A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE
AT THE sound of the harsh voices so close upon her Barbara Harding was galvanized into instant action.Springing to Byrne's side she whipped Theriere's revolver from his belt, where it reposed about the fallen mucker's hips, and with it turned like a tigress upon the youth.
"Quick!" she cried."Tell them to go back--that I shall kill you if they come closer."The boy shrank back in terror before the fiery eyes and menacing attitude of the white girl, and then with the terror that animated him ringing plainly in his voice he screamed to his henchmen to halt.
Relieved for a moment at least from immediate danger Barbara Harding turned her attention toward the two unconscious men at her feet.From appearances it seemed that either might breathe his last at any moment, and as she looked at Theriere a wave of compassion swept over her, and the tears welled to her eyes; yet it was to the mucker that she first ministered--why, she could not for the life of her have explained.
She dashed cold water from the spring upon his face.She bathed his wrists, and washed his wounds, tearing strips from her skirt to bandage the horrid gash upon his breast in an effort to stanch the flow of lifeblood that welled forth with the man's every breath.
And at last she was rewarded by seeing the flow of blood quelled and signs of returning consciousness appear.The mucker opened his eyes.Close above him bent the radiant vision of Barbara Harding's face.Upon his fevered forehead he felt the soothing strokes of her cool, soft hand.He closed his eyes again to battle with the effeminate realization that he enjoyed this strange, new sensation--the sensation of being ministered to by a gentle woman--and, perish the thought, by a gentlewoman!
With an effort he raised himself to one elbow, scowling at her.
"Gwan," he said; "I ain't no boob dude.Cut out de mush.
Lemme be.Beat it!"
Hurt, more than she would have cared to admit, Barbara Harding turned away from her ungrateful and ungracious patient, to repeat her ministrations to the Frenchman.The mucker read in her expression something of the wound his words had inflicted, and he lay thinking upon the matter for some time, watching her deft, white fingers as they worked over the scarce breathing Theriere.
He saw her wash the blood and dirt from the ghastly wound in the man's chest, and as he watched he realized what a world of courage it must require for a woman of her stamp to do gruesome work of this sort.Never before would such a thought have occurred to him.Neither would he have cared at all for the pain his recent words to the girl might have inflicted.Instead he would have felt keen enjoyment of her discomfiture.
And now another strange new emotion took possession of him.It was none other than a desire to atone in some way for his words.What wonderful transformation was taking place in the heart of the Kelly gangster?
"Say!" he blurted out suddenly.
Barbara Harding turned questioning eyes toward him.In them was the cold, haughty aloofness again that had marked her cognizance of him upon the Halfmoon--the look that had made his hate of her burn most fiercely.It took the mucker's breath away to witness it, and it made the speech he had contemplated more difficult than ever--nay, almost impossible.
He coughed nervously, and the old dark, lowering scowl returned to his brow.
"Did you speak?" asked Miss Harding, icily.
Billy Byrne cleared his throat, and then there blurted from his lips not the speech that he had intended, but a sudden, hateful rush of words which seemed to emanate from another personality, from one whom Billy Byrne once had been.
"Ain't dat boob croaked yet?" he growled.
The shock of that brutal question brought Barbara Harding to her feet.In horror she looked down at the man who had spoken thus of a brave and noble comrade in the face of death itself.Her eyes blazed angrily as hot, bitter words rushed to her lips, and then of a sudden she thought of Byrne's self-sacrificing heroism in returning to Theriere's side in the face of the advancing samurai--of the cool courage he had displayed as be carried the unconscious man back to the jungle--of the devotion, almost superhuman, that had sustained him as he struggled, uncomplaining, up the steep mountain path with the burden of the Frenchman's body the while his own lifeblood left a crimson trail behind him.
Such deeds and these words were incompatible in the same individual.There could be but one explanation--Byrne must be two men, with as totally different characters as though they had possessed separate bodies.And who may say that her hypothesis was not correct--at least it seemed that Billy Byrne was undergoing a metamorphosis, and at the instant there was still a question as to which personality should eventually dominate.
Byrne turned away from the reproach which replaced the horror in the girl's eyes, and with a tired sigh let his head fall upon his outstretched arm.The girl watched him for a moment, a puzzled expression upon her face, and then returned to work above Theriere.
The Frenchman's respiration was scarcely appreciable, yet after a time he opened his eyes and looked up wearily.At sight of the girl he smiled wanly, and tried to speak, but a fit of coughing flecked his lips with bloody foam, and again he closed his eyes.Fainter and fainter came his breathing, until it was with difficulty that the girl detected any movement of his breast whatever.She thought that he was dying, and she was afraid.Wistfully she looked toward the mucker.The man still lay with his head buried in his arm, but whether he were wrapped in thought, in slumber, or in death the girl could not tell.At the final thought she went white with terror.
Slowly she approached the man, and leaning over placed her hand upon his shoulder.
"Mr.Byrne!" she whispered.
The mucker turned his face toward her.It looked tired and haggard.
"Wot is it?" he asked, and his tone was softer than she had ever heard it.
