The Man Who Walked like a Cat.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 18, 20 July 1907, Page 10

The Man Who Walked like a Cat.

I. , "I got to the top," said the girl. She seated herself on the silky oak writingtable, and swung her feet with longlimbed gracefulness. She wore a summer tweed of soft grey, and she had a pair of field-glasses in £ leather case, slung across her shoulders by a strap. She rarely used the glasses. In fact, 1 had enjoyed the benefit of them as we came through Whitsunday Passage, and had picked out the long trails of vine ' Hanging from the trees in the blue-washed islands with enthusiasm, while she flirted with the first officer. She said the wearing of the glasses made her feel nice and globe-trotterish, so who could grudgo her? To-day, while on the long balcony verandah of the hotel looking out to tho purple shadows of tho Mercott Ranges, I had skipped through a woman's magazine, and been bored to death in tho process. The girl had taken a fancy to climb Castle Hill, rearing its rocky head sphinx-like above the town. I had i feebly suggested accompanying her, but she had routed my kind intentions with the obvious truth that I could never get up there "with my back," and, as there was no going witliout it. I settled myself in the canvas chair, and watched her go with long swinging strides, while the little stiff red feather in her grey felt hat made a spot of colour against the glossy mango trees that lined tho opposite street. More than two hours later when the valleys in tho ranges were, full of mist, and only the highest peaks were still in sunlight, I saw the red feather again. She was walking more slowly, and she was not alone. A tall man walked beside her, and she was suiting her step to bis. I think he was a man who habitu. ally walked slowly. He was a stranger to me and I groaned. I was nob surprised. There so often was a man in the girl's landscape. It was rather wonderful that we should be at the hotel a week without her previously raising anything masculine, and I daresay she welcomed a change after my undiluted society. But I hoped it was some one whose father, or uncle, or sister, was at least an acquaintance of hers, or of my own. I had invested doubtfully in a few shares in a copper mme — not because 1 really wanted them, but because I happened to bo in a yielding inoed when the- were thrust upon me. To my astonishment, instead of losing what I had rashly invested, a handsome dividend had been the almost alarming re | suit, and the girl having Lad a substan I tial present from her uiicla James, we de. cidod upon taking that northern trip wo had so ofted talked about. We had been favoured with splendid Aveathcr, and were halting a week or two in Townsvillo "before proceeding further, and wcrs making the best of our time in j viewing tho beauty-spots. To-day being i Sunday, I had felt entitled to ft rest, and thY girl had gone to scale the heights of Caetle Hill alono. "You always manage to pick up a man," I said reproachfully, casting the woman's magizino on the floor, and preparing to cross-qurstion the girl. "well ! Wasn't there a man in the Garden of -Eden? You en n't deny that, Lavie, for he got thoro first. There al. ways v a man in the most interesting situations— confess' now! Whatever would Eve have done if sho had had no one to practice on, and to admire the Vi'av she did her hair?" ' I waited, saying nothing, and she continued. "I was {here first. Such a climb ! Nothing but goats on the way — a, black wicked billy, nnd 'several kids, and a dirty white nanny. Rubble and rocks and grass-seed — ugh ! My stockings aro full of it still. No ferns, no wildflowors, except those pale little harebells which at school we used to say meant constancy, and press for the grammar school-boys — and a horrid prickly bright, green bush, growing like roley-poley, which jabbed at one's ankles aa one passed. Little goat-tvacks that I followed ! hopefully, anil always foiunl lead to inaccessible places; a few trees clinging frantically to the sides of tho mountain, nnd always ahead that frowning wall. J I found a way round, passed through v. burnt, pateh — you should just soe my petiicoatx—and up ond up, holding on to glass tussocks by tho way — Snatching at an uncovered root, und sending the small stones Hying down the slopes where I slipped and stumbled as 1 went, and presently — Euicka! — I was on the summit, with nothing abovo mo but sky. It ia fo fctrangu to look down on a wingiifij caglelrnvk, eeo its back, and' the sheen of his outstretched wings from overheiil. It makes you feel like a god with all a god's loneliness. On niv right was tho curved r.wepp of tho other aids of tho signal station, and porno yards from tho thore. a ripple of white through the I>luc. Does it me.vi a reef, I wonder? Thu tide <<f tho signal station, Melton ami hitanton Hills, and a pack of houhes inter, lacocl with the everhteting mango trees, and the slim-boled coconut palms, and the olive of the fig. Magnetic Island across the bay with its pine ridges, tho north ward below me, where the roads wound round like ribbons, and the horses looked like dogs, and ireignificant specks meant men. "It was while I was staring that way that tho man came up. I heard a clatter of falling stones, but I did not turn my head. I thought it was that billygoat ; he had given me several frights.' She paused for breath, and began to unbuckle her Celrl-glass.es. "Ho apologised when I finally looked round — feeling eyes on my spine. I said sweetly that tho hill wa& not mine by Divine right, nor had I purchased it from tho municipality, and he laughed. A laugh, you know, breaks tho ice. "It does," I faid grimly. "Had you ever met him before?" "Lavis ! Do 1 habitually meet men on hill-tops? No, thank you! It is rather too high to climb for conquests!" [ "You kuow I did not moan that," 1 ! said. "ihe'Bky introduced uh', and the caglchawk, and tho grass-seeds," she answered gaily. "1 sat down on a rock, and begun to pick them out of my skirt, und ho- sat on another rock, Jind began to drag them out of his trousers. He has long suple, gentlemanly hunds. I always look at a man's hands. That comes next to tho way he holds his knife and fork, in lapid diagnosis I consider. ITo was not n bit stupid or forward. Ho told me Gomo interesting things about Town.'-ville, and so funny, he is staying at this hotel. I never noticed him before. 1 expt-ct he is ono of that tableful with their backs to us, near Iho door." "Ho walks like a cat," I said ; for I had scrutinised him through my ghissns as he came along the footpath with Iho ,»irl. "You know how I adore cats," bind the girl, uggmvatingly. "Hut I would never trust a man who walks like one" I added. Then, to change tho subject — for it is no oartlil/ uso arguing with tho girl— l nsked : "Aro you going to change your frock for tea?" She slid from the table, and began to take the long gold pins out of her hat. "I might as well," she said. "We uro getting very dogenerate. ..c lime not changed for two nights, 1 bclu'x!" Then one slipped away, and left me to the eatherituz dusk, the rose brail* slu ua

the skies behind the heaped ramps, ii r >c shadows of the mango trees in the high tide, creeping up across the mud-flats from tho shark-infested river, the dark scars of mountain torrent beds in the hills, and, low in the valley, the flash of a far-off homestead light. Presently, she reappeared. She had changed her tweed for a white frock, all lacy frills and dainty tucking, and upon her pretty feet she wore her scarlet slippers. I looked at them suspiciously. "H'm," I saia. 11. A week later tho man who walked like a cat had become a noticeable third in our party of two. Or, rather, I had become the third, and the man had become one of the two. He certainly was Tory obliging, and we had only to mention friends in Brisbane or Sydney, and he seemed always to have heard of them before, or to know some one who knew them personally. He would call at the post office for our mail when the boat was late, and the letter-delivery window was only open for a short time. He recommended a Japanese laundry to us, which did not tear our clothes to rags, and, although, like ourselves, he was merely a bird of passage, he seemed to know much more about the town than we did. He took us out to Acacia Gardens to afternoon tea, and kept the mosquitoes from the girl's face with part of a banana leaf, and he made the jolting omnibus rido quite interesting by the stories he told us of different romantic spots along the route. Once or twice I saw the omnibusdriver glance round at him doubtfully, but the girl seemed satisfied, and, as I have previously stated, no ono who knows the girl well ever attempts to ar- j cue- with her. It was after this ride to | Acacia-vale that the girl came into my room, as I was putting a lace fichu over my black gown, making ready for dinner, and asked me for the emerald. Now, of all the foolishnesses the- girl [ had indulged in, I considered the bring- I ing of the emerald on* our travels as one | of the worst. It had been her mother's and her grandmother's, and she sometimes spoke of it as "tho heirloom," but she said she only did this when she wanted to impress people. On ono thing I had insisted, and that was that I should havo charge of tho ring when she was not wearing it, for she would probably leave it under her pillow, a temptatjon to a casual housemaid or a Cingalese boy at the diffeient hotels, or drop it in tho bathroom, lfc was a handsonio jewel, a great clear emerald, like a wicked eye looking out from among a cluster of diamonds. It was too large for a girl, and more suitable to a weighty dowager. Made in a mar-, quiso shape, it stretched from joint to joint at tho base of the girl's first finger. Sho said it mado her think of green mossy dells, and mermaids' eyes, and all sorts of absurd things. She also siid that she felt as though , she- had titled ancestors and a gallery full oi , family portraits when she wore it, and it seemed sho wanted, for some inexplicable reason to feel that to-night. I found the ring and gavo it to her unwillingly. I thought it a foolish thing to wear it to a public table d'hote, where ono did not know one's nex£ door neighbour, and I had noticed at a table near the window that day a particularly , lawless-looking person, whom I had | heard was a sugar-planter from beyond Ingham. He mado me think of a bushranger. The emerald certainly looked well on tho girl's white finger, and she had a green silk belt, and wore a tiny dia-mond-set lizard at her throat, whose body was green Australian jewel, the name of which I have forgotten. Her eyes were full of mischief as sho perouotted on her high heels before me. "Don't I look like a duchess m disguise to-night, Lavie, or a masquerading empress? Do say yes!" she asked, impudently flashing her ling under my contemptuous nose. I snuffed my candle, which was flickering in the wind from tho open door. The doors usually were open at this hotel. The latest cyclone had broken all tho locks, and tno proprietor did not seem to think it worth while repairing them, as thert. was sure* to be another cyclono in a year or so. I looked tho girl ud and down. "sou 100k — you 100k — what you are!" I said enigmatically, as the second din-ner-gong made an unholy tumult down- ' stairs "What is that?" I glanced back from th© open doorway. "Wicked," I answered. "Please put out tho candle." HI She insisted upon lolling the man who wall ed like a cat all about her ung at dinner that night. He sat at our table now, by the ftirl's permiscon. I thought i saw the alleged sugar-p....itcr look up as he shovelled canned peas in'o his moutli on tho blade of his knife, when sho described how I took charge of tho emerald, and hid it sometimes in my shoes, and sometimes under my pillow, und sometimes in tho powder-box. Sho wns worse on tho balcony afterwards, when she had taken her cup ot black coffee, and complained to her listener that I would not let her mind her own property. "Lavie is so domiaeering, you know," she said plain tively. | He turned a compliment. Hts was so i apt at them.. 1 screwed up my face, sitting back In the shadow watching where • the light of the- incandescent burner in tho hall slanted out, and j caught tho sparkle of the jowel on tho girl s hand. I was angry with her tonight. Her manner -was reckless, and it really seemed as 'if some of the malicious firo of tho emerald had got into nor blue eyes. The man who walked liko a cat — he had told ns his name was Dulack— leaned forward, and 1 caught the outlino of his profile between tho light and tho blackness beyond, for the moon did not rise till midnight, and it was dark at the far end of tho balcony, and one could see nothing of the- hills, only a powder of stars small and great along Iho sky. Ho had a clear-cut profile, and (i determined chin, a sharp, somewhat large, nose, and a forehead low and sloping back. Again I thought of felino things, and mentally quarrelled with the girl's discrimination. " I was glad when I heard him say he was leaving by tho southern boat on the following night, and that ho hopod ! they would meet again "on another hilltop." "II is rather a long way to climb on the chanco of seeing you,'' she laughed. "And for me there uro precipices," ho said, softly, I thought it was time to interfere, and I sneezed aggressively. Being bo much with the girl has taught mo to bo ablo to call up a sneeze at tho shortest notice. It generally has tho desired effect. It makes tfio young men uneasy; thoro is something prosaic and earthly about a sneeze. This young man ivas no exception to tho general rule. Ho recollected my presenco and included mo in tho conversation. But the next night they leaned over the balcony a littlo away from mo, and talked in low tones, and I sneezed in vain. Tho girl offered me eucalyptus — which she knows I hate — that was nil, and the man looked over hia shoulder and asked mo if I had tried eumonthol, and then they wont on with their conversation in tho sainu key. I consoled myself with tho recollection that his boat went some time before daybreak on the following morning, and that we should not meet him at breakfast. In a day or two wo should tako the northern boat further on, and, doubtless, ere long, another rnau would invade the girl's foreground-

At ten o'clock we said good-night and good-bys — ■lingering on her part, brisk and cheerful "on mme — to the man who walked like, a cat, and retired to our rooms. The girl's- room was across tl.e passage from mine, opening on to the front balcony. Mine was at the head of tho back stairs, and got the afternoon breeze from the, sea. It was good of the girl to insist that 1 should have the best room. Mr. Dulack came as far as outdoors with us,.ahd as I turned to close mine, I saw him bend an instant over the girl's hand. I believe he kissed the emerald *in mistake for her finger. It was just as- well.' Tho whole thing wes so silly.. Then, without a word, I heard him go along the passage, and, I hoped, out of our lives. A long white finger where the jewel gleamed stole round my door to yield i p the ring to my' care. She did not como in, and I .did not ask her to. I pulled the ring from her finger, and said "good-night." - She responded softly,' and I heard her shut her door and pla •« a chair against it, according to her custom. I was soon in bed. The heavy sea air of this city by the blue Pacific had vcr a soporific effect on me, and I must have slept before the heavy doors of the b<-r clashed to at eleven o'clock, and the men straggled slowly up the stairs, for I do not remember hearing another sound v itil the small hours of tho morning, when I woke suddenly, feeling uneasy, I knew not why. There was no one moving in tho house, and the lights were, out. I lay with my eyes still closed, and listened. So often have i wakened in the night whilo nty .imagination painted strange happenings that I have given up yielding to the impulse to sit up_ and look round an empty room, driving sleep away with the stirring. I lay still and heard a faint rustling such as the wind makes in muslin curtains by night. I recollected having rolled up my window-blind before I slept, to let In as much air as I could, for the nights in Townsville, even in the autumn month, are stuffy. Then it could not be the blind. I opened my eyes. The moonlight streamed in throuch tho verandah doors, making a haze in the room, seen through the close-drawn mosquito-nets. Then it must do after three o'clock if tho moon was 'ligh. I could sco nothing — nothing but moonshiue. Imagination again ! And waking visions of bushrar.ging sugar-planters of wild appearance. I slid down in my bed, and rested one foot against the bar at the end. Thsre was a slight' vibration in tho bar. Surely I was not trembling ! No. I was quite cool. Then, what was shaking my bed ? It was as though some one or something was crouched there, clinging to the rail to steady itself. I fumbled under my pillow for my spectacles, which ara never far from my short-ighted eyps, sat up in bed, and took a deliberate look. Against the light wall beyond, and in tho midst of tho white moonlight, I could see a man standing, his hand on the top bar at the foot of the bed, as though he had swiftly raised himself to his feet. With a rush of orror his silhontte photographed itself on my brain — the clear-cut, rather largo nos9, tho deteimined chin, the low, sloping forehead. "What are you doing here, Mr. Dulack?" I said. Cat-like, stealthy, gliding, he was gone in an instant out of the open dooi, and I sprang for my kimono, and was in the girl's, room in a moment. She was sleeping Soundly, and I had to pull h?r hair — big ropes of it lying about the pillow — to waken her,- i "Wake up!" I said. "There was a man in my room !" "Lavie!' l am shocked!" shy said; and I saw by her smile that she thought I had been dreaming. But a glance into my. face convinced her as she struck a match and held it to me. Wrapping her wo6llen dressing-gown round her, together wo fled along tho passage and roused our widowed landlady. The alarm spread to the adjoining rooms, and a sleepy-eyed man looked thoughfully out of a half -shut door, and then went back to bod again. I found myself standing at tho foot of the narrow back-stairs in company with the landlady, who had apparently forgotten the briefness of her attire, two Chinamen cooks, and tha girl, with her long hair partly untwisted about her shoulders. "You must look all through tho yard and the hen-houses and the stables," said tho landlady to the calm-cysd Chinamen, "There was a man in this lady's room ; he must still be somewhere about the grounds. 1 ' Tho Chinamen began to coil up the long, thin plaits, that fell down their backs. * "Oh-yi," thoy said, as though such nocturnal .occurrences were a common thing; and the candle tho landlady held dripped grease upheeded on to the banister. Tho chill of dawn was clutching at the oarth, and a rooster in the yard crowed sleepily. The girl yawned, then became suddenly alert. "My ring !*' she gasped. Ana I—lI — I who had thought myself so capable of taking caro of it — had forgotten all about her ring ! We went upstairs threo stops at a time, and foijnd the emerald whore I hid carelessly left it, on tho washstnnd, the night before. My slippers lay upside down a little way from the door leading into the hall. Some one had apparently been tampering with them. I looked at them, and remembered many things. There was also spilled powder from my box On the dressing-table. This thief knew, something, ana my negligence had perhaps after all saved the vinfl to tho girl. "What was the man like?" she asked, sitting on the edge of my bed and wrapping her feet in my travelling coat : "I suppose you wero too scared to notice." I stared back at tho girl. What was tho man like? If I shut my eyes I could sco him as though engraved upon my brain. T remembered how the girl and Dulack had sat, half .in the light and half in shadow, on the balcony two nights ago. I remembered Dulack's profile against the black beyond. I remembered that it was his name that .1 had cried involuntarily at tho burglar tcnight. ' I sat down suddenly on my hat-box. Across the stillness of tho hour before tho dawn came tho hoot of an outwardbound boat preparing to leayo the wharf. Down in the yard the Chinamen wero disturbing the quacking ducks as they searnhod for tho man whom thoy wero never to find. The girl's oyes became dreamy. "That must bo his boat getting away vow," sho said. Then, turninß io me again, "Can you remember anything striking about your burglar, dear?" "Yos." I answered dully, as I watched her face, "ho walked like a cat."' "But you lire always saying that of men — you said it of Mr. Dulack," snapped the girl. People who arc abruptly awakened from a sound sleep usually are cross. . - She had slipped the emerald on her finger, and there it gleamed against the whiteness of her hand. I looked at her till I saw a troubled comprehension come into her eyes «md her face was suddenly as white as her hand. "Yes," I repeatedly stupidly; "I said that of — Mr. Dulack.". — M. Forrest, hi the Australasian.

Friend — I suppose the bftby is fond of you? Pupa— Fond of me? Why he i-lceps all day when I'm not nt home :uul stay? tt»'?J,l nijjht juet to 6njoy toy I society '