“ONE MUST DIE”

Briggs entered his cabin, and locked both doors; then fastened the window giving on the porch. He went to the fireplace, overhung with all that savage arsenal, and put a couple of birch-logs on the glowing coals.

He sat down in his big chair by the fire, pondered a moment with the fireglow on his deep-wrinkled, bearded face, then from the pocket of his bathrobe drew the crumpled bit of paper. Again he studied it, reading it over two or three times. In a low voice he slowly pronounced the words, as if to grave them on his consciousness:

“The curse must be fulfilled, to the last breath, for by Shiva and the Trimurthi, what is written is written. But if he through whom the curse descendeth on another is stricken to horror and to death, then the Almighty Vishnu, merciful, closes that page. And he who through another’s sin was cursed, is cleansed. Thus may the curse be fulfilled. But always one of two must die. Tuan Allah poonia krajah! It is the work of the Almighty One! One of two must die!”

For some minutes he pondered all this. Before him rose visions—the miasmatic Malay town; the battle in the Straits; the yellow and ghostlike presence of the witch-woman, shrilling her curse at him; the death of Scurlock and the boy, of Mahmud Baba, of Kuala Pahang, of the amok Malay who, shot through the spine and half paralyzed, still had writhed forward, horribly, to kill.

“No wonder the curse has followed me,” murmured the old man. “I haven’t suffered yet as any one would have to suffer to pay for all that. For all that, and so much more—God, how much more! It’s justice, that’s all; and who can complain about justice? Poor Hal, poor boy of mine! No justice about his having to bear it, is there? Why should he suffer for what I did fifty years ago? Thank God! Oh, thank God!” he exclaimed with passionate fervor, “that I can pay it all, and make him free!”

He relapsed into silence a little while, his face not at all marked with grief or pain, but haloed with a high and steadfast calm. The drumming rain on the porch roof, the shuddering impact of the wind as the storm set its shoulders against Snug Haven, saddened him with thoughts of the fugitive, bearing the curse that was not his, out there somewhere in the tumult and the on-drawing night, trying to flee the whips of atavism. But through that sadness rose happier thoughts.

“It’s only for a little while now,” said the captain. “The curse is nearly ended. When I’ve paid the score, it will lift, and he’ll come back again. Poor Hal—how little he knew, when he was writing this paper, that he was giving me the chart to steer my right course! If the hand of some divine Providence isn’t in this, then there’s no Providence to rule this world!”

Another thought struck him. Hal knew nothing of the fact that his grandfather had found the curse. He must never know. In the life of better things that soon was to open out for him, no embittering self-accusation must intrude. All proof must be destroyed.

Captain Briggs tossed the curse of Dengan Jouga into the flames just beginning to flicker upward from the curling birch-bark. The paper browned and puffed into flame. It shriveled to a crisp black shell, on which, for a moment or two, the writing glowed in angry lines of crimson. Captain Briggs caught one last glimpse of a word or two, grotesquely distorted—”The curse—horror and death—one—must die—”

Despite himself he shuddered. The hate and malice of the old witch-woman seemed visibly glaring out at him from the flames, after half a century. From the other side of the world, even from “beyond the Silken Sea,” words of vengeance blinked at him, then suddenly vanished; and with a gust of the storm-wind, up the chimney whirled the feather bit of ash. The captain drew his bath robe a little closer round him, and glanced behind him into the dark corners of the cabin.

“This—is very strange!” he whispered.

Still he sat pondering. Especially he recalled the Malay he had shot through the spine. That lithe, strong man, suddenly paralyzed into a thing half dead and yet alive, was particularly horrible to remember. Helplessness, death that still did not die....

A spark snapped out upon the floor. He set his foot on it.

“That’s the only way to deal with evil,” said he. “Stamp it out! And if we’re the evil ourselves, if we’re the spark of devil-fire, out we must go! What misery I could have saved for Hal, if I’d understood before—and what a cheap price! An old, used-up life for a new, strong, fresh one.”

His mind, seeking what way of death would be most fitting, reverted to the poisoned kris, symbol of the evil he had done and of the old, terrible days. He peered up at the mantelpiece; but, look as he would, failed to discover the kris. He rose to his feet, and explored the brickwork with his hands in the half-light reflected from the fire. Nothing there. The hooks, empty, showed where the Malay blade had been taken down, but of the blade itself no trace remained.

The old captain shivered, amazed and wondering. In this event there seemed more than the hand of mere coincidence. Hal was gone; the kris had vanished. The captain could not keep cold tentacles of fear from reaching for his heart. To him it seemed as if he could almost see the eyeless face looming above him, could almost hear the implacable mockery of its far, mirthless laughter.

“God!” he whispered. “This won’t do! I—I’ll lose my nerve if I keep on this way, and nerve is what I’ve got to have now!”

Why had Hal taken that knife? What wild notion had inspired the boy? Alpheus Briggs could not imagine. But something predestined, terrible, seemed closing in. The captain felt the urge of swift measures. If Hal were to be rescued, it must be at once.

Turning from the fireplace of such evil associations, he lighted the ship’s lamp that hung above it. He sat down at the desk, opened a drawer and took out two photographs. These he studied a few minutes, with the lamp-light on his white hair, his venerable beard, his heavy features. Closely he inspected the photographs.

One was a group, showing himself with the family that once had been, but now had almost ceased to be. The other was a portrait of Hal. Carefully the old man observed this picture, taken but a year ago, noting the fine, broad forehead, the powerful shoulders, the strength of the face that looked out so frankly at him. For the first time he perceived a quality in this face he had never seen before—the undertone of arrogant power, born of unbeaten physical strength.

The captain shook his head with infinite sadness.

“That’s the real curse that lay on me,” he murmured. “That’s what I’ve got to pay for now. Well, so be it.”

He kissed both pictures tenderly, and put them back into the drawer. From it he took a box, and from the box a revolver—an old revolver, the very same that he had carried in the Silver Fleece fifty long years ago.

“You’ve done very great evil,” said Alpheus Briggs slowly. “Now you’re going to pay for it by doing at least one good act. That’s justice. God is being very good to me, showing me the way.”

He broke open the revolver, spun the cylinder and snapped the hammer two or three times.

“It’s all right,” judged he. “This is an important job. It mustn’t be made a mess of.”

He looked for and found a few cartridges, and carefully loaded the weapon, then snapped it shut, and laid it on the desk. The sound of Dr. Filhiol, coming with another cane along the hall, caused him to slide the gun into the drawer. Filhiol knocked at the door, and Briggs arose to open it. He showed no signs of perturbation. A calm serenity glowed in his eyes.

“Isn’t it time you got your writing finished and went to bed?” the doctor demanded tartly.

“Almost time. I’m just finishing up. I sha’n’t be long now. Tell me, how’s Ruddy?”

“We’ve made a fair job of it, and Ezra’s gone to his room. He’s taking everything terribly to heart. Anything I can do for you?”

“Nothing, thank you. Good night.”

The captain’s hand enfolded Filhiol’s. Neither by any undue pressure nor by word did he give the doctor any hint of the fact that this good-by was final. The old doctor turned and very wearily stumped away up-stairs. Briggs turned back into his cabin.

“A good, true friend,” said he. “Another one I’m sorry to leave, just as I’m sorry to leave the girl and Ezra. But—well—”

At his task once more, he fetched from the safe his black metal cash-box, and set himself to looking over a few deeds, mortgages and other papers, making sure that all was in order for the welfare of Hal. He reread his will, assuring himself that nothing could prevent Hal from coming into the property, and also that a bequest to Ezra was in correct form. This done, he replaced the papers in the safe.

On his desk a little clock was ticking, each motion of its balance-wheel bringing nearer the tragedy impending. The captain glanced at it.

“Getting late,” said he. “Only one more thing to do now, and then I’m ready.”

He set himself to write a letter that should make all things clear to Hal. But first he brought out the revolver once more, and laid it on the desk as a kind of memento mori, lest in the writing his soul should weaken.

The lamp, shining down upon the old man’s gnarled fingers as they painfully traced the words of explanation and farewell, also struck high-lights from the revolver.

The captain’s eyes, now and then leaving the written pages as he paused to think, rested upon the gun. At sight of it he smiled; and once he reached out, caressed it and smiled.