Brothers & Sisters - John & Anna Buchan Edition (Collection of Their Greatest Works). Buchan John

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ his manhood by acting according to plan. He was desperately afraid, for he had never in his life looked into such furious eyes. But the challenge had come, and he repeated the speech with which he had intended to meet that challenge.

      “This is pure brigandage,” he said. “You have not given me your names, but I know very well who you are. You must be aware, Mr Mastrovin, that you will not further your cause by threatening a British subject in his own house.”

      The risk in preparing speeches beforehand is that the conditions of their delivery may be far other than the conditions forecast in their preparation. Mr Craw had assumed that the Evallonians were politicians out to secure a political triumph, and that, when this triumph tarried, they would realise that their audacity had defeated its purpose and left them at his mercy. He had forgotten that he might have to deal with men of primeval impulses, whose fury would deaden their ears to common sense.

      At the sound of his name Mastrovin seemed to stiffen, as a runner stiffens before the start. Then he laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound. He turned to his followers. “He knows me,” he cried. “He is not as innocent as he pretends. He knows of us from our enemies. They are here. We are close to them. Now there will be no mercy.”

      In a voice that made Mr Craw jump in his chair he thundered: “One minute! I will give you one minute!”

      He had his pistol out, and little blue barrels gleamed in the hands of the other four, covering Barbon, Dougal, and Charvill. Mr Craw sat stupefied, and his spectacles in the tense hush made a clatter as they dropped on the table. The gilt baroque clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter to midnight.

      In the little gallery the estate mechanician had that morning arranged a contrivance of bells. There was a button at Jaikie’s elbow, and if he pressed it bells would ring in the corridor outside and in the ante-room. There by this time Mackillop and his men were waiting, in two parties of five, all of them old soldiers, armed with rifles and shot-guns. At the sound of the bells they would file in and overawe the enemy—ten weapons in ten pairs of resolute hands.

      Jaikie’s finger was on the button, but he did not press it.

      For the first time in his life he had to make a momentous decision. Dougal and he had planned out every detail of that evening’s visit, and believed that they had foreseen every contingency. But they had forgotten one… They had forgotten how different these five foreigners below were from themselves. These were men who all their lives had played darkly for dark stakes— who had hunted and been hunted like beasts—to whom murder was an incident in policy—whose natural habitat was the cave and the jungle. He was aware that the atmosphere in the library had changed to something savage and primordial—that human lives hung on a slender hair. A devil had been awakened, a devil who was not politic… If Mackillop and his men appeared in the doorway, if the glint of weapons answered those now in the hands of the five, it would be the spark to fire the mine. These men would fight like cornered weasels, oblivious of consequences—as they had often in other lands fought before. No doubt they would be overpowered, but in the meantime—In that warm and gracious room the Den had been re-created, and in that Den there were only blind passions and blind fears.

      He did not press the button, for he knew that it would be to waken Hell.

      As it was, Hell was evident enough. His companions felt it. Alison’s hand tightened convulsively on his arm, and as for Tibbets behind him—he heard Tibbets’s teeth chatter. Down below the four men, covered by the five pistols, knew it. Mr Craw’s face was the colour of clay, and his eyes stared at Mastrovin as if he were mesmerised. Barbon and Charvill had also whitened, and sat like images, and Dougal seemed to be seeking self-command by sucking in his lips against his clenched teeth. In a second anything might happen. The jungle had burst into the flower-garden, and with it the brutes of the jungle… A small hopeless sound came from Jaikie’s lips which may have been meant for a prayer.

      Suddenly he was aware that Mastrovin’s eyes had turned to the door which led to the ante-room. Had Mackillop shown himself?

      “Stand!” Mastrovin cried. “Not another step on your life!”

      A voice answered the Evallonian’s bark, a rich, bland, assured voice.

      “Tut, tut, what’s all this fuss about?” the voice said. “Put away that pistol, man, or it’ll maybe go off. SICH behaviour in a decent man’s house!”

      Jaikie was looking down upon the bald head of Dickson McCunn— Dickson in his best suit of knickerbockers, his eyes still bright with the memory of his great adventure on the Solway sands, his face ruddy with the night air and as unperturbed as if he were selling tea over the counter. There was even a smile at the corner of his mouth. To Jaikie, sick with fear, it seemed as if the wholesome human world had suddenly broken into the Den.

      But it was the voice that cracked the spell—that pleasant, homely, wheedling voice which brought with it daylight and common sense. Each of the five felt its influence. Mastrovin’s rigour seemed to relax. He lowered his pistol.

      “Who the devil are you?” he grunted.

      “My name’s McCunn,” came the brisk answer. “Dickson McCunn. I’m stopping in this house, and I come back to find a scene like a demented movie. It looks as if I’m just in time to prevent you gentlemen making fools of yourselves. I heard that there was a lot of queer folk here, so I took the precaution of bringing Johnnie Doig the policeman with me. It was just as well, for Johnnie and me overheard some awful language. Come in, Johnnie… You’re wanted.”

      A remarkable figure entered from the ante-room. It was the Starr policeman, a large man with his tunic imperfectly buttoned, and his boots half-laced, for he had been roused out of his early slumbers and had dressed in a hurry. He carried his helmet in his hand, and his face wore an air of judicial solemnity.

      “Johnny and me,” said Mr McCunn, “heard you using language which constitutes an assault in law. Worse than that, you’ve been guilty of the crime of hamesucken. You’re foreigners, and maybe no very well acquaint with the law of Scotland, but I can tell you that hamesucken is just about the worst offence you can commit, short of taking life. It has been defined as the crime of assaulting a person within his own house. That’s what you’re busy at now, and many a man has got two years hard for less. Amn’t I right, Johnny?”

      “Ye’re right, sir,” said the policeman. “I’ve made notes o’ the langwidge I heard, and I hae got you gentlemen as witnesses. It’s hamesucken beyond a doubt.” The strange syllables boomed ominously, and their echoes hung in the air like a thunderstorm. “Gie me the word, sir”—this to Mr Craw—”and I’ll chairge them.” Then to the five. “Ye’d better hand ower thae pistols, or it’ll be the waur for ye.”

      For the fraction of a second there was that in Mastrovin’s face which augured resistance. Dickson saw it, and grinned.

      “Listen to reason, man,” he cried genially, and there was a humorous contempt in his voice which was perhaps its strongest argument. “I know fine who you are. You’re politicians, and you’ve made a bad mistake. You’re looking for folk that never were here. You needn’t make things worse. If you try violence, what will happen? You’ll be defying the law of Scotland and deforcing the police, and even if you got away from this countryside— which is not likely—there’s not a corner of the globe that could hide you. You’d be brought to justice, and where would your politics be then? I’m speaking as a business man to folk that I assume to be in possession of their wits. You’re in Mr Craw’s hands, and there’s just the one thing you can do—to throw yourselves on his mercy. If he takes my advice he’ll let you go, provided you leave your pistols behind you. They’re no the things for СКАЧАТЬ