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diff --git a/old/51941-8.txt b/old/51941-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e372c12..0000000 --- a/old/51941-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7217 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Gilded Chair, by Melville Davisson Post - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Gilded Chair - A Novel - -Author: Melville Davisson Post - -Illustrator: A. B. Wenzell and Arthur E. Becher - -Release Date: May 2, 2016 [EBook #51941] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED CHAIR *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - - -THE GILDED CHAIR, A NOVEL - -By Melville Davisson Post - -Illustrated By A. B. Wenzell And Arthur E. Becher - -New York And London D. Appleton And Company - -MCMX - -[Illustration: 0001] - -[Illustration: 0010] - -[Illustration: 0011] - - - - - -THE GILDED CHAIR - - - - -CHAPTER I--THE TRAVELER - -When the train crept out of Euston into the wet night the Marchesa -Soderrelli sat for a considerable time quite motionless in the corner -of her compartment. The lights, straggling northward out of London, -presently vanished. The hum and banging of passing engines ceased. The -darkness, attended by a rain, descended. - -Beside the Marchesa, on the compartment seat, as the one piece of -visible luggage, except the two rugs about her feet, was a square green -leather bag, with a flat top, on which were three gold letters under a -coronet. It was perhaps an hour before the Marchesa Soderrelli moved. -Then it was to open this bag, get out a cigarette case, select -a cigarette, light it, and resume her place in the corner of the -compartment. She was evidently engaged with some matter to be deeply -considered; her eyes widened and narrowed, and the muscles of her -forehead gathered and relaxed. - -The woman was somewhere in that indefinite age past forty. Her figure, -straight and supple, was beginning at certain points to take on that -premonitory plumpness, realized usually in middle life; her hair, thick -and heavy, was her one unchanged heritage of youth; her complexion, once -tender and delicate, was depending now somewhat on the arts. The woman -was coming lingeringly to autumn. Her face, in repose, showed the -freshness of youth gone out; the mouth, straightened and somewhat -hardened; the chin firmer; there was a vague irregular line, common -to persons of determination, running from the inner angle of the eye -downward and outward to the corner of the mouth; the eyes were drawn -slightly at the outer corners, making there a drooping angle. - -Her dress was evidently continental, a coat and skirt of gray cloth; a -hat of gray straw, from which fell a long gray veil; a string of pearls -around her neck, and drop pearl earrings. - -As she smoked, the Marchesa continued with the matter that perplexed -her. For a time she carried the cigarette mechanically to her lips, then -the hand holding it dropped on the arm of the compartment seat beside -her. There the cigarette burned, sending up a thin wisp of smoke. - -The train raced north, gliding in and out of wet blinking towns, where -one caught for a moment a dimly flashing picture of a wet platform a few -trucks, a smoldering lamp or two a weary cab horse plodding slowly up -a phantom street, a wooden guard, motionless as though posed before -a background of painted card board, or a little party of travelers, -grouped wretchedly together at a corner of the train shed, like poor -actors playing at conspirators in some first rehearsal. - -Finally the fire of the cigarette touched her fingers. She ground the -end of it against the compartment window, sat up, took off her hat -and placed it in the rack above her head; then she lifted up the arm -dividing her side of the compartment into two seats, rolled one of her -rugs into a pillow, lay down, and covering herself closely with the -remaining rug, was almost immediately asleep. - -The train arrived at Stirling about 7:30 the following morning. The -Marchesa Soderrelli got out there, walked across the dirty wooden -platform--preempted almost exclusively by a flaming book stall, where -the best English author finds-himself in the same sixpenny shirt -with the worst--out a narrow way by the booking office, and up a long -cobble-paved street to an inn that was doubtless sitting, as it now -sits, in the day of the Pretender. - -A maid who emerged from some hidden quarter of this place at the -Marchesa's knocking on the window of the office led the way to a -little room in the second story of the inn, set the traveler's bag on -a convenient chair, and, as if her duties were then ended, inquired if -Madam wished any further attendance. The Marchesa Soderrelli wished -a much further attendance, in fact, a continual attendance, until her -breakfast should be served at nine o'clock. The tin bath tub, round like -a flat-bottomed porringer, was taken from its decorative place against -the wall and set on a blanket mat. The pots over the iron crane in -the kitchen of the inn were emptied of hot water. The maid was set to -brushing the traveler's wrinkled gown. The stable boy was sent to the -chemist to fetch spirits of wine for Madam's toilet lamp. The very -proprietor sat by the kitchen fire polishing the Marchesa Soderrelli's -boots. The whole inn, but the moment before a place abandoned, now -hummed and clattered under the various requirements of this traveler's -toilet. - -The very details of this exacting service impressed the hostelry with -the importance of its guest. The usual custom of setting the casual -visitor down to a breakfast of tea, boiled eggs, finnan haddock, or some -indefinite dish with curry, in the common dining room with the flotsam -of lowland farmers, was at once abandoned. A white cloth was laid in -the long dining room of the second floor, open only from June until -September, while the tourist came to do Stirling Castle under the lines -of Ms Baedeker, a room salted for the tourist, as a Colorado mine is -salted for an Eastern investor. No matter in what direction one looked -he met instantly some picture of Queen Mary, some old print, some dingy -steel engraving. No two of these presented to the eye the same face -or figure of this unhappy woman, until the observer came presently to -realize that the Scottish engraver, when drawing the features of his -central figure, like the Madonna painters of Italy, availed himself of a -large and catholic collection. - -To this room the innkeeper, having finished the Marchesa's boots, and -while the maid still clattered up and down to her door, brought now the -dishes of her breakfast. Porridge and a jug of cream, a dripping comb of -heather honey, hot scones, a light white roll, called locally a "bap," -and got but a moment before from the nearest baker, a mutton cutlet, -a pot of tea, and a brown trout that but yesterday was swimming in the -Forth. - -When the Marchesa came in at nine o'clock to this excellent breakfast, -every mark of fatigue had wholly vanished. Youth, vigor, freshness, -ladies, once in waiting to this woman, ravished from her train by the -savage days, were now for a period returned, as by some special, marked -concession. The maid following behind her, the obsequious innkeeper, -bowing by the door, saw and knew instantly that their estimate of the -traveler was not a whit excessive. This guest was doubtless a great -foreign lady come to visit the romantic castle on the hill, perhaps -crossed from France with no object other than this pilgrimage. - -The innkeeper waited, loitering about the room, moving here a -candlestick and there a pot, until his prints, crowded on the walls, -should call forth some comment. But he waited to disappointment. The -great lady attended wholly to her breakfast. The "bap," the trout, the -cutlet shared no interest with the prints. This man, skilled in -divining the interests of the tourist, moved his pots without avail, his -candlesticks to no seeming purpose. The Marchesa Soderrelli was wholly -unaware of his designing presence. - -Presently, when the Marchesa had finished with her breakfast, she took -up the silver case, which, in entering, she had put down by her plate, -and rolling a cigarette a moment between her thumb and finger, looked -about inquiringly for a means to light it. The innkeeper, marking now -the arrival of his moment, came forward with a burning match and held -it over the table--breaking on the instant, with no qualm, the fourth -of his printed rules, set out for warning on the corner of his mantel -shelf. He knew now that his guest would speak, and he sorted quickly his -details of Queen Mary for an impressive answer. The Marchesa did speak, -but not to that cherished point. - -"Can you tell me," she said, "how near I am to Doune in Perthshire?" - -The innkeeper, set firmly in his theory, concluded that his guest wished -to visit the neighboring castle after doing the one at Stirling, and -answered, out of the invidious distinctions of a local pride. - -"Quite near, my Lady, twenty minutes by rail, but the castle there is -not to be compared with ours. When you have seen Stirling Castle, and -perhaps Edinburgh Castle, the others are not worth a visit. I have never -heard that any royal person was ever housed at Doune. Sir Walter, I -believe, gives it a bit of mention in 'Waverley,' but the great Bruce -was in our castle and Mary Queen of Scots." - -He spoke the last sentence with uncommon gravity, and, swinging on his -heel, indicated his engravings with a gesture. Again these prints failed -him. The Marchesa's second query was a bewildering tangent. - -"Have you learned," she said, "whether or not the Duke of Dorset is in -Perthshire?" - -"The Duke of Dorset," he repeated, "the Duke of Dorset is dead, my -Lady." - -"I do not mean the elder Duke of Dorset," replied the Marchesa, "I -am quite aware of his death within the year. I am speaking of the new -Duke." - -The innkeeper came with difficulty from that subject with which his guns -were shotted, and, like all persons of his class, when turned abruptly -to the consideration of another, he went back to some familiar point, -from which to approach, in easy stages, the immediate inquiry. - -"The estates of the Duke of Dorset," he began, "are on the south coast, -and are the largest in England. The old Duke was a great man, my Lady, -a great man. He wanted to make every foreigner who brought anything over -here, pay the government something for the right to sell it. I think -that was it; I heard him speak to the merchants of Glasgow about it. -It was a great speech, my Lady--I seemed to understand it then," and -he scratched his head. "He would have done it, too, everybody says, if -something hadn't broken in him one afternoon when he was with the King -down at Ascot. But he never married. You know, my Lady, every once in a -while, there is a Duke of Dorset who does not marry. They say that long -ago, one of them saw a heathen goddess in a bewitched city by the sea, -but something happened, and he never got her." - -"That is very sad," said the Marehesa, "a fairy story should turn out -better." - -"But that is not the end of the story, my Lady," continued the -innkeeper. "Right along after that, every other Duke has seen her, and -won't have any mortal woman for a wife." The Marehesa was amused. "So -fine a devotion," she said, "ought to receive some compensation from -heaven." - -"And so it does, my Lady," cried the innkeeper, "and so it does. The -brother's son who comes into the title, is always exactly like the old -childless Duke--just as though he were reborn somehow." Then a light -came beaming into his face. "My Lady!" he cried, like one arrived -suddenly upon a splendid recollection. "I have a print of the old Duke -just over the fireplace in the kitchen; I will fetch it. Janet, the -cook, says that the new Duke is exactly like him." - -The Marehesa stopped him. "No," she said, "I would not for the world -disturb the decorations of your kitchen." - -The thwarted host returned, rubbing his chin. A moment or two he -puzzled, then he ventured another hesitating service. - -"If it please your Ladyship, I will ask Janet, the cook, about the new -Duke of Dorset. Janet reads all about them every Sunday in the _Gentle -Lady_, and she sticks a pin in the map to remind her where the nicest -ones are." - -Before the smiling guest could interfere with a further negative, the -obliging host had departed in search of that higher authority, presiding -thus learnedly among his pots. The Marchesa, left to her devices, looked -about for the first time at the innkeeper's precious prints. But she -looked leisurely, without an attaching interest, until she chanced upon -a little wood engraving of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, half hidden -behind a luster bowl on the sideboard. She arose, took up the print, and -returning to her chair, set it down on the cloth beside her. She was -in leisurely contemplation of this picture when the innkeeper returned, -sunning, from his interview with Janet. On the forty-three steps of his -stairway the good man unfortunately lost the details of Janet's diction, -but he came forth triumphant with the substance of her story. - -The new Duke of Dorset was, at this hour, in Perthshire. He was not the -son of the old Duke, but an only nephew, brought forth from some distant -country to inherit his uncle's shoes. His father had married some -Austrian, or Russian, or Italian--Janet was a bit uncertain on this -trivial point. For the last half dozen years the young Duke had been -knocking about the far-off edges of Asia. There had been fuss about his -succession, and there might have been a kettle of trouble, but it came -out that he had been of a lot of service to the government in effecting -the Japanese alliance. He had somehow gotten at the inside of things in -the East. So the foreign office was at his back. He had given up, too, -some princely station in his mother's country; a station of which Janet -was not entirely clear, but, in her mind, somehow, equal to a kingdom. -But he gave it up to be a peer of England, as, in Janet's opinion, any -reasonable person would. My Lady was rightly on her way, if she wished -to see this new Duke. - -The Doune Castle and the neighboring estate were shooting property of -his father. This property, added to the vast holdings of the old Duke, -made the new once perhaps the richest peer in England. He looked the -part, too; more splendidly fit than any of his class coming under -Janet's discriminating eye. She had gone with Christobel MacIntyre to -see him pass through Stirling some weeks earlier. And he was one of the -"nicest of them." Janet's pin had been sticking in Doune since August. - -The Marchesa did not attempt to interrupt this pleasing flow of data. -The innkeeper delivered it with a variety of bows, certain decorative, -mincing steps, and illustrative gestures. It came forth, too, with that -modicum of pride natural to one who housed, thus opportunely, so nice an -observer as this Janet. He capped it at the end with a comment on this -Japanese alliance. It did not please him. They were not white, these -Japanese. And this alliance--it was against nature. His nephew, Donald -MacKensie, had been with the army in China, when the powers marched on -Pekin, and there the British Tommy had divided the nations of the earth -into three grand divisions, namely, niggers, white men, and dagoes. -There were two kinds of niggers--real niggers, and faded-out niggers; -there were four kinds of dagoes--vodka dagoes, beer-drinking dagoes, -frog-eating dagoes, and the macaroni dagoes; but there was only one kind -of white men--"Us," he said, "and the Americans." - -The Marchesa laughed, and the innkeeper rounded off his speech with -a suggestion of convenient trains, in case my Lady was pleased to go -to-morrow or the following day to Doune. A good express left the station -here at ten o'clock, and one could return--he marked especially -the word--at one's pleasure. The schedule of returning trains was -beautifully appointed. - -He had arranged, too, in the interval of absence, for the Marchesa's -comfort in the morning visit to Stirling Castle. A carriage would take -her up the long hill; a guide, whom he could unreservedly recommend, -would be there for any period at her service--a pensioned sergeant who -had gone into the Zulu rush at Rorke's Drift, and come out somewhat -fragmentary. Then he stepped back with a larger bow, like an orator come -finally to his closing sentence. Was my Lady pleased to go now? - -The Marchesa was pleased to go, but not upon the way so delicately -smoothed for her. She arose, went at once to her room, got her hand bag -and coat, paid the good man his charges, and walked out of the door, -past the cab driver, to her train, leaving that expectant public -servant, like the young man who had great possessions, sorrowing. - - - - -CHAPTER II--THE HOUSE OF THE FIRST MEN - -One, arriving over the Caledonian railway at Doune, will at once -notice how that station exceeds any other of this line in point of -nice construction. The framework of the building is of steel; the roof, -glass; the platform of broad cement blocks lying like clean gray bands -along the car tracks. There is here no dirt, no smoke, no creaky floor -boards, no obtrusive glaring bookstalls, and no approach given over to -the soiling usages of trade. One goes out from the spotless shed into -a gravel court, inclosed with a high brick wall, stone capped, planted -along its southern exposure with pear trees, trained flat after the -manner of the northern gardener. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli, following the little street into the village, -stopped in the public square at the shop of a tobacconist for a word -of direction. This square is one of the old landmarks of Doune. In the -center of it is a stone pillar, capped at the top with a quaint stone -lion, the work of some ancient cutter, to whom a lion was a fairy beast, -sitting like a Skye dog on his haunches with his long tail jauntily in -the air, and his wizened face cocked impudently. - -From this square she turned east along a line of shops and white -cottages, down a little hill, to an old stone bridge, crossing the -Ardoch with a single high, graceful span. South of it stood the restored -walls of Doune Castle, once a Lowland stronghold, protected by the swift -waters of the Teith, now merely the most curious and the best preserved -ruin in the North. East of the Ardoch the land rises into a park set -with ancient oaks, limes, planes, and gnarled beeches. Here the street -crossing the Ardoch ends as a public thoroughfare, and barred by the -park gates, continues up the hill as a private road between two rows of -plane trees. - -The Marchesa opened the little foot gate, cut like a door in the wall of -the park beside the larger gate, and walked slowly up the hill, over -the dead plane leaves beginning now to fall. As she advanced the -quaint split stone roof and high round wall of Old Newton House came -prominently into view. This ancient house, one of the most picturesque -in Scotland, deserves a word of comment. It was built in 1500 a.d., as -a residence for the royal keepers of Doune Castle, and built like that -castle with an eye forward to a siege. The stone walls are at some -points five feet thick. The main wing of the house is flanked with a -semicircular tower, capped with a round crow-step coping. The windows -high up in the wall were originally barred with iron; the holes in the -stones are still plainly visible. Under the east wing of the house is an -arched dungeon with no ray of light; under the west wing, a well for the -besieged. A secret opening in the wall of the third story descends under -the Ardoch, it is said, to Doune Castle. To the left are the formal -gardens inclosed by a tall holly hedge, and to the right, the green -sward of the park. The road climbing the hill turns about into a gravel -court. - -The place is incrusted with legends. Prince Charlie on his daring -march south with a handful of Highlanders to wrest a kingdom from the -Hanoverian, coming to this stone span by the Ardoch, was met at the park -gate by the daughters of the house with a stirrup cup. He drank, as the -story runs, and pulling off his glove put down his hand to kiss. But one -madcap of the daughters answered, "I would rather prie your mou," and -the Prince, kissing her like a sweetheart, rode over the Ardoch to his -fortunes. - -This old stronghold had originally but one way of entrance cut in the -solid wall of the tower. An iron door, set against a wide groove of the -stone, held it--barring against steel and fire. The door so low that -one entering must stoop his head, making him thus ready for that other, -waiting on the stairway with his ax. - -This stone stairway ascending in the semicircular tower is one of -the master conceptions of the old-time builder. Each step is a single -fan-shaped stone, five inches thick, with a round end like a vertebra. -These round ends of the stones are set one above the other, making thus -a solid column, of which the flat part of each stone is a single step -of a spiral stairway. The early man doubtless took here his plan direct -from nature, in contemplation of the backbone of a stag twisted about, -and going thus to the great Master for his lesson, his work, to this -day, has not been bettered. His stairway was as solid and enduring as -his wall, with no wood to burn and no cemented joint to crumble. - -The Marchesa, having come now to the gravel court before the iron door, -found there the brass knob of a modern bell. At her ringing, a footman -crossed the court from the service quarter of the house, took her card -and disappeared. A moment later he opened the creaking door and led -the way up the stone stair into a little landing, a sort of miniature -_entresol_, to the first floor of the house. This cell, made now to do -service as a hall, was lighted by a square window, cut in modern days -through the solid masonry of the tower. In the corner of it was a rack -for walking sticks, and on the row of brass hooks set into the wall were -dog whips, waterproofs, a top riding coat, and several shooting capes, -made of that rough tweed, hand spun and hand woven, by the peasants of -the northern islands, dyed with erotal and heather tips, and holding yet -faintly the odor of the peat smoke in which it was laboriously spun. - -The footman now opened the white door at the end of this narrow landing, -and announced the Marchesa Soderrelli. As the woman entered a man arose -from a chair by a library table in the middle of the room. - -To the eye he was a tall, clean-limbed Englishman, perhaps five and -thirty; his fair hair, thick and close cropped, was sunburned; his eyes, -clear and hard, were dark-blue, shading into hazel; his nose, aquiline -in contour, was as straight and clean cut as the edges of a die; his -mouth was strong and wide; his face lean and tanned. Under the morning -sunlight falling through the high window, the man was a thing of bronze, -cast in some old Tuscan foundry, now long forgotten by the Amo. - -The room was that distinctive chamber peculiar to the English country -house, a man's room. On the walls were innumerable trophies; elk from -the forests of Norway, red deer from the royal preserves of Prussia, the -great branching antlers of the Cashmire stag, and the curious ebon horns -of the Gaur, together with old hunting prints and pencil drawings of -big game. On the floor were skins. The buffalo, found only in the vast -woodlands of Lithuania; the brown bear of Russia, the Armenian tiger. -Along the east wall were three rows of white bookshelves, but newly -filled; on a table set before these cases were several large volumes -apparently but this day arrived, and as yet but casually examined. To -the left and to the right of the mantel were gun cases built into the -wall, old like the house, with worn brass keyholes, and small diagonal -windows of leaded glass, through which one could see black stocks and -dark-blue barrels. - -Over the mantel in a smoke-stained frame was a painting of the old Duke -of Dorset, at the morning of his life, in the velvet cap and the long -red coat of a hunter. The face of the painting was, in every detail, the -face of the man standing now below it, and the Marchesa observed, with a -certain wonder, this striking verification of the innkeeper's fantastic -story. - -On the table beside the leather chair from which the man had arisen -were the evidences of two conflicting interests. A volume of political -memoirs, closed, but marked at a certain page with the broad blade of -a paper cutter--shaped from a single ivory tusk, its big gray handle -pushing up the leaves of the book--and beside it, the bolt thrown open, -the flap of the back sight pulled up, was a rifle. - -An observer entering could not say, on the instant, with which of these -two interests that one at the table had been latest taken. Had he gone, -however, to the books beyond him on the wall, he might have fixed in a -way the priority of those interests. The thick volumes on the table -were the political memoirs of the late Duke of Dorset. The newer books -standing in the shelves were exclusively political and historical, -having to do with the government of England, speeches, journals, essays, -memoirs, the first sources of this perplexing and varied knowledge; -while the older, worn volumes, found now and then among them, were -records of big-game shooting, expeditions into little known lands, works -rising to a scientific accuracy on wild beast stalking, the technic of -the rifle, the flight and effect of the bullet, and all the varied gear -of the hunter. It would seem that the master of this house, having for a -time but one consuming interest in his life, had come now upon a second. - -The Duke of Dorset advanced and extended his hand to the woman standing -in the door. - -"It is the Marchesa Soderrelli," he said; "I am delighted." - -The words of the man were formal and courteous, but colored with no -visible emotion; a formula of greeting rather, suited equally to a -visitor from the blue or one coming, with a certain claim upon the -interest, from the nether darkness. The hospitality of the house was -presented, but the emotions of the host retained. - -The Marchesa put her gloved fingers for a moment into the man's hand. - -"I hope," she answered, "that I do not too greatly disturb you." - -"On the contrary, Madam," replied the Duke, "you do me a distinction." -Then he led her to his chair, and took another at the far end of the -table. He indicated the book, the rifle, with a gesture. - -"You find me," he said, "in council with these conflicting symbols. -Permit me to remove them." - -"Pray do not," replied the Marchesa, smiling; "I attach, like Pompey, a -certain value to the flight of birds. Signs found waiting at the turn -of the road affect me. Those articles have to me a certain premonitory -value." - -"They have to me," replied the Duke, "a highly symbolic value. They are -signposts, under which I have been standing, somewhat like a runaway -lad, now on one foot and now on the other." Then he added, as in formal -inquiry, "I hope, Madam, that the Marquis Soderrelli is quite well." - -A cloud swept over the woman's face. "He is no longer in the world," she -said. - -The man saw instantly that by bungling inadvertence he had put his -finger on a place that ached. This dissolute Italian Marquis was finally -dead then. And fragments of pictures flitted for a moment through the -background of his memory. A woman, young, beautiful, but like the spirit -of man--after the figure of Epictetus--chained invisibly to a corpse. He -saw the two, as in a certain twilight, entering the Hotel Dardanelle -in Venice; the two coming forth from some brilliant Viennese café, and -elsewhere in remote Asiatic capitols, always followed by a word, pitying -the tall, proud girl to whom a sardonic destiny had given such beauty -and such fortune. The very obsequious clerks of the Italian consulate, -to which this Marquis was attached, named him always with a deprecating -gesture. - -The Duke's demeanor softened under the appealing misery of these -fragments. He blamed the thoughtless word that had called them up. Still -he was glad, as that abiding sense of justice in every man is glad, when -the oppressor, after long immunity, wears out at last the incredible -patience of heaven. The Marquis had got, then, the wage which he had -been so long earning. - -The Duke sought refuge in a conversation winging to other matters. He -touched the steel muzzle of the rifle lying on the table. - -"You will notice," he said, "that I do not abandon myself wholly to the -memoirs of my uncle. I am going out to Canada to look into the Japanese -difficulties that we seem to have on our hands there. And I hope to -get a bit of big-game shooting. I have been trying to select the proper -rifle. Usually, after tramping about for half a day, one gets a single -shot at his beast, and possibly, not another. He must, therefore, not -only hit the beast with that shot, but he must also bring him down with -it. The problem, then, seems to be to combine the shock, or killing -power, of the old, big, lead bullet with the high velocity and -extreme accuracy of the modern military rifle. With the Mauser and the -Lee-Enfield one can hit his man or his beast at a great distance, but -the shock of the bullet is much less than that of the old, round, -lead one. The military bullet simply drills a little clean hole which -disables the soldier, but does not bring down the beast, unless it -passes accurately through some vital spot. I have, therefore, selected -what I consider to be the best of these military rifles, the Mannlicher -of Austrian make, and by modifying the bullet, have a weapon with the -shock or killing power of the old 4:50 black powder Express." - -The man, talking thus at length with a definite object, now paused, -took a cartridge out of the drawer of the table, and set it down by the -muzzle of the rifle. - -"You will notice," he said, "that this is the usual military cartridge, -but if you look closer you will see that the nickel case of the bullet -has four slits cut near the end. Those simple slits in the case cause -the bullet, when it strikes, to expand. The scientific explanation is -that when the nose of the projectile meets with resistance, the base -of it, moving faster, pushes forward through this now weakened case and -expands the diameter of the bullet, and so long as this resistance to -the bullet continues, the expansion continues until there is a great -flattened mass of spinning lead." - -The Marchesa Soderrelli, visualizing the terrible effect of such a -weapon, could not suppress a shudder. - -"The thing is cruel," she said. - -"On the contrary," replied the man, "it is humane. With such a bullet -the beast is brought down and killed. Nothing is more cruel than to -wound an animal and leave it to die slowly, or to be the lingering prey -of other beasts." - -The Duke of Dorset spun the cartridge a moment on the table, then he -tossed it back into the drawer. - -"I fear," he said, "that I cannot bring quite the same measure of -enthusiasm to the duties of this new life. The great mountains, the -vast wind-scoured Steppes allure me. I have lived there when I could. I -suppose it is this English blood." Again smiling, he indicated the -pile of volumes beyond him by the bookcase. "But I have, happily, the -assistance of my uncle." - -The Marchesa took instant advantage of this opening. - -"You are very fortunate," she said; "most of us are taken up suddenly by -the Genii of circumstance and set down in an unknown land without a hand -to help us." - -The Duke's face returned to its serious outlines. "I do not believe -that," he said; "there is always aid." - -"In theory, yes," replied the Marchesa, "there is always food, clothing, -shelter; but to that one who is hungry, ragged, cold, it is not always -available." - -"The tongue is in one's head," answered the Duke; "one can always ask." - -"No," said the woman, "one cannot always ask. It is sometimes easier to -starve than to ask for the loaf lying in the baker's window." - -"I have tried starving," replied the Duke; "I went for two days hungry -in the Bjelowjesha forest; on the third day I begged a wood chopper for -his dinner and got it. I broke my leg once trying to follow a wounded -beast into one of those inaccessible peaks of the Pusiko. I crawled all -that night down the mountain to the hut of a Cossack, and there I begged -him, literally begged him for his horse. I had nothing; I was a dirty -mass of blood and caked earth; it was pure primal beggary. I got the -horse. The heart in every man, when one finally reaches to it, is right. -In his way, at the bottom of him, one is always pleased to help. The -pride, locking the tongue of the unfortunate, is false." - -"Doubtless," replied the Marchesa, "in a state of nature, such a thing -is easy. But I do not mean that. I mean the humiliation, the distress, -of that one forced by circumstance to appeal to an equal or a superior -for aid--perhaps to a proud, arrogant, dominating person in authority." - -"I have done that, too," replied the Duke, "and I still live. Once in -India I came upon a French explorer of a helpless, academic type. He had -come into the East to dig up a buried city, and the English Resident -of the native state would not permit him to go on. He had put his whole -fortune into the preparation for the work, and I found him in despair. I -went to the Resident, a person of no breeding, who endeavored, like all -those of that order, to make up for this deficiency with insolence. I -was ordered to wait on the person's leisure, to explain in detail -the explorer's plan, literally to petition the creature. It was not -pleasant, but in the end I got it; and I rather believe that this -Resident was not, at bottom, the worst sort, after one got to the real -man under his insolence." - -The Marchesa recalled vaguely some mention of this incident in a -continental paper at the time. - -"But," she said, "that was aid asked for another. That is easy. It is -aid asked for oneself that is crucifixion." - -"If," replied the Duke, "any man had a thing which I desperately needed, -I should have the courage to ask him for it." - -A tinge of color flowed up into the woman's face. - -"I thought that, too," she said, "until I came into your house this -morning." - -The Duke leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. - -"Have I acted then, so much like that English Resident?" he said. The -voice was low, but wholly open and sincere. - -"Oh, no," replied the Marchesa, "no, it is not that." - -"Then," he said, "you will tell me what it is that I can do." - -The woman's color deepened. "It is so common, so sordid," she said, -"that I am ashamed to ask." - -"And I," replied the Duke, "shall be always ashamed if you do not. I -shall feel that by some discourtesy I have closed the lips of one who -came trusting to a better memory of me. What is it?" - -The woman's face took on a certain resolution under its color. "I have -come," she said, "to ask you for money." - -The Duke's features cleared like water under a lifting fog. He arose, -went into an adjoining room, and returned with a heavy pigskin dispatch -case. He set the case on the table, opened it with, a little brass key, -took out a paper blank, wrote a moment on it and handed it with the pen -to the Marchesa. The woman divining that he had written a check did not -at first realize why he was giving her the pen. Then she saw that the -check was merely dated and signed and left blank for her to fill in any -sum she wished. She hesitated a moment with the pen in her fingers, then -wrote "five hundred pounds." - -The Duke, without looking at the words that the Marchesa had written, -laid the check face downward on a blotter, and ran the tips of his -fingers over the back to dry the ink. Then he crossed to the mantel, and -pulled down the brass handle of the bell. When the footman entered, he -handed the check to him, with a direction to bring the money at once. -Then he came back, as to his chair, but pausing a moment at the back of -it, followed the footman out of the room. - -A doubt of the man's striking courtesy flitted a moment into the woman's -mind. Had he gone, then, after this delicate unconcern, to see what sum -she had written into the body of the check? She arose quickly and looked -out of the high window. What she saw there set her blushing for the -doubt. The footman was already going down the road to the village. -She was hardly in her chair, smarting under the lesson, when the Duke -returned. - -"I have taken the liberty to order a bit of luncheon," he said. "This -village is not celebrated for its inn." - -The Marchesa wished to thank him for this new courtesy, but she felt -that she ought to begin with some word about the check, and yet she -knew, as by a subtle instinct, that she could not say too little about -it. - -"You are very kind," she said, "I thank you for this money"; and -swiftly, with a deft movement of the fingers, she undid the strand of -pearls at her throat, and held it out across the table. "Until I can -repay it, please put this necklace in the corner of your box." - -The Duke put her hand gently back. "No," he said, his mouth a bit drawn -at the corners, "you must not make a money lender of me." - -"And you," replied the Marchesa, "must not make a beggar of me. I must -be permitted to return this money or I cannot take it." - -"Certainly," replied the Duke, "you may repay me when you like, but I -will not take security like a Jew." - -The butler, announcing luncheon, ended the controversy. - - - - -CHAPTER III--THE HERMIT'S CRUST - -The Marchesa passed through the door held open by the butler, across a -little stone passage, into the dining room. - -This room was in structure similar to the one she had just quitted, -except for the two long windows cut through the south wall--flood gates -for the sun. The table was laid with a white cloth almost to the -floor. In the center of it was a single silver bowl, as great as a peck -measure, filled with fruit, an old massive piece, shaped like the hull -of a huge acorn, the surface crudely cut to resemble the outside of that -first model for his cup, which the early man found under the oak tree. -The worn rim marked the extreme antiquity of this bowl. Somewhere in -the faint dawn of time, a smith, melting silver in a pot, had cast the -clumsy outline of the piece in a primitive sand mold on the floor of his -shop, and then sat down with his model--picked up in the forest--before -him on his bench, to cut and hammer the outside as like to nature as he -could get it with his tools--the labor of a long northern winter; and -then, when that prodigious toil was ended, to grind the inside smooth -with sand, rubbed laboriously over the rough surface. But his work -remained to glorify his deftness ages after his patient hands were dust. -It sat now on the center of the white cloth, the mottled spots, where -the early smith had followed so carefully his acorn, worn smooth with -the touching of innumerable fingers. - -At the end of the room was a heavy rosewood sideboard, flanked at -either corner by tall silver cups--trophies, doubtless, of this Duke -of Dorset--bearing inscriptions not legible to the Marchesa at the -distance. The luncheon set hastily for the unexpected guest was -conspicuously simple. The butler, perhaps at the Duke's direction, did -not follow into the dining room. The host helped the guest to the food -set under covers on the sideboard. Cold grouse, a glass of claret, and -later, from the huge acorn, a bunch of those delicious white grapes -grown under glass in this north country. - -The Duke, having helped the Marchesa to the grouse, sat down beyond her -at the table, taking out of courtesy a glass of wine and a biscuit. - -"You will pardon this hunter's luncheon," he said; "I did not know how -much leisure you might have." - -"I have quite an hour," replied the Marchesa; "I go on to Oban at twenty -minutes past one." - -The answer set the man to speculating on the object of this trip to -Oban. He did not descend to the commonplace of such a query, but he -lifted the gate for the Marchesa to enter if she liked. - -"The bay of Oban," he said, "is thought to be one of the most beautiful -in the world. I believe it is a meeting place for yachts at this -season." - -The Marchesa Soderrelli returned a bit of general explanation. "I -believe that a great number of yachts come into the harbor for the Oban -Gathering," she answered; "it is considered rather smart for a day or -two then." - -"I had forgotten the Oban Gathering for the moment," said the Duke. -"Does it not seem rather incongruous to attend land games with a fleet -of yachts? The Celt is not a person taking especially to water in any -form but rain." The Marchesa laughed. "It is the rich wanderer who comes -in with his yacht." - -"I wonder why it is," replied the Duke, "that we take usually to the -road in the extremes of wealth and poverty. The instinct of vagrancy -seems to dominate a man when necessity emancipates him." - -"I think it is because the great workshop is not fitted with a lounging -room," said the Marchesa, "and, so, when one is paid off at the window, -he can only go about and watch the fly wheels spin. If there is a little -flurry anywhere in the great shop he hurries to it." Then she added, -"Have you ever attended a Northern Gathering?" - -"No," replied the Duke, "but I may possibly go to Oban for a day of it." - -The answer seemed to bring some vital matter strikingly before the -Marchesa Soderrelli. - -She put down her fork idly on the plate. She took up her glass of claret -and drank it slowly, her eyes fixed vacantly on the cloth. But she could -have arisen and clapped her hands. The gods, sitting in their spheres, -were with her. The moving object of her visit was to get this man to -Oban. And he was coming of himself! Surely Providence was pleased at -last to fill the slack sails of her fortune. - -Then a sense of how little this man resembled the popular conception of -him, thrust itself upon her like a thing not until this moment thought -of. He was a stranger, almost wholly unknown in England, but the title -was known. Next to that of the reigning house it was the greatest in the -Empire. The story of its descent to this new Duke of Dorset was widely -known. The romance of it had reached even to that Janet, toasting scones -in the innkeeper's kitchen. The story, issuing from every press in -Europe, was colored like a tale of treasure. But it was vague as to -the personality of this incoming Duke. He had been drawn for the reader -wholly from the fancy. In the great hubbub he had been painted--like -that picture which she had examined in the innkeeper's dining -room--young, handsome, a sort of fairy prince. The man, while the -sensation ran its seven days, was hunting somewhere in the valley of the -Saagdan on the Great Laba, inaccessible for weeks. The romance passed, -turning many a pretty head with this new Prince Charlie, coming, as by -some Arabian enchantment, to be the richest and the greatest peer in -England. Other events succeeded to the public notice. The matter of the -succession adjusted itself slowly under the cover of state portfolios, -the steps of it coming out now and then in some brief notice. But the -portrait of the new Duke remained, as the dreamers had created him, a -swaggering, handsome, orphaned lad, moved back into an age of romance. - -The reality sat now before the Marchesa Soderrelli in striking contrast -to this fancy. A man of five and thirty, hard as the deck of a whale -ship; his hair sunburned; the marks of the wilderness, the desert, the -great silent mountains stamped into his bronze face; his hands sinewy, -callous; his eyes steady, with the calm of solitudes--an expression, -common to the eye of every living thing dwelling in the waste places of -the earth. - -"You will come to Oban?" she said, putting down her cup and lifting her -face, brightened with this pleasing news. "I am delighted. The Duke of -Dorset will be a great figure at this little durbar. Perhaps on some -afternoon there, when you are tired of bowing Highlanders, you will -permit me to carry you off to an American yacht." She paused a moment, -smiling. "Now, that you are a great personage in England, you should -give a bit of notice to great personages in other lands. The peace -of the world, and all that, depends, we are told, on such social -intermixing. I promise you a cup of tea with a most important person." -Then she laughed in a cheery note. - -"You will pardon the way I run on. I do not really depend on the -argument I am making. I ought rather to be quite frank; in fact, to say, -simply, that an opportunity to present the Duke of Dorset to my friends -will help me to make good a little feminine boasting. I confess to the -weakness. When the romance of your succession to the greatest title in -England was being blown about the world, I could not resist a little -posing. I had seen you in various continental cities, now and then, and -I boasted it a bit. I added, perhaps, a little color to your imaginary -portrait. I stood out in the gay season at Biarritz as the only woman -who actually knew this fairy prince. King Edward was there, and with -him London and New York. You were the consuming topic, and this little -distinction pleased my feminine vanity." - -The Marchesa smiled again. "It seems infinitely little, doesn't it? And -to a man it would be, but not so to a woman. A woman gets the pleasure -of her life out of just such little things. You must not measure us in -your big iron bushel. If you take away our little vanities, our flecks -of egotism, our bits of fiction, you leave us with nothing by which we -can manage to be happy. And so," she continued, lowering her eyes to the -cloth and tapping the rim of the plate with her fingers, "if the Duke -of Dorset appears in Oban and does not know me, I am conspicuously -pilloried." - -It was not possible to determine from the man's face with what -internal comment he took this feminine confession. He arose, filled the -Marchesa's glass, set the decanter on the table, and returned to his -chair; then he answered. - -"If I should attend this Gathering," he said, "I will certainly do -myself the honor of looking you up." - -The words rang on the Marchesa Soderrelli like a rebuke descended from -the stars. She might have saved herself the doubtful effect of her -ingenuous confession. - -The man's face gave no sign. He was still talking--words which the -Marchesa, engrossed with the various aspects of her error, did not -closely follow. He was going on to explain that he was just setting out -for Canada, but if he had a day or two he would likely come to Oban. -He was curious to see a Highland Gathering. And if he came he would be -charmed to know the Marchesa's friends--to see her again there, and so -forth. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli murmured some courteous platitudes, some vague -apology, and arose from the table. The Duke held back the door for her -to pass and then followed her into the next room. There the Marchesa, -inquiring the hour, announced that she must go. She said the words -with a bit of brightened color, with visible confusion, and remained -standing, embarrassed, until the Duke should put into her hands the -money which he had sent for. But he did not do it. He bade her a -courteous adieu. - -A certain sense of loss, of panic, enveloped her. This man had doubtless -forgotten, but she could not remind him. She felt that such words rising -now into her throat, would choke her. The butler stood there by the -door. She walked over to it, bowed to the Duke remaining now by his -table as he had been when she had first crossed the threshold; then she -went out and slowly down the stone stairway, empty handed as she had -come that morning up it. At every step, clicking under her foot, the -panic deepened. She had not two sovereigns remaining in her bag. She was -going down these steps to ruin. - -As the butler, preceding her, threw open the iron door to the court, -she saw, in the flood of light thus admitted, a footman standing at the -bottom of the stairway, holding a silver tray, and lying on it a big -blue envelope sealed with a splash of red wax. - - - - -CHAPTER IV--THE MAIDEN OP THE WATERS - -The whine of innumerable sea gulls awoke the Marchesa Soderrelli. She -arose and opened the white shutters of the window. - -A flood of sun entered--the thin, brilliant, inspiring sun of the -sub-Arctic. A sun to illumine, to bring out fantastic colors, to dye -the sea, to paint the mountains, to lay forever on the human heart the -mysterious lure of the North. A sun reaching, it would seem, to its -farthest outpost. A faint sheet of the thinnest golden light, fading out -into distant colors, as though here, finally, one came to the last shore -of the world. Beyond the emerald rim of the distant water was utter -darkness, or one knew not what twilight sea, sinister and mystic, -undulating forever without the breaking of a wave crest, in eternal -silence. Or beyond that blue, smoky haze holding back the sun, were -to be found all those fabled countries for which the human heart has -desired unceasingly, where every man, landing from his black ship, finds -the thing for which he has longed, upward from the cradle; that one -bereaved, the dead glorified, and that one coming hard in avarice, red -and yellow gold. - -The bay of Oban on such a morning, under such a sun, surpasses in -striking beauty the bay of Naples. The colors of the sea seem to come -from below upward. The Firth of Lorn is then the vat of some master -alchemist, wherein lies every color and every shade of color, varying -with the light, the angle of incidence, the traveling of clouds; and -yet, always, the waters of that vat are green, viscous, sinister. The -rocks, rising out of this sea, look old, wrinkled, drab. The mountains, -hemming it in, seem in the first lights of the morning covered loosely -with mantles of worn, gray velvet--soft, streaked with great splashes -of pink powder, as though some careless beauty had spilled her cosmetic -over the cover of her table. - -To the Marchesa Soderrelli, on this morning, the beauties of this north -outpost of the world were wholly lost. The whining of the gulls, of all -sounds in the heaven above the most unutterably dreary, had brought -her to the window, and there a white yacht, lying in the bay, held -exclusively her attention. It was big, with two oval stacks; the burger -of the Royal Highland Yacht Club floated from its foremast and the -American flag from its jack staff. From its topmast was a variegated -line of fluttering signals. Beyond, crowding the bay, were yachts of -every prominent club in the world, from the airy, thin sailing craft -with its delicate lines to the steamer with its funnels. - -The woman, looking from this window, studied the triangular bits of silk -descending from the topmast, like one turning about a puzzle which he -used to understand. For a time the signal eluded her, then suddenly, as -from some hidden angle, she caught the meaning. She laughed, closed -the window, and began hurriedly with those rites by which a woman is -transformed from the toilet of Godiva to one somewhat safer to the eye. -When that work was ended she went down to the clerk's window, gave a -direction about her luggage, and walked out of the hotel along the sea -wall to the beach. There the yacht's boat with two sailors lay beside -a little temporary wooden pier, merely a plank or two on wooden horses. -She returned the salute of the two men with a nod, stepped over the -side, and was taken, under the flocks of gulls maneuvering like an army, -to the yacht. But before they reached it the Mar-chesa Soderrelli put -her hand into the water and dropped the silver case, that had been, -heretofore, so great a consolation. It fled downward gleaming through -the green water. She was a resolute woman, who could throttle a habit -when there was need. - -On the yacht deck a maid led the Marchesa down the stairway through a -tiny salon fitted exquisitely, opened a white door, and ushered her into -the adjoining apartment. This apartment consisted of two rooms and -a third for the bath. The first which the Marchesa now entered was a -dressing room, finished in white enamel, polished dull like ivory--old -faintly colored ivory--an effect to be got only by rubbing down -innumerable coats of paint laboriously. The floor was covered with a -silk oriental rug glistening like frost, lying as close to the planks as -a skin. A beautiful dressing table was set into the wall below a pivot -mirror; on this table were toilet articles in gold, carved with dryads, -fauns, cupids, and piping satyrs in relief. A second table stood in the -center of the room, covered with a cloth. Two mirrors, extending from -the ceiling to the floor, were set into the walls, one opposite to the -other. These walls were paneled in delicate rose-colored brocade. - -The second room was a bedchamber, covered with a second of those rugs, -upon which innumerable human fingers had labored, under a tropic sun, -until age doubled them into their withered palms. The nap of this -rug was like the deepest yielding velvet, and the colors bright and -alluring. The first rug, with its shimmering surface, was evidently -woven for a temple, a thing to pray on; but this second had -been designed for domestic uses, under a sultan's eye, with nice -discrimination, for a cherished foot. - -This room contained a bedstead of inlaid brass and hangings of exquisite -silk. The ripple and splash of the bath told how the occupant of this -dainty apartment was engaged--in green sea water like that Aphrodite -of imperishable legend. Water, warmed by the trackless currents of the -gulf, cooled by wandering ice floes; of mightier alchemy to preserve -the gloss of firm white shoulders, and the alluring hues of bright, red -blood glowing under a satin skin, than the milk of she asses, or the -scented tubbings of Egypt. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli entering was greeted by a merry voice issuing -from the bath of splashing waters. - -"Good morning," said the voice, "could you read my signal?" - -"With some difficulty," replied the Marchesa; "one does not often see an -invitation to breakfast dangling from a topmast." - -The voice laughed among the rippling waters. - -"Old Martin was utterly scandalized when I ordered him to run it up, -but Uncle had gone ashore somewhere, and I remained First Lord of the -Admiralty, so he could not mutiny. It was obey or go to the yardarm. For -rigorous unyielding etiquette, give me an English butler or an American -yacht captain." - -"It was rather unconventional," replied the Marchesa. - -"Quite so," the voice assented, "but at the same time it was a most -practical way of getting you here promptly to breakfast with me. This -place is crowded with hotels. I did not know in which of them you were -housed, and it would have taken Martin half a day to present himself -formally to all the hall porters in Oban." - -Then the voice added, "I am breaking every convention this morning. I -invite you to breakfast by signal, and I receive you in my bath." - -"This latter is upon old and established authority, I think," replied -the Marchesa. "It was a custom of the ancient ladies of Versailles, only -you do not follow it quite to the letter. The bath door is closed." - -"I am coming out," declared the voice. - -"If you do," replied the Marchesa, "I shall not close my eyes, even if -they shrivel like those of that inquisitive burgher of poetic memory." -The voice laughed and the door opened. - -It is quite as well perhaps that photography was unknown to the -ancients; that the fame of reputed beauties rests solely upon certain -descriptive generalities; words of indefinite and illusive meaning; -various large and comprehensive phrases, into which one's imagination -can fill such detail as it likes. If they stood before us uncovered to -the eye, youth, always beautiful, would in every decade shame them with -comparison. The historical detective, following his clew here and there -among forgotten manuscripts, has stripped them already of innumerable -illusions. We are told that Helen was forty when she eloped to Ilium, -and, one fears, rather fat into the bargain; that Cleopatra at her -heyday was a middle-aged mother; that Catherine of Russia was pitted -with the smallpox; and, upon the authority of a certain celebrated -Englishman, that every oriental beauty cooing in Bagdad was a load for a -camel. - -It is then the idea of perennial youth, associated by legend with these -names, that so mightily affects us. As these beauties are called, it is -always the slim figure of Daphne, of Ariadne, of Nicolette, as under the -piping of Prospero, that rises to the eye--fresh color, slender limbs, -breasts like apples--daughters of immortal morning, coming forth at dawn -untouched as from the silver chamber of a chrysalis. It is youth that -the gods love! - -And it was youth, fresh, incomparable youth, that came now through the -bath door. A girl packed yet into the bud; slender, a little tall, -a little of authority, perhaps in the carriage of the head, a bit of -hauteur maybe in the lifting of the chin--but gloriously young. Her -hair, long, heavy, in two wrist-thick plaits, fell on either side of her -face to her knees over a rose-colored bath robe of quilted satin. This -hair was black; blue against the exquisite whiteness of the skin; purple -against the dark-rose-colored quiltings. Her eyes, too, were black; but -they were wide apart, open, and thereby escaped any suggestion of that -shimmering, beady blackness of Castilian women. Their very size made -this feature perhaps too prominent in the girl's face. It is a thing -often to be noticed, as though the eye came first to its maturity, and -disturbed a little the harmony of features not yet wholly filled in. -But it is a beauty to be had only from the cradle, and for that reason -priceless. - -"Oh, Caroline," cried the Marchesa, rising, "you are so splendidly, so -gloriously young!" The girl laughed. "It is a misfortune, Marchesa, from -which I am certain to recover." - -"Oh," continued the woman, drinking in the girl from her dainty feet, -incased in quaint Japanese sandals, to the delicate contour of her -bosom, showing above the open collar of the robe. "If only one could be -always young, then one could, indeed, be always beautiful; but each year -is sold to us, as it goes out it takes with it some bit of our priceless -treasure, like evil fairies, stealing sovereigns from a chest, piece by -piece, until the treasure is wholly gone." - -She paused, as though caught on the instant by some returning memory -of a day long vanished, when she saw, reflected from a glass, on such a -morning, a counterpart of this splendid picture, only that girl's hair -was gold, and her eyes gray, but she was slim, too, and brilliantly -colored and alluring. - -Then she continued: "The bit taken seems a very little, a strand of -hair, a touch of color, the almost imperceptible lessening of a perfect -contour, but in the end we are hags." - -"Then," replied the girl, smiling, "I beg that I may become, in the end, -such a hag as the Marchesa Soderrelli." - -"Child," said the woman, still speaking as though moved by the -inspiration of that picture, "beg only for youth, in your prayers, as -the Apostle would say it, unceasingly. If you should be given a wish by -the fairies, or three wishes, let them all be youth. Women arriving -at middle life adhere to the Christian religion upon the promise of a -resurrection of the body. Were that promise wanting, we should be, to -the last one, pagans." - -"But, Marchesa," replied the girl, "old, wise men tell us that the mind -is always young." - -There was something adverse to this wisdom in the girl's soft voice; a -voice low, lingering, peculiar to the deliberate peoples of the South. - -The Marchesa made a depreciating gesture. "My dear," she said, "what -man ever loved a woman for her mind! What Prince Charming ever rode down -from his enchanted palace to wed a learned prig, doing calculus behind -her spectacles! The sight would set the sides of every god in his sphere -shaking. It is always the lily lass, the dainty maiden of red blood and -dreams, the slim youngling of gloss and porcelain that the Prince takes -up, after adventures, into his saddle. Every man born into this world -is at heart a Greek. Learning, cleverness, and wisdom he may greatly, he -may extravagantly, admire, but it is beauty only that he loves. He may -deny this with a certain heat, with well-turned and tripping phrases, -with specious arguments to the ear sound, but, believe me for a wise old -woman, it is a seizure of unconscionable lying." - -A soft hand put for a moment into that of the Marchesa, a wet cheek -touched a moment to her face, brought her lecture abruptly to a close. - -"I refuse," replied the girl, laughing, "to do lessons before breakfast -even under so charming a teacher as the Marchesa Soderrelli." - -Then she went into the bedchamber of the apartment, and sent a maid to -order breakfast laid on the Buhl table in the dressing room. The maid -returned, removed the cover, placed a felt pad over the exquisite face -of the table, and on that a linen cloth with a clock center, and borders -of Venetian point lace. Upon this the breakfast, brought in by a second -maid, was set under silver covers. While these preparations went swiftly -forward, the young woman, concerned with the details of her toilet, -maintained a running conversation with the Marchesa Soderrelli. - -"Did you find that fairy person, the Duke of Dorset?" - -"Yes," replied the Marchesa, "at Doune in Perthshire." - -"Charming! Will he come to Oban?" - -"He will come," answered the Marchesa. - -"How lovely!" And then a volley of queries upon that alluring picture -which the press of Europe had drawn in fancy of this mysterious -Duke--queries which the inquisitive young woman herself interrupted by -coming, at that moment, through the door. She now wore slippers and -a dressing gown of silk, in hunters' pink, embroidered with Japanese -designs, but her hair in its two splendid plaits still hung on either -side of her face, over the red folds of the gown, as they had done over -the quiltings of the bath robe. She sat down opposite the Marchesa at -the table, in the subdued light of this sumptuous apartment. - -The picture thus richly colored, set under a yacht's deck in the bay -of Oban, belonged rather behind a casement window, opening above a -blue sea, in some Arabian story. The beauty of the girl, the barbaric -richness of the dressing gown, her dark, level eyebrows, the hair in its -two plaits, were the distinctive properties of those first women of -the earth glorified by fable. But the girl responding visibly to these -ancient extravagances, was, in mental structure, aptly fitted to her -time. The wisdom of the débutante lay in her mouth. - -"And now, Marchesa," she said, balancing her fork on the tips of her -fingers, "tell me all about him." - - - - -CHAPTER V--THE GATHERING - -The Highland Gathering is a sort of northern durbar, and of an -antiquity equaling those of India. - -The custom of the Scottish clans to meet for a day of games, piping and -parade, had its origin anterior to the running of the Gaelic memory. A -durbar it may be called, and yet a contrast in that word cannot be -laid here alongside the gorgeous pageant of Delhi. The word may stand, -albeit, in either case equally descriptive. Both are Gatherings. The -distinction lies not in the essential and moving motive of the function, -but in the diametric differences of the races. The Orient contrasted -against the North. The rajah in his cape of diamonds, attended by his -retinue, stripped of: his Eastern splendor, is but a chief accompanied -by his "tail." The roll of skin drums is a music of no greater mystery -to the stranger than the whine of pipes. The fakirs, the jugglers of -India, disclose the effeminate nature of the East, while the games of -the Highland disclose equally the hardy nature of the North. - -Here under this cis-Arctic sun can be displayed no vestige of that -dazzling splendor, making the oriental gathering a saturnalia of gems -and color. But one will find in lieu of it hardy exhibitions of the -strength, the courage, the endurance, the indomitable unflagging spirit -that came finally to set an English Resident in every state of India. - -The games of the Oban Gathering are in a way those to be seen at Fort -William, Inverness, and elsewhere in the North; the simple sturdy -contests of the first men, observed by Homer, and to be found in a -varying degree among all peoples not fallen to decadence. Wrestling as -it was done, doubtless, before Agamemnon; the long jump; the putting of -the stone; the tossing of the caber, a section of a fir tree, and to be -cast so mightily that it turns end over in the air, a feat of strength -possible only to fingers thick as the coupling pins of a cart and sinews -of iron; the high vault, not that theatrical feat of a college class -day, but a thing of tremendous daring, learned among the ice ledges of -Buachaill-Etive, when the man's life depended on the strength lying in -his tendons. Contests, also, of agility, unknown to any south country -of the world; the famous sword dance, demanding incredible swiftness -and precision; the Sean Triubhais; the Highland fling, a Gaelic -dance requiring limbs oiled with rangoon and strung with silk, a dance -resembling in no heavy detail its almost universal imitation; a thing, -light, fantastic, airy, learned from the elfin daughters dancing in the -haunted glens of the Garry, from the kelpie women shaking their white -limbs in the boiling pools of the Coe. - -But it is not for these field sports that butterflies swarm into the bay -of Oban. A certain etiquette requires, however, that one should go for -half an hour to these games; an etiquette, doubtless, after that taking -the indolent noble, once upon a time, to the Circus Maximus; having its -origin in the custom of the feudal chiefs, to lend the splendor of -their presence to these animal contests. One finds, then, on such a day, -streams of fashionable persons strolling out to the field in which these -games are held, and returning leisurely along the road to Oban. Adequate -carriages cannot be had, and one goes afoot. The sun, the bright heaven, -the gala air of the bedecked city, the color and distinctive dresses of -the North, lend to the scene the fantastic charm of a masquerade. - -At noon, on the second day of the Gathering, the Duke of Dorset came -through the turnstile of the field into this road, following, at some -paces, two persons everywhere conspicuously noticed. The two were of so -strikingly a relation that few eyes failed to notice that fitness. The -observers' interest arose at it wondering. In the fantastic gala mood -of such a day, one came easily to see, passing here, in life, under his -eye, that perfect sample of youth and age--that king and that king's -daughter--of which the legend has descended to us through the medium of -stories told in the corner by the fire. Those two running through every -tale of mystery, coming now, unknown, as if by some enchantment. The -girl, dark eyed, dark haired, smiling. Her white cloth gown fitting to -her figure; her drooping hat loaded with flowers of a delicate blossom. -The man, old, but unbent and unwithered, and walking beside her with a -step that remained firm and elastic. He was three inches less in -stature than the Duke of Dorset, but he looked quite as tall. He was -old--eighty! But his hair was only streaked with white, and his body was -unshrunken, save for the rising veins showing in his hands and throat. -He might have appeared obedient to some legend; his face fitted to the -requirements of such a fancy. Here was the bony, crooked nose of -the tyrant, the eyes of the dreamer--of one who imagines largely and -vastly--and under that face, like an iron plowshare, sat the jaw that -carries out the dream. And from the whole body of the man, moving here -in the twilight of his life, vitality radiated. - -The two, mated thus picturesquely, caught and stimulated the fancy -of the crowds of natives thronging the road to Oban. Little children, -holding wisps of purple heather tied with bits of tartan ribbon, ran -beside them, and forgot, in their admiration, to offer the bouquets for -a sixpence; a dowager duchess, old and important, looked after the pair -through the jeweled rims of her lorgnette; she was gouty and stout now, -but once upon a time, slim like that girl, she had held a ribbon dancing -with the exquisite prince sitting now splendidly above the land, and -the picture recalled by this youth, this beauty, was a memory priceless. -Once a soldier of some northern regiment saluted, moved by a deference -which he gave himself no trouble to define; and once a Fort William -piper, touched somewhere in the region of his fancies, struck up one of -those haunting airs inspired by the Pretender-- - - "Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing. - - 'Onward!' the sailors cry. - - Carry the lad that was born to be King - - Over the sea to Skye---" - -preserving forever in the memory the weird cry of gulls, the long -rhythmic wash of the sea, and the loneliness of Scotland. - -But the impression that seized and dominated the Duke of Dorset was that -he knew these two persons. Not as living people--never in his life had -he seen either of them as living people. But in some other way, as, for -example, pictures out of some nursery story book come to life. And -yet, not quite that. The knowledge of them seemed to emerge from that -mysterious period of childhood, existing anterior to the running of the -human memory. And he tried to recall them as a child tries to recall -the language of the birds which he seems once to have understood, or -the meaning of the pictures which the frost etches on the window -pane--things he had once known, but had somehow forgotten. - -The idea was bizarre and fantastic, but it was strangely compelling, and -he followed along the road, obsessed by the mood of it. - -Presently, as the old man now and then looked about him, his bearing, -the contrasts in his face, the strange blend of big dominating -qualities, suggested something to the Duke of Dorset which he seemed -recently to have known--a relation--an illusive parallel, which, for a -time, he was unable definitely to fix. Then, as though the hidden idea -stepped abruptly from behind a curtain, he got it. - -On certain ruins in Asia, one finds again and again, cut in stone, a -figure with a lion body, eagle wings, and a human face--that mysterious -symbol formulated by the ancients to represent the authority that -dominates the energies of the world. - -But it was the other, this girl with the dark eyes, the dark hair, the -slender, supple body, that particularly disturbed him. He could not -analyze this feeling. But he knew that if he were a child, without -knowing why, without trying to know why, he would have gone to her and -said, "I am so glad you have come." And he would have been filled -with the wonder of it. So it would have been with him before the years -stripped him of that first wisdom; and yet, now at maturity, stripped of -it, the impulse and the wonder remained. - -The Duke of Dorset continued to walk slowly, at a dozen paces, -behind these two persons. He wore the dress usual to a north-country -gentleman--a knickerbocker suit of homespun tweed, with woolen stockings -and the low Norwegian shoes, with thin double seam running around the -top of the foot. This costume set in relief the man's sinewy figure. -Among those contesting in the field, which they were now leaving, there -was hardly to be found, in physique, one the equal of this Duke. Thicker -shoulders and bigger muscles were to be seen there, but they belonged -to men slow and heavy like the Clydesdale draft horse. The height, the -symmetry, the even proportions of the Duke of Dorset were not to be -equaled. Moreover, the man was lean, compact and hard, like a hunter put -by grooms, with unending care, into condition. - -This he had got from following the spoor of beasts into the desolation -of wood and desert; from the clean air of forests, drawn into lungs -sobbing with fatigue; from the sun hardening fiber into iron, leaching -out fat, binding muscles with sheathings of copper; from bread, often -black and dry; meat roasted over embers, and the crystal water of -springs. It was that gain above rubies, with which Nature rewards those -walking with her in the waste places of the earth. - -Ordinarily, such a person would have claimed the attention of the crowds -along the road to Oban, but here, behind this old man and this girl, he -was unnoticed. - -The day was perfect. From the sea came the thin, weird cry of gulls, -from the field behind him, the wail of pipes. Presently the two persons -whom he followed stopped to speak with some one in a shop, and he -overtook them on the road. - -At this moment the Marchesa Soderrelli came through the shop door. - - - - -CHAPTER VI--THE MENACE - -The Duke of Dorset had gone to tea on the American yacht. It was a -thing which he had not intended to do when he came to Oban. The general -conception of that nation current on the Continent of Europe had not -impressed him with the excellence of its people. The United States of -America was thought to be a sort of Spanish Main, full of adventurers, -where no one of the old, sure, established laws of civilization ran. -A sort of "house of refuge" for the revolutionary middle class of the -world--the valet who would be a gentleman, the maid who would he a lady. -It was a country of pretenders, posers, actors. Those who came out of -it with their vast, incredible fortunes were, after all, only rich -shopkeepers. They were clever, unusually clever, but they were -masqueraders. - -But, somehow, he could not attach either the one or the other of these -two persons to this conception of the United States of America. - -He did not stop to consider whether this curious old man, whose face, -whose body, whose big, dominant manner recalled in suggestion those -stone figures covered with vines forgotten in Asia, was a mere powerful -bourgeois, grown rich by some idiosyncrasy of chance, a mere trader -taking over with a large hand the avenues of commerce, a mere, big -tropical product of a country, in wealth-producing resources itself -big and tropical; or one of another order who had drawn this nation of -middle class exiles under him, as in romances some hardy marquis had -made himself the king of outlaws. - -Nor did he stop to consider whether this girl was a new order of woman -evolved out of the exquisite blend of some choice alien bloods. - -The thing that moved him was the dominion of that mood already on him -when the Marchesa Soderrelli came so opportunely through the shop door. - -Let us explain that sensation as we like. One of those innumerable -hypnotic suggestions of Nature drawing us to her purpose, or a trick of -the mind, or some vagrant memory antedating the experiences of life. The -answer is to seek. The philosopher of Dantzic was of the first opinion, -our universities of the second, and the ancients of the third. One may -stand as he pleases in this distinguished company. Certain it is, that, -when human reason was in its clearest luster, old, wise men, desperately -set on getting at the truth, were of the opinion that some shadowy -memories entered with us through the door of life. - -Caroline Childers poured the tea and the Duke of Dorset sat with his -eyes on her. He seemed to see before him in this girl two qualities -which he had not believed it possible to combine: The first delicate -sheen of things newly created, as, for instance, the first blossom -of the wild brier, that falls to pieces under the human hand, and -an experience of life. This young girl, who, at such an age in any -drawingroom of Europe, would be merely a white fragment in a corner, was -here easily and without concern taking the first place. The little party -was, in a sense, a thing of fragments. - -Cyrus Childers was talking. The Duke was watching the young girl, and -replying when he must. The Marchesa Soderrelli sat with her hands -idly in her lap and her eyes narrowed, looking out at something in the -harbor. - -It was an afternoon slipped somehow through the door of heaven. The sea -dimpled under a sheet of sun. The bay was covered with every manner of -craft, streaming with pennants, yachts from every country of Europe in -gala trimmings. It was as though the world had met here for a festival. -Crews from rival yacht clubs were rowing. The bay was full of music, -laughter, color, if one looked straight out toward Loch Lynne, but, if -off toward the open water, following the Marchesa's eyes, he saw on the -edge of all this music, these lights, this color, this swimming fête, -the gray looming bulk of a warship, with her long, lean steel back, and -her dingy turrets, lying low in the sea, as though she had this moment -emerged from the blue water--as though she were some deep-sea monster -come up unnoticed on the border of this festival. - -The Marchesa interrupted the conversation. - -"Do you know what that reminds me of?" she said, indicating the warship. -"It reminds me of the silent _Iroquois_ that used always to attend the -Puritan May Days." - -Cyrus Childers replied in his big voice. - -"Are you seeing the yellow peril, Marchesa?" he said. - -"I don't like it," she replied. "It seems out of place. Every other -nation that we know is here, dancing in its ribbons around the May pole, -and there stands the silent _Iroquois_ in his war paint." - -"Perhaps," said Caroline Childers, "the little brown man came in the -only clothes he had." - -"I think Miss Childers has it right," said the Duke of Dorset. "I think -the brown man came in the only clothes he had, and he has possessed -these clothes only for a fortnight." - -"Is it a new cruiser, then?" said Mr. Childers. - -"It was built on the Clyde for Chile, I think," replied the Duke, "and -the Japanese Government bought it on the day it was launched." - -"How like the Oriental," said the Marchesa, "to keep the purchase a -secret until the very day the warship went into the sea. Other nations -build their ships in the open; this one in the dark. She pretends to be -poor; she shows us her threadbare coat; she takes our ministers to look -into her empty treasury, but she buys a warship. How true it is that the -Anglo-Saxon never knows what is in the 'back' of the oriental mind." - -"Perhaps," said Caroline Childers, "we are quite as puzzling to the -Oriental." - -"That is the very point of it," replied the Marchesa. "They do not -understand each other and they never will. They are oil and water; they -will not mix. They can only be friends in make-believe, and therefore -they must be enemies in reality. Why do we deceive ourselves? In the end -the world must be either white, or it must be yellow." - -"Such a conclusion," said the Duke of Dorset, "seems to me to be quite -wrong. Certain portions of the earth are adapted to certain races. Why -should not these races retain them, and when they have approached a -standard of civilization, why should they not be admitted into the -confederacy of nations?" - -"I do not know a doctrine," replied the Mar-chesa, "more remote from the -colonial policy of England." - -"Do you always quite understand England?" said the Duke. "Here, for -instance, is a new and enlightened nation, arising in the East. We do -not set ourselves to beat it down and possess its islands. We welcome -it; we open the door to it." - -"And it will enter and possess the house," said the Marchesa. "What the -white man is now doing with his hand open, he must, later on, undo with -his hand closed. Look already how arrogant this oriental nation has -become since she has got England at her back. It was a master play, this -alliance. The white man had all but possessed the world when this wily -Oriental slipped in and divided the two great English-speaking people. -He was not misled by any such sophistry as a brotherhood of nations. -He knew that one or the other of the two races must dominate, must -exterminate the other. He could not attack the white man's camp unless -he could first divide it. Now, he has got it divided, and he is getting -ready to attack. Can one doubt the menace to the United States?" - -Cyrus Childers laughed. "Oh," he said, "the United States is in no -danger. Japan is not going to try a war with us. It is all oriental -bravado." - -"But he is creeping in on the Pacific Coast already," said the Marchesa. -"He is getting a footing; he is establishing a base; he is planting a -colony to rise when he requires it; so that when he makes his great move -to thrust the white man's frontier from the coast back into the desert, -there will already be Japanese colonies planted on the soil. You have, -yourself, told me that they are always arriving and spreading themselves -imperceptibly along the coast." - -"My dear Marchesa," said Mr. Childers, "the little Japanese is only -looking for employment. He has none of your big designs. His instincts -are all those of the servant." He looked at the Duke of Dorset. "If -Japan," he continued, "wishes to extend her territory, she will wish to -extend it in that part of the world which the Oriental now inhabits. If -there is really any menace, my dear Marchesa, it is a menace to England, -and not to us. If Japan had a great design to dominate the world, would -she not undertake to weld all the oriental races into a nation of which -she would be the head? Would she not go about it as Bismarck went -about the creation of Germany? That, it seems to me, would be the only -feasible plan for such an enterprise." - -"And do you think for a moment," said the Marchesa, "that she has not -this very plan?" - -"I do not believe that Japan has any such plan," replied the Duke of -Dorset. - -"And you," said the Marchesa, "who have lived in the East, who have -assisted England to make this alliance, do you, who know the Oriental, -believe that he does not dream of overrunning the world?" - -"Dream!" replied the Duke of Dorset. "Perhaps he dreams. I was speaking -of a plan, and a plan means a policy that one may carry out. Japan -cannot move in India because there is England in India." - -"Not yet," said the Marchesa, "but when she shall have made the -white men enemies; when she shall have grown stronger under English -friendship. She cannot yet depend on these oriental states. They are -still afraid of the white man. She has encouraged them by her victory -over Russia, but not enough. She must give them another proof that the -yellow race is not the inferior of the white one. If she can crush the -white man in North America, the yellow man will rise in Asia. Then the -dream becomes a plan; then the plan becomes a reality." - -"My dear Marchesa," said Caroline, "you must not so berate the little -yellow brother in the house of his friends." - -"Different races are never friends," replied the Marchesa. "I know -because I am a woman, and have lived among them. The Latin does not like -the Teuton, nor either of them the Saxon, and yet, all these are of the -Caucasian race. Add to this the inherent physical repugnance which -exists between the colored races and the white, and this natural dislike -becomes a racial hatred. It is no mere question of inclination; it is an -organic antipathy running in the blood. Ministers who draw treaties may -not know this, but every woman knows it." - -"Then," said Caroline, "there can be no danger to us in England's treaty -with Japan." - -"And why is there no danger?" said the Marchesa. - -"Dear me," said the girl, "if I could only remember how Socrates managed -arguments." She took a pose of mock gravity. "I think he would begin -like this: - -"You hold, Marchesa, that the hatred of one race for another increases -with the difference between them?" - -"I do," replied the Marchesa. - -"Then, Marchesa, you ought also to hold that the love between nations -increases as that difference disappears." - -"I do hold that, too, Socrates," said the Marchesa. - -"Also, Marchesa, it is your opinion that of all races the oriental is -least like us?" - -"It is." - -"And of all races, the Briton is most like us?" - -"Yes." - -"Then the Jap ought to hate us with all his heart?" - -"He ought, Socrates," said the Marchesa. "And," continued the girl, -making a little courtesy to the Duke of Dorset, "the Briton ought to -love us with all his heart?" - -The Marchesa laughed. "I leave the Duke of Dorset to answer for his -people." - -The Duke put down his cup. "With all our heart," he said. - -But the Marchesa was not to be diverted. "I think," she said, "you -are sounding deeper waters than you suspect. We know how General Ian -Hamilton said he felt when he saw the first white prisoners taken by the -Japanese in Manchuria; and we know that Canada has had the same trouble -on her Pacific Coast as the United States. This family feeling of the -white man for the white man may prove stronger than any state policy." -She turned to the Duke of Dorset. "The riots in Vancouver," she said, -"are the flying straws." - -"Both nations," said the Duke of Dorset, "ought firmly to suppress these -outbreaks. Vancouver ought no more to be permitted to jeopardize the -policy of England than California or Oregon ought to be permitted to -involve the foreign policy of the United States. I am going out to -Canada to look a little into this question for myself." - -"And you will find," said the Marchesa, "what any woman could tell you, -that these outbursts are only the manifestations of a deep-seated racial -antipathy; an instinctive resistance of all the English-speaking-people -alike to having the frontier of the white man's dominion thrust back by -the Asiatic." - -Caroline Childers interrupted. "You are a hopeless Jingo, my dear -Marchesa," she said. "Let us go and see the regattas." - - - - -CHAPTER VII--THE COUNSEL OP WISDOM - -The Marchesa Soderrelli and Cyrus Childers remained on the yacht. When -the small boat came alongside the Duke asked to be allowed to take the -oars, and so the two had gone alone to see the regattas. - -The bay was full of crafts. The crews of rival yachts crowded along the -course. Small boats were packed together in an almost unbroken line; one -coming late could find no place. - -Everywhere awnings, flags, gay parasols shut out the view of the -regattas. The Duke pulled out into the bay and north toward Loch Lynne. -He was rather glad of the pressing crowd. This young girl held his -interest; the enigma of her puzzled him; she was like no other woman. -Somehow this dark-eyed, dark-haired girl seemed to present to him the -alluring aspect of something newly come into the world; something which -he himself had found. - -There seemed to lie about her, like a vague perfume, something of the -compelling lure of fairy women, called up by the fancy; of women dreamed -of; of women created by the mind to satisfy every hunger of the senses. -The Duke of Dorset could not regard this girl without this vague -illusion entering his body like the first faint subtle odors of a -garden. The illusion seemed constantly to attend her. The presence of -others, commonplace surroundings, did not remove it. Her conversation, -no matter how it ran, did not remove it. He seemed unable by any act of -his will to dispel it. - -There seemed, somehow, from the first moment, a certain intimate -relation existing between himself and this girl whom he had found; as -though she had appeared, obedient to some call issuing unconsciously -from the mysterious instincts of his nature. The sense of it had entered -the man at once when he came before her, as the subtle, compelling -influence of some pictures enter and seize our attention when we -approach them. And he had wished to stop and receive it. He had gone -about under the vague spell of it. When he had been shown over the -yacht, he had felt a certain difficulty in giving the attention to -the details of that exquisite craft which a proper courtesy required. -Afterwards on the deck he had hardly followed the conversation. He -had wished to be left alone, to be undisturbed, as one wishes to be -undisturbed before the picture that moves him. - -He pulled the little boat out into the sea. He drew beyond the yachts, -beyond the warship, off the great rock that rises out of the green water -north of the bay. He wished to be alone with this girl. He wished to -inquire of her, as one would inquire of a fairy woman found in some -sunlit hollow; to ask her intimate and personal questions. Without being -conscious of it, his conversation entered this avenue of inquiry. He -seized upon the Marchesa Soderrelli as one who might lead the way. - -"I wonder," he said, "why it is that the Marchesa Soderrelli bears so -great a distrust of the Oriental?" - -"Perhaps from her experiences of life," replied the girl. - -"Is she an old friend, then?" said the Duke. - -"I have known her only for a month at Biarritz. But long ago, when she -was a little girl, my uncle knew her. She was born in a southern city -of the United States. She was very beautiful, my uncle says. I think he -must have been in love with her then, but he was a man of middle life, -and she was a mere girl. I think he loved her because he always talks of -her when one discusses women with him, and he never married. I only -know the shadow of the story. Her family wished her to make an amazing -marriage. My uncle was then only on his way up, so her family married -her to an Italian Marquis in the diplomatic service. I think he was in -some way near the reigning house, and if certain possible things were -to happen, he would go very high. The things never happened, and I think -the indolent Marquis merely dragged her about the world. But you ought -to know her better than I." - -"I have occasionally seen her," replied the Duke. "Her husband was -always somewhere in the diplomatic service, usually in the East. He was -rarely anywhere for long. But I judge the position of his family always -found a place for him." - -"Was he a very bad man, this Marquis?" - -The Duke did not make a direct reply. He would have wished to evade this -question, but there seemed no way. - -"He was a person one usually avoided," he said. - -"One begins to understand," continued the girl, "why the Marchesa spoke -just now with so much heat. She has always met with these other races. -She has been behind the scenes with them. In the South, where she was -born, there was always the negro; and moving about the East, there was -always the Oriental, and, besides this, her husband was of another race, -not so widely different from ourselves as these, but still distinct from -us. She had a look in at the door." - -"But we cannot take the Marchesa for a prophet." - -"Why not? She is a woman." - -"And how may a woman be better able to divine events?" - -"She feels." - -"Do not men also feel?" - -"But feeling is the way a woman gets at the truth. Men go by another -road." - -"But is not the other road a safer one?" - -The girl laughed. "The English think it is. We are not so certain. I see -you trudge along it, and I know that you are safe--ever so safe--but, -are you happy?" - -She put out her hands toward the land. "You have made everything in this -great, solid island safe. Even one's marriage is a thing to be managed -by the chief justice. Do you think one ought to go to the altar by this -other road?" - -"But why should one follow one's reason in every other thing and abandon -it in this?" - -The girl's face became thoughtful. - -"I do not know," she said. "I wish I did." She trailed her fingers in -the water. "Perhaps it is a choice between being safe and being happy. -Perhaps, after all, older persons know best. Do you think they do?" - -The Duke of Dorset was interested in the woman rather than these -speeches. The conversation was after a certain manner a thing apart. He -did not attach it to this exquisite girl. It seemed rather a portion of -some elaborate rite by which she was made to appear, to be, to remain. -He continued it as one new at magic continues his formula, in order to -hold in the world the vision he has called up. But the formula was not -of the essence of this vision. It was words following after a certain -fashion. He did not, then, go within for his replies, but without, to -the custom of his country, to the established belief rather than -his own. It was a moving of the man's mind along the lines of least -resistance; as though the magician made up his formula from anything -that he remembered, while the deeps of consciousness in him were -enjoying the appearance that he held by it. - -"Older persons," he said, "are possessed of a greater experience of -life. They have gone a journey that youth is setting out on. They ought -to know." - -"How to be safe? Yes, I believe that," she replied. "I believe they know -that. But how to be happy? I am not so certain. We have instincts that -we feel are superior to any reason, instincts that seem to warn us--I -mean a woman has. She has a sort of sense of happiness. I cannot make -it plain. It is like the sense of direction that leads an animal home -through an unfamiliar country. Put it down in a place it does not know, -and it will presently set out in the right direction. We are like that. -We feel that right direction. Older persons may insist that we take -another path, but we feel it wrong. We feel that our happiness does not -lie that way. Ought we to go against that instinct?" - -The charm of the girl deepened as she spoke. She became more vital, more -serious, more moved. And the attention of the man drew nearer to her -and farther from what he said. He began to repeat arguments that he had -heard when families had gone about the making of a marriage. - -It was too important a matter to be governed by a whim, an inclination, -a personal attachment. It was a great complex undertaking. Obligations -lapped over into it from both the past and the future. The rights of -one's people touched it. All the practical affairs of life touched it. -The standards of one's ancestors must not be lowered. The thing was a -human chain; every man must put in his link. The obligation on him was -to make that link as good as his fathers had made it. He must not debase -the metal, he must not alloy it. This was the great moving duty; against -this no personal inclination ought to stand. Moreover, who would leave -the sale of an estate or the investing of revenues to one having no -experience of life; and yet, the making of a marriage was more important -than the sale of any estate, or the placing of any revenues. It was the -administration for life of a great trust in perpetuity. - -The man was merely reciting. He was like that one playing at magic, -merely feeding words into his formula one after another, as he could -find them, because thereby the appearance that he was drawing out of the -shadow was becoming more distinct. - -The girl, leaning forward, was following every word with the greatest -interest; her eyes wide, her lips parted. She was like some kelpie woman -presented with the gift of life, inquiring of its conditions. - -"You make me feel how great you English are," she said, "how big, and -sane, and practical. No wonder you go about setting the world in order; -but where does the poor little individual come in?" - -"The house is greater than any member of it," replied the Duke. - -"I see that," she said. "I see the big purpose. But must one give up all -one's little chance of happiness? Suppose one's feelings were against -the judgment of one's family?" - -"We must believe," he said, "that many persons are wiser than one." - -"But does one's instinct, one's personal inclination never count?" - -"It often counts," he said. "It often wrecks in a generation all that -one's people have done." - -"You make me afraid," said the girl. "Suppose in your big, sane island a -woman felt that she ought not to do as her people told her. Suppose -she felt it to be wrong. I do not mean that she loved some other man, -because if she did, I think she could not be made to obey. But suppose -she loved no one; suppose she only felt that this was not the thing to -do. Ought she to give up that poor little instinct?" - -The Duke of Dorset recited the stock answer to that query: Suppose a -prince, called to rule for life a hereditary kingdom, were about -to select a minister, would he go into the street and pick a man by -instinct, or would he hear his parliament? - -The girl made a helpless gesture. - -"You convince me," she said, "and yet, one would like to believe that -one's instinct can be trusted, that it is somehow above everything else, -eternally right. One would like to believe that some little romance -remained in the world; that some place, somewhere, the one, the real -one, would find us if we only waited--if we only trusted to this -feeling--if we only held fast to it in a sort of blind, persisting -faith. But I suppose older people know." - -The sun, slanting eastward, rippled on the sea. The boat lifted and -fell. The Duke pulled back to the yacht. Swarms of boats were detaching -themselves from the packed lines of the regattas. He took a sweep out in -the bay to escape this moving hive. A furrow of shining water followed -the boat. It widened and spread into a gilded track leading out into the -sea. - -The girl no longer spoke. The atmosphere, as of something vague, unreal, -deepened around her. Again to the man there returned the impulse to know -things intimate and personal about this woman whom he had found. Was she -alone in the world with this curious old man? Had she no one nearer than -this uncle? He remembered in one of the salons of the yacht, on the old -man's table, a photograph in a big silver frame--the picture of a young -man. He remembered the vivid impression that this picture had given -him, an impression of a certain aggressive alertness that struck him as -almost insolent--as though the person bearing this face were accustomed -to thrust along toward what he wanted. He began to compare the face with -the girl before him. There ought to be some feature, some mark of blood, -some trick of expression common to the two of them, but he could not -find it. His mind was laboring with it when they reached the yacht, and -the old man came down the gangway to receive them. - -The young girl stepped out of the boat. Her gay, sunny air returned. - -"I have been taking a lesson in obedience, Uncle," she said. "The Duke -of Dorset has made me see how wise older people are, and how we ought -to follow the plan of life they make for us, and how we ought not to set -our whims against their reason." - -A smile flitted over the old man's face like sunlight over gun metal. - -"I am very much obliged to the Duke of Dorset," he said. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII--THE WOMAN ON THE WALL - -Caroline was dressing. The Marchesa sat with her elbows on the Buhl -table; her chin in her palm; her eyes following the young girl, being -prepared, under the maid's hands, for the Oban ballroom. Evening had -descended. The curtains were drawn. The salon was softly lighted. The -Marchesa was seeking for the girl's impression of the Duke of Dorset. - -"You are disappointed, then," said the Marchesa. - -The girl laughed, her soft voice rippling like a brook. - -"He is so unlike, so wholly unlike, everything I fancied him to be." - -"And what did you fancy him?" said the Marchesa. - -The girl sprang up, swept the long hair back from her face and took a -pose before the table. - -"Like this," she said, "with big, dreamy eyes, a sad mouth, long -delicate hands, and lots of lace on his coat." - -The naïve, mischievous, jesting air of the girl was adorable; but more -adorable was that slender figure, posing for the Marchesa Soder-relli -in the dishabille of her toilet with its white stuffs and lace. Her -slender, beautiful body was not unlike that of some perfect, immortal -youth, transported from sacred groves; some exquisite Adonis coming from -a classic myth; except for certain delicate contours that marked a woman -emerging from these slender outlines. Even to the Marchesa, seated with -her chin in her hands, there was, over the beautiful body of the girl, a -charm that thrilled her; the charm of something soft and white and warm -and caressing. - -"But he isn't the least like this, Marchesa," she ran on. "Don't you -remember what everybody said of him at Biarritz--a sort of Prince -Charlie? And here he is, so big, and brown, and strong that I simply -cannot fix a single fancy to him." - -Her eyes danced and her voice laughed. - -"He hasn't a sad mouth at all. He has a big, firm mouth, and there isn't -the wisp of a shadow in his eyes. They are steady, like this--and level, -like this--and he looks at you--so." - -She narrowed her eyelids, lifted her chin, and reproduced that profound, -detached expression with which the Duke of Dorset had continued to -regard her on this afternoon. - -"Why, I have been simply fluttering all day. He has stalked through all -my little illusions of him and swept them away like cobwebs. There isn't -a delicate, pale, 'bonnie Charlie' thing about him. He is a big, hard, -ivory creature, colored with walnut stain. He looks like he could break -horseshoes and things. He drove that little boat through the sea with -a mere shrug of his elbows. If Prince Charlie had been like that the -capitol of England would be now in Edinburgh. I wish you could have seen -him out there in the hay." - -The Marchesa had not removed her eyes from the girl. - -"I wish rather," she said, "that he could see you now." - -"Oh, Marchesa!" cried the girl, fleeing back to her chair and the -protection of her dressing gown. She huddled in it and drew it about -her. She looked around at the door, at the window, she caught her -breath. "How you frightened me!" she said. - -"Forgive me, my dear child," said the Marchesa. "I did not mean to speak -that way. I meant only to regret that the Duke of Dorset can never know -how wonderful you are." - -"Perhaps he doesn't care a fig how wonderful I am," said the girl, now -safely hidden in the exquisite silk gown. - -The Marchesa did not reply. Instead she asked a question. "Tell me what -he said." - -"Oh, Marchesa, I led him into terribly deep water. I made him tell me -how an English marriage is gone about. Dear me, what a fuss they make -over it, and what a solemn, ponderous, life-and-death thing it becomes -when the sturdy Briton gets at it." - -She put out her hands with an immense gravity. - -"'It is the administration for life of a great trust in perpetuity.'" - -She rolled the words with a delicious intonation. "All the wiseacres in -the family eat and smoke over it. They hold councils on it. They trudge -around it, and they discuss it with a lawyer, just as one would do if -one were making his will. They brush every little vestige of romance out -of it. They make it safe." - -For a moment her face became serious. "I wonder if they are right. I -wonder if older persons know." - -Then she clasped her hands with a burst of laughter. "Why, if I were -English, I would be expected to huddle up against my Uncle's coat -and say, 'Far be it from me to doubt the wisdom of your opinion, dear -Uncle.' And I would be handed over, boots and baggage, to the fine young -man in the silver frame on my Uncle's table." Again for a moment the -laughter vanished and the grave air returned. "I wish I knew what the -poor little mite of a girl thought about it. I wish I knew if in the end -she was glad to have her life made so safe. I wish you could have -heard all the excellent reasons the Duke of Dorset repeated. He made me -afraid." - -"I would rather have seen the Duke," said the Marchesa. - -"You mean how he looked when he was talking?" - -"Exactly that," replied the Marchesa. - -"Well, he looked like a man who is thinking one thing and saying -something else. He looked like this." And again she contracted her -eyelids, and lifted her chin. - -"Ah!" said the Marchesa. - -The girl jerked her head, scattering the pins which the maid was putting -into her hair. - -"Why did you say 'Ah' like that?" - -"Because," replied the Marchesa, "it helps to confirm a theory I have -got." - -"About the Duke's mind being far away?" - -"Far away from what he has been saying all this afternoon," replied the -Marchesa, "but not far away." - -"But that is not a theory. A theory would explain this phenomenon." - -"I know. It is only an evidence upon which I base my theory." - -"And what is the theory?" - -"That the Duke of Dorset has found something." - -"How interesting! What has he found?" - -"A thing he has been looking for." - -"Something he had lost?" - -"No, nothing that he had lost." - -"But how could he have found something that he was looking for if he had -not lost it?" - -"He did not know that he was looking for it." The girl began to laugh. - - "'Through a stone, - - Through a reel, - - Through a spinning wheel--' - -What is it that the Duke of Dorset found that he did not lose, while he -was looking for it and did not know it? I can't answer that riddle." - -"Unfortunately," said the Marchesa, "you are the only one who ever can -answer it." - -"Wise woman," said the girl, "you speak in parables." - -"I am going to speak in a parable now," replied the Marchesa. "Listen. -One day a woman on her way to the city of Dreams arrived before the city -of the Awakened, which is also called the city of Zeus, and there came -out to her the people of that city, and they said, 'Enter and dwell with -us, for there is no city of Dreams, and you go on a fool's errand.' And -one persuaded her, and she entered with him, and when the gates were -closed, they took her and bound her, and cut out her tongue, for they -said among themselves, 'She will perceive that we are liars, and she -will call down from the house top to others whom we go out to seek. -Moreover, if she be maimed, she cannot escape from us and flee away to -the city of Dreams, for one may in no wise enter that city who hath a -blemish.' And they put burdens upon her and she went about that city of -wrath and labor and bitterness, dumb. And years fled. And on a certain -day, when she was old, as she walked on the wall in the cool of the -evening, she saw another drawing near to the city of the Awakened, which -is also called the city of Zeus. And the other was young and fair as -she had been when she set out to go to the city of Dreams. And while she -looked, the people of the city went out to this traveler to beguile her -and to persuade her. And the woman walking on the wall would have called -down to warn her, but she could not, for she was dumb." - -The girl leaned forward in her chair. Her voice was low and soft. - -"Dear Marchesa," she said, "what do you mean?" - -The Marchesa Soderrelli looked down at the table. She put up her hand -and flecked away particles of invisible dust. - -"I do not mean anything," she answered. "I am merely a foolish old -woman." - -But the girl went on speaking low and softly. "Do you mean that we ought -not to believe what older persons say? That one ought to follow what one -feels? That all the excellent reasons which the Duke of Dorset repeated -are to persuade us to accept the commonplace--to be contented with the -reality, to abandon our hopes, our aspirations, our dreams? Do you mean -to show me how it fares with the poor little mite of a girl, when she -is persuaded that happiness is an illusion, and is made to give up the -dream of it? How it would have gone with little Cinderella if she had -been persuaded to believe there was no fairy godmother, and no prince -coming to make her queen. And how, if she had believed it and married -the chimney sweep she would have missed it all?" Her voice sank. "My -dear Marchesa, is this the warning of the woman on the wall?" - -"You forget the parable," replied the Marchesa. "The woman on the wall -was dumb." The girl arose, went over to the Marchesa and put her hand on -her shoulder. - -"If I had been that other traveler," she said, "I would have gone into -the city of Zeus, I would have found the woman who was dumb, and I would -have taken her with me to the city of Dreams." - -"My dear," replied the Marchesa, "you will not remember the story. That -other woman could never enter the blessed city; she was maimed." - -"Then, Marchesa," said the girl, "do you think the traveler should have -gone on alone?" - -The Marchesa took both of the girl's hands, and looked up into her face. - -"I will tell you something else," she said. "In the city of the -Awakened, there was a maker of images, old and wise; and sometimes the -woman went into his shop, and because she was dumb she wrote in the -dust on the floor, with her finger, and she asked him about the city of -Dreams, and how one reached it. And he said: 'Not the travelers only -who pass by the city of Zeus win their way to the city of Dreams; our -fathers have gone there also, but not often, and very long ago, and the -direction and the distance and the landmarks of the way our fathers have -forgot, but this thing our fathers have remembered, that no man ever -found his way to the city of Dreams who set out on that quest alone.'" - -"But if one could not go alone, how could one go at all?" - -"He said there was always another chosen to go with us." - -"And where is the other?" - -"He said, 'In the world somewhere.'" - -"And must one seek him?" - -"He said that one was always seeking him, from the day that one was -born, only one knew it not." - -"And what is there to lead us, did he say that?" - -"The woman asked him that," replied the Marchesa, "and he said: 'What -is there to lead the little people of the sea when they travel with the -tides?'" - -Caroline stooped over and put her arm close around the Marchesa -Soderrelli. - -"No matter," she said, "I would stay with the poor dumb woman." - -The Marchesa arose. She lifted the girl's chin and kissed her. - -"No, dear," she said, "you must go on to the city of Dreams." - - - - -CHAPTER IX--THE USURPER - -The Marchesa went up to the deck of the yacht. She had dressed early -and there was yet an hour to wait. A deep topaz twilight lay on the -world. There was no darkness. It was as though all the light remained, -but it came now through a colored window. At the door she stopped. Out -beyond her Cyrus Childers was walking backward and forward along the -deck. His step was quick and elastic; his back straight. Age sat lightly -on him. She watched him for a moment, and then she went over to him. - -"Ah, Marchesa," he said, in his big voice; "what do you think of this -night?" - -The Marchesa looked out at the bay flooded with its soft topaz color. - -"It is wonderful," she said. "It makes me believe that somehow, -somewhere, our dreams shall come true by the will of God." - -The old man's jaw tightened on his answer. - -"Who makes the will of God?" - -"It is the great moving impulse at the heart of things," said the -Marchesa. - -"Nonsense," said the old man. "One makes the will of God for himself. -The moving impulse is here," and he struck his chest with his clenched -hand. "What we dream comes true if we make it come true. But it does not -if we sit on our doorstep or shut ourselves up to await a visitation." - -He made a great sweeping gesture. "How can these elements that are dead -and an appearance resist the human mind that is alive and real?" - -"But providence," said the Marchesa, "chance, luck, fortune, -circumstance, do these words mean nothing?" - -The old man laughed. - -"Marchesa," he said, "if a man had a double equipment of skull space he -could sweep these words out of the language." - -"Then you do not believe they stand for anything?" - -"They stand for ignorance." - -"We are taught from the cradle," continued the Marchesa, "that there is -in the universe a guiding destiny that moves the lives of each one of us -to a certain fortune." - -"It is the wildest fancy," replied the old man, "that the human mind -ever got hold of. The fact is, that man has hardly ceased to be an -animal, that he has just discovered his intelligence, and that the great -majority of the race have no more skill of it than an infant of its -hands. Anyone with a modicum of foresight can do anything he likes. If a -visitor from an older and more luminous planet were to observe how whole -nations of men are made to do precisely what a few slightly superior -persons wish, he would never cease to laugh. And all the time these -nations of men think they are doing what they please. They think they -are directing their own destinies. They think they are free." - -The Marchesa came a little closer to him. "Have you made your destiny -what you wish it to be?" she said. - -He raised his arms and spread out his fingers with a curious hovering -gesture. Then he answered. - -"Yes," he said, "at last." - -"Have you made every dream that you have dreamed come true?" - -"Every dream," he said, "but one, and it is coming true." - -"How do you know that?" she said. - -"Because," he said, "I have the instinct of conquest. Don't you remember -what I told you when you were a little girl?" - -"I remember," replied the Marchesa slowly, "but I was very young and I -did not understand." - -"I was past fifty then," said the man. He put out his arms with his -hovering gesture. "I am eighty now, but I have done it all." - -The purple light fell on his jaw like a plowshare, on his bony nose, -on his hard gray eyes, bringing them into relief against the lines and -furrows of his face. - -"I have drawn the resources of a nation under me; I have got it in my -hand; it obeys me"; he laughed, "but I respect its illusions; I do not -offend its eye. I do not wear gewgaws and tinsel and I have hidden my -Versailles in a forest. Nations see no farther than the form of things. -A republic is as easy to govern as an empire if one only keeps his -gilded chair in the garret." - -"And, tell me, have you gotten any pleasure out of life?" - -The old man made a contemptuous gesture. - -"Pleasure," he said, "is the happiness of little men; big men are after -something more than that. They are after the satisfaction that comes -from directing events. This is the only happiness; to refuse to -recognize any directing power in the universe but oneself; to crush -out every other authority; to be the one dominating authority; to make -events take the avenue one likes. That is the happiness of the god -of the universe, if there is any god of the universe. For my part I -recognize no authority higher than myself." - -He moved about the deck, his arms out, his fingers extended, his face -lifted. - -"I am willing for men to go about with their string of playthings and -to imagine they are getting pleasure out of life; but for my part, if I -could be the master behind the moving of events, I would not be content -to sit like a village idiot and watch a spinning top. I am willing for -little men, lacking courage, to endure life as they find it, and to -say it is the will of God; but as for me I will not be cowed into -submission. I will not be held back from laying hold of the lever of the -great engine merely because the rumble of the machinery fills other men -with terror. The fearful may obey all the vague deities they like, but -as for me, I wear no god's collar." - -"Then," said the Marchesa, "you do not believe that we have any immortal -destiny?" - -The old man raised his arms with that sudden swift upward sweep of a -vulture, seeking to rise from the ground. - -"I am not concerned with vague imaginings," he replied. "I do not know -whether man is a spirit or a fungus. I only know that the human will is -the one power in the universe, so far as we can find out, that is able -to direct the moving of events. Nothing else that exists can make the -most trivial thing happen or cease to happen. No imagined god or demon, -in all the history of the race has ever influenced the order of events -as much as the feeblest human creature in an hour of life. Is it not, -then, the height of folly for the human mind, that exists and is -potent, to yield the direction of events to gods, that are fabled and -powerless?" - -His arms were extended and he moved them with a powerful threshing -motion, like that vulture, now arisen, beating the air with its wings. - -"The last clutch of the animal clinging to the intelligence of man, -as it emerges from the instinct of the beast, is fear. The first man -thought the monsters about him were gods. Our fathers thought the -elements were gods. We think that the impulse moving the machinery of -the world is the will of some divine authority. And always the only -thing in the universe that was superior to these things has been afraid -to assert itself. The human mind that can change things, that can do as -it likes, has been afraid of phantasms that never yet met with anything -that they could turn aside." The old man clenched his hands, contracted -his elbows, and brought them down with an abrupt decisive gesture. - -"I do not understand," he said, "but I am not afraid. I will not -be beaten into submission by vague inherited terrors. I will not be -subservient to things that have a lesser power than I have. I will not -yield the control of events to elements that are dead, to laws that are -unthinking, or to an influence that cannot change. Not all the gods that -man has ever worshiped can make things happen to-morrow, but I can make -them happen. Therefore, I am a god above them. And how shall a god that -is greater than these gods give over the dominion of events into their -hands?" - -He dropped his arms and with them his big dominant manner. He came over -to the rail of the yacht and leaned against it beside the Mar-chesa -Soderrelli. - -"Marchesa," he said, "this is the only thing that I know better than -other men. It is the only advantage I have. It is the one thing that I -know which they do not seem to know. I have made good use of it. What -they have called unforeseen, I have tried to foresee. What they have -left to chance, I have tried to direct. And while they have been afraid -of the great engine and huddled before it, worshiping the steam, the -fire, the grinding of the wheels, imagining that some god sat within at -the levers, I have entered and, finding the place empty, have taken hold -of the levers for myself." - -A certain vague fear possessed the Mar-chesa Soderrelli. The presumption -of this old man seemed to invite some awful judgment of God. Would -He permit this open, flaunting treason, this defiant swaggering _lèse -majesté?_ Surely He permitted it to flourish thus for a season that He -might all the more ruthlessly destroy it. The wan, eerie light lying -on the world, shadowing about this strange, defiant old man, seemed -in itself a sinister premonition. She felt afraid without knowing why, -afraid lest she be included in this impending visitation of God's wrath. - -The old man, leaning against the rail, continued speaking softly: "Do -you think that I will get the other thing that I want?" - -The Marchesa turned away her face and looked down into the sea to avoid -the man's direct dominating manner. - -"I do not know," she murmured. - -Already she was beginning to waver. She had come ashore from what she -considered the wreckage of her life. She had formed then at Biarritz a -resolution and a decided plan. She would take what this old man had to -offer, that would give her unlimited money. She would bring together -this new Duke of Dorset and this girl, and if that alliance could be -made, she would have through it, then, a position commensurate to the -wealth behind her. She had begun with courage to carry out this plan. -She had gone to Doune with a double object, to borrow money to pay debts -she must be rid of, and to bring about a meeting between the Duke of -Dorset and Caroline Childers. And these two things she had accomplished. -Until now the heart in her had been hardened. Until now she had been -cold, calculating and determined. Now, somehow, under this mood, a doubt -oppressed her. - -The sudden, big, dominating laugh of the old man beside her aroused her -like a blow. - -"I know," he said, "we are all of us alike. Once past the blossom of -youth, we, all of us, men and women alike, are after the same thing. -Until then we pursue illusions, will-o'-the-wisps, shining destinies -that do not, and cannot arrive; but when we have hardened into life -we understand that power is the only source of happiness. We desire -to rule, to dominate, to control. We wish to lay hold of the baton of -authority; and, look, I have it ready to your hand. I have everything -that the Fourteenth Louis had at Versailles, except the name, and -what woman past the foolish springtime of life would deny herself such -authority as that?" - -The Marchesa drew herself up. The muscles in her body stiffened. Her -fingers tightened on the rail. With a stroke he had laid her ulterior -motives open to the bone. He had made plain what she was endeavoring to -conceal, and the bald frankness shocked her. He had stripped the thing -naked and it shamed her. But there it was, though naked, the greatest -shining lure in the world. Wealth past any European conception, outside -the revenues of a state, with the power that attended it. And how -poor she was! She had been forced to borrow five hundred pounds to pay -tradesmen at her heels. She had sent the money back this very morning in -order to loosen their fingers on her skirts that she might go forward -to this last adventure. What had she out of all the promise of her life? -What had she got ashore with from her sinking galleon but her naked -body? How could she, stripped, bruised, empty handed, stand out against -the offer of a kingdom? - -For a little while the old man watched the tense figure of the woman, -then he added: "Do you think that I did not know how your life was -running? That I was overlooking this thing while I was getting the other -things that I was wanting? Do you think I came to Biarritz, over the -sea, here, merely to please Caroline? Look, how I came within the very -hour--on the tick of the clock!" - -Again the Marchesa Soderrelli was astonished. She had believed herself -like one who sat in darkness, on the deck of a ship that drifted, and -now, as by the flash of a lantern, she saw another toiling at the -helm. She had believed this meeting at Biarritz to be the work of fate, -chance, fortune, and instead it was the hand of this old man, moving -what he called the levers of the great engine. The fear of him deepened. - -"Look, Marchesa," he was saying, "I do not ask you to decide. Come first -and see the garden that I have made in a wilderness--the Versailles that -I have concealed in a forest." - -He began once more to move, to extend his arms, to spread his hands. - -"Remember, Marchesa, you decide nothing; you only say 'I will come,' and -when you say that, I will prove on the instant that my coming here was -for no whim of Caroline, for within the hour, day or night, that you say -it, this yacht will go to sea." - -The Marchesa, disturbed, caught at the name and repeated it. "But what -of Caroline?" she said. - -She pronounced the question without regarding the answer to it. Perhaps -it was because the old man did not reply directly and to the point. -Perhaps because another and more obtruding idea occupied her mind. At -any rate his words did not remain in her memory. From what he said, out -of the labyrinth of his indirections, the man's plan emerged--the plan -of Tiberius withdrawing to Capri, but holding to the empire through the -hand of another, a creature to be bound to him with the white body of -this girl. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli, amazed, began to stammer. "But Caroline," she -said, "suppose, suppose, she does not will to obey you?" - -The old man laughed. Again, by a tightening of the muscles, his -plowshare jaw protruded. - -"A child's will," he said; "it is nothing." - - - - -CHAPTER X--THE RED BENCH - -There is a raised bench of two broad steps, covered with red cloth, -running, like a great circular dais, around the curious old ballroom -of the Oban Gathering. The effect of it is strikingly to enthrone the -matron and the dowager, who hold that bench from eleven until five -o'clock in the morning. Impressive, important women, gowned in rich -stuffs, and of varying ages, from that one coming in beauty to the -meridian of life, to that one arriving in wisdom at its close. - -The very word bench, applied to this raised seat, is apt and suggestive. -The significance of the term presents itself in a sense large and -catholic. The judges of the King's Bench do not deal in any greater -measure with the problems of human destinies than do the judges of this -one. That dowager, old and wise, her chin resting on her hand, her -eyes following some youth whirling a débutante down the long ballroom, -weighing carefully his lineage, his income, his social station, will -presently deliver an opinion affecting, more desperately, life and lives -than any legal one pronounced by my lord upon his woolsack. Here on this -bench, while music clashes and winged feet dance, are destinies made -and unmade by women who have sounded life and got its measure; who are -misled by no illusions; who know accurately into what grim realities the -path of every mortal presently descends. There is no tribunal on this -earth surpassing in varied and practical knowledge of life these judges -of the Red Bench. - -This ball is the chiefest function of the Oban Gathering. Here one finds -the dazzling splendor which this northern durbar in every other -feature strikingly lacks; gowns of Redfera, Worth, Monsieur Paquin; the -picturesque uniform of Highland regiments. Every Scottish chief in the -dress tartan of his clan, with his sporran, his bright buckles, his -kilt; with his stockings turned down over the calf of the leg and his -knees bare. All moving in one saturnalia of color; in whirling dances, -foursomes, eight-somes, reels, quick as jig steps, deliberate and -stately as minuets, to the music of pipers, stepping daintily like cats -on opposite sides of the hall; as though on some night of license -all the brigands of opera bouffe danced at Versailles with the court -beauties of Louis, and around this moving, twining, sometimes shouting, -fantastic masquerade, the Red Bench. - -[Illustration: 0147] - -And yet there is here no masquerade. This dress of the Highland chief, -to the stranger fancy and theatric, has been observed in distant -quarters of the world, to attend thus fancy and thus theatric upon -the bitterness of death, in slaughter pens at night, under the rush of -Zulus, in butchered squares, at midday, sweltering in the Soudan; and -of an antiquity anterior to legend--worn by his father's father when he -charged, screaming, against Caesar. - -At two o'clock on this night Caroline Childers came up out of the -crowded ballroom for a moment's breathing, and sat down on the Bed -Bench. She was accompanied by the Duke of Dorset, one of the few men to -be seen anywhere in plain evening clothes, except Cyrus Childers, who -had but now taken the Marchesa Soderrelli in to supper. The Duke sat -on the step below the girl, at her feet. On either side this bench -stretched the red arc of its circle. Below it innumerable dancers -whirled. This girl, her dark hair clouding her face, her wide dark eyes -distinguishing the delicate outlines of her mouth and chin, resembled -some idealized figure of legend. - -One from a distant country, coming at this moment to the entrance of -the hall, would have stopped there, wondering, with his shoulder resting -against the posts of the doorway. Suppose him to have come ashore on -this night, lost, after shipwreck and strange wanderings, after the sea -had been over him, uncertain that he lived yet, he would have seen here -that fairy sister of Arthur, dark haired, dreamy, wonderful, like this -girl. Her council, old, wise, magnificent, sitting on this Red Bench, -and below a fantastic dancing company. He would have believed himself -come upon this hall through the deeps of green water, into that vanished -kingdom, situate by legend, between the Land's End and the isles of -Scilly. - -The Duke of Dorset, his broad back to the girl, his bronze face looking -down on the crowded ballroom, was speaking, slowly, distinctly, like one -pronouncing a conclusion. - -"I understand now," he said, "why it has become the fashion to attend -these Gatherings. It is the only place in the world where gentlemen wear -the dress and do the dances of the aborigines." - -The girl replied with a question, "You have traveled in many countries, -then?" - -"In most Eastern countries," said the Duke, "and I have seen nowhere -anything like this. These fantastic steps, these striking costumes, this -weird music is splendidly, is impressively barbaric." - -But the girl was thinking of another matter. "Have you ever visited any -Western countries?" she said. - -"Not the continent of North America," replied the Duke. - -"Then," she said, "you must come to visit me." - -These words startled the Duke of Dorset. He had heard not a little of -American disregard of conventions, but he was in no sense prepared for -this abrupt, remarkable invitation. - -"Then you will come to visit me!" spoken quietly, surely, like one in -authority, by a girl under twenty, apparently but yesterday from the -gardens of a convent. He could not imagine a girl of Italy, of France, -of Austria, speaking words like those. A girl on the continent of Europe -giving such an invitation would be mad, or something infinitely worse. -Evidently all standards known to the people of the old world were -unfitted to these people of the new. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli was right when she thought him to have found -here in the bay of Oban something which he had not believed to exist. He -was wholly unable to place and classify this girl. She was strange, new, -unbelievable. He felt himself as perplexed and astonished as if, on the -border of the Sahara, he had come upon a panther like that one imagined -by Balzac; or by accident, in some remote jungle of Hindustan, a leopard -with wings. Instinctively he swung around his great shoulders and looked -up into her face. There was nothing in that face to indicate that these -words were other than ordinary. The girl sat straight as a pine, her -chin lifted, her face shadowed by her dark hair, illumined by her dark -eyes, imperious, as though these men in spangled coats, in bare knees, -as though these women in rich colors, danced before her as before a -Sheba. Instantly, as under the medium of this picture, the Duke of -Dorset got a new light flashed onto those jarring words. Persons -accustomed to be obeyed spoke sometimes like that. He sat a moment, -silent, looking at the girl before he opened his mouth to reply; in that -moment his opportunity departed. - -The young girl arose. "The heat is oppressive," she said; "let us go -out." And he followed her, skirting the crowds of dancers. - -The door from the ballroom led first into a long scantily furnished -antechamber, hung in yellow, and then into the street. This chamber, -now deserted, is, during the early hours of the ball, packed with women. -Here, by a local custom, they remain until partners for their entire -card have been selected. This room has been called facetiously "The -Market." Because, here, in open competition, the debutante must win her -place, and the veteran hold that which she has already won. - -The two went through this room out into the street. The night, like -those of this north country in summer, was in no sense dark. The sky was -brightened, as in other countries it appears at dawn or twilight; one -standing in the street could easily read the lines of a newspaper. The -street was not deserted; others, oppressed by the heat and fatigue of -the ballroom, had come out into the cool night. The pair walked slowly -down toward the sea. They passed, now and then, a couple returning, -and here and there, some girl and a Highlander seated on the step of a -silent house; the man's kilt spread out to protect his companion's gown -from the stone. - -They came presently upon a bench under the wall of a garden, and sat -down there, looking out on the sea. The hay below the town blinked with -lights; every yacht was illumined; some were hung from their masts with -many colored lamps, others were etched in outline by strings of light, -following their contour. The sea, meeting the horizon, was broken here -and there with flecks of white, increasing with the distance; as though -sirens sported--timid, modest sirens, flashing but an arm or the tip of -a white shoulder where any human eye could see it, but in the security -of distance tumbling their bodies in abandon. - -Within the ballroom the Duke of Dorset had been able to regard this girl -in a certain detached aspect, but here, now, on this bench before -the sea, that sense of something intimate and personal assailed his -faculties and possessed them. And there came with it a subtle illusion -of the unreal creeping over the world, a faint insidious something, like -the first effects of opium that one strives to drive away by dashing -the face with water. And the source of this vague compelling dream, the -thing from which it issued, or the thing toward which, from far-off, -mysterious sources, it approached, was this woman--this woman seated -here beside him, this slender, exquisite girl. - -This sudden, dominating impulse the man strongly resisted, but while -he held it thus, he feared it. It was like those bizarre impulses which -sometimes seize on the human mind and which, while we know them to -be wild and fantastic, we feel that if we remain we shall presently -accomplish them. He was glad when the girl spoke. - -"I love the sea," she said. Her face was lifted, the breath of the water -seemed to move the cloudy mass of her hair gently, as though it wished -to caress it. "It makes me feel that all the things which we are taught -are only old wives' tales, nevertheless, after all, are somehow true. -Before the sea, I believe that the witches and the goblins live. I -believe the genii dwell in their copper pots. I believe that somewhere, -in the out-of-the-way places of the world, they all remain--these fairy -people." - -She turned slowly toward her companion. - -"Tell me," she said, "when you have traveled through the waste places of -the earth, have you never come on a trail of them? Have you never found -a magician walking in the desert? Or have you never looked into the -open door of a hut, in some endless forest, and seen a big yellow-haired -witch weaving at a loom; or in the bed of some dried-up river, a hideous -dwarf, squatting on a rock, boiling a pot of water?" - -"I have never found them," said the man. - -"No," said the girl, "you would never find them. One never does find -them, I suppose. But, did you never _nearly_ find them? Did you never, -in some big, lonely land at night, when everything was still, did you -never catch some faint, eerie murmur, some wisp of music, some vague -sound?" - -"I have heard," replied the man, "far out in the Sahara, in that unknown -country beyond the Zar'ez, which is simply an ocean of huge motionless -billows of sand, at night in the endless valleys of this dry sea, I have -heard the beating of a drum. No one understands this tiny, fantastic -drumming. It is said to be the echo of innumerable grains of sand blown -against the hard blades of desert grasses, but no one knows. The Arabs -say it is the dead. I suppose it is a sort of sound mirage." - -"Oh, no," replied the girl, "it is not the dead; I know what it is. It -is the little drums of the fairy people traveling in the desert, hunting -a land where they may not be disturbed. We have driven them out of the -forest, and away from the rivers and the hills. Poor little people, how -they must hate the hot yellow sand, when they remember the cool wood, -and the bright water, and the green hills! I am sure that if you had -crept out toward that sound you would have seen the tiny drummers, in -their quaint scarlet caps, beating their little drums to awake the -fairy camp, and you would have seen the moon lying on this camp, and -the cobweb tents, and all the little carts filled with their household -things." - -The fresh salt air seemed to vitalize her face; her eyes, big, vague, -dreamy, looked out on the sea; her hands were in her lap; her body -unmoving. She was like a child absorbed in the wonder of a story. - -"But the others," she said, "the magicians and the witches and the -wicked kings and the beautiful princesses, they would live in cities. -Have you not nearly found these cities? Have you not seen the turrets -and the spires and the domes of them mirrored in the shimmering heat of -some far-off waste horizon? Or have you not looked up suddenly in some -barren country of great rocks and beheld a walled town with fantastic -towers and then, when you advanced, found it only a trick of vision? -That would be one of their cities." - -All at once the man recalled a memory. A memory that suddenly presented -itself, as though it were a fragment of some big luminous conception -that he could not quite get hold of. A memory that was like a familiar -landmark come upon in some unknown country where one was lost. He leaned -forward. - -"On the coast of Brittany," he said, "there is a great dreary pool of -the sea like dead water, and one looking into it can see faintly far -down walls of ancient masonry, barely visible. The peasants say that -this is a submerged city. The king of it was old and wicked, and -God sent a saint to say that He would destroy the city. And the king -replied, 'Am not I, whom you can see, greater than God, whom you cannot -see?' And he was tenfold more wicked. And God wearied of his insolence; -and one night the saint appeared before the king and said, 'God's wrath -approaches.' And he took the king's daughter by the hand and went to the -highest tower of the palace. And a stranger, who had entered the city -on this day, arose up and followed them, not because he feared God, but -because he loved the king's daughter. And suddenly the sea entered and -filled the city. And the saint and the king's daughter escaped walking -on the water. And the stranger tried to follow and he did follow, -staggering and sinking in the water to his knees. - -"Well, one summer night my uncle slept at the little house of a curé on -this coast of Brittany, and in the night he arose and went out of the -house, and the curé heard the latch of the door move, and he got up and -followed. When he came to this pool he saw my uncle walking in the sea -and he was lurching like a man whose feet sank in the sand. The curé was -alarmed and he shouted, and when he shouted, my uncle went suddenly down -as though he had stepped off a ledge into deep water, but he came up and -swam to the shore. The curé asked him why he had left his bed and come -down to this dead pool. My uncle was confused. He hesitated, excused -himself, and finally answered that the night was hot and he wished to -bathe in the sea." - -"And your uncle," said the girl, "was he--was he young then?" - -"Yes," replied the man, "he was young. He was as young as I am." - -"And was he like you?" - -"I am very like him," replied the man. "The servants used to say that he -got himself reborn." - -"And the woman," said the girl, "what was she like?" - -The man leaned over toward the motionless figure of the girl. - -"The story says," he replied, "that her hair was like spun darkness and -her eyes like the violet core of the night.'" - -Suddenly, from the almost invisible warship etched in lights, with the -jarring scream of a projectile, a rocket arose and fled hissing into the -sky. - -The man and the girl sprang up. The tense moment was shattered as by a -blow. They remained without a word, looking down at the sea. A second -rocket arose, and another as the warship added its bit of glitter to the -gala night. - -They returned slowly, walking side by side, without speaking, toward the -Gathering hall. The salt air had wilted the girl's gown. It clung to -her slim figure, giving it that appealing sweetness that the damp night -gives to the body of a woman. The street was now empty. The reel of -Tullough had drawn in the kilted soldier and his sweetheart. - -Presently the man spoke, "How little," he said, "your brother is like -you." - -"I have no brother," replied the girl. - -The man stopped. "No brother?" he said. "Then--then who was that -man--that man whose picture is in the yacht there?" - -He looked down at the girl standing there in the gray dawn in the empty -street; her hair loosened and threatening to tumble down; her slender -face alluring like a flower, and for background, the weird, eerie -morning of the North lying on a deserted city. - -"I think," she said, "there is a forgotten portion of your legend. I -think that saint of God saved the princess from something more than -death." - - - - -CHAPTER XI--THE CHART OP THE TREASURE - -When the Duke of Dorset came into the hotel dining room at ten o'clock -for breakfast, he met a hall boy, calling his name and "letter please," -after the manner of the English hostelry. He sat down at a table, thrust -a knife under the flap of the letter and ripped it open. He took out the -folded paper within and bent it back across his fingers. The paper -was an outline map of the Pacific Coast of the United States. Merely a -tracing like those maps used commonly on liners to indicate the day's -run. It was marked with a cross in ink, at a point off the coast of -Oregon, and signed across the bottom "Caroline Childers." - -The Duke arose and went over to the window. The white yacht, lying last -night at anchor, was going now out of the bay of Oban, the smoke pouring -from her stacks. The gulls attended her, the sun danced on her painted -flanks, and the green water, boiling under lace, ran hissing in two -furrows, spreading like a V from her screw. The Duke remained standing -in the window, his shoulders thrown loosely forward, his hand clenched -and resting on the sill, the open map in his fingers. The yacht saluted -the warship, dipping her colors, and turned westward slowly into the -channel. Her proportions descended gradually into miniature. The -smoke crawled lazily in thinner whisps along the sky landward from her -funnels. The sea was a pot of molten glass, green as verdigris far down -under the light, and polished on the surface like a crystal. Over this -water, easily, without a sound, without the swinging of a davit, the -yacht moved out slowly to the sea like something crawling on a mirror. - -The Duke of Dorset was not prepared for this sudden departure of the -yacht. Certain vague detached impressions had, during the night, got -themselves slowly into form. Certain incidents, apparently unrelated, -had moved one around the other into a sort of sequence. He was beginning -to see, he thought, to what end certain events were on the way. - -For fully twenty minutes the Duke stood in the window watching the -departing yacht, his jaw thrust forward, the muscles of his face -hardening, his clinched fingers bearing heavily on the sill. Then, he -turned back slowly, deliberately, into the dining room, folded the map, -put it into his pocket, went out to the clerk's cage, paid his bill -with a five-pound note, ordered his luggage sent at once to the railway -station, and went down the steps of the hotel into the street. - -The visitors overland to Oban were in exodus; lorries passed him piled -high with black leather trunks, boxes, bags, and traveling rugs; old -women passed, sallow, haggard from the nights' chaperoning; girls, worn -out and sleepy; men looking a stone thinner from seven hours of dancing; -Highlanders in kilts, pipers, sailors, crowded around the doors of -public houses, blinking in the sun. From behind these doors came oaths, -bits of ribald songs, the unsteady voices of the drunken. - -Here and there a yacht lifting its anchor steamed slowly out of the bay -following that first one, now visible only as a picture etched on -the horizon. Stupid sea birds, their shoulders drawn up, their beaks -drooping, stood about the beach, or eyed leisurely the line of salvage -thrust up by the tide. At the dock the day boat for Fort William and -the north was taking on its cargo, and on mid deck, as a sort of lure, -a little thin man with a wizened receding face was picking out swinging -modern waltzes on a zither. His fingers moving nimbly as a monkey's, and -his face following in sympathy his fingers with little nods and jerks, -inconceivably grotesque. - -The Duke went into the train shed, got a seat in a compartment and -returned to Doune. He was not, on this day, annoyed by the asperities of -travel, although the whole train south was packed, like a Brighton coach -with trippers. He sat crowded on either side by a loose-jointed baronet -and his equally masculine wife, who snapped at each other across him -like trapped timber wolves. An old lady of some country house, raw -with her long vigil, lectured her niece on the personal supervision of -luggage. - -And by the door a betartaned female slept audibly, unconscious that she -rode south badged by two clans between which, after many hundred years, -lies still the bitterness of death; her cap Glencoe MacDonald, her skirt -a dress plaid of the Glen Lion Campbells; not since the massacre had one -person worn the two of them. - -It was a hard, uncomfortable journey after a night on one's feet, but -the annoyance of it did not reach inward to the Duke of Dorset. He sat -oblivious to this environment. He was holding here a review of the last -two days and nights; as he visualized their incidents he seemed to come, -now and then, upon events indicating a certain order, as though directed -by some authority invisible behind the machinery of the world. The -coming of this girl to Oban seemed something cleaner to a purpose than -a mere whim of chance. And yet, looked at from another point of view, it -was a mere coincidence. This review was like work expended on a cipher, -or rather characters that might or might not be cipher. Characters set -thus by accident and meaning nothing, or by design, with a story to be -read. - -The Duke of Dorset came on this evening to his house, with the problem -still turning in his mind. The mystery lying about the Marchesa -Soderrelli when she appeared at Old Newton was now clear enough. To -give herself a certain importance at Biarritz, she had boasted an -acquaintance with him. She had promised to produce him at Oban. She had -sought thus to attach herself to these wealthy Americans. It was a bit -of feminine strategy, but could he condemn it? An atmosphere of pity lay -about the Marchesa Soderrelli. The Marquis of Soderrelli, earning his -damnation, had been paid off at God's window--he was dead now--and she -was free. And she had come forth, like that Florentine, from hell, -her beauty fading, her youth required of her. She was no lay figure of -drama, plotting behind a domino. She was only a tired woman, whose youth -a profligate had squandered, making what she could, with courage, of the -fragments. Was it any wonder, then, that she kept fast hold of this new -hand, that she sought, with every little artifice, to bind this girl to -her? - -In his heart he could find no criticism for her. He found rather a -certain admiration for this woman, who swam with such courage after her -galleon was sunk; who presented herself, not as wetting the ashes of her -life with tears, but as blowing on the embers of her courage. - -When the Duke of Dorset reached his house every physical thing there -seemed to present an unfamiliar aspect. The form of nothing had -changed, but the essence of everything had changed. He seemed to arrive, -awakened, in a place which he had hitherto inhabited in a sort of -somnambulism. There lay about the house an atmosphere of loneliness--of -desolation. There was no physical reason for this change; it was as -though the peace of his house had been removed by some angered prophet's -curse. He seemed, somehow, to have come within the circle of an -invisible magic, wherein old, hidden, mysterious influences labored at -some great work. He had stepped out of the world into this circle at -Oban. What was there about this dark-haired, slender girl that effected -this sorcery? On the instant, as at a signal, he felt the pull of some -influence as old and resistless as that drawing the earth in its orbit. - -He stood that night at the window looking out at the white fairy village -beyond the Ardoch, and suddenly he realized that all of his life he had -been comparing other women with this girl. He had not understood this. -He had not understood that he was comparing them with anyone, but he -was. When he had gauged the charming qualities of a woman, he had gauged -them against a standard. And now, he saw what that standard was. - -But before he had seen, wherefrom had he the knowledge of this standard? -Wherefrom, indeed! For a moment the idea seemed like some new and -overpowering conception, then he remembered, that from this thing--this -very thing--the ancients had drawn the conclusion that the soul of -man had existed before he was born. And he recalled fragments of the -argument. - -"A man sees something and thinks to himself, 'This thing that I see aims -at being like some other thing, but it comes short, and cannot be like -that other thing; it is inferior'; must not the man who thinks that have -known, at some previous time, that other thing, which he says that it -resembles and to which it is inferior?" - -And the memory of that old legend, which had come so strikingly into his -mind, in the moment, with the girl before the sea, returned to him. -Was there truth shadowing in this fable? And there attended it the -recollection of that insolent, aggressive face which he had seen on the -yacht, and the girl's words as they returned along the deserted street. -But with it came the feeling that this man was in himself nothing, he -was only the creature, the receptive creature of that strange, powerful -old man's design. And he seemed to know an ancient enemy in this old -man, and to move again in some dim, forgotten struggle. - -He determined to set out at once for Canada. A big, open, primeval land, -with its bright rivers, its mountains, its deserts, would cleanse him of -these fancies. - - - - -CHAPTER XII--THE SERVANTS OP YAHVEH - -The Duke of Dorset was mistaken when he imagined that a new land would -rid him of these fancies. To remove a passion to the desert, a wise man -hath written, is but to raise it to its triumph. - -He had gone directly to Quebec, and from there traveled swiftly across -Canada to the Pacific Coast. In Vancouver he was soon wearied, restless, -overcome with ennui. His rifle and its ammunition lay unpacked in an -ordinary traveling box. The lure of the mountains, the rivers, the -silent barren places, had somehow departed from before him. - -In this mood he met the Captain of His Majesty's gunboat, the -_Cleavewaive_. He had known this man in the East; for a fortnight they -had stalked tigers in the mountainous country south of the Amur. The man -was by nature a hunter. The forest was in his blood. Life by rote and -the narrow discipline of the service irked him. His idea of paradise was -not unlike that of the Dakota. - -Fourteen days in the wilderness bring men of any station to a certain -understanding for life. The talk ran on big game killed here and there, -in out-of-the-way places of the earth, and memories of that fortnight -in Manchuria. Such conversations are not apt to run for long without -touching a little on the future. It came out presently that the gunboat -was about to make its annual run, south along the coast of the United -States, in the general interest of British shipping, and to show the -flag. - -The Captain of the _Cleavewaive_, finding the Duke bored and at leisure, -asked him to come on this cruise. He wished the Duke to accept for a -certain close and personal reason. A larger importance would attach to -the cruise from his presence, and this was to be thought of, but to do -the man justice, this was not primarily his object. He was one of those -men who, prevented by necessity from living the life that he longed for, -sought constantly his experiences of it at second hand. Since he must -needs thus follow the sea, he craved, with a consuming hunger, the -taste of conversation running on the forest, the plain, the trackless -mountain. The Duke of Dorset had lived in all of its richness, the very -life which this man, had his destiny been open, would have chosen for -himself. - -For the hope then of talk running on these delectable experiences, he -labored to win over the Duke to this voyage. He was not hopeful that he -would succeed, and so he was surprised when the Duke finally accepted -his invitation. - -The Captain of the _Cleaveivaive_, having got his guest aboard, at -first, took nothing from this fortune. The Duke of Dorset was now, -strangely, no longer that mighty hunter with whom he had talked at -Vancouver. On the gunboat he was a silent, reserved, impenetrable -Englishman, hedged about by distances which no inferior could -cross, meeting every advance with courtesy and silence. He talked -conventionally, he looked over the gunboat at the Captain's invitation, -noticed the structure of it, and made a word or two of comment when it -seemed to be expected. - -On the first evening of the voyage the Captain labored to draw him into -conversation, but the manner of the Duke was now polite and formal, and -the Captain, seeking a way inward to the man, was always turned deftly -aside, until presently he gave over the effort. - -The gunboat was delayed by heavy seas. The second day passed like the -evening of the first, to the discomfiture of this ship's Captain. The -Duke of Dorset was silent, courteous, and interested only in the sea. He -sat in his deck chair watching through the afternoon the long polished -swells--black, smooth as ebony, and rhythmic--in the hollows of which -the sea birds rode. And at night, watching the uncanny mystery of this -iron shell wrestling its way through the sea, shouldered from one side -to the other, heaved up and pitched forward, assailed with every trick, -and artifice, and cunning, with steady lifting and savage desperate -rushes; the sea always failing to throw this black invader fairly on -his shoulders, but never for one instant, never for one fraction of -an instant, ceasing to assail him. And always, as it failed, growling, -snarling, sputtering with a rage immeasurable and hideous. Then, when -the moon opened like a red door, skyward out of the world, the sea -changed as under some enchantment; a golden river welled up on the -horizon and ran down toward that one looking seaward from his chair. On -the instant he was in a kingdom of the fairy, and illusions, fantastic, -unreal, took on under this magic the very flesh and blood of life. - -On this second night of the run the Duke of Dorset, sitting alone on -the deck, put his hand into his pocket, took out the map that Caroline -Childers had sent to him at Oban, tore off the strip at the bottom on -which her name was written, pulled that strip deliberately to bits, -and tossed the scraps of paper over into the sea. Then he arose, walked -across the deck into the cabin of the navigating officer, and put the -map down on the table before that officer. - -"Lieutenant," he said, "how near is this point, marked here in ink, to -the ship's course?" - -The officer got out his charts, located the point, and made roughly an -estimate of the distance. - -"We pass this point, sir." - -"On what day?" inquired the Duke. - -"On to-morrow morning, sir," replied the officer. - -"I thank you," replied the Duke of Dorset. "I wish to be put ashore -there." Then he went out. - -It is a theory that good fortune travels usually close on the heels -of despair. The Captain of the _Cleavewaive_, as his boat ran south, -verified that theory. The Duke of Dorset sat with him for the remainder -of this night in his cabin, and in the smoke of it, the talk ran -constantly on the wilderness. He was again, as under the sprinkling of -some magic water, that primordial man of the wild, whom the Captain so -extravagantly envied. - -In the cabin, while the moon walked on the water, and the great swells -slipped one over the other silently, and that sinister desperate -wrestling went endlessly on, the Duke of Dorset charmed and thrilled -this sailor with the soul of a Dakota. He led him, panting with fatigue, -through the vast, silent forests of Lithuania, day after day, in a path -cut down like a ditch by the hoofs of a hundred beasts, one following -the other--beasts, that the hunter, now himself a beast, running with -the rifle in his hand, his hair caked with dirt, his body streaming with -sweat, his heart lusting to kill, could never gain on. - -He led him, shriveling with thirst, down the beds of lost rivers, where -there was no green thing, no thing with a drop of moisture, only the -dull red earth baking eternally under a sun that stood always above it -like a disk of copper. - -He led him, chattering with cold, across bleak steppes where the wind -blew like a curse of God, set there to see that no man passed that way -and lived; blew and blew, until it became a thing hideous and maddening, -a thing damnable and accursed, coming out of a hell that froze; and the -hunter, driven mad, his face raw, his hands bleeding, his bones aching -to the marrow, no longer able to go forward, sat on the earth with his -head between his knees and howled. - -The Captain of the _Cleavewaive_, set thus living the life he longed -for, forgot to be astonished at the strange course which the Duke of -Dorset had elected to follow. When the navigating officer had carried to -him the Duke's direction, he had been greatly puzzled. There was better -hunting in British Columbia than here, some deer and a bear now and -then, but nothing to tempt a man over seas with his gun cases. But the -mystery of it was a thing inconsequential beside the pleasing fortune -which this changed plan carried individually to him, and he easily -left it. He was living, through the medium of this man's adventures, -vicariously, that big, open, alluring life of the first man running with -the wolf in the morning of the world. He was harking back with joy to -those elements, primal and savage, by virtue of which all things fight -desperately to live. These things were not to be found in books, they -were not to be invented, they were known only to those haunting the -waste places of the earth. - -The Captain of the Cleavewaive was, then, pleased to carry out any plan -of his guest. He was quite willing to go into the coast at the point -selected by the Duke of Dorset, or at any point within a reasonable run. - -At sunrise, the gunboat, turning due east out of her course, anchored -off a little bay on the Oregon coast of the United States. The mountains -came, at this point, down to the sea; a great chain rising landward and -covered with firs, standing a primeval forest. The bay was a perfect -miniature harbor protected by a crooked finger of the mountain; the -inner border of this finger was a sea wall with steps coming down to the -water. A small, gray-stone house, not unlike a gamekeeper's lodge, stood -behind this wall on the summit of the finger, flanked by two giant firs, -lifting their brown, naked bodies, without a limb, two hundred feet into -the sky. - -The Captain of the _Cleavewaive_ hesitated to put the Duke ashore in a -place so evidently deserted. He pointed out that the bay was merely a -private yacht harbor, used doubtless in summer, but now in the autumn -abandoned for the winter. There was no boat of any kind to be seen in -the bay, and no evidence that the place was inhabited. But the Duke was -unmoved in his determination to go ashore at this point; and his boxes -were got up from his cabin. While these preparations went forward, the -Captain, searching the coast with his glass, saw a man come out from -behind the stone house on the summit of the promontory. The man stopped -when he observed the gunboat, looked at it a moment under the palm of -his hand, and came down with long swinging strides to the point on the -sea wall where the stone steps descended into the water. - -When the Duke came ashore at this point, the man swinging along the sea -wall was already there. He stood back some twenty feet from the landing, -waiting until the sailors should bring the Duke's boxes up the stone: -stairway, and return to the gunboat. Then he spoke, nodding his head to -the Duke: "Good mornin', stranger," he said, in a big deliberate voice -that drew out each word as though it were elastic, stretching from his -throat over his tongue to his teeth. - -The Duke, standing on the sea wall among his boxes, regarded the man -with an interest, every moment visibly increasing. He had never until -this day, in any country, come upon this type of peasant. The man was -past sixty, but indefinitely past it; one could not say how old he was. -He might have been five or ten, or only a year or two beyond it. He was -big-boned, slouchy, and powerful; his eyes, mild and blue; his face, -sinewy and weather-beaten; he wore a shirt without a collar, and -fastened at the throat with a big white button; suspenders, hand knitted -of blue wool; and trousers tucked into the tops of enormous cowhide -boots. His head was covered with a big felt hat, rain-stained, -sweat-stained, and mould-stained, until it was a color that no maker -ever dreamed of. - -The Duke returned the salutation and inquired if he were on the estate -of Mr. Cyrus Childers. - -"He calls it his'n," replied the native, "but to my notion no man owns -the mountains." - -The Duke's interest increased. "Are you a servant of Mr. Childers?" he -asked. - -The man's mouth drew down into a long firm slit. - -"Well, no, stranger," he answered, "I don't use that air word 'servant,' -except when I pray to God Almighty." - -"Ah!" said the Duke, and he remembered that he was in the United States -of America. - -The native went on with the conversation, "I reckon," he said, "you're -on your way over to the big house." - -The Duke divined the man's meaning, and explained that he had come -ashore from the departing gunboat, under the impression that there was -a village here, and some means of transportation to the residence of Mr. -Childers. In reply the mountaineer talked deliberately for perhaps -five minutes. Much of the idiom was to the Duke unintelligible, but he -understood from it that this bay was a private yacht harbor, that -the yacht was on the Atlantic Coast, that the keeper's lodge here was -closed, and that Mr. Childers's residence was not near to this point, as -he expected, but farther inland. The Duke inquired the distance from the -coast. - -The native screwed up the muscles on one side of his face, "Hit's a -right smart step," he said. - -The Duke was reassured, "You mean," he ventured, "three or four miles?" - -The mountaineer seemed to ponder the thing a moment seriously, then he -answered, "Well," he said, "I reckon hit's furder than three or four -mile. I reckon hit's purty nigh on to forty-eight mile." - -The Duke of Dorset laughed over his own astonishment. He was beginning -to like this new type of peasant, who spoke of forty-eight miles as -"a right smart step," who thought no man owned the mountains, and who -reserved the word "servant" exclusively for his prayers. - -The man looked seriously at the smiling face of the Duke and repeated -the substance of his first query. "I reckon," he said, "you're a-wantin' -to git over to the big house." - -"I should like it," replied the Duke, "but the prospect does not seem -favorable." - -"I might give you a lift," the man replied hesitatingly, a bit timidly, -as though he asked rather than offered a favor. - -The words attached themselves to no exact meaning in the Duke's mind, -but he understood the intent of them. - -"Have you a cart here?" he said. - -"No," replied the man, shaking his head; "I hain't got no cyart, but -I've got a mewel." Then he pointed to the Duke's boxes. "If you leave -them air contraptions," he went on, "you kin ride the mewel an' I'll -walk; but if them air contraptions has got to go, we'll load'em on the -mewel, and both of us walk." Then, he added, jerking his head over his -shoulder, "She's back there in the bushes." - -The Duke, following the line indicated by this gesture and expecting to -see there a donkey, saw such a domestic animal as he had never before -this day observed in the service of the human family. It was a mule at -least seventeen hands high, big-boned and gaunt like its owner; the hair -worn off bare to the skin in great patches on the beast's flanks and -withers--marks of the plow. The mule seemed to the Duke to have fallen -into the same listless slovenly attitude as that which marked so -strikingly the carriage of its master. The resemblance between the two -seemed a thing come slowly by intimate association through a lifetime, a -thing brought forth by common environment. The beast's trappings were no -less distinctive; the bridle was made of rope, smaller than one's little -finger, without brow-band or throat-latch, merely a head loop fastened -to a bit; the saddle was a skeleton wood frame covered with rawhide; -across this saddle hung a gunny sack with something in either end of it. - -The Duke looked at the lank beast and then down at his articles of -luggage. "Do you think your animal can carry these boxes?" he said. - -The mountaineer made a contemptuous gesture. "Jezebel will tote them -traps an' not turn a hair," he answered; "hit's the hoofin' hit I'm -apesterin' about." - -The latter part of this remark the Duke did not wholly follow. While -he hesitated to embarrass this good-natured person by inquiring what -he meant, the man came over and lifted the various boxes, one after the -other, in his big sun-tanned hands. Then he stepped hack, and rested -these big hands on his hips. "Yes," he drawled, "if you git wore out, I -kin pack 'em an' you kin ride a spell." - -The Duke understood now, and he was utterly astonished. This curious -person actually thought of carrying these boxes, in order that he might -ride the mule. He realized also within the last five minutes, that the -usual manner of speech to a servant was conspicuously out of place -here. That this man, big and elemental, required a relation direct and -likewise elemental. The Duke stepped down at once into that primitive -relation. He walked over directly in front of the mountaineer. "Look at -me closely," he said, "do I look like a man who would ride while another -man walked and carried his luggage?" - -The mountaineer ran his mild-blue eyes over the Duke's big sinewy -shoulders, then he moved over his woolen braces a trifle with his thumb. - -"You mightn't be toughened to it," he said, apologetically. - -The Duke doubled his right arm up in its good tweed sleeve, and -presented it to the mountaineer's fingers. The muscles under that sleeve -sat together, compact and hard as bunches of ivory. Doubt and anxiety -departed slowly from the man's face. He made no comment. He removed his -hand from the Duke's arm and set off to bring his mule. In a few minutes -he returned with that animal and a piece of tarred rope which he had got -from some boathouse back of the keeper's lodge. - -He lifted the sack from the saddle and set it carefully down. "I'll pack -that," he said, by way of explanation, "hit'll jist balance me." And he -began to tie pieces of the luggage to the saddle; but the Duke of Dorset -instantly took over this part of the preparation for the journey. He had -adjusted loads to cavalry horses in India, to donkeys in' the Caucasian -Mountains, to hairy vicious ponies in Russia, and he knew how to lay the -pack so it would sit snug and firm to the beast. It was fortunate that -he stood on this morning an expert in this craft, for the boxes made a -difficult pack to manage with the primitive saddle. - -When it was done the mountaineer tested it with his big forefinger -hooked between the beast's belly and the rope. He arose from the test -with an approving nod, glanced at the sun, standing over bay, and spoke -his word of comment. - -"Hit's a purty job," he said, "an' we better be a-hoofin' it." And this -time the Duke of Dorset understood that expressive idiom. - -The man lifted his sack tenderly onto his shoulder, slipped the rope -bridle over his arm, and set out along the sea wall eastward toward the -mountain. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--THE JOURNEYING - -The road into which they presently came astonished the Duke of Dorset. -It was sixty feet wide, smooth as a boulevard and drained with tile. It -was supported below by a stone wall, surmounted by a balustrade, and -was protected from the slipping of the mountain, at certain points, by a -parallel stone wall equally massive. It was covered brown and soft -with a carpet of fir needles, and arose in an easy grade above the sea, -turning northeastward into the mountains. Strewn with the foliage of -autumn, the fir needles, wisps of yellow fern, hits of branches swept -together against the stone wall by the wind, it seemed a thing toned and -softened into harmony with the wilderness through which it ran. - -The stone balustrade set there, naked and jarring, by the builder, had -been planted along its border with vines. Vines massed the whole of it; -vines patched, laced, and streaked with crimson, with yellow, with green -of a thousand shades, moving from one color imperceptibly into another. -The wall, too, set against the face of the mountain was thus screened -and latticed. The vines fed with dampness from the earth behind the -wall were almost wholly green, while those banking the balustrade were -largely crimson, a mass of scarlet, flecked with dead leaves, falling -now and then, with a faint crackling like tiny twigs snapping in a fire. - -The scene was a thing fantastic and tropical. Below was the sea, to the -eye oiled and polished, bedded with opal, shifting in the light; and -above were the gigantic firs, their brown bodies standing close in -a sort of twilight, cast by the verdigris branches crowded together, -shutting out the sky; and between, the road crept upward, winding across -ravines into the mountains, banked with green and scarlet, and carpeted -soft to the foot with brown. - -Hurriedly--with a haste incomparable--the wilderness had adopted this -intruder; within five years it had covered from sight every trace of -human fingers; the work had been swiftly done, and yet carried the -effect of years leisurely expended. Nature returning with all things -slowly to the wilderness centuries after man was dead. The Duke of -Dorset was not a person easily swung skyward by a bit of sun and color. -He was accustomed to that brooding mood, lying over solitary lands; to -the dignity, to the majestic silence, obtaining in the courts of Nature; -to the gorgeous pageantry of that fantastic empress; to the strange, -almost human hurry with which she strove to obliterate any trace of man -encroaching on her kingdom. And yet, he could not recall anything on the -continent of Europe equal to this scene, unless the mountain behind -the great road leading to Amalfi, above the Mediterranean, were again -clothed with that primeval forest marked by the Phoenician. - -The Duke followed behind the big swinging mountaineer and his gaunt, -gigantic mule, all moving without a sound, over the bed of soft fir -needles, along this road thus clothed and colored as though infinitely -old. They might have been traveling on some highway of that mighty -fabled empire for which Fernando de Soto hunted the wilderness, with men -in armor. - -It was a day of autumn, soft in this Western country. A time of Indian -summer, the sky deep blue, with here and there a cloud island, unmoving -as though painted on a canvas. The mountain chain running northward -along the coast faded imperceptibly into haze. Above and within the -immediate sweep of the eye the day was bright, but when the eye lifted -to a distance the haze deepened, as with smoke coming somewhere from -behind the world. - -The Duke of Dorest lengthened his stride and came up to the mountaineer. -He wished to know something about this remarkable estate, having the sea -and wilderness for boundary. He wondered how old it was, how long this -road had been built--the work looked like the labor of centuries. - -"How long has Mr. Childers owned this estate?" inquired the Duke. - -"About ten year, I reckon," replied the man. - -"And before that," said the Duke, "who owned it?" - -The mountaineer, lifting his chin, took a deep breath and exhaled it -slowly between his lips. - -"Well, stranger," he drawled, "I reckon God Almighty owned hit before -that." - -"You mean," said the Duke, "that this whole estate was then wilderness -as I see it here?" - -"Jist as the blessed God made hit," replied the man, "before He rested -on the seventh day." - -The Duke understood now something of the plan of this American Childers. -He had secured, here on the coast, a great tract of wild, primeval -forest, and was making of it an estate suited to his fancy. He smiled at -the assurance of one assuming a labor so gigantic. Either the man was -a dreamer, forgetting the brevity of life, or he was Pharaoh, or more -likely yet, a fool. It took three hundred years to make a garden; -and yet here was a great wilderness cleaned of its fallen timber and -climbing through the mountain was this road--the work surely of no -little man steeped in fancies. The Duke, pricked to wonder, strove to -draw from the mountaineer some idea of this man, but he got in answer a -jumble of extravagance and prophecy, drawled out in a medley of idiom, -imagery, and scrappy biblical excerpts. - -Childers was like those seditious persons who had builded the Tower of -Tongues, like that one who had embellished Babylon; he had come into the -West, got this great tract of virgin country, "an' set up shop agin', -God Almighty!" The man made a great sweeping gesture, covering the -mountains to the east. Who was Childers to change what God was pleased -with? This night, or on some night desperately near, his soul would be -required of him. He was over eighty. Did he hope to live forever? He had -finished the term allotted man to live, and by reason of strength, had -made it fourscore years. Did he think that Death, riding his pale -horse, had forgotten the road leading to his door? Pride goeth before -destruction! But this was something more than pride. It was a sort of -sedition--a sedition that Jehovah would put down with the weapon of iron -and the steel bow. - -The declamation amused and puzzled the Duke of Dorset. He attributed -the motive of it to the universal dislike of the peasant for the landed -proprietor, to the distress with which the aborigine sees his forest -felled and his rivers bridged. But the speech of it; the biblical -words with which it was clothed; the intimate knowledge of the -Hebrew Scripture which it indicated, was a thing, in this illiterate -mountaineer, wholly incredible. - -The man was swinging forward with long strides; the gunny sack across -his shoulder; the mule's bridle over the crook of his arm; his tanned -face stolid as leather. The Duke, walking beside him, put the question -moving in his mind. - -"My friend," he said, "what trade is it that you follow?" - -The man walked on a moment, as though uncertain in what catalogue of -trades he should be listed. He put up his hand and loosed the white -button on his shirt, leaving his broad-corded throat, tanned like his -face, open to the air. He thrust his thumb under his woolen brace, -lifted it slowly, and moved his thumb down from the shoulder to the -trousers button. Finally he spoke, coupling his vocations, since he was -not able to say that either occupied exclusively his talents. - -"Well, stranger," he said, "I crap some, an' I preach the Word." - -The Duke did not understand this answer, and he probed for a further -explanation. He learned that the man was not a native, that he had come -here from the great range of mountains running along the western border -of Virginia. He had come, as he believed, by a Divine direction. The -angel of the Lord had appeared to him and said: "Arise and get thee -across the desert into the wilderness, for God hath there a work for -thee to do." And he had obeyed, as Philip before him had obeyed, when -that angel had directed him to go toward the south unto the way that -goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is a desert. - -The Duke of Dorset vaguely understood then that the man was some sort -of little farmer and some sort of priest, come hither on some imagined -mission. But he had no idea of the circuit rider, that primitive, -sturdy, religious enthusiast who believed in a God of vengeance and a -hell of fire, as the Scriptures said it; who took his theology from no -school of cardinals, from no articles of faith; who recognized no -man standing between himself and God; who read the Bible and no other -book--moving his broad finger slowly along under the line--and took -that Book to mean literally what it said. A servant of God, but of no -authority below Him. And yet a mountaineer, illiterate and narrow, -poor as the peasants of Russia, tilling a bit of land for the barest -necessities of life, and traveling incredible distances to the cabin -church for no pay save that promise to him beyond the reach of rust. - -The Duke of Dorset got his answer, and he got something more than that, -he got his question back. He had opened the door, and he could not -immediately close it. - -"An' you, stranger," the man had added, "what might you do?" - -The Duke smiled to find this question as difficult for him as it had -been for his companion. He walked as far and he took as long a time -to answer as the mountaineer. He was greatly amused, but he was also -somewhat puzzled. He found himself fingering his chin, thumbing his -waistcoat, like this farmer priest. Then he laughed. "I believe I could -get a living with the rifle," he said, "if I had to do it." - -The man took the answer in all seriousness and with composure. - -"Well," he said, drawling the words as though they were a reminiscence, -"this were a great huntin' country, I reckon, before Childers set up fur -God Almighty." - -The mountaineer lifted his sack from one shoulder carefully to the -other, glanced up at the sun, standing above the mountain, and clucked -to his mule. The Duke of Dorset, walking beside the man, studied him -through the corner of his eye. The bulk and sinew of the man contrasted -strangely with his gentle manner. - -His words of withering invective contrasted still more conspicuously -with the drawling gentle tone in which they were spoken. The Duke of -Dorset was acquainted with the mad priest, the passionate fanatic, -furious, lashing, but here was one who said these things softly, with no -trace of feeling, like one speaking a doom as gently as he could. - -The Duke began to regard the man with a newer interest. He wondered on -what errand the man was going when he found him, and what it was that he -carried so tenderly in his sack, as though it were a thing fragile and -delicate. He had seen a Scottish gillie carry jugs of whisky carefully -like that in the ends of a bag swung over a pony. With the thought he -gave the sack a little closer notice. He observed that the mountaineer -attended thus carefully to but one end of the sack, the end which he -carried over his shoulder on his chest, the other end he left to pound -and swing as it liked. - -At noon the great road, winding in a gentle grade around the mountain, -spanning its gullies with stone arches, reached the summit, and -the mountaineer turned out, following a trail along the ridge to a -knoll--covered, as the road was, with a carpet of brown fir needles, and -bordered with a few old trees, huge and wind shaken. Below this knoll, -welling out over the roots of trees, was a spring of water, running into -a bowl, deep as a bucket, cut out of the rock. The men drank and then -the mule thrust her nose up to the eye pits into the crystal water and -gulped it down in great swallows, that ran like a chain of lumps, one -after the other, under the skin of her gullet. The mountaineer removed -the sack carefully from his shoulder, and opened the end which had -been swinging all the morning against his back. This end of the sack -contained oats, and clearing a place on the ground with his foot, he -poured the oats down for the mule's dinner; then, he got out a strip -of raw bacon, wrapped in a greasy paper, some boiled potatoes, a baked -grouse, and what the Duke took to be a sort of scone, very thick and -very yellow. - -"I reckon we wont stop to do no cookin' jist now," the mountaineer -observed apologetically, and returned the bacon to its greasy wrapper. -Then he opened his hands over the frugal luncheon. - -"Strengthen us with this heah food, O God Almighty! so our hands kin be -strong to war, an' our fingers to fight agin the Devil an' his angels." - -And the two men ate, as men eat together in the wilderness, without -apology and without comment. When he had finished, the Duke of Dorset -stretched himself out on the warm fir needles with a cigarette in his -fingers. - -The mountaineer took a pipe out of his trousers pocket, the bowl, a -fragment of Indian corncob, the stem cut from an elder sprout, and with -it some tobacco. He looked at the Duke a moment hesitating, with the -articles in his hand, then he said: "Stranger, air you in a right smart -hurry?" - -The Duke opened his eyes; above him was the sky, deep, blue, fathomless, -latticed out by the crossing fir tops; under him the bed was soft and -warm, the pungent air of the forest crept into his lungs like opium. - -"No," he answered, "why hurry out of a paradise like this." Then he -dropped the cigarette from his fingers and lay motionless, looking out -over the world of forest. The mountaineer filled his pipe, crumbling the -tobacco in his hard palm, lighted it with a sputtering sulphur match -and smoked, leaning back against the giant tree trunk--a figure of -incomparable peace. - -Presently the Duke of Dorset, looking landward across the mountains, -dreamy, soft, rising into a sky of haze, caught a bit of deepened color, -a patch of some darker haze lying above the distant sky line--lifting -a wisp of black, and spreading faintly, like a blot against that -shimmering nimbus in which the world was swimming. The thing caught -and held the Duke's wayward attention. He sat up and pointed his finger -eastward. - -"Is that a forest fire?" he said. - -The mountaineer took his pipe out of his mouth, regarded the distant -horizon for a time in silence, then he replied slowly. "No," he said, -"hit air not a forest fire." - -"What is it, then?" said the Duke. - -"Well, stranger," replied the mountaineer, "I call that air thing, 'The -Sign.'" - -Then he arose abruptly, like one who had said more than he intended, -took up his rope bridle from the ground, forced the bit into the mule's -mouth, and stood caressing the beast's nose, and drawing her great ears -softly through his hand. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV--THE PLACE OP PROPHECY - -The Duke of Dorset got up slowly and stood looking out over the -mountains, with his hands clasped behind him. Below the dark-green -canopy of fir tops descended to a gleam of water; through the brown tree -trunks the great road wound in and out; beyond that thin gleam another -mountain shouldered into the one on which he stood, and the brown carpet -and the verdigris canopy went again upward fantastically to the sky. -When the Duke turned the mountaineer was tying up the mouth of his sack. - -"My friend," said the Duke, "this road seems to wind around the -mountain. As the crow flies this distance should be less than half. Is -there no short trail from the coast?" - -"Yes, stranger," replied the man, "there's a trail laid out by the deer -that hain't so ladylike." He made a circular gesture with his arm. "Hit -runs acrost the backbone from the sea. The deer didn't have no compass, -but he had a purty notion of short cuts." - -"Could we not take this trail down the mountain?" inquired the Duke. - -The mountaineer stroked his chin, "I reckon we'd better mosey along -the road to the bottom," he answered, "the trail's some botherin' to a -mewel." - -Something in the man's manner told the Duke that he, rather than the -mule, was the object of this consideration. The man's eyes rested on his -light tweeds, doubtless thought unfitted to the thicket. The Duke was -taken with the fancy to push his suggestion a little. - -"If you were alone," he said, "would you not follow this trail?" - -The mountaineer was embarrassed. The courtesy at his heart was right, -but the trick of phrasing it was crude. He was a man accustomed to move, -like the forces of Nature, on a line, and he could not easily diverge -from it. - -"Well," he said, "if I was in a powerful hurry, I reckon I'd let Jezebel -take her chance on this air trail." Then a memory seized him and his -face lightened, "But, I axed you, stranger, an' you said you warn't in -no sich powerful hurry." - -The Duke's impression was established, but his objection was also -conclusively met. He returned smiling with the clumsy diplomat and -Jezebel to the great road. - -All the long, hazy afternoon they descended the mountain, on the brown, -noiseless carpet, stretched between its walls of green dashed with -scarlet. For the most part the men traveled steadily in silence, as the -pioneer and the Indian travel always in the wilderness. Now and then, -the mountaineer pointed out something of interest; an eagle rising in -circles from some green abyss. He named the eagle with a certain scorn; -he was a robber like Barabbas. The fishhawk that he plundered was a -better man, for he got his bread in toil fairly, as the _Good Book_ said -it. What a man earned by his own labor he had a right to, but -beyond that there was God to settle with. The Duke sought to turn the -conversation on this sentence, as on a hinge, to Childers. He felt, -that behind the first expressions of this man concerning the American, -something definite and threatening moved, but he got little. It was not -that Childers had great possessions, it was a sort of Divine treason -that he was guilty of. He had "set up shop agin God Almighty!" Childers -was old, almost alone--all of his kin had gone before him through the -door of death. No one of his blood remained, except an orphaned niece, -to sit after him in his place. Jehovah had held back his hand many -years, But His wrath would only he the more terrible when that hand -descended. - -The man spoke gently, softly and in pity, like one who foresaw, but -could not prevent a doom already on its way. Had there been passion or -any touch of bitterness in the man's speech it would have passed over -the Duke of Dorset, but coming thus it moved strangely with the impulse -bringing him westward over four thousand miles of sea. That impulse -lifted into a premonition. Something, then, threatened this girl whose -face remained in his memory. He had come at some call! He was seized -with a strange query. Did he know this danger, and the man walking -beside him, have only the premonition of it; or did this man know it, -and he have that premonition? - -The Duke became curious to know if any fact underlay this man's shadowy -forebodings. He sounded for it through the long afternoon, but he could -touch nothing. The mountaineer seemed curiously timid, hesitating like -a child that could not be brought to say what was turning in his mind, -lest he should not be able to explain it. The man and everything moving -about him deeply puzzled the Duke of Dorset. Hour after hour he studied -him as they swung down the mountain, always on that noiseless carpet. -The man seemed like an old, gentle child, and yet, a certain dignity, -and a certain matrix of elements, strong, primal, savage, sat like a -shadow behind that child. The Duke felt that the expression of the man's -face was not permanent, that the child might on occasion fade out and -another occupy the foreground. But not easily; that expression sat -bedded in a great peace, as though fixed in plaster. If this thing was -the result of struggle it surpassed, indeed, the taking of a city. - -Related, somehow, to this fancy, one slight detail of the man's dress -caught the Duke's attention. It was a thick, conical, lead bullet strung -through the middle on a buckskin string that was looped around the -woolen brace above the trousers button. The bullet was as big as that of -the old English Snyder, and would easily weigh five hundred grains. It -was snubbed off at the end and ridged at the base with concentric rings -cut into the lead. The Duke's interest lifted into a query. - -"What sort of bullet is that?" he said. - -The mountaineer ran his big thumb over the deep ridges. "Hit's a Minie -ball," he answered. - -The Duke was certain that some history attached to this piece of lead. -"May I inquire," he said, "where you got it?" - -The man's face relaxed into a smile. "Well, stranger," he answered, "I -shot that air ball into a man onct when I was a young feller, an' then I -cut it out of him." - -The smile, the gentle, drawling tone, clashed with the brutal inference. -The Duke probed for the story, and with difficulty he got it, in -fragments, in detached detail, in its own barbaric color. Not because -the man wished to tell it, but because, under the Duke's skillful -handling, he was somehow not able to prevent it. It was a Homeric -fragment, with the great, bloody, smoking war between the American -States for a background. A story, big with passion, savage, virile, hot -with life. - -A Northern general was marching desperately across the South. With money -he had hired a native out of the mountains to conduct him. The man was a -neighbor to this circuit rider, one who knew the wilderness as the bear -knew it. In terror, the authorities of the State had sent a messenger to -this youthful hermit priest, bidding him stop the renegade before he -got down from his cabin to the Federal camp, and, without a word, the -circuit rider had taken down his rifle from the wooden pegs, and gone -out into the wilderness. From that morning, gray, chill, three hours -before the dawn, the story was a thing savage and hideous. At daybreak -the circuit rider, leaning on his rifle, two hundred yards from the -other's cabin, called him to the door, explained what he had come to do, -and gave him an hour of grace. Within that hour, the renegade--a man, -too, courageous and desperate--fired his cabin, and walked with his -rifle over his shoulder, across his little clearing, into the opposite -border of the forest. Then for three endless days and nights, they -hunted each other through this wilderness, now one, and now the other, -escaping death by some incredible instinct, or some narrow, thrilling -margin that left the breath of the bullet on his face. Below the -Northern general waited with his army, and the militia of the State -waited, too, hanging on his flanks. - -Then, finally, on the morning of the fourth day at sunrise, the circuit -rider, trailing his man all night, stopping behind a ledge of stone, by -chance, as the sun struck down the face of the mountain, saw the other -seated in the fork of a great pine, watching back over his trail for his -enemy that followed. With deliberate and deadly care the circuit rider -shot him. The man fell hanging across the limb, and his enemy climbed -the tree and descended with the body in his arms. The bullet had struck -the bone near the point of the jaw, ripped up the cheek and followed the -bone around the head, under the skin to the spine. Sitting on the earth -the mountaineer cut the bullet out, bandaged the wound with the rags of -his shirt, and taking the man in his arms walked down the mountain into -his enemies' camp; walked through it unmolested, carrying his bloody -burden to the commanding officer's tent door. There he laid the man down -on the ground, hideously wounded, looked the officer steadily in the -face, and spoke his word of comment. - -"General," he said, "heah's your renegade. He hain't as purty as he -was." - -The Duke of Dorset looked up at the mountain, from which they had -descended. The story of that tragedy, pieced together out of these -fragments, thrilled him like a Saga. He could see the army waiting -below, idle in its camp, while this death struggle went silently on, in -the great, smoky wilderness above it. He followed, with every detail, -vividly, these two desperate men, stalking one another with every -trick, every cunning, every artifice. With unending patience, their eyes -narrowed to slits, their ears straining, noiseless, tireless, ghastly -with fatigue; eating as they crept, sleeping as they crept, mad, -desperate, hideous, moving with the lust of death! - -And then on some morning when the sun dozed against the mountain, when -the air was soft, when the world lay silent, as under a benediction, -there came down out of this wilderness, this haze, this mystery, a -creature streaked with sweat, gaunt, naked, lurching as it walked, -carrying a thing doubled together, that dripped blood. - -At sunset they came to the bottom of the mountain, and camped there in a -little forest of spruce trees, beside a river, wider and deeper than the -Teith. Its bed colored dark, like the Scottish rivers, not with peat, -but with a stronger pigment, leeched out of roots. The great road -continued along this river, but the guide explained that he would ford -it here in the morning, cross the shoulder of the abutting mountain on -a trail, and thus save half a day of travel. They would stop here at -sundown for the night if the Duke were still agreeable to such leisure. -The Duke was pleased to stop. He unpacked the mule and washed her -shoulders in the river, while his companion lighted a fire and prepared -the supper. The mule was fed and turned loose to crop what green things -she could find. The mountaineer cooked his strips of bacon on a forked -twig, held over the smoldering fire, and laid out the supper on the top -of one of the Duke's good leather boxes. To men who had walked all day -through the forest, in the clear air, under a sun that crept, like a -tonic, subtly into the blood, the odor of this dinner, mingling with -the deep pungent smells of the river and the forest, was a thing -incomparably delicious. - -Night swiftly descended. Pigeons winged into the tree tops. The stars -came out. The pirates of the river crept through the yellow bracken, and -swam boldly out on their robbing raid, their quaint inky faces lifted -above the shimmering water. The Duke of Dorset smoked a pipe with his -companion, seated on a packing case upturned by the fire. He smoked in -silence, his face relaxed and thoughtful. Long after the pipe had gone -out, after the smoke had vanished, after the bowl had cooled, he sat -there, unmoving, the firelight flickering on his face. Then he -arose slowly, unstrapped a roll of traveling rugs, handed one to his -companion, and, wrapping himself in the other, lay down by the fire. - -The mountaineer carried in a heavy limb, wrenched off by the wind, -thrust the ragged end of it into the fire, and sat down again to his -pipe. Presently the Duke of Dorset, wrapped in his rug, seemed to sleep, -breathing deeply and slowly. The mountaineer came to the end of his -pipe, knocked out the ashes, returned it to his pocket, and regarded the -Duke carefully for a moment. Then, he thrust his arm into the sack that -lay beside him on the ground, and took out the thing that he had carried -all the day with so great a care. - -The Duke, awakened by the crackling of the spruce limb on the fire, -watched the man through his half-closed eyelids. It was a bulky packet, -wrapped in a piece of deerskin. The mountaineer laid it on his knees -and unrolled it carefully. Within was a huge leather-bound Bible with -a great brass clasp three inches in diameter. The man spread out the -deerskin on his knees so the book might not be soiled, unhooked the -clasp, and, turning to a page, began to read. - -His lips moved, forming the words, and his big finger traveled along the -page slowly under the line. But he read silently, stopping now and then, -with his face lifted as though in deep contemplation of the passage. The -Duke of Dorset, dozing into sleep, wondered vaguely what portion of the -Hebrew Scriptures this strange, gentle person read. - -The man, as he read, as his attention passed to the subject, -began unconsciously to murmur. His lips, forming the words, began -unconsciously to speak them, in a voice low, drawling, almost inaudible. -The Duke, straining his ear, caught, now and then, a fragment. - -_I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: -and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, said the Lord of -hosts.... The cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also -and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the -line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.... And the wild beasts -of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons their -pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not -be prolonged.... And owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance -there._ - -The Duke of Dorset fell asleep with that picture fading into his dreams; -the man's massive gentle face banked in shadow; the light, pouring blood -red over the brass clasp of the book; the big bronzed finger moving -slowly on the page; and the man's voice droning in cadence with the -river. - -The night deepened. Soft footsteps passed closer in the forest. The -pirates of the river returned stained with murder, swimming like -shadows, without a sound, as under some gift of silence. The great limb -became an ember. The man's voice ceased. He closed the book and returned -it to its place in the bottom of the sack, arose, took up the extra rug, -shook it out, and spread it carefully over the Duke of Dorset. - -Then he lay down, at full length by the fire, with the wooden saddle -under his head. - - - - -CHAPTER XV--THE VULNERABLE SPOT - -The sun was in the sky when the Duke awoke. He had slept eight hours -under the narcotics of the forest. He arose and stretched his limbs. The -packing cases were set in order; the fire was kindled; the mule stood -close beside him, eating her breakfast. The food seemed to be bits of -the yellow scone which the mountaineer had offered yesterday to the -Duke. The circuit rider sat smoking by the fire; he got up uneasily, -stood a moment, kneading his fingers, and moving the broken fern leaves -into a heap with the edge of his boot sole. Then he spoke, hesitating -and with apology: - -"I guess there hain't no breakfast. There war some yaller biscuits, but -I give'em to Jezebel." - -The Duke instantly remembered that sign laid down in the Hebrew -Scriptures, by which one, observing the righteous man, traveling with -his beast, should know him. He laughed and nodded to the mule. - -"The lady, by all means," he said. Then he threw back his shoulders, -filled his lungs with the good pungent air, and looked up at the tree -tops. He was not intending to go hungry if the forest could provide a -breakfast. But the wood pigeon had departed while the Duke lay below, -sleeping on his back. Only the dapper woodpecker remained, hopping about -on a dead fir tree, mottled with the sun, his head cocked, looking for a -place to drill. - -The Duke turned from the forest to the river. The sun lay upon it; the -amber water slipped by, gurgling among the reeds, in long wrinkles, over -the wide shallow, to a pool studded with huge stones, where it lay for -a moment sunning, in a gentle eddy. The Duke followed along the bank -to the pool. Out in the dark water beyond him, under the shelter of the -great bowlders, fish were moving or lay in vague outline like shadows -thrown into the water. Safe here, idling in their house, acquainted with -no peril save that of the otter swimming in the night, or the fishhawk -descending in the sun. The Duke stood for some moments looking out into -the pool, then he returned to the mountaineer who sat smoking by the -fire. - -"Have you a stout knife?" he said. - -The man arose, took a clasp knife out of his pocket, handed it to the -Duke, and returned to his place against the spruce tree, and his cob -pipe, glowing with a coal. The Duke went out into the forest, cut a -sapling, some eight feet long, trimmed it, and pared it even at the -butt. Then he cut a square trench along the sapling, from the butt -upward, three inches long and a quarter inch in depth. He cut also -narrow rings in the bark around the sapling over the trench. Then he -went back to the mountaineer, returned the knife, and put his second -query. - -"Have you a bit of string!" - -The man put out his hand, without a word, drew the gunny sack over to -him, unraveled the coarse threads around the top of it, wet them in his -mouth, rolled them between his fingers, and handed them to the Duke. -Then he flipped a hot ember deftly into his cooling pipe, and leaned -back again, silently, into his place against the spruce tree. - -The Duke took a little knife out of his waistcoat pocket, opened its -larger blade, and set the handle of it into the trench which he had cut -into the sapling, forced it firmly in, and bound it tightly with the -bits of hemp. Then he went with the pole in his hand, down the bank of -the river to the pool. He laid it here on the bracken and stripped to -the skin. The mountaineer, pulling slowly at his pipe, bareheaded, the -long gray hair straggling over his face, watched every movement of the -Duke with deep and consuming interest. - -When the Duke stood naked, as the first man in the Garden, he took the -sapling in his teeth, lowered himself into the water, and swam with long -noiseless strokes out to a great rock standing in the middle waters of -the pool--a rock, flat, smooth as a table, and covered with gray lichen, -as with a frost of silver. He drew himself noiselessly up out of the -water, crawled along the level surface of the rock, and stretched -himself at full length, with his face peering over the lower border of -it. Then he put his right arm slowly out with the pole grasped above -the middle. The lichen, heated by the sun, was warm. The light descended -into the dark pool as into a vat of amber. The Duke lay stretched out -in the sun, his lithe, powerful body glistening with drops of water, -his left arm doubled under his chest, his right, bronzed, sinewy, the -muscles set like steel, raised above the dark water. - -The mountaineer watched from his place against the spruce tree, his chin -lifted, his pipe, turned over on its elder stem, going out. The mule -behind him, nosing the bracken for lost fragments of bread, made the -only sound rising in the forest. Suddenly the Duke's arm descended; the -eddy below the great rock boiled; something floundered across the deep -water of the pool, a faint stain of crimson rising to the amber surface. -The Duke arose, took his weapon by the end, and threw it, like a -harpoon, across the pool to the bank, where it stood fixed upright in -the bracken, quivering, the knife blade glittering in the sun. Then he -disappeared head first into the pool, and a moment later came ashore -with a three-pound trout, gaping with a wound, two inches deep, -descending behind the gills downward through the spine. - -Thus the Duke got his breakfast as the savage of the Yukon gets it; as -the snub-nosed oriental-eyed Indian of the Pacific Coast to this day, -on occasion, gets it. And he cooked it, as the Indian cooks his salmon, -grilled on a flat stone before a heap of embers. - -When the feast was ended, the Duke of Dorset roped the pack to the -mule, and they forded the river, wading through the black water to -their middle. They pushed through a huckleberry thicket and climbed the -shoulder of the mountain on an old trail, hardly to be followed; made, -doubtless, by the deer and the red Indian. For two hours they climbed -the mountain, laboriously, on this lost trail, and then, abruptly -passing around the huge, gnarled trunk of a gigantic fir, they came out -on the summit; and the Duke of Dorset stopped motionless, in his tracks, -like a man come suddenly by some enchantment into a land of wonders. - -Below him, rimmed in by mountains, rising one above the other into haze, -threaded by a river, lay the work surely of those palace builders -of Arabia, imprisoned in copper pots under the stamp of Solomon. -Two hundred feet below him on a vast terrace stood a château of -cream-colored stone, roofed with red tile; carved beautifully around the -doors and windows; stretching across the whole terrace, with a huge door -under an arch set in a square tower. It was faced with delicate spires, -and to the left a second tower arose, circular, huge, with a flat roof, -and long windows rising unevenly as on the turn of some vast stairway; -then it stretched away on either side, with arches, balustrades, sweeps -of bare wall, great windows set in carving and mounted with fretwork, to -low square towers, flanking massively the ends. - -The whole of it, in spite of its walls, its massive arches, its -towers--by some touch of architectural harmony, by some trick of -grouping, by some genius moving in the hand that traced the outline of -it thus fantastically against the sky--seemed a thing airy and illusive, -as though raised here on the instant by some fairy magic. From the -château, stretching level as a floor to the foot of the bluff on which -the Duke stood, lay a square of velvet turf, framed rigidly in a white -road. To the east of this court, behind the château, a park descended, -sloping to the river; to the south, rigid and formal against a wall -of yellow stone, long terraces lay, one below the other, each a formal -garden perfect in detail to the slightest fragment of color. The first -lying against the wall was severe in outline, white as though paved with -quartz, flanked at either end with a square of that exquisite velvet -turf and lying between were three pools floating with water flowers. -Against the wall, at regular intervals, was, here and there, a marble -figure standing in a niche, separated by a green sheared hedge, banking -the wall to its yellow coping. The second terrace was a formal Italian -garden after the ancient villas of the Campagna. The third, an Egyptian -garden, walled with pale-green tile. And thus, varied and beautiful, -the terraces descended to the valley. Whatever garden any people, -laboriously, through long generations, had made in form and color -beautiful to the eye, was here reproduced with minute and endless -patience. - -Beyond, stretching westward and to the south, were green fields, -meadows, pastures, reaching to the shoulders of the mountains. Far down -the valley out of these mountains the great road leading from the sea -emerged, wound through the meadow land, ascended west of the terraces, -from which it was separated by a wall, and entered the court through -bronze gates swinging to stone pillars. These pillars were surmounted -by a figure having the face and bust of a woman and the body of a -monster--such a figure as the Latin sculptors have sometimes called "La -Chimera." - -Eastward, the lands were forests; north, the rising lands were orchards, -vineyards, formal trees, shrubs, vines. And the whole of it rimmed in -by the far-off hazy, mysterious mountains fading into the sky line, like -some blue wall of the world. It was such a thing as that jinn--slave of -the lamp--might have lifted out of the baked earth of Arabia. - -The mountaineer, standing beside the Duke of Dorset, broke the first -silence. - -"Hit air Childers agin God Almighty," he said, "hit air all made," and -he pointed with his big finger directly down the ridge on which they -stood. - -The Duke, following the finger, realized that the whole thing was indeed -made. The entire shoulder of the mountain, on which they now stood, had -been cut down, leveled and formed into these great terraces. The face of -this vast cut fell sheer below him. It was walled up almost to his feet -with that yellow stone--a vast perpendicular wall festooned with vines. - -The mountaineer, having spoken this word of explanation, turned back to -his mule, cut the rope, and began to take down the leather boxes. The -Duke remained striving to comprehend the magnitude of this labor--a -labor colossal and appalling. A mountain pared down, a wilderness -parked, graded, landscaped, and no mark of it visible to the eye. Human -cleverness, patient, tireless, bad obscured here every trace of this -vast labor as beautifully, as subtly, as the wilderness back yonder bad -adorned and bidden the road cut through her dominions to the sea. The -whole estate lay before him, unreal, like the work of a magician--made -by no stroke of the pick, no clatter of the hammer. Those two strange, -impressive, sinister figures, mounted on the stone posts, where the road -entered the court, looking out over this enchantment, were mysteriously -suggestive. This scene, lying before him in the sun, was some illusion -of the fancy, some mirage, some chimera. - -The Duke of Dorset was awakened from this reverie by the mountaineer -speaking behind him. - -"I guess I'll be a-movin' along," he said, "you'll find somebody down -there to pack in your traps." - -The Duke turned, thrusting his hand into his pocket, but the band -remained there when his eyes rested on the circuit rider's face. -The man's big stooping body was straight now, his features firm and -composed, his head set with a certain dignity on his shoulders. - -"No, stranger," he said, "me an' Jezebel works fur God Almighty, an' we -don't take pay." - -The Duke of Dorset did then what he would have done on the continent of -Europe, in the presence of such a priest; he offered money to adorn his -church, to aid his poor; but the circuit rider put back the hand. - -"No," he said, "as I read hit in the Good Book, God Almighty don't ker -fur gewgaws, an' the poor man hain't helped much by a dollar that he -don't work fur." Then he put out his hand like one parting with an -equal. - -The Duke of Dorset dropped the money into his pocket, and took the big -callous hand firmly in his own. - -"My friend," he said, "you have guided me across the mountains from the -sea, transported my luggage, and provided me with food. I am, therefore, -in your debt. Is it quite fair to leave me under this obligation?" - -The mountaineer was visibly embarrassed, his feet shifted uneasily, his -face grew thoughtful. - -"Well," he said, "if you feel that away about this air little lift, that -me an' Jezebel give you, why, jist pass it on to the next man that you -find a settin' by the road, with more'n he kin pack." - -Then he shook the Duke's hand as a bear might have done, slipped the -rope bridle again into the crook of his arm, and set out northward along -the ridge, with the mule following at his heels and the sack swaying on -his shoulder. - -The Duke stood motionless watching the man until he disappeared in among -the boles of the fir trees, then he turned toward the château. At the -brink of the sheer wall he found a flight of steps descending, and -leaving his luggage where the mountaineer had piled it, he went slowly -down, hidden among the vines. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI--THE LESSON IN MAGIC - -At the door of the château the Duke found a Japanese servant. This -servant led him into a court paved with mosaic, set with palms and -marbles about a fountain in which nymphs, sporting in abandon, splashed -a god with water. From this court they ascended a stairway, rising in -the circular tower which the Duke of Dorset had already noticed. The -baluster of the stair, under the rail was a bronze frieze winding -upward, of naiads, fauns, satyrs, dancing in a wood, group following -group, like pictures in some story. - -They stopped at the first landing and crossed a second corridor to -a suite of rooms, finished in the style of Louis Quinze. The servant -inquired about the Duke's luggage, got his direction and went out. The -Duke walked idly through the suite; he might have been, at this hour, -in Versailles. Every article about him belonged there in France. The -bed was surely that of some departed Louis, standing on a dais, -brocade curtains, drawn together at the top under a gilt crown. In this -bedchamber he crossed unconsciously to the window, and remained looking -out at the park descending to the river, and the mountains dreamy and -beautiful beyond. - -He wondered vaguely what it was that had led him over four thousand -miles of sea, across a continent to this place. Did he come following -the will-o'-the-wisp of a fabled legend? Did he come obeying some -prenatal instinct? Did he come moved by an impulse long ago predestined? - -The query, now that he stood before it, was fantastic. These, surely, -were not the things that moved him. They were things merely that clouded -and obscured the real impulse hiding within him. Some huge controlling -emotion, dominating him, moved behind the pretense of this extravaganza; -an emotion primal and common to all men born since Adam; a thing skilled -in disguises, taking on the form of other and lesser motives, so that -men clearheaded and practical, men hardened with a certain age, men -dealing only with the realities of life, sat down with it unaware, as -the patriarch sat down with angels. The wisdom of Nature moving with -every trick, every lure, every artifice, to the end that life may not -perish from the earth! - -The Duke of Dorset turned from the window. He did not realize what this -emotion was, but he felt its presence, and for the first time in his -life the man had a sense of panic, like one who suddenly finds his -senses tricked and his judgment unreliable. He walked across the -bedchamber into the dressing room. - -He found his luggage already in the room. The servant asked for the -keys, the Duke gave him all but the key to the box containing the rifle -that he had now no need to open. To a query, the servant answered that -Mr. Childers would receive him as soon as he was pleased to come down -into the library. The Duke of Dorset bathed, changed his dress, and -descended. - -The library was octagon in shape, carpeted with an Eastern rug, set with -a great table, lined with books, and lighted with long casement windows. - -Cyrus Childers was standing at one of the windows. He came forward and -welcomed the Duke of Dorset. - -"I am sorry," he said, "that Caroline is not here. She and the Marchesa -Soderrelli are in the East yet, but they will arrive in a day or two." - -He stepped over to a table and fumbled with a pile of letters. But his -eyes did not follow his hands. They traveled over his guest, over his -tanned face, over his broad shoulders, and as he looked, he spoke on: he -regretted the Duke's long tramp across the mountains; the closed -lodge at the harbor; the negligence of Caroline. He deplored the great -inconveniences which the Duke had undergone. - -"The Marchesa Soderrelli said that you were coming to Canada," he -continued, "and I endeavored to locate you there, but I fear that I did -not sufficiently persist in my effort, because the Marchesa assured rue -that you would certainly let us know when you arrived on the Pacific -Coast. You see, I trusted to the wisdom of the Marchesa." - -Then he laughed in his big voice. "Ah," he said, "there is a woman! -A remarkable woman. Did you know her before your coming to the bay of -Oban?" - -"I had that honor," replied the Duke. - -"She said in Biarritz that you would likely be there. Your fame was -going about just then in Biarritz." - -"Rumor," the Duke answered, "has, I believe, dealt kindly with me." - -The old man laughed again. - -"With me," he said, "it is always the other way about." - -He followed the remark with a few words of explanation. The Duke must -manage to amuse himself until the others arrived. He would find books, -horses, if he cared to ride, and excellent shooting in the river -bottoms. - -After luncheon Cyrus Childers rode with his guest over the cultivated -portion of the estate, through the meadows, the pasture fields, the -orchards, and everywhere the duke found only Japanese at work. He -remarked on this: - -"How do these men get on with other workmen?" he said. - -The old man stopped his horse. "I solved that difficulty before it -reached me," he answered. "I have no race problem, because I have only -one race. I wanted a homogeneous servant body that would remain on the -estate, work in harmony, and adjust its own difficulties. The Japanese -met these requirements, so I took the Japanese. But I made no mistake. -I did not take them to supplement white labor. I took them wholly. There -is not a servant nor a workman anywhere on the entire estate who is not -of this race." - -"You have, then, a Japanese colony?" said the Duke. - -The old man extended his arm. "It is Japan," he replied, "except for the -topography of the country." - -"I have been told," said the Duke, "that the instinct of the Japanese -to found a colony constitutes the heart of the objection to him on the -Pacific Coast. Other Orientals plan to return to their country; but this -one, it is said, brings his country with him. I am told that they have -already practically colonized certain portions of California." - -"The Vaca Valley and sections of the Santa Clara Valley," replied Cyrus -Childers, "contain Japanese settlements." - -"And I am told," continued the Duke, "that with respect to such -settlements, it is the plan of the Japanese first to drive out the other -laborers, and then deliberately to ruin the orchards and vineyards, -after which they more easily procure them." - -"I have no trouble of that sort," said the old man, "since I pay in -money for the service which I receive." - -"It is strange," said the Duke, "how this sentiment against the Japanese -extends with equal intensity along this coast through the American -states and northward into the Dominion of Canada. One would say that -these were the same people, since they are moved by the same influences. -The riots in Vancouver seem to be facsimiles of the riots in San -Francisco. When it comes to this oriental question the boundary between -the two countries disappears. Our government has exerted its influence -to check this sentiment, but we do not seem able to control it. Can you -tell me why it is that we are unable to control it?" - -"Yes," he said, "I can tell you. It is for two reasons: first, because -the North American laborer wishes to suspend a law of Nature--that the -one who can live on the least shall survive. The Japanese laborer can -underbid him for the requirements of existence, and consequently he must -supplant him. And why should he not, he is the better servant? This -is the first reason. The second reason is, that the peoples of the -English-speaking nations are in one of their periodic seizures of revolt -against authority." And he laughed. - -"The conditions maintaining a difference in men follow laws as immutable -as those turning the world on its axis. Efforts at equalization are -like devices to cheat gravity. Thus, the theory of rule by a universal -electorate is a chimera. Men require a master as little boys in school -require one. When the master goes down, terror follows until a second -master emerges from the confusion. There is always back of order -some one in authority. There is no distinction between the empire -and republic except in a certain matter of disguises. The seizure -of so-called liberty, attacking peoples, now and then, is a curious -madness; a revolt against the school-master, ending always in the same -fashion--disorder, riot, and a new master back at the desk. When this -seizure passes, your government will again be able to control its -subjects." - -"But," said the Duke, "is there not an obligation on a government to see -that its people are not underbid in the struggle for life!" - -The old man's voice arose. "What is a government!" he said. - -"It is the organized authority of a whole people," replied the Duke. - -The old man laughed. "It is the pleasure of one or two powerful -persons," he said. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII--THE STAIR OF VISIONS - -That fantastic illusion, as of one come, after adventures, to the -kingdom of some Magus, was preserved to the Duke of Dorset by the days -that followed. He was for the most part wholly alone. He arose early, -and lived the long day in the open; in the evening he dined with his -host, and sat with him in the great library until midnight. At no other -time did he see this curious old man. - -He was distinctly conscious of two moods, contrary and opposite, -changing with the day and night, like one going alternately into and -out of the illusions of an opiate. Under the sun, in the dreamy haze of -Indian summer, this beautiful château of yellow stone, set about with -exquisite gardens, rimmed in the smoky distance with an amphitheater of -mountains, was the handiwork of fairies, reset by enchantment from an -Arabian tale. But at night, in the presence of Cyrus Childers, that mood -vanished, as when one passing behind the staged scenery of a play meets -there the carpenter. - -The days, one following like the other, were not wholly lacking in -interest. The Duke of Dorset tramped about the estate, but more usually -he shot quail over dogs in the river bottoms; he found this game bird -smaller than the English quail, but hardy, strong winged, wild, getting -up swiftly and sailing over long distances into the forest when alarmed. -When the tramping tired him, he sat down under some tree by the river -and watched the panting setters swim, their red coats spreading out -like a golden fleece in the amber water. The servant at the château had -provided him with a gun for this shooting, since he had brought with him -only a rifle, and this remained in his dressing room, unopened, locked -in the ordinary luggage box. - -On one of these long tramps, he solved the riddle of the vague smoke -pillar, rising above the mountains east of the château. He presently -observed that the great road, leading from the coast over the wilderness -to this country place, continued through the park, eastward from the -turf court, crossed the river, and ascended the mountain. He followed -the road for an entire morning to the summit; there the mystery of the -dark wisp of cloud was revealed to him. Far inland, beyond the crest of -this mountain, that smoke arose from great mills for the manufacture of -lumber. From huge stacks, dimly to be seen, a line of thin smoke -climbed skyward, twining into that faint blot--that sign, marked by the -superstitious mountaineer. - -That night after dinner the Duke of Dorset brought the conversation -to this wisp of smoke, and diverging from the query, he got a flood -of light on the career of Childers. The sinister vapor was commercial -incense. Great mills for the manufacturing of the forests into lumber -were gathered into that valley. It was one example of this man's policy -of consolidation, his rooting up of competition everywhere in trade, a -detail of his plan for gathering the varied sources of wealth compactly -together. The ambition of the man presented itself as he warmed to the -discussion. The motive, moving him here in this republic, was merely -that moving Alexander in Asia--moving the Corsican in France. But the -times had changed and the ancient plan was no longer adapted to the -purpose; the seizure of authority by force was out of fashion; one must -not provoke a revolt of the eye. - -The Duke of Dorset, as he listened, was struck with an inconsistency. If -the secret of this man's dominion lay in covering it from the eye, -was not that secret out here? No Eastern despot was more magnificently -housed. His host, for explanation, again pointed out that there was no -native laborer on this whole estate. Every man, every woman to be seen -was Japanese, brought directly over sea here to service. The whole -estate inland was sentineled with keepers. Cut off thus from the -republic, as though it were a foreign province, into which no man -went without a passport, except, now and then, a mountaineer traveling -through the forest, and, to add thus more to this isolation, the labor -employed in the group of industries lying east of this estate were -wholly Japanese--the jetsam of the Orient. - -The old man, moving on this topic, spoke with a certain hesitation, and -the Duke of Dorset understood why it was; after all, like every other -despot, this man craved his gilded chair; pride clamored for authority -made manifest, for the pomp of sovereignty, and he had yielded to that -weakness, as the Corsican, in the end, had yielded to it, magnificently, -in a riot of purple. But he saw clearer than the Corsican; he was not -convinced, as that other of the Titans was; he sought cover--the deeps -of the wilderness for the staging of his sovereignty. - -Then, as this old man sketched in detail the first big conception of his -estate, the care, the mammoth labor, the incredible sums expended, pride -moved him; whatever thing of beauty any people in any land had made, -he had made here; whatever thing of beauty they had treasured, he -had bought with money. He had commanded, like that one looking up at -Babylon, myriad human fingers, backs that strained, faces that sweated. -And he told the story of it, striding through his library under its -mellow light, in pride, like that barbarian king might have told the -story of his city. - -And in this library, beautiful as deft human fingers could make it, -lighted softly from above, on its floor a treasure of India, where in -colored threads an Eastern weaver had laboriously told the tale of a -religion, occult and mystic, its domed ceiling covered with a canvas, -painted by a Florentine, wherein the martyred dead winged upward at the -last day; here--between mysteries, between, as it were, the oldest and -the newest religion of the world, both disregarded, the sacred cloths of -both, a spoil to profane decorative uses--the Duke of Dorset listened -to this story. And, strangely, as he listened, the words of that curious -priest, reading in the blood light, painfully by his fire, returned -striding through his memory. - -_I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: -and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of -hosts.... And owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there._ - -And on his way up to his bedchamber at midnight, as though that ancient -prophecy moved here to some sinister fulfillment, as though the sign -of it fantastically preceded, the naiads, the fauns, and those bronze -figures with their leering human faces and their goat loins, forming the -exquisite frieze under the rail of the great stairway, seemed to follow, -trooping at his heels. - -But on every night, at the bend of this stairway, as he ascended, -any mood, any fancy coming with him was exorcised out of his mind -and replaced by another. Here, as he turned, by a trick of the canvas -cunningly hung, by a trick of obscured lights cunningly descending, a -woman seemed to meet him passing on this stair, going down like one -who hurried. A woman, perhaps thirty, in the fantastic costume of some -princess out of an ancient story, without a jewel on her body, as though -the delicate pink skin, the exquisite full throat, the purple dark hair, -despised a lesser glory. - -It was not merely the beauty of this woman that stopped the Duke of -Dorset coming up this stair at night, it was two fancies attending her -that seized him. One that she wished to pass him swiftly, thus with her -head bowed; because from some emotion held down within her, going to the -very roots of life, she did not dare, she did not trust herself to look -into his face. And the other that she was passing, going at this moment -down the steps on which he stood, passing there at his elbow, now -swiftly, out of the influence under which he held her--escaping for this -life, for all time, forever. And, strangely, there attended on these two -fancies a conviction, a truth established, that this woman, ten years -older, was yet, somehow, Caroline Childers. - -Every night as he came up the great turning staircase, he met her thus -going down; and every night as he came, as his feet moved on the stair, -the huge emotion, skulking within him, behind disguises, seized him and -pointed to what he already desperately saw; that he could put out his -hands ever so gently and she would stop; that he could speak her name -ever so softly and she would come with a cry into his arms. - -The impelling, moving, overwhelming power of this illusion lay in the -conviction that this moment, here on the stair, now, was final--that -for this moment only, the opportunity was in his hand. The next second, -ticked off by the clock, she would be gone, and something like the door -of death would swing to, clicking in its lock. - -Every night, when he passed on up the stairway, when his foot came to -the step which followed, a sense of loss, complete and utter, like the -darkness of the pit, descended on him. Loss is a word too feeble. The -thing was a sense of death. Somehow the one thing, the one only thing -for which he was born and suckled and ate bread and became a man--a -thing, hidden until now--had, in that moment, gone, stepped out into the -light, and beckoned, and he had failed it. 'And so, now, the reason for -his being here was ended; all the care, the patience, the endless labor -of Nature, bringing him in strength to the fullness of his life, was -barren; all the agony that he had given to his mother, the milk that he -had drunk, the fruits of the earth that he had eaten, were wasted; he -was now a thing of no account, useless to the great plan--a thing, to be -broken up by the forces of Nature in disgust. The thing was more than a -sense of death. It was a sense of extermination, merited by failure. - -And further, his fathers, sleeping in the earth, seemed to approach and -condemn him. The gift of life handed down to him must be passed on -to another; it was a chain which, for great, mysterious, unknowable -reasons, must continue, lest somehow the destiny of all was periled. -Did he break it, then the labor of all was lost, the immortality of all -endangered. Some doom, reaching equally to the farthest ancestor, some -doom, not clear, not possible to get at, but sinister and threatening, -attended the breaking of that chain. The emotion, clouding his blood, -was an agent in the service of these dead men. These illusions, these -fancies, were from them, doing what they could to move him. They had -found one pleasing to them, one suited, one fit; they had led him by -invisible influences to that one; they had prevailed in argument against -him; they had colored and obscured his reason; they had lured him over -four thousand miles of sea to that one whom they, wise with the wisdom -of the dead, had chosen. And he had failed them! They pressed around -him, their faces ghastly. - -The man, do what he liked, could not escape from the dominion of this -mood. He stopped every night on the stair; he came every night with a -quicker pulse, and he passed on with that sense of desolation. The Duke -of Dorset called reason and common sense to his aid, but neither could -exorcise this fancy. That emotion, cunning past belief, in the service -of the principle of life, had got him under its hypnotic fingers! He -spoke calmly with himself; he made observations, verbally correct, -arguments, to the ear sound, conclusions that no logic could assail; -this was only a picture, as he had been told, of Caroline's mother -painted in a fancy costume; and he a sentimentalist, but they availed -him nothing. - -In the morning, when he descended, there was only the full-length -portrait of a beautiful woman hanging in its frame. The illusion -attending it was gone, but not wholly gone; like some fairy influence, -coming to men's houses in the night, and departing to solitudes at -cock-crow, it awaited him outside--in the deep places of the forest, in -the high grasses by the river, in the gardens when he sat alone on the -benches in the sun. - -If, after three hours of shooting, he sat down at the foot of a great -tree to rest, some one came and stood behind it. If, desperately, -he followed some lost trail of the red Indian, twining through the -mountain, at every turn of it, some one barely escaped him, and the -conviction grew upon him, like a madness, that at the next turn of -the trail, if he went softly forward, he would find that one. Not the -serious, beautiful woman of the picture, but truant hair, whipped by -the wind, eyes that danced, a mouth, sweet and young, that laughed. And -drugged with the oldest opiate, the Duke of Dorset stalked the oldest -illusion in the world. - -So ridden was he by this mood that the significance of an incident, -which he otherwise would have marked, escaped him. In the last few days -he had met, more than once, a Japanese who did not seem to be engaged in -any particular labor. He met this man always in the mountains, east of -the château, coming down toward it or returning; twice the Duke had seen -him late in the evening, and once at midday, lying under a tree watching -the château below him. - -The man cringed when the Duke called to him, and replied, in excellent -English, that he was a forester engaged on the estate. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII--THE SIGN BY THE WAY - -At noon on a certain Thursday, seven days after his arrival, the -Duke of Dorset set out to shoot quail in the river bottom south of the -château. A shower of rain had fallen in the morning. The air was clear -and bright. The mountains gleamed as in a mirror, the haze, by some -optical illusion, banked behind them. The vigor of spring, by some trick -of Nature, seemed to have crept back into the earth; to swim in the dark -waters of the river; to lie at the root of the grasses; to swell under -the bark of the fir tree, waiting for a day or two of sun. The great -principle of life, waning in the autumn, seemed moving, potent, on the -point of recovering its vitality, as under some April shower. Birds -fluttered in the thickets, as though seized with a nesting instinct; the -cattle wandered in their pasture; new blades started green at the -roots of the brown turf; and, now and then, as though misled, as though -tricked, a little flower opened to the sun. - -The man, walking through the fields, the meadows, over the moist leaves, -received, like every other thing, his share of this subtle influence. -The clean air whipped his blood; that virility, warming in the grasses, -in the green stem of the flower, under the bark of the fir tree, warmed, -too, in every fiber of his body. - -He walked on, following the high bank of the river, forgetting the red -setter at his heels, the gun tucked under his arm. Quail got up and -whirred to distant thickets, the woodcock arose from some corner of the -swamp, but the gun remained under the cover of his arm. He felt somehow, -on this afternoon, a certain sympathy with these little people of the -fields--with the robin and his brown lady. Under what principle of -selection had they mated? What trick of manner had favored this dapper -gallant? What thing of special beauty had set this thicket belle, in his -eye, above her rivals? The riddle, as he turned it, lifted to a broader -application. - -Was not that mystery a thing hidden as no other mystery moving in this -world is hidden? When the King Cophetua caught up the beggar maid for -queen, could he give a reason for it? Was it the blue eye that did it, -or the red mouth? Other eyes were blue, other mouths, in his court, were -red. Did he know any better what it was than this brown fellow in his -tree top? Did one ever know? Did any living thing, since the world began -its spinning, know? - -Imperceptibly, creeping like some opiate, the mystery of it occupied the -Duke's fancy. He returned to the picture on the stair; to the girl in -Oban. What was it that his blood had caught? What thing was it that -set this woman above every other in the world? Why was it that the mere -memory of her voice set the nerves under his skin to tingling? Why was -it that a hunger for her spread through him, as though every fiber had a -mouth that starved? Had he stood up to be shot against a wall, there, in -the sun, he could not have answered. - -He traveled for miles south along the river, in this autumn afternoon, -idly, his gun under his arm, until the trail ended at the bend of the -river, where the black waters swing about a moment, before plunging over -a mile of rapids seaward through the mountains. Here the red Indian, -whose trail he followed, used once to cross, swimming with a long -stroke of his right arm, and holding his weapon over his head that the -bowstring might be dry. A fir, uprooted by the winds, lay with its top -buried in the pool, its brown body warm, mottled with the sun. - -The Duke of Dorset sat down on this tree, his back against a limb. -And Nature, that great enchantress, that subtle guardian of life, that -divine fakir, squatting on her carpet in the sun, tempted him with -pictures of vivid, intoxicating detail; whispered and suggested, -stretching her lures, cunning as a spider, across the door posts of -every sense. The leaves, falling on his face, were soft hands that -touched him, the birds, laughing in the thickets, were a human voice -that laughed, the rustle of their wings were skirts trailing on a -carpet. - -The day waned. The sun grew thinner northward on the fields. The blue -haze gathered in the pockets of the mountains, as though, like smoke, it -seeped upward through the earth. A cooler air attended. An owl, sleeping -in the green top of a fir tree across the river, troubled by some dream, -lurched forward, lost his footing on the brown limb, awoke, and flapped, -without a sound, eastward to a thicker tree top. The Duke of Dorset, -sitting with the gun across his knees, caught the shadow traveling on -the water, turned where he sat, and brought the gun up to his shoulder. -A moment the blue barrels followed the outlaw, then his finger pressed -the trigger, and that pirate had gone out no more on his robbing raids, -but fate, moving to another purpose, saved him; the gun snapped; the -Duke's finger instantly caught the second trigger, but that snapped, -like the first, with a faint click. He brought the gun down, threw open -the breech, and replaced the cartridges, but the outlaw was housed now -safely in his distant tree top. The Duke of Dorset got down from his -place, and turned the gun on a patch of lichen, set like a silver target -against a black rock emerging from the river, but the triggers clicked -again. - -He broke the gun and looked carefully at the shells. There was no dent -on the caps, one was wholly untouched, the other scratched faintly. He -opened and closed the breech slowly to observe if the cocking mechanism -were defective. The resistance, the sobbing cluck of it, showed no -difficulty there. Then he drew out the shells and raised the gun butt -so the strikers would fall forward, but they did not fall into sight. -He struck the butt with his hand to loosen these pins, if they were -sticking, but they remained even with the face of the breech action. He -sprung the hammers on the strikers and still they came no farther into -the breech. The difficulty was obscure, the strikers were loose in their -beds, the hammers working, the gun had been perfect until to-day. He -began to examine the nose of the strikers, and the explanation showed -on the hard steel; both had been filed off smooth with the face of the -breech action. The ends of the strikers were blunt and square. He -could easily see the mark of the file on each one of them. The gun was -useless. The discovery was so extraordinary that the man did not seek a -theory to fit it. It was useless to speculate. He would inquire of the -servant on his return. - -The Duke followed the river to the park east of the château. Here the -road crossed on a single stone span rising gracefully over the black -water. A low wall, no higher than a man's knee, inclosed the road over -the long arch. Beyond was the forest, changing under the descending -light from blue to purple, from purple into blackness--all forest, from -the bridge end to the distant tree-laced sky line. Westward the park -lifted to the château--a park like those to be found in England; forest -trees standing in no order, the undergrowth removed, and the earth -carpeted with grass. At the summit, to be seen in among the gray tree -tops, the dull yellow walls of the château loomed. The river, caught -here in a narrow channel, boiled and roared, as though maddened by the -insolence of that arch lifted over it for the human foot. - -As the Duke approached he saw two men standing in the border of the -forest beyond this bridge, talking together; a moment later one crossed -the bridge and climbed the park to the château. The Duke, coming up the -trail, observed that this man was a footman, in the livery of the house. -The other, who remained by the roadside, looking after him, was the idle -Japanese. He watched the footman until he disappeared among the trees, -then he turned into the forest, a moment before the Duke of Dorset came -up by the corner of the bridge into the park. - -The incident recalled to the Duke his previous knowledge of this -Japanese and with it an explanation. The man was, doubtless, a relative -of some servant in the house; the father, perhaps the uncle, of this -footman, and he came here for the flotsam about a country house which -the footman could dispose of. It was a custom old as the oriental -servant; there was always the family to benefit by the servant's -fortune, and one going between surreptitiously with his basket. The -incident and the explanation of it passed through the man's mind like -any casual observation--as one notes and sees the reason of a hundred -trivial matters, without comment, in a day. - -The Duke crossed the road and turned up the hill through the park. -The sun was gone now, and a hundred lights peeped through the trees, -blinking from the windows of the house, as though all of its apartments -were in use. At the door, as he was about to speak of the disabled -gun, a valet attending brought him a message that swept so trivial -an incident wholly out of his mind. Miss Childers and the party had -returned. Would His Grace dress a little earlier for dinner. - -The Duke of Dorset had been waiting for these words, endless day after -day, and yet, now that they were spoken, he felt like one taken wholly -by surprise; like one called out of his bed to face some difficult -emergency, for which he needed time. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX--THE CHAMBER OP LIGHT - - -Caroline Childers came forward to welcome the Duke when he entered the -drawing-room. - -"I am so glad to see you," she said; "how did you ever find the way?" - -"I had a very accurate map of the coast," replied the Duke. - -"But how did you cross the mountains? The keeper's lodge was closed; -there was no one to meet you. I am so sorry." - -"On the contrary," answered the Duke, "there was a most delightful -person to meet me." - -"I am glad," said the girl, "but I am puzzled. Was it one of our -servants?" - -"I asked him that," replied the Duke, "and he said that he used the word -'servant' only in his prayers." - -"Oh," said the girl, "I understand. It was a native. Then you were -surely entertained." - -"I have not been so entertained in half a lifetime," replied the Duke. - -This dialogue, running before so charged a situation, seemed to the -man like some sort of prelude to a drama. The moment became, for him, -a vivid, luminous period. In it impressions flashed on him with the -rapidity of light; details of the great drawing-room richly fitted, its -Venetian mirrors, treasures of a Doge. But, more than any other thing, -he saw the beauty of the girl who came up the drawingroom to meet him, -who stood beside him, who spoke to him in the soft, deliberate accents -of the South. He noted every detail of her, her hair, her long lashes, -her exquisite mouth, her slim body, and the man's senses panted, as with -a physical thirst. - -But it was not these visible things, however potent, that so wholly -overcame him. It was a thing for which we have no word, of which there -is no material evidence, that moved from the girl, subtly, into every -fiber of his body. A thing as actual and as potent as the forces moving -the earth in its orbit--the wild, urgent, overpowering cry of elements, -tom asunder at the beginning of things, to be rejoined. The most -mysterious and the most hidden impulse in the world. And it seemed to -the man that in some other incarnation this woman had been a part of -him, a part of every nerve, every blood drop, every fragment of his -flesh; and, at the door of life, by some divine surgery, she had been -dissected out of his body; and, thus, from the day that he was born, he -had been looking for her; and now that she was found, every element in -him cried for that lost union. - -These impressions, this sudden luminous conviction, flashed on the man, -while he was speaking, while he was turning with the girl toward the -others; and his mind, extraordinarily clear, seemed to observe these -things as somehow detached from himself. The girl was speaking, and he -walked beside her, presenting a conventional aspect. They went thus, -in conversation, down the long drawing-room. The Marchesa Soderrelli -advanced to meet them. - -"I am delighted," she said, "to see the Duke of Dorset," then she put -out her hands with a charming gesture. - -At this moment the Duke saw, on a table, in its oval silver frame, a -picture like that one which he had seen in the yacht at Oban--that face -with its insolent, aggressive look. And fear took him by the throat. The -dread, the terror, which used to seize him when he passed, each night, -the picture on the stairway, descended on him. This man would strike out -for what he wanted while he sat here mooning in a garden. How far had -the man's suit been favored? The Duke turned the query backward and -forward, like a hot coal in his hand, blowing on it while it burned him. - -He trembled internally with panic. Without he was composed, he spoke -calmly, he lifted his face, unmoved, like one indifferent to fortune, -but every mouth in him, hungry for this woman, wailed. And that emotion -in the service of the principle of life, its hands hot on him, turned -his eyes constantly to what his destiny was losing. - -The Duke of Dorset, like every lover with the taste of lotus in his -mouth, saw this girl moving in a nimbus. He could not, for his life, fix -her with things real. She came forth from haze, from shadow, like -those fairy women drawn by painters to represent what the flesh of man -eternally longs for. There clung about her that freshness, that mystery, -beyond belief, alluring to the egoistic senses of a man. Evidenced -by the immortality of that Arabian tale, wherein a Prince of Bagdad, -cracking a roc's egg, found a woman sleeping within it, her elbow on her -knee, her chin dimpling in her silk palm. - -Moreover, he had found her traveling the highway of adventures. The -perennial charm of romance attended her. He had gone, like fabled -persons, desperately on a quest, seeking a dream woman, and had -found her, a woman of this world, at the quest's end, against every -probability of life. And, therefore, some authority, moving to a -design inscrutable, had brought him to this woman; and therefore, by -permission, by direction of that authority, she belonged to him. - -The Duke thrilled under the proprietary word. His veins stretched with -heat. Who was this man, or any man, to take what the gods, sitting -in their spheres, had designed for him? All passion is essentially -barbaric. Under the voices of it a man will do as his fathers did in -the morning of the world, half naked in Asia. The customs, the forms -of civilization may restrain him, but the impulse within him is as -unchanged, after six thousand years of discipline, as fire burning in a -dry tree. - -That dinner the Duke of Dorset was never able to remember. The details -of it passed one another into a blur. He sat down to a table beside -Caroline Childers. He talked as one does conventionally at dinner. He -observed the wit, the spirit of the Marchesa Soderrelli. How the host -hung over her, like one charmed, how the woman had, somehow, for -this night, got her beauty out of pawn! She wore a gown elaborately -embroidered, her hair brightened by a jewel set here and there -effectively in it, her face freshened as by a sheer determination to -have back for a night's uses what the years had filched from her. - -***** - -They went from dinner out into the garden. The night, like that other -night in the bay of Oban, was rather a sort of fairy day, except that -here the world was illumined by a great yellow moon beginning to emerge -from the distant tree tops, while there the sun seemed merely to have -gone behind a colored window. - -[Illustration: 0271] - -The Marchesa Soderrelli and Cyrus Childers remained on the first terrace -beside those exquisite pools rimmed with marble. The Duke and Caroline -walked on, moved by that vague wanderlust with which this mysterious -dead world seems to inspire every living creature when it moves naked -and golden above the earth. They descended slowly from one terrace to -another along the paths of the Italian garden to the green tile wall -of the Egyptian garden. The soft white light, the broad stretches of -delicate shadow, and these perfect gardens, lying one below the other, -enveloped the world with an atmosphere of sorcery. - -To the man this was no real land. This was some delicate, vague kingdom -of illusion. It would presently vanish. There could be only an hour of -it, and the value of that hour he could not measure. - -It seemed to the man, walking slowly beside the girl, that he had -purchased this hour at some staggering hideous cost. He must go when the -hour struck, hack as he had come, through the door in the hill. There -was no time, no time! The object, the sole moving object of every -day that he had lived, of every day that he would yet live, seemed to -converge into these moments that escaped with the sound of his feet -moving in this garden. How they sped away, these moments, and how big -with fate they were! - -Suddenly the man spoke. "Do you know," he said, "why I have come?" - -"Yes," replied the girl, "I know. You came to see if the shadow of Asia -were lying on a British possession." - -"No," he said, "I did not come for that. The thing that made me come was -the thing that made my uncle go down to that dead pool on the coast of -Brittany. I have done better than my uncle." - -The girl replied softly, like one dealing with a memory. - -"But have you done better than the stranger in the legend? Do not the -peasants say that he, too, followed, sinking in the water to his knees?" - -"I think," continued the man, "that he was one of us; that the thing -has been always in our blood. But I think all the others failed. I think -that first one of us finally went down as the second one of us went -down. I think, I alone have been able to stagger across the sea." - -"And to what have you come?" said the girl. - -"That is the strange part of it," replied the man. "After all that -hideous journey, after all that staggering through the sea, I seem to -have come again, like that first one of us, to that ancient city, and, -like him, to have entered into the king's palace and sat down." - -The girl drew back against the green tile wall of the Egyptian garden. - -"You make me afraid," she said. - -She spread out her arms against the wall. Her eyes grew wide. Her -lips trembled. She stared out over the beautiful estate, made doubly -exquisite in the fantastic light. - -"I have always been afraid. But how could the sea enter over this? And -there is no king, and no saint." - -"But there is a woman," said the Duke of Dorset, "'with hair like spun -darkness, and eyes like the violet core of the night.'" - -The girl gave a little cry. - -The man flung up his head like one suddenly awakened. He strode across -the bit of turf to where the girl stood. He caught up her hand, lying on -the low cornice of the wall, and carried it to his mouth. - -"Forgive me," he said, "I did not mean to frighten you--I would not for -the world frighten you. I love you!" - -Words old as the world; old as the first man, the first woman--old -as that garden in Asia; inevitably the same since the world began its -swinging, poured out over this kissed hand. - -"I love you! I love you!" What do the expressions, the sentences, the -other words that make a vehicle for these three words matter? They are -nothing. These three words are the naked body. All the others are but -the garments, the ornaments, the tinsel. These are the only words a -woman ever hears. The others, all the others, running before them, -following behind them, signifieth nothing. Whether there be wisdom -in all the other words, it shall vanish away. Only "I love you" never -faileth. - -"I love you!" These words are of the divine logos. They are the words -into whose keeping the Great Mother has confided the principle of -life. They are the words at which the children of men are accustomed to -surrender themselves to the will of Nature, which is the will of God. -They are words, so old, so potent, so mysterious, that, like certain -ancient, fabled formulas, they cannot be uttered without presenting -something of their virtue. If a man say these words a woman will listen. -Though he say them in jest, in mockery, yet will she listen. Though she -do not believe them, though she do not love him, yet will she listen, so -great a virtue hath this formula of the oldest magic--this rune of the -oldest sorcery. - -The girl standing here against the wall of the garden listened. Her body -seemed to relax and cling to the wall. For a moment she did not move. -For a moment, expanded into the duration of a life, she listened to -these words--these old, potent, mysterious words! These words, charged -with all the ecstasy of all the men and women who have ever loved, with -the destiny of future generations, with the "joy that lieth at the root -of life," poured out over her kissed hand. - -For this long, potent, delirious moment the girl was merely a wisp of -blossom, clinging to these tiles. Her consciousness, her will, her very -identity had gone out from her. For this moment she was under the one -tremendous dominating impulse of the world. For this moment she was only -the eternal woman yielding herself to the eternal call. - -Her eyes were wide. Her lips parted, her body relaxed, soft, plastic. -Then suddenly, as though they had but stood aside for the passage of -some authority above them, her consciousness, her will, her identity -poured back into her body. She sprang up. She escaped. She drew back -into the angle of the wall. She put her hands to her face, to her hair. -Then almost fiercely she thrust them out before her. - -"No, no, no," she cried. "You must not say it. I must not hear it. I -have decided; and you helped me. You convinced me. Don't you remember -that afternoon in the bay of Oban? I did not know what to do. I was -undecided then, and I asked you.... No, no; you did not understand that -I was asking you--you did not understand; but I was; I was asking you -and you told me. Oh, I could say every word of what you told me. You -told me that older persons knew, that one's own impulses were nothing; -that one ought to obey--to obey--one's family. Well, I have promised to -obey, and I will obey. While he lives, while my uncle lives, I will obey -him." - -She withdrew her hands and pressed them on her face, and on her hair. -The man took a step toward her, and again, with that fierce gesture, she -thrust her hands out. - -"Don't," she cried. "Don't, don't come to undo what you have done." - -And like a flash she was gone. - -She fled past him, through the garden, from one terrace to another, -swiftly toward the château. - -The man turned, walked along the terrace, through a little gate, and -returned by the great road, across the turf court, to the library. And -he walked firmly like one who has finally laid his hands on a thing that -eluded him, like one who has finally found, standing defiant in some -cranny of the rocks, an enemy that, until now, he could never overtake. - -In her mad flight, on the highest terrace in the exquisite Italian -garden, Caroline Childers came on the Marchesa Soderrelli. She was -standing erect, unmoving, like one of the figures in the niches along -the wall. Her face was lifted, her arms lay stiffly extended along her -body. Her eyes looked out over this sea of moonlight washing a shore of -tree tops. There lay about her the atmosphere of some resolution that -cast down the plans of life. - -Behind her, as though they had put the riddle which she had answered, as -though they had presented to her that eternal question, which they had -presented to all the daughters of the world since that ball began its -turning, those figures surmounting the stone pillars of the bronze -gates, those figures having the face and bust of a woman and the body of -a monster, those inscrutable chimeras, seemed in the soft light to lie -content in the attitude of life. - -The girl stopped when she saw the Marchesa Soderrelli. Then, with a -cry, she flew to her and flung her arms around her and crushed her -face against her bosom. The impulsive act awakened the woman. Her face -softened; her body relaxed. She put her arm around the girl and drew her -gently up against her heart. - -"What is it, dear?" she said. - -"Oh, Marchesa," the girl sobbed, "I have refused--I have refused to go -to the city of Dreams." - -The woman leaned over and kissed the girl's hair. - -"My child," she said, "your uncle has just asked me to be his wife, and -I have said that I would not." - -***** - -When the Duke of Dorset entered the library he found it empty; but a -casement window leading down to a terrace lying along the side of the -château was open. He crossed to the window and looked out. There below -him Cyrus Childers moved along this terrace; he was alone, and he walked -with his curious, hovering motion; his arms and his hands moved; his -plowshare jaw protruded. All the energy of the man seemed to have got -into action. Something had prodded this energy into a deadly vigor. - -The Duke of Dorset, having found the man for whom he was seeking, went -back to the library table, got a cigar, lighted it, and sat down at the -window. The potent characteristic of his race was strong on him. Now -that a definite struggle for the thing he wanted was visible before him, -he could wait. What it was needful to say, he would presently say when -this man was finally ready to hear him. - -The old man continued to walk from one end of the terrace to the other, -passing below the window. And above him the Duke of Dorset waited. An -hour passed and he continued to walk. A black shadow, creeping out from -his feet, skulked behind him, changing, as he moved, into fantastic -shapes; now a cross when he thrust out his arms; now a creature with -wings when his elbows were lifted; now a formless thing that jerked -itself along. Finally, the man passing the steps by the casement window, -turned and entered the library. He went over to the great table, stopped -and began to select a cigar. The Duke of Dorset arose. At this moment a -voice spoke to Cyrus Childers from the door. - -"Uncle," it said, "I cannot find a servant in the house." - - - - -CHAPTER XX--THE MOVING SHADOW - -The presence of Caroline Childers in the door brought the Duke of -Dorset forward into the room. He alone had some understanding of the -incident; but for the moment he said nothing. Cyrus Childers put his -hand on a bell. "Nonsense, Caroline," he said. - -But the bell brought no response. He tried another. Then he turned to -the Duke. - -"Pardon me a moment," he said, "these bells are evidently broken." He -crossed to the door, spoke to Caroline, and went with her out into the -corridor. - -A moment later the Marchesa entered. The Duke had remained on his feet, -where he had arisen, a thin wisp of smoke clinging to the end of his -cigar, as it went slowly out. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli crossed straight to him. - -"There is something wrong here," she said; "the place is deserted." - -The Duke of Dorset laid the cigar down gently on an ash tray, then he -smiled. - -"My dear Marchesa," he said, "something has gone wrong with the bells; -that is all." - -"That is not all," replied the woman; "I have been through the house to -my room; there is no servant anywhere." - -The Duke continued to smile. "I would wager a hunter," he said, "that -every man and maid of them is at this moment in the servant's hall." He -advanced a step. "Look again, my dear Marchesa," he said, "I think -you will find the maids scurrying up at the end of the corridor." The -Marchesa Soderrelli looked steadily at him for a moment. - -"My friend," she said, "there is evidently trouble here. Let us look -this situation in the face. We are in the center of an isolated Japanese -colony, and these Orientals have made some concerted, premeditated move. -Do you understand what it is?" - -The calm, resolute bearing of the woman caused the Duke of Dorset to -change his plan. He determined to take her into his confidence. - -"I would be glad if I knew that," he said; "I have only a conjecture." - -The Marchesa continued to regard him with undisturbed composure. - -"May I inquire," she said, "what your conjecture is!" - -The Duke told her then of the idle Oriental, and what he had observed on -this evening at the foot of the park. He feared that the servants had, -in fact, gone; that the thing was a concerted act, planned and carried -out by the whole corps of servants. The Oriental would sometimes -slip away like that, leaving the very kettles on the fire. They were -doubtless displeased at something, and had determined to abandon the -château. This, the Duke feared, was the situation here--an awkward -one, but not a thing to be alarmed over. Still, among so many servants -setting off in a body, some one of them might attempt mischief; theft, -fire, anything that should suggest itself. However, the very concert of -their act indicated a certain order, and that of itself discouraged any -fear of violence. The Duke pointed out that this was merely a theory, a -conjecture, which he hoped would presently prove unfounded. - -The big voice of Cyrus Childers now came to them from the corridor, and, -a moment later, he entered with Caroline. The muscles of the man's -face were distended with rage, he controlled that passion only with the -greatest effort. When he spoke, his voice came out slowly, as though -held and measured. - -"We seem to be abandoned by the servants," he said; "I do not understand -it." - -Then abruptly, as though the question had been for sometime considered, -Caroline Childers spoke to the Duke of Dorset. - -"Have you noticed any indication of this thing?" she said; "any warning -incident?" The Duke saw instantly that he must say here what he had just -said to the Marchesa, and he told again of the Oriental, and especially -of what he had seen this evening at the bridge. But he forgot again -another more pointed incident of the same afternoon. He spoke with a -studied unconcern; he minimized the significance of the thing; it was -like Eastern servants to leave in a body; it meant no more than a going -without permission; the annoyance of it was the only feature to be -thought of; any alarm was obviously unfounded. But his manner and his -comment carried no visible effect. Caroline was evidently alarmed. Cyrus -Childers added now a word in support of the Duke's conclusion--his face -fallen into composure, or rather into control; there was no reason for -alarm; they could all get on somehow for tonight; to-morrow he would -adjust the thing. His massive jaw clamped on that closing sentence. - -The Marchesa added also a further word. "They are both quite right," she -said; "we shall get on very well to-night." - -Caroline Childers did not at once reply. She remained looking from one -person to the other. - -"I wonder," she said, "why it is that we do not say what we are all -thinking. It is extraordinary that the servants should all suddenly -leave the house; it is more extraordinary that they should leave it at -the direction of this person who has been hanging about the grounds." - -Then she turned to the Marchesa. - -"Neither my uncle nor the Duke of Dorset are in the least misled, -neither are you, nor am I. Let us not pretend to one another; we do not -know what may happen. Nothing, or the very worst thing." - -The Marchesa did not reply, and in the meantime Cyrus Childers answered -for her. - -"Nonsense, Caroline," he said, "you are unduly excited." - -"I am not excited at all," replied the girl. - -Her eyes came back to the Duke of Dorset. - -"Do you agree with my uncle--shall we wait until morning?" - -The Duke met this situation with something approaching genius. - -"By no means," he said; "the ground ought to be at once reconnoitered. I -will follow the deserters a little." - -He was smiling, and his voice under the words laughed. But within, the -man did not smile, and he did not laugh. He was oppressed by certain -foreboding memories. - -The host at once protested. The thing was absurd, unnecessary. - -But the Duke continued to smile. - -"I beg you to permit it," he said. "Here is a beautiful adventure. I -would not miss it for the world." - -The old man understood then, and he laughed. "Very well," he said, "will -you have a horse and weapons?" - -"I will take the horse," replied the Duke, "but not the weapons, thank -you. In the meantime, I must dress for the part." - -He went swiftly out of the library and up to his room. Here he got into -his riding clothes. - -At the foot of the stairway, as he came down, he found Caroline Childers -waiting for him. The two walked from the château door along the turf -court to the stable. The place was lighted as the Duke had first -observed it on this evening, but it was now wholly deserted and silent. -Caroline Childers pointed out the way and the Duke found a horse, led -him out, and girted on a saddle. The horse was a big red sorrel, smooth -as silk, sixteen hands high, and supple as a leopard. The Duke measured -the stirrup leather on his arm, and let it out to the last buckle hole. -Then he turned to the girl beside him, his voice running on that amused, -mock-dramatic note. - -"If I do not return in half an hour," he said, "you will know that I am -taken." - -Then he gathered up the reins, swung into the saddle, and rode out of -the court eastward into the park. - -Caroline Childers returned slowly across the court to the terrace above -the gardens. The night was soft and warm. From the gardens, one lying -below the other, came the trickling of water. - -***** - -Meanwhile the Duke of Dorset rode slowly among the trees down toward -the stone bridge over the river. But the facetious mood, which he had -assumed to cover the wisdom of this scouting, had departed from him, and -something of the sense of loss that used to await him at night, passing -the picture on the stairway, replaced it. This consuming mood entered -in and possessed the man, and signs which he should have seen, marking -events on the way, escaped him. - -He came presently to the stone bridge over the river. The horse refused, -for a moment, to go on it. He struck it over the withers with his crop, -and forced it to go on. The horse swerved, plunged, and half over the -arch, tried to turn back. The Duke swung it around with a powerful -wrench of the bit. The horse went instantly on his hind legs into the -air, striking out with his fore feet. - -That rearing saved the man's life. As the horse arose, some one fired -from the cover of the woods beyond the bridge--a dull heavy report like -that of an old-time musket. The horse, struck in the chest between the -shoulders, hung a moment in the air, then it fell forward stumbling to -its knees in the road. The Duke slipped out of the saddle and rolled to -the side of the bridge where the low wall hid him. The horse got slowly -up, and stood with its head down and its legs far apart, trembling, wet -with sweat; the blood poured out of the wound in its chest, in a stream -that flowed slowly into a big, claret-colored pool, and then broke and -trickled across the road in a thin line to where the Duke lay, soaking -his coat. The horse stood for some minutes unsteadily, thus, on its -feet; then it began to stagger, the breath whistling through its -distended nostrils. In this staggering it nearly trod on the man, and, -to escape that danger, he began to crawl along the bridge close to the -wall. - -Presently he reached the abutment and slipped from the shelter of the -wall into the wood of the park. Here he ascended the long hill to the -château, keeping in the shadow of the trees, moving slowly and with -caution. When he came to the last tree, at the summit of the park, he -stopped and looked back. - -No one followed that he could see. The horse still staggered, bleeding, -over the white floor of the bridge, now to one side of it and now to the -other; then, as he looked, the beast's knees struck violently against -the low wall where he had just been lying, it lurched forward, lost its -balance, toppled and fell with a scream, crashing through a tree top -into the river below. - -The word is not accurate. A horse in the extremity of terror utters a -cry like no other sound heard upon this earth. It is a great, hideous -shudder, made vocal. Then, as though that cry had called them into -life, the Duke saw figures emerging from the wood beyond the bridge. He -stepped out into the light, walked swiftly along the court and into the -door of the château. - -There, in the library out of which he had just gone, a strange scene -awaited him. The curtains had been pulled over the windows and the -lights were all out except a single one above the big table in the -center of the room. On this table lay a dozen different weapons, hunting -and target rifles, duck and bird guns, and a variety of pistols. The -Marchesa Soderrelli stood over this table, piles of cartridges in little -heaps before her on the polished mahogany board. The others were not -anywhere to be seen. - -The Marchesa started when the door opened. "Thank God!" she said; "they -missed you. I heard the shot. I thought you were killed." - -"They got the horse," said the Duke. - -Then a memory seized him and he crossed to the table, took up one of -the rifles, threw open the breech, and passed his finger over the firing -pin. He tossed the weapon back onto the table and tried another, and -still another. - -The Marchesa explained: "I have every gun in the house; two or three of -the rifles will do, and the pistols are all good." - -The Duke took up one of the pistols, sprung the hammer, broke it and -felt the breech plate with his thumb. Then he laid it on the table. - -"These weapons," he said, "are all quite useless." - -The Marchesa Soderrelli did not understand. - -"They may not be of the best," she said, "but they will shoot." - -"I fear not," replied the Duke. - -Then he told swiftly, in a few words, of his experience with the shotgun -on this afternoon; threw open the breech of the rifles and pointed out -the filed-off firing pin in each. Every weapon, to the last one, had -been made thus wholly useless. - -The woman's face became the color of plaster, but it remained unmoving, -as though every nerve in it were cut. - -"I could bear it," she said, "if we had any chance; if we could make a -fight of it." - -"I think we can do that," replied the Duke; "I have a hunting rifle -among my luggage, packed with its ammunition in an ordinary box. That -box has not been opened, and I think its contents not suspected. I will -see." - -And he went swiftly out of the room. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI--THE IMPOTENT SPELL - - -The Duke of Dorset hurried through the deserted corridor and ascended -the great stair. - -From the moon, sheets of light, entering through the long windows, lay -here and there, white, across the steps, and red across that bronze -frieze wherein satyrs danced. Although the man hurried, habit for an -instant stopped him in the arc of light at the turn of the stair. -He lifted his eyes to see that woman, in her costume of old time, -descending, but the illusion of it was gone. The thing was now only a -lifeless picture hanging in its frame--a sheet of painted canvas from -which no disturbing influences emerged. For the fraction of a second -surprise held him, then the sound of some one moving in the corridor -above caught his ear. Some one walked there, was come now to the -stairway, was descending. And the next moment Caroline Childers, coming -hurriedly down, saw the Duke of Dorset standing on the step by the -window. She stopped instantly, and, like one in terror, put up her hands -to her face, her fingers wandering into her hair. - -"Oh!" she said, "you are hurt! There is blood!" - -The man was standing in the light; his sleeve, soaked from the wounded -horse, was visibly red. - -The girl came slowly to another step, her fingers still moving in her -hair; her speech fragments. - -"They shot you... I heard it... I knew they would.... Are you killed!" - -The Duke remembered now this blood on his coat and hurried to explain -it. - -"I am not hurt," he said. "They killed the horse. I am not in the least -hurt." - -The girl thrust back her hair with a curious deliberate gesture. Her -head moved a little forward. Her bosom lifted. She came down slowly from -one step to another. The moment of stress seemed to have matured her -face. She was now not unlike the woman whom he had met every night on -the turn of the stair. - -The Duke saw this, and all that had been illusion, fancy, a state of the -mind, emerged into reality. Not on the instant, but in gradual sequence, -like one coming in broad day upon events approaching as he had seen -them in a dream. It is a moment rare in the experience of life, when -the situation dreamed of begins to arrive, in order, in the sun. And -especially when these foreseen events appear to demand a decision which -one must on the instant hazard. Here was the opportunity, coming in -life, which had presented itself so many times to this man in fancy. -Then the foreseen march of events, as is usual in life, wholly altered. - -The long sheet of glass in the window by the Duke's elbow broke with -a sharp sound, shivered to fragments, rattled on the step, and a stone -struck the rail of the stairway. - -The Duke sprang to the window and looked out. A little group of figures -was gathering along the northern border of the court; one, who had come -closer to the château, was now running back to them. The Duke turned to -find Caroline Childers looking, with him, through the window. He did not -stop to explain what she could see; he gave her a brief direction, and -vanished up the stairway. - -"Find your uncle. Have all wait for me in the library. I will come in a -moment." - -He ran down the corridor to his room, dragged a leather box out into -the floor, unlocked it and took out the gun and ammunition which he had -packed there at Doune. He examined the breech of the gun a moment with -suffocating interest. It had not been touched, doubtless because the box -seemed an ordinary piece of luggage, and he had kept the key to it. -He put the gun barrel swiftly into its stock, filled his pockets with -cartridges, and returned, running, to the library. - -There he found a certain order which he had not hoped for. Cyrus -Childers, who had gone to look at the situation for himself, had -returned. He had restored the lights, thrown a rug over the useless -weapons on the table, and was talking calmly to the others when the Duke -entered. He looked up, saw what the Duke carried, and shook his head. - -"We must put away these guns," he said, "there is no need of them. We -must be careful not to provoke violence. I am going out to talk to these -people. Let us not lose our heads." - -It was certain that the man's quiet, masterful seizure of the situation -had cleared the air. The Duke saw this and hesitated to make an issue. - -"I agree with you," he said, "shooting is the last thing to be done, but -one ought to take every precaution." - -The old man frowned, lifting the muscles of his mouth. "If a man has a -gun ready," he said, "he is apt to use it." - -The Duke smiled. "I think you can trust me there." - -The old man was not convinced, but he formally agreed. - -"Very well," he said, "keep the gun out of sight. I am going out now." - -Cyrus Childers went over to another table, got a cigar, deliberately bit -off the end, lighted it, pulled a soft hat over his head and went out. - -The Duke followed behind him, but at the door, under the light, he -stopped a moment, and put a clip of cartridges into the Mannlicher. The -Marchesa Soderrelli and Caroline Childers remained in the library. In -the corridor confused sounds, coming from outside, were audible, and -another window in the stairway broke. The old man gave these things no -visible attention; he neither lagged nor hurried. A few minutes before -he had closed the door of the château; he stopped now, drew the bolts, -and threw it open. Then he stepped up into the full light of the door, -and stood looking calmly out. The Duke, bare-headed, stepped up beside -him, holding the rifle with one hand behind his back. - -Outside a crowd of figures, scattered over the court, drew together and -advanced toward the door. It was possible, under so bright a moon, -to observe these persons distinctly, and the Duke of Dorset was not -reassured by what he saw. They were the scum of Japan; a mob such as -the devil, selecting at his leisure, might have put together--dirty, -uncouth, a considerable mob, reinforced every moment by others entering -the northern border of the court in little groups of perhaps half a -dozen. The ones nearest to the château were servants, but foresters were -beginning to arrive, equally sinister, equally repulsive to the eye. The -mob, drawing together by a common instinct, stopped about fifty paces -from the door, hesitated and chattered. At the distance the Duke could -not catch the words, but he recognized the language in which they were -uttered. - -Cyrus Childers spoke then to the Duke beside him. - -"I am going out to talk to these people," he said. "Please remain here." - -He spoke without turning his face. Then he stepped down into the court -and walked as he had walked through the corridor, deliberately, with -unconcern, out to the mob waiting in the middle of the court. The voices -died down and ceased as he approached. The moving figures stopped on -their feet. The old man walked on until he came up close to the mob; -then he took the cigar out of his mouth and began to speak. At the -distance the Duke could not hear what he said; he seemed to address -certain individuals and, now and then, to put a question. - -The Duke stood gripping the stock of his rifle, expecting the man to be -attacked. But instead the mob seemed brought to reason; it was wholly -silent and, the Duke thought, wholly motionless. The old man talked for -perhaps five minutes. Then he put his cigar back into his mouth, made a -gesture with his hand like a speaker dismissing an audience, turned and -began to walk back leisurely to the château. He had covered perhaps half -the distance, when a single voice crashed out of this mob, loud, harsh, -grating. - -At the cry the mob surged forward as at a signal. The Duke of Dorset -brought the rifle from behind him, like a flash, to his shoulder. He saw -the mob hang a moment on its toes. He heard in several dialects shouted -assurance that the gun was harmless. Then, hoping to drive the mob back -by the exposure of its error, he fired close over it, so the whistle of -the bullets could be heard. But the whole mass was already on the way. -It rushed, hurling a shower of missiles. The Duke, struck violently, was -thrown back against the door; he heard a scattering popping, as of twigs -snapping in a fire, and a clattering of stones against the wall. - -Then he got on his feet and understood what had happened. The mob had -charged, believing the gun useless; had discovered the error on the way, -and was now running for cover to the stables. A stake, thrown by -some gigantic arm, had struck across the gun barrel, which he had -involuntarily raised to protect his body, and the violent impact of the -blow had carried him against the door. His fire had failed to check the -rush of the mob in time. It had passed over the old man before it broke. -He lay out there on the trampled turf, one arm doubled under him. - -The Duke thrust a clip of cartridges into the Mannlicher and stepped -out into the court. But no man, in the crowd scurrying to cover, turned. -They vanished like rats into a wall. The Duke crossed the court, reached -the body of the old man, took it up, and began to return with it to the -house. Then, from somewhere about the stables, that irregular popping -began. The Duke saw, or thought he saw, a hand holding a pistol thrust -out from the partly open door of a horse stall. He stopped, put down -the body, swung the muzzle of the Mannlicher on the spot and fired; a -fragment of the door as big as a man's hand detached itself and flew -into splinters. The popping instantly ceased, and the Duke went on into -the château, unmolested, with his burden. - -He laid the body down on the floor, closed and bolted the doors of the -château, then he stooped down to examine the body. The old man seemed -quite dead, but he could not at once locate the injury. He felt over the -body; he looked for blood; then he put his hand under the head and the -whole of the occipital bone, at the base of the skull, was soft to the -touch. The man had been killed instantly by a stone or the blow of a -club. - -When he looked up from this examination, both Caroline Childers and the -Marchesa So-derrelli were standing beside him. The girl was pressing her -hands together, and jerking them in and out against her bosom. But she -was not speaking a word. The face of the Mar-chesa retained its unmoving -aspect of plaster. The Duke arose and spoke to the Marchesa. - -"Why did you not keep her in the library? I feared this might happen." - -"They are coming that way, too," she answered, "up the hill from the -river." - -"How many?" - -"I don't know. Hundreds! I don't know." The Duke stepped swiftly to the -door and looked out through one of the side windows. Groups of figures -were hurrying into the service portion of the house. He turned quickly -from the window and started down the corridor toward that end of the -château. He had not gone a dozen steps when he stopped. Smoke met him! - -It had been presently clear to the Duke of Dorset that the little party -ought somehow to get out of the château. He could not hold it against -this rising, especially when led by servants familiar with every door -and window. He might hold a detached tower of it, or a certain passage. -But to make such a stand was to put all into a corner, with every way -out presently cut off. Against mere assault, such a plan was to be -considered, but now, against fire, it was wholly out of the question. -Moreover, no time was to be lost. The service portion of the house had -already been entered and the park leading to the river occupied. The -only directions offering a safe exit were on the road south, leading -down through the meadow land, westward to the coast, or directly across -the court, up the stone steps into the mountain. This latter seemed -the better way out. But to cross the court from the door was not to be -thought of; the little party would be instantly seen, and an open target -over every step of the way. - -The Duke returned to the window by the door. Caroline Childers was on -her knees by the body of the old man, the tears were streaming down her -face. The Marchesa Soderrelli walked up and down with a short nervous -stride. When the Duke looked through the window, he saw instantly a way -out. The wall bordering the formal gardens ran from the south wing of -the château along the court; they could cross, behind the cover of that, -to where the road entered. There the distance to the stone steps was -short, and once on these steps the vines would screen them, and they -might go unobserved into the mountain. - -But this way remained only for that moment open. The vines moved and the -Duke saw, indistinctly, a man standing at the bottom of these steps. He -watched a moment to see if others came that way, but no others followed. -The man remained alone, watching the château through the heavy border -of vines. This evidently was a sentinel, and a plan, on the instant, -suggested itself to the Duke of Dorset. He broke a corner out of the -window with the muzzle of the rifle, thrust the barrel through, and -brought the gun to his shoulder. Then a thing happened, by chance, and -to the eye trivial. A black beetle, sleeping there against the sash, -aroused by the breaking glass, crept over from its place onto the gun -barrel; the Duke put out his hand to brush the creature out of the line -of sight, but the beetle ran along the barrel to the muzzle. The Duke -slipped the gun back under his arm and brushed the insect off. But he -had no longer time to remain at the window. - -A crashing sound, as of a door rammed with a heavy timber, echoed -through the corridor. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII--THE IRON POT - -The Duke turned instantly. - -"This way," he said, "through the house to the garden." - -At the word the Marchesa caught Caroline Childers by the arm, and -hurried with her through the corridor; the Duke followed. They crossed -the south wing of the château; through picture galleries; through -corridors, beautified by innumerable human fingers, hung with paintings -worth the taxes of a province, decked with bits of wood, bits of ivory, -cut curiously by masters who sat over that one work for a lifetime. - -Finally they came to a last drawing-room, opening from the south tower -of the château into the Italian garden. Its west windows, hung with -curtains, looked out over the turf court. They hurried through this -chamber out onto the terrace, and from there halfway along the wall of -the Italian garden, running here beside the south border of the court. - -The situation south of the château was curiously puzzling. The gardens, -lying in terraces, one below the other, had not been entered; the road, -too, running south was clear. But beyond the gardens, in the meadow land -to which the road descended, tiny groups of figures moved out from -the river as though stretching a cordon that way, westward toward -the mom-tains. But no group advanced, from this direction, toward the -château. The situation gave a minute's respite. - -The Duke of Dorset, in that respite, again considered the avenues of -escape, and that way up the mountain, under cover of the vines, seemed -the only one remaining. The mob was evidently advancing wholly from the -east; spreading from the stone bridge on the north, through the park, -and on the south, through the meadows. The mountain, due west, was -perhaps clear, except for the one man whom the Duke had just discovered -among the vines. If that man were out of the way, then, doubtless, the -whole of the steps to the top would be open. The man could not be seen -from the garden, but he could be seen from the west windows of the -drawing-room through which they had just passed. Moreover, the shot -would better be fired from there so that the report of the rifle would -indicate that they were still in the château. The Duke explained the -plan in a dozen words. The Marchesa Soderrelli understood at once and -assented. - -The Duke knew that little time remained to him. At any moment those -entering the house on the north might come out into this garden. He ran -to the drawing-room, entered it, and crossed quickly to a window looking -out over the turf court. He drew aside the curtain, and stepped in -behind it with his rifle. But he came now on the heels of chance. The -heavy vines at the foot of the stairway moved. The lighter tendrils -above were shaking. The man, whom he had come to kill, was going up the -stone steps hidden by the leaves. - -There was no moment to be lost, and the Duke immediately returned to the -garden. - -The situation east of the château had changed. Not only was that curious -cordon, stretching from the river southwest to the meadows, drawing -nearer, but a body of several hundred was coming up the great road, -leading to the court west of the gardens. - -He stood for a moment on the terrace before the door; his body rigid, -the rifle in his hand. He knew what this advance meant. The end of this -business was approaching. The play hurried to its last act--a single -moment of desperate fighting in some corner of the wall. He saw with -what patience, with what order, events had gathered to this end. The -time wasted in that fatal parley before the door; the moment lost at the -window; the escape of that one among the vines; this advance now on the -south road. Events, all moving to a single, deadly purpose, as under the -direction of some intelligence, infinite and malicious. - -The thing looked like a sentence of death deliberately ordered; and -the man took it for such a sentence, but he took it in no spirit of -submission. He took it as a desperate challenge; before he died he would -kill every man that he could kill, and he would do it with care, with -patience, with caution. - -Caroline Childers, and the Marchesa Soder-relli remained where they had -been standing by the wall. The Duke, on the terrace before the door, saw -that the steps up the face of the mountain was the only route not now -visibly hopeless. He had seen but one man there; doubtless there were -others, but there was a chance against it, and he determined to take -that chance. - -At this moment a crowd of figures poured out into the road from the -shelter of the wall running parallel with the gardens. They swarmed onto -the open road before the stone pillars. Then they saw the two women, and -they swept with a babel of cries across the garden. The Duke was about -an equal distance away from the Marchesa and Caroline Childers when -he saw the rush start. He was strong; hard as oak. Every nerve, -every muscle in him lifted instantly to its highest tension. It was a -breathless race, but the man whose body had been trained, disciplined, -made fit by the perils of the wilderness, won it. He was on the gravel -beside them, with the mob forty paces to come. He had perhaps thirty -seconds remaining to him, and each one of them was worth a life, but he -took the time to say: "Don't move." - -Then a thing happened that would convince any student of warfare of -the utter futility of the bayonet as against the modern rifle at close -range. Within twenty seconds the Duke emptied the magazine of the -Mannlicher four times into the mob--a shot for every second. And yet the -man did not fire with a mere convulsive working of the trigger. He shot -with a precise, deadly, catlike swiftness, choosing and killing his -man like one driving the point of a knife with accuracy into a dozen -different spots on a table before him. The momentum of the massed rush -carried the mob almost to his feet before it fell back and scattered -into the garden, and yet the Duke never clubbed his rifle. The one man -who almost reached him, who fell against his feet, was shot through the -head, or rather the whole top of his head was removed by the expanding -bullet of the Mannlicher. - -The conduct of women in the presence of violent death has usually been -imagined, and they stand thus charged with a coma, a hysteria, that -observation does not justify. The testimony of those who observed the -English women during the Mutiny, who marked the carts passing through -the streets of Paris under the Terror, is to the contrary. When the Duke -swung around with the rifle in his hand the two women were close beside -him; they had neither moved nor uttered a sound. He indicated the -mountain with a gesture, and the three of them ran along the wall, -beside the dead bodies, across the road, and over the dozen yards of -green turf to the stone steps. - -He saw that no minute was to be wasted. The crowd advancing on the road -was now running, and the mob, scattered by the fire, would remain only -for a moment in confusion. He ran with the rifle held ready in his hand, -his finger on the trigger guard. But the precaution was unnecessarily -taken. The stone stairway at its foot was wholly clear. They began to -ascend it, the Duke going first, with the muzzle of the rifle presented -before him. - -It is doubtful if any man ever accurately anticipated a coming event, -even when that event was beginning to appear on the sky line. The man -whom the Duke had seen was not on these steps; the way was clear to the -top. Here was a change of status as complete and swift as any related -of the fairy. The three persons, come now to the top of this stairway, -stood above and outside the zone of death, within the shelter of the -forest. Below, the scene was wholly unreal and fantastic. It was not -possible to believe that all the savage, bestial, primitive passions -of the Oriental swarmed here to a work of ruin; that the beast was -in control of this place of exquisite beauty; that the cordon of -civilization had been forced here at its most perfect quarter. - -For a moment the scene held the Duke as a thing staged under his eye in -some elaborate drama. Then groups of figures began to emerge from the -doors of the château and a thin line of scarlet crept along the whole -face of the north wing under the roof--flames licking the wooden -cornice. He realized, then, that he and the two women had not escaped; -that they would be hunted through these mountains; that the struggle -would be one of extermination; that he faced a condition as primitive as -any obtaining in the morning of the world. - -He stepped back, tucked the rifle under his arm, and looked about for -the trail leading down to the river and the great road. He found it in -a moment and began to descend, followed by the two women. The three -figures hurried, a curious moving picture in the moonlit forest. The -Duke of Dorset, bare-headed, forcing his way through the brush of the -mountain, a rifle in his hand; the Marchesa Soderrelli in a trailing, -elaborately embroidered evening dress, the skirt of it tearing at every -step; Caroline Childers with bare arms, bare shoulders, her white gown -fouled by the leaves--all on their way to the wilderness. So swiftly had -conditions been reversed. - -Finally they came to the river at the point where the Duke had crossed -on his way to the château. Here not only was the current swift, but the -water was up to a man's waist. That meant to the shoulders of the -women, and consequently too deep to ford. He did not stop to discuss the -crossing, but set out along the bank of the river in the hope of -finding a shallow. This bank, unlike the opposite one, was dense with -underbrush. The two women followed close behind the man's shoulders in -order to escape the bushes that he thrust aside. Sometimes they touched -him, crowded against him, stumbled against him. Caroline Childers was -more fortunate than the Marchesa Soder-relli. Her dinner dress had -no train. The older woman's long, heavy skirt caught in every bush, -sometimes she was thrown down by it, sometimes it tore. Finally she -stopped, reached back to the skirt band, gave it a jerk that wrenched -off the delicate hooks, and when the garment fell about her feet, -stepped out of it. Under it was a black-satin petticoat. She went on, -leaving the skirt lying in the trail. - -It was the first toll taken of civilization by the wild. - -The bank continued for several hundred yards, thus, through thickets, -then it became a forest, clear of undergrowth, but close set with trees, -and dark. A forest that grew thicker and consequently darker as they -advanced. There was now scarcely any light. Here and there a vagrant ray -descended through some opening in the tree tops, or a patch lay, like a -detached fragment, on the boles of the trees. - -The Duke watched the river as they advanced, but for perhaps half a -mile he found no favorable change in the swift current. Finally the -bank ascended to a heavily wooded knoll; below it the river pounded over -bowlders. But above, there was evidently a shallow, where the sheet of -water glided at no great depth over a rock bed. They stopped on this -knoll, among the trees in the dark; the bank was clear of any brush, and -dry, covered with a rug of moss, browned by the autumn sun, and yielding -like velvet to the foot. The river glistened in the white moonlight, -black, viscous, sinister, slipping through the forest. The road, lying -beyond it, was also in the light, while the mountains, stretching off -westward from this road, lay under a vast inky shadow. - -The Duke of Dorset took off his coat, laid it at the foot of a tree, set -the rifle beside it, bade the women await his return, and went down the -bank into the river. He found the water not deeper than he had judged -it, but the current was rather stronger, and the rock bed uneven and -seamed with cracks. He crossed to the opposite bank and was returning, -when something dropped into the river beside him with a slight splash. -He looked up and behind him. - -The road, white here under the moon, stretched up the river gradually -into shadow. From the direction of the chateau, a man was advancing, -running in a long, slouching trot. The Duke remembered that the river, -like the road, was in light. He stooped, hooked his fingers into a crack -of the rock bed, and lowered himself into the water. He remained thus -with the water pouring over him until a second splash advised him that -the man had gone on. He got slowly to one knee, and in a moment to his -feet. The road was now clear. The Duke hurriedly waded to the bank and -came to the shelter of the trees. It was dark under the trees, but he -could make out the figure of a woman sitting by the tree where he had -placed the rifle, and a second figure, vaguely white, standing at the -edge of the bank against a fir trunk. He spoke to this standing figure. - -"Where did the man go?" he said. "I could not see from the river." - -"He followed the road," replied the figure; "can we cross?" - -The Duke looked out at the moon. It stood high in the heavens, bright -and clear, a disk of silver. Behind it the sky was clean and swept, -but to the eastward, traveling slowly up, were a company of clouds, one -flying like a wild goose behind the other. - -"We can cross," he answered, "but not until the moon is hidden. There -may be others on the road." - -Then he sat down on the dry moss. - -Immediately the figure by the tree moved toward him. He noticed that it -was but half white, as it stood, and now, as it drew nearer, it became -wholly white. The explanation followed, his coat was put around his -shoulders. He got up at once. - -"No, no," he said, "please keep it on; I am not cold." - -"But you are wet," replied Caroline Childers, "and you will be cold." -Then she added, as though to settle the discussion, "I put the coat on -because the cartridges were in the pocket. I have the rifle." - -And she held out the Mannlicher. - -The Duke hesitated. Then he put the coat on and took the gun out of her -hand. The girl remained where she was standing. - -A question came into the man's mouth, but he closed his lips on it, -and dropped the butt of the rifle on the moss beside him. A swift -comprehensive understanding came to him. A picture arose strikingly -before him: the mob arriving on the road, he in the river there, and -this white figure, wearing his coat, fighting with a rifle from behind -a fir tree, like the first resolute women of this republic, holding the -log house against the savage. She had flung the bits of stone into the -river to warn him, and had taken up the rifle to defend him. - -"Sit down," he said; "we shall doubtless have a long distance to walk." - -The girl sat down where she stood. The man remained a moment leaning on -the muzzle of the rifle, then he, too, sat down, placing the gun across -his knees. - -It was that hour when the wilderness is silent; before the creatures -that hunt at daybreak have gone out; before the temperature of the night -changes; when the solitary places of the world seem to wait as with a -reverential stillness for the descending of some presence--the hour when -the discipline of life is lax, and the human mind will turn from every -plan, every need of life, however urgent, to any emotion that may enter. - -The Duke of Dorset did not move. The desperate and crying difficulties -that beset him became gradually remote. He could not take the road to -the coast as he had hoped; he dared not cross the river under this moon. -And every moment here was one of almost immediate peril. They had been -quickly followed on the road. They would be as quickly followed down the -mountain. These things were impending and real, but they seemed, in this -silence, remote and unreal. The man sat in contentment, like one drawing -at a pipe of opium; a peace, a serenity like that of the night entered -into him; a thing for which we have no word; something strange, -mysterious, wonderful, drew near--was at hand--a thing that was, -somehow, the moving impulse of life, the object of it, the focus into -which drew every act running back to the day that he was born. - -A certain vast importance seemed now to attend him. The horror and -turbulence of this night had been benefits to him. Events, ruthless to -others, kind to him. Some god, bloody and old, savage and cruel, but -somehow loving him, had stamped out the world for his benefit, and left -him sitting among the wreck of it, with the one thing he wanted. It -could not escape from him; he had only to put out his hand. - -An hour passed. The world still lay silent. The very dead fringe -clinging to the fir limbs were motionless; the dull, monotonous sound of -the river, rolling in its bed, was a sort of silence. Brief periods -of darkness now covered the river and the road as the moon entered the -company of clouds. No one of the three persons moved. The white figure -so near to the Duke of Dorset might have been wholly an illusion of the -sense. The wet clothes on the man's body dried. Another hour passed. -Then faint cries, hardly to be distinguished, descended from the -mountain behind them. The man arose and listened, he now heard the -sounds distinctly; he heard also a second sound carrying through the -forest. - -Some one was coming along the river bank, through the undergrowth, a -mile away. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII--THE GREAT PERIL - -The remote sounds, caught by the man's trained ear, were now audible to -the women. They arose. The Marchesa Soderrelli moved over to where the -Duke stood looking up at the sky. - -"They are coming," she said. - -The man did not answer, and he did not move. The sounds, carried down to -them on the night air, grew louder. The Marchesa became impatient. - -"We must go on," she said. - -The words, the tone of the woman's voice, were urgent. But the Duke -remained with his face lifted to the tree tops. Presently, he turned -swiftly and handed the rifle to Caroline Childers. - -"We must try it now," he said, "while the moon is under that cloud. Each -of you give me your hand." - -The two women instantly obeyed, and the three persons went hurriedly -down the bank into the river. The whole world was now dark. The man thus -entered the water, between the two women; he held each by the wrist, his -arms extended. It was the only way to cross the river swiftly, and to -be certain that neither woman was carried away by the current. Caroline -Childers was above with the rifle. The Marchesa Soderrelli was below. -The wisdom of the Duke's plan was at once apparent. Neither of the women -could have kept her footing without his aid; thus held, they managed to -reach the middle of the river, and would doubtless have crossed without -accident had the rock bed continued smooth. But there is to be found -in the beds of rivers, especially when seamed with cracks, a species of -green slimy fungus, clinging to these cracks, and streaming out below, -slippery, like wisps of coarse hair boiled in soap. - -As they approached the opposite shore, the Marchesa trod on one of these -bits of fungus and fell. The current, at that point, was swift, but the -water was shallow. Her knee struck heavily on the rock. The Duke held -her, but she seemed unable to get again to her feet; her body swung -out with the current; the river was intensely dark. Fortunately, in -the shallow water, Caroline Childers managed to get ashore without the -Duke's assistance; and having now his other arm free, he was able to -lift the Marchesa, and carry her out of the river. He did not stop on -the bank; he went on across the road, and into the wood beyond, still -carrying the Marchesa Soderrelli. Caroline Childers followed with the -rifle. - -The wood, skirting the foot of the mountains, was here less densely -packed than on the other side of the river. The Duke wished to cross -it into the deeps of the forest before the moon emerged. He walked with -tremendous strides in spite of his burden and in spite of the darkness. -The ground under foot was open, and he was able to cross the strip of -wood to the foot of the mountain before the moon came out. He stopped -and put the woman down. There was a little light entering among the -trees, although neither the road nor the river could be seen. - -The Marchesa was not able to determine the extent of her injuries. The -blow had been on the left knee; she did not think that any bone was -broken, nevertheless, the joint gave way when she tried to get up. The -three persons fully realized the alarming extent of this misfortune. -Still no one spoke of it. Caroline Childers wanted to stop here, but the -Duke insisted that they go on. He put his arm around the Marchesa, and -she tried to walk. But she presently gave it up and sat down. Caroline -Childers now insisted that they should stop; perhaps the Marchesa might -be able to walk when the knee was rested. The Duke refused. He pointed -out that the leg, if not broken, would presently be stiff, and more -painful than it now was; that they were still so close to the road that -beaters would easily find them; that the rising clouds indicated rain; -and that the mountain would be infinitely harder to climb if the moss -and leaves were wet. Moreover, he could not determine the lie of the -mountains from this valley, and he wished to be high enough to locate -directions when the dawn arrived. - -He announced his intention to carry the disabled woman. The Marchesa -protested. The Duke simply paid no attention. He took her up, and set -out through the mountains. The forest grew more dense; the ascent -became more difficult; still the man went on without slacking his pace. -Sometimes he paused to rest, holding the woman on his knee; sometimes he -put her down while he tried to discover the lie of the mountain. But he -refused to stop, and always he continued to advance. - -Usage, training, the rigor of discipline long followed toughen and -strengthen the human body to an excellence past belief. This man carried -the woman, hour after hour, up the mountain, through the fir forest, and -he traveled quite as fast with his unwieldy burden as the girl behind -him was able to do with no weight except that of the rifle. The night -lengthened and darkened. The morning began to approach. Still black tree -trunk followed black tree trunk, and the brown moss carpet under their -feet stretched upward. The air, instead of cooling with the dawn, became -warmer. A thin mist of rain began to fall. Presently the contour of the -ground changed; the carpet became level; more light entered among the -trees, and they came out into a bit of open. - -It was now morning. They came into an ancient clearing; a patch once cut -out by some pioneer's ax; the scar of an old wound, that the wilderness -had taken from the invader. The blackened stumps still stood about, -fragments of charred tree tops remained; and in the center of the -clearing stood a log cabin, roofed with clapboards, its door fallen from -its wooden hinges, its chimney, built of crossed sticks, daubed between -with clay, tumbled down, but the hewn logs and the clapboards, split -with the grain of the wood, remained. - -The Duke crossed the bit of open and entered the cabin. It was dry, and -covered with leaves carried in through the door by the wind. The three -persons were scarcely under the protection of this shelter, when the -threatening rain began to fall. It was one of those rains common to the -coast line. There was no wind; the atmosphere seemed to form itself into -a drenching mist that descended through the trees. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli complained of pain in the injured knee, and the -two women determined to improvise a bandage. The Duke arose and went out -into the clearing. The forest was beginning to steam, and he wished, if -possible, to get the lie of the mountain range before they were hemmed -in with mist. The two women improvised a bandage from a petticoat -ruffle, and bound the knee as tightly as they could. They did not talk; -both were greatly fatigued, and both realized the desperate situation. -They did not discuss it, but each prepared to meet it, in her own -manner, with resolution. - -When the Duke had got the points of the compass, he was not disturbed -about what ought to be done. He knew that as soon as the two women were -a bit rested, they should at once go on. It would be a day of fatigue -and hunger; but no one of them would die of hunger in a day, and by -night he hoped to come in sight of the coast. Then they could stop and -meet the problem of food. - -He was going back into the cabin to explain the necessities of this -plan, when the Marchesa Soderrelli called him. He entered. Caroline -Childers was standing, leaning against the logs by the tumbled-in -fireplace; the Marchesa Soderrelli sat on the ground among the leaves; -both, in physical aspect, had paid their tribute to the wilderness. -The girl's hair and eyes seemed to dominate her face; the soft -indiscriminate things, common to youth, were gone; she had become, in -the eight hours departed, a woman, acquainted with the bitterness of -fife, and facing its renunciations. The Marchesa Soderrelli, sitting on -the floor of the abandoned cabin, was an old woman, her face flabby, her -body fallen into baggy lines. But the spirit in her was unshaken, and -her voice was compact and decisive. - -"I wish to speak to you, my friend," she said; "won't you please sit -down?" - -The man looked from one woman to the other and sat down on the corner of -a log, jutting out from the door wall. For the last half of this night, -he had been, upon one point, content. He was like one who, desiring -a thing above all others, and despairing of his ability to obtain it, -finds that thing seized upon by a horde of brutal and hideous events and -thrust into his arms. He stood now, past the outposts of uncertainty, -with the possession in his hand. - -Those under the oldest superstition in the world warn us that such a -moment is above all others perilous. That it is the habit of Destiny -to wait with fatal patience until one's life swims over this mark, and -then, rising, like a whaler to drive in the iron. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli continued, like one who has a final and -difficult thing to say. - -"My friend," she began, "I am a woman, and consequently you must expect -me to go round about in what I have to say, and you must forgive me when -I seem unreasonable." - -She lifted her hands and put back her hair. - -"I have no religion, as that word is generally defined, but I have a -theory of life. I got it out of a book when I was little. In that book -the disciples of a wise man came to him and said: 'Master, we can -endure no longer being bound to this body, giving it food and drink, -and resting it and cleansing it, and going about to court one man after -another for its sake. Is not death no evil? Let us depart to whence we -came.' And he answered them: 'Doth it smoke in the chamber? If it is -not very much I will stay. If too much, I will go out; for remember this -always, and hold fast to it that the door is open.' Well, the smoke has -come to be intolerable." - -She moved in the leaves. - -"I have tested my fortune again and again as that wise man said one -ought to do. There can be no longer any doubt. It is time for me to go." - -The woman looked from the man to the girl standing by the chimney. Her -eyes were appealing. - -"You must forgive me," she said, "but you must believe me, and you must -try to understand me. I want you and Caroline to go on." - -She put up her hand. - -"No, please hear me to the end of it. I know how the proposal looks to -you. It seems cruel. But is it? I am come to the door, and I am going -out through it. Is it not more cruel to force me to put my own hand to -the latch?" - -The woman paused. She sat huddled together in the leaves; there was -something old, fated, irrevocable in the pose of her figure. - -"I beg of you," she added, "as my friends, to spare me that." - -The mist streaming up from the soaked forest lay in the cabin. It -gathered about the woman on the floor. Presently she went on: - -"I am afraid that I cannot make you see how completely I am done with -life, but I will try. So long as one has a thing to love, or a thing -to do in this world, the desire to remain here is a strong and moving -impulse in him. But when these two things go, that desire also goes. And -the loss of it is the sign--the beck to the door. That old wise man made -it very clear, I think. He said: 'Another hath made the play, and -not thee, and hath given thee thy lines to speak, and thou art not -concerned, except to speak them well, and at the end of them to go.... -And why shouldst thou wish to remain after that, until He, who conducts -the play, shall come and thrust thee off?'" - -"Now," she continued, "I have come to the end of my lines. They have not -always been very pleasant lines. But I have contrived to speak them with -a sort of courage. And I would not now be shamed before the Manager." - -She peered through the thickening mist, as through a smoke, straining -her eyes to see the face of the man by the door, the girl by the -chimney; but she could not, and she tried a further argument. - -"You must be fair to me," she said, "look at the situation. I cannot -go on, that is certain, and for the two of you to remain here, on my -account, is to charge me with your death. Dear me! I have enough on the -debit side of the ledger without that." - -The woman's head oscillated on her shoulders. Her right hand wrung the -fingers of her left. She considered for a moment, her chin fallen on -her bosom. Then she sat up, like one under the impulse of some final and -desperate hazard. - -"I am going to ask each of you a question," she said, "and I entreat -you, as one in the presence of death, to answer the truth. And let it be -a test between us." - -Then she leaned forward, straining through the mist, to the Duke of -Dorset. - -"My friend," she said, "can you think of any interest in this life that -you would like to follow; any plan that you would like to carry out; any -hope that you would like to realize? because I cannot, and if you can, -it is I, and not you who should remain here." - -There was absolute silence. The wet mist continued to enter, to obscure, -to separate each of the three persons. The man did not reply, and the -Marchesa swung around toward the dim figure of the girl, standing by the -ruined chimney. The leaves crackled under the woman's body. She rested -on her hand. - -"Caroline," she said, "a man may have many interests in life, but we -do not. With us all roads lead through the heart. Now, if you have any -affection for any living man, you must go on. I make it the test before -God. If you have, you must go. If you have not, you may remain. But I -have the right to the truth--the right of one about to decide who shall -live and who shall not live." - -The man at the door arose slowly to his feet, as under the pressure of -a knife, breaking the skin between his shoulders. Every fiber in him -trembled. Every muscle in his body stood out. Every pore sweated. The -shadow of the descending iron was black on him. - -But if this question disturbed Caroline Childers, there was now -no evidence of it. She replied at once, without pause, without -equivocation. - -"I shall remain with you," she said. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli, sitting on the floor among the leaves, bit her -lip, until the blood flowed under her teeth. - -The man, standing by the door, did not move. The mist mercifully hid -him; it packed itself into the cabin. The three persons changed into -gray indefinite figures, into mere outlines, into nothing. The mist -became a sort of darkness. It became also a dense, tangible thing, like -cotton-wool, that obscured and deadened sound. - -Something presently entered the clearing from the forest, tramped about -in it, and finally approached the door. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV--THE TASTE OF DEATH - -There is no phenomenon of weather so swiftly variable as that of mist. -It may lie at a given moment on the sea or on the mountain--a clinging, -opaque mass, as dense and impenetrable as darkness; darkness, in -fact, leeched of its pigment, a strange, hideous, unnatural, pale -darkness--and the next moment it may be swept clean away by the wind. -This is especially true on high altitudes; the ridges of hills; the -exposed shoulders of mountains, where the fog lies clear in the path of -the wind. On Western mountain ranges, adjacent to the sea, this protean -virtue of the weather is sometimes a thing as instantaneous as sorcery. -The soft rain is often followed by a stiff, heady breeze, sucked in -landward from the ocean. This breeze travels like a broom sweeping its -track. Thus, the Marchesa Soderrelli, wrapped in this mist, like a toy -in wool, sitting on the floor of the cabin, believed herself present at -some enchantment, when suddenly the mist departed, a cool wind blew in -on her, and the sun entered. - -She uttered a cry of astonishment, and pointed to the door. A huge, -gaunt mule stood directly before the cabin, and almost instantly the -tall figure of a man, equally gaunt, loomed in the door. - -"Good mornin'," he said, with an awkward, shy bob of the chin. His eyes -were gentle; his craggy, rugged feature placid like those of some old -child. "I had a right smart trouble to find you." - -The tragic nature of a situation is an intangible essence purely mental. -It does not lie in any physical aspect; it is a state of the mind. Let -that state of the mind change, and the whole atmosphere of the situation -changes. The scene may stand in every detail precisely as it was, the -actors in it remain the same, Nature and every phase of Nature the -same, and yet everything is changed. It is a state of the mind! On the -instant, the scene of breaking tension staged in this mountain cabin -descended into commonplace. Life, and the promise of life travel always -in one zone; death, and the threat of death in another--but shifting -imperceptibly, and on the tick of the clock. - -One arriving now at this cabin would have marked only signs of fatigue -in the aspect of the three persons in it. Of this fatigue, the girl and -the older woman gave much less evidence than the man. He seemed wholly -exhausted. The vitality of the two women arose with the advent of the -mountaineer. They gave interest and aid to his efforts to provide a -meager breakfast. He produced from a sack across the mule's saddle a -piece of raw bacon, flour and a frying pan. - -The Duke of Dorset, after his first welcome to the mountaineer, and his -brief explanation to the others, had returned to his seat on the log by -the door. He seemed too tired even to follow events. The mountaineer had -produced sulphur matches from the inside of his hat--the only dry spot -about him--wrapped in a piece of red oilcloth, cut doubtless from the -cover of some cabin table. He was now on his knees by the tumbled-in -chimney, lighting a fire. Caroline Childers, with the knife, which the -Duke had once borrowed, was cutting the bacon into strips. The Marchesa -Soderrelli, still seated on the floor, was in conversation with the -mountaineer, her strong, resolute nature recovering its poise. - -The contrast between the degrees of fatigue manifest in the two women -and the man by the door was striking. He looked like a human body from -which all the energies of life had been removed. In the case of the two -women, Nature was beginning to recover. But, in the aspect of the man, -there was no indication that she ever intended to make the effort. - -Now, as the effect of mere exertion, this result was excessive. The -man was hardy and powerful; he was young; he was accustomed to fatigue. -Eight hours of stress would not have brought such a frame to exhaustion. -Eight days would hardly have done it. Moreover, within the last hour, -the man had entered the clearing with no marked evidence of fatigue. The -transformation carried the aspect of sorcery, or that of some obscure -and hideous plague, traveling in the mist. - -Occult and unknowable, swift and potent are the states of the mind. The -blasting liquors, fabled of the Borgia, were not more toxic than certain -ones brewed, on occasion, in the vats of the brain. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli took over the conduct of affairs. She brought -now to the promise of life that same resolution and directness which she -had summoned to confront the advent of death. She spoke from her -place on the floor, her voice compact and decisive. She estimated with -accurate perspective the difficulties at hand, and those likely to -arise. Now as determined to go on as she had been a little earlier -determined to remain. Her conversation, almost wholly to the -mountaineer, was concise, deliberate and to the point. But while she -talked directly to him, she looked almost continually at the Duke -of Dorset. She seemed to carry on, side by side, two distinct mental -processes--one meeting the exigencies of the situation, and the other -involving a study of the man seated by the door--and to handle each -separately as a thing apart from the other. - -The coast could be reached by trails known to the mountaineer in eight -or nine hours, perhaps in less time. If they set out at once they would -arrive in the afternoon. Nevertheless, the Marchesa Soderrelli, coming -to a decision on the two problems before her, declared that they should -remain where they were until midday. It is possible that she considered -the Duke of Dorset too fatigued to go on; but she gave no reason. - -This careful scrutiny of the changed aspect of the man by the door was -not confined to the Marchesa Soderrelli. The circuit rider observed it, -considered the man's physical needs, and agreed to the delay. Caroline -Childers, behind the Marchesa Soderrelli, sitting by the bit of fire, -her hands around her knees, also studied the man; but she did not regard -him steadily. She sat for the most part, looking into the fire at the -cooling embers, at the white ash gathering on the twigs. Now and then, -fitfully, at intervals, her eyes turned toward him. The expression of -the girl's face changed at such a time. It lifted always with concern -and a certain distress, and it fell again, above the fire, into a cast -of vague, apparently idle speculation; but, unlike the scrutiny of the -other woman, it continued. - -The Marchesa having reached a conclusion turned about and began to probe -the mountaineer with queries. She wished to know where he had been, how -he had come to follow, and by what means he had found them. - -The old man was not easily drawn into a story. The history of the night -came up under the Marchesa's searching hand in detached fragments. -Fragments that amazed and fixed her interest. This story failed to hold -the girl's exclusive interest, although absorbing that of the Marchesa. -Her eyes traveled continually to the Duke of Dorset while she listened -to it as though placing each incident in its proper relation to him. -As though each incident, so coupled up, entered in and became a part -of some big and overpowering conception that her mind again and again -attempted to take hold of. She seemed, unlike the older woman, not able -to carry the two things side by side in her mind. She swung from the one -abruptly to the other. - -The mountaineer, under the searching queries of the Marchesa, was -disturbed and apologetic. He had been slow to find the party, he -thought; and, as preface to the story, meekly issued his excuse, -including a word for the mule. - -"Jezebel's a-gittin' on, an' I hain't as spry as I was." - -Not as spry as he was! The traveling of this man for the last half of -the night would have appalled a timber wolf. He had beat the mountains, -on both sides of the river, for four hours, running through the forest. -He had gone along the face of the mountains for at least five miles, -backward and forward, parallel with the great road, traveling faster -than that wolf. He was desolated, too, because "God Almighty" had sent -him in haste, like that man of God out of Judah, and he had stopped "to -eat bread and to drink water." - -Stopped to eat bread and to drink water! - -For eight hours the man had not stopped except to feed the mule. For -ten hours he had not eaten a mouthful, and had drank only when he waded -through a river. Why, since he carried food, he had not eaten, the -Marchesa So-derrelli, with all her dredging, could not get at. The man -seemed to have had some vague idea that the food would be needed, and -an accounting of it required of him. He was distressed for what the mule -had eaten, but one must be merciful to his beast, for the Bible said it. - -Moreover, he had been "afeard." - -Afeard! The man had been all night in the immediate presence of death. -He had stood unmoved and observing under the very loom of it. He had -crossed again and again under its extended arm, under its descending -hand; within a twinkling of the eye, a ticking of the clock of death. - -It ought to be remembered that the Marchesa Soderrelli was an -experienced and educated woman, skilled in the subtleties of speech, and -in deft probing. And yet, with all the arts and tricks of it, she was -not clearly able to discover wherein the mountaineer accused himself of -fear. - -It seemed that the man, following a definite impulse which he believed -to be a direction of God, had arrived on the spur of the mountain above -the château before the revolt was on. But here in the deeps of the -forest he had stopped to consider what he ought to do, and in this he -had been "afeard," not for his life, but to trust God. He should have -gone on into the château, then he might have brought all safely away. -But he had "taken thought." - -When he heard the cracking of the rifle, he had tied the mule to a tree, -and descended the stone steps. But he arrived there after the attack was -ended. Concealed by the vines, he had concluded that the occupants of -the château were already gone out on the road to the coast. - -He had returned for the mule, made a detour around to the road, and -advanced toward the château. But he found no one. The château was in -flames. He now thought that if any of its occupants had escaped, they -would be in the mountain from which he had descended, and would come -down the trail to the river. He had, therefore, traveled with the mule -as fast as he could to that place on the road. But no one had come over -the river there. He could tell that, because one, coming up out of the -water, would have made wet tracks on the dry moss of the bank, and the -dry carpet of the road. - -Now, extremely puzzled, he had hidden the mule in the forest, and set -out to see if the escaping persons had crossed the road farther on. He -had traveled for several miles, but had found no wet track on the dry -road. Then he had crossed the river and followed up on the opposite -bank. He had hunted that face of the mountain before the pursuing mob. -Finally ascending the bank of the river, he had come by chance on the -Marchesa's skirt. This had given him a clew to the direction taken by -the party, and following it he had finally located, by the trodden -moss, the place where the river had been crossed. He had waded the river -there, hoping to follow the wet tracks, but the rain had now begun to -descend, and he could not tell what direction they had taken. He had -returned for the mule, and followed the road to the summit of the -mountain. Here he again tied the mule in the woods and began that long, -tireless searching, backward and forward along the whole face of the -mountain. - -Finally, in despair, he returned to the mule, and as he put it, -"left the thing to Jezebel an' God Almighty." And the mule, doubtless -remembering, in the uncomfortable rain, the shelter of the abandoned -cabin, had gone along the backbone of the mountain into the clearing. -And so he had found them. - -But to the circuit rider it was God's work; the angel of the Lord in the -night, in the impenetrable mist, walking by the beast's bridle. He was -depressed and penitent. He had been one of little faith, one of that -perverse and headstrong generation; afraid, like the Assyrian, to trust -God. And so, in spite of him, they had been found. - -The man was so evidently distressed that the Marchesa Soderrelli -hastened to reassure him. She told him how the Duke of Dorset had gone -twice to a window to kill him. She thought the deep religious nature of -the man would see here a providential intervention--the hand of Yahveh -thrust out for the preservation of His servant. But in this she was -mistaken. He had been in the presence, not of God's mercy, but of His -anger. The hand had been reached out, not to preserve, but to dash him -into pieces. He believed in the austere God of the ancient Scriptures, -who visited the wavering servant with punishments immediate and -ruthless; the arrow drawn at a venture and the edge of the sword. - -The astonishment of the Marchesa Soderrelli at the man did not equal his -astonishment at her. He sat looking at the woman in wonder. How could -she doubt a thing so clear? Was not the Bible crowded with the lesson? -Presently he arose and went out into the clearing. The gaunt mule was -cropping vines in the open before the door. He paused to caress her -lovingly with his hands. Then he crossed the clearing and disappeared -into the forest. The Marchesa concluded that the man had gone to post -himself somewhere as a sentinel, and she composed herself to wait. - -The morning was drawing on to midday. The sun lay warm on the forest. -The soft haze stretched a blue mist through the hollows of the -mountains. The peace, the stillness, the serenity of autumn lay through -the cabin. The air was soft. No one in the cabin moved. Caroline -Childers sat where she had been, fallen apparently into some vague and -listless dreaming. Her hands wandered idly among the leaves, breaking -a twig to bits, making now and then a foolish, irrelevant gesture. The -Duke sat with his elbow on his knee, and his chin resting in the hollow -of his hand. The girl, now and then, looked up at him and then back -again to her aimless fingers crumbling the leaves. - -A droning as of bees outside arose. It seemed in the intense stillness, -to increase, to take on volume. The sound deepened. It became like the -far-off humming of a wheel under the foot of a spinner. It drew the -attention of the Mar-chesa Soderrelli. She began to listen intently. - -"Do you hear that sound, Caroline?" she said, "what is it?" - -The girl arose and listened. She went noiselessly to the door, and out -into the clearing. She came to the mule, stopped, and began, like -the old mountaineer, to stroke its big, kindly face. A breath of wind -carried the sound to her from the forest. It was a human voice, rising -and falling in a deep muttering cadence. - -_"I've been in the presence of Thy wrath, O God Almighty, an' the j'ints -of my knees are loosened. I hain't like David, the son of Jesse. Uit's -Thy hand, O Lord, that skeers me. Preserve me from Thy sword, an' I'll -take my chancet with the sword of mine enemies. Fur I'm afeard of Thee, -but I hain't afeard of them."_ - -The girl stood a moment, her hand under the mule's muzzle, then she -walked slowly back to the cabin. At the door she stopped and answered -the Marchesa's question. - -"It's the wind," she said, "in the tops of the fir trees." - - - - -CHAPTER XXV--THE WANDERING - -At noon they set out through the mountains, the Marchesa Soderrelli -riding the mule, the old man leading with the rope bridle over his arm, -and the sack swinging on his shoulder. Caroline Childers walked beside -the mountaineer. The Duke followed with the rifle. The world had -changed; it was now a land of sun, of peace, of vast unending stillness. -The carpet of the wilderness was dry; the dark-green tops of the fir -trees brightened as with acid; the far-off stretch of forest, fresh, as -though wiped with a cloth; the air like lotus. - -The old man traveled along the backbone of the mountain, not as the crow -flies, to the coast, but in the great arc of a circle swinging to -the west. He thus avoided abrupt and perilous descents and the dense -undergrowth of the hollows. The forest along these summits was open. -Cyrus Childers had cleaned them of their fallen timber. They were now -great groves of fir trees, shooting up their brown bodies into the -sky, and stretching there a green, unending trellis through which the -sunlight filtered. - -[Illustration: 0359] - -The little party, traveling in these silent places, through this -ancient wilderness, would have fitted into the morning of the world. The -gigantic old man, the lank, huge mule, and the woman riding on the pack -saddle might have come up in some patriarchal decade out of Asia. The -girl, straight, slim, lithe and beautiful as a naiad, her cloudy black -hair banked around her face, belonged in sacred groves--in ancient -sequestered places--one of those alluring, mysterious, fairy women of -which the fable in every tongue remains. Called by innumerable sounds -in the mouths of men, but seen thus always in the eye of the mind when -those sounds are uttered. The Marchesa Soderrelli was right, on that day -in Oban, when she set youth first among the gifts of the gods. It is the -beautiful physical mystery that allures the senses of men. And youth, be -it said, is the essence of that sorcery. - -The Duke of Dorset came, too, with fitness into the picture; he was the -moving, desolate figure of that canvas. Man arriving at his estate -in pride, in strength, in glory, and fallen there into the clutch of -destiny. In his visible aspect he had recovered in a degree; he no -longer bore the evidences of extreme fatigue, he walked with the rifle -under his arm, and with a casual notice of events. - -There is a certain provision of Nature wholly blessed. When one is -called to follow that which is dearest to him, nailed up in a coffin, -to the grave; when the bitterness of death has wracked the soul to the -extreme of physical endurance; then, when under the turn of the screw -blood no longer comes, there exudes, instead of it, a divine liquor -that numbs the sensibilities like an anæsthetic, and one is able to -walk behind the coffin in the road, to approach the grave, to watch the -shovelful of earth thrown in, and to come away like other men, speaking -of the sun, the harvest, the prospects of the to-morrow; it is not this -day that is the deadliest; it is the day to follow--the months, the -years to follow, when the broken soul has no longer an opiate. - -The Duke of Dorset was in the door of life, in that golden age of it -when the youth has hardened into the man, when the body has got its -glory, and the mind its stature. And he moved here in this forest behind -the others, a weapon in his hand, a figure belonging to the picture. He -was the leader of the tribe, and its defense against its enemies; but a -leader who had lost a kingdom, and whose followers had been put to the -sword. - -They followed the mountain ridges through the long afternoon, through -this ancient, primeval forest. Below, the tops of the fir trees -descended into an amphitheater of green, broken by shoulders of the -mountain, and farther on into hollows that widened in perspective and -filled themselves in the remote distances with haze. - -About four o'clock they came out onto the ridge where the two men had -first stopped in their journey from the coast. Here was the knoll, -rising above them like a hump on the ridge, and set about with ancient -fir trees; and here below it was the spring of water gushing into its -stone bowl. The mountaineer stopped and lifted the Marchesa down from -the mule, then he handed the rope bridle to the girl and indicated the -spring with a gesture. - -"You'll have to hold Jezebel or she'll poke her nose in hit first -feller," he said; "I guess I'll look around some." Then he went up onto -the crest of the knoll. - -The Marchesa Soderrelli drank, scooping up the water with her hands; -Caroline Childers drank, kneeling, wisps of hair falling beside her -slim face into the pool. The Duke of Dorset approached, and remained -standing, the butt of the rifle on the ground, his hands resting on the -muzzle, watching, in his misery, this sylvan creature come out of the -deep places of the wood to drink. - -In a few minutes the old circuit rider appeared, and beckoned to the -Duke of Dorset. Then he came down a few steps and spoke to the two -women. - -"Don't be skeered," he said, "we're agoin' to try how the gun shoots." - -Then he went with the Duke up onto the high ground of the ridge. This -summit commanded a view of the road ascending the mountain in a long, -easy sweep--a beautiful brown ribbon stretched along a bank of scarlet. -On this road two figures were advancing, a mile away, like tiny -mechanical toys moving up the middle of the ribbon. The old man pointed -them out with his finger. - -"Them'll be scouts," he said. "How fur will your gun carry?" - -The Duke of Dorset estimated the distance with his eye. - -"One cannot be certain," he answered; "above six hundred yards." - -"That air purty long shootin'; air you certain the bullet'll carry up?" - -"Quite certain," replied the Duke. - -The old man bobbed his chin, and pointed his finger down the mountain to -a dead tree, standing like a mile post on the road. - -"When they come up to that air fir," he said, "draw a bead on'em." - -The Duke of Dorset elevated the sights for five hundred yards, and the -two men waited without a word for the tiny toy figures on the velvet -ribbon to approach. The knoll on which they stood was elevated above -the surrounding wilderness of tree tops. Below, these deep green tops -sloped, as though clipped beautifully with some gigantic shears. It was -like looking downward over a green cloth with an indolent sun, softened -by haze, lying on its surface. The Duke of Dorset stood with one foot -advanced, the weight of his body resting on the foot that was behind -the other, in the common attitude of one oppressed by fatigue. The old -circuit rider stood beside him, bare-headed, his hat on the ground, a -faint breeze stirring his gray hair. - -The brooding, lonely silence of the afternoon lay on the world. A -vagrant breath of wind moved on the ridge, idly through the tops of the -ancient firs, but it did not descend into the forest. There, under the -blue nimbus, nothing moved but the quaint figures traveling on the long -brown band. When these two figures began to come up the last sweep of -the road toward the dead fir, the Duke of Dorset raised the rifle to his -shoulder. The old circuit rider watched him; he observed that the man's -hand was unsteady, and that the muzzle of the gun wavered. - -"Stranger," he said, "air you one of them shots that wobbles onto your -mark?" - -Now, there was among the frontiersmen, in the day of the hair trigger, -a school of wilderness hunters, to be found at every shooting match, who -maintained that no man could hold steadily on an object. They asserted -that the muzzle of the rifle should be allowed to move, either in a -straight line up or down onto the target, or across it in the arc of a -circle. The trigger to be pulled when the line of sight touched on the -target. The first disciples of this school were called the "line shots," -and the second the "wobblers." Almost every pioneer followed one of -these methods, and no more deadly marksmen at short range ever sighted -along a gun barrel. They could drive a nail in with a bullet; they could -split the bullet, at a dozen paces, on the edge of an ax; they could -pick the gray squirrel out of the tallest hickory at eighty, at a -hundred yards, when, lying flat to the limb, it presented a target not -higher than an inch. - -The Duke took down the rifle. He understood the delicate reference to -his nerves. - -"Perhaps I would better lie down," he said. Then his eye caught the -bullet swinging to its leather string at the old man's middle, and he -remembered the history of it. He handed the rifle to the mountaineer. -"I am not fit to-day," he said; "will you try?" And he explained the -mechanism of the rifle. - -The old man took the gun, weighed it in his hands, tried the pull-of the -trigger, and examined the sights. - -"Hit air about the weight of the ole Minie rifle," he said, "an' the -sights air fine. Do hit shoot where you hold it?" - -"I think it may be depended on at this range," replied the Duke. - -"Well," said the old man, "I hain't shot for a purty long spell, but -I'll jist try it a whet." - -He lifted the gun to his shoulder, pressed his bronzed cheek to the -stock, and slipped his left hand out to the full length of the arm under -the barrel. The two figures were within a dozen paces of the dead fir -tree. The Duke thought one of them was the Japanese whom he had seen -watching the château, and the other a forester, but he could not be -certain at the distance. For perhaps thirty seconds the mountaineer -stood like a figure cast in plaster, then the muzzle of the rifle began -slowly to descend, and the report crashed out over the tree tops. - -The forester, a little in advance of the other, fell in the road, his -head and shoulders doubled up under him. The other, at the report, -jumped as high as he could into the air, turned entirely around before -he touched the earth, and began to run down the road. He ran, evidently -in terror, his legs moving grotesquely on the center of the brown -ribbon. The old mountaineer remained unmoving; his left hand far out -under the barrel of the rifle, his face set to the stock. He moved the -bolt and returned his finger to the trigger. Then the rigid muzzle of -the rifle began once more to descend, in a dead straight line, and the -report followed. The quaint figure, its legs twinkling on the ribbon, -shot up into the air, and then fell spraddled out in the road, its arms -and legs extended. - -The Duke of Dorset turned to the mountaineer. - -"My friend," he said, "that is the best shooting I ever saw--a moving -target at more than five hundred yards." - -The old man removed the gun from his shoulder and handed it to the Duke, -stopped, picked up his hat and put it on his head. Then he replied to -the Duke's compliment. - -"Stranger," he said, "hit air the Almighty that kills." - -It must be remembered that this man's God was the God of the Tishbite, -who numbered his followers by the companies who drew the sword. - -The two men returned at once to the spring, and the little party again -set out through the mountains. The plan of travel was now changed. The -circuit rider took a trail down the mountain in a direct line to the -coast, and he hurried; the trail was at places rough and steep; the -injured woman with difficulty kept her place on the pack saddle. They -reached the low-lying foot hills, crossed the long broken hollow, dense -with thickets, and ascended the next mountain, going due west. The old -man traveled as fast as he could; he urged the mule, speaking to it as -one might to a careless, lagging child, "Come along, Jezebel; mind where -you're walkin'"; and when the mule stumbled, a gentle, scolding note -came into his voice, "Pshaw! Jezebel, air your eyes in the back of your -head?" - -But in spite of the direct route and every effort of the old man they -traveled slowly. The sun had gone down when they began the ascent of the -second mountain. They stopped for a few minutes, and ate what remained -of the food, then they pushed on, climbing toward the summit. - -Meanwhile, night descended. A deep-blue twilight emerged from the -hollows, the remote valleys, the hidden nooks and corners of the -wilderness, crept in among the brown trunks of the fir trees, and -climbed to the ridges. Then, imperceptibly, as though pigment flowed in, -the twilight deepened, the stars came out, and it was night. - -They crossed the summit of the second mountain, descended for perhaps -three hundred yards, then turned due north and came out abruptly into -the great road. The moon was beginning to come up, its hidden disk -preceded by a golden haze that feebly lighted the world. The road lay -outlined in shadow, running in a long sweep around a shoulder of the -mountain on its way to the sea. The four persons continued down this -road to the coast. The mountaineer leading the mule, on which the -Marchesa Soderrelli rode, and the two others following behind them. - -Caroline Childers, walking beside the Duke of Dorset, lagged as though -worn out with fatigue. The space between the four persons widened and -drew out into a considerable distance. Presently, when the mule turned -the shoulder of the mountain, the girl stopped. At the same time, as -upon some signal, the moon arose, pouring its silver light into the -wilderness over the green tops of the fir trees and down into the road, -etching delicate fantastic shadows on the bed of brown fir needles, -filtering in among the vines massed on the wall, and turning the dark -earth as by some magic into a soft, shimmering, illumined fairy world. -The whole wilderness of tree tops rising to the sky was bathed in light. -A mist, silvered at its edges, lay on the sea, hiding it, as under an -opaque film. - -When the girl spoke, her voice hurried as with an explanation. - -"You did not understand the Marchesa Soderrelli. She merely wanted us -to go on; to save ourselves." - -"And you," said the man, "was that your reason, too?" - -The girl hesitated. Then she answered, adding one sentence out of -sequence to another. "She could not go on. I thought... I mean, you -could get away alone--but not with us. You had done enough. It was not -fair... any more. You had a right to your chance... to... your life." - -"To my life!" the man echoed. - -"Yes," replied the girl, "I mean your life is worth something. But -she... but I... I have lost so much last night. I have lost... I have -lost everything. But you... everything remains to you. You have lost -nothing." - -The man made an abrupt gesture with both hands. - -"Lost nothing!" he repeated. Then he said the words over slowly, like -one stating an absurd, incredible accusation before he answers it, each -word distinctly, softly, as though it stood apart from its fellow. - -"Lost nothing!" - -He took a step or two nearer to the girl. The moon fell on his tall -athletic body, projecting a black, distorted shadow on the road. The -half of his face was in the light, and it was contracted with despair. -The tendons in his hands were visible, moving the doubled fingers. His -voice was low, distinct, compact. - -"I have lost," he said, "everything, beginning from the day I was born. -All the care and labor that my mother took when I was little is lost; -all the bread that I have eaten, all the water that I have drunk, all -the sun that has warmed me is lost. And the loss does not stop with -that. I have lost whatever things the days, arriving one after the -other, were bringing to me, except the blessed gift that the last one -will bring. I am utterly and wholly ruined." - -The man's words followed, one after the other, as though they were -material things, having dimensions and weight. - -"Death is nothing. It is life now, that is awful. I shall have to go on -when it is no use to go on. I shall have to go on seeing you, hearing -your voice, remembering every word you have said, the tone and -expression with which you have said it, and every little unimportant -gesture you have made. Every day that I live, I shall see and understand -more vividly all that I have lost. And it will not get better. It will -get worse. Every day I shall see you a little more clearly than I did -the day before; I shall remember your words a little more distinctly; I -shall understand a little more completely all that you would have been -to me. And all of this time I shall be alone. So utterly alone that my -mind staggers at the thought of it. I love you! I love you! Don't you -see, don't you understand how I love you?" - -The girl had not moved while the man was speaking. - -"Do you love me like that?" she said. - -"Yes," he answered. - -"And have you loved me all along like that?" - -"All along," he said. - -"And will you always love me like that?" - -"Like that," he said, "although I have lost you." - -The girl stood with her arms hanging, her lips parted, her slender face -gleaming like a flower, her hair spun darkness. The silence, the vast -unending silence, the mystery of a newly minted world, lay about her, as -they lay about that first woman, created by Divine enchantment, in the -wilderness of Asia. - -When she spoke again, her voice was so low that the man could hardly -hear it. It was like a voice carried by the night over a great distance. - -"But you have not lost me," she said. - -***** - -Meanwhile, out of the mist, out of that opaque film lying on the sea, -a rocket arose, described a great arc, and fell hissing among the tree -tops. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI--THE CITY OF DREAMS - -But for the fire burning in the grate, nothing had changed in the -dining room at Old Newton. The table was laid with a white cloth to the -floor; the same massive howl, filled with the white grapes of the -North, stood in the center of it. Nothing had changed since the Marchesa -lunched there, on her way to Oban, except that the light of the morning -rather than the midday entered through the big windows cut in the -south wall. And except that another woman sat there, beyond the Duke of -Dorset, at the table--a dark-haired, beautiful woman, in a rose-colored -morning gown. Some letters lay beside her plate, and she opened one of -them, while the butler moved about, putting breakfast on the sideboard. -A fragment of newspaper clipping fluttered out on the cloth. She put her -finger on it, but, for the moment, did not take it up. She read the note -and then looked across the table smiling. - -"The Marchesa is frightfully anxious about our home-coming to Dorset. -She says that a real dowager may slur over the details of an ancient -custom, but that an adopted dowager must have everything to the letter." - -Then she took up the fragment of newspaper clipping. - -"Oh," she said, "here is something about you," and she read it aloud. - -"'The speech of the Duke of Dorset, in the House of Lords, a few days -ago, in which he urged a dissolution of the Japanese alliance, and, in -its stead, a closer relation of all the English-speaking people, was a -significant utterance. It is the direct expression of an opinion that -has been slowly gathering strength, both here and in the United States -of America. It will be recalled that the Duke was on the Pacific Coast -at the time of the recent Japanese rising, and was rescued, with his -party, by His Majesty's gunboat _Cleavewaive_. The gunboat had put the -Duke ashore on the coast of Oregon, on its annual cruise south, in the -interest of British shipping and to show the flag, and it returned to -pick him up when the Captain learned of the opening of hostilities. - -"'It is doubtless true, as the Duke said, that the rising was a first -move of Japan in its long-threatened conflict with the United States, -and was only rendered abortive by the fact that all the white men of -the Pacific Coast, both American and Canadian alike, moved as one people -against the Japanese; thereby forcing Great Britain to notify Japan -that, in the event of the matter taking on the aspect of a national -conflict, she would support her colony. - -"'It, perhaps, ought to be added that the personal American alliance -which the Duke has recently made may account in some degree for his -ardor.'" - -When she came to the last paragraph of this editorial, the tone of her -voice underwent a perceptible change. - -"I should have imagined," she said, "that a 'personal alliance' would be -more seriously regarded in England. I have been told that a marriage -is considered in this island to be 'a great hereditary trust in -perpetuity.' Do I quote accurately?" - -The bronzed man, in his gray tweeds, watching her over the table, gave -no sign. - -"To the letter," he said. "It is so considered." - -"And is it not considered," she continued, "that against the great -duties of this trust no mere 'personal inclination' ought to stand?" - -"Well," said the Duke, "I should not hold that rule to be always without -an exception." - -"Really!" she said. "But I suppose it is always the case in England -that, when a marriage is being arranged, one ought to follow the -direction of one's family, as, for instance, a prince, called to rule a -hereditary kingdom, ought to hear his parliament." - -"That," said the Duke, "is always the case." - -"Always?" There was now another note in her voice. - -"Always," replied the Duke. "There should never be an exception to that -rule; one ought to marry the woman selected by one's family." - -"I thought," said the Duchess, "that I knew of an exception to the rule. -I thought I knew of a man who found a wife for himself." - -"I know the case quite well," said the Duke, "and you are mistaken." - -"Mistaken!" she said. - -"Yes," he said, "there was never in this world a woman more definitely -selected by a family than the one you have in mind; there was never -in this world a woman that a family made more desperate, unending, -persistent efforts to obtain. From the day that the first ancestor saw -her in that doomed city, down through generations to the day that the -last one saw her on the coast of Brittany, to the day that the living -one of this house found her in the bay of Oban, this family has been mad -to possess her." - -The butler, having placed the breakfast on the sideboard, had gone out. -Caroline sat with her fingers linked under her chin. - -"But was he sure," she said, "was he sure that this was the woman?" - -The Duke leaned over and rested his arm on the table. - -"How could he doubt it!" he said. "He found her by the sea, and he -found, too, the wicked king and the saint of God, and the doomed palace; -and, besides that, the longing, the accumulated longing of all those -dead men who had seen her, and loved her, and been mad to possess her, -was in him, and by this sign he knew her." - -"And the others," she said, "all the others, they have received -nothing!" - -"Nothing," he said. - -"And is there one of them here, in this house, that I could see him!" - -"The portrait," he said, "of the last one, the one who saw her on the -coast of Brittany, is above the mantel in the other room." - -"Let us go in and see him," she said. - -They arose, leaving the breakfast untasted on the sideboard, and went -out along the stone passage, into the other room. It, too, remained the -same as on the day that the Marchesa entered it. The high window looking -out over the fairy village, with the blue-haired ghost dog on his white -stone doorstep; and, between, the Ardoch and the road leading to the -iron door; and, within, the skins on the floor, the books in their -cases, the guns behind the diagonal panes of leaded glass. - -They stopped by the fire, under the smoke-stained portrait. For a little -while they were silent there, before this ancestor looking down from his -canvas. Then the man spoke. - -"I think, Caroline," he said, "that all the love with which these dead -men have loved you has been passed on to me.... And I think, Caroline, -that you are somehow the answer to their longings.... I think that -with a single consuming passion, one after the other, with an endless -longing, these dead men have finally loved you into life--by the power -of kisses that touched nothing, longings that availed nothing, loving -that returned nothing.... And, with all this accumulated inheritance, is -it any wonder that every nerve, every fiber, every blood drop of me is -steeped in the love of you?" - -The woman had remained unmoving, looking at the portrait above the -mantel in its smoke-stained frame, now she turned slowly. - -"Lift me up," she said. - -He took her up and lifted her from the floor. But the long-withheld -reward of that ancestor was denied him. When she came to the level of -the man's shoulders, he suddenly gathered her into his arms. Her eyes -closed, her lips trembled, the long sleeves of the morning gown fell -away, her bare arms went warm and close around his neck. - -And his mouth possessed her. - - -THE END - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Gilded Chair, by Melville Davisson Post - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GILDED CHAIR *** - -***** This file should be named 51941-8.txt or 51941-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/9/4/51941/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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