CHAPTER XII
INEZ CARRIED OFF.
In a public room of a tavern in Pacific street, we shall find Belcher Kay. It is night, and through the thick haze of cigar smoke which filled the room the candles glimmer like distant lights seen through a fog. The close atmosphere of the dirty room is laden with the odor of the said tobacco smoke, and with the fumes of rum and whiskey, and through the hum of noisy conversation and over the occasional bursts of laughter may be distinguished the ‘Hagel und donner’ of the Dutchman, the ‘sacre’ of the Frenchman, and the imprecations which the Englishman invokes upon his visual organs and the crimson tide that circulates through his veins.
At one table sat half a dozen sailors, bronzed by the tropical sun of Java, and smoking long pipes with enormous bowls. At another table sat a group of English, French, American and Portuguese, similarly engaged, while two other tables were surrounded by Lascars and Malays, who being worshippers of the one race of Brahma, the other of Boodha, choose to sit and drink apart. Mingled with the men at each table were a number of Kanaka and Chilean women, dark-eyed, seductive creatures; all well formed, lithe, and graceful, and of all ages varying from twelve to eighteen years, for beneath the scorching sun of the tropics woman advances towards maturity as quickly as the rich fruits are ripened and the gorgeous flowers expanded into beauty. These lost and degraded creatures sat by the side or on the knees of their lovers of the hour, their long, shining black hair falling in plaits or ringlets upon their dusky shoulders, and their bosoms very much exposed, and many of them smoked cigars with their male companions.
Kay sat apart from the revellers, smoking a cigar, with his arms folded across his breast, a moody and sombre expression upon his countenance, and his eyes bent upon the dirty floor. He was thinking of the past—thinking, amid the riotous din of jests and oaths, laughter and song, of all that he had been, and of what he might have been, of time misspent, and golden opportunities lost, of talents misapplied and energies misdirected. It was a mournful retrospect for the man not wholly lost, his heart was not entirely corroded, nor all indurated by vice and profligacy, the powers of his mind had not become sapped by the vicious excesses in which he had indulged; he was capable of forming a sound judgement of human actions, both his own and those of others; and to look back excited for these reasons, feelings, sombre and mournful. The past of his life was a dreary waste to look back upon; he was fully conscious of the fact, he was able to discriminate between the right and the wrong, and to perceive his errors, and he felt at that moment all the dreariness, the moral void, of the vista upon which he turned his mental vision. True, the desert was not entirely without its oases; there were green spots breaking the gloomy monotony of its arid and cheerless aspect, but these only deepened by the contrast the impression made by the general barrenness.
He was roused from his reverie by the words of a song sung, or rather shouted by one his countrymen—an Englishman—a sailor belonging to a vessel then lying in the harbor. There was nothing to interest him in the words themselves, but they seemed familiar to him, like a voice heard in our youth and half forgotten, which we hear again after a long interval of time, and they struck upon his mind by the force of association. In his boyhood he had heard that song, which had been a favorite chant with a schoolfellow, and the words now called up a thousand recollections of the time when he had first heard them, just as the remembered sound of the church-bells of our native place will recall such memories when we hear them after long absence from the scenes of our early existence. To the mind of the robber, predisposed to reflection, the words of the song recalled the school-room and the play-ground, with many a reminiscence of merry companions and boyish games; and from these his heart wandered to the home of his childhood, to the little garden into which he had transplanted primroses and cowslips from the woods to the rippling brook upon which he had launched his tiny ships, to the darkly shaded seat under the old elm tree on which he had rested when weary, to the innocent and smiling faces of his fair-haired sisters.
It was not for the first time that Belcher Kay thought of these things—it was not the first time that they had drawn a sigh from his breast; but, now at that distance of space from the scenes which he visited in thought, the tide of memory rolled over his brain with redoubled volume and force. A melancholy pleasure might have been experienced in travelling over in thought the scenes of his youth, but for the reflection that between the past and the present rose darkly and frowningly one of those barriers of crime and folly, which such men build up with far more perseverance than they would exert to acquire a fame that would endure as long as truth and virtue command respect and admiration. Such a barrier had Belcher Kay raised with a diligence and energy which he had never displayed in aught worthy of praise, and from it he now looked back upon the Eden which he had abandoned, with such feelings as may be imagined.
He was still sitting in the position which has been described when Blodget entered the room, and, coming up to him, clapped his hand upon his shoulder. Kay started, but looking up, he was reassured by the recognition of his fellow criminal, and extended his hand, which Blodget grasped with friendly fervor.
‘Come!’ exclaimed Blodget. ‘I have been seeking you everywhere. Let us get away from this.’
‘I am ready,’ responded Kay, rising.—‘What’s in the wind now, mate?’