Then he seized the lever,
jammed the brake down and tripped Rooum, all, as it seemed, in one
movement. I fell on top of Rooum. The crane came to a standstill
half-way down the line. I held Rooum panting. But either Rooum was stronger than I, or else he took me very much
unawares. All at once he twisted clear from my grasp and stumbled on his
knees to the rear door of the cab. He threw up one elbow, and staggered
to his feet as I made another clutch at him. "Keep still, you fool!" I bawled. "Hit him over the head, Hopkins!" Rooum screamed in a high voice. "Run him down--cut him up with the wheels--down, you!--down, I say!--Oh,
my God!... _Ha_!" He sprang clear out from the crane door, well-nigh taking me with him. I told you it was a skeleton line, two rails and a tie or two. He'd
actually jumped to the right-hand rail. And he was running along
it--running along that iron tightrope, out over that well of light and
watching men. Hopkins had started the travelling-gear, as if with some
insane idea of catching him; but there was only one possible end to it. He'd gone fully a dozen yards, while I watched, horribly fascinated; and
then I saw the turn of his head.... He didn't meet it this time; he sprang to the other rail, as if to evade
it.... Even at the take-off he missed. As far as I could see, he made no attempt
to save himself with his hands. He just went down out of the field of
my vision. There was an awful silence; then, from far below ...

       *       *       *       *       *

They weren't the men on the lower stages who moved first. The men above
went a little way down, and then they too stopped. Presently two of them
descended, but by a distant way. They returned, with two bottles of
brandy, and there was a hasty consultation. Two men drank the brandy off
there and then--getting on for a pint of brandy apiece; then they went
down, drunk. I, Hopkins tells me, had got down on my knees in the crane cab, and was
jabbering away cheerfully to myself. When I asked him what I said,
he hesitated, and then said: "Oh, you don't want to know that, sir," and
I haven't asked him since. What do _you_ make of it? BENLIAN


I

It would be different if you had known Benlian. It would be different if
you had had even that glimpse of him that I had the very first time I saw
him, standing on the little wooden landing at the top of the flight of
steps outside my studio door. I say "studio"; but really it was just a
sort of loft looking out over the timber-yard, and I used it as a studio. The real studio, the big one, was at the other end of the yard, and that
was Benlian's. Scarcely anybody ever came there. I wondered many a time if the
timber-merchant was dead or had lost his memory and forgotten all about
his business; for his stacks of floorboards, set criss-crosswise to
season (you know how they pile them up) were grimy with soot, and nobody
ever disturbed the rows of scaffold-poles that stood like palisades along
the walls. The entrance was from the street, through a door in a
billposter's hoarding; and on the river not far away the steamboats
hooted, and, in windy weather, the floorboards hummed to keep them
company. I suppose some of these real, regular artists wouldn't have called me an
artist at all; for I only painted miniatures, and it was trade-work at
that, copied from photographs and so on. Not that I wasn't jolly good at
it, and punctual too (lots of these high-flown artists have simply no
idea of punctuality); and the loft was cheap, and suited me very well. But, of course, a sculptor wants a big place on the ground floor; it's
slow work, that with blocks of stone and marble that cost you twenty
pounds every time you lift them; so Benlian had the studio. His name was
on a plate on the door, but I'd never seen him till this time I'm telling
you of. I was working that evening at one of the prettiest little things I'd ever
done: a girl's head on ivory, that I'd stippled up just like ... oh,
you'd never have thought it was done by hand at all. The daylight had
gone, but I knew that "Prussian" would be about the colour for the eyes
and the bunch of flowers at her breast, and I wanted to finish. I was working at my little table, with a shade over my eyes; and I jumped
a bit when somebody knocked at the door--not having heard anybody come up
the steps, and not having many visitors anyway. (Letters were always put
into the box in the yard door.) When I opened the door, there he stood on the platform; and I gave a bit
of a start, having come straight from my ivory, you see. He was one of
these very tall, gaunt chaps, that make us little fellows feel even
smaller than we are; and I wondered at first where his eyes were, they
were set so deep in the dark caves on either side of his nose. Like a
skull, his head was; I could fancy his teeth curving round inside his
cheeks; and his zygomatics stuck up under his skin like razorbacks (but
if you're not one of us artists you'll not understand that). A bit of
smoky, greenish sky showed behind him; and then, as his eyes moved in
their big pits, one of them caught the light of my lamp and flashed like
a well of lustre. He spoke abruptly, in a deep, shaky sort of voice. "I want you to photograph me in the morning," he said. I supposed he'd
seen my printing-frames out on the window-sash some time or other. "Come in," I said. "But I'm afraid, if it's a miniature you want, that
I'm retained--my firm retains me--you'd have to do it through them. But
come in, and I'll show you the kind of thing I do--though you ought to
have come in the daylight ..."

He came in. He was wearing a long, grey dressing-gown that came right
down to his heels and made him look something like a Noah's-ark figure. Seen in the light, his face seemed more ghastly bony still; and as he
glanced for a moment at my little ivory he made a sound of contempt--I
know it was contempt. I thought it rather cheek, coming into my place
and--

He turned his cavernous eyeholes on me. "I don't want anything of that sort. I want you to photograph me. I'll be
here at ten in the morning." So, just to show him that I wasn't to be treated that way, I said, quite
shortly, "I can't. I've an appointment at ten o'clock." "What's that?" he said--he'd one of these rich deep voices that always
sound consumptive. "Take that thing off your eyes, and look at me," he ordered. Well, I was awfully indignant. "If you think I'm going to be told to do things like this--" I began. "Take that thing off," he just ordered again. I've got to remember, of course, that you didn't know Benlian. _I_ didn't
then. And for a chap just to stalk into a fellow's place, and tell him to
photograph him, and order him about ... but you'll see in a minute. I
took the shade off my eyes, just to show him that _I_ could browbeat a
bit too.