SHORT STORIES

Otago Witness, Issue 3249, 21 June 1916, Page 74

SHORT STORIES

By Philip Gibbs.

THE INTERVIEW.

(Copyright.) Percival Hamlyn, the well-known journalist, has interviewed many queer people, from kings to costermongers, but the story he tells of the "interview which he had with Sir John Buntingford, explorer, big game-hunter, and naturalist, stands out in his memory as his most extraordinary adventure. I tell the story more or less in his own words. It was on a hot summer's afternoon, when Fleet street was a burning oven that the news editor sent for him ana said: "Look here, Hamlyn, I want you to trot down to Priory Wood, in Kent and have a talk with Buntingford. You know -the fellow who is just back from the Amazon. There were three columns m The Times about him yesterday, and the King is going to receive him to-morrow. He ought to be good for a story. "Oh lord,'"' said Hamlyn. "It's a deuce of a long way, isn't it? And on a day like this the South-eastern and Chatham will finish me off." "Take one of the office cars, my lad, ' Baid the news editor, "and don't play the jaded literary gent with me, will you?" , Hamlyn turned from the reporters room, rang up on the telephone, and ordered the big Daimler. While waiting he turned up "Who's Who," and posted himself up with a few facts about the man he was going to interview He made mental notes of the points that Sir John Buntingford was forty years of ago, that he had been an officer in the Becmianaland Mounted Bines, that he had explored Uganda, Nigeria, and South America, that he had written several books on the haunts and habits of wild beasts, and that he had lately been on an expedition to the upper reaches of the Amazon. Hi* wife was Madeleine. Marie, daughter ot {he Vicomte de St. Pierre. The car was ready for him at the office door, and the chauffeur touched his cap and grinned. "What is it this sir? Convict hunt or murder mystery?" "Mind your own business, my lad," said Hamlyn, *" and take it easy to Sir John Buntingford's house at Priory Wood. It's near Sittingbourne. None of your hairbreadth escapes. It's too hot to be killed to-day." In the car he pushed his straw hat to the back of his head, and settled himself down to sleep. It was twilight when he ,awakened owino- to the car having .stopped, and he found himself in a country lane, with beech woods on either side, filled with silvery light and haunted by shadows. The birds were singing their evensong in a twittering chorus, and but for this melody there was a deep hush in the woods. " Lost your way?" asked Hamlyn. "More or less," said the chauffeur. " I asked a yokel a mile or so back, and he said Sir John Buntingford's house lay up here. But the path seems to fizzle out." . ~ ,_ , ." Well, crawl on a bit,' said Hamlyn. He started the car again, and went very slowly along a path which became merely a grass track. Hamlyn sat up in the car and gazed about him. The birds had stopped singing, and there was an oppressive silence. Not a soul was about, and the woods seemed utterly deserted until the car had gone on about an eighth part of a mile, when Hamlyn suddenly saw a figure moving about among the trees to the left of him. He leaned forward and touched the chauffeur on the shoulder, and said : "Pull up a minute. There's a fellow who will be able to tell us Avhere the house is."

The car stopped dead, and Hamlyn shouted out: "Hi!" The figure turned round. It was partly hidden by a clump of bushes, and was in the shadow of a great tree. But Hamlyn saw that it was a tall, copper-coloured man stripped to the waist. His face peered through the trees at the motor car. It was a negro's face with big lips and a flat nose. The whites of his eyes gleamed for a moment. Then swiftly and noiselessly the figure slipped behind the bushes and disappeared. "Queer-looking beggar!'' said Hamlyn. " I've seen half a dozen like that," said the chauffeur. " Thought I had got the jim-jams*, or something." " I expect Buntingford has brought them back from one of his expeditions. I know he's got a menagerie of wild beasts here."

" Has he, by gum!" said the chauffeur. "I wouldn't have come on this trip for quids if I had known." Hamlyn told him to go ahead, but as the car went very slowly along the grassy track he began to feel a little nervous and uneasy. But the* silence was broken suddenly by the sound of a sharp report, and instantly there was a great flutter of birds in the woods, and some of them gave startled notes and timid twitterings. A few moments later they saw the lodge gates of a substantial old housestanding on a rising piece of ground encircled by tho woods. " Drive up to the front door," said Hamlyn. The chauffeur sounded his horn before taking his car into the drive, and at this noise, heralding their approach, a window above tho green verandah was opene<i hurriedly and a head was thrust out. Hamlyn, standing up, saw the face of a black man staring down at him with wildlooking eyea.

" This must bo a funny kind of household," he muttered. The idea of interviewing Sir John Buntingford was not at all attractive to him. Hamlyn's courage oozed out. But he tried to pull himself together as he got out of the car and jerked the bell. "For 'eaven's sake don't be long, sir," said the chauffeur. "This place gives rue the fair creeps." Before the sound of the bell had died away the door was opened by an elderly manservant, with all the air of a family butler, but with a look in his eyes as though he were trying to hide some great emotion. His face was ashen grey, and his breathing' was quick and jerky as though he were panting a little. "May I see Sir John Buntingford?" asked Hamlyn.

" I am afraid you are too late, sir," said the man. "I'm very much afraid so."

"Yes, it is rather late," said Hamlyn. " I must apologise, but it's rather a long wav "

" Aye," said the old manservant. "It's a long way from anj'where. But her ladyship will be glad to see you. The poor soul is in the drawing room." As he spoke he opened a door leading from the hall, and then said:

"Her ladyship is inside." Percival Hamlyn went into the room, which was almost in darkness except for a vague twilight which glimmered through the large French windows opening on to the lawn. A woman was standing close to the windows, and as he entered she turned and he saw that she was dressed in white, and that her face seemed whiter than her dress, and that her eyes seemed to be burning with hidden fires. She was a tall, elegant woman, with black hair coiled in r>laits about her head, and her face had the beauty of a Greek goddess finely chiselled in the whitest marble. She did not seem a living thing, she stood so still after turning from the window.

Hamlyn felt strangely embarrassed, but h© went forward and said,

" I wanted to see Sir John Buntingford."

" You are very late," said the woman. "I fear it is quite too late." She spoke with a slightly foreign accent, but her voice was full and sweet and deeptoned.

"Yes," said Hamlyn. "It is rather late, but I would not keep him long. I wanted—■—"

He was going to explain his mission, but this woman, who was obviously Lady Buntingford, interrupted him with a gesture. "You must go up alone," she said. "I dare not go into his room again. But I will wait for you here, and you may do with me what you like." Hamlyn was perplexed. He could /not understand these words. Why was Lady Buntingford afraid to go into her husband's room? What did she mean by saying that she would wait for him and that he might do with her what he liked? "You will find the room," said Lady Buntingford. "It is at the top of the first flight of stairs. The black man will not hurt you. You can step over him." Hamlyn was even more bewildered. Why should he ha-ve to step over a black maiii? And why should he go up unannounced. He had not yet told anyone the object of his visit, or the name of his paper. It seemed as if they had expected him.

"Bo you think Sir John will be willing to see me?" he asked. "I -"

She put her hands up to her throat, and gave a queer, tragic laugh. "The devil is out of him." she said. "He is helpless now. For which God be praised." She went softly across the room and opened the door for Hamlyn, and he stood alone in the hall. There was no one there. There was nothing he could see which was in the least terrifying. After all, there was nothing to be afraid of. Lady Buntingford was probably an hysterical woman, or a little mad. Anyhow here was a queer adventure, and he was going to see it through. He went up stairs until he came to the first landing, with a door opposite the stairs. Then he gave a sharp ejaculation and clutched at the rail of the banisters. For lying at full length on a tigerskih lay a "big black body, motionless. It was the bodv of a negro wearing nothing but a loin-cloth. It lay face downwards and one hand clutched at the tigeirskin. He stepped over the body of the dead negro, tapped at the door, then turned the handle boldly and went in.

On a bed at the end of a small room, plainly furnished, except for a large number of primitive weapons, totems, and grotesque wooden figures hung upon the walls, lay a dying man. His face, indeed, was already of the colour of death, and his eyes were glazed. But he was breathing jerkily, in quick little gasps, and a feeble moan escaped from his lips as Hamlyn entered. His night-gown was open at the breast, showing the mark of an old wound, and his head lay sideways on the pillow—a powerful head with a fair moustache and a short, pointed beard and strongly-carved features. Hamlyn knew that he looked down upon Sir John Buntingford. This dying man had the look of a hunter and of a man who had led a life of action under burning suns. In spite of the greyness of death, his skin was bronzed. When Hamlyn entered, the man's eyes stared at him and became less glazed. He turned his head a little and spoke strange words which sounded like some native tongue. "What is the matter?" asked Hamlyn. "Can T do anything for you?" "Is the devil dead?" said the man faintly. "What devil?" " Tho devil who has been tormenting me and put his magic on me." Hamlyn was silent, but he listened intently to the dying man's words. "Madeleine," said Sir John Buntingford, twisting his lips into something like a smile, "it was sweet and kind of you

to shoot him. . . . lie was trying to drag mo down to the grout Pit. Oh, my dear. Para sorry for having been so brutish to you. . . . But you understand? . . . M'boso had put the spirit of his Ju-ju on me. It was the Ju-ju of the Yellow Tiger. I should have torn you to pieces, my dear little Madeleine, my well-beloved, and slaked my thirst in your beautiful blood, my pretty one. . , . M'boso tempted me to do

it. . . . He put the tiger spell upon me with the black magic of his tribe. . . . , My brave Madeleine, you killed him just in time. ... I die happy now. . , , God pardon me. . . ."

He sat up in bed and stretched out his arms, and for a moment his face was transfigured with a beautiful smile, infinitely tender, like that of a lover who go'S to embrace his sweetheart. Then he foil back quite dead. Hamlyn stared at him with a sense of enormous interest, but 1 still with no fear. Those strange, disconnected sentences, gasped out from a dying man's throat, in a hoarse whisper, suggested some story of horror, some devilish tragedy, some mystery lurking behind the veil of life. One fact leapt out of them. Madeleine, the wife of the dead man, had shot the black m:>.n who lay outside the door. Was that why yhe had not dared come upstairs again?

Haralyn stole guietly out of the room and stepped again over the body of the negro. Then he went downstairs and walked straight into the drawing room where he had left Lady Biintingford. She was waiting for him, immobile as before, like a white statue.

"Is he dead, doctor?" she asked. "Is that poor, brave heart in peace?" "Madam," said Hamlyn, looking straight into her eyes, " You have made a mistake. I am not a doctor; I am a journalist. I came from London to interview your husband."

She stared at him with a look of deep surprise.

"I telephoned for you. You said you would come in your motor car."

" I came in my car," said Hamlyn, "but I had no message from you." Lady Buntingford put her hands to hor forehead.

"It does not matter," she said in a dull, dazed way. " Nothing matters as long as my husband died in peace. I think he was happy when I shot M'boso." "Why did you shoot him?" asked Hamlvn.

She was silent for a moment. Then she spoke in her strange, quiet way, with her slight foreign accent. "You will not understand. My husband _ came home with the fever. It was in his blood, and maddened him. But he was afraid of M'boso, hi 3 servant. He said_ the man had put a spell on him ■ —an evil spell " "The Tiger's Spell?" asked Hamlvn. "Yes, it was_ something about, a YellowTiger. He shrieked out that M'boso was changing him into a tiger. He cried out in agony because M'boso tortured him. I sent the man away, but always he came back to stand outside my husband's door, muttering and making strange grimaces. So then T became a little mad also, and I took one of my husband's' pistols and shot M'boso in the head. He fell on to the tiger-skin and did not move, so that I knew he was dead. After that my husband was qu-'et, but I did not dare go backinto his room, became M'boso'sbody lay in the way. .Perhaps when you go you will tell the police?"

But Hamlyn did not tell the police. For quite a loner time he did not tell anyone—not even the chauffeur, who reported to the office that "Mr Percival," as he called him, had had a touch of sunstroke just before they had reached Priory Wood. Eb had turned round to ask him a question about the way to Sir John Buntingford's house, and had noticed him Iyin - back with his hat off, and his face as white as a sheet, in a kind of faint. That, at least, is" the chauffeur's story, but Hamlyn himself is ouite certain that his interview with S : r John Buntingford was not a dream, and he points to the newspaper report of the inquest on that well-known explorer, who died, according to the jury's verdict, of blackwater fever contracted on the upper reaches of the Amazon, on the very afternoon when Hamlyn had set out from 'Fleet street. Curiously enough, nothing was ever heard of a. negro's dead body having been found in Sir John Buntingford's house, and Lady Buntingford said nothing in her evidence about the spell of the YellowTiger. However, Hamlyn protests against the sunstroke idea, and tells bis story of bis interview with Sir John ford as the most interesting adventure in his career. Fleet street journalists, of course, do not believe a word of it, and I am not sure that I don't agree with them.