The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 30

"Take the narrower channel," he ordered then. And when they were in it he added: "Stop, will you, and steer in there, under the shadow of the sh.o.r.e? I think we would better fortify ourselves for the work of the night. I at least did not forget the cognac, among my other objects of virtue."

They fortified themselves accordingly, the Brazilian producing cigars as well. He certainly was an original, thought Gaston, now hopeful of experiencing actual cheer. That originality proved itself anew when, after a much longer period of refreshment than would suit most gentlemen in a hurry, the familiar flash became visible in the river behind them.

"Now be quiet," commanded the extraordinary uncle of America. "Whatever happens we mustn't let them hear us. If they take this channel, we will slip down, and run part way up the other. We shall give them a little surprise."

Nearer and nearer came the flash, which suddenly went out behind the island. A recurrent splash succeeded it, and a wild melancholy singing.

The singing and the recurrent splash grew louder, filled the silence of the river, grew softer; and presently the receding oars flashed again, below the island. But not until the last glint was lost in the s.h.i.+mmer of the water, the last sound had died out of the summer night, did the Brazilian begin to unfold his surprise.

"_Que diable allait-on faire dans cette galere!_" he exclaimed. "It's the first time I ever knew them to do the right thing! Let us drink one more little gla.s.s to the good fortune of their voyage. And here, by the way, is another part of my ticket." He handed Gaston five more napoleons. "But now, my friend, we have some work. I see we shall never get anywhere with all this load. Let us therefore consign our objects of virtue to the safe keeping of the river. He will guard them better than anybody. Is it deep enough here?"

It was deep enough. But what an affair, getting those heavy chests overboard! The last one nearly pulled Magin in with it. One of the clamps caught in his clothes, threw him against the side of the boat, and jerked something after it into the water. He sat down, swearing softly to himself, to catch his breath and investigate the damage.

"It was only my revolver," he announced. "And we have no need of that, since we are not going to the war! Now, my good Gaston, I have changed my mind. We will not go down the river, after all. We will go up."

Gaston, this time, stared at him.

"Up? But, Monsieur, the barge--"

"What is my barge to you, dear Gaston? Besides, it is no longer mine. It now belongs to the Sheikh of Mohamera--with whatever objects of virtue it still contains. He has long teased me for it. And none of them can read the note they are carrying to him! Didn't I tell you I was going to give them a little surprise? Well, there it is. I am not a man, you see, to be tied to objects of virtue. Which reminds me: where are my portmanteaux?"

"Here, on the tank."

"Fi! And you a chauffeur! Give them to me. I will arrange myself a little. As for you, turn around and see how quickly you can carry me to the charming resort of Bund-i-Kir--where Antigonus fought Eumenes and the Silver s.h.i.+elds for the spoils of Susa, and won them. Did you ever hear, Gaston, of that interesting incident?"

"Monsieur is too strong for me," replied Gaston, cryptically. He took off his cap, wiped his face, and sat down at the wheel.

"If a man is not strong, what is he?" rejoined Magin. "But you will not find this cigar too strong," he added amicably.

Gaston did not. What he found strong was the originality of his pa.s.senger--and the way that cognac failed, in spite of its friendly warmth, to cheer him. For he kept thinking of that absurd Bakhtiari, and of the telegraph operator, and of M'sieu Guy, and the others, as he sped northward on the silent moonlit river.

"This is very well, eh, Gaston?" uttered the Brazilian at last. "We march better without our objects of virtue." Gaston felt that he smiled as he lay smoking on his rug in the bottom of the boat. "But tell me,"

he went on presently, "how is it, if I may ask, that you didn't happen to go in the steamer too, with your Monsieur Guy? You do not look to me either old or incapable."

There it was, the same question, which really seemed to need no answer at first, but which somehow became harder to answer every time! Why was it? And how could it spoil so good a cognac?

"How is it?" repeated Gaston. "It is, Monsieur, that France is a great lady who does not derange herself for a simple vagabond like Gaston, or about whose liaisons or quarrels it is not for Gaston to concern himself. This great lady has naturally not asked my opinion about this quarrel. But if she had, I would have told her that it is very stupid for everybody in Europe to begin shooting at each other. Why? Simply because it pleases _ces messieurs_ the Austrians to treat _ces messieurs_ the Serbs _de haut en bas_! What have I to do with that?

Besides, this great lady is very far away, and by the time I arrive she will have arranged her affair. In the meantime there are many others, younger and more capable than I, whose express business it is to arrange such affairs. Will one _piou-piou_ more or less change the result of one battle? Of course not! And if I should lose my hand or my head, who would buy me another? Not France! I have seen a little what France does in such cases. My own father left his leg at Gravelotte, together with his job and my mother's peace. I have seen what happened to her, and how it is that I am a vagabond--about whom France has never troubled herself." He shouted it over his shoulder, above the noise of the motor, with an increasing loudness. "Also," he went on, "I have duties not so far away as France. Up there, at Sheleilieh, there will perhaps be next month a little Gaston. If I go away, who will feed him? I have not the courage of Monsieur, who separates himself so easily from objects of virtue. _Voila!_"

Magin said nothing for a moment. Then:

"Courage, yes! One needs a little courage in this curious world." There was a pause, as the boat cut around a dark curve. "But do not think, my poor Gaston, that it is I who blame you. On the contrary, I find you very reasonable--more reasonable than many ministers of state. If others in Europe had been able to express themselves like you, Gaston, Monsieur Guy and his friends would not have run away so suddenly. It takes courage, too, not to run after them." He made a sound, as if changing his position, and presently he began to sing softly to himself.

"Monsieur would make a fortune in the _cafe-chantant_," commented Gaston. He began to feel, at last, after the favorable reception of his speech, a little cheered. He felt cooler, too, in this quiet rus.h.i.+ng moonlight of the river. "What is it that Monsieur sings? It seems to me that I have heard that air."

"Very likely you have, Gaston. It is a little song of sentiment, sung by all the sentimental young ladies of the world. He who wrote it, however, was far from sentimental. He was a fellow countryman of mine--and of the late Abraham!--who loved your country so much that he lived in it and died in it." And Magin sang again, more loudly, the first words of the song:

"Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten, Da.s.s ich so traurig bin; Ein Marchen aus alten Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn."

Gaston listened with admiration, astonishment, and perplexity. It suddenly came back to him how this original Brazilian had sworn when the chest caught his clothes.

"But, Monsieur, I thought--Are you, then, a German?"

Magin, after a second, laughed.

"But Gaston, am I then an enemy?"

Gaston examined him in the moonlight.

"Well," he answered slowly, "if your country and mine are at war--"

"What has that to do with us, as you just now so truly said? You have found that your country's quarrel was not cause enough for you to leave Persia, and so have I. _Voila tout!_" He examined Gaston in turn. "But I thought you knew all the time. Such is fame! I flattered myself that your Monsieur Guy would leave no one untold. Whereas he has left us the pleasure of a situation more piquant, after all, than I supposed. We enjoy the magnificent moonlight of the south, we admire a historic river under its most successful aspect, and we do not exalt ourselves because our countrymen, many hundreds of miles away, have lost their heads." He smiled over the piquancy of the situation. "Strength is good," he went on in his impressive ba.s.s, "and courage is better. But reason, as you so justly say, is best of all. For which reason," he added, "allow me to recommend to you, my dear Gaston, that you look a little where you are steering."

Gaston looked. But he discovered that his moment of cheer had been all too brief. A piquant situation, indeed! The piquancy of that situation somehow complicated everything more darkly than before. If there were reasons why he should not go away with the others, as they had all taken it for granted that he would do, was that a reason why he, Gaston, whose father had lost a leg at Gravelotte, should do this masquerading German a service? All the German's amiability and originality did not change that. Perhaps, indeed, that explained the originality and amiability.

The German, at any rate, did not seem to trouble himself about it. When Gaston next looked over his shoulder, Magin was lying flat on his back in the bottom of the boat, with his hands under his head and his eyes closed. And so he continued to lie, silent and apparently asleep, while his troubled companion, hand on wheel and _beret_ on ear, steered through the waning moonlight of the Karun.

VII

The moon was but a ghost of itself, and a faint rose was beginning to tinge the pallor of the sky behind the Bakhtiari mountains, when the motor began to miss fire. Gaston, stifling an exclamation, cut it off, unscrewed the cap of the tank, and measured the gasolene. Then he stepped softly forward to the place in the bow where he kept his reserve cans. Magin, roused by the stopping of the boat, sat up, stretching.

"_Tiens!_" he exclaimed. "Here we are!" He looked about at the high clay banks enclosing the tawny basin of the four rivers. In front of him the konar trees of Bund-i-Kir showed their dark green. At the right, on top of the bluff of the eastern sh.o.r.e, a solitary peasant stood white against the sky. Near him a couple of oxen on an inclined plane worked the rude mechanism that drew up water to the fields. The creak of the pulleys and the splash of the dripping goatskins only made more intense the early morning silence. "Do you remember, Gaston?" asked Magin. "It was here we first had the good fortune to meet--not quite three weeks ago."

"I remember," answered Gaston, keeping his eye on the mouth of the tank he was filling, "that I was the one who wished you peace, Monsieur; and that no one asked who you were or where you were going."

Magin yawned.

"Well, you seem to have satisfied yourself now on those important points. I might add, however, for your further information, that I think I shall not go to Bund-i-Kir, which looks too peaceful to disturb at this matinal hour, but there--on the western sh.o.r.e of the Ab-i-Shuteit.

And that reminds me. I still have to pay you the rest of my ticket."

He reached forward and laid a little pile of gold on Gaston's seat.

Gaston, watching out of the corner of his eye as he poured gasolene, saw that there were more than five napoleons in that pile. There were at least ten.

"What would you say, Monsieur," he asked slowly, emptying his tin, "if I were to take you instead to Sheleilieh--where there are still a few of the English?"

"I would say, my good Gaston, that you had more courage than I thought.

By the way," he went on casually, "what is this?"

He reached forward again toward Gaston's seat, where lay the Bakhtiari's present. Gaston dropped his tin and made a s.n.a.t.c.h at it. But Magin was too quick for him. He retreated to his place at the stern of the boat, where he drew the knife out of its sheath.

"Sharp, too!" he commented, with a smile at Gaston. "And my revolver is gone!"

Gaston, very pale, stepped to his seat.

"That, Monsieur, was given me by my Bakhtiari brother-in-law--to take to the war. When he found I had not the courage to go, he ran away from me."

"But you thought there might be more than one way to make war, eh? Well, I at least am not an Apache. Perhaps the sharks will know what to do with it." The blade glittered in the brightening air and splashed out of sight. And Magin, folding his arms, smiled again at Gaston. "Another object of virtue for the safe custody of the Karun!"

"But not all!" cried Gaston thickly, seizing the little pile of gold beside him and flinging it after the knife.