Rosa Mundi by Ethel May Dell (e books free to read .TXT) 📖

permit me to say, yours also. It may be worth remembering."
"You think him a coward!" she said.
He considered a little.
"No, not a coward," he said then. "There is nothing mean about him, so far as I can see. He suffers from too much raw material, that's all. They call him Brute Mercer in these parts. But perhaps you will be able to tame him some day."
"I!" she said, and turned away with a mournful little smile.
She might charm him once or even twice out of a savage mood, but the conviction was strong upon her that he would overwhelm her in the end.


X

For nearly an hour after Curtis had left her she sat still, thinking of Beelzebub. The afternoon sunlight lay blindingly upon all things. The heat of it hung laden in the air. But she could not sleep or even try to rest. Her arm throbbed and burned with a ceaseless pain, and ever the thought of Beelzebub, lying in the loft "like a sick dog," oppressed her like an evil dream.
The shadows had begun to lengthen a little when at last she rose. She could bear it no longer. Whatever the consequences, she could endure them more easily than this torture of inactivity. As for Curtis she believed him fully capable of taking care of himself.
She went to the kitchen and was relieved to find him absent. Searching, she presently found the bowl of soup Beelzebub had refused. She turned it into a saucepan and hung over the fire, scarcely conscious of the heat in her pressing desire to be of use.
Finally, armed with the hot liquor, she stole across the yard to the stable. The place was deserted, save for the horse she usually rode, who whinnied softly to her as she passed. At the foot of the loft ladder she stood awhile, listening, and presently heard a heavy groan.
She had to make the ascent very slowly, using her injured arm to support herself. When she emerged at last she found herself in a twilight which for a time her dazzled eyes could not pierce. The heat was intolerable, and the place hummed with flies.
"Beelzebub!" she said softly at length. "Beelzebub, where are you?"
There was a movement in what she dimly discerned to be a heap of straw, and she heard a feeble whimpering as of an animal in pain.
Her heart throbbed with pity as she crept across the littered floor. She was beginning to see more distinctly, and by sundry chinks she discovered the loft door. She went to it, fumbled for the latch, and opened it. Instantly the place was flooded with light, and turning round, she beheld Beelzebub.
He was lying in a twisted heap in the straw, half naked, looking like some monstrous reptile. In all her life she had never beheld anything so horrible. His black flesh was scored over and over with long purple stripes; even his face was swollen almost beyond recognition, and out of it the whites of his eyes gleamed, bloodshot and terrible.
For a few moments she was possessed by an almost overpowering desire to flee from the awful sight; and then again he stirred and whimpered, and pity--element most divine--came to her aid.
She went to the poor, whining creature, and knelt beside him.
"See!" she said. "I have brought you some soup. Do try and take a little! It will do you good."
There was a note of entreaty in her voice, but Beelzebub's eyes stared as though they would leap out of his head.
He writhed away from her into the straw. "Go 'way, missis!" he hissed at her, with lips drawn back in terror. "Go 'way, or Boss'll come and beat Beelzebub!"
He spoke the white man's language; it was the only one he knew, but there was something curiously unfamiliar, something almost bestial in the way he spat his words.
Again Sybil was conscious of a wild desire to escape before sheer horror paralysed her limbs, but she fought and conquered the impulse.
"Boss won't beat you any more," she said. "And I want you to be a good boy and drink this before I go. I brought it myself, because I knew you would take it to please me. You will, won't you, Beelzebub?"
But Beelzebub was not to be easily persuaded. He cried and moaned and writhed at every word she spoke. But Sybil had mastered herself, and she was very patient. She coaxed him as though he had been in truth the sick dog to which Curtis had likened him. And at last, by sheer persistence, she managed to insert the spoon between his chattering teeth.
He let her feed him then, lying passive, still whimpering between every gulp, while she talked soothingly, scarcely knowing what she said in the resolute effort to keep her ever-recurring horror at bay. When the bowl was empty she rose.
"Perhaps you will go to sleep now," she said kindly. "Suppose you try!"
He stared up at her from his lair with rolling, uneasy eyes. Suddenly he pointed to her bandaged arm.
"Boss did that!" he croaked.
She turned to close the door again, feeling the blood rise in her face.
"Boss didn't mean to," she answered with as much steadiness as she could muster. "And he didn't mean to hurt you so badly, either, Beelzebub. He was sorry afterwards."
She saw his teeth gleam in the twilight like the bared fangs of a wolf, and knew that he grinned in derision of this statement. She picked up her bowl and turned to go. At the same instant he spoke in a piercing whisper out of the darkness.
"Boss kill a white man once, missis!"
She stood still, rooted to the spot. "Beelzebub!"
He shrank away, whimpering.
"No, no! Boss'll kill poor Beelzebub! Missis won't tell Boss?"
To her horror his hand shot out and fastened upon her skirt. But she could not have moved in any case. She stood staring down at him, cold--cold to the very heart with foreboding.
"No," she said at last, and it was as if she stood apart and listened to another woman, very calm and collected, speaking on her behalf. "I will never tell him, Beelzebub. You will be quite safe with me. So tell me what you mean! Don't be afraid! Speak plainly! When did Boss kill a white man?"
There must have been something of compulsion in her manner, for, albeit quaveringly and with obvious terror, the negro answered her.
"Down by Bowker Creek, missis, 'fore you come. Boss and the white man fight--a dam' big fight. Beelzebub run away. Afterwards, Boss, come on alone. So Beelzebub know that Boss kill' the white man."
"Oh, then you didn't see him killed! You don't know?"
Was it her own lips uttering the words? They felt quite stiff and powerless.
"Beelzebub run away," she heard him repeating rather vacantly.
"What did they fight with?" she said.
"They fight with their hands," he told her. "White man from Bowker Creek try to shoot Boss, and make Boss very angry."
"But perhaps he wasn't killed," she insisted to herself. "Of course--of course, he wasn't. You shouldn't say such things, Beelzebub. You weren't there to see."
Beelzebub shuffled in the straw and whined depreciatingly.
"Tell me," she heard the other woman say peremptorily, "what was the white man's name?"
But Beelzebub only moaned, and she was forced to conclude that he did not know.
"Where is Bowker Creek?" she asked next.
He could not tell her. His intelligence seemed to have utterly deserted him.
She stood silent, considering, while he coiled about revoltingly in the straw at her feet.
Suddenly through the afternoon silence there came the sound of a horse's hoofs. She started, and listened.
Beelzebub frantically clutched at her shoes.
"Missis won't tell Boss!" he implored again. "Missis won't----"
She stepped desperately out of his reach.
"Hush!" she said. "Hush! He will hear you. I must go. I must go at once."
Emergency gave her strength. She moved to the trap-door, and, she knew not how, found the ladder with her feet.
Grey-faced, dazed, and cold as marble, she descended. Yet she did not stumble. Her limbs moved mechanically, unfalteringly.
When she reached the bottom she turned with absolute steadiness and found Brett Mercer standing in the doorway watching her.


XI

He stood looking at her in silence as she came forward. She did not stop to ascertain if he were angry or not. Somehow it did not seem to matter. She only dealt with the urgent necessity for averting his suspicion.
"I just ran across with some soup for Beelzebub," she said, her pale face raised unflinchingly. "I am glad to say he has taken it. Please don't go up! I want him to get to sleep."
She spoke, with a wholly unconscious authority. The supreme effort she was making seemed to place her upon a different footing. She laid a quiet hand upon his arm and drew him out of the stable.
He went with her as one surprised into submission. One of the farm men who had taken his horse stared after them in amazement.
As they crossed the yard together Mercer found his voice.
"I told Curtis you weren't to go near Beelzebub."
"I know," she answered. "Mr. Curtis told me."
He cracked his whip savagely.
"Where is Curtis?"
"I don't know," she answered. "But, Brett, if you are angry because I went you must deal with me, not with Mr. Curtis. He had nothing whatever to do with it."
Mercer was silent, and she divined with no sense of elation that he would not turn his anger against her.
They entered the house together, and he strode through the passage, calling for Curtis. But when the latter appeared in answer to the summons, to her surprise Mercer began to speak upon a totally different subject.
"I have just seen Stevens from Wallarroo. They are all in a mortal funk there. He was on his way over here to ask you to go and look at a man who is very bad with something that looks like smallpox. You can please yourself about going; though, if you take my advice, you'll stay away."
Curtis did not at once reply. He gravely took the empty bowl from Sybil's hand, and it was upon her that his eyes rested as he finally said, "Do you think you could manage without me?"
She looked up with perfect steadiness.
"Certainly I could. Please do as you think right!"
"What about Beelzebub?" he said.
Mercer made a restless movement.
"He will be on his legs again in a day or two. One of the men must look after him."
"I shall look after him," Sybil said, with a calmness of resolution that astounded both her hearers.
Mercer put his hand on her shoulder, but said nothing. It was Curtis who spoke with the voice of authority.
"You will have to take care of her," he said bluntly. "Bear in mind what I said to you last night! I will show you how to treat the arm. And then I think I had better go. It may prevent an epidemic."
Thereafter he assumed so businesslike an air that he seemed to Sybil to be completely transformed. There never had been much deference in his attitude towards Mercer, but he treated him now without the smallest ceremony. He was as a man suddenly awakened from a long lethargy. From that moment to the moment of his departure his activity was unceasing.
Sybil and Mercer watched him finally ride away, and it was not till he was actually gone that the fact that she was left absolutely alone with her husband came home to her.
With a sense of shock she realized it, and those words of Beelzebub's--the words that she