Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases Part 16

"'Lift me up, Peter,' said Emmanuel. Peter raised him till he sat upright, and held him with a long arm about his shoulders. Emmanuel reached forward hands thin as films of milk, and shuffled the gold to and fro.

"'Can you have some?' he said, looking up at the woman.

'You! Yes, you man-wrecking pirate, go down on your knees and whine for it, beg for it, pray with clasped hands for it, and you shall take as much as you can grasp. Do that, d'you hear? I want to see you on your knees for once and groveling for a handful of sovereigns. Go on; get down with you!'

"Barend gave a short laugh. It was amusing of Emmanuel, he thought, to promise this on a condition so impossible. The woman spun on her heel and faced him sharply with bent brows and a heaving bosom.

"'Kneel, my beauty,' said Emmanuel again mockingly, but watching the woman as she stared at Barend. There was a kind of wonder on her dark cruel face as she studied the big Boer's serene countenance and masterful poise of head, and noted there the mild amus.e.m.e.nt which is the scorn of a good man.

"'Kneel now, and plead for it,' said Emmanuel again; and of a sudden a doubt came over Barend. There was a distress plain to see, something remorseful and newly born surging in this harlot; there was an appeal, fiercely shameful, in the hard eyes bent on his.

"Of a sudden she wheeled round and spat an awful curse at the sick man. 'Keep your d.a.m.ned money!' she went on, while the thick veins in her neck grew to dark ridges. 'D'you think you can buy everything? You've sold your life and your innocence for filth--d'you suppose it's all to buy? You an' me's in the same box, my boy--bad 'ems both, but you don't make a dog of me.'

"She turned to Barend. 'Let me pa.s.s, you big hulking--'

she hesitated, looking at him.

"'Oh, you poor innocent,' she cried, with a laugh, and ran past him and out at the door.

"Emmanuel called after her, and bade her come back and take what she would, but her heels rattled on the stairway and she was gone.

"'Is that the strange woman?' asked Peter, quoting from the Proverbs.

"Emmanuel laughed. 'Strange as the devil,' he said, with his voice running weak. 'You see souls in this town, cousins--not bodies only, as on the farm. Souls that blush and bleed, I tell you. But go to the head of the stairway, Barend, and shout as loud as you can for Jim. Just shout "Jim"!'

"Barend went and roared the name half a dozen times. There came at last a man with a dirty coat b.u.t.toned to the neck, grimy, ill-shod and white-eyed, and to him Emmanuel, speaking from behind the heap of sovereigns, to which the man's evil pale eyes strayed every moment, gave orders.

"'Tell the boys,' he said, 'that there's a spree here tonight. Get the whole gang, Jim, and particularly Walters.

And take what money you want, and send what is necessary up here. Steal what you must, you hound, but leave us short of nothing, or my big cousins here will cut you to ribbons. Is that not so, Barend?'

"'Whenever you please, Emmanuel,' said Barend.

"The man Jim took the money and went, and

Emmanuel lay in Peter's arm, picking at the gold.

"'Shall I count it for you?' said Peter at last.

"'G.o.d, no!' said Emmanuel. 'Leave it, man. It's luxury not to know how much it is.' A dribble of coins tinkled from the blanket to the floor. 'Don't pick them up,' he cried, as Barend stooped. 'This is like water in a long trek to me.' He picked up a handful of money and strewed it abroad.

'I can die,' he said, 'now I've money to throw away, and tonight there'll be the end.'

"It was an orgy that evening. There came men and women to that high room, where the evil man Jim had already disposed of bottles of spirits and of wine. The big Boers stood there like trees among poppies. 'Tis an evil, leering flower, the poppy, with its color of blood and love mounted on its throat of death. Barend and Peter, upright and still, stood at the head of the bed watching them as they entered, lean, cruel-mouthed dogs of the city, whose eyes went to the gold on the blanket ere they greeted the man that had bidden them thither. Emmanuel, propped in his pillows, his face a mask of hard mastery, his eyes like blurs of fire on a burned stick, looked at them as they came in, yet ever his eyes returned to the door, as though he sought some one who should yet come.

"Women spoke to him--handsome bold women with free lips, and eyes that commanded eyes of men, and these he barely answered. But a crisp step on the stairs brought the death spot hot and quick to his fevered cheeks, and there entered a man.

"A small man, a dark man! Barend, talking afterwards, with a pucker of wonder between his brows, said he was smooth.

He had a face that was keen and alert without being hard; eyes that were quiet and yet judged; lips upon which there dwelt an armed peace and also a humorous curve. He seemed to have his own world, to blot from his consciousness that which displeased him; yet he himself was for those who looked upon him a man blocking the horizon of life. A great man, I judge--that is, a man great in the qualities which need but an aim to move mountains. G.o.d gives few such men an aim, or there would be more G.o.ds.

"Emmanuel spoke very quietly to him, but with no wheeze of weakness in his voice.

"'Good-evening, Walters,' he said.

"The newcomer but cast a glance over his shoulder. 'Ah!' he said, and his eye lighted on the gold, and his pleasant lip curled further.

"'Has your mother died?' he asked. 'I suppose that's why you're so gay. What a funny little beast you are, Van der Westhuizen!'

"'These are my cousins,' said Emmanuel.

"'They ought to suit you. They are as stupid as honest men, and as honest as stupid ones, This is Barend--that is Peter!'

"Walters looked up at them, and Peter held out a hand to him. He took it, and smiled, and when Barend saw the grace and friends.h.i.+p of that smile, he too gave his hand.

"'You have come to take Emmanuel home?' said Walters.

'Well, use him tenderly. If he is worth handling at all he is to be tenderly handled. But I am sure you will be gentle. You are too big to be rough.'

"He turned from them to a woman that was prattling near by, and at once entered her life, it seemed. She turned to him as one who wors.h.i.+ps.

"'Come, drink!' Emmanuel called to them. 'This is my farewell, you people. I've come to the jump-off place.

Reach me a gla.s.s, somebody, and put something in it. What will you have, Walters? Help yourselves, all of you.'

"With chattering and laughter the bottles pa.s.sed about, and a woman at the foot of the bed raised her gla.s.s with a flourish and drank to the sick man. 'You're game, boy,' she cried; 'you finish like a ferret!'

"Barend stood for three hours watching them, Peter by his side. 'It was like reading in Chronicles and Kings,' he said, when he related it later. 'There was a boil of business all about, and drinking and gabbling, and I saw faces, flushed and working, that I am sick to remember. The wine they drank came soon to possess them as Legion possessed the swine; in an hour they were lost to all reason and decency, and women were cursing in the voices of men and men weeping loosely like women. They cast off their outer garments when the room grew hot, and lounged half- naked; and of all of them, only two seemed to live aloof, like men among beasts--Emmanuel and the young man Walters.

"'This young man pa.s.sed in and out like an eel in water.

Nothing clung to him of all the filth in which he trod. He drank, but was not less the master of himself; he jested, but his laughter was the mirth of the pure in heart, without harshness in it, and they made him way and listened when he spoke; and even the gross, hot-eyed women dulled their terrible speech when he stood before them. The eyes of Emmanuel, propped in his bed, his blankets wet with the wine he spilled from his gla.s.s, were ever upon him. I think the boy admired him. Whenever he stirred, sovereigns dribbled to the floor, but he looked not once after them; he was all for watching Walters, who barely turned towards him. Ah, but he was very sick, our Emmanuel! His breath rasped as he drew it; there was a fire in his great eyes that made one tremble--that fire that makes you think of h.e.l.l-fire and naked souls writhing in it. A look of savage hunger, but far off, as though desiring things not of earth!'

"A strange scene, was it not, for a chamber overshadowed by the wings of death. Towards midnight, Emmanuel sighed, and slipped down a little. Peter moved to lift him and started at the pinch of death on his face. His exclamation drew most of the others to look, but as they crowded near Emmanuel opened his eyes.

"'Walters,' he said faintly.

"'Well, my boy,' said Walters.

"'What-do-you-think-of-this?' Emmanuel asked, his weakness watering his speech.

"Walters laughed quietly. 'I'll tell you in the morning,'

he said. 'But you're a good actor, my friend.'

"You'll see,' whispered Emmanuel, and closed his eyes again.

"Then Barend bade them all go forth, and after awhile, when he had taken one lewd man in his hands and cast him on the stair, they went, and the noise of their voices, raw and ungentle, filtered away. The two Boers were left at the bedside, among the bottles and the gold and the strewn clothes; and Emmanuel lay rigid, with a buzz in his throat and a spot of blood on his lips. Peter kneeled and prayed.

"But in a couple of hours, when his face had grown thin and his nose sharp, and his hands cold as clods, they saw he was dead, and spoke together of what they must do. They knew nothing of that treacherous web of law and custom which is the life of a city; they knew only that their feet were among pitfalls, and that they must move quickly if they would take Emmanuel away to the farm and the kraal. So while Peter went forth to bring three horses, Barend sought among the garments scattered about the room and dressed the thin body in them, and put his own broad-brimmed hat on the fair head that should henceforth need no shelter from the sun. When he had done, Peter returned, and came up the stairs quietly.

"They took the body of Emmanuel under the armpits, one on each side of him, and thus carried him down the stairs. A man met them on the way, his face bland and foolish in the glow of a candle he carried.

"'Drunk, eh?' he said, without particular curiosity.

'Almost dead, by the looks of him.'

"'Quite dead,' answered Barend, and they pa.s.sed him and came down to the horses, hitched at the sidewalk.