1938-08-26 — Page 12

MAN OVERBOARD

(Continued from Page 7)

were howling and answering each other out in the fields be- yond the sheltering ring of trees. Sue, curled on her square charpoy beside Craigen's bed, growled sleepily from pure convention. This was her domain, the com- pound within the trees, safe and law-abiding, and as long as it was not invaded, she was indif- ferent. The jackals were

out- siders. Like that old

man, thought Craigen, sleeping by chance to-night inside the ring. A sequence of troubling thoughts brought him at last to sleep.

When he woke, suddenly and completely, the moon was past its height. The shadows of the siris trees were falling away from him and that of the house behind was stealing out over the lawn. He thought at once of the old man, whose bed, like his, was still in the full, unearthly silver light. All was very still and Craigen found. himself unusually appre- hensive. Why had he woken up

Had suddenly like this?

there been a stir which he had missed in his waking moment? He thought he would go and see if the old man were all right. He had looked so ill, as if anything might happen to him,

Craigen rose from his bed, put on his shoes in the habitual pre- caution against snakes, and walk- ed across to the other bed. Smith was lying on his back, stretched out straight, the blanket drawn up to his chin and the moonlight falling full on his face. In his attitude and the pallor of his face, accentuated by that light, there was the appearance of a worn corpse, decently covered

L

and waiting for burial. Sleep had relaxed the grim lines of his mouth and smoothed out the fore- head. He was away in the world where he was one with the others of his race, the respected who . lacked his knowledge. Craigen looked closely at him and bent his head to look more closely still. Something in the unguarded face fascinated him. He never knew whether it was a memory stirring in his brain or whether, as the old man's eyes suddenly opened and looked into his, a thought in that revealing moment leaped Nor did from mind to mind, Craigen ever know whether he uttered the name or if it was only shouted aloud in his thought: 'Wilson!"

Whether he spoke or not, it same. Their thoughts was the were speaking to each other, one man standing tall and fixed by the bed and the other looking up with shadowed inscrutable eyes.

So they remained, and when Craigen abruptly drew up his Wilson head and turned away, had not moved and not a word had passed.

- Craigen walked back to his bed and lay down, acutely conscious of every sound he made. He lay perfectly still, as still as Wilson In the other bed, and sleep left him for that night. So that was he; Wilson, whom he had seen in his prime; who had sat in the place at the head of the table; taken his ease by the lake at the about end of the day; ridden these lands as Craigen rode. Wil- son, who had yielded to some temptation never explained and had plunged off into the unknown; who had come back last evening to his friend's factory, walking

+

THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY up the Segowli road and into the avenue like a beggar.

There was the money waiting. for him, Simon Earnshaw's pro- vision for his friend. Craigen hnd had the terms in the factory safe during all his management, and he began to think them over. Well, it would be good to bring them to light and to assure the battered old man of security for the end of his days. A queer extension of a past friendship, the a hand from holding out grave.

The moon travelled on and the shadow, of the house crept out and enveloped the beds. There was a faint movement from Wil- 'son's side. Craigen turned his head sharply. He saw the dark figure get out of bed and go silently across the path, up the verandah steps, and through the curtained doorway. Sue raised her head and growled and Crai- gen put out a hand and pushed her down again. He turned over and raised his head to watch. A shadow passed and repassed on the curtain, thrown by the dim light left burning inside. Then all was still, but Wilson did Craigen lifted not come back. himself on his elbows and strain- ed his ears. What could the old Nothing, in that man be up to? moment, seemed too fantastic. The lake..

He was on the point of getting

·was when his eye out of bed

on the caught by a movement drive. Wilson had come out of the house by the front entrance and was setting out towards the gate. Craigen saw, as he passed through the patch of light-be- tween the house, and the shadow of the siris trees, that he was -dressed and-plodding along with

his stick as when he came.

It was Craigen's impulse to. jump out of bed and run after

SUPPLEMENT, AUGUST 86, 1988

him, calling Wilson! Wilson! The money! He had swung out of bed before he checked himself, Wilson knew about the money: He must have known for years. This

and was his choice, ..he was going deliberately down the drive, in full view of Craigen's bed. He could have gone unseen by the side of the lake to the fields beyond and skirted the compound, outside the ring of trees, to join the road be- yond the drive.

T

By God, it was horrible to let him go like this. He had made his choice by some queer point of honour of his own. One must work for salvation as one sees it.

lost The plodding figure was now in the darkness of the trees. Pafter it, Craigen, straining remembered the words of his guest, I have put myself beyond the reach of the power." He re- ›mained sitting on his bed, follow- ing in fancy each step of Wil- son's down the drive, but the shadows were continuous, and Craigen did not know when he had reached the gates not, when he passed beyond them.

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