AT five o'clock in the afternoon, as Dr. Bruce was seated on the wide verandah of Manton's Hotel, smoking his pipe, and wondering in a lazy sort of a way whether Brabant would hear any of the current scandal about his wife and Danvers, the voice of the latter person broke in upon his musings.
“Hallo, Bruce, how are you?” he exclaimed genially as he sprang up the steps, and extended his hand to the doctor; “I see that Brabant is back.”
Bruce answered him curtly enough. “Yes; but you don't know him, do you?”
Danvers clasped his hands over one knee and leant back in his chair. “No; but I see Mrs. Brabant a good deal, and naturally should like to meet her husband. You know him pretty well, don't you?”
“Yes, I do—have known him for nearly ten years.” Then he moved his chair slightly so that he might face Danvers. He was not an impulsive man, but as he looked into Danvers's smiling, handsome face the dislike he had always felt towards him, and his keen regard for Brabant, urged him to speak on the subject that was uppermost in his mind, there and then.
“I'm glad I have met you, Captain Danvers,” he said quietly, “as I particularly wished to speak to you about a certain matter, and, as you know, I am not often in town.”
“Certainly, my dear fellow. What is it?”
“Your question to me just now saves me a lot of explanation. You asked me if I knew Brabant, and I told you that I have known him for ten years. And I must tell you further that he is a man for whom I have the deepest regard and respect. Therefore,” and he emphasised the 'therefore,' “you can of course guess the nature of the matter upon which I wish to speak with you.”
“'Pon my soul, I can't,” and Danvers elevated his eyebrows in pretended astonishment, though his face flushed as he met the doctor's steady, unnerving glance.
Still keeping his eyes on Danvers's face, Bruce went on: “Brabant is a valued friend of mine. He is as unsuspecting and confiding a man as ever lived, but he is a dangerous man to be trifled with. Do you understand me?”
“I'm hanged if I do,” replied Danvers, though the angry flash of his clear blue eyes belied his words; “what are you driving at? Just say in plain words what you have to say, and be done with it.”
“Right. Plain words. And as few as possible. You have paid Mrs. Brabant such attention that her husband is like to hear of it. Isn't that enough?”
Danvers laughed insolently. “Enough to show me that you are meddling with affairs which do not concern you, Dr. Bruce. I rather imagine that the lady's husband would be the proper person to resent any undue attention being paid by me to his wife—which I deny—than you. Did he commission you to speak to me? I've heard that the Brabant family have always had a strain of insanity running through it.”
Bruce started. He knew that what Danvers had said was perfectly true, but had thought that he himself was the one man in Fiji who did know. Brabant had himself told him that several of his family on the father's side had “gone a bit wrong,” as he put it.
The contemptuous tone of Danvers stung him to the quick.
“That's a beastly thing to say of a man whose house you visit almost daily—and visit when you have never even met him. You must have been brought up in a blackguardly school.”
Danvers sprang to his feet with blazing eyes. “You want to pick a quarrel with me. Very good. I'm your man.”
“That's where you are wrong. I don't want to quarrel with you. I wish to warn you. And I tell you again that John Brabant is a dangerous man.”
“Are you his deputy? What right have you to interfere in my private affairs?”
“I'm not his deputy; and my interference, if you like to so call it, will certainly save you from a well-deserved kicking. Don't, don't, don't! No heroics with me, my boy. You haven't a clean record, and I know why you left the army. Now listen to me. Just put a stop to this business. If you don't, I'll tell both Mrs. Brabant and her husband in your presence that you are not altogether the right sort of man to be accepted as a friend—especially by a young and utterly unsuspicious woman.”
Danvers sank back into his seat, white with passion, as Bruce went on relentlessly.
“And I'll tell what I do know of you to every planter and decent white man in the group. I'll make Fiji too hot for you, and your business will go to the deuce. Now, let us have an understanding. Will you put an end to this dallying about after another man's wife? You can do the thing properly, pay a call or two at the house whilst Brabant is at home, and accept general invitations if you like; but——”
“But what?” Danvers's voice was hoarse with suppressed fury.
“Stop visiting Mrs. Brabant whilst her husband is away. No gentleman would act as you have acted. You know what a place this is for scandal. And I believe you have as much of the fool as the roué in your mental composition.”
“And if I decline to entertain your infernal——”
“Steady. No language, please. If you decline to make me that promise here on the spot, I shall do what I have said—tell husband and wife that you're not the kind of man to receive as a friend.”
“And by Heavens, I'll shoot you like a rat.”
The doctor rose to his feet, and the two men faced each other—the one outwardly calm and collected, the other shaking with passion.
“What is it to be, Captain Danvers?”
“This, you sneaking Scotch sawbones!” and raising his cane Danvers struck the elder man a savage blow across the face.
In another moment Bruce had closed with him, wrenched the cane from his hand, and drawing back struck him between the eyes with such force that he was sent flying backwards off the verandah, to fall heavily upon the shrubs of the garden beneath, where he lay huddled up in a heap.
A score of people—white and coloured—rushed to the spot. Bruce, carefully standing the cane against the side of the lounge on which he had been reclining, walked down the steps and pushed his way into the little crowd surrounding the fallen man.
“Let me look at him,” he said, with grim humour, “as a medical man. I'm afraid I've hurt him more than I intended.”
The landlord joined them. “What is the matter, Doctor?”
“Nothing serious, Manton. Ye see, Captain Danvers rang that old gag on me about a surgical operation being necessary for a Scotsman to understand a joke; then I lost my temper and called him a fool, and he tickled me with his cane across my face, and I hit him harder than I intended. But he'll be all right soon. He's only stunned. Carry him into his room.”
Manton knew his business. “Just so, Doctor. I'll see to him. But he's given you a fearful bruise on your cheek.”
“A mere trifle, Manton,” and then without another word he returned to his seat on the lounge, not altogether satisfied with what had happened, and hoping that Danvers would at least have sense enough to corroborate the story he had told Manton as to the cause of the quarrel.
Between seven and eight o'clock Lester and Pedro Diaz came ashore, the Maritana being left in charge of the boatswain. By the judicious application of a strip of fresh goat's meat the long bruise on the doctor's cheek had almost disappeared, and he was in his usual placid mood.
“We're a bit too late,” remarked Lester, with a laugh, as he and Diaz shook hands; “why couldn't you wait? We heard that you had thrown the new chum Danvers over the verandah an hour or two ago.”
Bruce told them the story. “Just as well, Jim. I think he'll take a plain hint that he's sailing on the wrong tack. He went away from here as soon as he came to, and I think will have sense enough to keep away. Of course there'll be a lot of talk about the row, and Brabant is sure to have already heard of it, but we must stick to the surgical operation yarn. Now settle yourselves for a chat. Touch that bell there.”
As the three smoked and talked a pretty Samoan girl appeared on the verandah, holding a note in her hand. She was Mrs. Brabant's maid, and the note was directed to Lester, bidding him, the doctor, and Pedro come up. It was written by Mrs. Brabant herself.
“We must go, Bruce. Your face doesn't look much the worse. Come on.”
The walk to Brabant's bungalow took but a few minutes, and both the captain of the Maritana and his wife met them at the gate; Brabant looking supremely happy in his quiet way. His wife, however, Bruce at once saw, seemed pale, and spoke her greetings in a hurried, nervous manner, very unlike her usual self.
“What's all the row been about, Bruce?” said Brabant, as they seated themselves on the wide, airy sitting-room. “We heard of it quick enough, I can tell you. My wife seems rather distressed about it, as she quite expected Captain Danvers to call this evening, and I'd like to make his acquaintance.”
Bruce gave Mrs. Brabant one swift, sweeping glance which filled her with an undefined terror. Then he laughed.
“Just nothing at all. We quarrelled over what was simply a trifling matter to him, but a good deal to older men like you and I, and that's the whole thing. Now tell me all about the voyage of the Maritana.”
Brabant saw that there was something beneath the surface, so at once did begin to talk about his voyage; and presently some other people—men and women—dropped in, and the conversation became general, and about ten o'clock Mrs. Brabant, under the plea of a bad headache, bade her guests good-night. She shook hands with some gracious words with Lester and the second mate, but, much to her husband's distress, simply bowed coldly to his friend Bruce, and ignored his proffered hand. The honest, loyal-hearted Scotsman flushed to the roots of his hair, but pretended not to notice the slight.
Long after midnight, when all his guests except Bruce and Lester and his fellow-officer had gone home, Brabant and they walked to and fro under the coco-palms which surrounded the bungalow. Brabant talked most. He was full of future trading schemes, and outlined his plans to his two officers freely.
“It's a bit awkward this affair happening between you and Danvers,” he said to Bruce, “for I've had letters from his principals in Sydney which possibly points to a combination of their business and mine as one company, with myself at the head of affairs.”
“My row with Danvers won't affect that, Brabant. I know that he represents people in Australia with any amount of money at their backs, and you are the one man in the Pacific to make a 'combine,' as the Yankees say, and found a trading company that will wipe the Germans out of the Pacific. But, apart from business, don't have anything to do with Danvers. He's no good.”
“No good?”
“Not a straight man outside of business—not to be trusted. You can tell him I said this of him if you care to do so.”
Brabant stopped in his walk, and Lester and Pedro Diaz drew aside a little.
“There must be something wrong about him, Bruce, else I am sure you would not speak as you do. We four are all old friends. Speak freely.”
“That's just the thing I cannot do, Brabant. I don't like him, and can only repeat what I have said just now—he's not a straight man—not a man I would bring into my house as a friend! Now I must be going. Good-night, old fellow. I'm off again to my place in the morning.”
Brabant took his outstretched hand. “Goodnight, Bruce. I wish there were more outspoken men like you in the world. I under stand. ”
He spoke the last two words with such a look in his deep-set eyes, that Bruce felt that he did at least understand that Captain Danvers was not a man to be trusted—outside of business matters.