in the meantime, why should you turn your back upon the only friend you have at hand? It seems to me that you are making a fuss over nothing. You have been brought up to it, I daresay; but it isn't the fashion here. We are taught to take things as they come, and make the best of 'em. That's what you have got to do. It'll come easier after a bit."

"It will never come easily to me to--to live on charity," she protested, rather incoherently.

"But you can pay me back," said Brett Mercer.

She shook her head.

"Not if--if Robin----"

"I tell you, you can!" he insisted stubbornly.

"How?" She turned suddenly and faced him. There was a hint of defiance, or, rather, daring, in her manner. She met his look with unswerving resolution. "If there is a good chance of my being able to do that," she said, "even if--even if Robin fails me, I will accept your help."

"You will be able to do it," said Mercer.

"How?" she asked again.

"I will tell you," he said, "when you are quite sure that Robin has failed you."

"Tell me now!" she pleaded. "If it is some work that you can find for me to do--and I will do anything in the world that I can--it would be such a help to me to know of it. Won't you tell me what you mean? Please do!"

"No," said Mercer. "It is only a chance, and you may refuse it. I can't say. You may feel it too much for you to attempt. If you do, you will have to endure the obligation. But you shall have the chance of paying me back if you really want it."

"And you won't tell me what it is?" she said.

"No." He got to his feet, and stood looking down at her. "I can't tell you now. I am not in a position to do so. I am going away for a few days. You will wait here till I come back?"

"Unless Robin comes," she said. "And then, of course, I would leave you a message."

He nodded.

"Otherwise you will stay here?"

"If you are sure you wish it," she said.

"I do. And I am going to leave you this." He laid a packet upon the table. "It is better for you to be independent, for the sake of appearances." His iron mouth twitched a little. "Now, good-bye! You won't be more miserable than you can help?"

She smiled up at him bravely.

"No; I won't be miserable. How long shall you be gone?"

"Possibly a week, possibly a little more."

"But you will come back?" she said quickly, almost beseechingly.

"I shall certainly come back," he said.

With the words his great hand closed firmly upon hers, and she had a curious, vagrant feeling of insecurity that she could not attempt to analyse. Then abruptly he let her go. An instant his eyes still held her, and then, before she could begin to thank him, he turned to the door and was gone.

 

V

For ten days, that seemed to her like as many years, Sybil Denham waited in the shelter into which she had been so relentlessly thrust for an answer to her letter to Bowker Creek, and during the whole of that time she lived apart, exchanging scarcely a word with any one. Every day, generally twice a day, she went down to the wharf; but, she could not bring herself to linger. The loneliness that perpetually dogged her footsteps was almost poignant there, and sometimes she came away with panic at her heart. Suppose Mercer also should forsake her! She had not the faintest idea what she would do if he did. And yet, whenever she contemplated his return, she was afraid. There was something about the man that she had never fathomed--something ungovernable, something brutal--from which instinctively she shrank.

On the evening of the tenth day she received her answer--a letter from Rollandstown by post. The handwriting she knew so well sprawled over the envelope which her trembling fingers could scarcely open. Relief was her first sensation, and after it came a nameless anxiety. Why had he written? How was it--how was it that he had not come to her?

Trembling all over, she unfolded the letter, and read:

"Dear Sybil,--I am infernally sorry to have brought you out for nothing, for I find that I cannot marry you after all. Things have gone wrong with me of late, and it would be downright folly for me to think of matrimony under existing circumstances. I am leaving this place almost at once, so there is no chance of hearing from you again. I hope you will get on all right. Anyhow, you are well rid of me.--Yours,

"ROBIN."

Beneath the signature, scribbled very faintly, were the words, "I'm sorry, old girl; I'm sorry."

She read the letter once, and once only; but every word stamped itself indelibly upon her memory, every word bit its way into her consciousness as though it had been scored upon her quivering flesh. Robin had failed her. That ghastly presentiment of hers had come true. She was alone--alone, and sinking in that awful whirlpool of desolation into which for so long she had felt herself being drawn. The great waters swirled around her, rising higher, ever higher. And she was alone.

Hours passed. She sat in a sort of trance of horror, Robin's letter spread out beneath her nerveless fingers. She did not ask herself what she should do. The blow had stunned all her faculties. She could only sit there face to face with despair, staring blind-eyed before her, motionless, cold as marble to the very heart of her. She fancied--she even numbly hoped--that she was going to die.

She never heard repeated knocking at her door, or remembered that it was locked, till a man's shoulder burst it open. Then, indeed, she turned stiffly and looked at the intruder.

"You!" she said.

She had forgotten Brett Mercer.

He came forward quickly, stooped and looked at her; then went down on his knee and thrust his arm about her.

She sat upright in his hold, not yielding an inch, not looking at him. Her eyes were glassy.

For a little he held her; then gently but insistently he drew her to him, pillowed her head against him, and began to rub her icy cheek.

"I've left you alone too long," he said.

She suffered him dumbly, scarcely knowing what she did. But presently the blood that seemed to have frozen in her veins began to circulate again, and the stiffness passed from her limbs. She stirred in his hold like a frightened bird.

"I'm sorry!" she faltered.

He let her draw away from him, but he kept his arm about her. She looked at him, and found him intently watching her. Her eyes fell, and rested upon the letter which lay crumpled under her hands.

"A dreadful thing has happened to me," she said. "Robin has written to say--to say--that he cannot marry me!"

"What is there dreadful in that?" said Mercer.

She did not look up, though his words startled her a little.

"It--has made me feel like--like a stray cat again," she said, with the ghost of a smile about her lips. "Of course, I know I'm foolish. There must be plenty of ways in which a woman can earn her living here. You yourself were thinking of something that I might do, weren't you?"

"I was," said Mercer. He laid his great hand upon hers, paused a moment, then deliberately drew her letter from beneath them and crushed it into a ball. "But I want you to tell me something before we go into that. The truth, mind! It must be the truth!"

"Yes?" she questioned, with her head bent.

"You must look at me," he said, "or I shan't believe you."

There was something Napoleonic about his words which placed them wholly beyond the sphere of offensiveness. Slowly she turned her head and looked him in the eyes.

He took his arm abruptly away from her.

"Heavens!" he said. "How miserable you look! Are you very miserable?"

"I'm not very happy," she said.

"But you always smile," he said, "even when you're crying. Ah, that's better! I scarcely knew you before. Now, tell me! Were you in love with the fellow?"

She shrank a little at the direct question. He put his hand on her shoulder. His touch was imperious.

"Just a straight answer!" he said. "Were you?"

She hesitated, longing yet fearing to lower her eyes.

"I--I don't quite know," she said at length. "I used to think so."

"You haven't thought so of late?" His eyes searched hers unsparingly, with stern insistence.

"I haven't been sure," she admitted.

He released her and rose.

"You won't regret him for long," he said. "In fact, you'll live to be glad that you didn't have him!"

She did not contradict him. He was too positive for that. She watched him cross the room with a certain arrogance, and close the half-open door. As he returned she stood up.

"Can we get to business now?" she said.

"Business?" said Mercer.

With a steadiness that she found somewhat difficult of accomplishment she made reply:

"You thought you could find me employment--some means by which I could pay you back."

"You still want to pay me back?" he said.

She glanced up half nervously.

"I know that I can never repay your kindness to me," she said. "So far as that goes, I am in your debt for always. But--the money part I must and will, somehow, return."

"Being the most important part?" he suggested, halting in front of her.

"I didn't mean to imply that," she answered. "I think you know which I put first. But I can only do what I can, and money is repayable."

"So is kindness," said Mercer.

Again shyly she glanced at him.

"I am afraid I don't quite understand."

He sat down once more upon the table edge to bring his eyes on a level with hers.

"There's nothing to be scared about," he said.

She smiled a little.

"Oh, no; I am not scared. I believe you think me even more foolish than I actually am."

"No, I don't," said Mercer. "If I did, I shouldn't say what I am going to say. As it is, you are not to answer till you have counted up to fifty. Is that a bargain?"

"Yes," she said, beginning to feel more curious than afraid.

"Here goes then," said Brett Mercer. "I want a wife, and I want you. Will you marry me? Now, shut your eyes and count!"

But Sybil disobeyed him. She opened her eyes wide, and stared at him in breathless amazement.

Mercer stared back with absolute composure.

"I'm in dead earnest," he told her. "Never made a joke in my life. Of course, you'll refuse me. I know that. But I shan't give you up if you do. If you don't marry me, you won't marry any one else, for I'll lick any other man off the ground. I come first with you now, and I mean to stay first."

He stopped, for amazement had given place to something else on her face. She looked at him queerly, as if irresolute for a few seconds; but she no longer shrank from meeting his eyes. And then quite suddenly she broke into her funny little laugh.

"Amusing, is it?" he said.

She turned sharply away, with one hand pressed to her mouth, obviously struggling with herself.

At last:

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to laugh really--really. Only you--you're such a monster, and I'm such a shrimp! Please don't be vexed with me!"

She put out her hand to him, without turning.

He did not take it at once. When he did, he drew her round to face him. There was an odd restraint about the action, determined though it was.

"Well?" he said gruffly. "Which is it to be? Am I to go to the devil, or stay with you?"

She looked down at the great hand that held her. She was still half laughing, though her lips quivered.

"I couldn't possibly marry you yet," she said.

"No. To-morrow!" said Mercer.

She shook her head.

"Not even then."

"Listen!" he said. "If you won't marry me at once you will have to come with me without. For I am going up-country to see my farms, and I don't mean to leave you here."

"Can't I wait till you come back?" she said.

"What for?"

He leaned forward a little, trying to peer under her drooping lids. She was trembling slightly.

"I think you forget," she said, "that--that we hardly know each other."

"How are we to get any nearer if I'm up-country and you're here?" he said.

She looked at him unwillingly.

"You may change your mind when you have had time to think it over," she said, colouring deeply.

"I'll take the risk," said Mercer. "Besides"--she saw his grim smile for an instant--"I've been thinking of nothing else since I met you."

She started a little.

"I--I had no idea."

"No," he said; "I saw that. You needn't be afraid of me on that account. It ought to have the opposite effect."

"I am not afraid of you," she said, with a certain dignity. "But I, too, should have time for consideration."

"A woman doesn't need it," he asserted. "She can make up her mind at a moment's notice."

"And is often sorry for ever afterwards," she said smiling faintly.

He thrust out his jaw, as if challenging her.

"You think I shall make you sorry?"

"No," she answered. "But I want to be quite sure."

"Which is another reason for marrying me to-morrow," he said. "I'm not going to let you wait. It's only a whim. You weren't created to live alone, and there is no reason why you should. I am here, and you will have to take me."

"Whether I want to or not?" she said.

"Don't you want to?" he questioned.

She was silent.

He lifted the hand he held and looked at it. He spanned her wrist with his finger and thumb.

"That's reason enough for me," he abruptly said. "You are nothing but skin and bone. You've been starving yourself."

"I haven't," she protested. "I haven't, indeed."

"I don't believe you," he retorted rudely. "You weren't such a skeleton as this when I saw you last. Come, what's the good of fighting? You'll have to give in."

She smiled again faintly at the rough persuasion in his voice, but still she hesitated.

"I shan't eat you, you know," he proceeded, pressing his advantage. "I shan't do anything you won't like."

She glanced at him quickly.

"You mean that?"

His eyes looked straight back at her.

"Yes, I mean it."

"Can I trust you?" she said, almost in a whisper.

He rose to his full height, and stood before her. And in that moment an odd little thrill went through her. He was magnificent--the finest man she had ever seen. She caught her breath a little, feeling awed before the immensity of his strength. But, very curiously, she no longer felt afraid.

"You must ask yourself that question," he said bluntly. "You have my word."

And with a gasp she let herself go at last.

"I will take you on trust," she said.

 

VI

When Sybil at length travelled up-country with her husband the shearing season had already commenced. They went by easy stages, for the heat was great, and she was far from strong. She knew that Mercer was anxious to reach his property, and she would have journeyed more rapidly if he would have permitted it, but upon this point he was firm. At every turn he considered her, and she marvelled at the intuition with which he divined her unspoken wishes. Curt and rough though he was, his care surrounded her in a magic circle within which she dwelt at ease. With all his imperiousness she did not find him domineering, and this fact was a constant marvel to her, for she knew the mastery of his will. By some mysterious power he curbed himself, and day by day her confidence in him grew.

They accomplished the greater part of the journey by rail, and then when the railway ended came the long, long ride. They travelled for five days, spending each night at an inn at some township upon the road. Through dense stretches of forest, through great tracts of waste country, and again through miles of parched pasture-land they rode, and during the whole of that journey Mercer's care never relaxed. She never found him communicative. He would ride for hours without uttering a word, but yet she was subtly conscious of his close attention. She knew that she was never out of his thoughts.

At the inns at which they rested he always saw himself to her comfort, and the best room was always placed at her disposal. One thing impressed her at every halt. The innkeepers one and all stood in awe of him. Not one of them welcomed him, but not one of them failed to attend with alacrity to his wants. It puzzled her, for she herself had never found him really formidable.

On the last morning of their ride, when they set forth, she surprised a look of deep compassion in the eyes of the innkeeper's wife as she said good-bye, and it gave her something of a shock. Why was the woman sorry for her? Had she heard her story by any strange chance? Or was it for some other reason? It left an unpleasant impression upon her. She wished she had not seen it.

They rode that day almost exclusively through Mercer's property, which extended for many miles. He was the owner of several farms, two of which they passed without drawing rein. He was taking her to what he called the Home Farm, his native place, which he still made his headquarters, and from which he overlooked the whole of his great property.

The brief twilight had turned to darkness before they reached it. During the last half hour Mercer rode with his hand upon Sybil's bridle, and she was glad to have it there. She was not accustomed to riding in the dark. Moreover, she was very tired, and when at last they turned in through an open gateway to one side of which a solitary lantern had been fixed, she breathed a deep sigh of thankfulness.

She saw the outline of the house but vaguely, but in two windows lights were burning, and as they clattered up a door was thrown open, and a man stood silhouetted for a moment on the threshold.

"Hullo, Curtis! Here we are!" was Mercer's greeting. "Later than I intended, but it's a far cry from Wallarroo, and we had to take it easy."

"The best way," the other said.

He went forward and quietly helped Sybil to dismount. He did not speak to her as he did so, and she wondered a little at the reserve of his manner. But the next moment she forgot him at the sight of a hideous young negro who had suddenly appeared at the horses' heads.

"It's only Beelzebub," said the man at her side, in a tired voice, as if it were an effort to speak at all.

She realized that the explanation was intended to be reassuring, and laughed rather tremulously. Finding Mercer at her side she slipped her hand into his.

He gave it a terrific squeeze. "Come inside!" he said. "You are tired."

They went in, Curtis following.

In a room with a sanded floor that looked pleasantly homely to her English eyes a meal was spread. The place and everything it contained shone in the lamplight. She looked around her with a smile of pleasure, notwithstanding her weariness. And then her eyes fell upon Curtis, and found his fixed upon her.

He averted them instantly, but she had read their expression at a glance--surprise and compassion--and her heart gave a curious little throb of dismay.

She turned nevertheless without a pause to Mercer.

"Won't you introduce me to your friend?" she said.

"What?" said Mercer. "Oh, that's Curtis, my foreman. Curtis, this is my wife."

Curtis bowed stiffly, but Sybil held out her hand.

"How nice everything looks!" she said. "I am sure we have you to thank for it."

"Beelzebub and me," he said; and again she was struck by the utter lack of animation in his voice.

He was a man of about forty, lean and brown, with an unmistakable air of breeding about him that put her at her ease at once. His quiet manner was a supreme contrast to Mercer's roughness. She was quite sure that he was not colonial born.

He sat at table with them, and waited also, but he did not utter a word except now and again in answer to some brief query from Mercer. When the meal was over he cleared the table and disappeared.

She looked at Mercer in some surprise as the door closed upon him.

"He's a useful chap," Mercer said. "I'm sorry there isn't a woman in the house, but you'll find Beelzebub better than a dozen. And this fellow is always at hand for anything you may want in the evening."

"He is a gentleman," she said almost involuntarily.

Mercer looked at her.

"Do you object to having a gentleman to wait on you?" he asked curtly.

She did not quite understand his tone, but she was very far just then from understanding the man himself. His question demanded no answer, and she gave none.

After a moment she got up, and, conscious of an oppression in the atmosphere, took off her hat and pushed back the hair from her face. She knew that Mercer was watching her, felt his eyes upon her, and wished intensely that he would speak, but he did not utter a word. There seemed to her to be something stubborn in his silence, and it affected her strangely.

For a while she stood also silent, then suddenly with a little smile she looked across at him.

"Aren't you going to show me everything?" she said.

"Not to-night," he said. "I will show you your bedroom if you are too tired to stay up any longer."

She considered the matter for a few seconds, then quietly crossed the room to his side. She laid a hand that trembled slightly on his shoulder.

"You have been very good to me," she said.

He stiffened at her touch.

"You had better go to bed," he said gruffly, and made as if he would rise.

But she checked him with a dignity all her own.

"Wait, please; I want to speak to you."

"Not to thank me, I hope," he said.

"No, not to thank you." She paused an instant, and seemed to hesitate. "I--I really want to ask you something," she said at length.

He reached up and removed her hand from his shoulder.

"Well?" he questioned.

"Don't hold me at arms' length!" she pleaded gently. "It makes things so difficult."

"What is it you want to know?" he asked without relaxing.

She stood silent for a few seconds as if summoning all her courage. Then at length, her voice very low, she spoke.

"When you said that you wanted me for your wife, did you mean that you--loved me?"

He made an abrupt movement, and his fingers closed tightly upon her wrist. For a moment or more he sat in tense silence, then he got to his feet.

"Why do you want to know?" he demanded harshly.

She stood before him with bent head.

"Because," she said, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice, "I am lonely, and I have a very empty heart. And--and--if you love me it will not frighten me to know it. It will only--make me--glad."

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Do you know what you are saying?" he questioned.

"Yes," she said under her breath.

"Are you sure?" he persisted.

She raised her head impulsively, and, with a gesture most winning, most confident, she stretched up her arms to him.

"Yes," she said. "I mean it! I mean it! I want--to be loved!"

His arms were close about her as she ended, and she uttered the last words chokingly with her face against his breast. The effort had cost her all her strength, and she clung to him panting, almost fainting, while panic--wild, unreasoning panic--swept over her. What was this man to whom she had thus impulsively given herself--this man whom all men feared?

Nevertheless, she grew calmer at last, awaking to the fact that though his hold was tense and passionate, he still retained his self-control. She commanded herself, and turned her face upwards.

"Then you do love me?" she said tremulously.

His eyes shone into hers, red as the inner, intolerable glow of a furnace. He did not attempt to make reply in words. He seemed at that moment incapable of speech. He only bent and kissed her fiercely, burningly, even brutally, upon the lips. And so she had her answer.

 

VII

It was a curious establishment over which Sybil found herself called upon to preside. The native, Beelzebub, was her only domestic, and, as Mercer had predicted, she found him very willing if not always efficient. One thing she speedily discovered regarding him. He went in deadly fear of his master, and invariably crept about like a whipped cur in his presence.

"Why is it?" she said to Curtis once.

But Curtis only shrugged his shoulders in reply.

He was a continual puzzle to her, this man. There was no servility about him, but she had a feeling that he, too, was in some fashion under Mercer's heel. He made himself exceedingly useful to her in his silent, unobtrusive way; but he seldom spoke on his own initiative, and it was some time before she felt herself to be on terms of intimacy with him. He was an excellent cook; and he and Beelzebub between them made her duties remarkably light. In fact, she spent most of her time riding with her husband, who was fully occupied just then in overlooking the shearers' work. She also was keenly interested, but he never suffered her to go among the men. Once, when she had grown tired of waiting for him, and followed him into one of the sheds, he was actually angry with her--a new experience, which, if it did not seriously scare her, made her nervous in his presence for some time afterwards.

She had come to regard him as a man whose will was bound to be respected, a man who possessed the power of impressing his personality indelibly upon all with whom he came in contact. There were times when he touched and set vibrating the very pulse of her being, times when her heart quivered and expanded in the heat of his passion as a flower that opens to the sun. But there were also times when he filled her with a nameless dread, when the very foundations of her confidence were shaken, and she felt as a prisoner behind iron bars. She did not know him, that was her trouble. There were in him depths that she could not reach, could scarcely even realize. He was slow to reveal himself to her, and she had but the vaguest indications to guide her. She even felt sometimes that he deliberately kept back from her that which she felt to be almost the essential part of him. This she knew that time must remedy. Living his life, she was bound ultimately to know whereof he was made, and she tried to assure herself that when that knowledge came to her she would not be dismayed. And yet she had occasional glimpses of him that made her tremble.

One evening, after they had spent the entire day in the saddle, he went after supper to look at one of the horses that was suffering from a cracked hock. Curtis was busy in the kitchen, and Sybil betook herself to the step to wait for her husband. She often sat in the starlight while he smoked his pipe. She knew that he liked to have her there.

She was drowsy after her long exercise, and must have dozed with her head against the door-post, when suddenly she became conscious of a curious sound. It came from the direction of the stable which was on the other side of the house. But for the absolute stillness of the night she would not have heard it. She started upright in alarm, and listened intently.

It came again--a terrible wailing, unlike anything she had ever heard, ending in a staccato shriek that made her blood run cold.

She sprang up and turned into the house, almost running into Curtis, who had just appeared in the passage behind her.

"Oh, what is it?" she cried. "What is it? Something terrible is happening! Did you hear?"

She would have turned into the kitchen, that being the shortest route to the stable, but he stretched an arm in front of her.

"I shouldn't go if I were you," he said. "You can't do any good."

She stood and stared at him, a ghastly fear clutching her heart. "What--what do you mean?" she gasped.

"It's only Beelzebub," he said, "getting hammered for his sins."

She gripped her hands tightly over her breast. "You mean that--that my husband--?"

He nodded. "It won't go on much longer. I should go to bed if I were you."

He meant it kindly, but the words sounded to her most hideously callous. She turned from him, sobbing hysterically, and sprang for the open door.

The next moment she was running swiftly round the house to the stable. Turning the corner, she heard a sound like a pistol-shot. It was followed instantly by a scream so utterly inhuman that even then she almost wheeled and fled. But she mastered the impulse. She reached the stable-door, fumbled at the latch, finally burst inwards as it swung open.

A lantern hung on a nail immediately within. By its light she discovered her husband--a gigantic figure--towering over something she could not see, something that crouched, writhing and moaning, in a corner. He was armed with a horsewhip, and even as she entered she saw him raise it and bring it downwards with a horrible precision upon the thing at his feet. She heard again that awful shriek of anguish, and a sick shudder went through her. Unconsciously, a cry broke from her own lips, and, as Mercer's arm went up again, she flung herself forward and tried to catch it.

In her agitation she failed. The heavy end of the whip fell upon her outstretched arm, numbing; it to the shoulder. She heard Mercer utter a frightful oath, and with a gasp she fell.

VIII

When she came to herself she was lying on her bed. Someone--Curtis--was bathing her arm in warm water. He did not speak to her or raise his: eyes from his occupation. She thought he looked very grim.

"Where is--Brett?" she whispered.

Curtis did not answer her, but a moment later she looked beyond him and saw Mercer leaning upon the bed-rail. His eyes were fixed upon her and held her own. She sought to avoid them, but could not. And suddenly she knew that he was angry with her, not merely displeased, but furiously angry.

She made an effort to rise, but at that Curtis laid a restraining hand upon her, and spoke.

"Go away, Mercer!" he said. "Haven't you done harm enough for one night?"

The words amazed her. She had never thought that he would dare to use such a tone to her husband. She trembled for the result, for Mercer's face just then was terrible, but Curtis did not so much as glance in his direction.

Mercer's eyes remained mercilessly fixed upon her.

"Do you wish me to go?" he said.

"No," she murmured faintly.

Her arm was beginning to hurt her horribly, and she shuddered uncontrollably once or twice. But that unvarying scrutiny was harder to bear, and at last, in desperation, she made a quivering appeal.

"Come and help me!" she begged. "Come and lift me up!"

For an instant he did not stir, and she even thought he would refuse. Then, stiffly, he straightened himself and moved round to her side.

Stooping, he raised and supported her. But his expression did not alter; the murderous glare was still in his eyes. She turned her face into his breast and lay still.

After what seemed a very long interval Curtis spoke.

"That's all I can do for the present. I will dress it again in the morning, and it had better be in a sling. Mercer, I should like a word with you outside."

Sybil stirred sharply at the brief demand. Her nerves were on edge, and a quaking doubt shot through her as to what Mercer might do if Curtis presumed too far.

She laid an imploring hand on her husband's arm.

"Stay with me!" she begged him faintly.

He did not move or speak.

Curtis stood up.

"Presently, then!" he said, and she heard him move away.

At the door he paused, and she thought he made some rapid sign to Mercer. But the next moment she heard the door close softly, and knew that he had gone.

She lay quite still thereafter, her heart fluttering too much for speech. What would he say to her, she wondered; how would he break his silence? She had no weapon to oppose against his anger. She was as powerless before it as Beelzebub had been.

Suddenly he moved. He turned her head back upon his arm and looked straight down into her eyes. She did not shrink. She would not. But her heart died within her. She felt as if she were gazing into hell, watching a soul in torment.

"Well?" he said at last. "Are you satisfied?"

"Satisfied?" she faltered.

"As to the sort of monster you have married," he explained, with savage bitterness. "You've been putting out feelers ever since you came here. Did you think I didn't know? Well, you've found out a little more than you wanted, this time. Perhaps it will be a lesson to you. Perhaps"--sheer cruelty shone red in his eyes--"when you see what I've done to you, you will remember that I am not a man to play with, and that any one, man or woman, who interferes with me, must pay the price."

"I don't know what you mean," she answered with an effort. "What happened was an accident."

"Was it?" he said brutally. "Was it?"

Still she did not shrink from him.

"Yes," she said. "It was an accident."

"How do you know?" he asked.

She answered him instantly. She had not realized till then that she was fighting the flames for his soul. The knowledge came upon her suddenly, and it gave her strength.

"Because I know that you love me," she said. "Because--because--though you are cruel, and though you may be wicked--I love you, too."

She said it with absolute sincerity, but it was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. To tell this man who was half animal and half fiend that he had not somehow touched the woman's heart in her seemed almost a desecration. She saw the flare of passion leap up in his eyes, and she was conscious for one sick moment of a feeling of downright repulsion. If she had only succeeded in turning his savagery into another channel she had spoken in vain; or, worse, she had made a mistake that could never be remedied.

Abruptly she felt her courage waver. She shrank at last.

"I want you to understand," she faltered; and again, "I want you to understand."

But she could get no further. She hid her face against him and began to sob.

There followed a silence, tense and terrible, which she dared not break.

Then she felt him bend lower, and suddenly his arms were under her. He lifted her like a little child and sat down, holding her. His hand pressed her head against his neck, fondling, soothing, consoling. And she knew, with an overwhelming thankfulness, that she had not offered herself in vain. She had drawn him out of his hell by the magic of her love.

IX

When morning came Mercer departed alone, and Curtis was left in charge. Sybil lay in her room half dressed, while the latter treated her injured arm.

"You ought not to be up at all," he remarked, as he uncovered it. "Have you had any sleep?"

"Not much," she was obliged to confess.

"Why didn't you stay in bed?"

"I don't want--my husband--to think me very bad," she said, flushing a little.

"Why not?" said Curtis. And then he glanced at her, saw the flush, and said no more.

She watched his bandaging with interest.

"You look so professional," she said.

He uttered a short laugh.

"Do I?"

"I mean," she said, unaccountably embarrassed, "that you do it so nicely."

"I have done a good deal of veterinary work," he said rather coldly. And then suddenly he seemed to change his mind. "I was a professional once," he said, without looking at her. "I made a mistake--a bad one--and it broke me. That's all."

"Oh," she said impulsively, "I am so sorry."

"Thank you," he said quietly.

Not till he was about to leave her did she manage to ask the question that had been uppermost in her mind since his entrance.

"Have you seen Beelzebub yet?"

He paused--somewhat unwillingly, she thought.

"Yes," he answered.

"Is he"--she hesitated--"is he very bad?"

"He isn't going to die, if that is what you mean," said Curtis.

She felt her heart contract.

"Please tell me!" she urged rather faintly. "I want to know."

With the air of a man submitting to the inevitable Curtis proceeded to inform her.

"He is lying in the loft over the stable, like a sick dog. He is rather badly mauled, and whimpers a good deal. I shall take him some soup across presently, but I don't suppose he'll touch it."

"Ok, dear!" she said. "What shall you do then?"

"Mercer will have to lend a hand if I can't manage him," Curtis answered. "But I shall do my best."

She suppressed a shudder.

"I hope you will be successful."

"So do I," said Curtis, departing.

When she saw him again she asked anxiously for news; but he had none of a cheering nature to give her. Beelzebub would not look at food.

"I knew he wouldn't," he said. "He has been like this before."

"Mr. Curtis!" she exclaimed.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It's Mercer's way. He regards the boy as his own personal property, and so he is, more or less. He picked him up in the bush when he wasn't more than a few days old. The mother was dead. Mercer took him, and he was brought up among the farm men. He's a queer young animal, more like a dog than a human being. He needs hammering now and then. I kick him occasionally myself. But Mercer goes too far."

"What had he done?" questioned Sybil.

"Oh, it was some neglect of the horses. I don't know exactly what. Mercer isn't precisely patient, you know. And when the fellow gets thoroughly scared he's like a rabbit; he can't move. Mercer thinks him obstinate, and the rest follows as a natural consequence. I must ask you to excuse me. I have work to do."

"One moment!" Sybil laid a nervous hand on his arm. "Mr. Curtis, if--if you can't persuade the poor boy to take any food, how will my husband do so?"

"He won't," said Curtis. "He'll hold him down while I drench him, that's all."

"That must be very bad for him," she said.

"Of course it is. But we can't let him die, you know." He looked at her suddenly. "Don't you worry yourself, Mrs. Mercer," he said kindly. "He isn't quite the same as a white man, though it may offend your Western prejudices to hear me say so. Beelzebub will pull through all right. They are wonderfully tough, these chaps."

"I wonder if I could persuade him to take something," she said.

He shook his head.

"I don't suppose you could. In any case, you mustn't try. It is against orders."

"Whose orders?" she asked quickly.

"Your husband's," he answered. "His last words to me were that I was on no account to let you go near him."

"Oh, why?" she protested. "And I might be able to help."

"It isn't at all likely," he said. "And he's not a very pretty thing to look at."

"As if that matters!" she exclaimed.

"Well, it does matter, because I don't want to have you in hysterics, as much for my own sake as for yours." He smiled a little. "Also, if Mercer finds he has been disobeyed it will make him savage again, and perhaps I shall be the next victim."

"He would never touch you!" she exclaimed.

"He might. Why shouldn't he?"

"He never would!" she reiterated. "You are not afraid of him."

He looked contemptuous for a second; and then his expression changed.

"You are right," he said. "That is my chief safeguard; and, permit me to say, yours also. It may be worth remembering."

"You think him a coward!" she said.

He considered a little.

"No, not a coward," he said then. "There is nothing mean about him, so far as I can see. He suffers from too much raw material, that's all. They call him Brute Mercer in these parts. But perhaps you will be able to tame him some day."

"I!" she said, and turned away with a mournful little smile.

She might charm him once or even twice out of a savage mood, but the conviction was strong upon her that he would overwhelm her in the end.

X

For nearly an hour after Curtis had left her she sat still, thinking of Beelzebub. The afternoon sunlight lay blindingly upon all things. The heat of it hung laden in the air. But she could not sleep or even try to rest. Her arm throbbed and burned with a ceaseless pain, and ever the thought of Beelzebub, lying in the loft "like a sick dog," oppressed her like an evil dream.

The shadows had begun to lengthen a little when at last she rose. She could bear it no longer. Whatever the consequences, she could endure them more easily than this torture of inactivity. As for Curtis she believed him fully capable of taking care of himself.

She went to the kitchen and was relieved to find him absent. Searching, she presently found the bowl of soup Beelzebub had refused. She turned it into a saucepan and hung over the fire, scarcely conscious of the heat in her pressing desire to be of use.

Finally, armed with the hot liquor, she stole across the yard to the stable. The place was deserted, save for the horse she usually rode, who whinnied softly to her as she passed. At the foot of the loft ladder she stood awhile, listening, and presently heard a heavy groan.

She had to make the ascent very slowly, using her injured arm to support herself. When she emerged at last she found herself in a twilight which for a time her dazzled eyes could not pierce. The heat was intolerable, and the place hummed with flies.

"Beelzebub!" she said softly at length. "Beelzebub, where are you?"

There was a movement in what she dimly discerned to be a heap of straw, and she heard a feeble whimpering as of an animal in pain.

Her heart throbbed with pity as she crept across the littered floor. She was beginning to see more distinctly, and by sundry chinks she discovered the loft door. She went to it, fumbled for the latch, and opened it. Instantly the place was flooded with light, and turning round, she beheld Beelzebub.

He was lying in a twisted heap in the straw, half naked, looking like some monstrous reptile. In all her life she had never beheld anything so horrible. His black flesh was scored over and over with long purple stripes; even his face was swollen almost beyond recognition, and out of it the whites of his eyes gleamed, bloodshot and terrible.

For a few moments she was possessed by an almost overpowering desire to flee from the awful sight; and then again he stirred and whimpered, and pity--element most divine--came to her aid.

She went to the poor, whining creature, and knelt beside him.

"See!" she said. "I have brought you some soup. Do try and take a little! It will do you good."

There was a note of entreaty in her voice, but Beelzebub's eyes stared as though they would leap out of his head.

He writhed away from her into the straw. "Go 'way, missis!" he hissed at her, with lips drawn back in terror. "Go 'way, or Boss'll come and beat Beelzebub!"

He spoke the white man's language; it was the only one he knew, but there was something curiously unfamiliar, something almost bestial in the way he spat his words.

Again Sybil was conscious of a wild desire to escape before sheer horror paralysed her limbs, but she fought and conquered the impulse.

"Boss won't beat you any more," she said. "And I want you to be a good boy and drink this before I go. I brought it myself, because I knew you would take it to please me. You will, won't you, Beelzebub?"

But Beelzebub was not to be easily persuaded. He cried and moaned and writhed at every word she spoke. But Sybil had mastered herself, and she was very patient. She coaxed him as though he had been in truth the sick dog to which Curtis had likened him. And at last, by sheer persistence, she managed to insert the spoon between his chattering teeth.

He let her feed him then, lying passive, still whimpering between every gulp, while she talked soothingly, scarcely knowing what she said in the resolute effort to keep her ever-recurring horror at bay. When the bowl was empty she rose.

"Perhaps you will go to sleep now," she said kindly. "Suppose you try!"

He stared up at her from his lair with rolling, uneasy eyes. Suddenly he pointed to her bandaged arm.

"Boss did that!" he croaked.

She turned to close the door again, feeling the blood rise in her face.

"Boss didn't mean to," she answered with as much steadiness as she could muster. "And he didn't mean to hurt you so badly, either, Beelzebub. He was sorry afterwards."

She saw his teeth gleam in the twilight like the bared fangs of a wolf, and knew that he grinned in derision of this statement. She picked up her bowl and turned to go. At the same instant he spoke in a piercing whisper out of the darkness.

"Boss kill a white man once, missis!"

She stood still, rooted to the spot. "Beelzebub!"

He shrank away, whimpering.

"No, no! Boss'll kill poor Beelzebub! Missis won't tell Boss?"

To her horror his hand shot out and fastened upon her skirt. But she could not have moved in any case. She stood staring down at him, cold--cold to the very heart with foreboding.

"No," she said at last, and it was as if she stood apart and listened to another woman, very calm and collected, speaking on her behalf. "I will never tell him, Beelzebub. You will be quite safe with me. So tell me what you mean! Don't be afraid! Speak plainly! When did Boss kill a white man?"

There must have been something of compulsion in her manner, for, albeit quaveringly and with obvious terror, the negro answered her.

"Down by Bowker Creek, missis, 'fore you come. Boss and the white man fight--a dam' big fight. Beelzebub run away. Afterwards, Boss, come on alone. So Beelzebub know that Boss kill' the white man."

"Oh, then you didn't see him killed! You don't know?"

Was it her own lips uttering the words? They felt quite stiff and powerless.

"Beelzebub run away," she heard him repeating rather vacantly.

"What did they fight with?" she said.

"They fight with their hands," he told her. "White man from Bowker Creek try to shoot Boss, and make Boss very angry."

"But perhaps he wasn't killed," she insisted to herself. "Of course--of course, he wasn't. You shouldn't say such things, Beelzebub. You weren't there to see."

Beelzebub shuffled in the straw and whined depreciatingly.

"Tell me," she heard the other woman say peremptorily, "what was the white man's name?"

But Beelzebub only moaned, and she was forced to conclude that he did not know.

"Where is Bowker Creek?" she asked next.

He could not tell her. His intelligence seemed to have utterly deserted him.

She stood silent, considering, while he coiled about revoltingly in the straw at her feet.

Suddenly through the afternoon silence there came the sound of a horse's hoofs. She started, and listened.

Beelzebub frantically clutched at her shoes.

"Missis won't tell Boss!" he implored again. "Missis won't----"

She stepped desperately out of his reach.

"Hush!" she said. "Hush! He will hear you. I must go. I must go at once."

Emergency gave her strength. She moved to the trap-door, and, she knew not how, found the ladder with her feet.

Grey-faced, dazed, and cold as marble, she descended. Yet she did not stumble. Her limbs moved mechanically, unfalteringly.

When she reached the bottom she turned with absolute steadiness and found Brett Mercer standing in the doorway watching her.

XI

He stood looking at her in silence as she came forward. She did not stop to ascertain if he were angry or not. Somehow it did not seem to matter. She only dealt with the urgent necessity for averting his suspicion.

"I just ran across with some soup for Beelzebub," she said, her pale face raised unflinchingly. "I am glad to say he has taken it. Please don't go up! I want him to get to sleep."

She spoke, with a wholly unconscious authority. The supreme effort she was making seemed to place her upon a different footing. She laid a quiet hand upon his arm and drew him out of the stable.

He went with her as one surprised into submission. One of the farm men who had taken his horse stared after them in amazement.

As they crossed the yard together Mercer found his voice.

"I told Curtis you weren't to go near Beelzebub."

"I know," she answered. "Mr. Curtis told me."

He cracked his whip savagely.

"Where is Curtis?"

"I don't know," she answered. "But, Brett, if you are angry because I went you must deal with me, not with Mr. Curtis. He had nothing whatever to do with it."

Mercer was silent, and she divined with no sense of elation that he would not turn his anger against her.

They entered the house together, and he strode through the passage, calling for Curtis. But when the latter appeared in answer to the summons, to her surprise Mercer began to speak upon a totally different subject.

"I have just seen Stevens from Wallarroo. They are all in a mortal funk there. He was on his way over here to ask you to go and look at a man who is very bad with something that looks like smallpox. You can please yourself about going; though, if you take my advice, you'll stay away."

Curtis did not at once reply. He gravely took the empty bowl from Sybil's hand, and it was upon her that his eyes rested as he finally said, "Do you think you could manage without me?"

She looked up with perfect steadiness.

"Certainly I could. Please do as you think right!"

"What about Beelzebub?" he said.

Mercer made a restless movement.

"He will be on his legs again in a day or two. One of the men must look after him."

"I shall look after him," Sybil said, with a calmness of resolution that astounded both her hearers.

Mercer put his hand on her shoulder, but said nothing. It was Curtis who spoke with the voice of authority.

"You will have to take care of her," he said bluntly. "Bear in mind what I said to you last night! I will show you how to treat the arm. And then I think I had better go. It may prevent an epidemic."

Thereafter he assumed so businesslike an air that he seemed to Sybil to be completely transformed. There never had been much deference in his attitude towards Mercer, but he treated him now without the smallest ceremony. He was as a man suddenly awakened from a long lethargy. From that moment to the moment of his departure his activity was unceasing.

Sybil and Mercer watched him finally ride away, and it was not till he was actually gone that the fact that she was left absolutely alone with her husband came home to her.

With a sense of shock she realized it, and those words of Beelzebub's--the words that she had been so resolutely forcing into the back of her mind--came crowding back upon her with a vividness and persistence that were wholly beyond her control.

What was she going to do, she wondered? What could she do with this awful, this unspeakable doubt pressing ever upon her? It might all be a mistake, a hideous mistake on Beelzebub's part. She had no great faith in his intelligence. It might be that by some evil chance his muddled brain had registered the name of Bowker Creek in connection with the fight which she did not for a moment doubt had at some time taken place. Beelzebub was never reliable in the matter of details, and he had not been able to answer her question regarding the place.

Over and over again she tried to convince herself that her fear was groundless, and over and over again the words came back to her, refusing to be forgotten or ignored--"the white man from Bowker Creek." Who was this white man whom Mercer had fought, this man who had tried to shoot him? She shuddered whenever she pictured the conflict. She was horribly afraid.

Yet she played her part unfalteringly, and Mercer never suspected the seething anguish of suspense and uncertainty that underlay her steadfast composure. He thought her quieter than usual, deemed her shy; and he treated her in consequence with a tenderness of which she had not believed him capable--a tenderness that wrung her heart.

She was thankful when the morning came, and he left her, for the strain was almost more than she could endure.

But in the interval of solitude that ensued she began to build up her strength anew. Alone with her doubts, she faced the fact that she would probably never know the truth. She could not rely upon Beelzebub for accuracy, and she could not refer to her husband. The only course open to her was to bury the evil thing as deeply as might be, to turn her face resolutely away from it, to forget--oh, Heaven, if she could but forget!

All through that day Beelzebub slept, curled up in the straw. She visited him several times, but he needed nothing. Nature had provided her own medicine for his tortured body. In the evening a man came with a note from Curtis. The case was undoubtedly one of smallpox, he wrote, and he did not think his patient would recover. There was a good deal of panic at Wallarroo, and he had removed the man to a cattle-shed at some distance from the township where they were isolated. There were one or two things he needed which he desired Mercer to send on the following day to a place he described, whence he himself would fetch them.

"Beelzebub can go," said Mercer.

"If he is well enough!" said Sybil.

He frowned.

"You don't seem to realize what these niggers are made of. Of course, he will be well enough."

She said no more, for she saw that the topic was unwelcome; but she determined to make a stand on Beelzebub's behalf the next day, unless his condition were very materially improved.

XII

It was with surprise and relief that upon entering the kitchen on the following morning Sybil found Beelzebub back in his accustomed place. He greeted her with a wider grin than usual, which she took for an expression of gratitude. He seemed to have made a complete recovery, for which she was profoundly thankful.

She herself was feeling better that day. Her arm pained her less, and she no longer carried it in a sling. She had breakfasted in bed, Mercer himself waiting upon her.

She was amazed to hear him speak with kindness to Beelzebub, and even ask the boy if he thought he could manage the ride to Wallarroo. Beelzebub, abjectly eager to return to favour, professed himself ready to start at once. And so presently Sybil found herself alone.

The long day passed without event. The loneliness did not oppress her. She busied herself with preparing delicacies for the sick man, which Beelzebub could take on the following day. Beelzebub had had smallpox, and knew no fear.

He did not return from his errand till the afternoon was well advanced. She went to the door to hear his news, but he was in his least intelligent mood, and seemed able to tell her very little. By dint of close questioning she elicited that he had seen Curtis, who had told him that the man was worse. Beyond this, Beelzebub appeared to know nothing; and yet there was something about him that excited her attention. He seemed more than once to be upon the point of saying something, and to fail at the last moment, as though either his wits or his courage were unequal to the effort. She could not have said what conveyed this impression, but it was curiously strong. She tried hard to elicit further information, but Beelzebub only became more idiotic in response, and she was obliged to relinquish the attempt.

Mercer came in soon after, and she dismissed the matter from her mind. But a vivid dream recalled it. She started up in the night, agitated, incoherent, crying that someone wanted her, someone who could not wait, and she must go. She could not tell her husband what the dream had been and in the morning all memory of it had vanished. But it left a vague disquietude behind, a haunting anxiety that hung heavily upon her. She could not feel at peace.

Mercer left that morning. He had to go a considerable distance to an outlying farm. She saw him off from the gate, and then went back into the house, still with that inexplicable sense of oppression weighing her down.

She prepared the parcel that she purposed to send to Curtis, and went in search of Beelzebub. He was sweeping the kitchen.

"I shall want you to go to Wallarroo again to-day," she said. "You had better start soon, as I should like Mr. Curtis to get this in good time."

Beelzebub stopped sweeping, and cringed before her.

"Boss gone?" he questioned cautiously.

"Yes," she answered, wondering what was coming.

He drew a little nearer to her, still cringing.

"Missis," he whispered piercingly, "Beelzebub see the white man yesterday."

She stared at him.

"What white man, Beelzebub? What do you mean?"

"White man from Bowker Creek," said Beelzebub.

Her breathing stopped suddenly. She felt as if she had been stabbed. "Where!" she managed to gasp.

Beelzebub looked vacant. There was evidently something that she was expected to understand. She forced her startled brain into activity.

"Is he the man who is ill--the man Mr. Curtis is taking care of?"

Beelzebub looked intelligent again.

"White man very bad," he said.

"But--but--how was it you saw him? You were told to leave the parcel by the fence for Mr. Curtis to fetch."

Beelzebub exerted himself to explain.

"Mr. Curtis away, so Beelzebub creep up close and look in. But the white man see Beelzebub and curse; so Beelzebub go away again."

"And that is the man you thought Boss killed?" Sybil questioned, relief and fear strangely mingled within her.

Her brain was beginning to whirl, but with all her strength she controlled it. Now or never would she know the truth.

Beelzebub was scared by the question.

"Missis won't tell Boss?" he begged.

"No, no," she said impatiently. "When will you learn that I never repeat things? Now, Beelzebub, I want you to do something for me. Can you remember? You are to ask Mr. Curtis to tell you the white man's name. Say that Boss--do you understand?--say that Boss wants to know! And then come back as fast as you possibly can, before Boss gets home to-night, and tell me!"

She repeated these instructions many times over till it seemed impossible that he could make any mistake. And then she watched him go, and set herself with a heart like lead to face the interminable day.

She thought the hours would never pass, so restless was she, so continuous the torment of doubt that vexed her soul. There were times when she felt that if the thing she feared were true, it would kill her. If her husband--the man whom, in spite of almost every instinct, she had learnt to love--had deceived her, if he had played a double game to win her, if, in short, the man he had fought at Bowker Creek were Robin Wentworth, then she felt as if life for her were over. She might continue to exist, indeed, but the heart within her would be dead. There would be nothing left her but the grey ruins of that which had scarcely begun to be happiness.

She tried hard to compose herself, but all her strength could not still the wild fluttering of her nerves through the long-drawn-out suspense of that dreadful day. At every sound she hastened to the door to look for Beelzebub, long before he could possibly return. At the striking of every hour she strained her ears to listen.

But when at last she heard the hoof-beats that told of the negro's approach she felt that she could not go again; she lacked the physical strength to seek him and hear the truth.

For a time she sat quite still, gathering all her forces for the ordeal. Then at length she compelled herself, and rose.

Beelzebub was grooming his horse. He looked up at her approach and grinned.

"Well, Beelzebub," she said through her white lips, "have you seen Mr. Curtis?"

"Yes, missis." Beelzebub rolled his eyes intelligently. He seemed unaware of the tragedy in the English girl's drawn face.

"And the white man?" she said.

"Mr. Curtis think the white man die soon," said Beelzebub.

"Ah!" She pressed her hand tightly against her heart. She felt as if its throbbing would choke her. "And--his name?" she said.

Beelzebub paused and opened his eyes to their widest extent. He was making a supreme effort, and the result was monstrous. But Sybil did not quail; she scarcely saw him.

"His name?" she said; and again, raising her voice, "His name?"

The whole world seemed to rock while she waited, but she stood firm in the midst of chaos. Her whole soul was concentrated upon Beelzebub's reply.

It came at last with the effect of something uttered from an immense distance that was yet piercingly distinct.

"Went--" said Beelzebub, and paused; then, with renewed effort, "Wentworth."

And Sybil turned from him, shrinking as though something evil had touched her, and walked stiffly back into the house. She had known it all day long!

 

XIII

She never knew afterwards how long a time elapsed between the confirmation of her doubts and the sudden starting to life of a new resolution within her. It came upon her unexpectedly, striking through the numbness of her despair, nerving her to action--the memory of her dream and whence that dream had sprung. Robin Wentworth still lived. It might be he would know her. It might even be that he was wanting her. She would go to him.

It was the only thing left for her to do. Of the risk to herself she did not think, nor would it have deterred her had it presented itself to her mind. She felt as though he had called to her, and she had not answered.

To Beelzebub's abject entreaties she paid no heed. There were two fresh horses in the stable, and she ordered him to saddle them both. He did not dare to disobey her in the matter, but she knew that no power on earth would have induced him to remain alone at the farm till Mercer's coming.

She left no word to explain her absence. There seemed no time for any written message, nor was she in a state of mind to frame one. She was driven by a consuming fever that urged her to perpetual movement. It did not seem to matter how the tidings of her going came to Mercer.

Not till she was in the saddle and riding, riding hard, did she know a moment's relief. The physical exertion eased the inward tumult, but she would not slacken for an instant. She felt that to do so would be to lose her reason. Beelzebub, galloping after her, thought her demented already.

Through the long, long pastures she travelled, never drawing rein, looking neither to right nor left. The animal she rode knew the way to Wallarroo, and followed it undeviatingly. The sun was beginning to slant, and the shadows to lengthen.

Mile after mile of rolling grassland they left behind them, and still they pressed forward. At last came the twilight, brief as the soft sinking of a curtain, and then the dark. But the night was ablaze with stars, and the road was clear.

Sybil rode as one in a nightmare, straining forward eternally. She did not urge her horse, but he bore her so gallantly that she did not need to do so. Beelzebub had increasing difficulty in keeping up with her.

At last, after what seemed like the passage of many hours, they sighted from afar the lights of Wallarroo. Sybil drew rein, and waited for Beelzebub.

"Which way?" she said.

He pointed to a group of trees upon a knoll some distance from the road, and thither she turned her horse's head. Beelzebub rode up beside her.

They left the knoll on one side, and, skirting it, came to a dip in the hill-side. And here they came at length to the end of their journey--a journey that to Sybil had seemed endless--and halted before a wooden shed that had been built for cattle. A flap of canvas had been nailed above the entrance, behind which a dim light burned. Sybil dismounted and drew near.

At first she heard no sound; then, as she stood hesitating and uncertain, there came a man's voice that uttered low, disjointed words. She thought for a second that someone was praying, and then, with a thrill of horror, she knew otherwise. The voice was uttering the most fearful curses she had ever heard.

Scarcely knowing what she did, but unable to stand there passively listening, she drew aside the canvas flap and looked in.

In an instant the voice ceased. There fell a silence, followed by a wild, half-strangled cry. She had a glimpse of a prone figure in a corner struggling upwards, and then Curtis was before her--Curtis haggard and agitated as she had never seen him--pushing her back out of the dim place into the clean starlight without.

"Mrs. Mercer! Are you mad?" she heard him say.

She resisted his compelling hands; she was strangely composed and undismayed.

"I am coming in," she said. "Nothing on earth will keep me back. That man--Robin Wentworth--is a friend of mine. I am going to see him and speak to him."

"Impossible!" Curtis said.

But she withstood him unfalteringly.

"It is not impossible. You must let me pass. I mean to go to him, and you cannot prevent it."

He saw the hopelessness of opposing her. Her eyes told him that it was no whim but steadfast purpose that had brought her there. He looked beyond her to Beelzebub, but gathered no inspiration in that quarter.

"Let me pass, Mr. Curtis!" said Sybil gently. "I shall take no harm. I must see him before he dies."

And Curtis yielded. He was worn out by long and fruitless watching, and he could not cope with this fresh emergency. He yielded to her insistence, and suffered her to pass him.

"He is very far gone," he said.

 

XIV

As Sybil entered she heard again that strange, choked cry. The sick man was struggling to rise, but could not.

She went straight to the narrow pallet on which he lay and bent over him.

"Robin!" she said.

He gave a great start, and became intensely still, lying face downwards, his body twisted, his head on his arm.

She stooped lower. She touched him. A superhuman strength was hers.

"Robin," she said, "do you know me?"

He turned his face a little, and she saw the malignant horror of the disease that gripped him. It was a sight that would have turned her sick at any other time. But to-night she knew no weakness.

"Who are you?" he said, in a gasping whisper.

"I am Sybil," she answered steadfastly. "Don't you remember me?"

He lay motionless for a little, his breathing sharp and short. At length:

"You had better get away from this pestilent hole," he panted out. "It's no place for a woman."

"I have come to nurse you," she said.

"You!" He seemed to collect himself with an effort. He turned his face fully towards her. "Didn't you marry that devil Mercer, after all?" he gasped, gazing up at her with glassy eyes.

Only by his eyes would she have known him--this man whom once long ago she had fancied that she loved--and even they were strained and unfamiliar. She bent her head in answer. "Yes, Robin, I married him."

He began to curse inarticulately, spasmodically; but that she would not have. She knelt down suddenly by his side, and took his hand in hers. The terrible, disfigured countenance did not appal her, though the memory of it would haunt her all her life.

"Robin, listen!" she said earnestly. "We may not have very long together. Let us make the most of what time we have! Don't waste your strength! Try to tell me quietly what happened, how it was you gave me up! I want to understand it all. I have never yet heard the truth."

Her quiet words, the steady pressure of her hand, calmed him. He lay still for a space, gazing at her.

"You're not afraid?" he muttered at last.

"No," she said.

He continued to stare at her.

"Is he--good to you?" he said.

The words came with difficulty. She saw his throat working with the convulsive effort to produce sound.

Curtis touched her arm. "Give him this!"

She took a cup from his hand, and held it to the swollen lips. But he could not swallow. The liquid trickled down into his beard.

"He's past it," murmured Curtis.

"Sybil!" The words came with a hard, rending sound. "Is he--good to you?"

She was wiping away the spilt drops with infinite, unfaltering tenderness.

"Yes, dear," she answered. "He is very good to me."

He uttered a great gasping sigh.

"That's--all--that matters," he said, and fell silent, still gazing at her with eyes that seemed too fixed to take her in.

In the long, long silence that followed no one moved. But for those wild eyes Sybil would have thought him sleeping.

Minutes passed, and at last Curtis spoke under his breath.

"You had better go. You can't do any more."

But she would not stir. She had a feeling that Robin still wanted her.

Suddenly through the night silence there came a sound--the hoof-beats of a galloping horse.

She turned her head and listened. "What is that?"

As if in answer, Beelzebub's black face appeared in the entrance. His eyes were distended with fright.

"Missis!" he hissed in a guttural whisper.

"Here's Boss comin'!" and disappeared again like a monstrous goblin.

Sybil glanced up at Curtis. "Don't let him come here!" she said.

But for once he seemed to be at a loss. He made no response to her appeal. While they waited, the hoofs drew steadily nearer, thudding over the grass.

"Mr. Curtis!" she said urgently.

He made a sharp, despairing gesture. "I can't help it," he said. "You must go. For Heaven's sake, don't let him touch you, and burn the clothes you have on as soon as possible! I am going to set fire to this place immediately."

"Going to--set fire to it?" She stared at him in surprise, still scarcely understanding.

"The poor chap is dead," he said. "It's the only thing to do."

She turned back to the face upon the pillow with its staring, sightless eyes. She raised a pitying hand to close them, but Curtis intervened.

He drew her to her feet. "Go!" he said. "Go! Keep Mercer away, that's all!"

She heard the jingling of a horse's bit and knew that the rider was very near. Mechanically almost, she turned from the place of death and went to meet him.

 

XV

He was off his horse and striding for the entrance when she encountered him. The starlight on his face showed it livid and terrible. At sight of her he stopped short.

"Are you mad?" he said.

They were the identical words that Curtis had used; but his voice, hoarse, unnatural, told her that he was in a dangerous mood.

She backed away from him. "Don't come near me!" she said quickly. "He--he is just dead. And I have been with him."

"He?" he flung at her furiously, and she knew by his tone that he suspected the truth.

She tried to answer him steadily, but her strength was beginning to fail her. The long strain was telling upon her at last. She was uncertain of herself.

"It--was Robin Wentworth," she said.

He took a swift stride towards her. His face was convulsed with passion. "You came here to see that soddened cur?" he said.

She shrank away from him. The tempest of his anger overwhelmed her. She could not stand against it. For the first time she quailed.

"I have seen him," she said. "And he is dead. Ah, don't--don't touch me!"

He paid no attention to her cry. He seized her by the shoulders and almost swung her from his path.

"It would have been better for you," he said between his teeth, "if he had died before you got here. You have begun to repent already, and you'll go on repenting for the rest of your life."

"What are you going to do?" she cried, seeing him turn. "Brett, don't go in there! Don't! Don't! You must not! You shall not!"

In a frenzy of fear she threw herself upon him, struggling with all her puny strength to hold him back.

"I tell you he is dead!" she gasped. "Why do you want to go in?"

"I am going to see for myself," he said stubbornly, putting her away.

"No!" she cried. "No!"

His eyes gleamed red with a savage fury as she clung to him afresh. He caught her wrists, forcing her backwards.

"I don't believe he is dead!" he snarled.

"He is! He is! Mr. Curtis told me so."

"If he isn't, I'll murder him!" Brett Mercer vowed, and flung her fiercely from him.

She fell with violence and lay half-stunned, while he, blinded with rage, possessed by devils, strode forward into that silent place, leaving her prone.

She thought later that she must have fainted, for the next thing she knew--and it must have been after the passage of several minutes--was Mercer kneeling beside her and lifting her. His touch was perfectly gentle, but she dared not look into his face. She cowered in his arms in mortal fear. He had crushed her at last.

"Have I hurt you?" he said.

She did not answer. Her voice was gone. She was as powerless as an infant. He raised her and bore her steadily away.

When he paused finally, it was to speak to Beelzebub, who was holding the horses. And then, without a word to her, he lifted her up on to a saddle, and mounted himself behind her. She lay against his breast as one dazed, incapable of speech or action. And so, with his arm about her, moving slowly through a world of shadows, they began the long, long journey back.

They travelled so for the greater part of the night, and during the whole of that time Mercer never uttered a word. The horse he rode was jaded, and he did not press it. Beelzebub, with the other two, rode far ahead.

It was still dark when at last they turned in to the Home Farm, and, still in that awful silence, Mercer dismounted and lifted his wife to the ground.

He set her on her feet, but her limbs trembled so much that she could scarcely stand. He kept his arm around her, and led her into the house.

He took her to her room and left her there; but in a few minutes he returned with food on a tray which he set before her without raising his eyes, and again departed. She did not see him again for many hours.

 

XVI

From sheer exhaustion she slept at last, but her sleep was broken and unrefreshing. She turned and tossed, dozing and waking in utter weariness of mind and body till the day was far advanced. Finally, too restless to lie any longer, she arose and dressed.

The sound of voices took her to her window before she left her room, and she saw her husband on horseback with Curtis standing by his side. A sense of relief shot through her at sight of the latter. She had come to rely upon him more than she knew. While she watched, Mercer raised his bridle and rode slowly away without a backward glance. And again she was conscious of relief.

Curtis stood looking after him for a few seconds, then turned and entered the house.

She met him in the passage outside her room. He greeted her gravely.

"I was just coming to see if I could do anything for you," he said.

"Thank you," she answered nervously. "I am better now. Where has my husband gone?"

He did not answer her immediately. He turned aside to the room in which she generally sat, standing back for her to pass him. "I have something to say to you," he said.

She glanced at him anxiously as she took the chair he offered her.

"In the first place," he said, "you will be wise if you keep absolutely quiet for the next few days. There will be nothing to disturb you. Mercer is not returning at present. He has left you in my charge."

"Oh, why?" she said.

Her hands were locked together. She had begun to tremble from head to foot.

Curtis was watching her quietly.

"I think," he said, "that he is better away from you for a time, and he agrees with me."

"Why?" she said again, lifting her piteous eyes. "Is he so angry with me?"

"With you? No. He has come to his senses in that respect. But he is not in a particularly safe mood, and he knows it. He has gone to fight it out by himself."

Curtis paused, but Sybil did not speak. Her attitude had relaxed. He read unmistakble relief in every line.

"Well, now," he said deliberately, "I am going to tell you the exact truth of this business, as Mercer himself has told it to me."

"He wishes me to know it?" she asked quickly.

"He is willing that I should tell you," Curtis answered. "In fact, until he saw me to-day he believed that you knew it already. That was the primary cause of his savagery last night. You have probably formed a very shrewd suspicion of what happened, but it is better for you to know things as they actually stand. If it makes you hate him--well, it's no more than he deserves."

"Ah, but I have to live with him," she broke in, with sudden passion. "It is easy for you to talk of hating him, but I--I am his wife. I must go on living by his side, whatever I may feel."

"Yes, I know," Curtis said. "But it won't make it any easier for either of you to feel that there is this thing between you. Even he sees that. You can't forgive him if you don't know what he has done."

"Then why doesn't he tell me himself?" she said.

"Because," Curtis answered, looking at her steadily, "it will be easier for you to hear it from me. He saw that, too."

She could not deny it, but for some reason it hurt her to hear him say so. She had a feeling that it was to Curtis's insistence, rather than to her husband's consideration, that she owed this present respite.

"I will listen to you, then," she said.

Curtis began to walk up and down the room.

"First, with regard to Wentworth," he said. "There was a time once when he occupied very much the position that I now hold. He was Mercer's right-hand man. But he took to drink, and that did for him. I am afraid he was never very sound. Anyhow, Mercer gave him up, and he disappeared.

"After he had gone, after I took his place, we found out one or two things he had done which might have landed him in prison if Mercer had followed them up. However, the man was gone, and it didn't seem worth while to track him. It was not till afterwards that we heard he was at Bowker Creek, and Mercer was then on the point of starting for England, and decided to leave him alone.

"It's a poor place--Bowker Creek. He had got a job there as boundary rider. I suppose he counted on the shearing season to set him up. But he wasn't the sort of chap who ever gets on. And when Mercer met you on his way out from the old country it was something of a shock to him to hear that you were on your way to marry Robin Wentworth.

"Of course, he ought to have told you the truth, but instead of that he made up his mind to take the business into his own hands and marry you himself. He cabled from Colombo to Wentworth to wait for him at Bowker Creek, hinted that if he went to the coast he would have him arrested, and said something vague about coming to an understanding which induced Wentworth to obey orders.

"Then he came straight here and pressed on to Rollandstown, taking Beelzebub with him to show him the short cuts. It's a hard day's ride in any case. He reached Bowker Creek the day after, and had it out with Wentworth. The man had been drinking, was unreasonable, furious, finally tried to shoot him.

"Well, you know Mercer. He won't stand that sort of thing. He thrashed him within an inch of his life, and then made him write and give you up. It was a despicable affair from start to finish. Mercer's only excuse was that Wentworth was not the sort of man to make any woman happy. Finally, when he had got what he wanted, Mercer left him, after swearing eternal vengeance on him if he ever came within reach of you. The rest you know."

Yes, Sybil knew the rest. She understood the whole story from beginning to end, realized with what unscrupulous ingenuity she had been trapped and wondered bitterly if she would ever endure her husband's presence again without the shuddering sense of nausea which now overcame her at the bare thought of him.

She sat in stony silence, till at last Curtis paused beside her.

"I want you to rest," he said. "I think, if you don't, the consequences may be serious."

She looked up at him uncomprehendingly.

"Come, Mrs. Mercer!" he said.

She shrank at the name.

"Don't call me that!" she said, and stumbled uncertainly to her feet. "I--I am going away."

He put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"You can't," he said quietly. "You are not fit for it. Besides, there is nowhere for you to go to. But I will get Mrs. Stevens, the innkeeper's wife at Wallarroo, to come to you for a time. She is a good sort, you can count on her. As for Mercer, he will not return unless you--or I--send for him."

She shivered violently, uncontrollably.

"You will never send for him?"

"Never," he answered, "unless you need him."

She glanced around her wildly. Her eyes were hunted.

"Why do you say that?" she gasped.

"I think you know why I say it," said Curtis very steadily.

Her hands were clenched.

"No!" she cried back sharply. "No!"

Curtis was silent. There was deep compassion in his eyes.

She glanced around her wildly. Her eyes were on his eyes.

She shuddered again, shuddered from head to foot.

"If I thought that," she whispered, "if I thought that, I would----"

"Hush!" he interposed gently. "Don't say it! Go and lie down! You will see things differently by and bye."

She knew that he was right, and worn out, broken as she was, she moved to obey him. But before she reached the door her little strength was gone. She felt herself sinking swiftly into a silence that she hoped and even prayed was death. She did not know when Curtis lifted her.

 

XVII

During many days Sybil lay in her darkened room, facing, in weariness of body and bitterness of soul, the problem of life. She was not actually ill, but there were times when she longed intensely, passionately, for death. She was weak, physically and mentally, after the long strain. Courage and endurance had alike given way at last. She had no strength with which to face what lay before her.

So far as outward circumstances went, she was in good hands. Curtis watched over her with a care that never flagged, and the innkeeper's wife from Wallarroo, large and slow and patient, was her constant attendant. But neither of them could touch or in any way soothe the perpetual pain that throbbed night and day in the girl's heart, giving her no rest.

She left her bed at length after many days, but it was only to wander aimlessly about the house, lacking the energy to employ herself. Her nerves were quieter, but she still started at any sudden sound, and would sit as one listening yet dreading to hear. Her husband's name never passed her lips, and Curtis never made the vaguest reference to him. He knew that sooner or later a change would come, that the long suffering that lined her face must draw at last to a climax; but he would do nothing to hasten it. He believed that Nature would eventually find her own remedy.

But Nature is ever slow, and sometimes the wheel of life moves too quickly for her methods to take effect.

Sybil was sitting one day by an open window when Beelzebub dashed suddenly into view. He was on horseback, riding barebacked, and was evidently in a ferment of excitement. He bawled some incoherent words as he passed the window, words which Sybil could not distinguish, but which nevertheless sent a sharp sense of foreboding through her heart. Had he--or had he not--yelled something to her about "Boss"? She could not possibly have said, but the suspicion was sufficiently strong to rouse her to lean out of the window and try to catch something of what the boy was saying.

He had reached the yard, and had flung himself off the sweating animal. As she peered forth she caught sight of Curtis coming out of the stable. Beelzebub saw him too, and broke out afresh with his wild cry. This time, straining her ears to listen, she caught the words, all jumbled together though they were.

"Boss got smallpox!"

She saw Curtis stop dead, and she wondered if his heart, like hers, had ceased to beat. The next instant he moved forward, and for the first time she saw him deliberately punch the gesticulating negro's woolly head. Beelzebub cried out like a whipped dog and slunk back. Then, very calmly, Curtis took him by the scruff of his neck, and began to question him.

Sybil stood, gripping the curtain, and watched it all as one watches a scene on the stage. Somehow, though she knew herself to be vitally concerned, she felt no agitation. It was as if the blood had ceased to run in her veins.

At length she saw Curtis release the palpitating Beelzebub, and turn towards the house. Quite calmly she also turned.

They met in the passage.

"You needn't trouble to keep it from me," she said. "I know."

He gave her a keen look.

"I am going to him at once," was all he said.

She stood quite still, facing him; and suddenly she was conscious of a great glow pulsing through her, as though some arrested force had been set free. She knew that her heart was beating again, strongly, steadily, fearlessly.

"I shall come with you," she said.

She saw his face change.

"I am sorry," he said, "but that is out of the question. You must know it."

She answered him instantly, unhesitatingly, with some of the old, quick spirit that had won Brett Mercer's heart.

"There you are wrong. I know it to be the only thing possible for me to do."

Curtis looked at her for a second as if he scarcely knew her, and then abruptly abandoned the argument.

"I will not be responsible," he said, turning aside.

And she answered him unfalteringly:

"I will take the responsibility."

XVIII

Slowly Brett Mercer raised himself and tried to peer through his swollen eyelids at the door.

"Don't bring any woman here!" he mumbled.

The effort to see was fruitless. He sank back, blind and tortured, upon the pillow. He had been taken ill at one of his own outlying farms, and here he had lain for days--a giant bereft of his strength, waiting for death.

His only attendant was a farm-hand who had had the disease, but knew nothing of its treatment, who was, moreover, afraid to go near him.

Curtis took in the whole situation at a glance as he bent over him.

"Why didn't you send for me?" he said.

"That you?" gasped Mercer. "Man, I'm in hell! Can't you give me something to put me out of my misery?"

Curtis was already at work over him.

"No," he said briefly. "I'm going to pull you through. You're wanted."

"You lie!" gasped back Mercer, and said no more.

Some hours after, starting suddenly from fevered sleep, he asked an abrupt question:

"Does my wife know?"

"Yes, she knows," Curtis answered.

He flung his arms wide with a bitter gesture. "She'll soon be free," he said.

"Not if I know it," said Curtis, in his quiet, unemotional style.

"You can't make me live against my will," muttered Mercer.

"Don't talk like a fool!" responded Curtis.

Late that night a hand that was not Curtis's smoothed the sick man's pillow, and presently gave him nourishment. He noticed the difference instantly, though he could not open his eyes; but he said nothing at the time, and she fancied he did not know her.

But presently, when she thought him sleeping, he spoke.

"When did you come?"

Even then she was not sure that he was in his right mind. His face was so swollen and disfigured that it told her nothing. She answered him very softly:

"I came with Mr. Curtis."

"Why?" That one word told her that he was in full possession of his senses. He moved his head to and fro on the pillow as one vainly seeking rest. "Did you want to see me in hell?" he questioned harshly.

She leaned towards him. She was sitting by his bed.

"No," she said, speaking under her breath. "I came because--because it was the only way out--for us both."

"What?" he said, and the old impatient frown drew his forehead. "You came to see me die, then?"

"I came," she answered, "to try and make you live."

He drew a breath that was a groan.

"You won't succeed," he said.

"Why not?" she asked.

Again feverishly he moved his head, and she smoothed his pillow afresh with hands that trembled.

"Don't touch me!" he said sharply. "What was Curtis dreaming of to bring you here?"

"Mr. Curtis couldn't help it," she answered, with more assurance. "I came." And then after a moment, "Are you--sorry--I came?"

"Yes," he muttered.

"Oh, why?" she said.

"I would sooner die--without you looking on," he said, forcing out his words through set teeth.

"Oh, why?" she said again. "Don't you believe--can't you believe--that I want you to live?"

"No," he groaned.

"Not if I swear it?" she asked, her voice sunk very low.

"No!" He flung the word with something of his ancient ferocity. She was torturing him past endurance. He even madly hoped that he could scare her away.

But Sybil made no move to go. She sat quite still for a few seconds. Then slowly she went down upon her knees beside his pillow.

"Brett," she said, and he felt her breath quick and tremulous upon his face as she spoke, "you may refuse to believe what I say. But--I can convince you without words."

And before he knew her meaning, she had pressed her quivering lips to his.

He recoiled, with an anguished sound that was half of protest and half of unutterable pain.

"Do you want to die too?" he said. "Or don't you know the risk?"

"Yes, I know it," she answered. "I know it," and in her voice was such a thrill of passion as he had never heard or thought to hear from her. "But I know this, too, and I mean that you shall know it. My life is nothing to me--do you understand?--nothing, unless you share it. Now--will you believe me?"

Yes, he believed her then. He had no choice. The knowledge was as a sword cutting its way straight to his heart. He tried to answer her, tried desperately hard, because he knew that she was waiting for him to speak, that his silence would hurt her who from that day forward he would never hurt again.

But no words would come. He could not force his utterance. The power of speech was gone from him. He turned his face away from her in choking tears.

And Sybil knew that the victory was hers. Those tears were more to her than words. She knew that he would live--if he could--for her sake.

XIX

It was more than six weeks later that Brett Mercer and his wife turned in at the Home Farm, as they had turned in on that memorable night that he had brought his bride from Wallarroo.

Now, as then, Curtis was ready for them in the open doorway, and Beelzebub advanced grinning to take the horses. But there the resemblance ceased. The woman who entered with her husband leaning on her shoulder was no nervous, shrinking stranger, but a wife entering her home with gladness, bearing her burden with rejoicing. The woman from Wallarroo looked at her with a doubtful sort of sympathy. She also looked at the gaunt, bowed man who accompanied her, and questioned with herself if this were indeed Brett Mercer.

Brett Mercer it undoubtedly was, nor could she have said, save for his slow, stooping gait, wherein lay the change that so amazed her.

Perhaps it was more apparent in Sybil than in the man himself as she raised her face on entering, and murmured:

"So good to get home again, isn't it, dear?"

He did not speak in answer. He scarcely spoke at all that night. But his silence satisfied her.

It was not till the following morning that he stretched out a great, bony hand to her as she waited on him, and drew her down to his side.

"There has been enough of this," he said, with a touch of his old imperiousness. "You have worked too hard already, harder than I ever meant you to work. You are to take a rest, and get strong."

She uttered her gay little laugh.

"My dearest Brett, I am strong."

He lay staring at her in his most direct, disconcerting fashion. She endured his look for a moment, and then averted her eyes. She would have risen, but he prevented her.

"Sybil!" he said abruptly.

"Yes?" she answered, with her head bent.

"Are you afraid of me?" he said.

She shook her head instantly.

"Don't be absurd!"

"Then look at me!" he said.

She raised her eyes slowly, not very willingly. But, having raised them, she kept them so, for there was that in his look which no longer made her shy.

He made a slight gesture towards her that was rather of invitation than insistence.

"Don't you think I'm nearly well enough to be let into the secret?" he said.

His action, his tone, above all his look, broke down the last of the barrier between them. She went into his arms with a shaky little laugh, and hid her face against him.

"I would have told you long ago," she whispered, "only somehow--I couldn't. Besides, I was so sure that you knew."

"Oh, yes, I knew," said Mercer. "Curtis saw to that; literally flayed me with it till I took his advice and cleared out. You know, I've often wondered since if it was that that made you want me, after all."

She shook her head, still with her face against his breast.

"No, dear, it wasn't. It--it made things worse at first. It was only when I heard you were ill that--that I found--quite suddenly--that I couldn't possibly go on without you. It was as if--as if something bound round my heart had suddenly given way, and I could breathe again. When I saw you I knew how terribly I wanted you."

"And that was how you came to kiss me with that loathsome disease upon me?" he whispered. "That was what made you follow me down to hell to bring me back?"

She turned her face upwards. Her eyes were shining.

"My dear," she said, and in her voice was a thrill like the first sweet notes of a bird in the dawning, "you don't need to ask me why did these things. For you know--you know. It was simply and only because I loved you."

"Heaven knows why," he said, as he bent to kiss her.

"Heavens knows," she answered, and softly laughed as she surrendered her lips to his.

[The end]
Ethel May Dell's short story: The Prey Of The Dragon

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