22
“Once,” she said, “was just beyond the Gardens.”
“You noticed me?”
“Yes.”
She leaned forward.
“Yes,” she repeated, “I noticed you because of all the faces I had looked into since morning yours was the first I felt I could trust.”
“Thank you.”
“And now,” she continued, “I feel as though you might even understand better than the others what my errand here to Boston was.” She paused again, adding, “I should hate to have you think me silly.”
She studied his face eagerly. His eyes showed interest; his mouth assured her of sympathy.
“Go on,” he bade her.
To him she was like someone he had known before––like one of those vague women he used to see between the stars. Within even these last few minutes he had gotten over the strangeness of her being here. He did not think of this building as a house, of this room as part of a home; it was just a cave opening from the roadside into which they had fled to escape the rain.
It seemed difficult for her to begin. Now that she had determined to tell him she was anxious for him to see clearly.
“I ought to go back,” she faltered; “back a long way into my life, and I’m afraid that won’t be interesting to you.”
“You can’t go very far back,” he laughed. Then23he added seriously, “I am really interested. Please to tell it in your own way.”
“Well, to begin with, Dad was a sea captain and he married the very best woman in the world. But she died when I was very young. It was after this that Dad took me on his long voyages with him,––to South America, to India, and Africa. I don’t remember much about it, except as a series of pictures. I know I had the best of times for somehow I can remember better how I felt than what I saw. I used to play on the deck in the sun and listen to the sailors who told me strange stories. Then when we reached a port Dad used to take me by the hand and lead me through queer, crooked little streets and show me the shops and buy whole armfuls of things for me. I remember it all just as you remember brightly colored pictures of cities––pointed spires in the sunlight, streets full of bright colors, and dozens of odd men and women whose faces come at night and are forgotten in the morning. Dad was big and handsome and very proud of me. He used to like to show me off and take me with him everywhere. Those years were very wonderful and beautiful.
“Then one day he brought me back to shore again, and for a while we lived together in a large white house within sight of the ocean. We used to take long walks and sometimes went to town, but he didn’t seem very happy. One day he brought home with him a strange woman and told me that she was to be housekeeper, and that I must obey her and grow up to be a fine24woman. Then he went away. That was fifteen years ago. Then came the report he was dead; that was ten years ago. After a while I didn’t mind so much, for I used to lie on my back and recall all the places we had been together. When these pictures began to fade a little, I learned another way,––a way taught me by a sailor. I took a round crystal I found in the parlor and I looked into it hard,––oh, very, very hard. Then it happened. First all I saw was a blur of colors, but in a little while these separated and I saw as clearly as at first all the streets and places I had ever visited, and sometimes others too. Oh, it was such a comfort! Was that wrong?”
“No,” he answered slowly, “I can’t see anything wrong in that.”
“She––the housekeeper––called it wicked––devilish. She took away the crystal. But after a while I found I could see with other things––even with just a glass of clear water. All you have to do is to hold your eyes very still and stare and stare. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“I’ve heard of that.”
She dropped her voice, evidently struggling with growing excitement, colored with something of fear.
“Don’t you see how close this kept me to Dad? I’ve been living with him almost as though I were really with him. We’ve taken over again the old walks and many news ones. This seemed to go on just the same after we received word that he had25died––stricken with a fever in South America somewhere.”
She paused, taking a quick breath.
“All that is not so strange,” she ran on; “but yesterday––yesterday in the crystal I saw him––here in Boston.”
“What!”
“As clearly as I see you. He was walking down a street near the Gardens.”
“It might have been someone who resembled him.”
“No, it was Dad. He was thinner and looked strange, but I knew him as though it were only yesterday that he had gone away.”
“But if he is dead–––”
“He isn’t dead,” she answered with conviction.
“On the strength of that vision you came here to look for him?”
“Yes.”
“When you believe, you believe hard, don’t you?”
“I believe the crystal,” she answered soberly.
“Yet you didn’t find your father?”
“No,” she admitted.
“You are still sure he is here?”
“I am still sure he is living. I may have made a mistake in the place, but I know he is alive and well somewhere. I shall look again in the crystal to-morrow.”
“Yes, to-morrow,” answered Wilson, vaguely.
He rose to his feet.
“But there is still the hunger of to-day.”
26
She seemed disappointed in the lightness with which apparently he took her search.
“You don’t believe?”
“I believe you. And I believe that you believe. But I have seen little of such things myself. In the meanwhile it would be good to eat––if only a few crackers. Are you afraid to stay here alone while I explore a bit?”
She shook her head.
He was gone some ten minutes, and when he came back his loose robe bulged suspiciously in many places.
“Madame,” he exclaimed, “I beg you to observe me closely. I snap my fingers twice,––so! Then I motion,––so! Behold!”
He deftly extricated from one of the large sleeves a can of soup, and held it triumphantly aloft.
“Once more,––so!”
He produced a package of crackers; next a can of coffee, next some sugar. And she, watching him with face alight, applauded vigorously and with more genuine emotion than usually greets the acts of a prestidigitator.
“But, oh!” she exclaimed, with her hands clasped beneath her chin, “don’t you dare to make them disappear again!”
“Madame,” answered Wilson, with a bow, “that shall be your privilege.”
He hurried below once more, and this time returned with a chafing-dish, two bowls, and a couple of iron spoons which he had found in the kitchen. In ten27minutes the girl had prepared a lunch which to them was the culmination of their happiness. Warmed, clothed, and fed, there seemed nothing left for them.
When they had finished and had made everything tidy in the room, and he had gone to the cellar and replenished the coal-hod, he told her something of his own life. For a little while she listened, but soon the room became blurred to her and she sank farther and farther among the heavy shadows and the old paintings on the wall. The rain beat against the muffled windows drowsily. The fire warmed her brow like some hypnotic hand. Then his voice ceased and she drew her feet beneath her and slept in the chair, looking like a soft Persian kitten.
CHAPTER IIIA Stranger Arrives
Itwas almost two in the morning when Wilson heard the sound of wheels in the street without, and conceived the fear that they had stopped before the house. He found himself sitting rigidly upright in the room which had grown chill, staring at the dark doorway. The fire had burned low and the girl still slept in the shadows, her cheeks pressed against her hands. He listened with suspended breath. For a moment there was no other sound and so he regained his composure, concluding it had been only an evil dream. Crossing to the next room, he drew a blanket from the little bed and wrapped the sleeping girl about with it so carefully that she did not awake. Then he gently poked up the fire and put on more coal, taking each lump in his fingers so as to make no noise.
Her face, even while she slept, seemed to lose but little of its animation. The long lashes swept her flushed cheeks. The eyes, though closed, still remained expressive. A smile fluttered about her mouth as though her dreams were very pleasant. To Wilson, who neither had a sister nor as a boy or man had been much among women, the sight of this sleeping girl so near to him was particularly impressive. Her utter29trust and confidence in his protection stirred within him another side of the man who had stood by the gate clutching his club like a savage. She looked so warm and tender a thing that he felt his heart growing big with a certain feeling of paternity. He knew at that moment how the father must have felt when, with the warm little hand within his own, he had strode down those foreign streets conscious that every right-hearted man would turn to look at the pretty girl; with what joy he had stopped at strange bazaars to watch her eyes brighten as the shopkeepers did their best to please. Those must have been days which the father, if alive, was glad to remember.
A muffled beat as upon the steps without again brought him to attention, but again the silence closed in upon it until he doubted whether he had truly heard. But the dark had become alive now, and he seemed to see strange, moving shadows in the corners and hear creakings and rustlings all about him. He turned sharply at a soft tread behind him only to start at the snapping of a coal in the fire from the other side. Finally, in order to ease his mind, he crossed the room and looked beyond the curtains into the darkness of the hall. There was neither movement nor sound. He ventured out and peered down the staircase into the dark chasm marking the lower hall. He heard distinctly the sound of a key being fitted rather clumsily into the lock, then an inrush of air as the door was thrown open and someone entered, clutching at the wall as though unable to stand.
30
It never occurred to Wilson to do the natural and obviously simple thing: awake the girl at once and steal down the stairs in the rear until he at least should have a chance to reconnoitre. It seemed necessary for him to meet the situation face to face, to stand his ground as though this were an intrusion upon his own domain. The girl in the next room was sleeping soundly in perfect faith that he would meet every danger that should approach her. And so, by the Lord, he would. Neither she nor he were thieves or cowards, and he refused to allow her to be placed for a minute in such a position.
Someone followed close behind the first man who had entered and lighted a match. As the light flashed, Wilson caught a glimpse of two men; one tall and angular, the other short and broad-shouldered.
“The––the lights aren’t on, cabby,” said one of them; “but I––I can find my way all right.”
“The divil ye can, beggin’ yer pardon,” answered the other. “I’ll jist go ahead of ye now an’–––”
“No, cabby, I don’t need help.”
“Jist to th’ top of the shtairs, sor. I know ye’re thot weak with sickness–––”
The answer came like a military command, though in a voice heavy with weariness.
“Light a candle, if you can find one, and––go.”
The cabby struck another match and applied it to a bit of candle he found on a hall table. As the light dissolved the dark, Wilson saw the taller man straighten before the anxious gaze of the driver.
31
“Sacré, are you going?” exclaimed the stranger, impatiently.
“Good night, sor.”
“Good night.” The words were uttered like a command.
The man went out slowly and reluctantly closed the door behind him. The echo pounded suddenly in the distance.
No sooner was the door closed than the man remaining slumped like an empty grain-sack and only prevented himself from falling by a wild clutch at the bannister. He raised himself with an effort, the candle drooping sidewise in his hand. His broad shoulders sagged until his chin almost rested upon his breast and his big slouch hat slopped down over his eyes. His breathing was slow and labored, each breath being delayed as long as possible as though it were accompanied by severe pain. It was clear that only the domination of an extraordinary will enabled the man to keep his feet at all.
The stranger began a struggle for the mastery of the stairs that held Wilson spellbound. Each advance marked a victory worthy of a battlefield. But at each step he was forced to pause and rally all his forces before he went on to the next. First he would twine his long fingers about the rail reaching up as far as he was able; then he would lift one limp leg and swing it to the stair above; he would then heave himself forward almost upon his face and drag the other leg to a level with the first, rouse himself as from a tendency32to faint, and stand there blinking at the next stair with an agonized plea as for mercy written in the deep furrows of his face. The drunken candle sputtered close to his side, flaring against the skin of his hand and smouldering into his coat, but he neither felt nor saw anything. Every sense was forced to a focus on the exertion of the next step.
Wilson had plenty of time to study him. His lean face was shaven save for an iron-gray moustache which was cropped in a straight line from one corner of his mouth to another. His eyes were half hidden beneath shaggy brows. Across one cheek showed the red welt of an old sabre wound. There was a military air about him from his head to his feet; from the rakish angle to which his hat tumbled, to his square shoulders, braced far back even when the rest of his body fell limp, and to his feet which he moved as though avoiding the swing of a scabbard. A military cape slipped askew from his shoulders. All these details were indelibly traced in Wilson’s mind as he watched this struggle.
The last ten steps marked a strain difficult to watch. Wilson, at the top, found his brow growing moist in sheer agony of sympathy, and he found himself lifting with each forward heave as though his arms were about the drooping figure. A half dozen times he was upon the point of springing to his aid, but each time some instinct bade him wait. A man with such a will as this was a man to watch even when he was as near dead as he now appeared to be. So, backing into the shadows, Wilson watched him as he grasped the post and slouched33up the last stair, seeming here to gain new strength for he held his head higher and grasped the candle more firmly. It was then that Wilson stepped into the radius of shallow light. But before he had time to speak, he saw the eyes raised swiftly to his, saw a quick movement of the hand, and then, as the candle dropped and was smothered out in the carpet, he was blinded and deafened by the report of a pistol almost in his face.
He fell back against the wall. He was unhurt, but he was for the moment stunned into inactivity by the unexpectedness of the assault. He stood motionless, smothering his breathing, alert to spring at the first sound. And he knew that the other was waiting for the first indication of his position to shoot again. So two, three seconds passed, Wilson feeling with the increasing tension as though an iron band were being tightened about his head. The house seemed to settle into deeper and deeper silence as though it were being enfolded in layer upon layer of felt. The dark about him quivered. Then he heard her voice,––the startled cry of an awakened child.
He sprang across the hall and through the curtains to her side. She was standing facing the door, her eyes frightened with the sudden awakening.
“Oh,” she trembled, “what is it?”
He placed his fingers to her lips and drew her to one side, out of range of the door.
She snuggled closer to him and placed her hand upon his arm.
34
“You’re not hurt?” she asked in a whisper.
He shook his head and strained his ears to the hall without.
He led her to the wall through which the door opened and, pressing her close against it, took his position in front of her. Then the silence closed in upon them once again. A bit of coal kindled in the grate, throwing out blue and yellow flames with tiny crackling. The shadows danced upon the wall. The curtains over the oblong entrance hung limp and motionless and mute. For aught they showed there might have been a dozen eyes behind them leering in; the points of a dozen weapons pricking through; the muzzles of a dozen revolvers ready to bark death. Each second he expected them to open––to unmask. The suspense grew nerve-racking. And behind him the girl kept whispering, “What is it? Tell me.” He felt her hands upon his shoulders.
“Hush! Listen!”
From beyond the curtains came the sound of a muffled groan.
“Someone’s hurt,” whispered the girl.
“Don’t move. It’s only a ruse.”
They listened once more, and this time the sound came more distinct; it was the moaning breathing of a man unconscious.
“Stay where you are,” commanded Wilson. “I’ll see what the matter is.”
He neared the curtains and called out,
“Are you in trouble? Do you need help?”
35
There was no other reply but that spasmodic intake of breath, the jerky outlet through loose lips.
He crossed the room and lighted the bit of remaining candle. With this held above his head, he parted the curtains and peered out. The stranger was sitting upright against the wall, his head fallen sideways and the revolver held loosely in his limp fingers. As Wilson crossed to his side, he heard the girl at his heels.
“He’s hurt,” she exclaimed.
Stooping quickly, Wilson snatched the weapon from the nerveless fingers. It was quite unnecessary. The man showed not the slightest trace of consciousness. His face was ashen gray. Wilson threw back the man’s coat and found the under linen to be stained with blood. He tore aside the shirt and discovered its source––a narrow slit just over the heart. There was but one thing to do––get the man into the next room to the fire and, if possible, staunch the wound. He placed his hands beneath the stranger’s shoulders and half dragged him to the rug before the flames. The girl, cheeks flushed with excitement, followed as though fearing to let him out of her sight.
Under the influence of the heat the man seemed to revive a bit––enough to ask for brandy and direct Wilson to a recess in the wall which served as a wine closet. After swallowing a stiff drink, he regained his voice.
“Who the devil–––” he began. But he was checked by a twitch in his side. He was evidently36uncertain whether he was in the hands of enemies or not. Wilson bent over him.
“Are you badly hurt? Do you wish me to send for a surgeon?”
“Go into the next room and bring me the leather chest you’ll find there.”
Wilson obeyed. The man opened it and took out a vial of catgut, a roll of antiseptic gauze, several rolls of bandages, and––a small, pearl-handled revolver. He levelled this at Wilson.
“Now,” he commanded, “tell me who the Devil you are.”
Wilson did not flinch.
“Put it down,” he suggested. “There is time enough for questions later. Your wound ought to be attended to. Tell me what to do.”
The man’s eyes narrowed, but his hand dropped to his side. He realized that he was quite helpless and that to shoot the intruder would serve him but little. By far the more sensible thing to do was to use him. Wilson, watching him, ready to spring, saw the question decided in the prostrate man’s mind. The latter spoke sharply.
“Take one of those surgical needles and put it in the candle flame.”
Wilson obeyed and, as soon as it was sterilized, further followed his instructions and sewed up the wound and dressed it. During this process the stranger showed neither by exclamation nor facial expression that he felt in the slightest what must have been excruciating37pain. At the conclusion of the operation the man sprinkled a few pellets into the palm of his hand and swallowed them. For a few minutes after this he remained very quiet.
Wilson glanced up at the girl. She had turned her back upon the two men and was staring into the flames. She was not crying, but her two tightly clenched fists held closely jammed against her cheeks showed that she was keeping control of herself by an effort. It seemed to Wilson that it was clearly his duty to get her out of this at once. But where could he take her?
The stranger suddenly made an effort to struggle to his feet. He had grasped his weapon once again and now held it aggressively pointed at Wilson.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Wilson, quietly stepping forward.
“Matter?” stammered the stranger. “To come into your house and––and–––” he pressed his hand to his side and was forced to put out an arm to Wilson for support.
“I tell you we mean you no harm. We aren’t thieves or thugs. We were driven in here by the rain.”
“But how–––”
“By a window in the rear. Let us stay here until morning––it is too late for the girl to go out––and you’ll be none the worse.”
Wilson saw the same hard, determined look that he had noted upon the stairs return to the gray eyes. It was clear that the man’s whole nature bade him resent38this intrusion. It was evident that he regarded the two with suspicion, although at sight of the girl, who had turned, this was abated somewhat.
“How long have you been here?” he demanded.
“Some three or four hours.”
“Are––are there any more of you?”
“No.”
“Has––has there been any call for me while you have been in the house?”
“No.”
He staggered a little and Wilson suggested that he lie down once more. But he refused and, still retaining his grip on the revolver, he bade Wilson lead him to the door of the next room and leave him. He was gone some fifteen minutes. Once Wilson thought he caught the clicking as of a safe being opened. The girl, who had remained in the background all this while, now crossed to Wilson’s side as he stood waiting in the doorway. He glanced up at her. In her light silk gown she looked almost ethereal and added to the ghostliness of the scene. She was to him the one thing which lifted the situation out of the realm of sheer grim tragedy to piquant adventure from which a hundred lanes led into the unknown.
She pressed close to his side as though shrinking from the silence behind her. He reached out and took her hand. She smiled up at him and together they turned their eyes once again into the dark of the room beyond. Save for the intermittent clicking, there was silence. In this silence they seemed39to grow into much closer comradeship, each minute knitting them together as, ordinarily, only months could do.
Suddenly there was a cessation of the clicking and quickly following this the sound of a falling body. Wilson had half expected some such climax. Seizing a candle from the table before the fire, he rushed in. The stranger had fallen to the floor and lay unconscious in front of his safe.
A quick glance about convinced Wilson that the man had not been assaulted, but had only fainted, probably from weakness. His pulse was beating feebly and his face was ashen. Wilson stooped to place his hands upon his shoulders, when he caught sight of that which had doubtless led the stranger to undertake the strain of opening the safe––a black ebony box, from which protruded through the opened cover the golden head of a small, quaint image peering out like some fat spider from its web. In falling the head had snapped open so that from the interior of the thing a tiny roll of parchment had slipped out. Wilson, picking this up, put it in his pocket with scarcely other thought than that it might get lost if left on the floor. Then he took the still unconscious man in his arms and dragged him back to the fire.
CHAPTER IVThe Golden God Speaks
Fora while the man on the floor in his weakness rambled on as in a delirium.
“Ah, Dios!” he muttered. “There’s a knife in every hand.” Then followed an incoherent succession of phrases, but out of them the two distinguished this, “Millions upon millions in jewels and gold.” Then, “But the God is silent. His lips are sealed by the blood of the twenty.”
After this the thick tongue stumbled over some word like “Guadiva,” and a little later he seemed in his troubled dreams to be struggling up a rugged height, for he complained of the stones which fretted his feet. Wilson managed to pour a spoonful of brandy down his throat and to rebandage the wound which had begun to bleed again. It was clear the man was suffering from great weakness due to loss of blood, but as yet his condition was not such as to warrant Wilson in summoning a surgeon on his own responsibility. Besides, to do so would be seriously to compromise himself and the girl. It might be difficult for them to explain their presence there to an outsider. Should the man by any chance die, their situation would41be such that their only safety would lie in flight. To the law they were already fugitives and consequently to be suspected of anything from petty larceny to murder.
To have forced himself to the safe with all the pain which walking caused him, the wounded man must have been impelled by some strong and unusual motive. It couldn’t be that he had suspected Wilson and Jo of theft, because, in the first place, he must have seen at a glance that the safe was undisturbed; and in the second, that they had not taken advantage of their opportunity for flight. It must have been something in connection with this odd-looking image, then, at which he had been so eager to look. Wilson returned to the next room. He picked the idol from the floor. As he did so the head snapped back into place. He brought it out into the firelight.
It looked like one of a hundred pictures he had seen of just such curiosities––like the junk which clutters the windows of curio dealers. The figure sat cross-legged with its heavy hands folded in its lap. The face was flat and coarse, the lips thick, the nose squat and ugly. Its carved headdress was of an Aztec pattern. The cheek-bones were high, and the chin thick and receding. The girl pressed close to his side as he held the thing in his lap with an odd mixture of interest and fear.
“Aren’t its eyes odd?” she exclaimed instantly.
They consisted of two polished stones as clear as42diamonds, as brightly eager as spiders’ eyes. The light striking them caused them to shine and glisten as though alive.
The girl glanced from the image to the man on the floor who looked now more like a figure recumbent upon a mausoleum than a living man. It was as though she was trying to guess the relationship between these two. She had seen many such carved things as this upon her foreign journeys with her father. It called him back strongly to her. She turned again to the image and, attracted by the glitter in the eyes, took it into her own lap.
Wilson watched her closely. He had an odd premonition of danger––a feeling that somehow it would be better if the girl had not seen the image. He even put out his hand to take it away from her, but was arrested by the look of eagerness which had quickened her face. Her cheeks had taken on color, her breathing came faster, and her whole frame quivered with excitement.
“Better give the thing back to me,” he said at length. He placed one hand upon it but she resisted him.
“Come,” he insisted, “I’ll take it back to where I found it.”
She raised her head with a nervous toss.
“No. Let it alone. Let me have it.”
She drew it away from his hand. He stepped to her side, impelled by something he could not analyze, and snatched it from her grasp. Her lips quivered as though she were about to cry. She had never looked43more beautiful to him than she did at that moment. He felt a wave of tenderness for her sweep over him. She was such a young-looking girl to be here alone at the mercy of two men. At this moment she looked so ridiculously like a little girl deprived of her doll that he was inclined to give it back to her again with a laugh. But he paused. She did not seem to be wholly herself. It was clear enough that the image had produced some very distinct impression upon her––whether of a nature akin to her crystal gazing he could not tell, although he suspected something of the sort. The wounded man still lay prone upon the rug before the fire. His muttering had ceased and his breathing seemed more regular.
“Please,” trembled the girl. “Please to let me take it again.”
“Why do you wish it?”
“Oh, I––I can’t tell you, but–––”
She closed her lips tightly as though to check herself.
“I don’t believe it is good for you,” he said tenderly. “It seems to cast a sort of spell over you.”
“I know what it is! I know if I look deep into those eyes I shall see my father. I feel that he is very near, somehow. I must look! I must!”
She took it from his hands once more and he let it go. He was curious to see how much truth there was in her impression and he felt that he could take the idol from her at any time it seemed advisable to do so. In the face of this new situation both of them lost interest in the wounded man. He lay as though asleep.
44
The girl seated herself Turk fashion upon the rug before the grate and, holding the golden figure in her lap, gazed down into the sparkling stones which served for eyes. The light played upon the dull, raw gold, throwing flickering shadows over its face. The thing seemed to absorb the light growing warmer through it.
Wilson leaned forward to watch her with renewed interest. The contrast between the tiny, ugly features of the image and the fresh, palpitating face of the girl made an odd picture. As she sat so, the lifeless eyes staring back at her with piercing insistence, it looked for a moment like a silent contest between the two. She commanded and the image challenged. A quickening glow suffused her neck and the color crept to her cheeks. To Wilson it was as though she radiated drowsy waves of warmth. With his eyes closed he would have said that he had come to within a few inches of her, was looking at the thing almost cheek to cheek with her. The room grew tense and silent. Her eyes continued to brighten until it seemed as though they reflected every dancing flame in the fire before her. Still the color deepened in her cheeks until they grew to a rich carmine.
Wilson found himself leaning forward with quickening breath. She seemed drifting further and further away from him and he sat fixed as though in some trance. He noted the rhythmic heave of her bosom and the full pulsation at the throat. The velvet sheen of the hair at her temples caught new lights from the45flames before her and held his eyes like the dazzling spaces between the coals. Her lips moved, but she spoke no word. Then it was that, seized with a nameless fear for the girl, Wilson rose half way to his feet. He was checked by a command from the man upon the floor.
“For the love of God, do not rouse her. She sees! She sees!”
The stranger struggled to his elbow and then to his knees, where he remained staring intently at the girl, with eyes aglow. Then the girl herself spoke.
“The lake! The lake!” she cried.
Wilson stepped to her side. He placed a hand firmly upon her shoulder.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She lifted eyes as inscrutable as those of the image. They were slow moving and stared as blankly at him as at the pictures on the wall. He bent closer.
“Comrade––comrade––are you all right?”
Her lips moved to faint, incoherent mutterings. She did not seem to be in pain, and yet in travail of some sort.
The stranger, pale, his forehead beaded with the excitement of the moment, had tottered to his feet He seized Wilson’s arm almost roughly.
“Let her alone!” he commanded. “Can’t you see? Dios! the image speaks!”
“The image? have you gone mad?”
“No! No!” he ran on excitedly. “Listen!”
The girl’s brow was knitted. Her arms and limbs46moved restlessly. She looked like one upon the point of crying at being baffled.
“There is a mist, but I can see––I––I can see–––”
She gave a little sob. This was too much for Wilson. He reached for the image, but he had not taken a step before he heard the voice of the stranger.
“Touch that and I shoot.”
The voice was cold and steady. He half turned and saw that the man had regained his weapon. The hand that held it was steady, the eyes back of it merciless. For one moment Wilson considered the advisability of springing for him. But he regained his senses sufficiently to realize that he would only fall in his tracks. Even a wounded man is not to be trifled with when holding a thirty-two caliber revolver.
“Step back!”
Wilson obeyed.
“Farther!”
“For the love of God, do not rouse her. She sees! She sees!”
“For the love of God, do not rouse her. She sees! She sees!”
47
He retreated almost to the door into the next room. From that moment his eyes never left the hand which held the weapon. He watched it for the first sign of unsteadiness, for the first evidence of weakness or abstraction. He measured the distance between them, weighed to a nicety every possibility, and bided his time. He wanted just the merest ghost of a chance of reaching that lean frame before the steel devil could spit death. What it all meant he did not know, but it was clear that this stranger was willing to sacrifice the girl to further any project of his into which she had so strangely fallen. It was also clear to him that it did the girl no good to lose herself in such a trance as this. The troubled expression of her face, the piteous cry in her voice, her restlessness convinced him of this. When she had spoken to him of crystal gazing, he had thought of it only as a harmless amusement such as the Ouija board. This seemed different, more serious, either owing to the surroundings or to some really baneful influence from this thing of gold. And the responsibility of it was his; it was he who had led the girl in here, it was even he who had placed the image in her hands. At the fret of being forced to stand there powerless, the moisture gathered on his brow.
The stranger knelt on one knee by the girl’s side, facing the door and Wilson. He placed one hand upon her brow and spoke to her in an even tone that seemed to steady her thoughts. Her words became more distinct.
“Look deep,” he commanded. “Look deep and the mists will clear. Look deep. Look deep.”
His voice was the rhythmic monotone used to lull a patient into a hypnotic trance. The girl responded quickly. The troubled expression left her face, her breathing became deeper, and she spoke more distinctly. Her eyes were still upon those of the image as though the latter had caught and held them. She looked more herself, save for the fact that she appeared to be even farther away in her thoughts than when in normal sleep.
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“Let the image speak through you,” ran on the stranger. “Tell me what you see or hear.”
“The lake––it is very blue.”
“Look again.”
“I see mountains about the lake––very high mountains.”
“Yes.”
“One is very much higher than the others.”
“Yes! Yes!”
“The trees reach from the lake halfway up its sides.”
“Go on!” he cried excitedly.
“There they stop and the mountain rises to a point.”
“Go on!”
“To the right there is a large crevice.”
The stranger moistened his lips. He gave a swift glance at Wilson and then turned his gaze to the girl.
“See, we will take a raft and go upon the lake. Now look––look hard below the waters.”
The girl appeared troubled at this. Her feet twitched and she threw back her head as though for more air. Once more Wilson calculated the distance between himself and that which stood for death. He found it still levelled steadily. To jump would be only to fall halfway, and yet his throat was beginning to ache with the strain. He felt within him some new-born instinct impelling him to her side. She stood somehow for something more than merely a fellow-creature in danger. He took a quicker interest in49her––an interest expressing itself now in a sense of infinite tenderness. He resented the fact that she was being led away from him into paths he could not follow––that she was at the beck of this lean, cold-eyed stranger and his heathenish idol.
“Below the waters. Look! Look!”
“No! No!” she cried.
“The shrine is there. Seek it! Seek it!”
He forced the words through his teeth in his concentrated effort to drive them into the girl’s brain in the form of a command. But for some reason she rebelled at doing this. It was as though to go below the waters even in this condition choked her until she must gasp for breath. It was evidently some secret which lay there––the location of some shrine or hiding place which he most desired to locate through her while in this psychic state, for he insisted upon this while she struggled against it. Her head was lifted now as though, before finally driven to take the plunge, she sought aid––not from anyone here in the room, but from someone upon the borders of the lake where, in her trance, she now stood. And it came. Her face brightened––her whole body throbbed with renewed life. She threw out her hand with a cry which startled both men.
“Father! Father!”
The wounded man, puzzled, drew back leaving for a moment the other unguarded. Wilson sprang, and in three bounds was across the room. He struck up the arm just as a finger pressed the trigger. The50wounded man fell back in a heap––far too exhausted to struggle further. Wilson turned to the girl and swept the image out of her lap to the floor where it lay blinking at the ceiling. The girl, blind and deaf to this struggle, remained sitting upright with the happy smile of recognition still about her mouth. She repeated over and over again the glad cry of “Father! Father!”
Wilson stooped and repeated her name, but received no response. He rubbed her forehead and her listless hands. Still she sat there scarcely more than a clay image. Wilson turned upon the stranger with his fists doubled up.
“Rouse her!” he cried. “Rouse her, or I’ll throttle you!”
The man made his feet and staggered to the girl’s side.
“Awake!” he commanded intensely.
The eyes instantly responded. It was as though a mist slowly faded from before them, layer after layer, as fog rises from a lake in the morning. Her mouth relaxed and expression returned to each feature. When at length she became aware of her surroundings, she looked like an awakened child. Pressing her fingers to her heavy eyes, she glanced wonderingly about her. She could not understand the tragical attitude of the two men who studied her so fixedly. She struggled to her feet and regarded both men with fear. With her fingers on her chin, she cowered back from them gazing to right and left as though looking for someone she had expected.
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“Father!” she exclaimed timidly. “Are you here, father?”
Wilson took her arm gently but firmly.
“Your father is not here, comrade. He has not been here. You––you drowsed a bit, I guess.”
She caught sight of the image on the floor and instantly understood. She passed her hands over her eyes in an effort to recall what she had seen.
“I remember––I remember,” she faltered. “I was in some foreign land––some strange place––and I saw––I saw my father.”
She looked puzzled.
“That is odd, because it washerethat I saw him yesterday.”
Her lips were dry and she asked Wilson for a glass of water. A pitcher stood upon the table, which he had brought up with the other things. When she had moistened her lips, she sat down again still a bit stupid. The wounded man spoke.
“My dear,” he said, “what you have just seen through the medium of that image interests me more than I can tell you. It may be that I can be of some help to you. My name is Sorez––and I know well that country which you have just seen. It is many thousand miles from here.”
“As far as the land of dreams,” interrupted Wilson. “I think the girl has been worried enough by such nonsense.”
“You spoke of your father,” continued Sorez, ignoring the outburst. “Has he ever visited South America?”