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Polson Jervase reached out the hand which was not engaged with the stick, and it happened to be the left. 'I don't want that, Sergeant, said the Major. 'My dear fellow, said Polson, 'it's the nearest to the heart. And De Blacquaire took it with a glint of moisture in his eyes. 'You ain't done that to me, Polly, said Jervase. 'It's pretty near two years since you've done that to me.
Was it possible that there had lingered on through the ages a vague and horrified remembrance of those rites, the discovery of whose mysterious and wide-spread abominations had frozen Rome with horror in her most high and palmy days; and was there a connection between those neophytes, wandering with blood-stained limbs and dishevelled locks among the groves of the Aventine, then rushing to quench their burning torches in the Tiber, two centuries before Christ, and the devils who troubled the Benedictines of SS. Jervase and Protasius?
Jervase rose and shook his son by both shoulders in a frenzy. 'Look here, Polly, look here. Listen. 'I am listening, father. 'Then look as if you was listening for Heaven's sake! I'm worth half a million, if I'm worth a penny. I never owned to it before, but if it isn't true God strike me dead. Outside that salt mine, I've been an honest man. You won't believe it, but I have.
When Jervase had fed the Sergeant to the last teaspoonful, he retired again, leaving the candle burning on the table at the bed head. 'These poor chaps, he said, 'may find a little bit of comfort in a light, and any way, good English wax don't stink like Turkish lamp oil, does it, old chap? The 'old chap' winked.
And if the father did you a bad turn the son has done you a good one. 'Will you kindly go away, Mr. Jervase? said the Major. 'Yes, said Jervase, 'I'll go away. But since I'm here, I'm going to ask you one question. Are you going to hit the boy through me? 'Will you oblige me, said Major de Blacquaire, 'by going to the devil?
'Ain't I? said Jervase. 'You go on like this, Major, and I shall begin to think that you're a better sort than I fancied you were. The two men went to sleep together, each holding the other's hand. It was an odd thing, and quite unlikely to have been prophesied by anybody; but it happened.
If you can find a way of hitting old Jack Jervase without hitting the boy, find it and do it.
Sick men who have been half-starved for a year or two, and who have run through every note of the gamut of emotion, may be quicker to appreciate these influences than common people are: but Polson Jervase, lying on his back and staring upwards in a futile endeavour to trace the semi-circular ring of smoke upon the ceiling, felt them all deeply.
Something stirred within the silken curtains of a canopied bed and a low moan was uttered, which, listening intently, Jervase Helwyse began to distinguish as a woman's voice complaining dolefully of thirst. He fancied, even, that he recognized its tones. "My throat! My throat is scorched," murmured the voice. "A drop of water!"
"Oh, Jervase Helwyse," said the voice and as it spoke the figure contorted itself, struggling to hide its blasted face "look not now on the woman you once loved. The curse of Heaven hath stricken me because I would not call man my brother nor woman sister.
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