The Second Class Passenger: Fifteen Stories. Gibbon Perceval
they may be here any moment. Is there anything to get ready?"
"But vot der hell," cried the fat man again. She turned on him.
"Fool! fool! Will you shout and curse all night, till the algemas are on you?"
"Yes; an' you put dem on us," the tall man interrupted.
She turned swiftly on him, poising her small head over her bare breasts with a superb scorn.
"Why do you lie?" she demanded hotly. "Why do you lie? Must you hide even from your own blame behind my skirts? Mother of God!"—an outstretched hand called the tawdry Virgin on the wall to witness—"you are neither man nor good beast—just——"
The tall man interrupted. "Don' go, on!" he said quietly. "Don' go on!" His eyes were shining, and he carried one hand beneath his coat. "Don' dare to go on!"
"Dare!" The woman lifted her face insolently, brought up her bare arm with a slow sweep, and puffed once at an imaginary cigarette. There was so much of defiance in the action that Dawson, watching her, breathless, started to his feet with something hard and heavy in his hand. It was the image.
"Thief!" said the woman slowly, gazing under languorous eyelids at the white, venomous face of the tall man. "Thief and——" she leaned forward and said the word, the ultimate and supreme insult of the coast.
It was barely said when there flashed something in the man's hand. He was poised on his toes, leaning forward a little, his arm swinging beside him. The woman flung both arms before her face and cried out; then leaned rapidly aside as a pointed knife whizzed past her head and struck twanging in the wall behind her. The man sprang forward, and the next instant the room was chaos, for Dawson, tingling to his extremities, stepped in and spread him out with a crashing blow on the head. The "idol" was his weapon.
The stout German thundered an oath and heaved to his feet, fumbling at his hip and babbling broken profanity.
Dawson swung the image and stepped towards him.
"Keep still," he cried, "or I'll brain you!"
"Der hell!" vociferated the German, and fired swiftly at him. The room filled with smoke, and Dawson, staggering unhurt, but with his face stung with powder, did not see the man fall. As the German drew the revolver clear, the woman knifed him in the neck, and he collapsed on his face, belching blood upon the boards of the floor. The woman stood over him, the knife still in her hand, looking at Dawson with a smile.
"My God!" he said as he glanced about him. The tall man was lying at his feet, huddled hideously on the floor. The room stank of violence and passion. "My God!" and he stooped to the body.
The woman touched him on the shoulder. "Gome," she said. "It's no good. It was a grand blow, a king's blow. 'You cannot help him."
"But—but——" he flustered as he rose. The emergency was beyond him. He had only half a strong man's equipment—the mere brawn. "Two men killed. I must get back to the ship."
He saw the woman smiling, and caught at his calmness. There was comprehension in her eyes, and to be understood is so often to be despised. "You must come too," he added, on an impulse, and stopped, appalled by the idea.
"To the ship?" she cried and laughed. "Oh, la la! But no! Still, we must go from here. The police will be here any minute, and if they find you——" She left it unsaid, and the gap was ominous.
The police! To mention them was to touch all that was conventional, suburban, and second-class in Dawson. He itched to be gone. A picture of Vine Street police court and a curtly aloof magistrate flashed across his mind, and a reminiscence of evening paper headlines, and his mind fermented hysterically.
The woman put back her knife in some secret recess of her clothes, and opened the door cautiously. "Now!" she said, but paused, and came back. She went to the picture of the Virgin and turned its face to the wall. "One should not forget respect," she observed apologetically. "These things are remembered. Now come."
No sooner were they in the gloomy alley outside than the neighborhood of others was known to them. There was a sound of many feet ploughing in the mud, and a suppressed voice gave a short order. The woman stopped and caught Dawson's arm.
"Hush!" she whispered. "It is the police. They have come for the men.
They will be on both sides of us. Wait and listen."
Dawson stood rigid, his heart thumping. The darkness seemed to surge around him with menaces and dangers. The splashing feet were nearer, coming up on their right, and once some metal gear clinked as its wearer scraped against the wall. He could smell men, as he remembered afterwards. The woman beside him retained her hold on his arm, and remained motionless till it seemed that the advancing men must run into them.
"Come quietly," she whispered at length, putting warm lips to his ear. Her hand dropped along his arm till she grasped his fingers. She led him swiftly away from the place, having waited till the police should be so near that the noise they made would drown their own retreat.
On they went, then, as before, swishing through the foulness underfoot, and without speaking. Only at times the woman's hold on his hand would tighten, and, meeting with no response, would slacken again, and she would draw him on ever more quickly.
"Where are we going?" he ventured to ask.
"We are escaping," she answered, with a brief tinkle of laughter. "If you knew from what we are escaping, you would not care where. But hurry, always!"
Soon, however, she paused, still holding his hand. Again they heard footsteps, and this time the woman turned to him desperately.
"There is a door near by," she breathed. "We must find it, or——" again the unspoken word. "Feel always along the wall there. Farther, go farther. It should be here."
They sprang on, with hands to the rough plaster on the wall, till Dawson encountered the door, set level with the wall, for which they sought.
"Push," panted the woman, heaving at it with futile hands. Even in the darkness he could see the gleam of her naked arms and shoulders. "Push it in."
Dawson laid his shoulder to it, his arms folded, and shoved desperately till his head buzzed. As he eased up he heard the near feet of the menacing police again.
"You must push it in!" cried the woman. "It is the only way. If not—"
"Here, catch hold of this," said Dawson, and she found the bronze image in her hands. "Let me come," he said, and standing back a little, he flung his twelve stone of bone and muscle heavily on the door. It creaked, and some fastening within broke and fell to the ground.
Once again he assaulted it, and it was open. They passed rapidly within, and closed it behind them, and with the woman's hand guiding, Dawson stumbled up a long, narrow, sloppy stair that gave on to the flat roof of the building. Above them was sky again. The rain had passed, and the frosty stars of Mozambique shone faintly. He took a deep breath as he received the image from the hands of the woman.
"You hear them?" she said, and he listened with a shudder to the passing of the men below.
"But we must go on," she said. "We are not safe yet. Over the wall to the next roof. Come!"
They clambered over a low parapet, and dropped six feet to another level. Dawson helped the woman up the opposite wall, and she sat reconnoitering on the top.
"Come quietly," she warned him, and he clambered up beside her and looked down at the roof before them. In a kind of tent persons appeared to be sleeping; their breath was plainly to be heard.
"You must walk like a rat," she whispered, smiling, and lowered herself. He followed. She was crouching in the shadow of the wall, and drew him down beside her. Somebody had ceased to sleep in the tent, and was gabbling drowsily, in a monotonous sing-song.
"If they see us," she whispered to him, "they will think you have come here after the women."
"But we could say——"