Ensign Knightley and Other Stories Part 2

Scrope stopped his walk and came back to the table.

"Why, that is so," he agreed sullenly. "Knightley had no suspicions.

It angered me that he had not."

Wyley leaned back in his chair.

"Really, really," he said, and laughed a little to himself. "On the night of January 6th Ensign Knightley discovers the lamentable truth.

At what hour?" he asked suddenly.

Scrope looked to the Major. "About midnight," he suggested.

"A little later, I should think," corrected Major Shackleton.

"A little after midnight," repeated Wyley. "Ensign Knightley and Lieutenant Scrope, I understand, immediately fight a duel, which seems to have been interrupted before any hurt was done."

The Major and Scrope agreed with a nod of their heads.

"In the morning," continued Wyley, "Ensign Knightley takes part in a skirmish, and is clubbed on the head so fiercely that Major Shackleton thought his skull must be broken in. At what hour was he struck?"

Again he put the question quickly.

"'Twixt seven and eight of the morning," replied the Major.

"Quite so," said Wyley. "The incidents fit to a nicety. Two years afterwards Ensign Knightley comes home. He knows nothing of the duel, or any cause for a duel. Lieutenant Scrope is still 'Harry' to him, and his best of friends. It is all very clear."

He gazed about him. Perplexity sat on each face except one; that face was Scrope's.

"I spoke to you all some half an hour since concerning the effects of a concussion. I could not have hoped for so complete an example," said Wyley.

Captain Tessin whistled; Major Shackleton bounced on to his feet.

"Then Knightley knows nothing," cried Tessin in a gust of excitement.

"And never will know," cried the Major.

"Except by hearsay," sharply interposed Scrope. "Gentlemen, you go too fast, Except by hearsay. That, Mr. Wyley, was the phrase, I think. By what spells, Major," he asked with irony, "will you bind Tangier to silence when there's scandal to be talked? Let Knightley walk down to the water-gate to-morrow; I'll warrant he'll have heard the story a hundred times with a hundred new embellishments before he gets there."

Major Shackleton resumed his seat moodily.

"And since that's the truth, why, he had best hear the story nakedly from me."

"From you?" exclaimed Tessin. "Another duel, then. Have you counted the cost?"

"Why, yes," replied Scrope quietly.

"Two years of the bastinado," said the Major. "That was what he said.

He comes back to Tangier to find--who knows?--a worse torture here.

Knightley, Knightley, a good officer marked for promotion until that infernal night. Scrope, I could turn moralist and curse you!"

Scrope dropped his head as though the words touched him. But it was not long before he raised it again.

"You waste your pity, I think, Major," he said coldly. "I disagree with Mr. Wyley's conclusions. Knightley knows the truth of the matter very well. For observe, he has made no mention of his wife. He has been two years in slavery. He escapes, and he asks for no news of his wife. That is unlike any man, but most of all unlike Knightley. He has his own ends to serve, no doubt, but he knows."

The argument appeared cogent to Major Shackleton.

"To be sure, to be sure," he said. "I had not thought of that."

Tessin looked across to Wyley.

"What do you say?"

"I am not convinced," replied Wyley. "Indeed, I was surprised that Knightley's omission had not been remarked before. When you first showed reserve in welcoming Knightley, I noticed that he became all at once timid, hesitating. He seemed to be afraid."

Major Shackleton admitted the Surgeon's accuracy. "Well, what then?"

"Well, I go back to what I said before Knightley appeared. A man has lost so many hours. The question, what he did during those hours, is one that may well appal any one. Lieutenant Scrope doubted whether that question would trouble a man, and needed an instance. I believe here is the instance. I believe Knightley is afraid to ask any questions, and I believe his reason to be fear of how he lived during those lost hours."

There was a pause. No one was prepared to deny, however much he might doubt, what Wyley said.

Wyley continued:

"At some point of time before this duel Knightley's recollections break off. At what precise point we are not aware, nor is it of any great importance. The sure thing is he does not know of the dispute between Lieutenant Scrope and himself, and it is of more importance for us to consider whether he cannot after all be kept from knowing.

Could he not be sent home to England? Mrs. Knightley, I take it, is no longer in Tangier?"

Major Shackleton stood up, took Wyley by the arm and led him out on to the balcony. The town beneath them had gone to sleep; the streets were quiet; the white roofs of the houses in the star-s.h.i.+ne descended to the water's edge like flights of marble steps; only here and there did a light burn. To one of the lights close by the city wall the Major directed Wyley's attention. The house in which it burned lay so nearly beneath them that they could command a corner of the square open _patio_ in the middle of it; and the light shone in a window set in that corner and giving on to the _patio_.

"You see that house?" said the Major.

"Yes," said Wyley. "It is Scrope's. I have seen him enter and come out."

"No doubt," said the Major; "but it is Knightley's house."

"Knightley's! Then the light burning in the window is--"

The Major nodded. "She is still in Tangier. And never a care for him has troubled her for two years, not so much as would bring a pucker to her pretty forehead--all my arrears of pay to a guinea-piece."

Wyley leaned across the rail of the balcony, watching the light, and as he watched he was aware that his feelings and his thoughts changed.

The interest which he had felt in Scrope died clean away, or rather was transferred to Knightley; and with this new interest there sprang up a new sympathy, a new pity. The change was entirely due to that one yellow light burning in the window and the homely suggestions which it provoked. It brought before him very clearly the bitter contrast: so that light had burned any night these last two years, and Scrope had gone in and out at his will, while up in the barbarous inlands of Morocco the husband had had his daily portion of the bastinado and the whip. It was her fault, too, and she made her profit of it. Wyley became sensible of an overwhelming irony in the disposition of the world.

"You spoke a true word to-night, Major," he said bitterly. "That light down there might turn any man to a moralist, and send him preaching in the market-places."

"Well," returned the Major, as though he must make what defence he could for Scrope, "the story is not the politest in the world. But, then, you know Tangier--it is only a tiny outpost on the edges of the world where we starve behind broken walls forgotten of our friends. We have the Moors ever swarming at our gates and the wolf ever snarling at our heels, and so the niceties of conduct are lost. We have so little time wherein to live, and that little time is filled with the noise of battle. Pa.s.sion has its way with us in the end, and honour comes to mean no more than bravery and a gallant death."

He remained a few moments silent, and then disconnectedly he told Wyley the rest of the story.

"It was only three years ago that Knightley came to Tangier. He should never have brought his wife with him. Scrope and Knightley became friends. All Tangier knew the truth pretty soon, and laughed at Knightley's ignorance.... I remember the night of January 6th very well. I was Captain of the Guard that night too. A spy brought in news that we might expect a night attack. I sent Knightley with the news to Lord Inchiquin. On the way back he stepped into his own house. It was late at night. Mrs. Knightley was singing some foolish song to Scrope.

The two men came down into the street and fought then and there. The quarter was aroused, the combatants arrested and brought to me....

There are two faults which our necessities here compel us to punish beyond their proper gravity: duelling, for we cannot afford to lose officers that way; and brawling in the streets at night, because the Moors lie _perdus_ under our walls; ready to take occasion as it comes. Of Scrope's punishment you have heard. Knightley I released for that night. He was on guard--I could not spare him. We were attacked in the morning, and repulsed the attack. We followed up our success by a sortie in which Knightley fell."

Wyley began again to wonder at what particular point in this story Knightley's recollection broke off; and, further, what particular fear it was that kept him from all questions even concerning his wife.