Ensign Knightley | Page 9

it only puzzled me, and in the end it began to frighten me. You see, I could not tell; it was all a blank to me, as it is now; and a man overdriven--well, he nurses sickly fancies. No need to say what mine were until the day I played the coward in Mequinez. They set me to build the walls of the Emperor's new Palace. We used the stones of the old Roman town and built them up in Mequinez, and in the walls we were bidden to build Christian slaves alive to the glory of Allah. I refused. They stripped the flesh off my feet with their bastinadoes, starved me of food and drink, and brought me back again to the walls. Again I refused." Knightley looked up at his audience, and whether or no he mistook their breathless silence for disbelief,--"I did," he implored. "Twice I refused, and twice they tortured me. The third time--I was so broken, the whistle of a cane in the air made me cry out with pain--I was sunk to that pitch of cowardice--" He stopped, unable to complete the sentence. He clasped and unclasped his hands convulsively, he moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and looked about him with a weak, almost despairing laugh. Then he began in another way. "The Christian was a Portuguee from Marmora. He was set in the wall with his arms outstretched on either side--the attitude of a man crucified. I built in his arms--his right arm first--and mortised the stones, then his left arm in the same way. I was careful not to look in his face. No, no! I didn't look in his face." Knightley repeated the words with a horrible leer of cunning, and hugged himself with his arms. To Wyley's thinking he was strung almost to madness. "After his arms I built in his feet, and upwards from his feet I built in his legs and his body until I came to his neck. All this while he had been crying out for pity, babbling prayers, and the rest of it. When I reached his neck he ceased his clamour. I suppose he was dumb with horror. I did not know. All I knew was that now I should have to meet his eyes as I built in his face. I thought for a moment of blinding him. I could have done it quite easily with a stone. I picked up a stone to do it, and then, well--I could not help looking at him. He drew my eyes to his like a steel filing to a magnet. And once I had looked, once I had heard his eyes speaking, I--I tore down the stones. I freed his body, his legs, his feet and one arm. When the guards noticed what I was doing I cannot tell. I could not tell you when their sticks began to beat me. But they dragged me away when I had freed only one arm. I remember seeing him tugging at the other. What happened to me,"--he shivered,--"I could not describe to you. But you see I had played the coward finely at Mequinez, and when that question recurred to me as to what had happened after I had opened the door, I began to wonder whether by any chance I had played the coward at Tangier. I dismissed the thought as a sickly fancy, but it came again and again; and I came back here, and you draw aloof from me with averted faces and forced welcomes on your lips. Did I play the coward on that night I was captured? Tell me! Tell me!" And so the torrent of his speech came to an end.
The Major rose gravely from his seat, walked round the table and held out his hand.
"Put your hand there, lad," he said gravely.
Knightley looked at the outstretched hand, then at the Major's face. He took the hand diffidently, and the Major's grasp was of the heartiest.
"Neither at Mequinez nor at Tangier did you play the coward," said the Major. "You fell by my side in the van of the attack."
And then Knightley began to cry. He blubbered like a child, and with his blubbering he mixed apologies. He was weak, he was tired, his relief was too great; he was thoroughly ashamed.
"You see," he said, "there was need that I should know. My wife is waiting for me. I could not go back to her bearing that stigma. Indeed, I hardly dared ask news of her. Now I can go back; and, gentlemen, I wish you good-night."
He stood up, made his bow, wiped his eyes, and began to walk to the door. Scrope rose instantly.
"Sit down, Lieutenant," said the Major sharply, and Scrope obeyed with reluctance.
The Major watched Knightley