第38章 CHAPTER X(3)

"They pretended to think I had done away with that donkey-man for some reason or other. Why should I? And how the devil was I to know? Didn't I get somehow into that boat? into that boat--I . . ." The muscles round his lips contracted into an unconscious grimace that tore through the mask of his usual expression--something violent, short-lived and illuminating like a twist of lightning that admits the eye for an instant into the secret convolutions of a cloud. "I did. I was plainly there with them--wasn't I? Isn't it awful a man should be driven to do a thing like that--and be responsible? What did I know about their George they were howling after?

I remembered I had seen him curled up on the deck. `Murdering coward!' the chief kept on calling me. He didn't seem able to remember any other two words. I didn't care, only his noise began to worry me. `Shut up,'

I said. At that he collected himself for a confounded screech. `You killed him. You killed him.' `No,' I shouted, `but I will kill you directly.'

I jumped up, and he fell backwards over a thwart with an awful loud thump.

I don't know why. Too dark. Tried to step back, I suppose. I stood still facing aft, and the wretched little second began to whine, `You ain't going to hit a chap with a broken arm--and you call yourself a gentleman, too.'

I heard a heavy tramp--one--two--and, wheezy grunting. The other beast was coming at me, clattering his oar over the stern. I saw him moving, big, big--as you see a man in a mist, in a dream. `Come on,' I cried. Iwould have tumbled him over like a bale of shakings. He stopped, muttered to himself, and went back. Perhaps he had heard the wind. I didn't. It was the last heavy gust we had. He went back to his oar. I was sorry. Iwould have tried to--to . . ."

`He opened and closed his curved fingers, and his hands had an eager and cruel flutter. "Steady, steady," I murmured.

"`Eh? What? I am not excited," he remonstrated, awfully hurt, and with a convulsive jerk of his elbow knocked over the cognac-bottle. I started forward, scraping my chair. He bounced off the table as if a mine had been exploded behind his back, and half turned before he alighted, crouching on his feet to show me a startled pair of eyes and a face white about the nostrils. A look of intense annoyance succeeded. "Awfully sorry. How clumsy of me!" he mumbled very vexed, while the pungent odour of spilt alcohol enveloped us suddenly with an atmosphere of a low drinking-bout in the cool, pure darkness of the night. The lights had been put out in the dining-hall;our candle glimmered solitary in the long gallery, and the columns had turned black from pediment to capital. On the vivid stars the high corner of the Harbour Office stood out distinct across the Esplanade, as though the sombre pile had glided nearer to see and hear.

`He assumed an air of indifference.

"`I dare say I am less calm now than I was then. I was ready for anything. These were trifles. . . ."

"`You had a lively time of it in that boat," I remarked.

"`I was ready," he repeated. "After the ship's lights had gone, anything might have happened in that boat--anything in the world--and the world no wiser. I felt this, and I was pleased. It was just dark enough, too.