J. D. Beresford

“ Even Angus Whitley himself, in these later successful days of his, has come to smile whimsically at the idea that he could have been driven by the direct interference of any supernormal influence. His blue eyes have lost their old expression of wondering speculation. He is a made man, happily married, happily employed, and he prefers to believe, now, in chance or luck as the sole director of his destiny during those two years in which he worked his passage around the full circumference of the earth. ”

“ Angus exclaimed, almost fiercely.
And then occurred the first of many coincidences, if they were coincidences, and not due to some direct interference with the dull, habitual movements of natural law. For the postmistress, turning with a sigh of forlorn distress to the awful muddle behind her, let her plump red hand hover for a moment like the beak of a fortune-telling love-bird, and then plunged with the convulsive jerk of an automaton at the very bunch of the litter, sere-edged and brittle in places, that contained Sarah Browning's address. ”

“ He was, by instinct and habit, an honest man, but in his tremendous reaction he cursed himself for his stupidity. He even contemplated the theft as still possible. As he stepped out of the lift on the sixth floor he was reviewing the possibilities of turning back, of hiding himself in London, and disposing of Sarah's diamonds—at however great a loss—to some "fence" in the East End. Sheer inertia carried him on to Mrs. Fulton's room; that and his natural curiosity to see the woman whose life history had been his single study for more than two years. ”

“ He had much the air of a man haunted by terror and charging in panic through the least hint of obstruction. I could not be expected to guess that the lure which drew him was the longing to deliver himself of a fortune in diamonds to Mrs. Sarah Fulton at the Savoy Hotel in London. She had married her millionaire two days before she left New York, and had taken him to Europe for their honeymoon. The passengers in Angus's lift had been discussing her wedding when he had overheard them. ”

“ That fury outside was the splendid, natural vigor of the elements, a revel in which he would willingly have joined. It was the tense, in some way rigid, atmosphere of the cabin that dismayed him. It seemed as if that repulsive yellow figure in the bunk was tremendously holding this one little bubble of his surroundings, starkly stiff and resistant against the whole tumult of the earth ”

“ Dixon continued, with a friendly smile. "Since I landed I have found that it will be necessary to send a man, an engineer for choice, out to our works in Sydney, and I judged from our talk on the steamer that you might be willing to take the job. And if you are, you're just the very man I want. Now will you come to my hotel and talk things over?"
Angus stared at him resentfully. "To Sydney?" he said. "You want me to go to Sydney? It's a devil of a long way to go." ”

“ Young Whitley ran across him in Cape Town the day before they sailed, and Herbert did what was for him an unprecedented thing—he made what seemed to be a very generous offer when he heard that Angus was going to travel third class.
"No, no," he said. "Don't do that. You're just the man I want—for a secretary on the voyage. I'm going home for good. No end of stuff to settle up. I want some one badly."
In the surprise of the moment, Angus never thought of refusing. He did not like Fuller Herbert—no one did—but he anticipated no difficulty in putting up with him for three weeks as an employer. ”

“ Angus laughed. "That's a long way to go to find any one," he said.
The manager permitted himself no air of surprise. "It is, as you say, a long way," he agreed. "If I can—ah—help you in any other way ...?"
But the manager's functions, so far as Angus was concerned, were now exhausted. He thanked him and went, almost light-heartedly. The little bag of diamonds still nestled confidingly in his hip pocket, but it was outrageous to suppose that he could be called upon to deliver them in person to Sarah Browning, in Sydney. He would, however, do more than was actually required of him. ”

“ It pleased him to see the "fiddles" on the table, to anticipate a more than usually violent gale, to be taking part in some kind of adventure. He was talking eagerly about mining machinery to a man whose acquaintance he had recently made—a man who might be useful, Angus thought, congratulating himself on his worldly wisdom—when the steward summoned him to Herbert's cabin. ”

“ When I met him about fifteen months later in New York he had the eyes and the bearing of a fanatic. During the interval he had been "working his way" round the world. He had been in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago. ”

“ He was aware of a new distrust of his fellow-travelers in the train that was taking him to the village home of the ill-used Sarah Browning. It is not every man of Angus's appearance who can afford to carry uncut diamonds to the value of perhaps a quarter of a million dollars in his hip pocket. If, by some unhappy accident, that hoard were discovered, Angus realized that he might find it difficult to account for his possession of that little leather bag. ”

“ It is still talked about in Auckland. Incidentally, that gale wrecked Angus's packet, which turned turtle thirty miles out from land and drove him back in the company of a capsized life-boat to his point of departure. He was in hospital for three weeks, and in that time he had leisure to think things over. He reviewed his past from the moment of Herbert's death, and in his weak state he came to believe that the hand of destiny lay heavily upon him and that he would know neither security nor peace of mind until he had delivered Herbert's diamonds to Sally Browning. ”

“ Dixon explained. "Things are not going right over there. We have our suspicions of the manager. ... I chose you because I felt when I first met you that you were essentially a man to be trusted. ... I should send you in the first place as an assistant engineer at a salary of two hundred dollars a month, and I want you to report to me, privately, on the general management. Later. ..."
"I must go home first, to Devonshire," Angus put in, and then realized that his stipulation was a form of acceptance.
"By all means," Dixon agreed. "Do you think you could be ready to sail in a fortnight's time? ”

“ His trouble was some complicated and rather mysterious disease of the liver, variously diagnosed by Cape Town specialists as due to tuberculosis and a malignant growth. Whatever it was, there can be no question that during his last days the disease very seriously affected his naturally eccentric mind.
He was a tall, thin man, with a long and prominent nose, a little spiteful mouth, and a small but noticeably aggressive chin. Even before the color of his skin turned to a high and bitter yellow he was remarkable for his ugliness. ”

“ It would be a mistake, however, to credit Fate or the spirit of Fuller Herbert with the entire control of Angus's career in Sydney. Even if he had never received that arduous commission of his, he would almost certainly have come to grief over the Dixon job. Muller, the general manager of the works, was too clever for Angus's straightforward habit ”

“ He mustn't know. I've been putting diamonds aside for her. They're all right. The receipts are in the bag. I saved them for her, here and there. She may have a child. The diamonds for them both. But my brother mustn't know. All my other papers in order. There's nothing to show. I meant to give them to her myself. I was going home for that. Reparation. ... to make reparation. Couldn't forget. ..."
Angus, clutching the edge of the bunk, heard every syllable spoken by Herbert. His thin, intense voice seemed to occupy the cabin and drive out the multitudinous clamor of the storm. ”

“ Author of "The Jervaise Comedy," "Early History of Jacob Stahl," etc.
THE belief in fate is as old as the history of man. It looms as a stupendous threat in the life of the savage, a dark influence challenging his every action with the menaces of taboo and totem. ”