The Lust of Hate, Guy Newell Boothby [essential books to read .txt] 📗

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sit up. “Very much better. What has been the matter with me?”

 

“A bit of a faint, that’s all,” another answered. “Are you subject

to them?”

 

“I’ve been very ill lately,” I said, giving them the same reply as

I had done to the man in the train, “and I suppose I overtaxed my

strength a little this morning. But, thanks to your kindness, I feel

ever so much better now.”

 

As soon as I had recovered sufficiently, I paid my bill, and,

having again sincerely thanked those who had assisted me, left the

shop and hurried off to the docks as fast as I could go. It was now

some few minutes after ten o’clock.

 

The Fiji Princess was a fair-sized vessel of an

old-fashioned type, and very heavily laden; indeed, so heavy was she

that she looked almost unsafe beside the great American liner near

which she was berthed.

 

Having clambered on board I enquired my way to the steerage

quarters, which were forward, then stowed away my things and

endeavoured to make myself as comfortable as circumstances would

permit in the place which was to be my home for the next five weeks

or so. For prudence sake I remained below until I heard the whistle

sound and could tell by the shaking that the steamship was moving.

Then, when I had satisfied myself that we were really under way, I

climbed the gangway that led to the deck and looked about me. Slowly

as we were moving, we were already a hundred yards from the wharf

side, and in a few minutes would be well out in Southampton Water.

Eight aft a small crowd of passengers were grouped at the stern

railings, waving their handkerchiefs and hats to a similar group

ashore. Forward we were less demonstrative, for, as I soon

discovered, the steerage passengers consisted only of myself, a

circumstance which you may be very sure I did not by any means

regret.

 

By mid-day we were in the Solent, and by lunch time the Isle of

Wight lay over our taffrail. Now, unless I was stopped at Teneriffe,

I was certain of a month’s respite from the law. And when I realised

this I went to my berth and, sinner as I was, knelt down and offered

up the heartiest prayer of gratitude I have ever in my life given

utterance to.

 

CHAPTER IV. A STRANGE COINCIDENCE.

 

If any man is desirous of properly understanding the feelings of

gratitude and relief which filled my breast as the Fiji

Princess steamed down channel that first afternoon out from

Southampton, he must begin by endeavouring to imagine himself placed

in the same unenviable position. For all I knew to the contrary, even

while I stood leaning on the bulwarks watching the coast line away to

starboard, some unlucky chance might be giving the police a clue to

my identity, and the hue-and-cry already have begun. When I came to

consider my actions during the past twenty-four hours, I seemed to be

giving my enemies innumerable opportunities of discovering my

whereabouts. My letter to the manager of the hotel, which I had

posted in the Strand after leaving the Covent Garden restaurant,

would furnish proof that I was in town before five o’clock—the time

at which the box was cleared on the morning of the murder. Then,

having ascertained that much, they would in all probability call at

the hotel, and in instituting enquiries there, be permitted a perusal

of the letter I had written to the manager that morning. Whether they

would believe that I had gone north, as I desired they should

suppose, was difficult to say; but in either case they would be

almost certain to have all the southern seaports watched. I fancied,

however, that my quickness in getting out of England would puzzle

them a little, even if it did not baffle them altogether.

 

Unfortunately, the Fiji Princess had been the only vessel

of importance sailing from Southampton on that particular day, and

owing to the paucity of steerage passengers, I felt sure the clerk

who gave me my ticket would remember me sufficiently well to be able

to assist in the work of identification. Other witnesses against me

would be the porters at Surbiton railway station, who had seen me

arrive, tired and dispirited, after my long walk; the old man who had

given me whiskey on the journey down; and the people in the

restaurant where I had been taken ill would probably recognise me

from the description. However, it was in my favour that I was here on

the deck of the steamer, if not devoid of anxiety, at least free from

the clutches of the law for the present.

 

The afternoon was perfectly fine, though bitterly cold; overhead

stretched a blue sky, with scarcely a cloud from horizon to horizon;

the sea was green as grass, and almost as smooth as a millpond. Since

luncheon I had seen nothing of the passengers, nor had I troubled to

inquire if the vessel carried her full complement. The saloon was

situated right aft in the poop, the skipper had his cabin next to the

chart room on the hurricane deck, and the officers theirs on either

side of the engine-room, in the alley ways below. My quarters—I

had them all to myself, as I said in the last chapter—were as roomy

and comfortable as a man could expect for the passage-money I paid,

and when I had made friends with the cook and his mate, I knew I

should get through the voyage in comparative comfort.

 

At this point I am brought to the narration of the most uncanny

portion of my story: a coincidence so strange that it seems almost

impossible it can be true, and one for which I have never been able,

in any way, to account. Yet, strange as it may appear, it must be

told; and that it is true, have I not the best and sweetest evidence

any man could desire in the world? It came about in this way. In the

middle of the first afternoon, as already described, I was sitting

smoking on the fore hatch, and at the same time talking to the chief

steward. He had been to sea, so he told me, since he was quite a lad;

and, as I soon discovered, had seen some strange adventures in almost

every part of the globe. It soon turned out, as is generally the way,

that I knew several men with whom he was acquainted, and in a few

minutes we were upon the most friendly terms. From the sea our

conversation changed to China, and in illustration of the character

of the waterside people of that peculiar country, my companion

narrated a story about a shipmate who had put off in a sampan to

board his boat lying in Hong Kong harbour, and had never been seen or

heard of again.

 

“It was a queer thing,” he said impressively, as he shook the

ashes out of his pipe and re-charged it, “as queer a thing as ever a

man heard of. I spent the evening with the chap myself, and before we

said ‘good-bye’ we arranged to go up to Happy Valley the Sunday

morning following. But he never turned up, nor have I ever set eyes

on him from that time to this. Whether he was murdered by the

sampan’s crew or whether he fell overboard and was drowned in the

harbour, I don’t suppose will ever be known.”

 

“A very strange thing,” I said, as bravely as I could, and

instantly thought of the bond I had in common with that sampan’s

crew.

 

“Aye, strange; very strange,” replied the steward, shaking his

head solemnly; “but there’s many strange things done now-a-days. Look

at these here murders that have been going on in London lately. I

reckon it would be a wise man as could put an explanation on

them.”

 

All my blood seemed to rush to my head, and my heart for a second

stood still. I suffered agonies of apprehension lest he should notice

my state and have his suspicions aroused, but he was evidently too

much engrossed with his subject to pay any attention to my

appearance. I knew I must say something, but my tongue was cleaving

to the roof of my mouth. It was some moments before I found my voice,

and then I said as innocently as possible—

 

“They are certainly peculiar, are they not? Have you any theory to

account for them?”

 

This was plainly a question to his taste, and it soon became

evident that he had discussed the subject in all its bearings on

several occasions before.

 

“Do you want to know what I think?” he began slowly, fixing me

with an eye that he seemed to imagine bored through me like an augur.

“Well, what I think is that the Anarchists are at the bottom of it

all, and I’ll tell you for why. Look at the class of men who were

killed. Who was the first? A Major-General in the army, wasn’t he?

Who was the second? A member of the House of Lords. Who was the

third?”

 

He looked so searchingly at me that I felt myself quailing before

his glance as if he had detected me in my guilt. Who could tell him

better than I who the last victim was?

 

“And the third—well, he was one of these rich men as fattens on

Society and the workin’ man, was he not?”

 

He pounded his open hand with his fist in the true fashion, and

his eyes constantly challenged me to refute his statements if I were

in a position to do so. But—heaven help me!—thankful as I would

have been to do it, I was not able to gainsay him. Instead, I sat

before him like a criminal in the dock, conscious of the danger I was

running, yet unable for the life of me to avert it. Still, however,

my tormentor did not notice my condition, but returned to the

charge with renewed vigour. What he lacked in argument he made up in

vehemence. And for nearly an hour I had to sit and bear the brunt of

both.

 

“Now, I’ll ask you a question,” he said for the twentieth time,

after he had paused to watch the effect of his last point. “Who do

the Anarchists mostly go for? Why for what we may call, for the sake

of argument, the leaders of Society—generals, peers, and

millionaires. Those are the people, therefore, that they want to be

rid of.”

 

“You think then,” I said, “that these—these crimes were the work

of a party instead of an individual?”

 

He half closed his eyes and looked at me with an expression upon

his face that seemed to implore me to contradict him.

 

“You know what I think,” he said; then with fine conceit, “If only

other folk had as much savee as we have, the fellows who did

the work would have been laid by the heels by this time. As it is

they’ll never catch them—no, not till the moon’s made of cream

cheese.”

 

With this avowal of his settled opinion he took himself off, and

left me sitting on the hatch, hoping with all my heart and soul that,

if in this lay my chance of safety, the world might long retain its

present opinion. While I was ruminating on what he had said, and

feeling that I would give five years of my life to know exactly how

matters stood ashore, I chanced to look up at the little covered way

on the hurricane deck below the bridge. My heart seemed to stand

still. For the moment I thought I must be asleep and