Ensign Knightley | Page 8

Knightley. And as he had absently drummed it then, so Knightley
absently hummed it now.
Surely, then, the tune had some part in the relations of the two

men--perhaps a part in this story. "A foolish song." The words flashed
into Wyley's mind.
"She was singing a foolish song." What if the tune was the tune of that
song? But then--Wyley's argument came to a sudden conclusion. For if
the tune was the tune of that song, why, then Knightley must know the
truth, since he remembered that song. Was Scrope right after all? Was
Knightley playing with him? Wyley glanced at Knightley in the keenest
excitement. He wanted words fitted to that tune, and in a little the
words came--first one or two fitted here and there to a note, and
murmured unconsciously, then an entire phrase which filled out a bar,
finally this verse in its proper sequence:
"No, no, fair heretick, it needs must be But an ill love in me, And worse
for thee; For were it in my power To love thee now this hour More than
I did the last, 'Twould then so fall I might not love at all. Love that can
flow...."
And then the song broke off, and silence followed. Wyley looked again
at Knightley, but the latter had not changed his position. He still sat
with his face shaded by his hand.
The Surgeon was startled by a light touch on the arm. He turned with
almost a jump, and he saw Scrope bending across the table towards him,
his eyes ablaze with an excitement no less keen than his own.
"He knows, he knows!" whispered Scrope. "It was that song she was
singing; at that word 'flow' he pushed open the door of the room."
Knightley raised his head and drew his hand across his forehead, as
though Scrope's whisper had aroused him. Scrope seated himself
hurriedly.
"Nothing has changed, eh?" Knightley asked, like a man fresh from his
sleep. Then he stood, and quietly, slowly, walked round the table until
he stood directly behind Scrope's chair. Scrope's face hardened; he laid
the palms of his hands upon the edge of the table ready to spring up; he
looked across to Wyley with the expectation of death in his eyes.
One of the officers shuffled his feet. Tessin said "Hush!" Knightley
took a step forward and dropped a hand on Scrope's shoulder, very
lightly; but none the less Scrope started and turned white as though he
had been stabbed.
"Harry," said the Ensign, "my--my wife is still in Tangier?"
Scrope drew in a breath. "Yes."

"Ah, waiting for me! You have shown her what kindness you could
during my slavery?"
He spoke in a wavering voice, as if he were not sure of his ground, and
as he spoke he felt Scrope shiver beneath his hand, and saw upon the
faces of his companions an unmistakable shrinking. He turned away
and staggered, rather than walked, to the window, where he stood
leaning against the sill.
"The day is breaking," he said quietly. Wyley looked up; outside the
window the colour was fading down the sky. It was purple still towards
the zenith, but across the Straits its edges rested white upon the hills of
Spain.
"Love that can flow ..." murmured Knightley, and of a sudden he flung
back into the room. "Let me have the truth of it," he burst out,
confronting his brother-officers gathered about the table--"the truth,
though it knell out my damnation. If you only knew how up there, at
Fez, at Mequinez, I have pictured your welcome when I should get
back! I made of my anticipation a very anodyne. The cudgelling, the
chains, the hunger, the sun, hot as though a burning glass was held
above my head--it would all make a good story for the guard-room
when I got back--when I got back. And yet I do get back, and one and
all of you draw away from me as though I were one of the Tangier
lepers we jostle in the streets. 'Love that can flow ...'" he broke off. "I
ask myself"--he hesitated, and with a great cry, "I ask you, did I play
the coward on that night I was captured two years ago?"
"The coward?" exclaimed Shackleton in bewilderment.
Wyley, for all his sympathy, could not refrain from a triumphant glance
at Scrope. "Here is the instance you needed," he said.
"Yes, did I play the coward?" Knightley seated himself sideways on the
edge of the table, and clasping his hands between his knees, went on in
a quick, lowered voice. "'Love that can flow'--those are the last words I
remember. You sent me, Major, to the Governor with a message. I
delivered it; I started back. On my way