The rat-trap

“Beware of fire, of water, of savage dogs, and of the man who talks under his breath.”--_English Proverb._

The troop-ship was twenty-four hours before her time in arriving, which put the authorities out, for they like to take their leisure in Key Island and as the thermometer rarely stands below 88° in the shade they have some reason for their objection to hurry. The bungalow which Government had thoughtfully apportioned to the private secretary and A.D.C. to the Administrator was not ready, and word came down to the ship that he must please to spend the night at the hotel, whereat Captain Alaric Lewin swore in fluent English (he could have done the same in five different languages) and wanted to know why the several dashes Government had parted him from his regiment and sent him to an asterisk hole like Key Island, if they did not mean to provide him with a blank shelter when he got there. It was all very well for his predecessor, who had been a bachelor; but Captain Lewin was a married man, and a six-months-old husband to boot. He objected to taking his wife to dubious Colonial “hotels”--so-called.

Out in the sunshine of the deck Mrs. Lewin was sitting among her baggage (while she waited for her lord and master to have arranged matters before taking her ashore), because she knew no better, the atmospheric conditions and effects of Key Island being as yet a sealed book to her. She was watching the men formed up and marched off the gangway, and formed up again on the wharf, and finally departing in a cloud of dust and sunshine to the barracks on the Maitso Hill. Now and then an officer saluted her in passing, and she nodded back and smiled, for the five days out from Cape Town had been worth an intimacy of three weeks on shore. There was idle speculation in her gaze as it rested on this small corner of the British Empire, in which her present lot was cast; but in this present moment of coming close to it Key Island was no more than a flat picture on her mind of an absurd little white town tufted with palms, and completely overweighted by that harbour and the wharves which the Government were converting into a great coaling-station, the whole shut in by the exquisite hills, loaded with timber and softly drawn against a sky of pure deep blue. There is no bluer sky than that which hangs above Key Island, and reflects itself in the Mozambique Channel all round it on a clear day, but Mrs. Lewin saw no more than the outward semblance of the place. It takes characters in a landscape to endue it with vitality either to present sense or bitter memory. All she saw on this occasion was the green slopes of Maitso and Mitsinjovy, forming each side of the bay, and beyond them the principal feature of the harbour,--two great conical rocks, rising sheer from the sea to the height of two thousand feet, which the English call the Gates, but the native population, who have caught strange words from Madagascar, name Teraka and Tsofotra, Sunrise and Sunset. There is a half-mile of blue water between the base of the right and left Gate, and between them the troop-ship had but lately passed, giving Mrs. Lewin a profile view of their frowning sides. It was practically impossible not to see the Gates, because they were as giants in the landscape; but the significance of their name and position, shutting in the little tropical island at which she had but just arrived, was as yet an unknown tongue to her. She had not heard them close softly behind her, and bar the way to the outer world, as residents grow to fancy that they have after a while.

“Port Victoria!” said Mrs. Lewin musingly, her thoughts reverting to the tumbled houses and the windy palms. “I wonder if it will ever grow up to its name? At present it might be called Little Vic.”

Her thoughts were distracted by the white figure of her husband coming along the deck, and distinct against the other units in khaki as a white sheep amongst a flock of brown. He was immaculate, but cross, and one end of his moustache was caught between his teeth, and his handsome face looked darker than usual because he did not appear upon the edge of a smile, which was his normal expression.

“We must go to the hotel, Chum,” he said. “No help for it. Come out of the sun. What made you sit there?”

“I don’t feel it very hot. Don’t bother about me, Ally, I expect the hotel will be bearable--you wouldn’t mind it for yourself.” The habit of a lifetime, rather than the relationship of six months, had taught Leoline Lewin to classify every shade on her husband’s face with sub-conscious accuracy. She had no least intention of knowing Ally’s mind for him, but she did it all the same.

“There is no help for it, anyway,” Captain Lewin said. “I’ve got a buggy--our luggage will come up behind us.”

Mrs. Lewin followed him off the boat and across the dusty road to the Customs House, and so through the farce of having their luggage examined, to the ramshackle conveyance drawn by a broken-kneed pony, which was bunched up forlornly in the shade of the Customs House.

“Couldn’t we go up by tram, Ally?” she said, a little comically. “This is so musty--and the trams look quite clean and airy!”

“Oh, they are only intended for the niggers, going up and down from the coaling, or for people connected with the wharves!” remarked Captain Lewin with unusual irony. “Everything exists here simply to be a convenience to the wharves and the coaling, you will find. Mere human beings don’t count in the new Government scheme!” He helped her into the buggy, and flung his own big dissatisfied self into the seat beside her, which creaked beneath his weight, for Captain Lewin rode twelve stone for his five feet eleven inches. The buggy rumbled along, pitching like a ship, and gave Mrs. Lewin a glimpse of open stores and motley groups of coloured people, an undrained street, and now and then a large, hard building, obviously new and solid, and as out of keeping with the older houses as the town with the harbour. The whole place had an unfinished appearance, as of a production begun by one workman and put down as hopeless, and then taken up by another who had not yet matured his plan for improvement.

The buggy came to a stop before one of the older houses, a long rough bungalow with a wide stoep, and empty doorways like open mouths, in and out of which a small white Chinaman passed now and then, monotonously bent on business. These were the waiters and servants of the Hotel Natale, who bore the badge of the place on their grass-cloth liveries, and the caps on their heads, which, by the way, they only wore until it should be time to shave themselves, according to the laws of Confucius. They swarmed out of the place like the white ants on the wooden railing to the stoep, spread themselves on the luggage in the hinder cart, and carried Captain and Mrs. Lewin into the hotel in a whirlwind of their own property.

“Get us two rooms--and be quick about it!” Alaric said shortly. “I’m very sorry, Chum--but at all events it’s a place to rest and clean up in.”

His wife had passed him and walked into the cool shadows beyond the stoep with some interest and curiosity in her face. She was a tall girl, and had an enquiring way of carrying her chin, but her interest was really unfeigned, for beyond England her experiences had been limited to the Continent, and there was nothing Continental in the Hotel Natale. Before Mrs. Lewin stretched a long carpetless passage, some seventeen feet high, and lighted by one large whitewashed window at the further end. It was the only real window, with glass panes, in Port Victoria, as she afterwards found, and its proprietor was proud of it. All the rest consisted of frames filled with wooden blinds, or shutters that would shift up and down, to let in the air or shut out the light. The windows in Mrs. Lewin’s bedroom were on this plan, as she found when the Chinese scurried before her and piled her boxes in the middle of the huge bare room. There was neither light nor bell in the hotel, but they brought her one candle, and Ally’s dressing-room was next door, so she managed as best she might. By-and-by she wandered in to him to see how he fared, and found his apartment the counterpart of her own, as to furnishing--a narrow bed, with a dirty mosquito curtain over it, a chest of drawers, without paint or key, a basket-work chair, a washstand, and a looking-glass. Captain Lewin in his shirt-sleeves appeared the most valuable thing in the room. A good-looking man is never more good-looking than in that severely simple costume, and despite the fact that he was red from wrestling with his shirt case, and swearing at the hotel and all its resources all over again, he seemed to his wife a goodly possession.

“What are you doing, Ally?” Mrs. Lewin said, coming to the rescue, and taking the keys out of his hand with cool, soft fingers. “Here, you helpless boy, I’ll valet you to-night. I suppose the Chinese are not reliable?”

“Don’t suppose they know the use of a stud, except to loot it. It’s awfully good of you, Chum. Got it open, already? I’ll engage a man before I’m many hours older. But look here, if you’ll unpack the things I shall want, I’ll go and get you some tea!”

She laughed at the wheedling tone, and accepted the bribe. Even at five o’clock in the day it was hot, with the clinging, muscle-sapping heat of the tropics, but Chum had the vitality and sting of an English winter still in her veins, and did not suffer as yet. She did some unpacking--her own as well as Ally’s--and drank the tea he ordered in lieu of his own whiskey and soda; and then she dressed for dinner, coming into his room again to have her blouse fastened, for it hooked at the back. Ally was in a better temper; he manipulated the complicated fastening wonderfully with his large hands, and stooped to kiss his wife’s pretty neck.

“You’re too good to be wasted on this damned hole--beg pardon, Chum!” he said, “I wish I’d got you out to Malta, or some other decent station.”

“What does it matter, old boy? The blouse is just as pretty for you to look at on Key Island, and you can’t hope for Malta at your age without unprecedented luck. Let’s make the best of our step up--private secretary and A.D.C. is something, anyway.”

“I expect it will be too, with this man. I was told at Cape Town he was a Tartar.”

“Know anything of him?”

“Nothing. He’s been somewhere on the Indian frontier, quelling rebellions without much ceremony, and a good deal of unofficial slaughter. The Government always sends him out when there’s trouble to squash, and then censures him when he’s done it. He’s here now to expiate his sins, his measures having been a little too drastic to be winked at any longer.”

“Oh!” said Chum thoughtfully, “he must be one of our few strong men. And they are worth having behind you, Ally. Let us annex the Administrator, you and I, and make him the good geni of our fortunes!”

“It would be the first time that Gregory was any one’s good geni!” said Ally dryly. “They say he works his men to death, and when he can get no more out of ’em, he throws ’em aside like a spent cartridge-case. Come on, Chum--that fiendish row on a gong means some sort of a meal, I suppose.”