The Arrow of Gold: A Story Between Two Notes Read online

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER I

  Certain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fameand the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets isthe Cannebiere, and the jest: "If Paris had a Cannebiere it would be alittle Marseilles" is the jocular expression of municipal pride. I, too,I have been under the spell. For me it has been a street leading intothe unknown.

  There was a part of it where one could see as many as five big cafes in aresplendent row. That evening I strolled into one of them. It was by nomeans full. It looked deserted, in fact, festal and overlighted, butcheerful. The wonderful street was distinctly cold (it was an evening ofcarnival), I was very idle, and I was feeling a little lonely. So I wentin and sat down.

  The carnival time was drawing to an end. Everybody, high and low, wasanxious to have the last fling. Companies of masks with linked arms andwhooping like red Indians swept the streets in crazy rushes while gustsof cold mistral swayed the gas lights as far as the eye could reach.There was a touch of bedlam in all this.

  Perhaps it was that which made me feel lonely, since I was neithermasked, nor disguised, nor yelling, nor in any other way in harmony withthe bedlam element of life. But I was not sad. I was merely in a stateof sobriety. I had just returned from my second West Indies voyage. Myeyes were still full of tropical splendour, my memory of my experiences,lawful and lawless, which had their charm and their thrill; for they hadstartled me a little and had amused me considerably. But they had leftme untouched. Indeed they were other men's adventures, not mine. Exceptfor a little habit of responsibility which I had acquired they had notmatured me. I was as young as before. Inconceivably young--stillbeautifully unthinking--infinitely receptive.

  You may believe that I was not thinking of Don Carlos and his fight for akingdom. Why should I? You don't want to think of things which you meetevery day in the newspapers and in conversation. I had paid some callssince my return and most of my acquaintance were legitimists andintensely interested in the events of the frontier of Spain, forpolitical, religious, or romantic reasons. But I was not interested.Apparently I was not romantic enough. Or was it that I was even moreromantic than all those good people? The affair seemed to mecommonplace. That man was attending to his business of a Pretender.

  On the front page of the illustrated paper I saw lying on a table nearme, he looked picturesque enough, seated on a boulder, a big strong manwith a square-cut beard, his hands resting on the hilt of a cavalrysabre--and all around him a landscape of savage mountains. He caught myeye on that spiritedly composed woodcut. (There were no inanesnapshot-reproductions in those days.) It was the obvious romance forthe use of royalists but it arrested my attention.

  Just then some masks from outside invaded the cafe, dancing hand in handin a single file led by a burly man with a cardboard nose. He gambolledin wildly and behind him twenty others perhaps, mostly Pierrots andPierrettes holding each other by the hand and winding in and out betweenthe chairs and tables: eyes shining in the holes of cardboard faces,breasts panting; but all preserving a mysterious silence.

  They were people of the poorer sort (white calico with red spots,costumes), but amongst them there was a girl in a black dress sewn overwith gold half moons, very high in the neck and very short in the skirt.Most of the ordinary clients of the cafe didn't even look up from theirgames or papers. I, being alone and idle, stared abstractedly. The girlcostumed as Night wore a small black velvet mask, what is called inFrench a "_loup_." What made her daintiness join that obviously roughlot I can't imagine. Her uncovered mouth and chin suggested refinedprettiness.

  They filed past my table; the Night noticed perhaps my fixed gaze andthrowing her body forward out of the wriggling chain shot out at me aslender tongue like a pink dart. I was not prepared for this, not evento the extent of an appreciative "_Tres foli_," before she wriggled andhopped away. But having been thus distinguished I could do no less thanfollow her with my eyes to the door where the chain of hands being brokenall the masks were trying to get out at once. Two gentlemen coming inout of the street stood arrested in the crush. The Night (it must havebeen her idiosyncrasy) put her tongue out at them, too. The taller ofthe two (he was in evening clothes under a light wide-open overcoat) withgreat presence of mind chucked her under the chin, giving me the view atthe same time of a flash of white teeth in his dark, lean face. Theother man was very different; fair, with smooth, ruddy cheeks and burlyshoulders. He was wearing a grey suit, obviously bought ready-made, forit seemed too tight for his powerful frame.

  That man was not altogether a stranger to me. For the last week or so Ihad been rather on the look-out for him in all the public places where ina provincial town men may expect to meet each other. I saw him for thefirst time (wearing that same grey ready-made suit) in a legitimistdrawing-room where, clearly, he was an object of interest, especially tothe women. I had caught his name as Monsieur Mills. The lady who hadintroduced me took the earliest opportunity to murmur into my ear: "Arelation of Lord X." (_Un proche parent de Lord X_.) And then sheadded, casting up her eyes: "A good friend of the King." Meaning DonCarlos of course.

  I looked at the _proche parent_; not on account of the parentage butmarvelling at his air of ease in that cumbrous body and in such tightclothes, too. But presently the same lady informed me further: "He hascome here amongst us _un naufrage_."

  I became then really interested. I had never seen a shipwrecked personbefore. All the boyishness in me was aroused. I considered a shipwreckas an unavoidable event sooner or later in my future.

  Meantime the man thus distinguished in my eyes glanced quietly about andnever spoke unless addressed directly by one of the ladies present.There were more than a dozen people in that drawing-room, mostly womeneating fine pastry and talking passionately. It might have been aCarlist committee meeting of a particularly fatuous character. Even myyouth and inexperience were aware of that. And I was by a long way theyoungest person in the room. That quiet Monsieur Mills intimidated me alittle by his age (I suppose he was thirty-five), his massivetranquillity, his clear, watchful eyes. But the temptation was toogreat--and I addressed him impulsively on the subject of that shipwreck.

  He turned his big fair face towards me with surprise in his keen glance,which (as though he had seen through me in an instant and found nothingobjectionable) changed subtly into friendliness. On the matter of theshipwreck he did not say much. He only told me that it had not occurredin the Mediterranean, but on the other side of Southern France--in theBay of Biscay. "But this is hardly the place to enter on a story of thatkind," he observed, looking round at the room with a faint smile asattractive as the rest of his rustic but well-bred personality.

  I expressed my regret. I should have liked to hear all about it. Tothis he said that it was not a secret and that perhaps next time wemet. . .

  "But where can we meet?" I cried. "I don't come often to this house, youknow."

  "Where? Why on the Cannebiere to be sure. Everybody meets everybodyelse at least once a day on the pavement opposite the _Bourse_."

  This was absolutely true. But though I looked for him on each succeedingday he was nowhere to be seen at the usual times. The companions of myidle hours (and all my hours were idle just then) noticed mypreoccupation and chaffed me about it in a rather obvious way. Theywanted to know whether she, whom I expected to see, was dark or fair;whether that fascination which kept me on tenterhooks of expectation wasone of my aristocrats or one of my marine beauties: for they knew I had afooting in both these--shall we say circles? As to themselves they werethe bohemian circle, not very wide--half a dozen of us led by a sculptorwhom we called Prax for short. My own nick-name was "Young Ulysses."

  I liked it.

  But chaff or no chaff they would have been surprised to see me leave themfor the burly and sympathetic Mills. I was ready to drop any easycompany of equals to approach that interesting man with every mentaldeference. It was not precisely
because of that shipwreck. He attractedand interested me the more because he was not to be seen. The fear thathe might have departed suddenly for England--(or for Spain)--caused me asort of ridiculous depression as though I had missed a uniqueopportunity. And it was a joyful reaction which emboldened me to signalto him with a raised arm across that cafe.

  I was abashed immediately afterwards, when I saw him advance towards mytable with his friend. The latter was eminently elegant. He was exactlylike one of those figures one can see of a fine May evening in theneighbourhood of the Opera-house in Paris. Very Parisian indeed. Andyet he struck me as not so perfectly French as he ought to have been, asif one's nationality were an accomplishment with varying degrees ofexcellence. As to Mills, he was perfectly insular. There could be nodoubt about him. They were both smiling faintly at me. The burly Millsattended to the introduction: "Captain Blunt."

  We shook hands. The name didn't tell me much. What surprised me wasthat Mills should have remembered mine so well. I don't want to boast ofmy modesty but it seemed to me that two or three days was more thanenough for a man like Mills to forget my very existence. As to theCaptain, I was struck on closer view by the perfect correctness of hispersonality. Clothes, slight figure, clear-cut, thin, sun-tanned face,pose, all this was so good that it was saved from the danger of banalityonly by the mobile black eyes of a keenness that one doesn't meet everyday in the south of France and still less in Italy. Another thing wasthat, viewed as an officer in mufti, he did not look sufficientlyprofessional. That imperfection was interesting, too.

  You may think that I am subtilizing my impressions on purpose, but youmay take it from a man who has lived a rough, a very rough life, that itis the subtleties of personalities, and contacts, and events, that countfor interest and memory--and pretty well nothing else. This--you see--isthe last evening of that part of my life in which I did not know thatwoman. These are like the last hours of a previous existence. It isn'tmy fault that they are associated with nothing better at the decisivemoment than the banal splendours of a gilded cafe and the bedlamite yellsof carnival in the street.

  We three, however (almost complete strangers to each other), had assumedattitudes of serious amiability round our table. A waiter approached fororders and it was then, in relation to my order for coffee, that theabsolutely first thing I learned of Captain Blunt was the fact that hewas a sufferer from insomnia. In his immovable way Mills began charginghis pipe. I felt extremely embarrassed all at once, but becamepositively annoyed when I saw our Prax enter the cafe in a sort ofmediaeval costume very much like what Faust wears in the third act. Ihave no doubt it was meant for a purely operatic Faust. A light mantlefloated from his shoulders. He strode theatrically up to our table andaddressing me as "Young Ulysses" proposed I should go outside on thefields of asphalt and help him gather a few marguerites to decorate atruly infernal supper which was being organized across the road at theMaison Doree--upstairs. With expostulatory shakes of the head andindignant glances I called his attention to the fact that I was notalone. He stepped back a pace as if astonished by the discovery, tookoff his plumed velvet toque with a low obeisance so that the feathersswept the floor, and swaggered off the stage with his left hand restingon the hilt of the property dagger at his belt.

  Meantime the well-connected but rustic Mills had been busy lighting hisbriar and the distinguished Captain sat smiling to himself. I washorribly vexed and apologized for that intrusion, saying that the fellowwas a future great sculptor and perfectly harmless; but he had beenswallowing lots of night air which had got into his head apparently.

  Mills peered at me with his friendly but awfully searching blue eyesthrough the cloud of smoke he had wreathed about his big head. The slim,dark Captain's smile took on an amiable expression. Might he know why Iwas addressed as "Young Ulysses" by my friend? and immediately he addedthe remark with urbane playfulness that Ulysses was an astute person.Mills did not give me time for a reply. He struck in: "That old Greekwas famed as a wanderer--the first historical seaman." He waved his pipevaguely at me.

  "Ah! _Vraiment_!" The polite Captain seemed incredulous and as ifweary. "Are you a seaman? In what sense, pray?" We were talking Frenchand he used the term _homme de mer_.

  Again Mills interfered quietly. "In the same sense in which you are amilitary man." (_Homme de guerre_.)

  It was then that I heard Captain Blunt produce one of his strikingdeclarations. He had two of them, and this was the first.

  "I live by my sword."

  It was said in an extraordinary dandified manner which in conjunctionwith the matter made me forget my tongue in my head. I could only stareat him. He added more naturally: "2nd Reg. Castille, Cavalry." Thenwith marked stress in Spanish, "_En las filas legitimas_."

  Mills was heard, unmoved, like Jove in his cloud: "He's on leave here."

  "Of course I don't shout that fact on the housetops," the Captainaddressed me pointedly, "any more than our friend his shipwreckadventure. We must not strain the toleration of the French authoritiestoo much! It wouldn't be correct--and not very safe either."

  I became suddenly extremely delighted with my company. A man who "livedby his sword," before my eyes, close at my elbow! So such people didexist in the world yet! I had not been born too late! And across thetable with his air of watchful, unmoved benevolence, enough in itself toarouse one's interest, there was the man with the story of a shipwreckthat mustn't be shouted on housetops. Why?

  I understood very well why, when he told me that he had joined in theClyde a small steamer chartered by a relative of his, "a very wealthyman," he observed (probably Lord X, I thought), to carry arms and othersupplies to the Carlist army. And it was not a shipwreck in the ordinarysense. Everything went perfectly well to the last moment when suddenlythe _Numancia_ (a Republican ironclad) had appeared and chased themashore on the French coast below Bayonne. In a few words, but withevident appreciation of the adventure, Mills described to us how he swamto the beach clad simply in a money belt and a pair of trousers. Shellswere falling all round till a tiny French gunboat came out of Bayonne andshooed the _Numancia_ away out of territorial waters.

  He was very amusing and I was fascinated by the mental picture of thattranquil man rolling in the surf and emerging breathless, in the costumeyou know, on the fair land of France, in the character of a smuggler ofwar material. However, they had never arrested or expelled him, since hewas there before my eyes. But how and why did he get so far from thescene of his sea adventure was an interesting question. And I put it tohim with most naive indiscretion which did not shock him visibly. Hetold me that the ship being only stranded, not sunk, the contraband cargoaboard was doubtless in good condition. The French custom-house men wereguarding the wreck. If their vigilance could be--h'm--removed by somemeans, or even merely reduced, a lot of these rifles and cartridges couldbe taken off quietly at night by certain Spanish fishing boats. In fact,salved for the Carlists, after all. He thought it could be done. . . .

  I said with professional gravity that given a few perfectly quiet nights(rare on that coast) it could certainly be done.

  Mr. Mills was not afraid of the elements. It was the highly inconvenientzeal of the French custom-house people that had to be dealt with in someway.

  "Heavens!" I cried, astonished. "You can't bribe the French Customs.This isn't a South-American republic."

  "Is it a republic?" he murmured, very absorbed in smoking his woodenpipe.

  "Well, isn't it?"

  He murmured again, "Oh, so little." At this I laughed, and a faintlyhumorous expression passed over Mills' face. No. Bribes were out of thequestion, he admitted. But there were many legitimist sympathies inParis. A proper person could set them in motion and a mere hint fromhigh quarters to the officials on the spot not to worry over-much aboutthat wreck. . . .

  What was most amusing was the cool, reasonable tone of this amazingproject. Mr. Blunt sat by very detached, his eyes roamed here and therea
ll over the cafe; and it was while looking upward at the pink foot of afleshy and very much foreshortened goddess of some sort depicted on theceiling in an enormous composition in the Italian style that he let fallcasually the words, "She will manage it for you quite easily."

  "Every Carlist agent in Bayonne assured me of that," said Mr. Mills. "Iwould have gone straight to Paris only I was told she had fled here for arest; tired, discontented. Not a very encouraging report."

  "These flights are well known," muttered Mr. Blunt. "You shall see herall right."

  "Yes. They told me that you . . . "

  I broke in: "You mean to say that you expect a woman to arrange that sortof thing for you?"

  "A trifle, for her," Mr. Blunt remarked indifferently. "At that sort ofthing women are best. They have less scruples."

  "More audacity," interjected Mr. Mills almost in a whisper.

  Mr. Blunt kept quiet for a moment, then: "You see," he addressed me in amost refined tone, "a mere man may suddenly find himself being kickeddown the stairs."

  I don't know why I should have felt shocked by that statement. It couldnot be because it was untrue. The other did not give me time to offerany remark. He inquired with extreme politeness what did I know of SouthAmerican republics? I confessed that I knew very little of them.Wandering about the Gulf of Mexico I had a look-in here and there; andamongst others I had a few days in Haiti which was of course unique,being a negro republic. On this Captain Blunt began to talk of negroesat large. He talked of them with knowledge, intelligence, and a sort ofcontemptuous affection. He generalized, he particularized about theblacks; he told anecdotes. I was interested, a little incredulous, andconsiderably surprised. What could this man with such a boulevardierexterior that he looked positively like, an exile in a provincial town,and with his drawing-room manner--what could he know of negroes?

  Mills, sitting silent with his air of watchful intelligence, seemed toread my thoughts, waved his pipe slightly and explained: "The Captain isfrom South Carolina."

  "Oh," I murmured, and then after the slightest of pauses I heard thesecond of Mr. J. K. Blunt's declarations.

  "Yes," he said. "_Je suis Americain_, _catholique et gentil-homme_," ina tone contrasting so strongly with the smile, which, as it were,underlined the uttered words, that I was at a loss whether to return thesmile in kind or acknowledge the words with a grave little bow. Ofcourse I did neither and there fell on us an odd, equivocal silence. Itmarked our final abandonment of the French language. I was the one tospeak first, proposing that my companions should sup with me, not acrossthe way, which would be riotous with more than one "infernal" supper, butin another much more select establishment in a side street away from theCannebiere. It flattered my vanity a little to be able to say that I hada corner table always reserved in the Salon des Palmiers, otherwise SalonBlanc, where the atmosphere was legitimist and extremely decorousbesides--even in Carnival time. "Nine tenths of the people there," Isaid, "would be of your political opinions, if that's an inducement.Come along. Let's be festive," I encouraged them.

  I didn't feel particularly festive. What I wanted was to remain in mycompany and break an inexplicable feeling of constraint of which I wasaware. Mills looked at me steadily with a faint, kind smile.

  "No," said Blunt. "Why should we go there? They will be only turning usout in the small hours, to go home and face insomnia. Can you imagineanything more disgusting?"

  He was smiling all the time, but his deep-set eyes did not lendthemselves to the expression of whimsical politeness which he tried toachieve. He had another suggestion to offer. Why shouldn't we adjournto his rooms? He had there materials for a dish of his own invention forwhich he was famous all along the line of the Royal Cavalry outposts, andhe would cook it for us. There were also a few bottles of some whitewine, quite possible, which we could drink out of Venetian cut-glassgoblets. A _bivouac_ feast, in fact. And he wouldn't turn us out in thesmall hours. Not he. He couldn't sleep.

  Need I say I was fascinated by the idea? Well, yes. But somehow Ihesitated and looked towards Mills, so much my senior. He got up withouta word. This was decisive; for no obscure premonition, and of somethingindefinite at that, could stand against the example of his tranquilpersonality.