THE DANCING MADNESS
It was a great surprise to me that
here should have been one of Edmond Czerny’s
men left in the bungalow; and when I heard his voice
I stood for a full minute, uncertain whether to go
on or to draw back. The light of the lamp was
very bright; I had Dolly Venn in my arms, remember,
and it was all Seth Barker’s work to bring in
Mister Bligh, so that no one will wonder at my hesitation,
or the questions I put to myself as to how many men
were in the house with the stranger, or what business
kept him there when the island was a death-trap.These questions, however, the man answered for himself
before many minutes had passed; and, moreover, a seaman’s
instinct seemed to tell me that he was a friend.
“Walk right in here,”
he cried, opening a door behind him and showing me
a room I had not entered when I visited Mme. Czerny.“Walk right in and don’t gather daisies
on the way. You’ve been on a pleasure cruise
in the fog, I suppose well, that’s
a sailor all the time just all the time.”
He opened the door, I say, upon this,
and when we had followed him into the room he shut
it as quickly. It was not a very large apartment,
but I noticed at once that the windows were blocked
and curtained, and that half the space was lumbered
up with great machines which seemed made up of glass
bowls and jars; while a flame of gas was roaring out
of an iron tube, and a current of delicious fresh
air blowing upon our faces. Whatever we were
in for, whether friendship or the other thing, a man
could breathe here, and that was something to be thankful
for.
“We were caught in the woods
and ran for it,” said I, thinking in time to
make my explanations; “it may have been a fool’s
errand, but it has brought us to a wise man’s
door. You know what the lad’s trouble is,
or you wouldn’t be in this house, sir.I’ll thank you for any kindness to him.”
He turned a pleasant face towards
me and bade me lay Dolly on the sofa near the flaming
burner. Peter Bligh was sitting on a chair, swearing,
I fear, as much as he was coughing. Seth Barker,
who had the lungs of a bull, looked as though he had
found good grass. The fog wasn’t made, I
do believe, which would harm him. As for the doctor
himself, he seemed like a perplexed man who has time
for one smile and no more.
“The lad will be all right in
five minutes,” said he, seriously; “there
is air enough here, we being five men, for,”
he appeared to pause, and then he added, “for
just three days. After that why, yes,
we’ll begin to think after that.”
I did not know what to say to him,
nor, I am sure, did the others. Dolly Venn had
already opened his eyes and lay back, white and bloodless,
on the sofa. A hissing sound of escaping gas was
in the room. I breathed so freely that a sense
of excitement, almost of intoxication, came upon me.The doctor moved about quietly and methodically, now
looking to his burners, now at the machines. Five
minutes came and went before he put another question.
“What kept you from the shelter?”
he asked, at last. I knew then that he believed
us to be Edmond Czerny’s men; and I made up my
mind instantly what to do.
“Prudence kept us, doctor,”
said I (for doctor plainly he was); “prudence,
the same sense that turns a fly from a spider’s
web. It is fair that you should know the story.We haven’t come to Ken’s Island because
we are Edmond Czerny’s friends; nor will he call
us that. Ask Mme. Czerny the next time you
meet her, and she’ll tell you what brought us
here. You are acting well towards us and confidence
is your due, so I say that the day when Edmond Czerny
finds us on this shore will be a bad one for him or
a bad one for us, as the case may be. Let it
begin with that, and afterwards we shall sail in open
water.”
I said all this just naturally, not
wishing him to think that I feared Edmond Czerny nor
was willing to hoist false colours. Enemy or friend,
I meant to be honest with him. It was some surprise
to me, I must say, when he went on quietly with his
work, moving from place to place, now at the gas-burner,
now at his machine, just for all the world as though
this visitation had not disturbed him. When he
spoke it was to ask a question about Miss Ruth.
“Mme. Czerny,” said he,
quietly; “there is a Mme. Czerny, then?”
Now, if he had struck me with his
hand I could not have been more surprised at his ignorance.Just think of it here was a man left behind
on Ken’s Island when all the riffraff there had
fled to some shelter on the sea; a man working quietly,
I was sure, to discover what he could of the gases
which poisoned us; a man in Mistress Ruth’s own
house who did not even know her name. Nothing
more wonderful had I heard that night. And the
way he put the question, raising his eyebrows a little,
and looking up over his long, white apron!
“Not heard of Mme. Czerny!”
cried I, in astonishment, “not heard of her why,
what shore do you hail from, then? Don’t
you know that she’s his wife, doctor his
wife?”
He turned to his bottles and went
on arranging them. He was speaking and acting
now at the same time.
“I came ashore with Prince Czerny
when he landed here three days ago. He did not
speak of his wife. There are others in America
who would be interested in the news young
ladies, I think.”
He paused for a little while, and then he said quietly:
“You would be friends of the Princess’s,
no doubt?”
“Princess be jiggered,”
said I; “that is to say, God forgive me, for
I love Miss Ruth better than my own sister. He’s
no more a prince than you are, though that’s
a liberty, seeing that I don’t know your name,
doctor. He’s just Edmond Czerny, a Hungarian
musician, who caught a young girl’s fancy in
the South, and is making her suffer for it here in
the Pacific. Why, just think of it. A young
American girl ”
He stopped me abruptly, swinging round
on his heel and showing the first spark of animation
he had as yet been guilty of.
“An American girl?” cried he.
“As true as the Gospels, an
American girl. She was the daughter of Rupert
Bellenden, who made his money on the Western American
Railroad. If you remember the Elbe going down,
you won’t ask what became of him. His son,
Kenrick Bellenden, is in America now. I’d
give my fortune, doctor, to let him know how it fares
with his sister on this cursed shore. That’s
why my own ship sails for ’Frisco this day at
least, I hope and believe so, for otherwise she’s
at the bottom of the sea.”
I told the story with some heat, for
amazement is the enemy of a slow tongue; but my excitement
was not shared by him, and for some minutes afterwards
he stood like a man in a reverie.
“You came in your own ship!”
he exclaimed next. “Why, yes, you would
not have walked. Did Mme. Czerny ask you
here?”
“It was a promise to her,”
said I. “She left the money with her lawyers
for me to bring a ship to Ken’s Island twelve
months after her marriage. That promise I kept,
doctor, and here I am and here are my shipmates, and
God knows what is to be the end of it and the end of
us!”
He agreed to that with one of those
expressive nods which spared him a deal of talk.By-and-bye, without referring to the matter any more,
he turned suddenly to Peter Bligh and exclaimed:
“Halloa, my man, and what’s the matter
with you?”
Now, Peter Bligh sat up as stiff as a board and answered
directly.
“Hunger, doctor, that’s
the matter with me! If you’ll add thirst
to it, you’ve about named my complaint.”
“Fog out of your lungs, eh?”
“Be sure and it is. I could
dance at a fair and not be particular about the women.Put me alongside a beef-steak and you shall see some
love-making. Aye, doctor, I’ll never get
my bread as a living skeleton, the saints be good
to me, my hold’s too big for that!”
It was like Mister Bligh, and amused
the stranger very much. Just as if to answer
Peter, the doctor crossed the room and opened a big
cupboard by the window, which I saw to be full of
victuals.
“I forget to eat, myself, when
the instruments hustle me,” said he, thoughtfully;
“that’s a bad habit, anyway. Suppose
you display your energy by setting supper. There
are tinned things here and eggs, I believe. You’ll
find firewood and fresh meat in the kitchen yonder.Here’s something to keep the fog out of your
lungs while you get it.”
[Illustation: We were all sitting at the supper-table.]
He tossed a respirator across the
table, and Peter Bligh was away to the kitchen before
you could count two. It was a relief to have
something to do, and right quickly our fellows did
it. We were all (except little Dolly Venn, who
wanted his strength yet) sitting at the supper table
when half an hour had passed and eating like men who
had fasted for a month. To-morrow troubled the
seamen but little. It did not trouble Peter Bligh
or Seth Barker that night, I witness.
A strange scene, you will admit, and
one not readily banished from the memory. For
my part, I see that room, I see that picture many a
time in the night watches on my ship or in the dreaming
moments of a seaman’s day. The great machines
of glass and brass rise up again about me as they
rose that night. I watch the face of the American
doctor, sharp and clear-cut and boyish, with the one
black curl across the forehead. I see Peter Bligh
bent double over the table, little Dolly Venn’s
eyes looking up bravely at me as he tries to tell
us that all is well with him. The same curious
sensations of doubt and uncertainty come again to
plague me. What escape was there from that place?What escape from the island? Who was to help
us in our plight? Who was to befriend little
Ruth Bellenden now? Would the ship ever come back?Was she above or below the sea? Would the sleep-time
endure long, and should we live through it? Ah!
that was the thing to ask them. More especially
to ask this clever man, whose work I made sure it
was to answer the question.
“We thank you, doctor,”
I said to him, at one time; “we owe our lives
to you this night. We sha’n’t forget
that, be sure of it.”
“I’ll never eat a full
meal again but I’ll remember the name of Doctor Doctor which
reminds me that I don’t know your name, sir,”
added Peter Bligh, clumsily. The doctor smiled
at his humour.
“Dr. Duncan Gray, if it’s
anything to remember. Ask for Duncan Gray, of
Chicago, and one man in a thousand will tell you that
he makes it his business to write about poisons, not
knowing anything of them. Why, yes, poison brought
me here and poison will move me on again; at least
I begin to imagine it. Poison, you see, holds
the aces.”
“It’s a fearsome place,
truly,” said I, “and wonderful that Europe
knows so little about it. I’ve seen Ken’s
Island on the charts any time these fifteen years,
but never a whisper have I heard of sleep-time or
sun-time or any other death-talk such as I’ve
heard these last three days. You’ll be
here, doctor, no doubt, to ascertain the truth of it?If my common sense did not tell me as much, the machinery
would. It’s a great thing to be a man of
your kind, and I’d give much if my education
had led me that way. But I was only at a country
grammar school, and what I couldn’t get in at
one end the master never could at the other.Aye, I’d give much to know what you know this
night!”
He smiled a little queerly at the
compliment, I thought, and turned it off with a word.
“I begin to know how little
I know, and that’s a good start,” said
he. “Possibly Ken’s Island will make
that little less. The master of Ken’s Island
is generously sending me to Nature’s university.I think that I understand why he permitted me to come
here. Why, yes, it was smart, and the man who
first set curiosity going about Prince Czerny in Chicago
is well out of Prince Czerny’s way. I must
reckon all this up, Captain Captain ”
“Jasper Begg,” said I,
“at one time master of Ruth Bellenden’s
yacht, the Manhattan.”
“And Peter Bligh, his mate,
who is a Christian man when the victuals are right.”
Seth Barker said nothing, but I named
him and spoke about Dolly Venn. We five, I think,
began to know each other better from that time, and
to fall together as comrades in a common misfortune.Parlous as our plight was, we had food and drink and
tobacco for our pipes afterwards; and a seaman needs
little more than that to make him happy. Indeed,
we should have passed the night well enough, forgetting
all that had gone before and must come after, but
for a weird reminder at the hour of midnight, which
compelled us to recollect our strange situation and
all that it betided.
Comfortable we were, I say, for Dr.
Gray had found fine berths for us all: Dolly
on the sofa, his skipper in an arm-chair, Peter Bligh
and Seth Barker on rugs by the window, and he himself
in a hammock slung across the kitchen door. We
had said “good-night” to one another and
were settling off to sleep, when there came a weird,
wild calf from the grounds without; and so dismal
was it and so like the cries of men in agony that
we all sprang to our feet and stood, with every faculty
waking, to listen to the horrible outcry. For
a moment no man moved, so full of terror were those
sounds; but the doctor, coming first to his senses,
strode towards the window and pulled the heavy curtain
back from it. Then, in the dazzling light, that
wonderful gold-blue light which hovered in mist-clouds
about the gardens of the bungalow, I saw a spectacle
which froze my very blood. Twenty men and women,
perhaps, some of them Europeans, some natives, some
dressed in seamen’s dress, some in rags, some
quite naked, were dancing a wild, fantastic, maddening
dance which no foaming Dervish could have surpassed,
aye, or imitated, in his cruellest moments. Whirling
round and round, extending their arms to the sky,
sometimes casting themselves headlong on the ground,
biting the earth with savage lips, tearing their flesh
with knives, one or two falling stone-dead before
our very eyes, these poor people in their delirium
cried like animals, and filled the whole woods with
their melancholic wailing. For ten minutes, it
may be, the fit endured; then one by one they sank
to the earth in the most fearful contortions of limb
and face and body, and, a great silence coming upon
the house, we saw them there in that cold, clear light,
outposts of the death which Ken’s Island harboured.
We saw the thing, we knew its dreadful
truth, yet many minutes passed before one among us
opened his lip. The spell was still on us a
spell of dread and fear I pray that few men may know.
“The laughing fever,”
exclaimed the doctor, at last, letting the curtain
fall back with trembling hand. “Yes, I have
heard of that somewhere.”
And then he said, pointing to the lamp upon the table:
“Three days, my friends, three days between
us and that!”