The island of the stairs — Edition Insights

WITHIN THE CASTLE WALLS

_The Bequest of the Old Buccaneer_

THE ISLAND OF THE STAIRS

WHEREIN I BAIT THE LIVING OVER THE DEAD

I cannot say that I was greatly surprised when I stumbled across the body of Sir Geoffrey in the spinney, which is not for a moment meant to convey the impression that I was not shocked. Many times before that morning in my long and adventurous life I had, as I have often since, seen many people die in all sorts of sudden and dreadful ways, in all parts of the globe, too. And in some cases where the sufferer was past hope and the suffering great, I have prayed for the good mercy of a quick end; but never, even under such circumstances, have I been able to look upon death philosophically, at least afterwards. The shock is always there. It always will be, I imagine; indeed I would not have it otherwise. I hope never to be indifferent to the passing of that strange mysterious thing we call life. But I digress.

Truth to tell, I had expected that Sir Geoffrey would come to some such sad end, therefore, I repeat that I was not surprised; but as I stood over him in the gray dawn, looking down upon him lying so quietly on his back with the handsome, silver-mounted, ivory-handled dueling pistol, with which he had killed himself, still clasped in his right hand, I was fascinated with horror. I was younger then and not so accustomed to sudden death as I have become since so many years and so much hard service have passed over my head.

And this was in a large measure a personal loss. At least I felt it so for Mistress Lucy’s sake, and for my own, too. Sir Geoffrey had been my ideal of the fine gentleman of his time. I liked him much. He had often honored me with notice and generally spoke me fair and pleasantly.

In his situation some men would have blown out their brains--and there would have been a singular appositeness in the action in his case--but Sir Geoffrey had carefully put his bullet through his heart. It was less disfiguring and brutal, less hard on those left behind, less troublesome, more gentlemanly! I divined that was his thought. He was ever considerate in small matters.

The red stain that had welled over the fine ruffled linen, otherwise spotless, of his shirt and the powder marks and burns still visible thereon in spite of the dried blood, all indicated clearly what had happened. The pistol was a short one, heavy in build, made for close work, else he could never have used it so effectively. For the rest, he was clad in his richest and best apparel. His sword lay underneath him, the diamond-studded hilt protruding. He must have fallen lightly, gently, I thought, because his body lay easily on its back and his dress was not greatly disturbed.

I guessed that he was glad enough, after all, that the end had come, for his countenance had not that look of pain, or horror, or fear upon it, which I have so often seen on the face of the dead. His features were calm and composed. Evidently he had not been dead long. I remember the first thing I did was to reach down and gently close his eyes. I shall never forget them to my dying day. They were dreadfully staring. As I bent over him for this purpose I noticed that he had something in his left hand. That hand was resting lightly by the hilt of his sword as if he had stood with his left hand on his sword in that gallant defiant position which I had often enough seen him assume, when he pressed the trigger with his right hand. As he had fallen, his hand had been lifted a little away from the sword and in his fingers there was a paper. A nearer look showed it to be an envelope. I drew it away and, glancing at it, saw that it was addressed to Mistress Lucy. Thrusting it in the pocket of my coat, I rose to my feet.

At that instant I heard steps and voices. Now I had nothing on earth to fear from anybody. The death of Sir Geoffrey was too obviously a suicide for anyone to accuse me, even if there had been any reason whatever for bringing me under suspicion. The letter which I carried in my pocket addressed to Mistress Lucy would undoubtedly explain everything there was to explain. Something, however, moved me to seek concealment. I am a sailor, as you will find out, and act quickly in an emergency by a sort of instinct. On the sea men have little time for reflection. The crisis is frequently upon one with little or no warning, and generally it must needs be met on the instant and without deliberation.

Sir Geoffrey lay on the side of the path which ran through the spinney and beyond him the coppice thickened. The path twisted and turned. From the sound of the footsteps, I judged that men were coming along it. I instantly stepped across the body and concealed myself behind a tree trunk in the leafy foliage of the undergrowth. I could see without being seen, and hear as well.

The approaching footsteps might belong to some of the gamekeepers, to a stray poacher, to some of the servants of the castle, or to someone who, like myself, had been abroad in the gray dawn and had been attracted to the spot by the sound of the shot, although they approached over leisurely for that. I was prepared for any of these things but I did not expect that any of the guests of the castle would make their appearance at that hour. The footsteps stopped. Two men, one of whom had been pointed out to me as Baron Luftdon in the lead followed by another who was strange to me, suddenly appeared. A voice which I recognized as the baron’s at once exclaimed in awe-struck tones:

“By gad, he’s done it!”

“Yes,” drawled the other, whose cold blooded calmness was in marked contrast with the unwonted excitement of the first speaker, “I rather expected it.”

“Here’s a pretty affair,” said the first man.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the second indifferently, “it might be worse.”

“Worse for him? Great heavens, man, he’s dead!”

“What d’ ye mean? I don’t understand.”

“Well, for instance, he might have shot himself before we--ah--plucked him.”

“Oh, I see,” returned my lord with a rather askant glance at his companion, for which I almost respected him for the moment.

The two stepped a little nearer. The first speaker, Lord Luftdon, one of the young bloods who had been having high carouse with Sir Geoffrey for the past week at the castle, bent over him.

“There’s no doubt about his being dead, I suppose?” he asked after a brief inspection.

“Good gad, no,” replied the second man with a contemptuous laugh. “Where are your wits, man? He must have held the muzzle of the pistol close to his breast. See how his shirt is burned and powder blackened. He must have died instantly.”

“I suppose you are right.”

“Well,” continued the drawler nonchalantly--as for me I hated them both but the latter speaker the more if possible, for reasons which you will presently understand--“this relieves me greatly.”

“You are very stupid this morning, _mon ami_,” returned the other, gracefully taking a pinch of snuff and laughing again with that horrible indifference to the dead man who had been his host and friend.

“After such a night as we had, to come thus suddenly upon--this--’tis enough to unsettle any man,” muttered Luftdon apologetically.

“Pooh, pooh! man, you’re nervous.”

“Well, I don’t know how it relieves you. And after all’s said and done, Wilberforce was a gentleman, a good player and a gallant loser, and I liked him.”

“Exactly, I liked him too, well enough. And he lost his all like a gentleman.”

“And you got it, at least most of it.”

“Patience, my friend, you had your share, you know,” returned the other with his damnable composure.

“I don’t know but I’d give it back to have poor old Geoff with us once again,” retorted Luftdon with some heat.

“That is a perfectly foolish statement, my buck,” returned the other, philosophically taking snuff. “Somebody was bound to get it; Wilberforce has been going the pace for years; we happened to be in at the death, that’s all.”

“Well, how does it relieve you, then? Do you think Wilberforce would have attempted to get you to support him?”

“Of course not, this”--he pointed to the dead body--“is proof enough of the spirit that was in him; but of course, I cannot marry the girl now.”

“Certainly not. Her father a bankrupt and a suicide--”

“But the castle and this park?”

“Mortgaged up to the hilt. Speaking of hilts--” he stooped down and daintily avoiding contact with the corpse, drew from the scabbard the diamond-hilted sword--“this belongs to me. It’s worth taking. You remember he staked it last night on the last deal.”

“Good God, man,” protested the first speaker, “don’t take the man’s sword away. Let him lie with his weapons like a gentleman.”

“Tut, tut, you grow scrupulous, it seems. We will provide him a cheaper badge of his knighthood, if necessary,” returned the other lightly.

“And about the girl?”

“You will have some trouble breaking your engagement with her, I am thinking.”

“Not I. To do her justice, the wench has the spirit of her father. A whisper that I am--er--disinclined to the match will be quite sufficient.”

“Aye, but who will give her that whisper?”

“We will arrange that some way. Truth to tell, I am rather tired of the minx, she bores me with her high airs. She does not know that she is penniless and disgraced. And as for her good looks--’tis a country beauty after all.”

“Poor girl--” began Luftdon, whose face, though bloated and flushed and seamed with the outward and visible evidences of his evil life, still showed some signs of human kindness.

At that point I intervened. I could bear no more. When they spake so slightingly of my little mistress it was more than I could stand. I burst out of the brush and stood before them--mad, enraged all through me. I will admit that I lacked the composure and breeding of that precious pair. What I had heard had filled me with as hot an indignation as ever possessed the soul of man, and with every moment the fire of my resentment burned higher and more furiously. They started back at my sudden appearance, in some little discomfiture, from which he of the slower speech the more speedily recovered. He was the greater man, and eke the greater villain. The younger, the one with the red face, looked some of the discomposure he felt. The other presently leered at me in a deliberate and well intentioned insulting way and began:

“Now who may you be, my man, and what may you want?”

“Who I may be matters nothing,” said I, “but what I want matters a great deal.”

“Ah! And what is it that you want that matters so much?”

“In the first place, that sword.”

“This?” asked the sneering man, holding Sir Geoffrey’s handsome weapon lightly by the blade and smiling contemptuously at me.

“That,” answered I with equal scorn.

I am accustomed to move quickly as well as to think quickly, and before he knew it, I had it by the hilt and but that he released the blade instantly I would have cut his hand as I withdrew it. He swung round and clapped his hand on his own sword, a fierce oath breaking from his lips, his face black as a thundercloud.

“Don’t draw that little spit of yours,” I said, “or I will be under the necessity of breaking your back.”

I towered above both of them and I have no doubt that I could have made good my boast. Yet, to do him justice, the man had the courage of his race and station. He faced me undaunted, his hand on his sword hilt.

“Would you rob me of mine own, Sirrah?” he asked more calmly if not less irritatingly.

“I might do so, and with justice,” I replied. “You had no hesitation in robbing the living or the dead.”

“Zounds!” cried the other man, touched on the raw of a guilty conscience apparently, “’twas in fair play. We risked each what we had and Sir Geoffrey lost.”

“Yes, I see,” I replied. “Having paid you with everything else, and possessing nothing beside, he had to throw away his life in the end. I heard what you said. You wonder how Mistress Wilberforce is to learn the situation--you who have doubtless once borne the reputation of a man of honor! You wonder who is to tell her that you discard her. I will.”

“That is good, well thought of, yokel,” said the drawler with amazing assurance, and keeping his temper in a way that increased mine, “I could not have wished it better. As for your reflections upon me they interest me not at all. You are doubtless some servant of the house--”

“I am no man’s servant,” I interrupted in some heat.

“Somebody born on the place who probably cherishes a peasant’s humble admiration for the lady of the manor,” he continued.

I displayed the red ensign in my weather-beaten cheeks at this. I never was good at the dissimulation that goes on in polite society and I never could control my color for all I am bronzed with the wind and spray of all the seas, to say nothing of tropic suns.

“Ah,” he laughed sneeringly, taking keen note of my confusion, “see the red banner of confession in the brute’s face, Lord Luftdon.”

“I see it, of course,” said the other, whose frowning face was far redder than my own, though from drink--“but I must confess that personally I don’t like the allusion.”

“That for your likes, Luftdon,” cried the other as contemptuous of his companion as of me apparently. “Tell her, my man, tell her. Tell her that she is a beggar and her father a suicide, and that I have all her property without her. She can go to your arms or those of any other she fancies. She is not meet for the Duke of Arcester.”

So this was Arcester! I had heard of him, as I had of Luftdon, two of the most debauched, unprincipled rakes, idlers, fortune hunters, gamblers, men-about-town, in all England. But of the two he bore much the worse reputation. Indeed, no one in that day surpassed him in baseness and villainy. But that he was a duke, he had been branded, jailed, or even hanged long since in England. But I cared nothing for his dukedom. As he spoke thus slightingly of my lady, I stepped closer to him and struck him with the palm of my hand. I suppose a gentleman would have tapped him lightly but not being of that degree I struck hard across the face, not so hard as I might have, to be sure, for I could doubtless have killed him, but hard enough to make him reel and stagger. His sword was out on the moment but before he could make a pass I wrenched it from him, broke the blade over my knee and hurled the two pieces into the coppice.

“I can match you with swords,” said I, coolly enough now that the issue was made and the battle about to be joined. “I have fought with men, not popinjays, in my day, all over the world, and I know the use of the weapon; but I would not demean myself, being an honest man though no gentleman, much less a duke, by crossing blades with such a ruffian.”

“By God!” cried the duke furiously, “I will have you flogged and flung into the mill pond, I will clap you in jail, I will--”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” said I, composedly. “There is no man on the estate who would not take my part against you, especially when I repeat what you have said about Mistress Lucy. They love her and they loved him. With all his drink and extravagance he was a good master and you have been a bad friend.”

“And who would believe you?” queried the duke, whose anger was at a frightful height in being thus braved and insulted. In his agitation he tore at his neckcloth and almost frothed at the mouth like a man in a fit--I doubt he had ever been so spoken to before. “’Twould be your word against mine, you dog, and--”

“For the matter of that, my word will not be uncorroborated,” I interrupted swiftly.

“What d’ ye mean, curse you?”

“By gad,” said Lord Luftdon, decisively, responding to my appeal more bravely than I had thought, “you are right to appeal to me and you were right to strike Arcester. ’Fore God, I’m sorry for the girl and for Sir Geoffrey and ashamed for my--my--friend.”

“Would you turn against me in this?” asked the duke, surprised at this amazing defection.

“I certainly would,” answered the other with dogged courage.

“God!” whispered his grace hotly, fumbling at the empty sheath, “I wish I had my sword. I’d run the two of you through!”

“There is Sir Geoffrey’s sword,” said Lord Luftdon, who did not lack courage, it seemed, clutching his own blade as he spoke and making as if to draw it.

“No,” said I, master of the situation as I meant to be, “there shall be no more fighting over the dead body of Sir Geoffrey. You and Lord Luftdon can settle your differences elsewhere. I am glad for his promise to tell the truth in case you attempt to carry out your threat and I am just as grateful as if it had been necessary.”

“On second thought, there will be no further settlement,” said Luftdon, regaining his coolness and thrusting back into its scabbard his half-drawn blade. “His grace and I are in too many things to make a permanent difference between us possible.”

“I thought so,” I replied.

“By gad,” laughed Luftdon, “I like your spirit, lad. Who are you, what are you?”

“The late gardener’s son.”

“Do they breed such as you down here in these gardens?”

“As to that, I know not, my lord. I am a sailor. I have commanded my own ship and made my own fortune. I come back here between cruises because I am devoted to--”

“The woman!” sneered the duke, and I marveled at the temerity of the man, seeing that I could have choked him to death with one hand.

“Mention her name again,” I cried, “and you will lie beside your victim yonder!”

“Right,” said Luftdon approvingly.

“I come back here because I am fond of the old place. Lord Luftdon, it is my home. My people have served the Wilberforces for generations. Their forebears and mine lie together in the churchyard around the hill yonder. You can’t understand devotion like that,” said I, turning to the duke, “and ’tis not necessary that you should.”

“And indeed what is necessary for me, pray?” he sneered.

“That you and Lord Luftdon leave the place at once.”

“Without speech with my lady?”

“Without speech with anyone. There is a good inn at the village. I will take it upon myself to see that your servants pack your mails and follow you there at once.”

“I will not be ordered about like this,” protested the duke blusteringly.

“Oh, yes you will,” said Luftdon. “The advice he gives is good. We have nothing more to do here.”

“No,” said I bitterly, “you have done about all that you can. The man is dead but the woman’s heart will not be broke because of you. Now go.”

“If I had a weapon,” said Arcester slowly, shooting at me a baleful and envenomed glance, “I believe I would even send one of his faithful retainers to accompany Sir Geoffrey.”

I never saw a man who was more furiously angry, baffled, humiliated than he. As for me, I was glad of his rage. If I had known any way to make him more angry and humiliated I confess I would have followed it.