Cayman

“ The chief messenger, squatting with his glowing wick in his hand, peeped attentively at his master, as though thinking:
“How strange, those Hollanders!... What is he thinking now?... Why is he behaving like this?... Just at this time and on this spot?... The sea-spirits are about now.... There are caymans under the water, and every cayman is a spirit.... Look, they have been sacrificing to them there: bananas and rice and meat dried in the sun and a hard-boiled egg, on a little bamboo raft, down by the foot of the light-house.... ”

“ If the Indians refused their help, the cayman could not be taken alive at all, and if they gave it, it was only at the price of injuring the animal and spoiling its skin. At length a compromise occurred to Waterton. He would take the mast of the canoe, which was about eight feet long, and would thrust it down the cayman’s throat, if it showed any signs of attacking him. On this condition, the Indians agreed to give their aid. ”

“ It was as if the river were in some mysterious travail.
The passage of the army flushed white egrets from along the bank, and once six flamingos arose and winged slowly away, making a crimson line against the sky. Along the sand-bars huge caymans slept in an ecstasy of heat. Their long whitish bellies fitted over stones and the curves in the sand with a kind of disgusting flexibility.
Some time later the line of march veered away from the river and lost itself in the endless, almost imperceptible undulations of the llanos. ”

“ Jaguars love the water. They drink greedily and swim freely. In this country they rambled through the night across the marshes and prowled along the edges of the ponds and bayous, catching the capybaras and the caymans; for these small pond caymans, the jacare-tinga, form part of their habitual food, and a big jaguar when hungry will attack and kill large caymans and crocodiles if he can get them a few yards from the water. On these marshes the jaguars also followed the peccary herds; it is said that they always strike the hindmost of a band of the fierce little wild pigs. ”

“ He seated me, half against my will, on a rustic bench. 'Look here, Miss Cayley,' he said, with a very earnest face; 'is this really true? Are you going to-morrow?'
My voice trembled a little. 'Yes,' I answered, biting my lip. 'I am going. I see several reasons why I should go, Mr. Tillington.'
'But so soon?'
'Yes, I think so; the sooner the better.' My heart was racing now, and his eyes pleaded mutely.
'Then where are you going?'
I shrugged my shoulders, and pouted my lips a little. 'I don't know,' I replied. 'The world is all before me where to choose. ”

“ He unbent at my thanks. 'And I am obliged to you in return,' he said. 'It gives me real pleasure to be able, through you, to repay Harold Tillington part of the debt I owe him. He was so good to me at Oxford. Miss Cayley, you are new to India, and therefore—as yet—no doubt unprejudiced. You treat a native gentleman, I see, like a human being. I hope you will not stop long enough in our country to get over that stage—as happens to most of your countrymen and countrywomen. In England, a man like myself is an Indian prince ”

“ You're always clevah. You hit it first shot. But there's wheah the point comes in. At first, I only thought of how we could circumvent yah. I treated yah as the enemy. Now, it's all the othah way. Miss Cayley, you're the cleverest woman I evah met in this world; you extort my admiration.'
I could not repress a smile. I didn't know how it was, but I could see I possessed some mysterious attraction for the Ashurst family. I was fatal to Ashursts. Lady Georgina, Harold Tillington, the Honourable Marmaduke, Lord Southminster—different types as they were, all succumbed without one blow to me. ”

“ She looked absolutely disappointed; we all hate to crush a benevolent impulse; but she tore the cheque up into very small pieces. 'As you will, my dear,' she said, with her hands on her hips: 'I see, you are poor Tom Cayley's daughter. He was always a bit Quixotic.' Though I believe she liked me all the better for my refusal.
On the way from Cologne to Eltville, however, and on the drive up to Schlangenbad, I found her just as fussy and as worrying as ever. ”

“ Tillington did ask me to be his wife, and I refused him.'
'But, my dear Miss Cayley——'
'The difference in station?' I said; 'the difference, still greater, in this world's goods? Yes, I know. I admit all that. So I declined his offer. I did not wish to ruin his prospects.'
The Urbane Old Gentleman eyed me with a sudden tenderness in his glance. 'Young men are lucky,' he said, slowly, after a short pause; '—and— Higginson is an idiot. I say it deliberately—an idiot! How could one dream of trusting the judgment of a flunkey about a lady? ”

“ Cayhill was a handsome woman, who led a comfortable, vegetable existence, and found it a task to rise from the plump sofa-cushion. Her pleasant features were slack, and in those moments of life which called for a sudden decision, they wore the helpless bewilderment of a woman who has never been required to think for herself. ”

“ The passage came out into the floor of the shed, and probably it was Cayley's idea to put a croquet-box over the trap-door, so as to hide it more completely. You know, when once you've discovered a secret yourself, it always seems as if it must be so obvious to everybody else. I can imagine that Mark loved having this little secret all to himself and to Cayley, of course, but Cayley wouldn't count and they must have had great fun fixing it up, and making it more difficult for other people to find out. ”

“ The lad then told the old man that his wife would bear him many more children, and that never again would he need to use his knife. Leaving the old man and his wife rejoicing, the lads went on their way, and after travelling a long way came at length to a house where lived a man called Cayote, [8] who said he was a great medicine-man and could do great things. "What can you do?" said the youngest lad, who knew him to be an idle boaster. "Oh, I am a very great man," said Cayote; "and I eat nothing but the bodies of men. I have just finished eating a man." ”

“ Cayke reminded him.
“Very true,” said the King. “I condemn you to death merely as a matter of form. It sounds quite terrible, and in ten years we shall have forgotten all about it. Are you ready to start for the wicker castle of Ugu the Shoemaker?”
“Quite ready, Your Majesty.”
“But who will rule in your place while you are gone?” asked a big Yellow Bear.
“I myself will rule while I am gone,” was the reply.
“A King isn’t required to stay at home forever, and if he takes a notion to travel, whose business is it but his own? All I ask is that you bears behave yourselves while I am away. ”

“ By this time Mark had bought the Red House and the considerable amount of land which went with it. Cayley superintended the necessary staff. His duties, indeed, were many. He was not quite secretary, not quite land-agent, not quite business-adviser, not quite companion, but something of all four. Mark leant upon him and called him “Cay,” objecting quite rightly in the circumstances to the name of Matthew. Cay, he felt was, above all, dependable; a big, heavy-jawed, solid fellow, who didn’t bother you with unnecessary talk—a boon to a man who liked to do most of the talking himself. ”

“ But he is in a horrible position. He is known to be on bad terms with his brother; he has just uttered some foolish threat to him, which may possibly have been overheard. What is he to do? He does the natural thing, the thing which Mark would always do in such circumstances. He consults Cayley, the invaluable, inevitable Cayley.
"Cayley is just outside, Cayley must have heard the shot, Cayley will tell him what to do. He opens the door just as Cayley is coming to see what is the matter. He explains rapidly. 'What's to be done, Cay? What's to be done? ”

“ Cayley said jocosely, "but I don't take much stock in them. They're a gang of fakirs."
"They're pretty sharp, if they are. I haven't lived fifty years in the West to be taken in as easily as that. I ought to know something about men by this time. Why, see here! You know what trouble I had with my leg? It was something pretty serious. Well, look at me now. You've noticed the change yourself. I went to a medium and now I'm completely cured. That's enough to give any one confidence, isn't it? It's genuine evidence." ”

“ At last Casey got the old age pension and his latter years were the best. His home, a dugout in the bank of a wash near Tecopa. With no rent, with books and magazines and the solitude he loved, he lived happily. “When I croak,” he often said, “just put me in my dugout. Toss a stick of dynamite in after me. Shut the door and cave in the goddam’ hill.”
One night he went to Tecopa. Friends were doing a spot of drinking and far behind in his score with the years, Casey joined them. There was nothing out of line. Just yarns and memories and Casey had a lot of these. Tonopah. Goldfield. Rawhide. ”

“ I didn’t realize that Cayley had worked for it from the beginning—had put Miss Norris up to frightening Mark. I thought he’d just seized the opportunity.”
Bill was silent for a long time. Then, puffing at his pipe, he said slowly, “Has Cayley shot himself?”
Antony shrugged his shoulders.
“Poor devil,” said Bill. “It was decent of you to give him a chance. I’m glad you did.”
“I couldn’t help liking Cayley in a kind of way, you know.”
“He’s a clever devil. If you hadn’t turned up just when you did, he would never have been found out.” ”

“ She shook her head slightly, but she was watching him very intently from her clear, candid eyes, and now, as always, her nearness to him, the infinite appeal he found in her every look and movement, the very fragrance of her hair, bore him away beyond all purpose and intention.
“Tell me what it is,” he said again. “Won't you? Miss Cayley, if you and I were to trust each other—it's not difficult to see there's something troubling you.”
“Most people have some trouble or another,” she answered evasively. ”

“ At a minute or two before eleven I turned up at the Schiller Platz in my short serge dress and cycling jacket. The great square was thronged with spectators to see us start; the police made a lane through their midst for the riders. My backer had advised me to come to the post as late as possible, 'For I have entered your name,' he said, 'simply as Lois Cayley. These Deutschers don't think but what you're a man and a brother. But I am apprehensive of con-tingencies. When you put in a show they'll try to raise objections to you on account of your being a female. ”

“ He was wondering suddenly about Cayley. Cayley was just an ordinary man—like himself. Bill had had little jokes with him sometimes; not that Cayley was much of a hand at joking. Bill had helped him to sausages, played tennis with him, borrowed his tobacco, lent him a putter.... and here was Antony saying that he was—what? Well, not an ordinary man, anyway. A man with a secret. Perhaps a—a murderer. No, not a murderer; not Cayley. ”

“ There was another window beyond Cayley’s, and there was no light in it. The declaration of war was postponed.
Antony lay there, watching Cayley into bed. After all it was only polite to return Cayley’s own solicitude earlier in the night. Politeness demanded that one should not disport oneself on the pond until one’s friends were comfortably tucked up.
Meanwhile Bill was getting tired of waiting. His chief fear was that he might spoil everything by forgetting the number “six.” It was the sixth post. Six. He broke off a twig and divided it into six pieces. ”

“ Cayley,
"My daughter claims her rights. "Annie Marchioness of Knottingley."
She looked at him, vaguely, wonderingly, and then at the faded brown writing again. The words seemed to disappear in a mist; then there was a soft sound in her ears, as of her mother's voice; and then a sort of languor stole over her, and it seemed to her that she was falling asleep.
"Take this glass of wine," was the next thing she heard. "You have been surprised, alarmed, perhaps. But you know the handwriting to be your mother's?" ”

“ But what errand requires you to travel such a distance?"
"Someone has stolen my diamond-studded gold dishpan," explained Cayke, "and as I cannot be happy without it, I have decided to search the world over until I find it again. The Frogman, who is very learned and wonderfully wise, has come with me to give me his assistance. Isn't it kind of him?"
The King looked at the Frogman.
"What makes you so wonderfully wise?" he asked. ”

“ In every one of the clandestine and stealthy operations by which it is sought to be gratified, a step is gained in the downward descent towards destruction. Cayley, who was not naturally a man of wicked dispositions, and who might have been reclaimed by this passion, had it been virtuous, from all his trivial follies, gradually became prepared, by the emotions which convulsed his bosom, for an attempt involving the honour of his adored mistress, and, consequently, her whole happiness in life, as well as that of many innocent individuals with whom she was connected. ”

“ There were two problems in front of them: first, the problem of getting out of the house without being discovered by Cayley, and secondly, the problem of recovering whatever it was which Cayley dropped into the pond that night.
“Let’s look at it from Cayley’s point of view,” said Antony. “He may not know that we’re on his track, but he can’t help being suspicious of us. He’s bound to be suspicious of everybody in the house, and more particularly of us, because we’re presumably more intelligent than the others.” ”