Page images
PDF
EPUB

"Ah, Davidson, woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love—and to put its trust in life!'

"As we stood there, just before I left him, for he said he wanted to be alone with his dead for a time, we heard a snarly sort of voice near the bushes by the shore calling

out:

""Is that you, governor?'

"Yes, it's me.'

"Jeeminy! I thought the beggar had done for you. He has started prancing and nearly had me. I have been dodging around, looking for you ever since.'

"Well, here I am,' suddenly screamed the other voice, and then a shot rang out.

""This time he has not missed him,' Heyst said to me bitterly, and went back into the house.

"I returned on board as he had insisted I should do. I didn't want to intrude on his grief. Later, about five in the morning, some of my calashes came running to me, yelling that there was a fire ashore. I landed at once, of course. The principal bungalow was blazing. The heat drove us back. The other two houses caught one after another like kindling-wood. There was no going beyond the shore end of the jetty till the afternoon."

Davidson sighed placidly.

"I suppose you are certain that Baron Heyst is dead?"

"He is ashes, your Excellency," said Davidson, wheel ing a little; "he and the girl together. I suppose he couldn't stand his thoughts before her dead body—and fire purifies everything. That Chinaman of whom I told your Excellency helped me to investigate next day, when the embers got cooled a little. We found enough to be sure, He's not a bad Chinaman. He told me that he had fol lowed Heyst and the girl through the forest from pity

and partly out of curiosity. He watched the house till he saw Heyst go out, after dinner, and Ricardo come back alone. While he was dodging there, it occurred to him that he had better cast the boat adrift, for fear those scoundrels should come round by water and bombard the village from the sea with their revolvers and Winchesters. He judged that they were devils enough for anything. So he walked down the wharf quietly; and as he got into the boat, to cast her off, that hairy man who, it seems, was dozing in her, jumped up growling, and Wang shot him dead. Then he shoved the boat off as far as he could and went away."

There was a pause. Presently Davidson went on, in his tranquil manner:

"Let Heaven look after what has been purified. The wind and rain will take care of the ashes. The carcass of that follower, secretary, or whatever the unclean ruffian called himself, I left where it lay, to swell and rot in the sun. His principal had shot him neatly through the heart. Then, apparently, this Jones went down the wharf to look for the boat and for the hairy man. I suppose he tumbled into the water by accident-or perhaps not by accident. The boat and the man were gone, and the scoundrel saw himself all alone, his game clearly up, and fairly trapped. Who knows? The water's very clear there, and I could see him hudded up on the bottom between two piles, like a heap of bones in a blue silk bag, with only the head and the feet sticking out. Wang was very pleased when he discovered him. That made everything safe, he said, and he went at once over the hill to fetch his Alfuro woman back to the hut."

Davidson took out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration off his forehead.

"And then, your Excellency, I went away. There was nothing to be done there."

"Clearly," assented the Excellency.

Davidson, thoughtful, seemed to weigh the matter 11

his mind, and then murmured with placid sadness: "Nothing!"

October, 1912-May, 1914.

THE END

The Best of the World's Best Books

COMPLETE LIST OF TITLES IN

THE MODERN LIBRARY

For convenience in ordering use number at right of title

ADAMS, HENRY

AIKEN, CONRAD (Editor)

AIKEN, CONRAD (Editor)
ALEICHEM, SHOLOM
ANDERSON, SHERWOOD
AQUINAS, ST. THOMAS
ARISTOTLE
ARISTOTLE
ARISTOTLE
AUGUSTINE, ST.
AUSTEN, JANE

BACON, FRANCIS

BALZAC

BALZAC

BEERBOHM, МАХ
BELLAMY, EDWARD
BENNETT, ARNOLD
BERGSON, HENRI
BLAKE, WILLIAM
BOCCACCIO

BOSWELL, JAMES
BRONTE, CHARLOTTE
BRONTË, EMILY
BROWNING, ROBERT
BUCK, PEARL
BURCKHARDT, JACOB

BURK, JOHN N.
BUTLER, SAMUEL
BUTLER, SAMUEL
BYRON, LORD
BYRON, LORD
CAESAR, JULIUS

CALDWELL, ERSKINE
CALDWELL, ERSKINE
CANFIELD, DOROTHY
CARROLL, LEWIS
CASANOVA, JACQUES
CELLINI, BENVENUTO
CERVANTES
CHAUCER

CHEKHOV, ANTON
CHEKHOV, ANTON
CICERO
COLERIDGE

The Education of Henry Adams 76
A Comprehensive Anthology of
American Poetry 101

20th-Century American Poetry 127
Selected Stories of 145

Winesburg, Ohio 104

Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas 259

Introduction to Aristotle 248

Politics 228

Rhetoric and Poetics 246

The Confessions of 263

Pride and Prejudice and Sense and
Sensibility 264

Selected Writings of 256

Droll Stories 193

Père Goriot and Eugénie Grandet 245
Zuleika Dobson 116

Looking Backward 22

The Old Wives' Tale 184
Creative Evolution 231

Selected Poetry & Prose of 285
The Decameron 71

The Life of Samuel Johnson 282
Jane Eyre 64

Wuthering Heights 106
Selected Poetry of 198
The Good Earth 15

The Civilization of the Renaissance
in Italy 32

The Life and Works of Beethoven 241
Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited 136
The Way of All Flesh 13

The Selected Poetry of 195

Don Juan 24

The Gallic War and Other Writings of

295

God's Little Acre 51
Tobacco Road 249

The Deepening Stream 200
Alice in Wonderland, etc. 79
Memoirs of Casanova 165
Autobiography of Cellini 150
Don Quixote 174

The Canterbury Tales 161
Best Plays by 171

The Short Stories of 50
The Basic Works of 272

Selected Poetry and Prose of 279

« PreviousContinue »