XL
Asthe days passed all too soon, the young man’s former sense of the need for action returned upon him.
“The minutes melt,” he was saying constantly, “yet the strength has not yet been given to my right hand.”
Once he cried to his father, almost in despair, “Soon my veins will open and the life within me will melt, and yet my labours are scarcely begun. I have already gathered rare and great knowledge for my authorship, yet alas! I cannot lift the pen.”
“In this matter, I am barren of all counsel,” said his father, “for my right hand also, although nurtured in wisdom, has never received the strength to grasp the pen.”
“The swift minutes speed headlong away,” cried the young man anxiously, “yet I tarry over-long upon my path.”
Day by day the dire need of achieving his destiny burned in his veins. Yet the fleet hours sped, andhis mighty task was no nearer to fulfilment. All day he would traverse the streets of the great city, and when the evening came he would labour in its slums. But at last as the spring of the year came again, and the sky grew more clement, and the trees and the earth began to shine with green, a new passion came upon this labourer even as he toiled.
It happened that one evening, just as the fœtid little mission-room had been cleared for the night, the young man turned abruptly to his co-worker, that stalwart, the sight of whom had first drawn him there.
“Farewell, my kind friend,” he said, “I pass from among you to-night.”
“My dear Jordan,” said his fellow-worker, “you will be wise to refrain from working among us for a while. You are one who burns the candle too freely. You will do well to learn to husband your strength.”
“In order,” said William Jordan, with his secret and beautiful smile, which many had learned to watch for, but none to understand, “that I may achieve that which lies before me?”
“That is true,” said the chief of the mission. “You must know that you are a worker of miracles in this parish.”
“And yet,” said William Jordan, “this is the last time the worker of miracles can enter this parish of yours.”
His stalwart and somewhat grim companion seemed to stagger at these words.
“Why—why, Jordan,” he said, “does this mean that you are going to desert us altogether?”
“I fear so,” said William Jordan. “To-night as I sat among you I heard a voice in my ears. To-morrow at dawn I go upon my way.”
“But, Jordan,” said his fellow-worker, “I beg you, I beseech you to return to us. We cannot part from you; we cannot do without you down here.”
“Alas!” said William Jordan, “I heard the voice as I worked among you to-night. A term has been placed to my days; it has almost expired; and yet my destiny is only half complete.”
The chief of the mission took the frail hands of the young man in the grip of a giant.
“We cannot possibly let you go from among us,” he said sternly. “We shall not; we need you; we need you. You have a touch of the magic; you are a born evangelist; you go into regions where none can follow.”
“Nature has spoken,” said William Jordan softly. “At dawn I obey her decree.”
“No, no, no!” cried his comrade, “your work lies here. You were born for this. Nature formed you to labour for your kind; and you must labour for them all your days.”
“You speak truly,” said William Jordan, “but then my labours are not yet begun.”
“Are not these your labours?” cried his fellow-worker. “Can you not wield your power upon those whom we others know not how to approach? Have you not worked wonders among us during the few short months in which you have laboured?”
“Wonders,” said William Jordan, with a tender melancholy in his voice. “Can you tell me what are these wonders in comparison with those that I have still to perform?”
“I do not understand you, I do not follow you,” said the other.
“No,” said William Jordan, “you do not understand, yet perhaps it is well.”
“But I swear to heaven,” cried his fellow-worker, with hoarse passion, “you shall not go from among us like this.”
The passion of this stalwart man was such that all unthinkingly he seized the frail form of the young man, and in the might of his conviction shook it fiercely.
Immediately William Jordan, for the first time in that place, was attacked by a violent frenzy ofcoughing. A spray of bright red blood was cast upon his lips. He spat it upon the floor.
His fellow-worker recoiled from the sight of it with a cry of dismay.
“Arterial blood,” he gasped.
“Nature’s mandate,” said the young man, with his secret and beautiful smile.
His fellow-worker in the noble prime of his manhood, gave a low cry and sank back against the wall of the room.
“Oh,” he cried wildly, pressing his hands across his heart, “I wish now you had never come among us at all!”