TO THE VICTOR BELONGS--?
It was a month before Ridgeway was able to leave his couch and to sit
beneath the awning in front of the temple. Not that he had been so
severely wounded in the battle of June thirtieth, but that his whole
system had collapsed temporarily.
After the first terrible fear, Tennys gave herself entirely to the task
of caring for him. Night and day she watched, worked, and prayed over
the tossing sufferer. In seasons of despair, created by the frequent
close encroachments of death, she experienced dreams that invariably
ended with the belief that she heard his dying gasps. Until she became
thoroughly awake and could hear the movements of the two savages who sat
faithfully in the next room with their Izor, her heart was still with a
terror so depressing that it well-nigh drove her mad.
The wounds in his legs and side were closed and the great bruises on his
back and head were reduced. When he, faint and weak, began to understand
what was going on about him, he saw the face of one of the two women
over whom he had raved in his delirium. In the hours when death seemed
but a step away he had plaintively called for Grace and then for
Tennys. A strange gladness filled the heart of the one beside him when
he uttered the unconscious appeal to her. Sometimes she found herself
growing red over the things he was saying to her in his ravings; again
she would chill with the tender words that went to Grace. Then came the
day when he saw and knew her. Often in the days of his convalescence she
would start from a reverie, certain that she heard him call as he did in
delirium, only to sink back and smile sadly with the discovery that she
had been dreaming.
The village of Ridgehunt was a great hospital for weeks after the fight.
Lady Tennys herself had ordered the dead to be buried in the trenches.
For the first time in the history of the island the Oolooz men had been
beaten. She spent many hours in telling Hugh of the celebrations that
followed the wonderful achievements.
"There is one thing about our friends that I have not told you, Hugh,"
she said one night as they sat under the awning. "You have been so weak
that I feared the shock might hurt you."
"You think of my comfort always," he said gratefully.
"You never knew that they brought a number of prisoners to the village
and--and--oh, it is too horrible to tell you."
"Brought them to the village? What for?"
"They intended to eat them," she said, shuddering.
"Great Scott! They are not cannibals?"
"I couldn't believe it until I saw them making ready for their awful
feast out there. I shall never be able to eat meat again. Alzam brought
me a piece of the horrid stuff. They executed the prisoners before I
could interfere."
"Oh, that's too horrible!"
"Sick and terrified, I went among the men who were dancing about the
feast they were ready to devour, and, assuming a boldness I did not
feel, commanded them to desist. The king was bewildered at first, then
chagrined, but as I threatened him ferociously--"
"I should have enjoyed seeing you ferocious."
"He called the brutes away and then I gave orders to have every one of
the bodies buried. For several days after that, however, the men were
morose and ugly looking, and I am sure it was hard for them to submit to
such a radical change."
"Talk about missionaries! You are a wonder!"
"I could not have done it as a missionary, Mr. Ridgeway. It was
necessary for me to exert my authority as a goddess."
"And so they are cannibals," he mused, still looking at her spirited
face.
"Just think what might have happened to us," she said.
That night as he lay on his couch he was forced to admit that the
inconsolable grief that had borne down so heavily upon him at first was
almost a part of the past. The pain inspired by the loss of a loved one
was being mysteriously eased. He was finding pleasure in a world that
had been dark and drear a few short months before. He was dimly
conscious of a feeling that the companionship of Tennys Huntingford was
beginning to wreak disaster to a supposedly impregnable constancy.
Tears came to his eyes as he murmured the name of the girl who had
sailed so blithely from New York with his love as her only haven. He
called himself the basest of wretches, the most graceless of lovers. He
sobbed aloud at last in his penitence, and his heart went back to the
night of the wreck. His love went down to the bottom of the sea, craving
a single chance to redeem itself before the one it had wounded and
humiliated. Before he fell asleep his conscience was relieved of part of
its weight and the strong, sweet face of Grace Vernon passed from his
vivid thoughts into vague dreams.
In the next apartment tranquilly slept the disturber, the trespasser in
the fields of memory, the undoer of a long-wrought love. He had tried to
learn the way to her heart, wondering if she cared for him as he had
more than once suspected. In pursuing this hazardous investigation he
had learned nothing, had seen nothing but perfect frankness and
innocence, but had become more deeply interested than he knew until this
night of recapitulation.
One night, two or three after he had thrown off the delirium, he heard
her praying in her room, softly, earnestly. Of that prayer one plea
remained in his memory long after her death: "Oh, God, save the soul of
Grace Vernon. Give to her the fulness of Thy love. If she be still
alive, protect and keep her safe until in Thy goodness she may be
restored to him who mourns for her. Save and bless Hugh Ridgeway."
The days and weeks went by and Hugh grew well and strong. To Tennys he
was not the same Hugh as of old. She perceived a change and wondered.
One day at sundown he sat moodily in front of the temple. She was lying
in the hammock near by. There had been one of the long, and to her
inexplicable, silences. He felt that her eyes were upon him and knew
that they were wistful and perplexed.
Try as he would, he could not keep his own eyes in leash; something
irresistible made him lift them to meet her gaze. For a moment they
looked at each other in a mute search for something neither was able to
describe. He could not hold out against the pleading, troubled,
questioning eyes, bent so solemnly upon his own. The wounds in her
heart, because of his indifference, strange and unaccountable to her,
gaped in those blue orbs.
A tremendous revulsion of feeling took possession of him; what he had
been subduing for weeks gained supremacy in an instant. He half rose to
his feet as if to rush over and crush her in his arms, but a mightier
power than his emotion held him back. That same unseen, mysterious power
compelled him to turn about and almost run from the temple, leaving her
chilled and distressed by his action. The power that checked him
was Memory.
She was deeply hurt by this last impulsive exhibition of disregard. A
bewildering sense of loneliness oppressed her. He despised her! All the
world grew black for her. All the light went out of her heart. He
despised her! There was a faintness in her knees when she essayed to
arise from the hammock. A little cry of anguish left her lips; a hunted,
friendless look came into her eyes.
Staggering to the end of the temple, she looked in the direction he had
taken. Far down the line of hills she saw him standing on a little
elevation, his back toward her, his face to the river. Some strong
influence drew her to him. Out of this influence grew the wild,
unquenchable desire to understand. Hardly realizing what she did, she
hurried through the growing dusk toward the motionless figure. As she
came nearer a strange timidity, an embarrassment she had never felt
before, seized upon her and her footsteps slackened.
He had not seen her. A panicky inclination to fly back to the temple
came over her. In her heart welled a feeling of resentment. Had he any
right to forget what she had done for him?
He heard her, turned swiftly, and--trembled in every joint. They were
but a few paces apart and she was looking unwaveringly into his eyes.
"I have followed you out here to ask why you treat me so cruelly," she
said after a long silence which she Bought to break but could not. He
distinguished in this pathetic command, meant to be firm and positive,
the tremor of tears.
"I--I do not treat you cruelly, Tennys," he answered disjointly, still
looking at the slight, graceful figure, as if unable to withdraw
his eyes.
"What do you call it?" she asked bitterly.
"You wrong me--" he began.
"Wrong you? No, I do not. You saved me from the sea and you have done
much for me until within the past few weeks. I had begun to forget that
I am here because fate substituted me for another. Hugh, do not let your
love for Grace and your regret at not having saved her turn you against
me. I am not here because I could have helped it. You must know
that I--"
"For Heaven's sake, Tennys, don't talk like that! The trouble is that I
do not regret having saved you. That's why you see the change in
me--that's why I've hurt you. I cannot be to you what I would be--I
cannot and be true to myself," he cried fiercely.
"What do you mean? Why are you so unhappy, Hugh? Have I hurt you?' she
asked, coming quite close in sudden compassion.
"Hurt me!" he exclaimed. "You will kill me!" She paled with the thought
that he was delirious again or crazed from the effects of the fever.
"Don't say that, Hugh. I care more for you than for any one in the
world. Why should I hurt you?" she asked tenderly, completely
misunderstanding him.
"You don't mean to, but you do. I have tried to conquer it but I cannot.
Don't you know why I have forced myself to be unhappy during the past
few weeks? Can't you see why I am making you unhappy, too, in my
struggle to beat down the something that has driven everything else out
of my mind?"
"Don't talk so, Hugh; it will be all right. Come home now and I will
give you some wine and put some cool bandages on your head. You are not
well." She was so gentle, so unsuspecting that he could contain himself
no longer.
"I love you--I worship you! That is why I am cruel to you!" he burst
out. A weakness assailed him and he leaned dizzily against the tree at
his side. He dared not look at her, but he marvelled at her silence. If
she loved him, as he believed, why was she so quiet, so still?
"Do you know what you say?" she asked slowly.
"I have said it to myself a thousand times since I left you at the
temple. I did not intend to tell you; I had sworn you should never know
it. What do you think of me?"
"I thought you called it love that sent you to Manila," she said
wonderingly, wounding without malice.
"It was love, I say. I loved her better than all the world and I have
not forgotten her. She will always be as dear to me as she was on the
night I lost her. You have not taken her place. You have gone farther
and inspired a love that is new, strange, overpowering--infinitely
greater, far different from the love I had known before. She was never
to me what you are. That is what drives me mad--mad, do you hear? I
have simply been overwhelmed by it."
"I must be dreaming," she murmured.
"I have tried to hide it from myself, but it has broken down all
barriers and floods the world for me."
"It is because we are here alone in this island--"
"No, no! Not that, I swear. It would have come sooner or later."
"You are not like other men. I have not thought of you as I see you now.
I cannot understand being loved by you. It hurts me to see that you are
in earnest. Oh, Hugh, how sorry I am," she cried, laying her hand upon
his arm. His heart dropped like lead. He saw that he had been
mistaken--she did not love him.
"You are learning that I am not the harlequin after all," he said
bitterly.
"There is no one in all the world so good and strong and true."
"You--you _will_ love me?"
"You must not ask that of me. I am still Lady Huntingford, a wife for
all we know. Yet if I loved you, I would tell you so. Have I not told
you that I cannot love? I have never loved. I never shall. Don't look
like that, Hugh. I would to God I could love you," she exclaimed. His
chin had sunk upon his breast and his whole body relaxed through sheer
dejection.
"I'll make you love me!" he cried after a moment's misery in the depths,
his spirits leaping high with the quick recoil. His eager hands seized
her shoulders and drew her close, so close that their bodies touched
and his impassioned eyes were within a few inches of hers of startled
blue. "I'll make you love me!"
"Please let me go. Please, Hugh," she murmured faintly.
"You must--you shall love me! I cannot live without you. I'll have you
whether you will or no," he whispered fiercely.
She did not draw back, but looked him fairly in the eye as she spoke
coldly, calmly, even with a sneer.
"You are master here and I am but a helpless woman. Would you force me
to forget that you have been my ideal man?"
"Tennys!" he cried, falling back suddenly. "You don't think I would harm
you--oh, you know I didn't mean that! What must you think of me?"
He put his hand over his eyes as if in deep pain, and, turning away,
leaned against the tree unsteadily. With his first words, his first
expression, she knew she had wronged him. A glad rush of blood to her
heart set it throbbing violently.
She could not have explained the thrill that went through her when he
grasped her shoulders, nor could she any more define the peculiar joy
that came when she took a step forward and placed her hands gently,
timidly on his arm.
"Forgive me, Hugh, I must have been mad to say what I did. You are too
noble--too good--" she began in a pleading little quaver.
"I knew you couldn't mean it," he exclaimed, facing her joyously. "How
beautiful you are!" he added impetuously. He was looking down, into that
penitent face and the cry was involuntary. She smiled faintly and he
raised his arms as if to clasp her to his breast, come what may. The
smile lingered, yet his arms dropped to his sides. She had not moved,
had not taken her eyes from his, but there was an unrelenting command in
the soft words she uttered. "Be careful. I am always to trust you,
Hugh." He bowed his head and they walked slowly homeward.