Charnock

“ Charnock seemed to have heard not a single word. He stood at the door of the tent, looking indifferently this way and that. His silence spurred Warriner to continue. "I tell you what, Charnock," he said, "you had better run straight with me. You'll find out your mistake if you don't. I'll tell you something more: you had better let me find when I get back to Ronda that you have run straight with me." He saw Charnock suddenly look round the angle of the tent and then shade his eyes with his hand. It seemed impossible to provoke him in any way. ”

“ To this city Charnock tracked the merchant, and taking up his abode in the Mellah with a Jew to whom M. Fournier had recommended him, he walked out through the streets beneath the walls of the palaces, neither inquiring for the merchant nor scanning the faces of the passers-by, but wrapped in his burnous, careless of any cry, impenetrable, unobservant, until he came out of the darkness of a bazaar, and saw, right before his eyes, a door. ”

“ But as he spoke he drew within the recess of the door, and Charnock noticed his right hand steal up the panels feeling for the latch.
Made by this seemingly passionless and apathetic man, the secret movement shocked Charnock. It seemed to him at that moment so cold-blooded as to be almost inhuman.
"Look out!" he shouted through the door and in broad English, forgetting that the man for whom his warning was intended was a Moor. But the warning had its effect. There was a heavy blow upon the door, as though a man's shoulder lurched against it, and then the bolt grated into the socket. ”

“ Off Ushant we came up with a brigantine, and I couldn't help fancying that her lines were familiar to me. Charnock lent me his binoculars--a dear good fellow, Charnock!--and I made out her name, the Tarifa. I should not have given the boat another thought but for Charnock. Charnock said she had the lines of a Salcombe clipper. Did you happen to know that the Ten Brothers was a Salcombe clipper? I did, and the moment Charnock had spoken I understood why the look of her hull was familiar; I had seen her or her own legitimate sister swinging at Warriner's moorings in Algeciras Bay. ”

“ That door, on which his eyes were set, augured as much, nay promised it. "Not a sparrow shall fall...." Just for this reason, centuries ago, a Moorish conqueror had taken these slabs of walnut wood in Spain, and brought them back upon the shoulders of his slaves and made his door from them and set it in his wall at Mequinez; just that Charnock coming to this spot centuries afterwards might be quickened in his service towards a woman, and gird himself about with the memory of things which were growing dim, and be assured the service should not fail! Charnock was uplifted to believe it. ”

“ A thin crop of black hair was plastered upon his head; he wore a moustache which was turning grey; his eyebrows were so faultlessly regular that they seemed to have been stencilled on his forehead, and underneath them a pair of cold beady eyes counterfeited friendliness. Charnock could not call to mind that he had ever met a man on whom geniality sat with so ill a grace, or one whose acquaintance he less desired to improve.
Major Wilbraham, however, was not easily rebuffed, and he walked the deck by Charnock's side, talkative and unabashed. ”

“ Finished the little job at Algeciras, I saw. What are you doing at Ronda?"
"What are you?" asked Charnock, as he faced the irrepressible Major Wilbraham.
"Trying to make seven hundred per annum into a thousand. You see I have no secrets. Now confidence for confidence, eh, dear friend?" and his eyes drew cunningly together behind the glowing end of his cigar.
"I am afraid that I must leave you to guess."
"Guessing's not very sociable work." ”

“ Hamet gathered a bundle of leaves from a dwarf palm tree and a few sticks, lit a fire, and cooked their supper. Charnock woke Warriner, who ate his meal and slept again; and all that night, with a Mouser pistol in his hand, Charnock sat by his side and guarded him.
The next morning they started betimes; they passed a caravan, farther on a tent-village, and towards evening, from the shoulder of a hill they looked down upon the vast plain of the Sebou. Level as a sea it stretched away until the distinct colours of its flower-patches merged into one soft blue. ”

“ Charnock turned abruptly towards her, and as he turned the book slipped off the table and fell to the ground. "But yesterday," he exclaimed in perplexity, "yesterday, here in this room, I gave you the assurance which you looked for. You believed a man would only help you for the one reason. Well, I told you that the one reason held with me; yet, at that moment, you rejected all help and service. ”

“ Hamet brought up the mules. Charnock unrolled a burnous and a turban. Warriner plucked off his rags and put on the dress. Then the three men rode out between the olive trees, past the outer rampart of breached walls, into the open plain.
"Shall we camp?" said Charnock.
Warriner cast a look across his shoulder. Mequinez was still visible, a greyer blot upon the grey hillside. "No," said he.
They rode forward over carpets of flowers, between the hills. The light fell; the marigolds paled beneath their mules' feet; the gentians became any flower of a light hue. ”

“ And nothing is done, and nothing will be done, unless you do it. Oh, think of him--driven, his hands tied, beaten with sticks, sold for a slave to trudge with loads upon his back, barefooted, through Morocco! You will go," and her voice broke and was very tender as she appealed to him. "Please! You will have pity on me, and on him." And she watched Charnock's face for a sign of assent, her heart throbbing, her foot beating the ground, and every now and then a queer tremulous moan breaking from her dry lips. ”

“ It was only, however, into her parlour that she ran, and thither Charnock followed her. She stood up rather quickly in the farthest corner of the room as soon as he entered, drew a pattern with her foot upon the floor, and tried to appear entirely at her ease. She did not look at Charnock, however; on the contrary she kept her eyes upon the ground, and felt very much like a school-girl who is going to be punished.
"Your husband is alive." Charnock's voice was cold and stern. Miranda resented it all the more because she knew she deserved nothing less than sternness. ”

“ Charnock laughed. "You would probably be no wiser if I named the street; it is not of those which you and your friends go up and down," he replied simply. "Yes, I lived in Westminster for three hard, curious years."
"It's not only the years that are curious," said Miranda, but the hint was lost, for Charnock had turned back to the balustrade. She was still, however, inclined to persist. The details which Lady Donnisthorpe had sown in her mind, now bore their crop. ”

“ Then she fell back again by his side, and said: "Why is your face always so--illegible?"
"Is it?" he asked.
"It's a lid--a shut lid," she said. "One never knows what you think, how you are disposed." She spoke with some irritation perhaps, but sincerely, and without any effort at provocation.
"I was not aware," returned Charnock. "You must set it down to habit, Mrs. Warriner. I was brought up in a hard school, and learned, no doubt, intuitively the wisdom of reticence." ”

“ Both Sir George Barkley and Charnock started up, the first exclaiming, "Hark! there they are!"
"Yes," exclaimed Charnock, "there's a woman's voice, sure enough! Why the devil don't they stop her talking so loud?"
"You write out the letter, Charnock," said Sir George. "I must go down and see that all is right."
Charnock nodded his head, and the other left the room.
CHAPTER XIX. When Wilton Brown reached the house of the Earl of Byerdale, he found that nobleman, the Duke of Gaveston, and Lord Sherbrooke, sitting together in the most amicable manner that it is possible to conceive. ”

“ It was a bitter afternoon when Charnock got down at the little prairie station that was marked by a water-tank, the agent's shack, and the lower frames of three unfinished grain elevators. He hired a rig at the livery stable, and borrowing a fur-robe started on his drive across the plain. The landscape was empty and featureless except for the gray smears of distant bluffs. Nothing moved on the white expanse, and there was no sound but the measured thud of the horses' feet; the air was still and keen with frost. ”

“ Lady Donnisthorpe waved her hands helplessly and brushed away all mankind. She led Charnock across the room, introduced him, and left him with a manner of extreme coldness, to which Charnock at this moment was quite impervious. ”

“ The other master who instructed Charnock was a blind man, led by a boy, whom the neophyte accidentally discovered at an inn among other travellers, by a few words of the occult chemistry, which he perceived in his conversation. As soon as the company had retired, Charnock questioned the speaker, and requested instruction in natural philosophy. To this the adept objected that he was unacquainted with his interrogator, saying he would render up his knowledge to God who gave it, if he did not meet with a certain Master Charnock, the fame of whose learning and charity had reached him. ”

“ The next moment the dowager swept past him. The daughter Muriel followed, and as she passed Charnock she looked at him with an inquisitive friendliness. But her eyes happened to meet his, and with a spontaneous fellow-feeling the girl and the man smiled to each other and at the dowager, before they realised that they were totally unacquainted.
Lady Donnisthorpe was lying in wait for Charnock. She asked him to take her to the buffet. Charnock secured for her a chair and an ice, and stood by her side, conversational but incommunicative. ”

“ But that coming to you, I should come to the one man who can help, who already knows the way to help. Don't you understand? It is very clear to me. You were meant to help, to help me in this one trouble, so you were shown the means whereby to help." And seeing Charnock still impenetrable, she burst out: "Oh, he will not help! He will not understand!" and she took to considering how it was that he knew, how it was that he recognised the tune.
"You were in Tangier once," she argued. "Yes. You told me that not only to-day, but at Lady Donnisthorpe's. You crossed from Gibraltar?" ”

“ Warriner would have perished in his servitude, would have dropped somewhere on the plain under a load too heavy, and lain there until nightfall brought the jackals.
The thought took Charnock at the throat, left him struggling for his breath. So near had he been to failing when he must not fail! He began to fear at once that another purchaser might step in, while the Moor was still exaggerating his goods. Yet he must not interrupt; he must give no sign of anxiety lest he should awaken suspicion; he must bargain with extreme indifference while a fever burnt in all his blood. ”

“ But again there was no mention of the glove. That afternoon Charnock was introduced to Miss Holt, whom Miranda kept continually at her side, until Charnock took his leave, when she accompanied him across the patio.
"We never seem to get an opportunity of talking to each other," said she, with the utmost innocence. "Will you ride with me to-morrow? Say at two. We might ride as far as Ronda La Viega."
Charnock, who within the last half-hour had begun to consider whether it would not be wise for him to return to Algeciras, eagerly accepted the invitation. To-morrow everything would be explained. ”

“ There is no reason why you should--"
This intimate talking with the lifeless woman came upon Warriner as something horrible. "Man, can't you see?" he whispered hoarsely. "She's dead, Miranda is. We have killed her, you and I."
Charnock slowly turned his head towards Warriner and looked at him steadily with his eyebrows drawn down over his eyes. Somehow Warriner was frightened by that glance; he felt a chill creep down his spine; he was more frightened than even on that morning when Charnock threatened to sell him outside Alkasar. "She's dead, I tell you," he babbled, and so was silent. ”

“ Then the Basha laid hands upon him, forced him to give up the gains of a lifetime's trade, and so cast him out penniless to beg for copper flouss at the gate of the cemetery.
"And Europe's no more than seven miles away," cried Charnock. Even where he stood he could see the laughing water of the Straits, and beyond that, the summit of Gibraltar. "Who was it that told?" he asked.
"That is not known."
Charnock dropped some money into the blind man's lap, but Hassan did not cease from his prayer to thank him.
"He is very strong," said Hamet, who saw nothing strange in the story he had told. ”

“ Charnock was sufficiently human and therefore sufficiently perverse to become at once convinced that although there were others passing, this reluctant man was the only person in the world who could and must help him from his predicament. ”

“ Charnock and Warriner clung to their seats, while the driver continually looked round to see whether a wheel had slipped off from its axle. At times the boy would jump down from the box, and running forward with the whip in his hand, would beat the mules with the butt-end; the lash had long ceased to influence their movements.
"The road's infernal," cried Warriner.
"It will be when we get to the sea," replied the driver, and Charnock groaned in his distress. There was worse to come, and Miranda was ill. ”