OH! I beg your pardon,” some one said politely from before me in the darkness.
This I thought was remarkably handsome, as I must have all but knocked the speaker off his feet.
Then, in an instant, I was wondering who had spoken.
If it were Jackson he would have said—I knew, for I had heard him more than once on occasions when I was endeavoring to mount the narrow stairs at the identical moment he was trying to descend them—“Get out of the way, you beast! What the devil do you mean by walking all over me?”
Therefore, being vastly amazed at the politeness emanating from the blackness in front of me, I put up my hand to find the gas-jet—we were on the second-floor landing—and having found it, fumbled in my pocket for a match and lighted the gas.
This enabled me to see who had ventured to introduce civility into the atmosphere of mild ruffianism that prevailed among the outcasts at Mrs. Tauton's.
Standing jammed rather close against the wall, where he had evidently considered it safe and expedient to withdraw in view of my hurried ascent of the steps, was a young man with a round boyish face.
“I really beg your pardon,” he repeated. I was so astonished at his continued politeness that, with the mistaken intention of turning on the gas still farther, I turned it out altogether, and we were a part of the surrounding gloom again. But in the momentary brightness lent by the flickering flame I saw Gavan for the first time.
From this not entirely favorable beginning there came about a speaking acquaintance that soon ripened into friendship.
I was a clerk in a down-town office, and had by a series of misfortunes gravitated from the outskirts of cheap respectability to the dingy apartments that Mrs. Tauton kept for the exclusive use of single gentlemen of uniformly large hopes and small means, and I took my meals—they had a marked tendency to cast a cloud over any sunniness of temper I might have originally possessed—with wretches of my kind at the same low-priced resort just around the corner.
In after years some of us will remember the dyspepsia, there acquired, particularly young Tompkins, who ruined a fine constitution in a vain endeavor to subsist on a diet of pie interspersed with milk.
Tompkins subsequently made a million or two by a singularly soulless operation in railway shares. I have never blamed him for his consciousless greed, as I attribute it to the food his early poverty compelled him to live on in the effort to keep body and soul together.
I simply think he failed in his object.
It was on the steps at Mrs. Tauton's that I first met Gavan. It was not long until he gave me his complete confidence and I was permitted to know his aims and ambitions.
He desired to write plays and to dispose of those he had already written.
It soon became his custom to make nightly reports to me, giving me detailed accounts of his doings, and I came to know what actor or manager had promised to read his work.
His appearance was so youthful, I do not question but that it condemned him unheard in the minds of most. I think it prevented his being taken seriously.
When the people he wished to reach were kind and considerate, it was because they were amused and regarded the whole thing as a joke.
In any event his plays were being returned to him with almost every mail, accompanied by letters more or less encouraging, as they reflected various degrees of kindliness on the writer's part.
I had not known him for many months before I was aware of a change. His face wore an anxious look, but he retained his cheerfulness, which was, however, more a habit than a condition of thought. I knew that he was wretchedly lonely and that disappointment came to end each hope he dared indulge in.
It was a mighty step from the sleepy little southern town where he had lived, to New York, with its supreme indifference to so small a unit in the struggling mass.
With his grave earnest eyes, which were almost pathetic in their seriousness, and the face, that the days of waiting had stamped with lines—markings of the hand that was empty for him—he was only one of many.
His mother was an invalid, his father had long been dead, and they were very poor. This bit of information he imparted with the utmost reluctance. I guessed at it without the telling, as no one, unless there was the grim incentive of pressing poverty, ever braved the terrors of life at Mrs. Tauton's.
Little by little he told me of his mother, and I saw that love for her was the one strong passion of his heart. She lived—none too happily—with relatives in the town that had been the home of his family for a great many generations.
He seldom or never spoke of what he would do for himself when he should achieve success; it was his mother who was to profit by it.
One night he came into my room and dropped dejectedly down on the edge of the bed, that answered all the purposes of a chair when not in actual use as a couch.
“What is it, Gavan?” I asked.
“Nothing much. Only my first year in New York is about at an end, and there is no gain of any sort to show for it. The whole thing has been miserably discouraging.”
“Why, Gavan, you are making important acquaintances all the time, who will aid you on to what you want.”
“It is deadly slow. It's forever and eternally to-morrow.”
He made a troubled little gesture with his hand.
“They say my work is good, that it is eminently clever—sometimes even that it's great; but that is not enough, and I try again. Try to be more like—not myself—but some one else; for it seems they don't want me on any terms. I wonder if there is such a thing as a man's being absolutely unavailable in the world—being of such an odd size and shape of both soul and mind that there is no niche he can fill. Do you know, I am beginning to think it of myself, that I don't fit—just don't fit anywhere.”
And he looked at me questioningly. I had never seen him so despondent before.
He must have understood my thought, for he continued:
“I am ashamed to burden you with my woes. If I were the only one concerned it wouldn't be so bad,—I could stand it.”
A wistful far-away look came into his eyes as he said softly:
“But there's my mother. It's for her I am working much more than for myself. Her life is so hard, with poverty and the contemptible pettiness of those about her.”
He turned from me to hide the tears that would gather against his will.
“And there she sits,” his voice sank to a whisper, “counting the days till I shall come and take her away. And what if I never can,—what if I end in failure! We wouldn't require much for perfect happiness, but small as the sum needed is, I can't make it. I shan't stay here much longer. I'll go home and settle down at something else.”
“You wouldn't give up your work!” I cried.
“I can't keep her on the ragged side of uncertainty. I'll go back; unless soon there is a change for the better in my prospects.” There was an abrupt pause. His voice had broken on the last word.
For a time we sat in silence, and when he spoke again it was cheerfully and of other things.
A few days later Gavan left the shelter of Mrs. Tauton's roof and went farther down-town, where he had rooms with an old shoemaker and his wife, who were “just as good and kind as could be,” he informed me; and I think they were, but the apartments he had quitted were palatial by comparison with those he now had.
About the same time I made a move in the opposite direction toward my former mild respectability.
One Sunday he came to my lodgings, his face radiant. At last a play was accepted. There were only a few minor changes to be made; he could do them in a week or so, and then the company would begin to get up in their parts.
“I shan't have to quit and go home after all,” he said. “I've written mother all about it. I'd give a good deal to be there and enjoy it with her. It would be such fun! Perhaps it isn't many months off till she can join me here, and then, old fellow, you are to come and live with us.”
This last was one of his favorite ideas for the future. When he felt elated or particularly hopeful it was always broached, and it was characteristic of his general goodness that he wished to share all he had, or was to have, with his friends.
When I saw him a week later his work was progressing and the play would surely go on before the season ended. But by our next meeting his hope had evidently moderated, for he looked downcast and troubled as he explained the production had to be deferred. “They haven't the money it will take. A heavy outlay for scenery is involved, you know. It will go on the first of the coming season, and that's about the most I can expect under the circumstances. In the meantime there's a lot of work I wish to do, so it doesn't much matter. I can wait, only”—and his glance became tender—“it will go hard with mother. She won't understand why it's not as I said it was going to be.”
Unfortunately, when the manager returned from his summer trip abroad, he brought with him from Paris the success of a thousand nights.
“He will do that at once, and then try mine. He really prefers my work, but thinks that more immediate profits are to be expected from the French piece,” Gavan told me, and this was all he had to say.
The imported play had a long run in New York, half the winter and better. Then it was taken on tour.
“They can't drop a sure thing,” he explained nervously when he informed me of the new arrangement. “However, the very first opening is to belong to me; no telling or guessing when it will come, but scarcely until next year. I'll have to do what I can meanwhile to drag out an existence. I can't give up. I've done so much it would be foolish even to think of stopping. If there is only a decent bit of luck in the end, a few months will pay up for the two years of misery. Of course, it's tiresome, this everlasting putting off, but if I wait long enough and don't starve, I am sure to see the play go on. The manager has said over and over that he wanted to stage it, and I think he does. It wouldn't be so rough if I were the only one concerned, but there's my mother. I know she is feeling it keenly, though she tries not to show it.”
He was still brave, but the deep secret joy was gone from his eyes. He was slowly drifting back to the despondency that had marked the last weeks of his stay at Mrs. Tauton's.
“I don't suppose,” he added, “that mother can comprehend how slow a matter it is, and I don't know that I make it clear to her.”
How he lived through the winter and the spring that followed, I never knew.
When summer came I tried to induce him to go into the country with me for an outing.
He was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, but felt that he must remain in the city. The season was almost over and soon everybody would be there. It was his opportunity.
“I don't know why it is,” he wound up reflectively, “but I seem to have a harder pull of it than most do. I wish I didn't look so young. Then, too, my work is original, and I find originality is an offense to most people. I can't do clever trifles.”
No, his work was not clever; I appreciated that. It was only great.
On my return from the country he met me in Jersey City.
“I didn't write you about it, old fellow,” he said, as we crossed on the ferry. “My time comes in a month. Everything is in shape for the production—scenery painted and costumes made. I've hung around for three years, but my day has come at last!”
He took my congratulations with the graciousness that was characteristic of him.
“It isn't unmitigated bliss,” he remarked. “I have had to all but ruin the piece to get it on. I guess it will pass muster and that's all I care for now. Three years such as I have spent are warranted to take the pride out of any man's soul.”
Lightly as he spoke, I knew he was staking all his future on the event.
“Drop in for the first night,” he said, as he left me at my lodgings. “I want your opinion. I have great faith in your judgment,” he added politely.
I knew he hadn't, but he was invariably kind, even at the expense of truth.
During the month, the last one of waiting, I saw him frequently. The many interests relating to the presentation went forward with unexpected smoothness, and there was but one drop of bitterness in Gavan's cup. His mother was unwell. He had observed a decided change in the tone of her letters, something that was deeper than mere sorrow at his absence. One of his relatives (for like a true Southerner he had a surpassingly large number of them) had written that it was his duty to come home at his earliest possible convenience.
When Gavan told me this, he said:
“And it's the truth; I have been away a long while. Once the first night's over with, I turn my back on New York. My mother needs me.”
I could see that he was very much exercised about his mother's condition.
“You know she may be a lot worse than they say. I have no idea that they would go into detail even if it were a serious matter, and mother herself would be the last person in the world to expect information of that sort from.”
The eventful night came. I was late, having been detained at my office, and the first act was ended when I reached the theater, but I was in time to see Gavan bow his thanks to those in front from the stage. This I saw through the blur of lights and the mist that swam before my eyes.
The curtain had gone down on the last act when I made my way around back and joined him.
“Come,” he said, as I took his hand. “Come, let's go home. I am tired—and I am satisfied.”
He was silent until we reached his door.
“Come in,—don't leave me yet.”
And I followed him up to his room.
He had again relapsed into silence, but I could see that he was happy. Finally he roused himself from his reverie to say:
“You don't mind if I go to bed, do you?—and stay a little longer; I want to talk to you. It's such a comfort to have you here.”
I said I would stay all night if he desired it. I was too excited to sleep.
He was soon in bed, and I drew up a chair close beside him.
Then he began to talk of his mother, to tell me of what he would do for her. “For I fancy the turning point is past,” he said. “I signed contracts to-night for more work, and now money goes to bind the bargain. They are not the barren formality they were when I put my name to the first one two years ago. I'll go home and see how mother is before I do anything else, and take a rest of a month or so. I can afford it, for the play's a big hit. There can be no mistake about it. Now that success has come, somehow it's not quite all I anticipated. A part of the satisfaction has been lost in the struggle, and a part of my ambition as well. I've served my apprenticeship to art. I have starved, hoping against hope, for three years, and now I'll be content with the money it will mean. After all, it narrows down to this: We begin with different aims before we have exhausted ourselves in trying to overcome the ignorance and prejudice of others.”
When I left him he was sleeping with his head upon his arm. The boyish roundness seemed to have returned to his face and the anxious look was gone. He was as I remembered him in the old days at Mrs. Tauton's.
The night was at an end when I went into the street. Boys were calling the morning papers and the city was wide awake. I made a collection of the various papers and left them with the old shoemaker, who was already at work in his little basement shop, to give Gavan when he should have had out his sleep. Then I went uptown to breakfast in my own rooms.
It was late in the afternoon when I started back to see him, and as I reached the house the old shoemaker met me at the street-door. I saw his kind face was grave and serious, with lines of grief upon it.
“Is he sick?” I asked.
The old man motioned me to follow and without a word we went up the stairs. In the bare desolate hall above, with its unpalliated hideousness now garishly alight with day and sun, stood a policeman, the center of a group of curious men and women.
Still I did not comprehend.
I entered the room. Gavan was lying upon the bed just as I had left him. In his hand was clutched a crushed and torn scrap of yellow paper.
As I paused, looking stupidly down at the bed and its burden, I became dimly conscious that the old man was standing at my side speaking to me, telling me how it had happened.
“He got a message from home. His mother died last night. It's that he's holding so tight in his hand. Poor lad! a power of promise and real goodness went out of the world with him.”
There were dark stains upon the bed-clothes, and he lay in the midst of the papers that told him of his triumph.
PRIVATE AUSTIN sat languidly upon his cot and slowly raised a cloud above his head from the disreputable black pipe firmly clenched between his teeth. His eyes, wandering aimlessly, finally rested upon a shotgun leaning against the opposite wall,—one of two furnished by a kind and benignant government for the sole and exclusive use of the sportively inclined members of Company A—and his vague unrest took form in a desire to spend the day with that gun upon the prairie in a search for solitude and game.
To gain this privilege, the consent of the officer on duty was indispensable, and Private Austin who had seen much pack-drill and who had acquired a valuable familiarity with the inside of the guard-house, knew that this consent was not for him. However he arose, giving himself a vigorous shake, and his attire, previously wrinkled into a thousand twists and creases, became the undress uniform of a private of remarkably neat appearance.
Passing along the narrow gangway between the long line of cots, taking care in doing so not to awaken the sweltering tossing figures slumbering uneasily upon them, he reached the door and stepped out into the open air.
For an instant as he inhaled the fresh morning air and gazed upon the blue hills rising from the level stretch of plain, their dusky outlines now tipped as with gold by the sun, his own mean life—his rough companions—were forgotten. Then as slowly and reluctantly his eyes turned from their distant point of vision and roamed around the circle of accustomed objects,—the white frame cottages of the officers' quarters, the bleak, stern, uncompromising walls of the too familiar guardhouse, the well beaten earth of the abhorred parade ground, the very stunted trees that seemed to have lost all graceful form and to stand in stiff unbending ranks as though nature itself felt the control of a military despotism,—he was once more a soldier, common and unclean, with an unquenchable thirst for beer and a loathing for all discipline.
As he stood alone with his disgust, his attention centered itself upon Lieutenant Parsons who was returning at breakneck speed from his morning canter. As the lieutenant drew near the post he reined in his horse. This gave Private Austin an opportunity to approach and make his petition.
Lieutenant Parsons turned in his saddle and looked at the soldier in utter and unmitigated contempt. To the disciplined well-trained West Pointer the general conduct of Private Austin could only be accounted for by a moral turpitude and a state of original sin shocking to all well-ordered minds, and his present highly audacious request was but one of those constitutional aberrations arising from that condition.
A prompt and vigorous expression of his opinion was on his tongue's end, but contenting himself with a brief answer in the negative, half deadened by the bugle-call which rang out at the moment, he continued on his way to headquarters.
Private Austin followed with his glance the figure of his superior until he had reached a distance that made comment safe and pleasant, when he proceeded to express himself in such crisp and belligerent English as only the resident of a military post would be able to appreciate. He continued as he reentered the barracks to voice his indignation in a fashion both edifying and pleasing to the aroused soldiers. Then suddenly he picked up a shotgun and made his way to the rear of the room, heedless alike of the sergeant's sharp command to stop his noise and fall in line and the wondering gaze of his fellows. With a vicious jerk he tossed open a window and carefully deposited the gun without, immediately following with other government property, namely, Private Austin, of Company A.
As the others emerged upon the open space before the barracks, he shouldered his gun and walked off in a deliberate and unconcerned manner, taking care, however, to maneuver a course that brought the barracks between himself and the rapidly assembling regiment upon the parade ground. But the deliberateness of his march was pure bravado, for no sooner had he reached a sheltering cluster of trees that offered concealment from the curious eyes of any of his comrades who might be watching his movements, than bending low he started on a swift run.
At last his breath failed him and he threw himself down at full length upon the scant verdure of the prairie. And now he thought for the first time of the penalty of his act. There were two courses open to him: either to obtain all the pleasure that could be obtained from his unwonted liberty and then return to the post, there to spend many a day in the guard-house as a consequence of having been absent without leave; or he might attempt to make his way across the plains and there lose himself. But this was an almost impossible project as he knew, since the reward the government offers for the return of each of her straying defenders keeps the border sheriffs on the alert. No, it would be wiser to return and face the consequences at the post, than to risk spending the next five years of his life in the military prison at Leavenworth. He would surrender within the specified twelve hours, beyond which time the comparatively innocent “absent without leave” would become the dreaded “deserter”.
Having now recovered his breath and his customary spirits, which had been rather damped by his reflections, he started to made a wide circuit with the mingled determination' of spilling the blood of every living thing that should be so unfortunate as to come within the range of his gun, and of arriving at the post before nightfall.
A prairie schooner, drawn by a pair of meager oxen and driven by a sad-faced woman, was toiling over the sandy ridges. A half-grown boy, barefoot and ragged, led the way, shading his eyes from time to time with his sunburnt hands, and gazing eagerly on all sides in a vain hope that each moment might bring to view the longed-for haven of their march. On the seat beside the woman two children crouched, so weary of it all that they seemed involuntarily to avoid looking at anything save their own brown feet. Within the wagon among the poor belongings of the family was a rude bed and on this bed lay a man, gaunt and hollow-cheeked. By his side a young girl watched.
The man turned feebly toward her.
“The post?” he asked fretfully, reiterating the question that never left his lips. “Can you see it yet?” There was an age of suffering, endurance and longing in his voice.
“Not yet, father,” replied the girl soothingly. “But we will surely reach it before night.”
“If we have not already passed it,” said the man. “It is impossible that Frank has kept the trail.”
“He has done his best, father.”
Without replying the man turned away, and in a few moments either slept or had sunk into a stupor.
The stretch of prairie was at last broken to the west by a strip of timber. The oxen turned toward it longingly. Instinct told them that where there were trees there must be water. Even the stolid lad in front quickened his pace, and disappeared in the undergrowth that skirted the edge of the grove. Close following came the oxen.
The woman's face had not changed, but the children's, before so indifferent, now seemed alive with cheerfulness and expectation. Then suddenly they heard the boy give a shout of warning. But all too late, for like a streak of gray light a skulking coyote went flying past. The report of a gun sounded, and one of the sad-eyed oxen breathed a sigh of relief, bowed its knees and then fell gently forward upon its side.
At the sight of this great calamity all else was forgotten. The woman moaned dismally, while the girl looked over her shoulder so stupefied that she paid no attention to the sick man who in querulous tones demanded the cause of the excitement.
This was the scene that presented itself to Private Austin's astonished gaze, when, gun in hand, he emerged from the thicket in the hope of getting another shot at the coyote. He saw the dying ox, the dismayed faces, the tearful eyes, and he wished devoutly from the bottom of his heart that Private Austin, heavily ironed, was again within the walls of the most dismal prison that in his varied life he had ever known.
Approaching slowly he spoke a few words half apologetic, half sullen. He would have been glad to arouse a fury, more easy to meet than their calm despair. Stepping forward he unhitched the remaining ox, and promised a prompt and sufficient recompense for their loss. The night was closing in upon them, the distance to the post was great, they must make their camp where they were, and in the morning he and the boy could go for assistance.
A busy man that night was Private Austin. He brought a smile to the woman's worn face, he caused the children's merry voices to ring out in the darkness as they drew round the camp-fire. His arms gently shifted the sick man from his hard bed in the wagon to one of gathered leaves and grass that was as down to his tired limbs. He made the girl smile and blush and turn away, only to come again. But a change came over him when all was hushed and silent, when he alone kept watch beside the smoldering campfire. Three times he arose and strode off into the night with his face toward the east, and then turned back.
It was well toward morning and the boy Frank lay sleeping beneath the protecting shelter of the wagon-bed, when a heavy hand was placed upon his shoulder and he awoke. Crimson streaks of light told that the day was near. With a finger on his lips as a sign not to disturb the others, Private Austin motioned the lad to follow him.
“A reward is offered by the government for the return of Private Austin, deserter, late of Company A,” read the placard nailed upon the barrack walls. “A reward is offered by the government for the return of Private Austin, deserter, late of Company A,” read the telegrams that sent out a thrill of greed through the veins of half a score of sleepy sheriffs. “A reward is offered by the government for the return of Private Austin, deserter, late of Company A,” read the colonel in front of the gathered regiment. And then a strange thing happened: across the open space came Private Austin, his hands tied behind him with his own belt, and by his side a half-grown boy with Private Austin's shotgun held in his grasp. To the waiting colonel came the pair.
“Colonel, the boy took me. He gets the reward,” said Private Austin.
REARTON dropped down in the chair I pushed forward.
“Can you give me a moment or two?” he asked.
“As many as you like,” I answered. “Just wait till I put my name to this—” and I signed the letter before me.
He watched me fold and slip it into an envelope, then he said:
“I want your opinion on certain matters.”
“Come now, Rearton,” I entreated. “Let me off if it's to be another talk on spiritualism!”
“Confound it! Why will you persist in calling my beliefs by what to me is the most offensive of names? I recognize the existence of the supernatural. Every intelligent man must.”
“Then, praise heaven, I am not intelligent.”
“I want to ask you this. How much more than you actually see would you be willing to believe?”
“A great deal less,—and even then I question not I'd be pretty well deceived. The evidences of the senses are no evidences at all. They are a cheat ninety-nine times out of a hundred. The testimony of no two witnesses ever tallied exactly, even though they stood side by side looking on the same event.”
“Come, that's a broad statement,” he objected. “Of a very general truth,” I supplemented. “And it holds good from the crucifixion down to the present day, whether the occasion was most momentous or most trivial.”
I was aware that my friend was dabbling in the occult, and if any thing I could say would throw discredit on it I was anxious it should not be left unsaid.
“Look here,” he continued, “supposing I should state to you as a fact susceptible of positive proof, that the future can be made visible to a man.”
“Oh, come!” I interposed. “Let's drop this.”
“No, I can't.” He had become suddenly grave. “I want you to promise me that if I send for you during the next week you will respond to the summons.”
“See here, Rearton,—what folly are you about to engage in?”
“My dear boy, it's not folly! If what I expect happens, I shall be able to gratify a rational desire to read the future,—my own particularly.”
“When you do,” I burst out, “I hope I'll be there to see how the thing's done!”
“That's exactly the favor I'm asking.”
We sat silently looking at each other for a moment. I felt vaguely that my friend was not the man for such experiments. He was far too likely to be the dupe of another's cunning, being sensitive almost to the verge of weakness, essentially a dreamer with all a dreamer's love of the unreal.
“What does Miss Kent say?—does she know?” I asked.
“Miss Kent is quite willing.”
“Probably she agrees with me that it's all a pack of nonsense.”
“There you're mistaken,” he said quickly.
“Faith,—supreme faith,—must be dominant in her character then. Few women would care to have the man they expect to marry forestall time in the fashion you propose.”
“Miss Kent is not the ordinary woman. Her willingness shows sublime faith in our affection.”
“Quite so,—that is if she really thinks it possible.”
“I assure you”—and his pale face flushed—“I assure you she shares my beliefs fully. Why shouldn't the future be as plain as the past?”
“Now see here, Rearton,” I said, “I'm not especially fond of argument, and if I can't swear my way through a dispute it is rather apt to languish as far as I am concerned. One thing I am sure of,—if bare one-half of your good fortune was mine I'd be amply satisfied with the present. Nothing so remote as the future would trouble me.”
Rearton, seeing that I was not inclined to discuss the question he had propounded, took his leave of me.
A day or so later I received a note from him requesting my immediate presence at his apartments. I hastened there. He opened the door himself in response to my knock and I followed him into his room. I could see he was laboring under some great excitement. His first words were evidently intended to explain matters.
“He will be here in a moment.” He spoke hurriedly and in a low voice as though he feared a listener. “The reason I sent for you is because of all my friends I think you are the least likely to be imposed on. I have the uneasy feeling that many of my investigations were not conducted with absolute fairness,—an uncomfortable sensation of having been tricked. Understand me, my faith in the great principle remains unaltered, but the methods used in its demonstration have been unworthy.”
I made a gesture of ridicule and dissent, and he added:
“Your unbelief and doubt are my mainstay. I trust to you to see that what is to follow is carried out in the spirit of truth that prompts the undertaking.”
I was about to make a reply when some one said in a voice of marvelous sweetness and culture:
“If you are ready, gentlemen.”
I turned hastily. Standing beside the door that gave access to my friend's dressing-room was a man in a loose robe of dark and curious fabric. Not the habit, but the man, riveted my attention. I saw a colorless face devoid of beard or mustache, a face incontestably perfect as to feature and outline, but the very antithesis of handsome. The mouth was fine and cruel, the forehead serene and broad, with wonderful eyes that burned and glowed with a peculiar lusterless fire as they met mine. The whole effect was distinctly unpleasant. The man was of the kind that one might imagine murdered from love of crime as an art, to whom profit was secondary to pleasure. I instinctively knew that the quality of his mind, though incomparably acute, was debased and diseased far beyond the limits of the rational, yet nothing could be further removed from insanity nor madness.
Rearton said, “This is my friend,” placing his hand on my arm as he spoke.
The man, having advanced to the center of the room, and acknowledged the introduction by an inclination of the head, said, “Let us begin.” I observed the same quality in his speech that had arrested my attention in his face. Soft and sweet as the tones of his voice were, they were entirely divorced from feeling. It was a soulless perfection.
In the center of the room was a table with three chairs drawn about it. Rearton took the one at the head, and in response to his bidding I seated myself at the foot. The man—medium or whatever he might be—dividing the space between us.
For a moment or two I kept my glance fastened upon him, then I turned to Rearton. A marked change had taken place in his appearance. He had sunk down in his chair in a heap like a drunken man or an imbecile in a period of bodily degeneracy corresponding to the mental. The white of his eyes showed through their half opened lids a dull lead color. His skin was splotched and yellow. He seemed scarcely to breathe. It was altogether horrible!
As I gazed, slowly he straightened up, the lids rolled back, and with a convulsive motion—a nervous tremor—he sat erect, staring at the man. The latter began to sway from side to side, and as the needle follows the magnet, so Rearton's body moved in unison. He was dumbly obedient.
All this while I was far from being unaffected. I don't know that I can better describe my sensations than by saying that flashes of cold coursed through my veins. I had an uncomfortable and cowardly desire to turn and see who was behind me. This continued until I was absolutely chilled and shivering. My head began to swim, a sickening nausea lay hold of me, and still those wonderful eyes against my will and reason held me spellbound. I could not draw away my own from them. I followed their search into futurity.
At last, in desperation, placing my hands upon the table, I sought with the aid of the support it gave to rise. It was all folly! I must throw off this influence—it was a cheat—a swindle... strange that I should be powerless to resist.
Suddenly as I struggled to retain the mastery over my senses a cry of pain escaped my lips. I had received a shock as though the base of my brain had been seared with a red-hot iron. I felt my head go down upon my breast, and then another mind than mine swayed me.
Without any effort on my part, uninfluenced by will or force self-expressed, I turned to Rear-ton; and as I looked at him he grew indistinct—far removed and distant—and yet I knew that by putting out my hand I could touch him. There began to be strange faces that peered on me from out the mist that had fallen on us. They came and went like passing shadows.
This phase of my experience ceased abruptly. Once more I saw Rearton, his glance fixed and unwavering, his lips moving as if in speech. It was the vision of his future that he saw, and what he saw was shown me.
I seemed to know that he was married, and to Miss Kent. This I knew, not as an onlooker, but as his second self; and yet in what was to follow I suffered simply as one suffers with those whom he loves, who bears a portion of their grief through sympathy.
He was living in the rapture of his joy, and obedient to his deep desire, her presence stole from among the shadows that surrounded us and came so near that she stood beside his chair. She was so beautiful with youth and innocence that I heard him murmur her name in an ecstacy of love and tenderness, putting forth his arms as though to take her into his embrace.
Vagueness closed in, shutting out the picture, but only for an instant. It was cleared away, and Rearton was seen kneeling at the foot of a low bed. Hers was the pale face on the pillow. My first thought was that she would die; but it was the beginning, not the end, of life.
As the days came that were made manifest to us, the story was carried on. We saw the child against her breast, she softly singing it to sleep. A thousand gracious things we beheld in those glad days of love.
By slow degrees a change came into their lives. The note of harmony that had been struck, sounded for the last time, and was silent. It was the gradual decay of affection, but so insidious was the transition—so covert the difference—that neither could have said, “Here the evil started.” Soon neglect mounted up and stood for wrong. Again and again they parted, she in tears—he angry and dissatisfied.
Staining the cheeks of Rearton's real self were tears, too. He strove to speak—to contradict the false evidence, to say it should not be as foretold—to comfort her, but his lips refused him utterance.
Slow growing came the change until at last they had drifted far apart, each with separate interests; the only bond between them, the child.
With startling rapidity the pictures flashed back and forth in front of me. She was seated alone before a window that opened out upon a vine-covered balcony. The sweet odor of honeysuckle filled the air. She was a mature woman now,—no longer the girl, no longer the young mother, but the matron whose ripened charms had reached their full perfection. Yet in the gain of years and experience there was plainly evinced a loss to her. She had gained the bitter wisdom that hardens the heart and soul of its possessor.
A man appeared at the window. He seemed to speak her name, for she arose and went to him. At first I thought it might be Rearton, for his head was turned from me, but it was not. It was one whom I had never seen. I did not have to wonder much what brought him there. They were lovers. By gesture and the visible semblance of speech I knew that he entreated her to go with him. She half yielded, only to hesitate. Something held her—some memory—the thought of some duty—not love for her husband. That was dead,—long dead.
At my side the real Rearton sat with hands resting on the table, staring wildly into vacancy. Great drops of sweat stood on his forehead, and the muscles of his throat were knotted as from the mighty but unavailing effort he was making to speak. With merciless strength and cruelty he was chained down to the sight.
He saw the woman he adored, through his neglect and indifference, about to cast away her life. She had all but yielded, when she ran back into the room and paused beneath a picture that hung on the wall. It was of herself when she was a bride. She compared herself with it. They were the same in look and feature,—and yet she had lost so much! Standing on tiptoe, with her small white hand she struck the canvas until it was torn and marred. She would leave no record of the past to mock at her—to tell what she had been!
A few moments sufficed for the work of destruction, and she rejoined the man who had waited for her the while by the window. Together they were advancing toward it, when a figure glided from behind the curtains that closed an inner door. It was Rearton's future self. A polished bit of steel glittered in his hand. He came between them and the balcony.
Thus confronted, the woman sank into a chair, bowing her head in her hands; but more from shame than fright. The two men gazed sternly at each other. Slowly, steadily, Rearton raised the gleaming piece of metal, there was a puff of smoke—another—and another—
With the first one the woman had sprung to her feet and darted forward, throwing herself before the man she loved. With the last puff of smoke she slipped from his arms—for she had sought a refuge there,—falling swiftly to the floor with a little sob of mingled pain and relief that compassed all contentment, for it was distinctly audible, stealing through the silence of the unborn years. A spot of purple darkened the whiteness of her breast.
Seeing what he had done, Rearton fell on his knees beside her and took the heavy head on his shoulder, trying to call her back to life and love. When he saw that all hope was vain, he covered his face with his hands.
Once more the shadows came. Once more the faces filled the air, and the scene had shifted. The signs of unspeakable suffering were stamped upon Rearton's brow when I again saw distinctly. He stood on the deck of a ship, his son at his side. I divined that he had escaped punishment, and was seeking forgetfulness—the unfound—in wanderings to the far ends of the earth. Hiding in his cabin aboard the same ship, they unconscious of his presence, but he conscious of theirs, was the man who had loved Rearton's wife. By what chance they were brought so near was unknown to me. For an instant I observed the three and then they were gone. Space swallowed them up, and only the ocean lay climbing to the moon.
Then came wind and storm, and the waters throbbed against the night, beating its black bosom; but the first streaks of dawn showed both sea and shore,—the sea still vexed by memory of the gale,—and a mighty stretch of sand that rolled before the wind as did the waves. The sun rose red, and showed dark on its crimson rim the solitary figure of a man edging the desert. It was Rearton. He was alone. I saw that his dress was torn and discolored, stained and wet.
All day long, beginning with the dawn, he paced the shores of a little land-locked bay, never taking his eyes from its glassy surface save to search among the wreckage that littered the beach. All day he came and went. All day,—searching,—always searching. Day gave place to night, and the day was born again, and still he passed back and forth scanning the bay with intent glance that sought no relief from the hot reflection of sky and water.
Finally thirst drove him inland to where the starved stream, that gave the greater part of its moisture to the dry and hungry earth, was untainted by the ocean's salt. Across the hot sands each day at evening he made his lonely pilgrimage for the means whereby he might sustain life.
When the waters of the bay were quiet and untroubled, huge bubbles could be seen to rise and break, bursting when the air was reached. Whenever this happened, the watcher would mark the spot with his eye and swim out, diving repeatedly as though seeking for something that lay in the slime at the bottom. But on each occasion he came back empty-handed. Still he waited, making no effort to leave the desolation of which he had become a part.
Many days passed in this manner. One evening when he had gone to the stream, a black and bloated object rose with a single bubble on the bay. And then one by one up came the dead, until a hundred floated on the slack of the tide, or moved lightly, influenced by the imperceptible current. They were the bodies of men and women, with streaming knotted hair to which the seaweed clung. As the tide came in, they drifted to and fro,—ever faster with its increasing flow. Each seemed to hurry in itself,—a silly parody on life and haste. Lashed by the wind, the surf disturbed the smoothness of their resting place. Then a strange thing happened. As the bodies followed back and forth, they smote one against the other, darting from spot to spot, bobbing up and down, or rolling from side to side. At one point when the tide boiled over a sunken ledge of rocks, they had a wild fashion of making the pass so close together that the hindmost would strike those before them with such force in the swiftening current that they would leap their length from the water, or come erect, standing knee-deep in the waves with much waving of stiffened arms. It was the dead at play.
The wind and the waves were going down, sinking with the sun. Still the bodies kept up the chase in the swirling rush of the waters. The moon came up. The tide reached its fulness and stood spreading out on the beach, and the dead were at rest.
Rearton returned and saw the dark things that were black in the shadows of the shore. He waded in among them, pushing his way through the rotting mass that seemed to sob and sigh as they struck one another,—for his progress in their midst created movement. Hours he searched, turning over those that floated face down that he might see their features and miss none. All through the night, aided by the moon's rays, he continued his ghastly quest until it was day.
He, himself, was changing rapidly. The wild light of delirium and madness shone in his bloodshot eyes. As he thrust the drowned bodies from him, I could see him laugh with a foolish hanging of the lip from which the saliva dripped and frothed.
At last when he was on the point of abandoning the search, one body drifted out from the shore until it was fair beneath the moon, and he saw, within the circle of mildew that clung to hair and garment, his son's face. A white film covered the open eyes, the flesh was blue and horribly swollen. Without hesitation he took the hideous reeking mass into his arms and carried it ashore.
I looked again to see the waters, the moon and all beneath the night the bodies of the dead, but they were blotted out. I could see Rearton alone where he had taken the body back from the beach. He had placed it upon the ground and covered it with his coat. Not far off he was on his knees, digging in the loose earth. This was all I saw in the somber grayness of the dawn. Skulking in the gloom that foretold the day came a shape across the waste. It paused upon a hill of sand that the wind had blown together, and with head erect and ears drawn up, sniffed the air. Then it followed the scent.
It came near where Rearton dug with bare hands and a fragment of plank from the wreck. Came near, and squatting down, watched him for a space as he labored. Then with stealthy tread it went forward.
A growl of greedy satisfaction attracted Rear-ton's notice. He looked up and saw the hyena tearing at his son. Snatching up the piece of plank with which he had been digging, he rushed at it. Man and beast met with a shock, and I saw the animal leap repeatedly at Rearton's throat, its teeth tearing and lacerating his face and throat. With the desperate strength born of peril and his madness, he wielded his weapon and succeeded in beating off his furious antagonist. Then a single blow dealt with savage fervor stretched it lifeless at his feet. Without stopping to tie up his wounds he resumed his work upon the grave.
Soon the hole was sufficiently deep, and he placed the body in it and covered it with earth. To make sure that the grave would not be molested, he brought what portions of twisted beams he could carry away from the wreckage that strewed the beach and piled upon it until a great heap marked the place of burial.
Twice the sun sank, and twice it made radiant the heavens before the task was completed to his liking.
He had been mad, crazed by grief and misery, before he found the body of his son. He was further poisoned by the wounds he had received, and because of them he had gone mad as a beast and not as a man. Flakes of foam were thick and white upon his beard; he had a frightful manner of swinging his head from side to side, snapping with his teeth at whatever came within reach.
It was the third day since he had been so. He remained in the vicinity of the solitary grave, not even leaving it to go for water,—that he no longer needed. The grave continued to hold a meaning, though he was far beyond the saying or the knowing why he stayed. It was blind obedience to an impulse or an emotion that survived the extinction of the last spark of human intelligence, in him quenched forever.
His roving glance that shifted constantly, happened to see a cloud of smoke that ascended from a point a mile or so farther up the coast than he had yet gone. For a space this wonder fixed his vacillating interest. A dulled intelligence stirred within him. It drew him in that direction. He went slowly at first, on hands and feet, then standing, he hurried forward at a run almost.
On a tongue of land that projected out boldly into the ocean, a great bonfire had been built and set alight. As the maniac approached, he saw the builder of the fire where he stood between it and the sea, his eyes fastened upon a passing ship. At first the maniac paid no heed to him, but walked around and around the blazing pile. He was unseen, for the man had no thought but for the ship that drew in, guided by flame and smoke. Finally he became aware that he was not alone. He moved back to the fire and Rear-ton saw his face,—the face he had seen last when he had bent over his dead wife where she had fallen. He gazed at his former friend stolidly for a time with unwavering insistence, but by degrees a partial capacity for reason dawned upon him and with it came a measure of memory and hate.
Meanwhile the man was frozen to the spot, horror-stricken by fright of what was revealed to him.
It may have been a minute, it may have been ten, that the maniac and man stood staring at each other; the former with foaming lips that sweated drops of blood; the latter with cheeks that blanched and paled. The man turned toward the ship. Its coming promised safety, should it come in season; and while he did so Rearton advanced a single step, pausing when the man faced him again.
There was power in sanity. It exercised a certain mastery over him. Man and beast stood looking fixedly each at the other, but he could not resist the desire to turn and see from time to time the movements of the ship, and whenever he did so Rearton, crouching low, came closer. For an hour this was the fashion of his advance, and in that hour the man had looked at the approaching ship just thirty times. The maniac had made just thirty forward steps that counted thirty yards. Perhaps there remained ten that separated them.
The ship was stationary, and a boat had left its side and started in. Strong as was his temptation the man dared not look. He kept his face turned to the maniac. He put one foot behind him and fell back in the direction of the beach, moving with the utmost caution. With equal caution the maniac followed.
They had almost reached the water. They heard the distant splash of oars disturb the stillness,—and giving way to weakness, the man withdrew his eyes that he might see the boat. Instantly, with a bound, the maniac darted at him. He gave a smothered cry of rage as he hurled himself on the man, bearing him to earth. There was a short terrific struggle as they wrenched to and fro, his teeth were buried in the man's throat, and mouthing closer with vise-like grips he strangled him to death.
As this was doing the sailors landed, and armed with their oars came near the place where the two men were. Rearton relaxed his hold on the dead man's throat and with an angry snarl sprang at the foremost. With their oars the sailors beat him off and hastily retreating to the boat pushed afloat, still defending themselves against his mad attacks.
When sufficient space was between them, they paused to look and marvel. They could see him alone now in the desert, down on his hands and feet, chasing and biting at the cloud shadows that drifted over the waste and sandy plain and fruitless earth.
Slowly, lurching forward by stealth and cunning across the table, came Rearton's actual self. He was frothing at the mouth, his face showed red with livid scars. Nearer—nearer he came, until I felt his hot breath touch me. I could not move... but fear gave me power... by a mighty effort I sprang to my feet, breaking the spell. Still he followed me on hands and knees over the table. It was no fancy. I saw him with unclouded senses. I could see the flakes of foam upon his lips,—for there they were!—I could see the livid cuts and bloodshot eyes. He was mad. The vision had become the reality. So bestial was he, so awful and inhuman, that without a thought of pity for him I snatched up the chair in which I had been sitting, and swung it up above my head. He crept nearer in his hideousness. The chair quivered in my clutch, ready to fall. It was his life or mine,—and he was mad.
But I was saved the after pain and remorse that would have been mine had he taken hurt or harm at my hands. 'The man who had done this thing, who was destined to answer for this sin of his committing, glided in between us. Rearton, where he crouched in readiness to spring at me, glanced up, his interest diverted for the moment, and his eyes met those that were so strangely dark and luminous. He wavered beneath the compelling force they exercised,—wavered for one brief instant and then with a whine like a dog's for mercy, fell down at the man's feet, licking the floor with his black and swollen tongue.
I waited to see no more, but rushed from the room out in the street. I had no conception of the time we had spent together, but it must have been hours and hours, for the streets were deserted and empty. I judged it to be long after midnight.
For a while I walked aimlessly about, seeking to calm and rid myself of a portion of my horror. Eventually pride and a sense of affectionate pity for Rearton returned. Maybe it was all a vision,—the last as false and unreal as the first! Though I tried to convince myself of this, it was only by the strongest exertion of will that I was enabled to mount the flight of stairs that led to my friend's apartments.
I listened in front of the door for an instant. No sound came from within. With a hand that trembled violently, I pushed it open and entered the room. There on the floor were Rearton and the man,—now the victim of his victim. Rear-ton's teeth had torn his face and breast in a shocking manner, and their last fatal hold was at his throat, on which they were firmly set. Both were dead. About the room the broken furniture gave every evidence of a frightful and prolonged struggle.