Charles Rex | Page 3

the deck with a monkey-like
spring that was curiously characteristic of him. There was nothing of
the sailor's steady poise about him.
The little Italian town that clung to the slopes that rose so steeply from
the sea shone among its terraced gardens like a many-coloured jewel in
the burning sunset. The dome of its Casino gleamed opalescent in its
centre--a place for wonder--a place for dreams. Yet Saltash's expression
as he landed on the quay was one of whimsical discontent. He had
come nearly a fortnight ago to be amused, but somehow the old
pleasures had lost their relish and he was only bored.
"I'm getting old," he said to himself with a grimace of disgust.
But he was not old. He was barely six-and-thirty. He had had the world
at his feet too long, that was all.
There was to be a water-side _fête_ that night at Valrosa, and the
promenade and bandstand were wreathed with flowers and fairy-lights.
It was getting late in the season, and it would probably be the last.
Saltash surveyed the preparations with very perfunctory interest as he

sauntered up to the hotel next to the Casino where he proposed to dine.
A few people he knew were staying there, and he looked forward to a
more or less social evening. At least he could count on a welcome and a
rubber of bridge if he felt so inclined. Or there was the Casino itself if
the gambling mood should take him. But he did not feel much like
gambling. He wanted something new. None of the old stale
amusements appealed to him tonight. He was feeling very ancient and
rather dilapidated.
He went up the steps under the cypress-trees that led from terrace to
terrace, pausing at each landing-place to look out over the wonderful
sea that was changing every moment with the changing glow of the
sunset. Yes, it was certainly a place for dreams. Even old Larpent felt
the charm--Larpent who had fallen in love twenty years ago for the first
and last time!
An irrepressible chuckle escaped him. Funny old Larpent! The wine of
the gods had evidently been too strong a brew for him. It was obvious
that he had no desire to repeat the dose.
At his last halting-place he stood longer to drink in the beauty of the
evening before entering the hotel. The sea had the pearly tint shot with
rose of the inside of an oyster-shell. The sky-line was receding, fading
into an immense calm. The shadows were beginning to gather. The sun
had dipped out of sight.
The tinkle of a lute rose from one of the hidden gardens below him. He
stood and listened with sentimental eyes and quizzically twitching
mouth. Everything in this wonder-world was ultra-sweet to-night. And
yet--and yet--
Suddenly another sound broke through the stillness, and in a moment
he had sprung to alertness. It was a cry--a sharp, wrung cry from the
garden close to him, the garden of the hotel, and instantly following it a
flood of angry speech in a man's voice and the sound of blows.
"Damnation!" said Saltash, and sprang for a narrow wooden door in the

stone wall a few yards higher up.
It opened to his imperious hand, and he found himself in a dark little
shrubbery behind an arbour that looked out to the sea. It was in this
arbour that the scuffle was taking place, and in a second he had forced
his way through the intervening shrubs and was at the entrance.
"Damnation!" he burst forth again furiously. "What are you doing?
Leave that boy alone!"
A man in evening-dress was gripping a fair-haired lad, who wore the
hotel-livery, by the back of his neck and raining merciless blows upon
his uncovered head. He turned, sharply straightening himself, at
Saltash's tempestuous entrance, and revealed to the newcomer the
deeply-suffused countenance of the hotel-manager.
Their recognition was mutual. He flung the boy into a corner and faced
his patron, breathing hard, his black eyes still fiercely gleaming.
"Ah! It is milord!" he said, in jerky English, and bowed punctiliously
though he was still shaking with rage. "What can I do for you, milord?"
"What the devil is the matter?" said Saltash, sweeping aside all
ceremony. "What are you hammering that unfortunate boy for? Can't
you find a man your own size to hammer?"
The Italian flung a fierce glance over his shoulder at his crouching
victim. "He is worthless!" he declared. "I give him a trial--bueno, but
he is worthless. Milord will pardon me, he is--English. And the English
are--no good for work--no good at all."
"Oh, rotten to the core!" agreed Saltash, with a humorous lift of the
brows. "But you needn't murder him for that, Antonio. It's his
misfortune--not his