THE IRON-STONE HAMMER.
For a couple of minutes complete, death-like silence ensued.
Mehetabel, panting, everything swimming, turning before her eyes,
remained motionless on her knees, but rested her hands on Thor's
Stone, to save herself from falling on her face.
What had happened she hardly knew. The gun had been discharged, and
then had fallen before her knees. Whom had it injured? What was
the injury done?
She was unable to see, through the veil of tears that covered her
eyes. She had not voice wherewith to speak.
Iver, moreover, stood motionless, holding to a willow. He also was
ignorant of what had occurred. Was the shot aimed at him, or at
Mehetabel? Who had fired?
Crouching against a bush, into which he had staggered and then
collapsed, was the Broom-Squire. A sudden spasm of pain had shot
through him at the flash of the gun. That he was struck he knew,
to what extent injured he could not guess.
As he endeavored to raise one hand, the left, in which was the seat
of pain, he became aware that his arm was stiff and powerless. He
could not move his fingers.
The blood was coursing over his hand in a warm stream.
A horrible thought rushed through his brain. He was at the mercy of
that woman who had invoked the Devil against him, and of the lover
on whose account she had desired his death. She had called, and in
part had been answered. He was wounded, and incapable of defending
himself. This guilty pair would complete the work, kill him; blow
out his brains, beat his head with the stock of the gun, and cast
his body into the marsh.
Who would know how he came by his death? His sister was aware that
he had gone to the moor to stalk deer. What evidence would be
producible against this couple should they complete the work and
dispose of him?
Strangely unaccountable as it may seem, yet it was so, that at the
moment, rage at the thought that, should they kill him, Mehetabel
and Iver would escape punishment, was the prevailing thought and
predominant passion in Jonas's mind, and not by any means fear for
himself. This made him disregard his pain, indifferent to his fate.
"I have still my right hand and my teeth," he said. "I will beat
and tear that they may bear marks that shall awake suspicion."
But his head swam, he turned sick and faint, and became insensible.
When Jonas recovered consciousness he lay on his back, and saw faces
bowed over him--that of his wife and that of Iver, the two he hated
most cordially in the world, the two at least he hated to see
together.
He struggled to rise and bite, like a wild beast, but was held down
by Iver.
"Curse you! will you kill me so?" he yelled, snapping with his
great jaws, trying to reach and rend the hands that restrained him.
"Lie still, Bideabout," said the young painter, "are you crazed?
We will do you no harm. Mehetabel is binding up your arm. As far
as I can make out the shot has run up it and is lodged in the
shoulder."
"I care not. Let me go. You will murder me." Mehetabel had torn a
strip from her skirt and was making a bandage of it.
"Jonas," she said, "pray lie quiet, or sit up and be reasonable.
I must do what I can to stay the blood."
As he began to realize that he was being attended to, and that
Iver and Mehetabel had no intention to hurt him, the Broom-Squire
became more composed and patient.
His brows were knit and his teeth set. He avoided looking into the
faces of those who attended to him.
Presently the young painter helped him to rise, and offered his
arm. This Jonas refused.
"I can walk by myself," said he, churlishly; then turning to
Mehetabel, he said, with a sneer, "The devil never does aught but
by halves."
"What do you mean?"
"The bullet has entered my arm and not my heart, as you desired."
"Go," she said to the young artist; "I pray you go and leave me
with him. I will take him home."
Iver demurred.
"I entreat you to go," she urged. "Go to your mother. Tell her that
my husband has met with an accident, and that I am called away to
attend him. That is to serve as an excuse. I must, I verily must
go with him. Do not say more. Do not say where this happened."
"Why not?"
She did not answer. He considered for a moment and then dimly saw
that she was right.
"Iver," she said in a low tone, so that Jonas might not hear, "you
should not have followed me; then this would never have happened."
"If I had not followed you he would have been your murderer,
Matabel."
Then, reluctantly, he went. But ever and anon turned to listen or
to look.
When he was out of sight, then Mehetabel said to her husband, "Lean
on me, and let me help you along."
"I can go by myself," he said bitterly. "I would not have his arm.
I will have none of yours. Give me my gun."
"No, Jonas, I will carry that for you."
Then he put forth his uninjured right hand, and took the kidney-iron
stone from the anvil block, on which Mehetabel had left it.
"What do you want with that?" she asked.
"I may have to knock also," he answered. "Is it you alone who are
allowed to have wishes?"
She said no more, but stepped along, not swiftly, cautiously, and
turning at every step, to see that he was following, and that he
had put his foot on substance that would support his weight.
"Why do you look at me?" he asked captiously.
"Jonas, you are in pain, and giddy with pain. You may lose your
footing, and go into the water."
"So--that now is your desire?"
"I pray you," she answered, in distress, "Jonas, do not entertain
such evil thoughts."
They attained a ridge of sand. She fell back and paced at his side.
Bideabout observed her out of the corners of his eyes. By the
moonlight he could see how finely, nobly cut was her profile; he
could see the glancing of the moon in the tears that suffused her
cheeks.
"You know who shot me?" he inquired, in a low tone.
"I know nothing, Jonas, but that there was a struggle, and that
during this struggle, by accident--"
"You did it."
"No, Jonas. I cannot think it."
"It was so. You touched the trigger. You knew that the piece was
on full cock."
"It was altogether an accident. I knew nothing. I was conscious of
nothing, save that I was trying to prevent you from committing a
great crime."
"A great crime!" jeered he. "You thought only how you might save
the life of your love."
Mehetabel stood still and turned to him.
"Jonas, do not say that. You cruelly, you wrongfully misjudge me
I will tell you all, if you will I never would have hidden anything
from you if I had not known how you would take and use what I said.
Iver and I were child friends, almost brother and sister. I always
cared for him, and I think he liked me. He went away and I saw
nothing of him. Then, at our wedding, he returned home; and since
then I have seen him a good many times--you, yourself asked him to
the Punch-Bowl, and bade me stand for him to paint. I cannot deny
that I care for him, and that he likes me."
"As brother and sister?"
"No--not as brother and sister. We are children no longer. But,
Jonas, I have no wish, no thought other than that he should leave
Thursley, and that I should never, never, never see his face again.
Of thought, of word, of act against my duty to you I am guiltless.
Of thoughts, as far as I have been able to hold my thoughts in
chains, of words, of acts I have nothing to reproach myself with,
there have been none but what might be known to you, in a light
clearer than that poured down by this moon. You will believe me,
Jonas."
He looked searchingly into her beautiful, pale face--now white as
snow in the moonlight. After a long pause, he answered, "I do not
believe you."
"I can say no more," she spoke and sighed, and went forward.
He now lagged behind.
They stepped off the sand ridge, and were again in treacherous
soil, neither land nor water, but land and water tossed together
in strips and tags and tatters.
"Go on," he said. "I will step after you."
Presently she looked behind her, and saw him swinging his right
hand, in which was the lump of ironstone.
"Why do you turn your head?" he asked.
"I look for you."
"Are you afraid of me?"
"I am sorry for you, Jonas."
"Sorry--because of my arm?"
"Because you are unable to believe a true woman's word."
"I do not understand you."
"No--I do not suppose you can."
Then he screamed, "No, I do not believe." He leaped forward, and
struck her on the head with the nodule of iron, and felled her at
his feet.
"There," said he; "with this stone you sought my death, and with
it I cause yours."
Then he knelt where she lay motionless, extended, in the marsh,
half out of the water, half submerged.
He gripped her by the throat, and by sheer force, with his one
available arm, thrust her head under water.
The moonlight played in the ripples as they closed over her face;
it surely was not water, but liquid silver, fluid diamond.
He endeavored to hold her head under the surface. She did not
struggle. She did not even move. But suddenly a pang shot through
him, as though he had been pierced by another bullet. The bandage
about his wound gave way, and the hot blood broke forth again.
Jonas reeled back in terror, lest his consciousness should desert
him, and he sank for an instant insensible, face foremost, into
the water.
As it was, where he knelt, among the water-plants, they were
yielding under his weight.
He scrambled away, and clung to a distorted pine on the summit of
a sand-knoll.
Giddy and faint, he laid his head against the bush, and inhaled
the invigorating odor of the turpentine. Gradually he recovered,
and was able to stand unsupported.
Then he looked in the direction where Mehetabel lay. She had not
stirred. The bare white arms were exposed and gleaming in the
moonlight. The face he did not see. He shrank from looking towards
it.
Then he slunk away, homewards.