The Top of the World Part 28

Back through the raging wind they went, as though pursued by furies. They reached and entered the hotel just as the Kaffir porter was closing for the night. He stared with bulging eyes at Burke and his companion, but Burke walked straight through, looking neither to right nor left.

Only at the foot of the stairs, he paused an instant, glancing back.

"I'll see you in the morning, Donovan," he said. "Thanks for all you've done."

To which Kelly replied, fingering a b.u.mp on his forehead with a rueful grin, "All's well that ends well, my son, and sure it's a pleasure to serve you. I flatter myself, moreover, that you wouldn't have done the trick on your own. Hoffstein will stand more from me than from any other living man."

The hint of a smile touched Burke's set lips. "Show me the man that wouldn't!" he said; and turning, marched his unresisting prisoner up the stairs.

CHAPTER V

THE GOOD CAUSE

"Why can't you leave me alone? What do you want with me?"

Half-sullenly, half-aggressively, Guy Ranger flung the questions, standing with lowering brow before his captor. His head was down and his eyes raised with a peculiar, brutish expression. He had the appearance of a wild animal momentarily cowed, but preparing for furious battle. The smouldering of his look was terrible.

Burke Ranger met it with steely self-restraint. "I'll tell you presently," he said.

"You'll tell me now!" Fiercely the younger man made rejoinder.

His power of resistance was growing, swiftly swallowing all sense of expediency. "If I choose to wallow in the mire, what the devil is it to you? You didn't send that accursed fool Kelly round for your own pleasure, I'll take my oath. What is it you want me for?

Tell me straight!"

His voice rose on the words. His hands were clenched; yet still he wore that half-frightened look as of an animal that will spring when goaded, not before. His hair hung black and unkempt about his burning eyes. His face was drawn and deadly pale.

Burke stood like a rock, confronting him. He blocked the way to the door. "I'll tell you all you want to know in the morning," he said. "You have a wash now and turn in!"

The wild eyes took a fleeting glance round the room, returning instantly, as if fascinated, to Burke's face.

"Why the devil should I? I've got a--sty of my own to go to."

"Yes, I know," said Burke. Yet, he stood his ground, grimly emotionless.

"Then let me go to it!" Guy Ranger straightened himself, breathing heavily. "Get out!" he said. "Or--by heaven--I'll throw you!"

"You can't," said Burke. "So don't be a fool! You know--none better--that that sort of thing doesn't answer with me."

"But what do you want?" The reiterated question had a desperate ring as if, despite its urgency, the speaker dreaded the reply.

"You've never bothered to dig me out before. What's the notion?

I'm nothing to you. You loathe the sight of me."

Burke made a slight gesture as of repudiation, but he expressed no denial in words. "As to that," he said, "you draw your own conclusions. I can't discuss anything with you now. The point is, you are out of that h.e.l.l for the present, and I'm going to keep you out."

"You!" There was a note of bitter humour in the word. Guy Ranger threw back his head as he uttered it, and by the action the likeness between them was instantly proclaimed. "That's good!" he scoffed. "You--the man who first showed me the gates of h.e.l.l--to take upon yourself to pose as deliverer! And for whose benefit, if one might ask? Your own--or mine?"

His ashen face with the light upon it was still boyish despite the stamp of torment that it bore. Through all the furnace of his degradation his youth yet clung to him like an impalpable veil that no suffering could rend or destroy.

Burke suddenly abandoned his att.i.tude of gaoler and took him by the shoulder. "Don't be a fool!" he said again, but he said it gently.

"I mean what I say. It's a way I've got. This isn't the time for explanations, but I'm out to help you. Even you will admit that you're pretty badly in need of help."

"Oh, d.a.m.n that!" Recklessly Guy made answer, chafing visibly under the restraining hold; yet not actually flinging it off. "I know what I'm doing all right. I shall pull up again presently--before the final plunge. I'm not going to attempt it before I'm ready.

I've found it doesn't answer."

"You've got to this time," Burke said.

His eyes, grey and indomitable, looked straight into Guy's, and they held him in spite of himself. Guy quivered and stood still.

"You've got to," he reiterated. "Don't tell me you're enjoying yourself barkeeping at Hoffstein's! I've known you too long to swallow it. It just won't go down."

"It's preferable to doing the white n.i.g.g.e.r on your blasted farm!"

flashed back Guy. "Starvation's better than that!"

"Thank you," said Burke. He did not flinch at the straight hit, but his mouth hardened. "I see your point of view of course.

Perhaps it's beside the mark to remind you that you might have been a partner if you'd only played a decent game. I wanted a partner badly enough."

An odd spasm crossed Guy's face. "Yes. You didn't let me into that secret, did you, till I'd been weighed in the balances and found wanting? You were too d.a.m.ned cautious to commit yourself.

And you've congratulated yourself on your marvellous discretion ever since, I'll lay a wager. You hide-bound, self-righteous prigs always do. Nothing would ever make you see that it's just your beastly discretion that does the mischief,--your infernal, complacent virtue that breeds the vice you so deplore!" He broke into a harsh laugh that ended in a sharp catch of the breath that bent him suddenly double.

Burke's hand went swiftly from his shoulder to his elbow. He led him to a chair. "Sit down!" he said. "You've got beyond yourself.

I'm going to get you a drink, and then you'll go to bed."

Guy sat crumpled down in the chair like an empty sack. His head was on his clenched hands. He swayed as if in pain.

Burke stood looking down at him for a moment or two. Then he turned and went away, leaving the door ajar behind him.

When he came back, Guy was on his feet again, prowling uneasily up and down, but he had not crossed the threshold. He gave him that furtive, hunted look again as he entered.

"What dope is that? Not the genuine article I'll wager my soul!"

"It is the genuine article," Burke said. "Drink it, and go to bed!"

But Guy stood before him with his hands at his sides. The smouldering fire in his eyes was leaping higher and higher.

"What's the game?" he said. "Is it a d.a.m.ned ruse to get me into your power?"

Burke set down the gla.s.s he carried, and turned full upon him.

There was that about him that compelled the younger man to meet his look. They stood face to face.

"You are in my power," he said with stern insistence. "I've borne with you because I didn't want to use force. But--I can use force.

Don't forget that!"

Guy made a sharp movement--the movement of the trapped creature.

Beneath Burke's unsparing regard his eyes fell. In a moment he turned aside, and muttering below his breath he took up the gla.s.s on the table. For a second or two he stood staring at it, then lifted it as if to drink, but in an instant changed his purpose and with a snarling laugh swung back and flung gla.s.s and contents straight at Burke's grim face.

What followed was of so swift and so deadly a nature as to possess something of the quality of a whirlwind. Almost before the gla.s.s lay in s.h.i.+vered fragments on the floor, Guy was on his knees and being forced backwards till his head and shoulders touched the boards. And above him, terrible with awful intention, was Burke's face, gashed open across the chin and dripping blood upon his own.