Ryanne

“ The two were turning up another street when he ran out, shouting to them and waving the pendant. Ryanne laughed.
"Ten pounds. I am a poor man, effendi, and I need the money. Ten pounds. I am giving it away." The merchant's eyes filled with tears, a trick left to him from out the ruins of his youth, that ready service to forestall the merited rod.
Ryanne counted out ten sovereigns and put the pendant in Fortune's hand. And the pleasure in his heart was such as he had not known in many days. The merchant wisely hurried back to his shop. ”

“ The house of Mortimer & Jones was widely known. This man Ryanne might have been anywhere between thirty and forty. He was tall, well set up, blond and smooth-skinned. True, he appeared to have been ill-fed recently. A little more flesh under the cheek-bones, a touch of color, and the Irishman would have been a handsome man. George could read a rug a league off, as they say, but he was a child in the matter of physiognomy, whereas Ryanne was a past-master in this regard ”

“ Ryanne, with a sudden change of mood, scooped up the cards and flung them at George's head. "Do you want us both to become gibbering idiots?"
George ducked. He and the boys gathered in the fluttering paste-boards.
"You're right, Percival," Ryanne admitted humbly. "It will not hurt us to talk out loud, and we are all brooding too much. I am crazy for the want of tobacco. I'd trade the best dinner ever cooked for a decent cigar." ”

“ Ryanne did so, relieved. He was certain that he could bring Mahomed round to a reasonable view of the affair. He was even willing to give him a little money. The three Arabs climbed in beside him, and the journey to the hostelry was made without talk. Ryanne pretended to be vastly interested in the turmoil through which the carriage rolled, now swiftly, now hesitant, now at a standstill, and again tortuously. Once Mahomed felt beneath his burnouse for his money; and once Ryanne, in the pretense of seeking a cigar, felt for his. ”

“ A man of ordinary stamina would have died under such treatment. But Ryanne possessed an extraordinary constitution, against which years of periodical dissipation had as yet made no permanent inroads. Moreover, he never forgot to keep his chin up and his waist-line down. They put him into the pack-basket because there was no alternative, being as he was incapable of sitting upon a camel's back.
Next, George saw Fortune, unresisting, placed upon the camel, under canopy. At least, she would know a little comfort against the day's long ride. ”

“ Dregs, scum; the bottom and the top of the kettle; outcasts, whose hand and animus were directed against society; black and brown and white men; not soldiers of fortune, like Ryanne, but their camp-followers. In short, it was there (and Ryanne still felt a dull shame of it) that Wallace, carrying the final instructions of the enterprise, had found him, sleeping off the effects of a shabby rout of the night before. It was there also that he had heard of the history and the worth of the Yhiordes rug and the possibility of its theft. ”

“ Chedsoye had never received his note.
Some one was sitting down beside him. It was Ryanne, in evening clothes, immaculate, blasé, pink-cheeked. There are some men so happily framed that they can don ready-made suits without calling your attention to the fact. George saw at once that the adventurer was one of these fortunate individuals.
"Makes a rather good picture to look at; eh?" began Ryanne, rolling a flake-tobacco cigarette. "Dance?" ”

“ To his mind it was positively unreal that one so charming and lovely should be at heart strong as the wind and merciless as the sea. His mother had been everything; hers, worse than none, an eternal question. What [Pg 332] a drama she had moved about in, without understanding!
George did not possess that easy and adjustable sophistry which made Ryanne look upon smuggling as a clever game between two cheats. His point of view coincided with Fortune's; it was thievery, more or less condoned, but the ethics covering it were soundly established. He had come very near being culpable himself. ”

“ Ryanne laughed.
"It's all right to laugh," said the Major. "But are you sure about Jones? He could have arrived this afternoon."
[Pg 379]
"Impossible! He left Alexandria for Naples on a boat that stopped but thirty hours. With Fortune on his hands he could not possibly sail before the following week, and maybe not then. Sit tight. ”

“ We follow the dance and we follow the dead, with never a variation in color. The man who invented the modern evening clothes must have done good business during the day as chief-mourner."
"Why don't you send for your luggage?"
Ryanne caressed his chin. "My luggage is, I believe, in the hands of the enemy. It is of no great importance. I never carry anything of value, save my skin. I'm not like the villain in the melodrama; no incriminating documents, no lost wills, no directions for digging up pirates' gold."
"I suppose you'll soon be off for America?" George asked indifferently. ”

“ I say again," asked Rayner, pressing his hand to his forehead and gazing fixedly at his wife.
A moment longer she stood there, as though a light—a long-hidden truth—were slowly forcing itself upon her mind. Then, with impulsive movement, she hurried through the dining-room, threw open the kitchen door, and startled the domestics at their late breakfast.
"Ryan," she called to the soldier-servant who rose hastily from the table, "go and tell Mrs. Clancy I want her instantly. Do you understand? Instantly!" And Ryan seized his forage-cap and vanished. ”

“ No, no! (pointing to Rayner) here is my son, my heir, my child: All that I have is his: he will reward thee.
Thou hast a gen'rous mind, altho' debas'd
With vile oppression and unmanly scorn.
RAYNER (taking Ohio and Hardibrand both by the hand) .
What shall I say to you? my heart would speak
What my voice cannot. O! and here comes one
Who mocks all power of words.
(Enter Elizabeth running, and rushes into Rayner's arms; the Crowd then eagerly gathers round them, and closes upon them.)
MARDONIO (stepping out from the crowd, and looking upon them.) ”

“ Never again would René sit and whittle on the doorstep and sing his tuneless Tipperaree. Never again would he gaze with boyish adoring eyes at Sara Lee as she moved back and forth in the little house.
Henri stared up at the sky. The moon looked down, cold, and cruelly bright, on the vanishing squadron of death, on the destroyed town and on the boy's white face. Somewhere, Henri felt, vanishing like the German taubes, but to peace instead of war, was moving René's brave and smiling spirit—a boyish angel, eager and dauntless, and still looking up. ”

“ In the fear entertained by each that he should be the party selected, the glass, to impart the necessary courage, was not spared. But he who was not in the room, or of the number of those devoted to the punch-bowl was the person chosen. As if by one impulsive consent, Ronayne, who was seated in the inner room, and discoursing of any thing but politics to his betrothed, found himself loudly called upon—knew it was in vain to object—and reluctantly rose in obedience to the summons. ”

“ Late in the evening, being certain that he should have no tidings of Pryderi or the dogs, he went back to the palace. As he entered, Rhiannon looked at him. "Where," said she, "are thy companion and thy dogs?" "Behold," he answered, "the adventure that has befallen me." And he related it all unto her. "An evil companion hast thou been," said Rhiannon, "and a good companion hast thou lost." And with that word she went out, and proceeded towards the castle, according to the direction which he gave her. The gate of the castle she found open. ”

“ RAYNER.
The time is then advanc'd; we'll husband it.
Come close to me, my friends. (Taking Hardibrand and Mardonio each by the hand, and pressing them close to his breast.) Of worldly cares, upon my mind there rests
But only those which I have mention'd to you.
Yet, in this solemn hour, let me remind you:—
My poor Elizabeth———
HARDIBRAND (eagerly) .
Thou'st said enough:
She is my child and heiress of my lands
To the last rood.—Ah! what avails it now!
RAYNER.
How shall a dying man find thanks for this,
Whose day is closed? I will attempt no thanks. ”

“ Ranny's will, the spiritual part of him, was lulled to sleep by the rhythmic voices, and as his sense of decency had no reason whatever to expect an outrage, it was also off its guard, quiescent, passive to the charm. The rest of Ranny was exposed, piteously, to the rhythm that swelled, that accentuated, accelerated the vibration of his inner tumult.
Then the obvious safety-valve was closed to him. A sense of strangeness and of sudden shyness prevented him from joining as he should have joined in the Service. Ranny could not take it out all at once in singing. ”

“ Oh, Rayne, Rayne! ...'
Glastonbury seemed very dull to me when I first came back from Seabay. I roamed about the fields in search of consolation for something I had lost, but could find little or none. It was a relief when the term began.
I had determined to work hard. I did work hard, and this term I got my remove into the sixth, and was under Craven, but it seemed that the moments of tastelessness, as Mr. Cholmeley had once said, were more frequent as the autumn grew more damp and decaying and the moments of hopeful delight more rare: and all the while no letter from Rayne. ”

“ The conversation soon became absorbed by the two married ladies, Faraday, and Lord Hastings. Only the Ryans were silent, Genevieve now and then throwing a lazy sentence into the vortex of talk, and Mrs. Ryan being occupied in lending a proud ear to the coruscations of wit that sparkled around the board, or in making covert gestures to the soft-footed Mongols, who moved with deft noiselessness about the table. Eddie Ryan, like his father, rarely spoke in society. In the glare of the chandelier he sat like a strange uncomfortable guest, taking no notice of any one. ”

“ Mrs. Rayner continued—
“He hates violence; all was to have been over by his return, and he free to marry you.”
“But he couldn’t. I was engaged to Laurence, Mrs. Rayner.”
She gave a little bitter smile.
“And do you think that, with Laurence away and Mr. Rayner here, you could have withstood him? In spite of his soft manners, he has a will that acts like a spell. I tell you,” said she, twisting my fingers nervously, “though you say he is in America, and Laurence Reade says I shall never be in his power again, his influence is strong upon me even now. ”

“ At dinner-time Mr. Rayner did not appear; I was too shy to ask Mrs. Rayner the reason, and I could only guess, when tea-time came and again there was no place laid for him, that he had gone away somewhere. I was sure of it when he had not reappeared the next morning, and then I became conscious of a slow but sure change, a kind of gradual lightening, in Mrs. Rayner’s manner. She did not become talkative or animated like any other woman; but it was as if a statue of stone had become a statue of flesh, feeling the life in its own veins and grown conscious of the life around it. ”

“ For a long time she stood with her eyes at the crevice and her hands grasping the rough frame of the cellar door, watching that changing, darkening spiral of smoke. Once the kitchen door opened, and a woman stood for an instant in sight. The watcher squinted her eyes in a desperate endeavor to concentrate her gaze.
"I s'pose it's Mis' Rhynearson," she muttered, with a resentful snap in her tone. "It's just like her to take possession of a body's house and act as if she owned it! I can't see how Abra'm can like them Rhynearsons so well; they're such pestiferous folks. ”

“ Possibly she may learn forgetfulness in my quiet and peaceful retreat, which she ought never to hare left. Farewell, my children. Forget not the true watchwords of hymen--LOVE AND FIDELITY! Ryno, remain the same Ryno you were in the grotto and in Arno's dungeon. Aliande, never forget that, not tears and reproaches, but kindness and affection only, can reclaim an erring husband.'
She disappeared in a cloud of incense, and the reunited lovers sealed their mutual promise to obey her sage instructions, with a kiss. ”

“ If he do not that, if he be determined to destroy a chained and defenceless man in a secret dungeon, he is a despicable assassin.'
'Ryno!' cried Rosamunda, again clasping him with wild self-abandonment. Gently releasing himself from her embrace he bore her as far as his chains would permit, and called the sentinels. Upon their entrance he committed the weeping maiden to their care and commanded them to conduct her to her father.
'A night of torment!' sighed Ryno, throwing himself back upon his straw: 'but I have one consolation amid all my sorrows. ”

“ Advantage was taken of this cessation of combat to bring back what remained of the gallant little band of volunteers within the square. The dead were left to moisten the sands on which they had so bravely fallen. Ronayne still lived, but he could not be removed. The slightest motion of his body brought with it agony little less excruciating than that which his enemy had experienced. He knew he must die, and he begged Captain Headley to let him perish where he was, under the shadow of the guns of his comrades, and in full sight of the forest which he knew contained all that he loved on earth. ”