"Beautiful!" said Pepeeta.

"Hush! See there!" Steven exclaimed, in an undertone, and pointing to a spot where a fish had broken the still surface as he leaped for a fly and plunged back again into the depths.

His eye glowed, and his whole figure vibrated with excitement.

"And did your Uncle David used to bring you here?" Pepeeta asked.

"Well, I should say," he whispered. "He used to bring me here when I was such a little fellow that he sometimes had to carry me on his back. He was the greatest fisherman thee ever saw. I cannot fish so well myself!"

And with this ingenuous avowal, at which Pepeeta smiled appreciatively, they laid their baskets down, and Steven began preparing the rude tackle.

"Did thee ever bait a hook, Pepeeta?" he asked under his breath.

"I never did, but I think I can," she answered doubtfully.

And then he laughed again, not loudly, but in a fine chuckle which gave vent to his joy and expressed his incredulity in a manner fitting such solitude.

"If thee cannot skip a stone I should like to know what makes thee think that thee can bait a hook," he said, still speaking in low whispers. "I have seen lots of girls try it, but I never saw one succeed. Just the minute they touch the worm they begin to squeal, and when they try to stick it on the hook, they generally, have a sort of fit. So I guess thee had better not try. Just let me do it for thee; I'll fix it just as my Uncle David used to for me when I was a little fellow, and helpless like a girl." Pepeeta laughed, and Steven laughed with her, although he did not know for what, and they took their poles and sat down by the side of the stream, the child intent on the sport and the woman intent on the child.

He was an adept in that gentle art which has claimed the devotion of so many elect spirits, and gave his soul up to his work with an entire abandon. The waters were seldom disturbed in those early days when the country was sparsely settled, and the fish took the bait recklessly. One after another the boy flung them out upon the bank with smothered exclamations of delight, with which he mingled reproaches and sympathy for Pepeeta's lack of success.

She was catching fish he knew not of, drawing them one by one out of the deep pools of memory and imagination.

There is one thing dearer to a boy than catching fish. That is cooking and eating them.

Hunger began at last to gnaw at Steven's vitals and to make itself imperatively felt. He looked up at the sun as if to tell the time by its location, though in reality he regulated his movements by that infallible horologue ticking beneath his jacket.

"It must be after twelve," he said, although it was not yet eleven.

"Where are we going to have our dinner?" Pepeeta asked.

"Come, and I will show thee," he replied, flinging down his pole and gathering his fish together.

Pepeeta followed him as he led the way up from the river's side to a ledge of rocks that frowned above it.

Rounding a cliff, they came suddenly upon the mouth of a cave where Steven threw down the fish, assumed an air of secrecy, took Pepeeta by the hand and led her toward it, whispering:

"This is the robbers' cave."

"And is it within its dark recesses that we are to eat our dinner?" Pepeeta asked, imitating his melodramatic manner.

"Yes! No one in the world knows of it, but Uncle Dave and me. We always used to cook our dinner here, and play we were robbers."

Pepeeta saw the ashes of fires which had been built at the entrance, an old iron kettle hanging on a projecting root, a coffee pot standing on a ledge of a rock, and fragments of broken dishes scattered about, and entered with all her heart into an adventure so suddenly recalling the vanished scenes of her gypsy childhood. The eyes of the boy glistened with delight as he perceived the unmistakable evidences of her enjoyment.

"And so this is your secret!" she exclaimed.

"Not by a good deal!" he answered, "Thee is not to know the real secret until we have had our dinner. I will build the fire and clean the fish, and if thee knows how, thee can cook them."

"Oh, you need not think I don't know anything—just because I cannot skip stones and bait hooks," Pepeeta said gaily, and with that they both bustled about and before long the smoke was curling up into the still air, and the fragrant odor of coffee was perfuming the wilderness.

While they were waiting for the fish to fry, Pepeeta regaled her enchanted listener with such fragments of the story of her gypsy life as she could piece together out of the wrecks of that time. He was overpowered with astonishment, and the idea that he was sitting opposite to a real gypsy, at the mouth of a cave, filled up the measure of his romantic fancy and perfected his happiness. He hung upon her words and kept her talking until the last crust had been devoured and she had repeated again and again the most trivial remembrances of those far off days.

The boy's bliss had reached its utmost limit, and yet had not surpassed the woman's. The vigorous walk through the woods; the silent ministrations of nature; the simple food; the sweet imaginative associations with David; but above all that most recreative force in nature,—the presence and prattle of a child,—filled her sad heart with a happiness of which she had believed herself forever incapable.

They sat for a few moments in silence, after Pepeeta had finished one of her most charming reminiscences, and then Steven, springing to his feet, exclaimed:

"Why, Pepeeta, we have forgotten the secret! Come and I will show it to thee."

She took his proffered hand and was led into the depths of the cavern.

"Thee must shut thy eyes," he said.

"Oh! but I am so frightened," she answered, pretending to shudder and draw back.

"Thee need not be afraid. I will protect thee," he said, reassuringly.

She obeyed him, and they moved forward.

"Are thy eyes shut tight? How many fingers do I hold up?" he asked, raising his hand.

"Six," she answered.

"All right; there were only two," he said, convinced and satisfied.

He led her along a dozen steps or so, and then halted.

"Turn this way," swinging her about; "do not open thy eyes till I tell thee. There—now!"

For an instant the darkness seemed impenetrable; but there was enough of a faint light, rather like pale belated moonbeams than the brightness of the sun, to enable her to read her own name carved upon the smooth wall of rock.

"Ah! little deceiver, when did you do this?" she asked, touched by his gallantry.

"Do this! Why, Pepeeta, I did not do it," he answered, surprised and taken back by her misunderstanding.

"You did not do it?" she asked, astonished in her turn. "Who did it if you did not?"

"Why—can't thee guess?" he asked.

And then it slowly dawned upon her that it was the work of her lover, done in those days when he wandered about the country restless and tormented by his passion. His own dear hand had traced those letters on the rock!

She kissed them, and burst into tears.

This was an indescribable shock to the child, who had anticipated a result so different, and he sprang to her side, embraced her in his young arms and cried:

"What is the matter, Pepeeta? I did not mean to make thee sad; I meant to make thee happy! Oh, do not cry!"

"You have made me a thousand times glad, my dear boy," she said, kissing him gratefully. "You could not in any other way in the world give me such happiness as this. But did you not know that we can cry because we are glad as well as because we are sad?"

"I have never heard of that," he answered wonderingly.

She did not reply, for her attention reverted to the letters on the wall and she stood feeding her hungry eyes upon that indubitable proof of the devotion of her lover.

The child's instinct taught him the sacredness of the privacy of grief and love. He freed himself from her embrace, slipped out of the cave and left her alone. She laid her cheek against the rude letters, patted them with her hand, and kissed them again and again. It was bliss to know that she had inspired this passion, although it was agony to know that it was only a memory.

The remembrance of feasts once eaten is not only no solace to physical hunger, but adds unmitigated torment to it. It is different with the hunger of the heart, which finds a melancholy alleviation in feeding upon those shadows which reality has left. The food is bitter-sweet and the alleviation is not satisfaction, but neither is it starvation! Probably a real interview with a living, present lover, would not have given to Pepeeta that intense, though poignant, happiness which transfigured her face when she came forth into the daylight world, and which subdued and softened the noisy welcome of the boy.



CHAPTER XXVI.

OUT OF THE SHADOW

"Until the day break and the shadows flee away."

—Song of Solomon.

In due time the vessel upon which David had embarked arrived at her destination, the city of New York, and the lonely traveler stepped forth unnoticed and unknown into the metropolis of the New World.

With, an instinct common to all adventurers, he made his way to the Bowery, that thoroughfare whose name and character dispute the fame of the Corso, the Strand and the Rue de Rivoli.

Amid its perpetual excitements and boundless opportunities for adventure, David resumed the habits formed during that period of life upon which the doors had now closed. His reputation had followed him, and the new scenes, the physical restoration during the long voyage, the necessity of maintaining his fame, all conspired to help him take a place in the front rank of the devotees of the gambling rooms.

He did his best to enter into this new life with enthusiasm, but it had no power to banish or even to allay his grief. He therefore spent most of his time in wandering about among the wonders of the swiftly-growing city, observing her busy streets, her crowded wharfs, her libraries, museums and parks. This moving panorama temporarily diverted his thoughts from that channel into which they ever returned, and which they were constantly wearing deeper and deeper, and so helped him to accomplish the one aim of his wretched life, which was to become even for a single moment unconscious of himself and of his misery.

He had long ceased to ponder the problems of existence, for his philosophy of life had reached its goal at the point where he was too tired and broken-hearted to think. He could hardly be said to "live" any longer, and his existence was scarcely more than a vegetation. Like a somnambulist, he received upon the pupils of his eye impressions which did not awaken a response in his reason.

If any general conceptions at all were being formed he was unconscious of them. What he really thought of the phenomena of life upon which he thus blindly stared, he could not have definitely told; but in some vague way he felt as he gazed at the multitudes of human beings swarming through the streets, that all were, like himself, the victims of some insane folly which had precipitated them into some peculiar form of misery or crime.

And so, as he peered into their faces, he would catch himself wondering what wrong this man had done, what sin that woman had committed, and what sorrow each was suffering. That all must be in some secret way guilty and miserable, he could not doubt, for it seemed to him impossible that in this world of darkness and disorder, any one should have been able to escape being deceived and victimized. "No man," he thought, "can pick his way over all these hot plowshares without stepping on some of them. None can run this horrible gauntlet without being somewhere struck and wounded. What has befallen me, has in some form or other befallen them all. They are trying, just as I am, to conceal their sorrows and their crimes from each other. There is nothing else to do. There is no such thing as happiness. There is nothing but deception. Some of the keener ones see through my mask as I see through theirs. And yet some of them smile and look as gay as if they were really happy. Perhaps I can throw off this weight that is crushing me, as they have thrown off theirs—if I try a little harder." Such were the reflections which revolved ceaselessly within his brain.

But his efforts were in vain. In this life he had but a single consolation, and that was in a friendship which from its nature did not and could not become an intimacy.

Among the many acquaintances he had made in that realm of life to which his vices and his crimes had consigned him, a single person had awakened in his bosom emotions of interest and regard. There was in that circle of silent, terrible, remorseless parasites of society, a young man whose classical face, exquisite manners and varied accomplishments set him apart from all the others. He moved among them like a ghost,—mysterious, uncommunicative and unapproachable.

He had inspired in his companions a sort of unacknowledged respect, from the superiority of his professional code of ethics, for he never preyed upon the innocent, the weak, or the helpless, and gambled only with the rich or the crafty. He victimized the victimizers, and signalized his triumph with a mocking smile in which there was no trace of bitterness, but only a gentle and humorous irony.

From the time of their first meeting he had treated David in an exceptional manner. In unobserved ways he had done him little kindnesses, and proffered many delicate advances of friendship, and not many months passed before the two lonely, suspicious and ostracized men united their fortunes in a sort of informal partnership and were living in common apartments.

The most marked characteristic of this restricted friendship was a disposition to respect the privacy of each other's lives and thoughts. In all their intercourse through the year in which they had been thus associated they had never obtruded their personal affairs upon each other, nor pried into each other's secrets.

There was in Foster Mantel a sort of sardonic humor into which he was always withdrawing himself. In one of their infrequent conversations the two companions had grown unusually confidential and found themselves drifting a little too near that most dangerous of all shoals in the lives of such men—the past.

With a swift, instinctive movement both of them turned away. Each read in the other's face consciousness of the impossibility of discussing those experiences through which they had come to be what they were. Such men guard the real history of their lives and the real emotions of their hearts as jealously as the combinations of their cards. The old, ironical smile lighted up Mantel's features, and he said:

"We seem to have a violent antipathy to thin ice, Davy, and skate away from it as soon as it begins to crack a little beneath our feet."

"Yes," said his friend, shrugging his shoulders, "it is not pleasant to fall through the crust of friendship. There is a sub-element in every life a too sudden plunge into which might result in a fatal chill. We had all better keep on the surface. I am frank enough to say that the less any one knows about my past, the better I shall be satisfied."

"I wish that I could keep my own self from invading that realm as easily as I can keep others! Why is it that no man has ever yet been able to 'let the dead past bury its dead'? It seems a reasonable demand."

"He is a poor sexton—this old man, the Past. I have watched him at his work, and he is powerless to dig his own grave, however many others he may have excavated!"

"The Present seems as helpless as the Past. I wonder if the future will heap enough new events over old ones to hide them from view?"

"Let a shadow bury the sun! Let a wave bury the sea," answered David bitterly.

"I am afraid you take life too seriously," said Mantel, on whose face appeared that inexplicable smile behind which he constantly retired. "For, after all, life is nothing but a jest—a grim one, to be sure, but still a jest. The great host who entertains us in the banqueting hall of the universe must have his fun as well as any one, and we must laugh at his jokes even when they are at our expense. This is the least that guests can do."

"What, even when they writhe with pain?"

"Why not? We all have our fun! You used to scare timid little girls with jack-lanterns, put duck eggs under the old hen, and tie tin cans to dogs' tails. Where did you learn these tricks, if not from the great Trickmaster himself? Humor is hereditary! We get it from a divine original, and the Archetypal Joker must have His fun. It is better to take His horseplay in good part. We cannot stop Him, and we may as well laugh at what amuses Him. There is just as much fun in it as a fellow is able to see!"

"Then there is none, for I cannot see any. But if you get the comfort you seem to out of this philosophy of yours, I envy you. What do you call it? There ought to be a name for a metaphysic which seems to comprehend all the complex phenomena of life in one single, simple, principle of humor!"

"How would 'will-o'-the-wispism' do? There is a sort of elusive element in life, you see. Nature has no goal, yet leads us along the pathway by shows, enchantments and promises. She pays us in checks which she never cashes. She holds out a glittering prize, persuades us that it is worth any sacrifice, and when we make it, the bubble bursts, the sword descends, and you hear a low chuckle."

"You have described her method well enough, but how is it that you get your fun out of your knowledge?"

"It is the illusion itself! The boy chasing the rainbow is happier than the man counting his gold!"

"But what of that dreadful day of disenchantment when the illusion no longer deceives?"

"Ha! ha! Why, just put on your mask and smile. You can 'make believe' you are happy, can't you?"

"I have got beyond that," David answered savagely. "I am not sitting for my picture to this great, grim artist friend of yours, who first sticks a knife into me, and then tells me to look pleasant that he may photograph me for his gallery of fools! I am tired of shams and make-believes. Life is a hideous mockery, and I say plainly that I loathe and abhor it!"

"Tush, tush, whatever else you do or do not do, keep sweet, David! Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad! You take yourself and your life too seriously, I tell you. Everything will go its own way whether you want it to or not! I used to read the classics, once, and some fragments of those old fellows' sublime philosophy are still fresh in my memory. There is a scrap in one of the Greek tragedies—the Oedipus, I think, that has always kept running through my head:

"'Why should we fear, when Chance rules everything, And foresight of the future there is none? 'Tis best to live at random as we can! But thou, fear not that marriage with thy mother! Many, ere now, have dreamed of things like this, But who cares least about them, bears life best!'

"There is wisdom for you! 'Who cares least about them bears life best!' It's my philosophy in a nut-shell."

"Look here, Mantel," said David, "your philosophy may be all right, provided a man has not done a—provided—provided a man has not committed a-a crime! I don't care anything about your past in detail; but unless you have done some deed that hangs around your neck like a mill-stone, you don't know anything about the subject you are discussing."

Mantel dropped his eyes, and sat in silence. For the first time since David had known him, his fine face gave some genuine revelation of the emotions of his soul. Great tears gathered in his eyes, and his lips trembled. In a moment, he arose, took his hat, laid his hand gently upon the arm of his friend, and said "David, my dear fellow, we are skating on that thin ice again. We shall fall through if we are not careful, and get that chill you were talking about. Let's go out and take a walk. Life is too deep for either you or me to fathom. I gave it up as a bad job long ago. What you just said about having a knife stuck into you comes the nearest to my own notion. I feel a good deal as I fancy a butterfly must when he has been intercepted in a gay and joyous flight and stuck against the wall with a sharp pin, among a million other specimens which the great entomologist has gathered for some purpose which no one but himself can understand. All I try to do is to smile enough to cover up my contortions. Come, let us go. We need the air."

They went down into the streets and lost themselves in the busy crowd of care-encumbered men. Half unconscious of the throngs which jostled them, they strolled along Broadway, occasionally pausing to gaze into a shop window, to rest on a seat in a park, to listen to a street musician, or to watch some passing incident in the great panorama which is ever unrolling itself in that brilliant and fascinating avenue.

Suddenly Mantel was startled by an abrupt change in the manner of his companion, who paused and stood as if rooted to the pavement, while his great blue eyes opened beyond their natural width with a fixed stare.

Following the direction of their gaze, Mantel saw that they were fixed on a blind beggar who sat on a stool at the edge of the sidewalk, silent and motionless like an old snag on the bank of a river—the perpetual stream of human life forever flowing by. His head was bare; in his outstretched hand he held a tin cup which jingled now and then as some compassionate traveler dropped him a coin; by his side, looking up occasionally into his unresponsive eyes, was a little terrier, his solitary companion and guide in a world of perpetual night.

The face of the man was a remarkable one, judged by almost any standard. It was large in size, strong in outline, and although he was a beggar, it wore an expression of power, of independence and resolution like that of another Belisarius. But the feature which first arrested and longest held attention, was an enormous mustache. It could not have been less than fourteen inches from tip to tip, was carefully trimmed and trained, and although the man himself was still comparatively young, was white as snow. Occasionally he set his cup on his knee and with both hands twisted the ends into heavy ropes.

It was a striking face and exacted from every observer more than a passing look; but remarkable as it was, Mantel could not discover any reason for the strained and terrible interest of his companion, who stood staring so long and in such a noticeable way, that he was in danger of himself attracting the attention of the curious crowd.

Seeing this, Mantel took him by the arm. "What is the matter?" he asked.

David started. "My God," he cried, drawing his hand over his eyes like a man awakening from a dream; "it is he!"

"It is who? Are you mad! Come away! People are observing you. If there is anything wrong, we must move or get into trouble."

"Let me alone!" David replied, shaking off his hand. "I would rather die than lose sight of that man."

"Then come into this doorway where you can watch him unobserved, for you are making a spectacle of yourself. Come, or I shall drag you."

With his eyes still riveted on that strange countenance, David yielded to the pressure of his friend's hand and they retired to a hallway whence he could watch the beggar unobserved. His whole frame was quivering with excitement and he kept murmuring to himself: "It is he. It is he! I cannot be mistaken! Nature never made his double! But how he has changed! How old and white he is! It cannot be his ghost, can it? If it were night I might think so, but it is broad daylight! This man is living flesh and blood and my hand is not, after all, the hand of a mur—"

"Hush!" cried Mantel; "you are talking aloud!"

"Yes, I am talking aloud," he answered, "and I mean to talk louder yet! I want you to hear that I am not a murderer, a murderer! Do you understand? I am going to rush out into the streets to cry out at the top of my voice—I am not a murderer!"

Terrified at his violence, Mantel pushed him farther back into the doorway; but he sprang out again as if his very life depended upon the sight of the great white face.

"Be quiet!" Mantel cried, seizing his arm with an iron grip.

The pain restored him to his senses. "What did I say?" he asked anxiously.

"You said, 'I am not a murderer,'" Mantel whispered.

"And it is true! I am not!" he replied, with but little less violence than before.

"Look at this hand, Mantel! I have not looked at it myself for more than three years without seeing spots of blood on it! And now it looks as white as snow to me! See how firm I can hold it! And yet through all those long and terrible years, it has trembled like a leaf. Tell me, am I not right? Is it not white and firm?"

"Yes, yes. It is; but hush. You are in danger of being overheard, and if you are not careful, in a moment more we shall be in the hands of the police!"

"No matter if I am," he cried, almost beside himself, and rapturously embracing his friend. "Nothing could give me more pleasure than a trial for my crime, for my victim would be my witness! He is not dead. He is out there in the street. Mantel, you don't know what happiness is! You don't know how sweet it is to be alive! A mountain has been taken from my shoulders. I no longer have any secret! I will tell you the whole story of my life, now."

"Not now; but later on, when we are alone. Let us leave this spot and go to our rooms."

"No, no! Don't stir! We might lose him, and if we did, I could never persuade myself that this was not a dream! We will stay here until he leaves, and then we will follow him and prove beyond a doubt that this is a real man and not the vision of an overheated brain. We will follow him, I say, and if he is really flesh and blood, and not a poor ghost, we will help him, you and I. Poor old man! How sad he looks! And no wonder! You don't know of what I robbed him!"

David had now grown more quiet, and they stood patiently waiting for the time to come when the old beggar should leave his post and retire to his home, if home he had.

At last he received his signal for departure. A shadow fell from the roof of the tall building opposite, upon the pupil of an eye, which perhaps felt the darkness it could not see. The building was his dial. Like millions of his fellow creatures, he measured life by advancing shadows.

He arose, and in his mien and movements there was a certain majesty. Placing his hat upon his storm-beaten head, he folded the camp-chair under his arm, took the leading string in his hand and followed the little dog, who began picking his way with fine care through the surging crowd.

Behind him at a little distance walked the two gamblers, pursuing him like a double shadow. A bloodhound could not have been more eager than David was. He trembled if an omnibus cut off his view for a single instant, and shuddered if the beggar turned a corner.

Unconscious of all this, the dog and his master wended their way homeward. They crawled slowly and quietly across a street over which thundered an endless procession of vehicles; they moved like snails through the surf of the ocean of life. Arriving at length at the door of a wretched tenement house, the blind man and his dog entered.

As he noted the squalor of the place, David murmured to himself, "Poor old man! How low he has fallen!"

Several minutes passed in silence, while he stood reflecting on the doctor's misery, his own new happiness and the opportunities and duties which the adventure had opened and imposed. At last he said to his friend, "Do you know where we are? I was so absorbed that I didn't notice our route at all."

"Yes," Mantel answered. "I have marked every turn of the way."

"Could you find the place again?"

"Without the slightest difficulty."

"Be sure, for if you wish to help me, as I think you do, you will have to come often. I have made my plans in the few moments in which I have been standing here, and am determined to devote my life, if need be, to this poor creature whom I have so wronged. I must get him out of this filthy hole into some cheerful place. I will atone for the past if I can! Atone! What a word that is! With what stunning force its meaning dawns upon me! How many times I have heard and uttered it without comprehension. But somehow I now see in it a revelation of the sweetest possibility of life. Oh! I am a changed man; I will make atonement! Come, let us go. I am anxious to begin. But no, I must proceed with caution. How do I know that this is his permanent home? He may be only lodging for the night, and when you come to-morrow, he may be gone! Go in, Mantel, and make sure that we shall find him here to-morrow. Go, and while you find out all you can about him, I will begin to search for such a place as I want to put him in. We will part for the present; but when we meet to-night we shall have much to talk about. I will tell you the whole of this long and bitter story. I am so happy, Mantel. You can't understand! I have something to live for now. I will work, oh, you do not know how I will work to make this atonement. What a word it is! It is music to my ears. Atonement!"

And so in the lexicon of human experience he had at last discovered the meaning of one of the great words of our language. After all, experience is the only exhaustive dictionary, and the definitions it contains are the only ones which really burn themselves into the mind or fully interpret the significances of life.

To every man language is a kind of fossil poetry, until experience makes those dry bones live! Words are mere faded metaphors, pressed like dried flowers in old and musty volumes, until a blow upon our heads, a pang in our hearts, a strain on our nerves, the whisper of a maid, the voice of a little child, turns them into living blossoms of odorous beauty.



CHAPTER XXVII.

IF THINE ENEMY HUNGER

"Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be times in his life when he has one too few; but if he has only one enemy, he is lucky indeed if he has not one too many."

—Bulwer-Lytton.

The blow struck by David had stunned the doctor, but had not killed him. He lay in the road until a slave, passing that way, picked him up and carried him to a neighboring plantation, where he fell into the hands of people who in the truest sense of the word were good Samaritans. Their hospitality was tested to the utmost, for he lay for weeks in a stupor, and when he recovered consciousness his reason had undergone a strange eclipse. For a long time he could not recall a single event in his history and when at last some of the most prominent began to re-present themselves to his view it was vaguely and slowly, as mountain-peaks and hill-tops break through a morning mist. This was not the only result of the blow which his rival had struck him; it had left him totally blind. Nothing could have been more pitiful than the sight of this once strong man, more helpless than an infant, sitting in the sun where kind hands had placed him. Months elapsed before he regained anything that could be called a clear conception of the past. It did at length return, however. Slowly, but with terrible distinctness he recalled the events which preceded and brought about this tragedy. And as he reflected upon them, jealousy, hatred and revenge boiled in his soul and finally crystallized into the single desperate purpose to find and crush the man who had wrecked his life.

He kept his story to himself; but made furtive inquiries of his new-found friends and of the slaves and neighbors, none of which enabled him to discover the slightest clue to the fugitives. So far as he could learn, the earth might have opened and swallowed them, and so when he had exhausted the sources of information in the region where the accident occurred, he determined to go elsewhere.

Refusing the kind offers of a permanent refuge in the home of these hospitable Kentuckians, he made his way back to Cincinnati, where he hoped not only to find traces of the fugitives, but to recover the jewels which Pepeeta had left behind her on the table, and which in his frantic haste he had forgotten to take with him.

He learned the history of the jewels in a few short hours. Not long after his own sudden disappearance and that of David and Pepeeta, the judge had called at the hotel with an order for his property. The unsuspecting landlord had honored it, and the judge not long afterward left for parts unknown.

This discovery not only turned his rage to frenzy, but increased his difficulties a hundred fold. Without friends and without money, he set himself to attain revenge. Before a purpose so resolute, many obstacles at once gave way, and although he could find no traces of David and Pepeeta, he discovered that the judge had fled to New York City, and thither he determined to go.

Procuring a little terrier, through the charity of strangers, he trained him to be his guide, and started on his pilgrimage. Many weeks were consumed in the journey and many more in hopeless efforts to discover the thief. Through the aid of an old Cincinnati friend whom he accidentally encountered he located the fugitive at last; but in a cemetery! Ill-gotten wealth had precipitated the final disaster, for having turned the diamonds into money the fugitive entered upon a debauch which terminated in a horrible death. At the side of a grave in the potter's field, the sexton one day saw a blind man leaning on a cane. After a long silence, he stooped down, felt carefully over the low ground as if to assure himself of something, then rose, lifted his cane to heaven, waved it wildly, muttered what sounded like imprecations, and soon after followed a little terrier to the gate of the cemetery and disappeared.

It was the doctor. One of his enemies had escaped him forever, and the trail of the others seemed hopelessly lost in the darkness which had settled down upon him. There was nothing left for him but to beg his living and impotently nourish his hate.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

A MAN CROSSED WITH ADVERSITY

"One sole desire, one passion now remains To keep life's fever still within his veins, Vengeance! dire vengeance on the wretch who cast O'er him and all he loved that ruinous blast."

—Lalla Rookh.

It was late in the evening when David returned to his apartments, excited, triumphant, eager.

"Well," he cried, rushing impetuously up to Mantel, who stood waiting for him. "Is he still there? Is that place really his home?"

"Yes," his friend answered; "he has lived there for more than a year, in solitude and poverty. His health is very poor and he is growing steadily weaker. He has declined so much recently that now he does not venture out until the afternoon."

"Feeble, is he? Poor old man!" exclaimed David. "But at least he is not dead, and while there is life there is hope! I am not a murderer, and there is a possibility of my making atonement! How I cling to that idea, Mantel! In a single hour I have enjoyed more happiness than I thought a whole lifetime could contain. But even in this indescribable happiness there is a strange element of unrest, for it seems too good to last. Is all great gladness haunted by this apprehension of evanescence? But at any rate, I am happy now!"

"And I am almost happy in your happiness," responded his friend, his face lighted up by an altogether new and beautiful smile.

"Sit down, then," said David, giving him a chair and standing opposite to him, "and I will tell you my story."

Words cannot describe the emotion, nay the passion, with which he poured that tragic narrative into the ears of his eager and sympathetic listener.

Never was a story told to a more attentive and appreciative auditor. There must have been some buried sorrow in that heart which had rendered it sensitive to the griefs of others. Hours were consumed by this narrative and by the questions which had to be asked and answered, and it was long after midnight when David found time to say, "And now shall I tell you my plans for the future?"

"Yes, if you will," said Mantel.

"Well, I have rented a sunny room in a lodging house in a quiet street, and to-morrow, if you are willing, you shall go and lead him to it. I must lean upon you, Mantel; I dare not make myself known to him. He would never accept my aid if he knew by whom it was bestowed, for he is proud and revengeful and would give himself no rest night or day until he had my life, if he knew I was within reach. I do not fear him; but what good could come of his wreaking vengeance on me, richly as I deserve it? It would only make his destiny more dark and dreadful, and defeat the one chance I have of making an atonement. You do not think I ought to make myself known, do you?"

"I do not. I think with you that an atonement is the most perfect satisfaction of justice."

"Thank you, thank you, my dear friend. You do not know how glad I am to have you think I am doing right. You will go to him to-morrow, then, and you will tell him that some one who has seen him on the streets has taken compassion on him. You will do this, will you not?"

"Nothing could give me greater pleasure. I half feel as if I had participated with you in the wrong done to the old man, and that I shall be blessed with you in trying to make it right."

"That is good in you, Mantel. How much nobility lies buried in every human heart! It may be that even such men as you and I are capable of some sort of rescue and redemption. I am going to spend my best strength in working for this poor old blind beggar whom I have wronged. I mean to toil for him like a galley slave, and mark me, Mantel, it is going to be honest toil!"

"Honest, did you say?" asked Mantel, lifting his eyebrows incredulously.

"Yes," David answered, "honest. This hope that has come to me has wrought a great change in my heart. It has revived old feelings which I thought long dead. If there is a God in heaven who has decided to give me one more chance to set myself right, I am going to take it! And listen; if this great hope can come to me, why not to you?"

Mantel leaned his head on his hand a moment, and then answered with a sigh, "Perhaps—but," and paused.

There are moments when these two indefinite words contain the whole of our philosophy of existence. "I am going to seek the great Perhaps!" said Rabelais, as he breathed his last.

David looked at him sympathetically and said, "Well, it is not strange that you cannot feel as I do. It is not by what befalls others, but by what befalls ourselves, that we learn to hope and trust."

The silence that came between them was broken by Mantel, who looked up at him with a trace of the old ironical smile on his face.

"Your plans are all right as far as they go, but it seems to me the hardest part of the tangle still remains to be unraveled."

"What do you mean?" asked David.

"What are you going to do about this beautiful Pepeeta?"

"Oh, I have settled that, too! You do not know how clearly I see it all. It is as if a fog had lifted from the ocean, and the sailor had found himself inside the harbor. I shall write and tell her all."

"Do you mean that you will tell her that her husband is alive?"

"I do."

"And perhaps you will advise her to return to him!"

"You are right, I shall."

Mantel shook his head.

"You do not think it best?" said David.

"I do not know."

"But there is nothing else to do."

"It is natural that I should see only the difficulties."

"What difficulties can there be?"

"Will you do anything more than destroy her by binding her once more to the man she loathes?"

"You do not know Pepeeta."

"It is true, I only know human nature."

"But she is more than human!"

"And are you?"

"Not I!"

"Then how will you endure to see her once more the wife of your enemy and rival?"

"Mantel," said David, pausing in his restless walk across the room, "I do not wonder that you ask this. It was the first question that I asked myself. It struck my heart like the blow of a hammer. But I have settled it. I have weighed the pains which I have suffered in a just and even balance. I know I cannot escape suffering, whichever way I turn. I have felt the pains of doing wrong, and I now deliberately choose the pains of doing right, let them be what they will!"

"It is easy to scorn the bitterness of an untasted cup."

"No matter! I have settled it. It must be done."

Mantel shrugged his shoulders and said, "I am afraid that the great Joker of whom we were talking yesterday is about to perpetrate another of his jests."

"You think it absurd, then?"

"I regard it as impossible."

"But why?"

"Because you are making a plan to act as if you were a disembodied conscience. You have forgotten that you still have the passions of a man. I fear there will be another tragedy as dark as the first. But if you are determined, I must obey you. I never know how to act for myself; but if some one wishes me to act for him I can do so without fear, even if I am compelled to do so without hope."

David resumed his walk for a moment, and then pausing again before his friend, said, "Mantel, a few years ago my soul was so sensitive to truth and duty that I was accustomed to regard its intuitions as the will of God revealed to me in some sort of supernatural way. I acted on the impulses of my heart without the slightest question or hesitation, and during that entire period of my life I cannot remember that I was ever for a single time seriously mistaken or misled. While I obeyed those intuitions and followed that mysterious light, I was happy. When I turned my back on that light it ceased to shine. It has been more than two years since I have thought I heard the voice of God or felt any assurance that I was in the path of duty. But now the departed vision has returned! I have had as clear a perception of my duty as was ever vouchsafed me in the old sweet days, and I shall obey it if it costs me my life."

So deep was his earnestness that Mantel seemed to catch his enthusiasm and be convinced. But in another instant the old mocking smile had returned.

"Would you be so tractable and obedient if the old beggar were in better health?" he said, opening and shutting the leaves of a book which was lying on the table, and looking out from under half-lifted eyelids.

At this insinuation David winced, and for a moment seemed about to resent it. But he restrained himself and replied gently, "The same distrust of my motives has arisen in my own mind. I more than half suspect that if, as you say, the old beggar were young and strong, my heart would fail me. But the knowledge that I could not do my duty if the doctor were going to live cannot be any reason for my not doing it when I believe that he is likely to die! I am not called upon to do wrong simply because I see that I am not wholly unselfish in doing right. I am not asked to face a supposition, but a fact. I shall not pride myself on any righteousness that I do not possess; but I must not be kept from doing my duty because I am not a perfect man."

"You are right," said Mantel, but his assent seemed more like a concession than a conviction. He had grown to regard the passing panorama of life as a great spectacular exhibition. The actors seemed swayed by powers external to themselves, their movements exhibiting such gross inconsistencies as to make it impossible to predict, and almost impossible to guess them. He looked on with more curiosity than interest, as at the different combinations in a kaleidoscope. He could not conceive that David, or any one, could so come under the dominant influence of a conviction as to act coherently and consistently upon it through any or all emergencies. But he was kind and sympathetic, and his heart responded to the passionate earnestness of his friend with a new interest and pleasure.



CHAPTER XXIX.

AS A TALE THAT IS TOLD

"First our pleasures die—and then Our hopes and then our fears—and when These are dead, the debt is due Dust claims dust, and we die too."

—Shelley.

The next few weeks were passed by these two subdued and altered friends in devoted efforts to make the blind man comfortable and happy. True to his determination, David sought and found a place to work, and after reserving enough of his wages to supply the few necessities of his daily life, dedicated the rest to the purchase of comforts for the poor invalid.

Mantel acted as his almoner, and by his delicate tact and gentle manners persuaded the proud and revengeful old man to accept the mysterious charity. The moment the strain of perpetual beggary was taken from him, the physical ruin which the terrible blow of the stone, the subsequent illness, and the ensuing poverty and wretchedness had wrought, became manifest. He experienced a sudden relapse, and began to sink into an ominous decline.

Even had he not known the secret of his sorrow, it would have soon become plain to his acute and watchful nurse that some hidden trouble was gnawing at his heart, for he was taciturn, abstracted and sometimes morose. He manifested no curiosity as to the benefactor upon whose charity he was living, but received the alms bestowed by that unknown hand as children receive the gifts of God—unsolicited, uncomprehended and unobserved.

His mind, aroused by the conversation of his untiring nurse to the realities of the present existence, would sink back by a sort of irresistible gravity into the realm of memory. There, in the impenetrable privacy of his soul, he brooded over his wrongs and counted his prospects of righting them, as a miser reckons his coins.

The spasmodic workings of his countenance, the convulsive gripping of his hands, the grinding of his great white teeth, the scalding tears which sometimes fell from his sightless eyes, revealed to the mind of his patient and watchful observer the passions secretly and ceaselessly working in his soul.

Mantel became fascinated by the study of this subjective drama. He used to sit and watch the expressive curtain behind which these dark scenes were being enacted, and fancy that he could follow the soul as, in the spirit world, it tracked its foe, fell upon him and exacted its terrible revenge. At times he imagined that he could actually see the enraged thoughts issue from the body as if it were a den or cave, and they, living beasts of prey ranging abroad by day and night, and returning with their booty to devour it; or, if they had failed to take it, to brood over the failure of their hunt.

In all this time he asked for nothing, he complained of nothing, commented on nothing. Mantel would have concluded that his heart was dead had it not been for his pathetic demonstrations of affection for the little terrier who had so faithfully guided him from his lodging to the places where he sat and begged.

The dog reciprocated these attentions with a devotion and a gratitude which were human in their intensity and depth. It was as beautiful as it was pathetic, to see these two friends bestowing upon each other their few but expressive signs of love.

Not until many weeks had passed did Mantel succeed in really engaging his patient in anything like a conversation, and even after he had begun to thaw a little under those tactful ministrations of love, whenever the past was even hinted at the old recluse relapsed instantly into silence.

Mantel might have been discouraged had he not determined at all hazards to enter into the secrets of this life, and to pave the way for the forgiveness of his friend. He therefore persisted in his efforts, and one bright day when the invalid was feeling unusually strong ventured to press home his inquiries.

"I cannot help thinking," he said, "that you could soon be reasonably well again if you did not brood so much. I fear there is some trouble gnawing at your heart."

"There is," he was answered, icily.

"Have you wronged some one, then, and are these thoughts which vex you feelings of remorse and guilt?"

"Wronged some one!" the sick man fairly roared, gripping the arms of his chair and gasping for breath in the excitement which the question brought on. "Not I! I have been wronged! No one has ever b-b-been wronged as I have. I have nourished vipers in my b-b-bosom and been stung by them. I have sown love and reaped hate. I have been robbed, deceived and betrayed! My wife is gone! My health is gone! My sight is gone! He has skinned me like a sheep, c-c-curse him! My heart has turned to a hammer which knocks at my ribs and cries revenge! It ch-ch-chokes me!"

He gasped, grew purple in the face and clutched at his collar as if about to strangle. After a little the paroxysm passed away, and Mantel determined once more to try and assuage this implacable hatred.

To his own unbounded astonishment this young man who had long ago abandoned his faith in Christianity, began to plead like an apostle for the practice of its central and fundamental virtue.

"My friend," he said, with a new solemnity in his manner, "you are on the threshold of another world; how dare you present yourself to the Judge of all the earth with a passion like this in your heart?"

In the momentary rest the beggar had recovered strength enough to reply: "It is t-t-true. I am on the threshold of another world! I didn't use to b-b-believe there was one, but I do now. There must be! Would it b-b-be right for such d-d-devils as the one that wrecked my life to g-g-go unpunished? Not if I know anything! They get away from us here, but if eternity is as long as they s-s-say it is, I'll find D-D-Dave Corson if it t-t-takes the whole of it, and when I f-f-find him—" he paused again, gasping and strangling.

Mantel's pity was deeply stirred, and he would gladly have spared him had he dared; but he did not, and permitting him to regain his breath, he said:

"And so you really mean to die without bestowing your pardon upon those who have wronged you?"

"I swear it!"

"Have you ever heard the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ?" asked Mantel, trembling at the name and at his own temerity in pronouncing it.

It was a strange situation into which this young skeptic had been forced by the logic of circumstances. As the old beggar felt the ethical necessity of another life, the young gambler felt the ethical necessity of the crucifixion. It seemed to him that if the redemption of this hate-smitten man hung on the capacity of his own heart to empty itself of its bitterness, there was about as much hope as of a serpent expelling the poison from its fangs! He had never before seen a man under the absolute and unresisted power of one of the basal passions, and neither he nor any one else has ever understood life until he has witnessed that fearful spectacle. A summer breeze conveys no more idea of a tornado, nor a burning chimney of a volcano, than ordinary vices convey of that fearful ruin which any elemental passion works when permitted to devastate a soul, unrestrained. The sight filled Mantel with terror, and he felt himself compelled by some invincible necessity to plead with the man in the name of the Saviour of the world. Long and earnestly he besought him to forgive as Christ forgave; but all in vain! So long had he brooded over his wrongs that his mind had either become hopelessly impotent or else irretrievably hardened. The conversation had so angered and exhausted the invalid that he presently crawled over to his bed, threw himself upon it and sank almost instantly into a deep sleep.

With a heavy heart, Mantel left him and hurried home to report the interview to David. He found him just returning from his work, and conveyed his message by the gloom of his countenance.

"Has anything, gone wrong?" David inquired, anxiously, as they entered their room.

Casting himself heavily into a seat and answering abstractedly, Mantel replied, "Each new day of life renders it more inexplicable. A man no sooner forms a theory than he is compelled to abandon it. I fear it is a labyrinth from which we shall none of us escape."

"Do not speak in parables," David exclaimed, impatiently, "If anything is the matter, tell me at once. Do not leave me in suspense. I cannot endure it. Is he worse? Is he dying?"

"He is both, and more," Mantel answered, still unable to escape from the gloom which enveloped him.

"More? What more? Speak out. I cannot bear these indirections."

"I have at last drawn from him a brief but terrible allusion to the tragedy of your lives."

"What did he say? Quick, tell me!"

"He said that he had been wronged by those whom he had benefited."

"It is too true, God knows; but what else did he say?"

"That he would spend eternity in revenging his wrongs."

"Horrible!" cried David, sinking into a chair.

"Yes, more horrible than you know."

"Did he show no mercy? Was there no sign of pardon?"

"None! Granite is softer than his heart. Ice is warmer."

David rose and paced the floor. Pausing before Mantel, he said, piteously, "Perhaps he will relent when Pepeeta comes!"

"Perhaps! Have you heard from her?"

"No, but her answer cannot be much longer delayed, for I have written again and again."

"Something may have happened," said Mantel, who had lost all heart and hope.

"Do not say it," David exclaimed, beseechingly.

"Well, but why does she not reply?"

"It is a long distance. She may have changed her residence. She may never go to the postoffice. She may be sick."

"Or dead!" said Mantel, giving expression in two words to the fullness of his despair.

"Impossible!" exclaimed David, his face blanching at this sudden articulation of the dread he had been struggling so hard to repress.

"You do not know her!" he continued. "If you had ever seen her, you could not speak of death. She was not made to die. I beg you to abandon this mood. You will drive me to despair. I cannot live another moment without the hope that I shall be forgiven by this old man whom I have so terribly wronged, and I know that he will not forgive me unless I put back into his hands the treasure of which I robbed him."

"Corson," said Mantel, rising and taking David by the hand, "you must give up this dream of receiving the old man's pardon."

"I cannot!"

"You must! He will not grant it even if Pepeeta comes. The knife has gone too deep! His heart is broken, and his mind, I think, is deranged. And more than this, he will not live until Pepeeta comes unless she hastens on the wings of the wind. He is dying, Corson, dying. You cannot imagine how he has withered away since you saw him. It is like watching a candle flicker in its socket. You must abandon this hope, I say."

"And I say that it is impossible."

"But you must. What difference can it possibly make whether he forgives you or not? The wrong is done. It cannot be undone."

"What difference? What difference, did you say? Is it possible that you do not know? Do you think a man could endure this life, hard enough at the best, if he were haunted by a dead man's curse?"

"Thousands have had to do so—millions; but do not let us talk about it any more. We are nervous and unstrung. You will never be persuaded until you see for yourself. If you wish to make the effort, you must do it soon; in fact you must do it now. I have come to tell you that his physician says he will not live until morning."

"Then let us go!" cried David, seizing his hat and starting for the door, white to the lips and trembling violently.

They passed out into the night together and hurried away to the beggar's room. Each was too burdened for talk and they walked in silence. Arriving at the house, they ascended the stairs on tiptoe and paused to listen at the door. "I will leave it ajar, so you may hear what he says, and then you can judge if I am right," said Mantel, entering quietly.

He approached the table and turned up the lamp which he had left burning dimly. By its pale light David could see the great head lying on the pillow, the chin elevated, the mouth partially open, the breast heaving with the painful efforts to catch a few last fluttering inspirations.

Nestling close to the ashen face and licking the cheek now and then with his little red tongue, was the terrier.

Mantel's footfall, quiet as it was, disturbed the sleeper, who moved, turned his head toward the sound and asked in a husky and but half-audible voice, "Who is there?"

"It is I. How are you now? A little better?" said Mantel, laying his soft, cool hand upon the broad forehead, wet already with the death-damp.

"I am getting weaker. It won't—last—long," he answered painfully.

"Do you think so?"

"I know it."

"Are you satisfied?"

"It can't—be—helped."

"No, it can't be helped. The doctor has told me you cannot live through the night."

"The—sooner—the—better!"

"I do not want to bother you, but I cannot bear to have you die without talking to you again about your future; I must try once more to persuade you not to die without sending some kind word to the people who have wronged you."

The expression of the white face underwent a hideous transformation.

"If you do not feel like talking to me about a matter so sacred and personal, would you not like to have me send for some minister or priest?"

The head moved slowly back and forth in a firm negation.

"In every age, and among all men, it has seemed fitting that those who were about to die should make some preparation to meet their God. Have you no desire to do this?"

A fierce light shone upon the emaciated countenance and the thin lips slowly articulated these words: "I—myself—will—settle—with—God! He—will—have—to—account—to—me—for—all—he—has—made—me—suffer!"

The listener at the door leaned against the wall for support.

"Is there absolutely no word of pardon or of kindness which you wish to send to those who have injured you, as a sort of legacy from the grave?"

"None!" he whispered fiercely.

"Suppose that your enemy should come to see you. Suppose that a great change had come over him; that he, too, had suffered deeply; that your wife had discovered his treachery and left him; that he had bitterly repented; that he had made such atonement as he could for his sin; that it was he who has been caring for you in these last hours, could you not pardon him?"

These words produced an extraordinary effect on the dying man. For the first time he identified his enemy with his friend, and as the discovery dawned upon his mind a convulsion seized and shook his frame. He slowly and painfully struggled to a sitting posture, lifted his right hand above his head and said in tones that rang with the raucous power of by-gone days:

"Curse him! If I had known that I was eating his b-b-bread, it would have choked me! Send him to me! Where is he?"

"I am here," said David, quietly entering the door. "I am here to throw myself on your mercy and to beg you, for the love of God, to forgive me."

As he heard the familiar voice, the beggar trembled. He made one last supreme effort to look out of his darkened eyes. An expression of despairing agony followed the attempt, and then, with both his great bony hands, he clutched at the throat of his night robe as if choking for breath, tore it open and reaching down into his bosom felt for some concealed object. He found it at last, grasped it and drew it forth. It was a shining blade of steel.

Mantel sprang to take it from his hand; but David pushed him back and said calmly, "Let him alone."

"Yes, let me alone," cried the blind man, trembling in every limb, and crawling slowly and painfully from the bed.

The movements of the dying man were too slow and weak to convey any adequate expression of the tempest raging in his soul. It was incredible that a tragedy was really being enacted, and that this poor trembling creature was thirsting for the lifeblood of a mortal foe.

David did not seek to escape. He did not even shudder. There was a singular expression of repose on his features, for in his desperation he solaced himself by the reflection that he was about to render final satisfaction for a sin whose atonement had become otherwise impossible. He therefore folded his arms across his breast and stood waiting.

The contorted face of the furious beggar afforded a terrible contrast to the tranquil countenance of the penitent and unresisting object of his hatred. The opaque flesh seemed to have become transparent, and through it glowed the baleful light of hatred and revenge. The lips were drawn back from the white teeth, above which the great mustache bristled savagely. The lids were lifted from the hollow and expressionless eyes. Balancing himself for an instant he moved forward; but the emaciated limbs tottered under the weight of the body. He reeled, caught himself, then reeled once more, and lunged forward in the direction from which he had heard the voice of his enemy.

Again Mantel strove to intercept him, and again David forced him back.

Uncertain as to the exact location of the object of his hatred, he raised his knife and struck at random; but the blow spent itself in air.

The futility and helplessness of his efforts crazed him.

"Where are you? G-g-give me some sign!" he cried.

"I am here," said David in a voice whose preternatural calmness sent a shudder to the heart of his friend.

With one supreme and final effort, the dying man lurched forward and threw himself wildly toward the sound. His hand, brandishing the dagger, was uplifted and seemed about to descend on his foe; but at that very instant, with a frightful imprecation upon his lips, the gigantic form collapsed, the knife dropped from the hand, and he plunged, a corpse, into the arms of his intended victim.

David received the dead weight upon the bosom at which the dagger had been aimed, and the first expression of his face indicated a certain disappointment that a single blow had not been permitted to end his troubles, as well as terror at an event so appalling. He stood spellbound for a moment, supporting the awful burden, and then, overpowered with the horror of the situation, cried out,

"Take him, Mantel! take him! Help me to lay him down! Quick, I cannot stand it; quick!"

They laid the lifeless form on the bed, while the little dog, leaping up beside his dead master, threw his head back and emitted a series of prolonged and melancholy howls.



CHAPTER XXX.

OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH

"Men deal with life as children with their play, Who first misuse, then cast their toys away." —Cowper.

Bewildered by the scene through which he had just passed, Corson returned to his rooms and spent the night in a sort of stupor. What happened the next day he never knew; but on the following morning he accompanied Mantel to the cemetery where, with simple but reverent ceremony, they committed the body of the doctor to the bosom of earth.

Just as they were about to turn away, after the conclusion of the burial service, a strange thing happened. The limb of a great elm tree, which had been tied back to keep it out of the way of the workmen, was released by the old sexton and swept back over the grave.

It produced a similar impression upon the minds of both the subdued spectators. They glanced at each other, and Mantel said, "It was like the wing of an angel!"

"Yes," added David with a sigh, "and seemed to brush away and obliterate all traces of his sorrow and his sins."

They did not speak during their homeward journey, and when they reached their rooms David paced uneasily backward and forward until the shadows of evening had fallen. When he suddenly observed that it was dusk, he took his hat and went out into the streets. There was something so restless and unnatural about his movements as to excite the suspicion of his friend, who waited for a single moment and then hurried after him.

The night was calm and clear, the autumn stars were shining in a cloudless sky, and the tide of life which had surged through the busy streets all day was ebbing like the waters from the bays and estuaries along the shore of the ocean.

The sounds the people made in tramping over the stone pavements or hurriedly driving over the hard streets, possessed a strangely different quality from the monotonous and grinding roar of the daylight. They were sharp, clear, resonant and emphatic. A single footfall attracted the attention of a listener more than the previous shuffle of a thousand feet. David's,—soft and subdued as it was,—resounded loudly, echoing from the buildings on either side of him as he slowly paced along.

It was evident to every one who met him that he was moving aimlessly. Now and then some keen-eyed pedestrian stopped to take a second look and, turning to do so, felt an instinctive pity for this burdened, care-encumbered man, wending his way through the almost deserted streets.

This gaze was unreturned and this sympathy unperceived. He was in one of those fits of abstraction when the whole external universe with all its beauties and sublimities has ceased to exist. His cup of misery was full, he had lost all clue to the meaning of life and a single definite idea had taken complete possession of his mind. It was that he was doomed to pass his existence under a curse.

By the very nature of its being, the soul is keenly sensitive to blessings and curses, and it is not alone the benediction of the mitred priest that thrills the heart! That of the pauper upon whom we have bestowed alms sometimes awakens in our bosom a hope and gladness out of all proportion to the insignificant source from which it has proceeded. Nor do we need to be cursed by the great and the powerful to feel a pang of terror in our souls! Let but some helpless wretch whom we have wronged commit his cause to heaven in a single syllable, and we shudder as if we already heard the approach of those avenging feet which the ancients said were shod with wool. The curse of the dead and impotent beggar rang in the ears of the fugitive like the strokes of an alarm bell. That deep sense of justice which had been formed in his early life had been revivified and endowed with a resistless power.

At such moments as these through which he was passing man experiences no doubt as to the nature and origin of conscience. He is as sure that the terror aroused in his heart is the echo of the decision of some real and awful tribunal as that the wave upon the shore is produced by some real though invisible storm at sea, or the shadow on the mountain by some palpable object between it and the sun.

The conscience is not only "a secretion in the brain," it is not only the "accumulated observations of the universal man upon the phenomena of the moral life," it is not only his study of the laws of cause and effect distilled into maxims and forebodings; it is this, but it is more than this—as every total is more than any of its parts. For every man has something which is in him, but not of him. It resides within his intelligence, but it is not so much the offspring of his intelligence as an emissary that has taken up its residence there! This obscure something is stronger than he. He does not subordinate it to himself, but is subordinated by it. He can rebel against it, but he cannot overthrow it. He can fly from it, but he cannot escape it.

This sublime and mysterious power had at last obtained complete ascendency in the soul of David Corson. He no longer argued and he no longer resisted. He saw no way of escape from the spiritual anaconda which was tightening its folds around him.

This was all the more strange because the way to the satisfaction of the irrepressible hunger of his heart was now open. Pepeeta's husband was dead, and although he was not innocent of a great crime, he was at least not a murderer. Pepeeta still loved him, if she were still alive. Of this he had no more doubt than of his love for her. Why then did he thus give up to despair? Why did he not fly to her arms and claim from life that happiness which had hitherto escaped his grasp?

He did not try to solve these problems, nor to comprehend his own despair. He only knew that he had been baffled at every turn of his life by powers with which he was unable to cope, and that he was tired of the struggle. He would give himself up to the mighty stream of events and be borne along. If he was exercising any volition in the choice of the path he was following, he was doing it unconsciously. That path was leading him direct to the harbor. It was a pathway well-worn by tired feet like his own.

The miserable creatures who had preceded him seemed to have formed a sort of wake by which he was being drawn along to that "wandering grave" in the deep sea. At last he reached the water's edge, and started as he heard the waves splashing among the wooden piles. The soft, sibilant sounds seemed like kisses on the lips of the victims of their treacherous caresses.

The deed of which they whispered seemed but the logical conclusion of his entire career. He put his foot upon the edge of the wharf and looked down into the dark abyss.

It was at this critical instant that his faithful friend extended his hand to save him; but at the same instant another and mightier hand was also extended from the sky.

From a remote part of the Battery a sound cut the silent air. It was a human voice, masculine, powerful, tender and pleading, lifted in a sacred song. That sound was the first element of the objective world which had penetrated the consciousness of the tortured and desperate would-be suicide.

He turned and listened—and as he did so, Mantel sprang back among the shadows just in time to escape his observation. The full-throated music, floating on the motionless air, fell upon his ear like a benediction. He listened, and caught the words of a hymn with which he had been familiar in his childhood:

"Light of those whose dreary dwelling Borders on the shades of death! Rise on us, thy love revealing, Dissipate the clouds beneath. Thou of heaven and earth creator— In our deepest darkness rise, Scattering all the night of nature, Pouring day upon our eyes."

By the spell of this mysterious music he was drawn back into the living world—drawn as if by some powerful magnet.

Pain and sorrow had become tired of vexing him at last, and now stretched forth their hands in a ministry of consolation. With his eyes fixed on the spot from which the music issued, he moved unconsciously toward it, Mantel following him.

A few moments' walking brought him to a weird spectacle. A torch had been erected above a low platform on which stood a man of most unique and striking personality. He looked like a giant in the wavering light of the torch. He was dressed in the simple garb of a Quaker; his head was bare; great locks of reddish hair curled round his temples and fell down upon his shoulders. His massive countenance bespoke an extraordinary mind, and beamed with rest and peace.

As he sang the old familiar hymn, he looked around upon his audience with an expression such as glowed, no doubt, from the countenance of the Christ when He spoke to the multitudes on the shores of Lake Genessaret.

Close to the small platform was a circle of street Arabs, awed into silence and respect by the charm of this remarkable personality. Next to them came a ring of women—some of them old and gray, with haggard and wrinkled countenances upon which Time, with his antique pen, had traced many illegible hieroglyphs; some of them young and bedizened with tinsel jewelry and flashy clothing; not a few of them middle-aged, wan, dispirited and bearing upon their hips bundles wrapped in faded shawls, from which came occasionally that most distressing of sounds, the wail of an ill-fed and unloved infant, crying in the night.

Outside of this zone of female misery and degradation, there was a belt of masculine stupidity and crime; men with corpulent bodies, bull necks, double chins, pile-driving heads; men of shrunken frames, cadaverous cheeks, deep-set and beady eyes—vermin-covered, disease-devoured, hope-deserted. They clung around him, these concentric circles of humanity, like rings around a luminous planet, held by they knew not what resistless attraction.

The simple melody, borne upon the pinions of that resonant and cello-like voice, attained an almost supernatural influence over their perverted natures. When it ceased, an audible sigh arose, an involuntary tribute of adoration and of awe.

As soon as he had finished his hymn, this consecrated apostle to the lost sheep of the great city opened a well-worn volume.

The passage which he read, or rather chanted, was the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, the awe-inspiring sentences sending through the circles of humanity which were tightening about him visible vibrations.

When he finished his reading, he began an address full of homely wit and pathos, in which, with all the rich and striking imagery culled from a varied life in the wildernesses of the great forests and the great cities of our continent, he appealed to that consciousness of "the true, the beautiful and the good" which he believed to lie dormant, but capable of resurrection, in the soul of every man.

A few of his auditors were too far gone with fatigue or intoxication to follow him, and elbowing their way through the crowd shot off into the night upon their various tangents of stupidity or crime; but most of the spectators listened with a sort of rapt and involuntary attention.

The influence which he exerted over the mind of the young man whom he had unconsciously saved from suicide was as irresistible as it was inscrutable. His language had the charm of perfect familiarity. Every word and phrase had fallen from his own lips a hundred times in similar exhortations. In fact, they seemed to him strangely like the echo of his own voice coming back upon him from the dim and half-forgotten past.

His interest and excitement culminated in an incident for which the listener was totally unprepared. The speaker who had been exhorting his audience upon the testimony of prophet and apostle now appealed to his own personal experience.

"Look at me!" he said, laying his great hand on his broad chest. "I was once as hardened and desperate a man as any of you; but God saved me! See this book!" he added, holding up the old volume. "I will tell you a story about it. I found it in a log cabin away out in the frontier state of Ohio. Listen, and I will tell you how. I had left a lumber camp with a company of frontiersmen one Sunday morning, to go to a new clearing which 'we were making in the wilderness, when I suddenly discovered that I had forgotten my axe. Swearing at my misfortune, I returned to get it. As I approached the cabin which I had left a few minutes before, I heard a human voice. I paused in surprise, crept quietly to the door and listened. Some one was talking in almost the very language in which I have spoken to you. I was frightened and fled! Escaping into the depths of the forest, I lay down at the root of a great tree, and for the first time in my life I made a silence in my soul and listened to the voice of God. I know not how long I lay there; but at last when I recovered my consciousness I returned to the cabin. It was silent and empty; but on the floor I found this book."

"Good God!" exclaimed a voice.

So rapt had been the attention of the hearers that at this unexpected interruption the women screamed and the men made a wide path for the figure that burst through them and rushed toward the platform.

The speaker paused and fixed his eye upon the man who pressed eagerly toward him.

"Tell me whether a red line is drawn down the edge of that chapter, and a hand is pointing toward the fifth and sixth verses!" he cried.

"It is," replied the lumberman.

"Then let me take it!" exclaimed David, reaching out his trembling hands.

"What for?"

"Because it is mine! I am the man who proclaimed the holy faith, and, God forgive me, abandoned it even as you received it!"

The astonished lumberman handed him the Bible, and he covered it with kisses and tears. In the meantime, the crowd, excited by the spectacular elements of the drama, surged round the actors, and the preacher, reaching down, took David by the arm and raised him to the platform.

"Be quiet, my friends," he said with a gesture of command, "and when this prodigal has regained his composure we will ask him to tell us his story."

Of what was transpiring around him, David seemed to be entirely unconscious and at last the fickle crowd became impatient.

"What's de matter wid you?" said a sarcastic voice.

"Speak out! Don't snuffle," exclaimed another.

"Tip us your tale," cried a fourth.

"Go on. Go on. We're waiting," called many more.

These impatient cries at last aroused David from his waking dream, he drew his hand over his eyes, and began his story.

For a time the strange narrative produced a profound impression. Heads drooped as if in meditation upon the mystery and meaning of life; significant glances were exchanged; tears trembled in many eyes; these torpid natures received a shock which for a moment awakened them to a new life.

But it was only for a moment. They were incapable of the sustained effort of thought, of ambition, or of will. Impressions made upon their souls were like those made on the soft folds of a garment by the passing touch of a hand.

To their besotted perceptions this scene was like a play in a Bowery theater, and now that the dramatic denouement had come, they lost their interest and sauntered away singly or in little groups. In a few moments there were only three figures left in the light of the flaming torch, They were those of the lumberman, David, and Mantel, who now drew near, took his friend by the hand and pressed it with a gentle sympathy.

"Where did you come from?" asked David in surprise, as he for the first time recognized his companion.

"I have followed you all the evening," Mantel replied.

"Then you have heard the story of this book?"

"I have, and I could not have believed it without hearing."

"Can you spare us a little of your time?" said David, turning to the lumberman.

"I owe you all the time you wish and all the service I can render," he replied.

"You have more than paid your debt by what you have done for me to-night, but who are you?"

"I am only another voice crying in the wilderness."

"Is this your only business in life—to speak to the outcast and the wretched as you did to-night?"

"This is all."

David looked his admiration.

"How do you support yourself?" asked Mantel, to whom such a man was a phenomenon.

"We do not any of us support ourselves so much as we are supported," he replied.

"And this life of toil and self-denial had its origin in those words I spoke in the empty lumber camp?" asked David, incredulously.

"It is not a life of self-denial, but that was its beginning."

"It is a mystery. I lost my faith and you found it, and now perhaps you are going to give it back again!" David said.

The lumberman turned his searching eyes kindly on Mantel's face and said, "And how is it with thee, my friend; hast thou the peace of God?"

The directness of the question startled the gambler. "I have, no peace of any kind; my heart is full of storms and my life is a ruin," he answered sadly.

"Did thee never notice," said the lumberman gently, "how nature loves to reclaim a ruin?"

"In what way?"

"By covering it with vines and moss."

The unexpected nature of this answer and the implied encouragement produced a deep impression on the mind of the gambler, but he answered:

"I shall never be reclaimed. I have gone too far. I have often tried to find the true way of life, and prayed for a single glimpse of light! Have you ever heard how Zeyd used to spend hours leaning against the wall of the Kaaba and praying, 'Lord, if I knew in what manner thou wouldst have me adore thee, I would obey thee; but I do not! Oh! give me light!' I have prayed that prayer with all that agony, but, to me, the universe is dark as hell!"

"There is light enough! It is eyes we need!" said the evangelist.

"Light! Who has it? Many think they have, but it is mere fancy. They mistake the shining of rotten wood for fire!"

"And sometimes men have walked in the light without seeing it, as fish swimming in the sea and birds flying in the air, might say, 'Where is the sea?' 'Where is the air?'"

"But what comfort is it, if there is light, and I cannot see it? There might as well be no light at all!"

"The bird never knows it has wings until it tries them! We see, not by looking for our eyes, but by looking out of them. We say of a little child that it has to 'find its legs.' Some men have to find their eyes."

"It is an art, then, to see?"

"I would even call it a trick, if I dared."

"Can you impart that capacity and teach that art?"

"No, it must be acquired by each man for himself. We can only tell others 'we see.'"

"I only know that I wish I could see!"

"We see by faith."

"And what is faith?"

"It is a power of the soul as much higher than reason as reason is higher than sense."

"Some men may possess such power, but I do not."

"You at least have an imagination."

"Yes."

"Well, faith is but the imagination spiritualized."

Mantel regarded the man who spoke in these terse and pregnant sentences with astonishment. "This," said he, "is not the same language in which you addressed the people in the Battery. This is the language of a philosopher! Do all lumbermen in the west speak thus?"

The evangelist began to reply, but was interrupted by David, who now burst out in a sudden exclamation of joy and gratitude. He had been too busy with reflections and memories to participate actively in the conversation, for this startling incident had disclosed to him the whole slow and hidden movement of the providence of his life towards this climax and opportunity. He was profoundly moved by a clear conviction that a divine hand must have planned and superintended this whole web of events, and had intentionally led him from contemplating the tragic issue of his sinful deeds and desires, to this vision of the good he had done in the better moments of his life. This strange coincidence, to a mind like his, could leave no room for doubt that the hand of God was on him, and that, after all, he had been neither abandoned nor forgotten. The lumberman had been sent at this critical moment to save him! There was still hope!

With that instantaneous movement in which his disordered conceptions of life invariably re-formed themselves, the chaotic events of the past shifted themselves into a purposeful and comprehensible series, and revealed beyond peradventure the hand of God.

And as this conclusion burst upon him, he broke into the conversation of Mantel and the lumberman with the warmest exclamations of gratitude and happiness.

They talked a long time in the quiet night, asking and answering questions. The two friends besought the evangelist to accompany them to their rooms, but he said:

"I have given you my message and must pass on. My work is to bear testimony. I sow the seed and leave its cultivation and the harvest to others."



CHAPTER XXXI.

THE GREAT REFUSAL

"But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful."

Too busy with their own thoughts to talk on the way home, on entering their rooms Mantel threw himself into a chair, while David nervously began to gather his clothes together and crowd them hastily into a satchel.

"What's up?" asked Mantel.

"I'm off in the morning."

"Which way are you going?"

"There is only one way. I am going to find Pepeeta."

"Do you really expect to succeed?"

"Expect to! I am determined!"

"It's a sudden move."

"Sudden! everything is sudden. Events have simply crashed upon me lately! When I think of the fluctuations of hope and despair, of certainty and uncertainty through which I have gone in the past few hours, I am stupefied."

"And I never go through any! My life is like a dead and stagnant sea—nothing agitates it. If I could once be upheaved from the bottom or churned into a foam from the top, I think I might amount to something."

"You ought to quit this business, Mantel, and come with me. I am going to find Pepeeta, take her back to that quiet valley where I lived, and get myself readjusted to life. I need time for reflection, and so do you. What do you say? Will you join me? I cannot bear to leave you? You have been a friend, and I love you!"

"Thanks, Corson, thanks. You have come nearer to stirring this dead heart of mine than any one since—well, no matter. I reciprocate your feeling. I shall have a hard time of it after you have gone."

"Then join me."

"It is impossible."

"But why? This life will destroy you sooner or later."

"Oh—that's been done already."

"No, it hasn't. There are more noble things in you than you realize. What you need is to give them scope and let them out."

"You don't know me. What you see is all on the surface. If I ever had any power of decision or action it has gone. I am the victim, and not the master of my destiny. I am drifting along like a derelict, with no compass to guide, rudder to steer or anchor to grip the bottom."

"Make another effort, old man, do! Look at me. I was in as bad a fix as you are only a little while ago."

"Yes; but see what has happened to you! Circumstances have tumbled you out of the nest, and of course you had to fly. I wish something would happen to me! I would almost be glad to have lightning strike me."

"What you say is true in a way, of course. I know I don't deserve any credit for breaking out of this life. But don't you think a man can do it alone, without any such frightful catastrophes to help him? It seems to me, now, that I could. I feel as if I could burst through stone walls."

"Of course you do, my dear fellow, and you can. But something has put strength into you! That's what I need."

"Well, let me put it into you! Lean on me. I can't bear to leave you here and see you go down! Come, brace up. Make an effort. Decide. Tear yourself away!"

"You actually make my heart flutter, Davy; I feel as if I would really like to do it. But I can't. It's no use. I shouldn't get across the ferry before I'd begin to hang back."

"But you don't belong to this life. You are above it, naturally. You ought to be a force for good in the world. Society needs such men as you are, and needs them badly. Come! If I can break these meshes you can."

"No, my dear fellow, that's a non-sequitur. There is different blood flowing in our veins, and we have had a different environment and education. As far back as I know anything about them, my people have all lived on the surface of life, and I have floated along with them. But, by heavens—I have at least seen down into the depths!"

"Well, I have my inheritance of bad blood also. I had a father who was not only weak but wicked."

"Yes, but think of your mother."

"Mantel, you are carrying this too far. A man is something more than the mere chemical product of his ancestor's blood and brains! Every one has a new and original endowment of his own. He must live and act for himself."

"Maybe so, but everything seems, at least, to be a fixed and inevitable consequence of what has gone before. I don't want to disparage this last act of yours, but see how far back its roots reach into the past. See what a chain of events led up to it, and what frightful causes have been operating to bring you up to the sticking point! How long ago was it that you were just as ready to throw up the game?"

"Horrible! Don't speak of it! It makes me tremble. I am not worthy to defend or even advocate a life of endeavor and victory, Mantel, and I will not try; but I know that I am right."

"Yes, Dave, you are right; I know it as well as you. I am only talking to ease my conscience. I know I ought to snap these cords, and I know I can. But I also know that I am grinding here in this devil's mill while every bad man makes sport and every good man weeps! And I know that I shall keep on grinding while you and thousands of other noble fellows with less brains, perhaps, and fewer chances than mine, make wild dashes for liberty and do men's work in the world. But here I am, cold and dead, and here I remain."

"Can nothing persuade you—not love? I love you, Mantel! Come, let us go together. Who knows what we can do if we try? I must persuade you!"

"I am like a ship in a sea of glue. You touch me, but you don't persuade me! It's no use. I cannot budge. The aspirations you awaken in my soul leap up above the surface like little fishes from a pond, and as quickly fall back again! No, I cannot go. Don't press me—it makes me feel like the young man in the gospel, who made what Dante calls 'the great refusal;' he saw that young man's 'shade' in hell."

They were sitting on the sill of a deep window in what had once been one of the most fashionable mansions of the city. The sash was raised, and the light of the moon fell full upon their young faces. They ceased speaking after Mantel had uttered those solemn words, and looked out over the housetops to the water of the great river. It was long after midnight, and not a sound broke the stillness. Fleecy clouds were drifting across the sky, and a vessel under full sail was going silently down the river toward the open sea. They had involuntarily clasped each other's hands, and as their hearts opened and disclosed their secrets they were drawn closer and closer together until their arms stole about each other's necks. For a few brief moments they were boys again. The vices that had hardened their hearts and shut their souls up in lonely isolation relaxed their hold. That sympathy which knit the hearts of David and Johnathan together made their's beat as one.

David broke the silence. "I cannot bear to leave you, Mantel. Join me. Such feelings as these which stir us so deeply to-night do not come too often. It must be dangerous to resist them. I suppose there are slight protests and aspirations in the soul all the time, but these to-night are like the flood of the tide."

"Yes," said Mantel; "the Nile flows through Egypt every day, but flows over it only once a year."

"And this is the time to sow the seed, isn't it?"

"So they say. But you must remember that you feel this more deeply than I do, Davy. I am moved. I have a desire to do better, but it isn't large enough. It is like a six-inch stream trying to turn a seven-foot wheel.

"Don't make light of it, Mantel!"

"I don't mean to, but you must not overestimate the impressions made on me. I am not so good as you think."

"I wish you had the courage to be as good as you are."

"But there is no use trying to be what I am not. If I should start off with you, I should never be able to follow you. My old self would get the victory. In the long run, a man will be himself. 'Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome—seldom extinguished.'"

"What a mood you are in, Mantel! It makes me shiver to hear you talk so. Here I am, full of hope and purpose; my heart on fire; believing in life; confident of the outcome; and you, a better man by nature than I am, sitting here, cold as a block of ice, and the victim of despair! I ought to be able to do something! Sweet as life is to me to-night, I feel that I could lay it down to save you."

"Dear fellow!" said Mantel, grasping his hands and choking with emotion; "you don't know how that moves me! It can't seem half so strange to you as it does to me; but I must be true to myself. If I told you I would take this step I should not be honest. No! Not to-night! Sometime, perhaps. I haven't much faith in life, but I swear I don't believe, bad man as I am, that anybody can ever go clear to the bottom, without being rescued by a love like that! I'll never forget it, Davy; never! It will save me sometime; but you must not talk any more, you are tired out. Go to bed, friend, brother, the only one I ever really had and loved. You will need your sleep. Leave me alone, and I will sit the night out and chew the bitter cud."

It was not until daybreak that David ceased his supplications and lay down to snatch a moment's rest. When he awoke, he sprang up suddenly and saw Mantel still sitting before the open window where he left him, smoking his cigar and pondering the great problem.

"I have had a wonderful dream," he said.

"What was it?" asked Mantel.

"I dreamt that I was swimming alone in a vast ocean,—weary, exhausted, desperate and sinking,—but just as I was going down a hand was thrust out of the sky, and although I could not reach it, so long as I kept my eyes on it I swam with perfect ease; while, just the moment I took them off, my old fatigue came back and I began to sink. When I saw this, I never looked away for even a second, and the sea seemed to bear me up with giant arms. I swam and swam as easily as men float, day after day and year after year, until I reached the harbor."