The Queen Versus Billy, and Other Stories

by Lloyd Osbourne

In the beginning, when Father Studby had first begun to suspect he knew not what, to worry, to ask himself importunate questions, a way had occurred to him—a way not altogether honourable nor dignified—which could not fail to lead to some elucidation of the mystery. He had put it behind him with decision, as unworthy of himself and his reputation. What! act the spy and follow the young man? See with his own eyes, from the vantage of some thick fern or bush, the nature of that strange tryst? No; let him keep his honour, even if curiosity went unsatisfied—even if that same curiosity were not wholly bad, but inspired by a genuine regard for the young brother’s welfare, for which, as the elder of the two, he was in some degree responsible. It was only right to hold out your hand to a sinking man. But could the lay brother be called a sinking man? Ah, if one could be sure of that, how much might be pardoned!

One morning Father Studby could bear it no longer. As the boards creaked in the next room, he, too, rose and dressed himself, trembling as he did so with a sense of guilt. When the front door at length closed on the lay brother, and his quick step was heard on the path outside, Father Studby found himself on the verandah, looking after him in the dawn. He would have followed; he even took a few steps down the hill. But the folly of such a course was at once apparent. To act the detective, one must one’s self remain undiscovered. Yet how could he hope to elude observation and keep on Brother Michael’s heels all through the open village and the wide malae? It was manifestly impossible. In the forest it might be different; yes, in the forest, crouching in the thick undergrowth, it would not be so hard to track a man down.

The next night, which happened to be one of a moon almost full, the father lay down ready dressed for a new adventure. A little after one o’clock, he rose, crossed himself, and cautiously quitted the house, making his way through the sleeping village to the path across the swamp. This he followed, slipping on the sodden tree-trunks that served as bridges, until he attained the farther region of cocoanut, banana, and breadfruit plantations. These were in a choking tangle of weeds and lianas; trees thirty feet in height bent under their weight of parasites; others, still higher, were altogether overwhelmed and lost to view in a wall of green; and in the forks of the giant breadfruits orchids were sprouting like the scabs of some foul disease. Keeping with difficulty on the half-obliterated track, the priest toiled slowly and painfully through this belt of so-called cultivation, from which, indeed, the village drew no considerable portion of its sustenance, until at last he reached the welcome shelter of the forest. In contrast to the zone through which he had just emerged, opened by man to the furious energy of the sun, the forest floor itself, densely shaded from this fecundating fire, was comparatively open and easy to penetrate. It was dark, of course, dark as the inside of a well; and the father stopped and lighted the lantern he carried in his hand. He peered about him, blinded by the glare, and uncertain for the first time as to his road. Yes, he had not been misguided; he could trust the instinct of eighteen years to steer him through these labyrinths. Here, indeed, was the ifi-tree of which Ngalo had told him, with its low, spreading foliage that had so often concealed Michael’s gun. At the thought of the lay brother his heart began to beat, and he crossed himself repeatedly.

He paced off seven, eight, nine, ten yards from the trunk of the ifi; and his feet at that distance carried him into a thicket of fern and wild bananas. He blew out the lantern, and settled himself in the damp ambush so providentially at hand, drawing the big leaves over his head until he could no longer see the stars. From two o’clock—for such he judged the hour when he first took up his station in the ferns—from two o’clock till five he remained huddled in his green lair, praying at intervals, and counting the interminable minutes to dawn. With the first peep of day his impatience turned no less swiftly into dread. What had tempted him to such madness, such dishonour? What if he should be discovered in this shameful nest, and incontinently revealed to the jeers and laughter of the man he thought to track down? What if the lay brother, turning a little aside, should stumble over his cramped and aching body? Explain? How could he explain? Mercy of God, what a position for an old religious! He underwent spasms of panic; he was of two minds whether or not to rise and run. But the sound of a footstep, of a man’s hoarse breathing, of rustling branches and snapping twigs, suddenly brought the heart to his mouth. The wild animal in him was instantly on the defensive, and he flattened himself to the ground.

He lay like a log, not moving so much as an eyelash. He heard the ring of metal as Michael apparently fumbled with his gun in the lower branches of the ifi-tree. The shot-flask fell with a crash, and the brother swore—yes, said “damn” audibly, and picked it up. Then there was a silence; an eternity of suspense; then a faint crackling as of parting boughs. The father peeped out, and saw a black figure disappearing inland; an unmistakable black figure, bent and furtive, speeding mysteriously through the gloom. He was up and following in a second, half doubled together, like the man he pursued, eager as a bloodhound with his nose to the spoor. The way, with few intermissions, ran steadily uphill, up and up, faster and faster, until one’s side seemed to crack and one’s heart to burst. Up and up, with a swing to the right to avoid the splashing waterfalls of the Vaita’i; through groves of moso’oi that stifled the air with sweetness; under towering maalava-trees that seemed to pierce the very sky.

Would he never stop?

But the lay brother, without once turning, without once stopping either to rest or to look back, plunged forward with the certainty of a man who knew his way blindfold. They were, now, pursued and pursuer, on the high ridge between two river valleys; on the one hand was the Vailoloa, a tributary of the Vaita’i, on the other the roaring Fuasou, both racing tumultuously to the sea. The father wondered how Michael meant to extricate himself from such a cul-de-sac, unless (and the thought dashed his hopes to the ground) he intended to assail the cloudy slopes of Mount Loamu itself and make a circuit of a dozen miles.

But his question no sooner suggested itself than it was answered. Of a sudden the brother stopped on the edge of the Fuasou ravine, dropped one leg over, then the other, and began to disappear hand over hand by means of a hidden ladder. The priest stood where he was, transfixed with astonishment. To hurry now seemed unwise. If he had come to ladders he was not improbably near the goal itself. Patience! A breath or two, a moment to cast one’s self full length on the ground and wipe the acrid sweat from one’s eyes, and then, having given the lay brother a minute’s start, to descend the precipice in his wake.

Father Studby approached the brink and looked over. Below him, dropping, perhaps, sixteen feet, was a roughly made ladder of bamboo which rested at the bottom on a rocky buttress of the cliff. On the edge of that, again, with its splintered ends appearing through the trampled undergrowth, was a continuing ladder, the second of a series that dropped, one after another, into the deep defile. With guarded steps, and after a prolonged deliberation, the priest let himself slowly down ladder number one; down number two; down number three, which ran so long and straight on the open face of the rock that he faltered, turned dizzy, and had to close his eyes to recover himself; down number four; down number five, at the base of which there descended a zigzag path to the river. Following this unhesitatingly, with the noise of rushing water in his ears, he emerged at last on a basaltic shelf not six feet above the bed of the Fuasou. From this coign of vantage he gazed about in vain for any sight of Michael, until, on creeping to the very edge of the rock, he ventured to look below. There, immediately beneath him, so close, indeed, that he might have touched him with his hand, was the lay brother himself, busy shovelling a bucket full of sand.

“Mercy of God!” exclaimed the priest below his breath; and even as he did so, by that singular telepathy which so often confounds us, Michael lifted his head and looked his pursuer squarely in the face. For an appreciable instant the pair challenged each other’s eyes in silence; the lay brother’s were kindling and fierce, the priest’s all abashed, like those of a girl.