the possession that had held in him in every action which he had so
far been in. It lifted his high-strung spirit into an atmosphere where
there was no dread and no disgust, only a keen rapture in throwing
every atom of soul and body into physical intensity; it was as if he
himself were a bright blade, dashing, cutting, killing, a living sword
rejoicing to destroy. With the coolness that may go with such a frenzy
he felt that his pistols were loose; saw with satisfaction that he
and his new ally were placed on the slope to the best advantage, then
turned swiftly, eager now for the fight to come, toward the Indian
band. As he looked, suddenly in mid-career, pulling in their plunging
ponies with a jerk that threw them, snorting, on their haunches, the
warriors halted. Miles watched in amazement. The bunch of Indians,
not more than a hundred yards away, were staring, arrested, startled,
back of him to his right, where the lower ridge of Massacre Mountain
stretched far and level over the valley that wound westward beneath it
on the road to Fort Rain-and-Thunder. As he gazed, the ponies had swept
about and were galloping back as they had come, across the plain.
Before he knew if it might be true, if he were not dreaming this
curious thing, the clear voice of his companion spoke in one word
again, like the single note of a deep bell. “Look!” he said, and Miles
swung about toward the ridge behind, following the pointing finger.
In the gray dawn the hill-top was clad with the still strength of an
army. Regiment after regiment, silent, motionless, it stretched back
into silver mist, and the mist rolled beyond, above, about it; and
through it he saw, as through rifts in broken gauze, lines interminable
of soldiers, glitter of steel. Miles, looking, knew.
He never remembered how long he stood gazing, earth and time and self
forgotten, at a sight not meant for mortal eyes; but suddenly, with a
stab it came to him, that if the hosts of heaven fought his battle it
was that he might do his duty, might save Captain Thornton and his men;
he turned to speak to the young man who had been with him. There was no
one there. Over the bushes the mountain breeze blew damp and cold; they
rustled softly under its touch; his horse stared at him mildly; away
off at the foot-hills he could see the diminishing dots of the fleeing
Indian ponies; as he wheeled again and looked, the hills that had been
covered with the glory of heavenly armies, lay hushed and empty. And
his friend was gone.
Clatter of steel, jingle of harness, an order ringing out far but
clear—Miles threw up his head sharply and listened. In a second he
was pulling at his horse’s girth, slipping the bit swiftly into its
mouth—in a moment more he was off and away to meet them, as a body of
cavalry swung out of the valley where the ridge had hidden them.
“Captain Thornton’s troop?” the officer repeated carelessly. “Why, yes;
they are here with us. We picked them up yesterday, headed straight for
Black Wolf’s war-path. Mighty lucky we found them. How about you—seen
any Indians, have you?”
Miles answered slowly: “A party of eight were on my trail; they were
riding for Massacre Mountain, where I camped, about an hour—about
half an hour—awhile ago.” He spoke vaguely, rather oddly, the officer
thought. “Something—stopped them about a hundred yards from the
mountain. They turned, and rode away.”
“Ah,” said the officer. “They saw us down the valley.”
“I couldn’t see you,” said Miles.
The officer smiled. “You’re not an Indian, Lieutenant. Besides, they
were out on the plain and had a farther view behind the ridge.” And
Miles answered not a word.
General Miles Morgan, full of years and of honors, has never but twice
told the story of that night of forty years ago. But he believes that
when his time comes, and he goes to join the majority, he will know
again the presence which guarded him through the blackness of it, and
among the angel legions he looks to find an angel, a messenger, who was
his friend.
MARKHEIM
BY
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
In one of the old Greek tragedies, after the actors on the stage have
played their parts and the chorus in the orchestra below has hinted
mysteriously of crime and retribution, the doors of the palace in the
background suddenly fly apart. There stands the criminal queen. She
confesses her crime and explains the reason for it. So sometimes a
story opens the doors of a character’s heart and mind, and invites us
to look within. Such a story is called psychological. Sometimes there
is action, not for action’s sake, but for its revelation of character.
Sometimes nothing happens. “This,” says Bliss Perry, “may be precisely
what most interests us, because we are made to understand what it is
that inhibits action.” In the story of this type we see the moods of
the character; we watch motives appear, encounter other motives, and
retreat or advance. In short, we are allowed to observe the man’s
mental processes until we understand him.
The emotional value of this story may be stated in the words of C. T.
Winchester:
“We may lay it down as a rule that those emotions which are intimately
related to the conduct of life are of higher rank than those which
are not; and that, consequently, the emotions highest of all are
those related to the deciding forces of life the affections, and the
conscience.”
MARKHEIM[25]
“Yes,” said the dealer, “our windfalls are of various kinds. Some
customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior
knowledge. Some are dishonest,” and here he held up the candle, so
that the light fell strongly on his visitor, “and in that case,” he
continued, “I profit by my virtue.”
Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his eyes
had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in the
shop. At these pointed words, and before the near presence of the
flame, he blinked painfully and looked aside.
The dealer chuckled. “You come to me on Christmas Day,” he resumed,
“when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and
make a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for that;
you will have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be balancing
my books; you will have to pay, besides, for a kind of manner that I
remark in you to-day very strongly. I am the essence of discretion,
and ask no awkward questions; but when a customer cannot look me in
the eye, he has to pay for it.” The dealer once more chuckled; and
then, changing to his usual business voice, though still with a note
of irony, “You can give, as usual, a clear account of how you came
into the possession of the object?” he continued. “Still your uncle’s
cabinet? A remarkable collector, sir!”
And the little pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tip-toe,
looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head
with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one of
infinite pity, and a touch of horror.
“This time,” said he, “you are in error. I have not come to sell, but
to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle’s cabinet is bare to
the wainscot; even were it still intact, I have done well on the Stock
Exchange, and should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my
errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas present for a
lady,” he continued, waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he
had prepared; “and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing
you upon so small a matter. But the thing was neglected yesterday; I
must produce my little compliment at dinner; and, as you very well
know, a rich marriage is not a thing to be neglected.”
There followed a pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh this
statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the curious
lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near
thoroughfare, filled up the interval of silence.
“Well, sir,” said the dealer, “be it so. You are an old customer after
all; and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good marriage, far
be it from me to be an obstacle. Here is a nice thing for a lady now,”
he went on, “this hand glass—fifteenth century, warranted; comes from
a good collection, too; but I reserve the name, in the interests of my
customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole
heir of a remarkable collector.”
The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had
stooped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so, a
shock had passed through Markheim, a start both of hand and foot,
a sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face. It passed as
swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain trembling of the
hand that now received the glass.
“A glass,” he said hoarsely, and then paused, and repeated it more
clearly. “A glass? For Christmas? Surely not?”
“And why not?” cried the dealer. “Why not a glass?”
Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression. “You ask
me why not?” he said. “Why, look here—look in it—look at yourself! Do
you like to see it? No! nor I—nor any man.”
The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly confronted
him with the mirror; but now, perceiving there was nothing worse
on hand, he chuckled. “Your future lady, sir, must be pretty hard
favored,” said he.
“I ask you,” said Markheim, “for a Christmas present, and you give
me this—this damned reminder of years, and sins, and follies—this
hand-conscience! Did you mean it? Had you a thought in your mind? Tell
me. It will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me about yourself.
I hazard a guess now, that you are in secret a very charitable man?”
The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd, Markheim
did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his face like an
eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth.
“What are you driving at?” the dealer asked.
“Not charitable?” returned the other, gloomily. “Not charitable; not
pious; not scrupulous; unloving, unbeloved; a hand to get money, a safe
to keep it. Is that all? Dear God, man, is that all?”
“I will tell you what it is,” began the dealer, with some sharpness,
and then broke off again into a chuckle. “But I see this is a love
match of yours, and you have been drinking the lady’s health.”
“Ah!” cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity. “Ah, have you been in
love? Tell me about that.”
“I,” cried the dealer. “I in love! I never had the time, nor have I the
time to-day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass?”
“Where is the hurry?” returned Markheim. “It is very pleasant to stand
here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not hurry
away from any pleasure—no, not even from so mild a one as this. We
should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at a
cliff’s edge. Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it—a cliff
a mile high—high enough, if we fall, to dash us out of every feature
of humanity. Hence it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each
other; why should we wear this mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows,
we might become friends?”
“I have just one word to say to you,” said the dealer. “Either make
your purchase, or walk out of my shop.”
“True, true,” said Markheim. “Enough fooling. To business. Show me
something else.”
The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon
the shelf, his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so.
Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his
great-coat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time
many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror,
horror, and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion; and through
a haggard lift of his upper lip, his teeth looked out.
“This, perhaps, may suit,” observed the dealer; and then, as he began
to re-arise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim. The long,
skewerlike dagger flashed and fell. The dealer struggled like a hen,
striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the floor in a
heap.
Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and slow
as was becoming to their great age; others garrulous and hurried. All
these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then
the passage of a lad’s feet, heavily running on the pavement, broke in
upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness
of his surroundings. He looked about him awfully. The candle stood
on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that
inconsiderable movement, the whole room was filled with noiseless
bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall shadows nodding, the gross
blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces
of the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering like images
in water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into that leaguer of
shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.
From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim’s eyes returned to the body
of his victim, where it lay both humped and sprawling, incredibly small
and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor, miserly clothes, in
that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much sawdust. Markheim
had feared to see it, and, lo! it was nothing. And yet, as he gazed,
this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began to find eloquent
voices. There it must lie; there was none to work the cunning hinges or
direct the miracle of locomotion—there it must lie till it was found.
Found! ay, and then? Then would this dead flesh lift up a cry that
would ring over England, and fill the world with the echoes of pursuit.
Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. “Time was that when the
brains were out,” he thought; and the first word struck into his mind.
Time, now that the deed was accomplished—time, which had closed for
the victim, had become instant and momentous for the slayer.
The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, with
every variety of pace and voice—one deep as the bell from a cathedral
turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz—the
clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon.
The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered
him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the candle,
beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance
reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home designs, some from
Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it were
an army of spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound of
his own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet. And
still as he continued to fill his pockets, his mind accused him, with
a sickening iteration, of the thousand faults of his design. He should
have chosen a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an alibi; he
should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious, and
only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he should have
been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should have done all
things otherwise; poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the
mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to
be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all
this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted
attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the hand
of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would
jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock,
the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin.
Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a
besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumor
of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their
curiosity; and now, in all the neighboring houses, he divined them
sitting motionless and with uplifted ear—solitary people, condemned
to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past, and now
startlingly recalled from that tender exercise; happy family parties,
struck into silence round the table, the mother still with raised
finger: every degree and age and humor, but all, by their own hearts,
prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to hang him.
Sometimes it seemed to him he could not move too softly; the clink of
the tall Bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell; and alarmed by
the bigness of the ticking, he was tempted to stop the clocks. And
then, again, with a swift transition of his terrors, the very silence
of the place appeared a source of peril, and a thing to strike and
freeze the passer-by; and he would step more boldly, and bustle aloud
among the contents of the shop, and imitate, with elaborate bravado,
the movements of a busy man at ease in his own house.
But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that, while one
portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled on
the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong
hold on his credulity. The neighbor hearkening with white face beside
his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the
pavement—these could at worst suspect, they could not know; through
the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate. But
here, within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; he had watched
the servant set forth sweethearting, in her poor best, “out for the
day” written in every ribbon and smile. Yes, he was alone, of course;
and yet, in the bulk of empty house above him, he could surely hear
a stir of delicate footing—he was surely conscious, inexplicably
conscious of some presence. Ay, surely; to every room and corner of the
house his imagination followed it; and now it was a faceless thing, and
yet had eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of himself; and yet
again behold the image of the dead dealer, reinspired with cunning and
hatred.
At times, with a strong effort, he would glance at the open door which
still seemed to repel his eyes. The house was tall, the skylight small
and dirty, the day blind with fog; and the light that filtered down
to the ground story was exceedingly faint, and showed dimly on the
threshold of the shop. And yet, in that strip of doubtful brightness,
did there not hang wavering a shadow?
Suddenly, from the street outside, a very jovial gentleman began to
beat with a staff on the shop-door, accompanying his blows with shouts
and railleries in which the dealer was continually called upon by name.
Markheim, smitten into ice, glanced at the dead man. But no! he lay
quite still; he was fled away far beyond earshot of these blows and
shoutings; he was sunk beneath seas of silence; and his name, which
would once have caught his notice above the howling of a storm, had
become come an empty sound. And presently the jovial gentleman desisted
from his knocking and departed.
Here was a broad hint to hurry what remained to be done, to get forth
from this accusing neighborhood, to plunge into a bath of London
multitudes, and to reach, on the other side of day, that haven of
safety and apparent innocence—his bed. One visitor had come: at any
moment another might follow and be more obstinate. To have done the
deed, and yet not to reap the profit, would be too abhorrent a failure.
The money, that was now Markheim’s concern; and as a means to that, the
keys.
He glanced over his shoulder at the open door, where the shadow was
still lingering and shivering; and with no conscious repugnance of
the mind, yet with a tremor of the belly, he drew near the body of
his victim. The human character had quite departed. Like a suit
half-stuffed with bran, the limbs lay scattered, the trunk doubled,
on the floor; and yet the thing repelled him. Although so dingy and
inconsiderable to the eye, he feared it might have more significance
to the touch. He took the body by the shoulders, and turned it on its
back. It was strangely light and supple, and the limbs, as if they had
been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The face was robbed of all
expression; but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly smeared with
blood about one temple. That was, for Markheim, the one displeasing
circumstance. It carried him back, upon the instant, to a certain day
in a fishers’ village: a gray day, a piping wind, a crowd upon the
street, the blare of brasses, the booming of drums, the nasal voice of
a ballad singer; and a boy going to and fro, buried over head in the
crowd and divided between interest and fear, until, coming out upon
the chief place of concourse, he beheld a booth and a great screen
with pictures, dismally designed, garishly colored: Brownrigg with
her apprentice; the Mannings with their murdered guest; Weare in the
death-grip of Thurtell; and a score besides of famous crimes. The thing
was as clear as an illusion; he was once again that little boy; he
was looking once again, and with the same sense of physical revolt,
at these vile pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the
drums. A bar of that day’s music returned upon his memory; and at that,
for the first time, a qualm came over him, a breath of nausea, a sudden
weakness of the joints, which he must instantly resist and conquer.
He judged it more prudent to confront than to flee from these
considerations; looking the more hardily in the dead face, bending
his mind to realize the nature and greatness of his crime. So little
a while ago that face had moved with every change of sentiment, that
pale mouth had spoken, that body had been all on fire with governable
energies; and now, and by his act, that piece of life had been
arrested, as the horologist, with interjected finger, arrests the
beating of the clock. So he reasoned in vain; he could rise to no more
remorseful consciousness; the same heart which had shuddered before
the painted effigies of crime, looked on its reality unmoved. At best,
he felt a gleam of pity for one who had been endowed in vain with all
those faculties that can make the world a garden of enchantment, one
who had never lived and who was now dead. But of penitence, no, not a
tremor.
With that, shaking himself clear of these considerations, he found the
keys and advanced towards the open door of the shop. Outside, it had
begun to rain smartly; and the sound of the shower upon the roof had
banished silence. Like some dripping cavern, the chambers of the house
were haunted by an incessant echoing, which filled the ear and mingled
with the ticking of the clocks. And, as Markheim approached the door,
he seemed to hear, in answer to his own cautious tread, the steps of
another foot withdrawing up the stair. The shadow still palpitated
loosely on the threshold. He threw a ton’s weight of resolve upon his
muscles, and drew back the door.
The faint, foggy daylight glimmered dimly on the bare floor and stairs;
on the bright suit of armor posted, halbert in hand, upon the landing;
and on the dark wood-carvings, and framed pictures that hung against
the yellow panels of the wainscot. So loud was the beating of the
rain through all the house that, in Markheim’s ears, it began to be
distinguished into many different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the
tread of regiments marching in the distance, the chink of money in the
counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar, appeared to
mingle with the patter of the drops upon the cupola and the gushing of
the water in the pipes. The sense that he was not alone grew upon him
to the verge of madness. On every side he was haunted and begirt by
presences. He heard them moving in the upper chambers; from the shop,
he heard the dead man getting to his legs; and as he began with a great
effort to mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and followed
stealthily behind. If he were but deaf, he thought, how tranquilly he
would possess his soul! And then again, and hearkening with ever fresh
attention, he blessed himself for that unresting sense which held the
outposts and stood a trusty sentinel upon his life. His head turned
continually on his neck; his eyes, which seemed starting from their
orbits, scouted on every side, and on every side were half-rewarded
as with the tail of something nameless vanishing. The four-and-twenty
steps to the first floor were four-and-twenty agonies.