CHAPTER XLVI
WHAT THE SHEET HID
Slippery Dick was puzzled as well as frightened. He knew Gen. Evan by sight, and his terror lost some of its wildness; the general was not likely to be out upon a lynching expedition. But for what was he wanted? He could not protest until he knew that, and in his past were many dark deeds, for which somebody was wanted. So he was silent.
His attention was chiefly directed to Edward; he could not account for him, nor could he remember to have seen him. Royson had long since trained him to silence; most men convict themselves while under arrest.
Evan stood in deep thought, but presently he prepared for action.
"What is your name, boy?" The negro answered promptly:
"Dick, sah."
"Dick who?"
"Just Dick, sah."
"Your other name?"
"Slippery Dick." The general was interested instantly.
"Oh, Slippery Dick." The career of the notorious negro was partially known to him. Dick had been the reporter's friend for many years and in dull times more than the truth had been told of Slippery Dick. "Well, this begins to look probable, Edward; I begin to think you may be right."
"I am not mistaken, general. If there is a mistake, it is not mine."
"What dey want me for, Marse Evan? I ain't done nothin'."
"A house has been broken into, Dick, and you are the man who did it."
"Who, me? Fo' Gawd, Marse Evan, I ain't broke inter no man's house. It warn't me – no sah, no sah."
"We will see about that. Now I will give you your choice, Dick; you can go with me, Gen. Evan and I will protect you. If the person who accuses you says you are innocent I will turn you loose; if you are not willing to go there I will take you to jail; but, willing or unwilling, if you make a motion to escape, I will put a bullet through you before you can take three steps."
"I'll go with you, Marse Evan; I ain't de man. I'll go whar you want me to go."
"Get your dogs together and take the road to town. I will show you when we get there." They went with him to where his dogs, great and small, were loudly baying at the root of a small persimmon tree. Dick looked up wistfully.
"Marse Evan, deir he sots; you don't spect me ter leave dat possum up dere?" The old man laughed silently.
"The ruling passion strong in death," he quoted to Edward, and then sternly to Dick: "Get him and be quick about it." A moment more and they were on the way to the horses.
"I had an object," said Evan, "in permitting this. As we pass through the city we present the appearance of a hunting party. Turn up your coat collar and turn down your hat to avoid the possibility of recognition."
They reached the city, passed through the deserted streets, the negro carrying his 'possum and surrounded by the dogs preceding the riders, and, without attracting more than the careless notice of a policeman or two, they reached the limits beyond.
Still Dick was not suspicious; the road was his own way home; but when finally he was ordered to turn up the long route to Ilexhurst, he stopped. This was anticipated; the general spurted his horse almost against him.
"Go on!" he said, sternly, "or by the Eternal you are a dead man! Edward, if he makes a break, you have the ex – "
"Marse Evan, you said breakin' in 'er house." Dick still hesitated.
"I did; but it was the house of the dead."
The 'possum came suddenly to the ground, and away went Dick into an open field, the expectation of a bullet lending speed to his legs. But he was not in the slightest danger from bullets; he was the last man, almost, that either of his captors would have slain, nor was it necessary. The great roan came thundering upon him; he lifted his arm to ward off the expected blow and looked up terrified. The next instant a hand was on his coat collar, and he was lifted off his feet. Dragging his prisoner into the road, Evan held his pistol over his wet forehead, while, with the rein, Edward lashed his elbows behind his back. The dogs were fighting over the remains of the unfortunate 'possum. They left them there.
The three men arrived at Ilexhurst thoroughly tired; the white men more so than the negro. Tying their animals, Edward led the way around to the glass-room, where a light was burning, but to his disappointment on entering he found no occupant. Slippery Dick was placed in a chair and the door locked. Evan stood guard over him, while Edward searched the house. The wing-room was dark and Gerald was not to be found. From the door of the professor's room came the cadenced breathing of a profound sleeper. Returning, Edward communicated these facts to his companion. They discussed the situation.
Evan, oppressed by the memory of his last two visits to these scenes, was silent and distrait. The eyes of the negro were moving restlessly from point to point, taking in every detail of his surroundings. The scene, the hour, the situation and the memory of that shriveled face in its coffin all combined to reduce Dick to a state of abject terror. Had he not been tied he would have plunged through the glass into the night; the pistol in the hands of the old man standing over him would have been forgotten.
What was to be done? Edward went into the wing-room and lighted the lamps preparatory to making better arrangements for all parties. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the lounge. Extended upon it was a form outlined through a sheet that covered it from head to foot. So still, so immovable and breathless it seemed, he drew back in horror. An indefinable fear seized him. White, with unexpressed horror, he stood in the door of the glass-room and beckoned to the general. The silence of his appearance, the inexpressible terror that shone in his face and manner, sent a thrill to the old man's heart and set the negro trembling.
Driving the negro before him, Evan entered. At sight of the covered form Dick made a violent effort to break away, but, with nerves now at their highest tension and muscles drawn responsive, the general successfully resisted. Enraged at last he stilled his captive by a savage blow with his weapon.
Edward now approached the apparition and lifted the cloth. Prepared as he was for the worst, he could not restrain the cry of horror that rose to his lips. Before him was the face of Gerald, white with the hue of death, the long lashes drooped over half-closed eyes, the black hair drawn back from the white forehead and clustering about his neck and shoulders. He fell almost fainting against the outstretched arm of his friend, who, pale and shocked, stood with eyes riveted upon the fatal beauty of the dead face.
It was but an instant; then the general was jerked with irresistible force and fell backward into the room, Edward going nearly prostrate over him. There was the sound of shattered glass and the negro was gone.
Stunned and hurt, the old man rose to his feet and rushed to the glass-room. Then a pain seized him; he drew his bruised limb from the floor and caught the lintel.
"Stop that man! Stop that man!" he said in a stentorian voice; "he is your only witness now!" Edward looked into his face a moment and comprehended. For the third time that night he plunged into the darkness after Slippery Dick. But where? Carlo was telling! Down the hill his shrill voice was breaking the night. Abandoned by the negro's dogs accustomed to seek their home and that not far away, he had followed the master's footsteps with unerring instinct and whined about the glass door. The bursting glass, the fleeing form of a strange negro, were enough for his excitable nature; he gave voice and took the trail.
The desperate effort of the negro might have succeeded, but the human arms were made for many things; when a man stumbles he needs them in the air and overhead or extended. Slippery Dick went down with a crash in a mass of blackberry bushes, and when Edward reached him he was kicking wildly at the excited puppy, prevented from rising by his efforts and his bonds. The excited and enraged white man dragged him out of the bushes by his collar and brought reason to her throne by savage kicks. The prisoner gave up and begged for mercy.
He was marched back, all breathless, to the general, who had limped to the gate to meet him.
Edward was now excited beyond control; he forced the prisoner, shivering with horror, into the presence of the corpse, and with the axe in hand confronted him.
"You infamous villain!" he cried; "tell me here, in the presence of my dead friend, who it was that put you up to opening the grave of Rita Morgan and breaking her skull, or I will brain you! You have ten seconds to speak!" He meant it, and the axe flashed in the air. Gen. Evan caught the upraised arm.
"Softly, softly, Edward; this won't do; this won't do! You defeat your own purpose!" It was timely; the blow might have descended, for the reckless man was in earnest, and the negro was by this time dumb.
"Dick," said the general, "I promised to protect you on conditions, and I will. But you have done this gentleman an injury and endangered his life. You opened Rita Morgan's grave and broke her skull – an act for which the law has no adequate punishment; but my young friend here is desperate. You can save yourself but I cannot save you except over my dead body. If you refuse I will stand aside, and when I do you are a dead man." He was during this hurried speech still struggling with the young man.
"I'll tell, Marse Evan! Hold 'im. I'll tell!"
"Who, then?" said Edward, white with his passion; "who was the infamous villain that paid you for the deed?"
"Mr. Royson, Mr. Royson, he hired me." The men looked at each other. A revulsion came over Edward; a horror, a hatred of the human race, of anything that bore the shape of man – but no; the kind, sad face of the old gentleman was beaming in triumph upon him.
And then from somewhere into the scene came the half-dressed form of Virdow, his face careworn and weary, amazed and alarmed.
Virdow wrote the confession in all its details, and the general witnessed the rude cross made by the trembling hand of the negro. And then they stood sorrowful and silent before the still, dead face of Gerald Morgan!
CHAPTER XLVII
ON THE MARGINS OF TWO WORLDS
The discovery of Gerald's death necessitated a change of plans. The concealment of Slippery Dick and Edward must necessarily be accomplished at Ilexhurst. There were funeral arrangements to be made, the property cared for and Virdow to be rescued from his solitary and embarrassing position. Moreover, the gray dawn was on ere the confession was written, and Virdow had briefly explained the circumstances of Gerald's death. Exhausted by excitement and anxiety and the depression of grief, he went to his room and brought Edward a sealed packet which had been written and addressed to him during the early hours of the night.
"You will find it all there," he said; "I cannot talk upon it." He went a moment to look upon the face of his friend and then, with a single pathetic gesture, turned and left them.
One of the eccentricities of the former owner of Ilexhurst had been a granite smoke-house, not only burglar and fireproof but cyclone proof, and with its oaken door it constituted a formidable jail.
With food and water, Dick, freed of his bonds, was ushered into this building, the small vents in the high roof affording enough light for most purposes. A messenger was then dispatched for Barksdale and Edward locked himself away from sight of chance callers in his upper room. The general, thoughtful and weary, sat by the dead man.
The document that Virdow had prepared was written in German. "When your eye reads these lines, you will be grieved beyond endurance; Gerald is no more! He was killed to-night by a flash of lightning and his death was instantaneous. I am alone, heartbroken and utterly wretched. Innocent of any responsibility in this horrible tragedy I was yet the cause, since it was while submitting to some experiments of mine that he received his death stroke. I myself received a frightful electric shock, but it now amounts to nothing. I would to God that I and not he had received the full force of the discharge. He might have been of vast service to science, but my work is little and now well-nigh finished.
"Gerald was kneeling under a steel disk, in the glass-room, you will remember where we began our sound experiments, and I did not know that the steel wire which suspended it ran up and ended near a metal strip, along the ridge beam of the room. We had just begun our investigation, when the flash descended and he fell dead.
"At this writing I am here under peculiar circumstances; the butler who came to my call when I recovered consciousness assisted me in the attempt at resuscitation of Gerald, but without any measure of success. He then succeeded in getting one or two of the old negroes and a doctor. The latter declared life extinct. There was no disfigurement – only a black spot in the crown of the head and a dark line down the spine, where the electric fluid had passed. That was all."
Edward ceased to read; his chin sank upon his breast and the lines slipped from his unfocused eyes. The dark line down the spine! His heart leaped fiercely and he lifted his face with a new light in his eyes. For a moment it was radiant; then shame bowed his head again. He laid aside the paper and gave himself up to thought, from time to time pacing the room. In these words lay emancipation. He resumed the reading:
"We arranged the body on the lounge and determined to wait until morning to send for the coroner and undertaker, but one by one your negroes disappeared. They could not seem to withstand their superstition, the butler told me, and as there was nothing to be done I did not worry. I came here to the library to write, and when I returned, the butler, too, was gone. They are a strange people. I suppose I will see none of them until morning, but it does not matter; my poor friend is far beyond the reach of attention. His rare mind has become a part of cosmos; its relative situation is our mystery.
"I will, now, before giving you a minute description of our last evening together, commit for your eye my conclusions as to some of the phenomena and facts you have observed. I am satisfied as far as Gerald's origin is concerned, that he is either the son of the woman Rita or that they are in some way connected by ties of blood. In either case the similarity of their profiles would be accounted for. No matter how remote the connection, nothing is so common as this reappearance of tribal features in families. The woman, you told me, claimed him as her child, but silently waived that claim for his sake. I say to you that a mother's instinct is based upon something deeper than mere fancy, and that intuitions are so nearly correct that I class them as the nearest approach to mind memory to be observed.
"The likeness of his full face to the picture of the girl you call Marion Evan may be the result of influences exerted at birth. Do you remember the fragmentary manuscript? If that is a history, I am of the opinion that it is explanation enough. At any rate, the profile is a stronger evidence the other way.
"The reproduction of the storm scene is one of the most remarkable incidents I have ever known, but it is not proof that he inherited it as a memory. It is a picture forcibly projected upon his imagination by the author of the fragment – and in my opinion he had read that fragment. It came to him as a revelation, completing the gap. I am sure that from the day that he read it he was for long periods convinced that he was the son of Rita Morgan; that she had not lied to him. In this I am confirmed by the fact that as she lay dead he bent above her face and called her 'mother'. I am just as well assured that he had no memory of the origin of that picture; no memory, in fact, of having read the paper. This may seem strange to you, but any one who has had the care of victims of opium will accept the proposition as likely.
"The drawing of the woman's face was simple. His hope had been to find himself the son of Marion Evan; his dreams were full of her. He had seen the little picture; his work was an idealized copy, but it must be admitted a marvelous work. Still the powers of concentration in this man exceeded the powers of any one I have ever met.
"And that brings me to what was the most wonderful demonstration he gave us. Edward, I have divined your secret, although you have never told it. When you went to secure for me the note of the waterfall, the home note, you were accompanied by your friend Mary. I will stake my reputation upon it. It is true because it is obliged to be true. When you played for us you had her in your mind, a vivid picture, and Gerald drew it. It was a case of pure thought transference – a transference of a mental conception, line for line. Gerald received his conception from you upon the vibrating air. To me it was a demonstration worth my whole journey to America.
"And here let me add, as another proof of the sympathetic chord between you, that Gerald himself had learned to love the same woman. You gave him that, my young friend, with the picture.
"You have by this time been made acquainted with the terrible accusation against you – false and infamous. There will be little trouble in clearing yourself, but oh, what agony to your sensitive nature! I tried to keep the matter from Gerald, as I did the inquest by keeping him busy with investigations; but a paper fell into his hands and his excitement was frightful. Evading me he disappeared from the premises one evening, but while I was searching for him he came to the house in a carriage, bringing the picture of that repulsive negro, which you will remember. Since then he has been more calm. Mr. Barksdale, your friend, I suppose, was with him once or twice.
"And now I come to this, the last night of our association upon earth; the night that has parted us and rolled between us the mystery across which our voices cannot reach nor our ears hear.
"Gerald had long since been satisfied with the ability of living substance to hold a photograph, and convinced that these photographs lie dormant, so to speak, somewhere in our consciousness until awakened again – that is, until made vivid. He was proceeding carefully toward the proposition that a complete memory could be inherited, and in the second generation or even further removed; you know his theory. There were intermediate propositions that needed confirmation. When forms and scenes come to the mind of the author, pure harmonies of color to that of the artist, sweet co-ordinations of harmonies to the musician, whence come they? Where is the thread of connection? Most men locate the seat of their consciousness at the top of the head; they seem to think in that spot. And strange, is it not, that when life passes out and all the beautiful structure of the body claimed by the frost of death, that heat lingers longest at that point! It is material in this letter, because explaining Gerald's idea. He wished me to subject him to the finest vibrations at that point.
"The experiment was made with a new apparatus, which had been hung in place of the first in the glass-room; or, rather, to this we made an addition. A thin steel plate was fixed to the floor, directly under the wire and elevated upon a small steel rod. Gerald insisted that as the drum and membrane I used made the shapes we secured a new experiment should be tried, with simple vibrations. So we hung in its place a steel disk with a small projection from the center underneath. Kneeling upon the lower disk Gerald was between two plates subject to the finest vibration, his sensitive body the connection. There was left a gap of one inch between his head and the projection under the upper disk and we were to try first with the gap closed, and then with it opened.
"You know how excitable he was. When he took his position he was white and his large eyes flashed fire. His face settled into that peculiarly harsh, fierce expression, for which I have never accounted except upon the supposition of nervous agony. The handle to his violin had been wrapped with fine steel wire, and this, extending a yard outward, was bent into a tiny hook, intended to be clasped around the suspended wire that it might convey to it the full vibrations from the sounding board of the instrument. I made this connection, and, with the violin against my ear, prepared to strike the 'A' note in the higher octave, which if the vibrations were fine enough should suggest in his mind the figure of a daisy.
"Gerald, his eyes closed, remained motionless in his kneeling posture. Suddenly a faint flash of light descended into the room and the thunder rolled. And I, standing entranced by the beauty and splendor of that face, lost all thought of the common laws of physics. A look of rapture had suffused it, his eyes now looked out upon some vision, and a tender smile perfected the exquisite curve of his lips. There was no need of violin outside, the world was full of the fine quiverings of electricity, the earth's invisible envelope was full of vibrations! Nature was speaking a language of its own. What that mind saw between the glories of this and the other life as it trembled on the margins of both, is not given to me to know; but a vision had come to him – of what?
"Ah, Edward, how different the awakening for him and me! I remember that for a moment I seemed to float in a sea of flame; there was a shock like unto nothing I had ever dreamed, and lying near me upon the floor, his mortal face startled out of its beautiful expression, lay Gerald – dead!"
The conclusion of the letter covered the proposed arrangements for interment. Edward had little time to reflect upon the strange document. The voice of Gen. Evan was heard calling at the foot of the stair. Looking down he saw standing by him the straight, manly figure of Barksdale. The hour of dreams had ended; the hour of action had arrived!