CHAPTER XIII.THE RESCUE.
Madame had worked hard with the rest in beating back the fire, and now that she saw that their united efforts had been successful and that Perfection City was safe, she, in company with Balthasar, was going the circuit of the defences of their home, just to see that there remained nothing further for her to do. In the course of time she came to Napoleon Pompey, who was in charge of the last scrap of back-firing, intent on maintaining guard and on effecting a complete junction of the two lines of fire, so as not to leave so much as a handsbreadth of standing grass whereby the enemy might even at the last minute burst in upon them. This finishing of the circle was important, and the lad was in the midst of his work and his distress when Madame loomed out through the darkness.
“Oh, Lordy, dey is both burned, dey is! Oh Lordy! Oh Lordy,” cried Napoleon Pompey the instant he set eyes upon Madame.
“Who is burned?” asked Madame in bewilderment,well used to the extravagant modes of speech indulged in by negroes.
“Mis’ Ollie an’ Mas’r Ezra fo’ shu’.”
“Are you mad, fool, what do you mean?” said Madame furiously.
“Mis’ Ollie done gone in der Gully ter fetch ole hat, an’ de fire’s crope up, an’ it’ll cotch her, oh Lordy! oh Lordy! An’ Mas’r Ezra he done gone ter fin’ her down dar,” said the boy, beginning to whimper.
Madame gripped his shoulder with a grasp of iron.
“Be quiet, and tell me what you mean. Sister Olive has gone home, I passed her myself with her hat under her arm, and she told me to tell Ezra she had gone back.”
“De Lord be praised!” ejaculated Napoleon Pompey. “Den it’s on’y Mas’r Ezra’ll be burnt. Yah, you lemme go!”
This exclamation was in answer to the sudden pressure of Madame’s hand, which was like the clutch of a vice.
“Where is Ezra? Tell me or I’ll wring your neck,” she said in a voice the like of which Napoleon Pompey had never heard before in his life.
“Down dar,” said he terrified, pointing to the Gully.
“Show me where he started from.”
Madame still kept her hand upon Napoleon Pompey who hurried to the spot where Ezra had stood.
“Dar’s his shingle, what he done drap when he run.”
“Ha!” said Madame pouncing upon the shingle. “Here, Balthasar, here sweetheart!”
The dog came up to her, and she passed her trembling hands over his long ears and whispered to him half crying, half coaxing. “Here, dear heart, do this for me or I die.”
She put the shingle to his nose. He sniffed, raised his long and pointed head. Then she lay upon the ground coaxing him to put his nose down. He sniffed again, took a step to the right, to the left, back, then forward. Madame followed clasping the shingle to her bosom and murmuring cooing words of love to her dog. He raised his great tan head and gave a long deep bay that echoed far and wide.
“Golly! She gwine ter run him down like he nigger slave,” said Napoleon Pompey with a shiver, as he heard the dog’s voice.
Balthasar set off and Madame kept close at his heels. It was easy enough, for the trail was fresh and strong. In three minutes they stood beside the motionless form of Ezra at the brink of the tall weeds, and Balthasar whined in anxiety as Madame lifted his head and called upon him in agonised tones. Just then the sky was lit up with a lurid glare. The first red tongue had tasted the dry fluffy weeds on Weddell’s abandoned farm. Madame, startled by the flame, sprang to her feet and gave one hasty glance around.Ezra lay motionless. She stepped a few paces into the shorter grass of the ordinary prairie and set it on fire. The little ring of flame spread on all sides, like the ripple from a stone cast into still water. Then she paddled out the fire on the side next Ezra, and the ripple of fire continued to spread rapidly in a sort of broken circle. The roar of the burning weeds was like the on-coming of an avalanche. Madame turned to Ezra and seizing him under the shoulders dragged him backwards within the safety of her oasis of burnt prairie. He was a big man and a heavy one, but her arm seemed endowed with more than mortal strength. She dragged him further and further within the circle, and then seeing that he was out of all danger, she sat down beside him and took his head in her lap. She opened his collar and fanned him with her hat. The now brightly burning weeds made it light as day, and she could see that he looked pale even under the blackened smoke that smeared his face, but his pulse was beating, he was only hurt and stunned, not dead.
Balthasar was terrified. Ringed round by fire and with the ground where he stood still smoking hot, what dog would not be alarmed? He lifted up his voice once more in a long howl, and then sniffing at Ezra gave a sweeping lick with his tongue all over his face.
“Ah! Ollie! Where are you? Come!” said Ezra, roused by this combined demonstration. He raised his head in a weak and bewildered way. Madameplaced her hand on his forehead as he sank down again. He put his own hand up and taking hers said: “Little wife!”
Madame shivered, and then steadying her voice said, “Olive is quite safe!”
Ezra started up.
“Why, what are you doing here? Where is my wife?”
“I came to tell you that Olive had gone home, and that she had got her hat all right. She never was in any danger at all. It was a mistake on the part of that negro boy.”
“Madame!” began Ezra.
“Dear friend,” said she.
“I feel so strange and bewildered, I don’t seem to know what has happened.”
“Lay your head down again,” said Madame, very gently. “You have had a blow. You will soon be all right.”
Ezra’s head sank again into her lap. He gave a deep sigh.
“You came down here into the Gully after Olive who, according to the negro, had gone in search of her hat. You could not surely have realized that the fire was coming up against the wind and that it would be death to be caught among the weeds.”
“I knew, I knew,” said Ezra. “That was why I came. Olive was here.”
“But she wasn’t, she never had been here at all,” interrupted Madame.
“I shouted, but no answer came. I could not find Olive. I remember the awful agony of it. My head seemed turning to fire and I couldn’t find Olive. I don’t remember any more.”
“You fell and knocked yourself senseless,” said Madame.
“Is Olive safe? Tell me, are you sure Olive is safe?”
“Didn’t I tell you I passed her on her way home?” said Madame a little sharply.
“But this fire!” exclaimed Ezra, starting up. “We must get out of this.”
“Hush, lie down again,” said Madame, her voice dropping again into its tone of caressing entreaty. “Your head must be still giddy or you would perceive that we are surrounded. We can’t get out until the fires meet and extinguish each other. Rest and be patient.”
Ezra saw that this was true. They were entirely surrounded by a ring of retreating fire, the heat from which was oppressive. He sat down again, but did not lay his head in Madame’s lap. Perhaps it was because he felt less giddy.
He asked her how she came there, and Madame very briefly told him, dwelling not at all upon her share in finding him, but rather upon the sagacity of Balthasar. Ezra, however, was not to be deceived.
“You risked your life for me this night, Madame,” he said slowly, when she had finished speaking.
“Possibly. I never thought about it. I could not leave you here to die, to be burnt to death. Had the case been reversed you would have come to my rescue.”
“You are the most generous of mortals, the noblest of women,” said Ezra earnestly. “It was assuredly the brightest day of my life that led me across your path. You taught me how to live, and to-night your generous hand has saved me from death.”
“Hush!” said Madame faintly.
“I owe my life to you,” repeated Ezra. “What shall I do to repay such a debt?”
“Am I a usurer that I should exact my pound of flesh?” answered Madame.
“Usurer!” exclaimed Ezra. “That is indeed the last word to be applied to you. Is a usurer one who is always giving? Giving from her wealth freely and without stint? Is a usurer one who is ever helping and directing into the paths of righteousness those who are feeble and faltering of step? Ah, Madame, I never can half tell you all that I owe you! How narrow and selfish would my life have been but for you! Devoted to petty cares, absorbed in personal ambitions, rejoicing in sordid gains,—such would have been my fate, only Providence brought me to you to be taught, guided, elevated, purified. My life is yours, you have made it, dearest, wisest, best, of friends.”
“And Olive?” said Madame quietly.
“Ah, there too shall be your handiwork seen,” said Ezra. “My little Olive is very young. Sometimes I think her mind is even younger than her body, and she is barely twenty, you know, a mere child and easily moulded.”
Madame remembering her last encounter with Olive, seemed to recall very little that was either childlike or plastic in the concluding portion of their conversation, but she did not say so to Ezra who went on talking.
“She often, however, puzzles me, she has such sudden freaks and fancies, as if her heart was a wild creature not fully tamed and ever dashing against the bars of its environment. I sometimes feel that I have not the necessary wisdom or tact to guide and counsel her. She seems to need someone who is wiser and more skilful than I am. Sometimes I fear she does not quite realise the responsibilities of life. The problems which have come up before us and which cry aloud for solution, seem to her but trivial matters that may be trusted to settle themselves. We must endeavour, dear friend, to arouse Olive’s enthusiasm about Perfection City. She is capable of the highest and noblest aspirations, but her heart must be turned into the right direction. She evinces a certain hesitancy in throwing herself into our work and aims.”
“Perhaps she is opposed to the whole thing,” suggested Madame.
“That cannot be,” replied Ezra earnestly. “She must see as we do, when she comes thoroughly to understand our motives in founding Perfection City. I look to you, Madame, to open her eyes to the truth.”
“Ah!” said Madame laconically, and then she added, after a moment’s pause, “I will ask you to do one thing for me.”
“Anything you ask I will do if it is in my power,” said Ezra.
“Do not tell Olive of your fall here, nor of the danger you were in, nor of my coming to find you.”
After a moment of puzzled silence Ezra said, “Of course your wishes are to me law. But may I ask why you make such a request?”
“Perhaps I am judging wrongly, but I am acting as if Olive had the same feelings as I should have. If I were in her place, I should hate it.”
“Why?” asked Ezra in surprise.
Madame rose up, her pale face illumined by the light of the fire.
“If I loved a man,” she said, beginning very quietly, but her voice gathered in intensity as she spoke. “If I loved a man, I could not bear it. To think that my love had failed him in his sorest need. He was lying stunned, helpless, within the clutch of deadly peril, and I went home unwarned, leaving him to his fate, all unconscious of the whole thing, while another woman—not I, but another woman—went to his rescue, another woman—not I—foundhim, saved him, drew him out of danger, while I walked heedlessly home. I should hate myself, I should hate—ah! I should hate to the verge of killing that other woman who had saved him. That is the way I should feel, if I loved.”
She concluded hastily, her voice dropping to a whisper. Ezra looked up at her in amazement.
“Yours is a many-sided nature. I never suspected you could feel like that. I never thought of you as being—as capable of——” he stopped in confusion.
“Ah yes! You never thought of me as being able to love—to love a man and not an impersonal cause. Ah yes! You never quite looked upon me as a mere woman.”
“I have always regarded you as something higher than a mere woman,” said Ezra.
“Listen,” she said, sitting down again beside him. “You have yet to know me—the woman, I mean, and not the pioneer of Perfection City. My father was a man of passionate nature. He had fine instincts, but these were not developed. He was a Russian noble. I come of very good blood, as they say in the old world.”
“I always knew you were of distinguished birth,” said Ezra.
“Not at all, quite the contrary,” said Madame, with a laugh that sounded harsh. “My father was a wild, self-willed Russian noble. He was to have married a lady of princely house, only that he refusedto do one thing which they made a condition of the marriage.”
“What was that?”
“To give up my mother. Do you understand? He could not marry the princess, and he sacrificed wealth, position, and worldly honour, because he would not give up the pale-haired English girl whom he loved passionately, and who was my mother. She died, and my father died too, not many years afterwards. He did what he could for me by leaving me his fortune and the permission to bear his name, to which I had no legal right. From my mother I inherited my brain, but my heart I inherited from my father. Now let us go.”
“Must we?” said Ezra, to whom Madame’s sudden confession had been full of interest. “There is nothing further for us to do. Perfection City is safe.”
“But we must return to real life, Brother Ezra. Sitting here, ringed around with fire, we were alone in a world of our own. For a few moments we lived for each other, as it were. Our spirits communed, and I opened my heart to you as never before to mortal being. Now we must go back to real life again. See the fires are all out, and the world is itself again—all dark.”
Ezra rose to his feet and staggered a little, as Madame perceived from the stumble he made. She seemed preternaturally acute, and to be able to understand by the help of some new sense, for she put out her handand touched his arm, “Lean on me, brother, you are still giddy from your accident. We will walk very slowly.”
Ezra, feeling indeed faint enough, gratefully accepted the proffered help and put his hand within her arm; thus very slowly they started back towards the house through the inky black night. “Friend, what I said is to be locked in your breast, a secret,” said Madame.
“I fully understand that,” replied Ezra, “and I feel it a high honour that you should have chosen me as the repository of the secret of your life. It is safe, nay more, it is sacred, with me.”
It took them a long time in the intense darkness to reach Ezra’s house where a light was glimmering from the window. When they at length reached the bars, Madame said, “I will not go in. Oh, I know what you would say, but I would prefer not. Olive would resent my bringing you back to her.”
“You mistake Olive utterly,” said Ezra earnestly. “Believe me, hers is a simple nature, she would have no such feelings as you think.”
“Perhaps you are right, and that she is a child in mind and not yet a woman in heart. Possibly I endow her with feelings she could not even understand. I judge her by myself, and maybe all the while her little soul is possessed with nothing but content at the thought that her pretty hat is all safe. Thebutterfly must not be blamed if it does not rise as high as the lark. Farewell.”
Olive was waiting for him impatiently, anxiously.
“Oh Ezra, where have you been? And isn’t your face black? You are every whit as black as Napoleon Pompey. Wasn’t it fun?”
“Fun? What was fun?” asked Ezra languidly.
“Why, the fire of course, now that it is all over. It was so exciting. I was as hungry as a hawk when I came in. I really could not wait, so I had supper. You must have yours this very minute. Do you know, it is one o’clock at night, and you have not tasted a morsel of food since twelve o’clock yesterday? Do you realize that?”
She bustled around and got his supper ready, chatting brightly all the while over the incidents of the fire, making fun and merriment out of them all. Ezra sat stupidly watching her, his head throbbing so heavily that he could scarcely think. He could eat nothing when the supper was ready, and Olive felt aggrieved. “I think you might, just to please me. It would do you good, for you must be hungry, I should think.”
He swallowed a few morsels and said he would go to bed, that rest was what he most needed, his head ached badly. He was thankful she made no inquiries after his adventures during that eventful night. He would have found it difficult to tell a connected tale with that pain in his head. He asked Olive if she had gone down into the Gully.
“No,” she said, “I started to go, but it was darker than I thought, so I came up again and followed round by the high prairie where there was a chance of meeting somebody. I came home with Willette.”
“The fire did get into the old field after all,” said Ezra.
“And were the weeds burnt?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! I wish I had been there to see. Wasn’t it a lovely blaze-up?”
“Yes, it blazed up,” said Ezra.
Olive didn’t notice that he seemed ill, he thought with some bitterness. Madame would have divined it, no matter how hard he had tried to conceal the fact. After all, it was not her fault that she was made differently. The butterfly was not to be blamed if it did not soar as high as the lark.