Dead Men Tell No Tales, E. W. Hornung [e book reader .txt] 📗

would shoot me sooner than I would you. The only difference would be than I should be shot in the back!”

“It is untrue,” said Santos, with immense emotion. “I call the saints to witness that never by thought or word have I been disloyal to you” - and the blasphemous wretch actually crossed himself with a trembling, skinny hand. “I have leestened to you, though you are the younger man. I have geeven way to you in everything from the moment we were so fullish as to set foot on this accursed coast; that also was your doeeng; and it will be your fault if ivil comes of it. Yet I have not complained. Here in your own ‘ouse you have been the master, I the guest. So far from plotting against you, show me the man who has heard me brith one treacherous word behind your back; you will find it deeficult, friend Rattray; what do you say, captain?”

“Me?” cried Harris, in a voice bursting with abuse. And what the captain said may or may not be imagined. It cannot be set down.

But the man who ought to have spoken - the man who had such a chance as few men have off the stage - who could have confounded these villains in a breath, and saved the wretched Rattray at once from them and from himself - that unheroic hero remained ignobly silent in his homely hiding-place. And, what is more, he would do the same again!

The rogues had fallen out; now was the time for honest men. They all thought I had escaped; therefore they would give me a better chance than ever of still escaping; and I have already explained to what purpose I meant to use my first hours of liberty. That purpose I hold to have justified any ingratitude that I may seem now to have displayed towards the man who had undoubtedly stood between death and me. Was not Eva Denison of more value than many Rattrays? And it was precisely in relation with this pure young girl that I most mistrusted the squire: obviously then my first duty was to save Eva from Rattray, not Rattray from these traitors.

Not that I pretend for a moment to have been the thing I never was: you are not so very grateful to the man who pulls you out of the mud when he has first of all pushed you in; nor is it chivalry alone which spurs one to the rescue of a lovely lady for whom, after all, one would rather live than die. Thus I, in my corner, was thinking (I will say) of Eva first; but next I was thinking of myself; and Rattray’s blood be on his own hot head! I hold, moreover, that I was perfectly right in all this; but if any think me very wrong, a sufficient satisfaction is in store for them, for I was very swiftly punished.

The captain’s language was no worse in character than in effect: the bed was bloody from my wounded head, all tumbled from the haste with which I had quitted it, and only too suggestive of still fouler play. Rattray stopped the captain with a sudden flourish of one of his pistols, the silver mountings making lightning in the room; then he called upon the pair of them to show him what they had done with me; and to my horror, Santos invited him to search the room. The invitation was accepted. Yet there I stood. It would have been better to step forward even then. Yet I cowered among his clothes until his own hand fell upon my collar, and forth I was dragged to the plain amazement of all three.

Santos was the first to find his voice.

“Another time you will perhaps think twice before you spik, friend squire.”

Rattray simply asked me what I had been doing in there, in a white flame of passion, and with such an oath that I embellished the truth for him in my turn.

“Trying to give you blackguards the slip,” said I.

“Then it was you who let down the sheet?”

“Of course it was.”

“All right! I’m done with you,” said he; “that settles it. I make you an offer. You won’t accept it. I do my best; you do your worst; but I’ll be shot if you get another chance from me!”

Brandy and the wineglass stood where Rattray must have set them, on an oak stool beside the bed; as he spoke he crossed the room, filled the glass till the spirit dripped, and drained it at a gulp. He was twitching and wincing still when he turned, walked up to Joaquin Santos, and pointed to where I stood with a fist that shook.

“You wanted to deal with him,” said Rattray; “you’re at liberty to do so. I’m only sorry I stood in your way.”

But no answer, and for once no rings of smoke came from those shrivelled lips: the man had rolled and lighted a cigarette since Rattray entered, but it was burning unheeded between his skinny fingers. I had his attention, all to myself. He knew the tale that I was going to tell. He was waiting for it; he was ready for me. The attentive droop of his head; the crafty glitter in his intelligent eyes; the depth and breadth of the creased forehead; the knowledge of his resource, the consciousness of my error, all distracted and confounded me so that my speech halted and my voice ran thin. I told Rattray every syllable that these traitors had been saying behind his back, but I told it all very ill; what was worse, and made me worse, I was only too well aware of my own failure to carry conviction with my words.

“And why couldn’t you come out and say so asked Rattray, as even I knew that he must. “Why wait till now?”

“Ah, why!” echoed Santos, with a smile and a shake of the head; a suspicious tolerance, an ostentatious truce, upon his parchment face. And already he was sufficiently relieved to suck his cigarette alight again.

“You know why,” I said, trusting to bluff honesty with the one of them who was not rotten to the core: “because I still meant escaping.”

“And then what?” asked Rattray fiercely.

“You had given me my chance,” I said; “I hould have given you yours.”

“You would, would you? Very kind of you, Mr. Cole!”

“No, no,” said Santos; “not kind, but clever! Clever, spicious, and queeck-weeted beyond belif! Senhor Rattray, we have all been in the dark; we thought we had fool to dii with, but what admirable knave the young man would make! Such readiness, such resource, with his tongue or with his peestol; how useful would it be to us! I am glad you have decided to live him to me, friend Rattray, for I am quite come round to your way of thinking. It is no longer necessary for him to die!”

“You mean that?” cried Rattray keenly.

“Of course I min it. You were quite right. He must join us. But he will when I talk to him.

I could not speak. I was fascinated by this wretch: it was reptile and rabbit with us. Treachery I knew he meant; my death, for one; my death was certain; and yet I could not speak.

“Then talk to him, for God’s sake,” cried Rattray, “and I shall be only too glad if you can talk some sense into him. I’ve tried, and failed.”

“I shall not fail,” said Santos softly. “But it is better that he has a leetle time to think over it calmly; better steel for ‘im to slip upon it, as you say. Let us live ‘im for the night, what there is of it; time enough in the morning.”

I could hardly believe my ears; still I knew that it was treachery, all treachery; and the morning I should never see.

“But we can’t leave him up here,” said Rattray; “it would mean one of us watching him all night.”

“Quite so,” said Santos. “I will tell you where we could live him, however, if you will allow me to wheesper one leetle moment.”

They drew aside; and, as I live, I thought that little moment was to be Rattray’s last on earth. I watched, but nothing happened; on the contrary, both men seemed agreed, the Portuguese gesticulating, the Englishman nodding, as they stood conversing at the window. Their faces were strangely reassuring. I began to reason with myself, to rid my mind of mere presentiment and superstition. If these two really were at one about me (I argued) there might be no treachery after all. When I came to think of it, Rattray had been closeted long enough with me to awake the worst suspicions in the breasts of his companions; now that these were allayed, there might be no more bloodshed after all (if, for example, I pretended to give in), even though Santos had not cared whose blood was shed a few minutes since. That was evidently the character of the wretch: to compass his ends or to defend his person he would take life with no more compunction than the ordinary criminal takes money; but (and hence) murder for murder’s sake was no amusement to him.

My confidence was further restored by Captain Harris; ever a gross ruffian, with no refinements to his rascality, he had been at the brandy bottle after Rattray’s example; and now was dozing on the latter’s bed, taking his watch below when he could get it, like the good seaman he had been. I was quite sorry for him when the conversation at the window ceased suddenly, and Rattray roused the captain up.

“Watches aft!” said he. “We want that mattress; you can bring it along, while I lead the way with the pillows and things. Come on, Cole!”

“Where to?” I asked, standing firm.

“Where there’s no window for you to jump out of, old boy, and no clothes of mine for you to hide behind. You needn’t look so scared; it’s as dry as a bone, as cellars go. And it’s past three o’clock. And you’ve just got to come.”