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

faint again.

 

“What is the matter, Gilbert?” she cried. “Oh, what is the matter

with you?”

 

“Matter!” I almost shouted in my joy. “This is the matter. I am

free—free—free! Free to marry you—free to do as I please, and live

as I please, and go where I please!!! For there in that bed is my old

enemy, the man I told you I had killed.”

 

For a second she must have thought me mad, for I noticed she

shrank a step away from me, and looked at me with an apprehensive

glance. But she soon recovered her composure, and asked if I were

certain of what I said.

 

“As certain as I am that you are standing before me now,” I

answered. “I should know him anywhere. Where is the doctor?”

 

A moment later I had found the doctor.

 

“Doctor,” I said, “there is a man in that room yonder whom, I am

told, you say has a broken back. He is unconscious. Will he remain so

until he dies?”

 

“Most probably,” was the other’s matter-of-fact reply as he began

to bind up the arm of the man he had been operating on. “Why do you

ask?”

 

“Because it is a matter of the most vital importance that I should

speak with him before he dies. All the happiness of my life and

another’s depends upon it.”

 

“Very well. Don’t worry yourself. I’ll see what I can do for you.

Now go away and be quiet. I’m busy.”

 

I went away as he ordered me, and leant against the verandah rails

at the back of the house. My head was swimming, and I could hardly

think coherently. Now that Bartrand was alive, every obstacle was

cleared away—I was free to marry Agnes as soon as her father would

let me; free to do whatever I pleased in the world. The reaction was

almost more than I could bear. No words could overestimate my relief

and joy.

 

Half an hour later the doctor came to me.

 

“Your man is conscious now,” he said. “But you’d better look sharp

if you want to ask him anything. He won’t last long.”

 

I followed him into the house to the corner where the sick man

lay. As soon as he saw me, Bartrand showed with his eyes that he

recognized me.

 

“Pennethorne,” he whispered, as I knelt by the bed, “this is a

strange meeting. Do you know I’ve been hunting for you these nine

months past?”

 

“Hunting for me?” I said. “Why, I thought you dead!”

 

“I allowed it to be supposed that I was,” he answered. “I can tell

you, Pennethorne, that money I swindled you out of never brought me

an ounce of luck—nor Gibbs either. He turned cocktail and sent his

share back to me almost at once. He was drinking himself to death on

it, I heard. Now look at me, I’m here—dying in South Africa. They

tell me you saved me to-day at the risk of your life.”

 

“Never mind that now,” I said. “We’ve got other things to talk

about.”

 

“But I must mind,” he answered. “Listen to what I have to tell

you, and don’t interrupt me. Three nights before I disappeared last

winter, I made my will, leaving you everything. It’s more than the

value of the mine, for I brought off some big speculations with the

money, and almost doubled my capital. You may not believe it, but I

always felt sorry for you, even when I stole your secret. I’m a

pretty bad lot, but I couldn’t steal your money and not be a bit

sorry. But, funny as it may seem to say so, I hated you all the time

too—hated you more than any other man on God’s earth. Now you’ve

risked your life for me, and I’m dying in your house. How strangely

things turn out, don’t they?”

 

Here the doctor gave him something to drink, and bade me let him

be quiet for a few moments. Presently Bartrand recovered his

strength, and began again.

 

“One day, soon after I arrived in London from Australia, I fell in

tow with a man named Nikola. I tell you, Pennethorne, if ever you see

that man beware of him, for he’s the Devil, and nobody else. I tell

you he proposed the most fiendish things to me and showed me such a

side of human nature that, if I hadn’t quarrelled with him and not

seen so much of him I should have been driven into a lunatic asylum.

I can tell you it’s not altogether a life of roses to be a

millionaire. About this time I began to get threatening letters from

men all over Europe trying to extort money from me for one purpose or

another. Eventually Nikola found out that I was the victim of a

secret society. How he managed it, the deuce only knows. They wanted

money badly, and finally Nikola told me that for half a million he

could get me clear. If I did not pay up I’d be dead, he said, in a

month. But I wasn’t to be frightened like that, so I told him I

wouldn’t give it. From that time forward attempts were made on my

life until my nerve gave way—and in a blue funk I determined to

forego the bulk of my wealth and clear out of England in the hopes of

beginning a new life elsewhere.”

 

He paused once more for a few moments; his strength was nearly

exhausted, and I could see with half an eye that the end was not far

distant now. When he spoke again his voice was much weaker, and he

seemed to find it difficult to concentrate his ideas.

 

“Nikola wanted sixty thousand for himself, I suppose for one of

his devilments,” he said, huskily. “He used every means in his power

to induce me to give it to him, but I refused time after time. He

showed me his power, tried to hypnotize me even, and finally told me

I should he a dead man in a week if I did not let him have the money.

I wasn’t going to be bluffed, so I declined again. By this time I

distrusted my servants, my friends, and everybody with whom I came in

contact. I could not sleep, and I could not eat. All my arrangements

were made, and I was going to leave England on the Saturday. On the

Wednesday Nikola and I were to meet at a house on special business.

We saw each other at a club, and I called a hansom, intending to go

on and wait for him. I had a dreadful cold, and carried some cough

drops in a little silver box in my pocket. He must have got

possession of it, and substituted some preparations of his own.

Feeling my cough returning, I took one in the cab as I drove along.

After that I remember no more till I came round and found myself

lying in the middle of the road, half covered with snow, and with a

bruise the size of a tea-cup on the back of my head. For some reason

of his own Nikola had tried to do for me; and the cabman, frightened

at my state, had pitched me out and left me. As soon as I could walk,

and it was daylight, I determined to find you at your hotel, in order

to hand over to you the money I had stolen from you, and then I was

going to bolt from England for my life. But when I reached

Blankerton’s I was told that you had left. I traced your luggage to

Aberdeen; but, though I wasted a week looking, I couldn’t find

you there. Three months ago I chanced upon a snapshot photograph

taken in Cape Town, and reproduced in an American illustrated paper.

It represented one of the only two survivors of the Fiji

Princess, and I recognised you immediately, and followed you,

first to Cape Town and then, bit by bit, out here. Now listen to me,

for I’ve not much time left. My will is in my coat-pocket; when I’m

dead, you can take it out and do as you like with it. You’ll find

yourself one of the richest men in the world, or I’m mistaken. I can

only say I hope you’ll have better luck with the money than I have

had. I’m glad you’ve got it again; for, somehow, I’d fixed the idea

in my head that I shouldn’t rest quietly in my grave unless I

restored it to you. One caution! Don’t let Nikola get hold of it,

that’s all—for he’s after you, I’m certain. He’s been tracking you

down these months past; and I’ve heard he’s on his way here. I’m told

he thinks I’m dead. He’ll be right in his conjecture soon.”

 

“Bartrand,” I said, as solemnly as I knew how, “I will not take

one halfpenny of the money. I am firmly resolved upon that. Nothing

shall ever make me.”

 

“Not take it? But it’s your own. I never had any right to it from

the beginning. I stole your secret while you were ill.”

 

“That may be; but I’ll not touch the money, come what may.”

 

“But I must leave it to somebody.”

 

“Then leave it to the London hospitals. I will not have a penny of

it. Good heavens, man, you little know how basely I behaved towards

you!”

 

“I’ve not time to hear it now, then,” he answered. “Quick! let me

make anew will while I’ve strength to sign it.”

 

Pens, paper, and ink were soon forthcoming; and at his instruction

Mr. Maybourne and the doctor between them drafted the will. When it

was finished the dying man signed it, and then those present

witnessed it, and the man lay back and closed his eyes. For a moment

I thought he was gone, but I was mistaken. After a silence of about

ten minutes he opened his eyes and looked at me.

 

“Do you remember Markapurlie?” he said. That was all. Then, with a

grim smile upon his lips, he died, just as the clock on the wall

above his head struck twelve. His last speech, for some reason or

other, haunted me for weeks.

 

Towards sundown that afternoon I was standing in the verandah of

my house, watching a fatigue party digging a grave under a tree in

the paddock beyond the mine buildings, when a shout from Mr.

Maybourne, who was on his way to the office, attracted my attention.

“When I reached his side, he pointed to a small speck of dust about a

mile to the northward.

 

“It’s a horseman,” he cried; “but who can it be?”

 

“I have no possible notion,” I answered; “but we shall very soon

see.”

 

The rider, whoever he was, was in no hurry. When he came nearer,

we could see that he was cantering along as coolly as if he were

riding in Rotten Bow. By the time he was only a hundred yards or so

distant, I was trembling with excitement. Though I had never seen the

man on horseback before, I should have known his figure anywhere.

It was Dr. Nikola. There could be no possible doubt about

that. Bartrand was quite right when he told me that he was in the

neighbourhood.

 

I heard Mr. Maybourne say something about news from the township,

but the real import of his words I did not catch. I seemed to be

watching the advancing figure with my whole being. When he reached

the laager he sprang from his horse, and then it was that I noticed

Mr. Maybourne had left my side and was giving instructions