"What?"
She became profoundly serious.
"The point is this: he _may_ be something more than a boy or a savage.
And if he _is_ something more, he's the finest man I've ever laid eyes
on. That's why I want to get inside that room. That's why I want to
learn the secret--if there is a secret--the things he believes in, how
he happens to be what he is and how--"
Connor had endured her rising warmth of expression as long as he could.
Now he exploded.
"You do me one favor," he cried excitedly, more moved than she had ever
seen him before. "Let me do your thinking for you when it comes to other
men. You take my word about this David Eden. Bah! When I have you fixed
up in little old Manhattan you'll forget about him and his mystery
inside a week. Will you lay off on the thinking?"
She nodded absently. In reality she was struck by the first similarity
she had ever noticed between David of Eden and Connor the gambler:
within ten minutes they had both expressed remarkable concern as to what
might be her innermost thoughts. She began to feel that Connor himself
might have elements of the boy in his make up--the cruel boy which he
protested was in David Eden.
She had many reasons for liking Connor. For one thing he had offered
her an escape from her old imprisoned life. Again he had flattered her
in the most insinuating manner by his complete trust. She knew that
there was not one woman in ten thousand to whom he would have confided
his great plan, and not one in a million whose ability to execute his
scheme he would have trusted.
More than this, before her trip to the Garden he had given her a large
sum of money for the purchase of the Indian's gelding; and Ruth Manning
had learned to appreciate money. He had not asked for any receipt. His
attitude had been such that she had not even been able to mention that
subject.
Yet much as she liked Connor there were many things about him which
jarred on her. There was a hardness, always working to the surface like
rocks on a hard soil. Worst of all, sometimes she felt a degree of
uncleanliness about his mind and its working. She would not have
recoiled from these things had he been nearer her own age; but in a man
well over thirty she felt that these were fixed characteristics.
He was in all respects the antipode of David of Eden. It was easier to
be near Connor, but not so exciting. David wore her out, but he also was
marvelously stimulating. The dynamic difference was that Connor
sometimes inspired her with aversion, and David made her afraid. She was
roused out of her brooding by the voice of the gambler saying: "When a
woman begins to think, a man begins to swear."
She managed to smile, but these cheap little pat quotations which she
had found amusing enough at first now began to grate on her through
repetition. Just as Connor tagged and labeled his idea with this
aphorism, so she felt that Connor himself was tagged by them. She found
him considering her with some anxiety.
"You haven't begun to doubt me, Ruth?" he asked her.
And he put out his hand with a note of appeal. It was a new role for him
and she at once disliked it. She shook the hand heartily.
"That's a foolish thing to say," she assured him. "But--why does that
old man keep sneaking around us?"
It was Zacharias, who for some time had been prowling around the patio
trying to find something to do which would justify his presence.
"Do you think David Eden keeps him here as a spy on us?"
This was too much for even Connor's suspicious mind, and he chuckled.
"They all want to hang around and have a look at you--that's the point,"
he answered. "Speak to him and you'll see him come running."
It needed not even speech; she smiled and nodded at Zacharias, and he
came to her at once with a grin of pleasure wrinkling his ancient face.
She invited him to sit down.
"I never see you resting," she said.
"David dislikes an idler," said Zacharias, who acknowledged her
invitation by dropping his withered hands on the back of the chair, but
made no move to sit down.
"But after all these years you have worked for him, I should think he
would give you a little house of your own, and nothing to do except take
care of yourself."
He listened to her happily, but it was evident from his pause that he
had not gathered the meaning of her words.
"You come from the South?" he asked at length.
"My father came from Tennessee."
There was an electric change in the face of the Negro.
"Oh, Lawd, oh, Lawd!" he murmured, his voice changing and thickening a
little toward the soft Southern accent. "That's music to old
Zacharias!"
"Do you come from Tennessee, Zacharias?"
Again there was a pause as the thoughts of Zacharias fled back to the
old days.
"Everything in between is all shadowy like evening, but what I remember
most is the little houses on both sides of the road with the gardens
behind them, and the babies rolling in the dust and shouting and their
mammies coming to the doors to watch them."
"How long ago was that?" she asked, deeply touched.
He grew troubled.
"Many and many a year ago--oh, many a long, weary year, for Zacharias!"
"And you still think of the old days?"
"When the bees come droning in the middle of the day, sometimes I think
of them."
He struck his hands lightly together and his misty-bright eyes were
plainly looking through sixty years as though they were a day.
"But why did you leave?" asked Ruth tenderly.
Zacharias slowly drew his eyes away from the mists of the past and
became aware of the girl's face once more.
"Because my soul was burning in sin. It was burning and burning!"
"But wouldn't you like to go back?"
The head of Zacharias fell and he knitted his fingers.
"Coming to the Garden of Eden was like coming into heaven. There's no
way of getting out again without breaking the law. The Garden is just
like heaven!"
Connor spoke for the first time.
"Or hell!" he exclaimed.
It caused Ruth Manning to cry out at him softly; Zacharias was mute.
"Why did you say that?" said the girl, growing angry.
"Because I hate to see a bad bargain," said the gambler. "And it looks
to me as if our friend here paid pretty high for anything he gets out of
the Garden."
He turned sharply to Zacharias.
"How long have you been working here?"
"Sixty years. Long years!"
"And what have you out of it? What clothes?"
"Enough to wear."
"What food?"
"Enough to eat."
"A house of your own?"
"No."
"Land of your own?"
"No."
"Sixty years and not a penny saved! That's what I call a sharp bargain!
What else have you gained?"
"A good bright hope of heaven."
"But are you sure, Zacharias? Are you sure? Isn't it possible that all
these five masters of yours may have been mistaken?"
Zacharias could only stare in his horror. Finally he turned away and
went silently across the patio.
"Ben," cried the girl softly, "why did you do it? Aside from torturing
the poor man, what if this comes to David's ear?"
Connor snapped his finger. His manner was that of one who knows that he
has taken a foolish risk and wishes to brazen the matter out.
"It'll never come to the ear of David! Why? Because he'd wring the neck
of the old chap if he even guessed that he'd been talking about leaving
the valley. And in the meantime I cut away the ground beneath David's
feet. He has not standing room, pretty soon. Nothing left to him, by
Jove, but his own conceit, and he has tons of that! Well, let him use it
and get fat on it!"
She wondered why Connor had come to actually hate the master of the
Garden. Sure David of Eden had never harmed the gambler. She remembered
something that she had heard long before: that the hatred always lies on
the side of injurer and not of the injured.
They heard David's voice, at this point, approaching, and in another
moment a small cavalcade entered the patio.
_CHAPTER THIRTY_
First, a white flash beneath the shadow of the arched way, came a colt
at full run, stopping short with four sprawling, braced feet at the
sight of the strangers. It was not fear so much as surprise, for now it
pricked its ears and advanced a dainty step or two. Ruth cried out with
delight at the fawn-like beauty of the delicate creature. The Eden Gray
was almost white in the little colt, and with its four dark stockings it
seemed, when it ran, to be stepping on thin air. That impression was
helped by the comparatively great length of the legs.
Next came the mother, walking, as though she was quite confident that no
harm could come to her colt in this home of all good things, but with
her fine head held high and her eyes luminous with concern, a little
anxious because the youngster had been out of sight for a moment.
And behind them strode David with Elijah at his side.
Ruth could never have recognized Elijah as the statuesque figure which
had confronted David on the previous day. He was now bowing and scraping
like some withered old man, striving to make a good impression on a
creditor to whom a great sum was owing. She remembered then what David
had told her earlier in the day about the judging of Timeh, the daughter
of Juri. This, then, was the crisis, and here was Elijah striving to
conciliate the grim judge. The old man kept up a running fire of talk
while David walked slowly around the colt. Ruth wondered why the master
of the Garden did not cry out with pleasure at sight of the beautiful
creature. Connor had drawn her back a little.
"You see that six months' mare?" he said softly, with a tremor in his
voice. "I'd pay ten thousand flat for her the way she stands. Ten
thousand--more if it were asked!"
"But David doesn't seem very pleased."
"Bah! He's bursting with pleasure. But he won't let on because he
doesn't want to flatter old Elijah."
"If he doesn't pass the colt do you know what happens?"
"What?"
"They kill it!"
"I'd a lot rather see them kill a man!" snarled Connor. "But they won't
touch _that_ colt!"
"I don't know. Look at poor Elijah!"
David, stopping in his circular walk, now stood with his arms folded,
gazing intently at Timeh. Elijah was a picture of concern. The whites of
his eyes flashed as his glances rolled swiftly from the colt to the
master. Once or twice he tried to speak, but seemed too nervous to give
voice.
At length: "A true daughter of Juri, O David. And was there ever a more
honest mare than Juri? The same head, mark you, deep from the eye to the
angle of the jaw. And under the head--come hither, Timeh!"
Timeh flaunted her heels at the sun and then came with short, mincing
steps.
"At six months," boasted Elijah, "she knows my voice as well as her
mother. Stay, Juri!"
The inquisitive mare had followed Timeh, but now, reassured, she dropped
her head and began cropping the turf of the patio. Still, from the play
of her ears, it was evident that Timeh was not out of the mother's
thoughts for an instant.
"Look you, David!" said Elijah. He raised the head of Timeh by putting
his hand beneath her chin.
"I can put my whole hand between the angles of her jaw! And see how her
ears flick back and forth, like the twitching ears of a cat! Ha, is not
that a sign?"
He allowed the head to fall again, but he caught it under his arms and
faced David in this manner, throwing out his hand in appeal. Still David
spoke not a word.
With a gesture he made Elijah move to one side. Then he stepped to
Timeh. She was uneasy at his coming, but under the first touch of his
hand Timeh became as still as rock and looked at her mother in a scared
and helpless fashion. It seemed that Juri understood a great crisis was
at hand; for now she advanced resolutely and with her dainty muzzle she
followed with sniffs the hand of David as it moved over the little colt.
He seemed to be seeing with his finger-tips alone, kneading under the
skin in search of vital information. Along the muscles those dexterous
fingers ran, and down about the heavy bones of the joints, where they
lingered long, seeming to read a story in every crevice.
Never once did he speak, but Ruth felt that she could read words in the
brightening, calm, and sudden shadows across his face.
Elijah accompanied the examination with a running-fire of comment.
"There is quality in those hoofs, for you! None of your gray-blue stuff
like the hoofs of Tabari, say, but black as night and dense as rock.
Aye, David, you may well let your hand linger down that neck. She will
step freely, this Timeh of mine, and stride as far as a mountain-lion
can leap! Withers high enough. That gives a place for the ligaments to
take hold. A good long back, but not too long to carry a weight. She
will not be one of your gaunt-bellied horses, either; she will have wind
and a bottom for running. She will gallop on the third day of the
journey as freely as on the first. And she will carry her tail well out,
always, with that big, strong dock."
He paused a moment, for David was moving his hands over the hindlegs and
lingering long at the hocks. And the face of Elijah grew convulsed with
anxiety.
"Is there anything wrong with those legs?" murmured Ruth to Connor.
"Not a thing that I see. Maybe the stifles are too straight. I think
they might angle out a bit more. But that's nothing serious. Besides, it
may be the way Timeh is standing. What's the matter?"
She was clinging to his arm, white-faced.
"If that colt has to die I--I'll want to kill David Eden!"
"Hush, Ruth! And don't let him see your face!"
David moved back from Timeh and again folded his arms.
"The body of the horse is one thing," ran on Elijah uneasily, "and the
spirit is another. Have you not told us, David, that a curious colt
makes a wise horse? That is Timeh! Where will you guess that I found her
when I went to bring her to you even now? She had climbed up the face of
the cliff, far up a crevice where a man would not dare to go. I dared
not even cry out to her for fear she would fall if she turned her head.
To have climbed so high was almost impossible, but how would she come
down when there was no room for her to turn?
"I was dizzy and sick with grief. But Timeh saw me, and down she came,
without turning. She lifted her hoofs and put them down as a cat lifts
and puts down wet paws. And in a moment she was safe on the meadow and
frisking around me. Juri had been so worried that she made Timeh stop
running and nosed her all over to make sure that she was unhurt by that
climb. But tell me: will not a colt that risks its life to climb for a
tuft of grass, run till its heart breaks for the master in later years?"
For the first time David spoke.
"Is she so wise a colt?" he said.
"Wise?" cried Elijah, his eye shining with joy at the opening which he
had made. "I talk to her as I talk to a man. She is as full of tricks as
a dog. Look, now!"
He leaned over and pretended to pick at the grass, whereat Timeh stole
up behind him and drew out a handkerchief from his hip pocket. Off she
raced and came back in a flashing circle to face Elijah with the cloth
fluttering in her teeth.
"So!" cried Elijah, taking the handkerchief again and looking eagerly at
the master of the Garden. "Was there ever a colt like my Timeh?"
"The back legs," said David slowly.
Elijah had been preparing himself to speak again, with a smile. He was
arrested in the midst of a gesture and his face altered like a man at
the banquet at the news of a death.
"The hind legs, David," he echoed hollowly. "But what of them? They are
a small part of the whole! And they are not wrong. They are not very
wrong, oh my master!"
"The hocks are sprung in and turned a little."
"A very little. Only the eye of David could see it and know that it is
wrong!"
"A small flaw makes the stone break. At a rotten knot-hole the great
tree snaps in the storm. And a small sin may undermine a good man. The
hind legs are wrong, Elijah."
"To be sure. In a colt. Many things seem wrong in a colt, but in the
grown horse they disappear!"
"This fault will not disappear. It is the set of the joint and that can
never be changed. It can only grow worse."
Elijah, staring straight ahead, was searching his brain, but that brain
was numbed by the calamity which had befallen him. He could only stroke
the lovely head of the little colt and pray for help.
"Yesterday," he said at length in a trembling voice, "Elijah, as a fool,
spoke words which angered his master. Back on my head I call them now.
David, do not judge Timeh with a wrathful heart.
"Let the sins of Elijah fall on the head of Elijah, but let Timeh go
unpunished for my faults."
"You grow old, Elijah, and you forget. The judgment of David is never
colored by his own likes and dislikes, his own wishes and prejudice. He
sees the right, and therefore his judgments are true."
"Aye, David, but truth is not merciful, and blessed above all things is
mercy. When you see Timeh, think of Elijah. How he has watched over the
colt, and loved it, and played with it, and taught it, by the hours, the
proper manners for a colt and a mare of the Garden of Eden."
"That is true. It is a well-mannered colt."
Elijah caught at a new straw of hope.
"Also, in the field, if two colts race home for water and Timeh is one,
she reaches the water first--always. She comes to me like a child. In
the morning she slips out of the paddock, and coming to my window, she
puts in her head and calls me with a whinny as soft as the voice of a
man. Then I arise and go out to her and to Juri."
Ruth was weeping openly, her hand closed hard on the arm of Connor; and
she felt the muscles along that arm contract. She almost loved the
gambler for his rage at the inexorable David.
"Consider Juri, also," said Elijah. "Seven times--I numbered them on my
fingers and remembered--seven times when the horses were brought before
you in the morning, you have called to Juri and mounted her for the
morning ride--that was before Glani was raised to his full strength. And
always the master has said:
"'Stout-hearted Juri! She pours out her strength for her rider as a
generous host pours out his wine!'"
David frowned, but plainly he was touched.
"Juri!" he called, and when the noble mare came to him, he laid his hand
on her mane.
"Who has spoken of Juri? Surely I am not judging her this day. It was
Matthew who judged her when she was a foal of six months."
"And it was Matthew," added Elijah hastily, "who loved her above all
horses!"
"Ah!" muttered David, deeply moved.
"Consider the heart of Juri," went on Elijah, timidly following this new
thread of argument. "When the mares neigh and the colts come running,
there will be none to gallop to her side. When she goes out in the
morning there will be no daughter to gallop around and around her,
tossing her head and her heels. And when she comes home at night there
will be no tired foal leaning against her side for weariness."
"Peace, Elijah! You speak against the law."
In spite of himself, the glance of Elijah turned slowly and sullenly
until it rested upon Ruth Manning. David followed the direction of that
look and he understood. There stood the living evidence that he had
broken the law of the Garden at least once. He flushed darkly.
"The colt's gone," said Connor in a savagely-controlled murmur to the
girl. "That devil has made up his mind. His pride is up now!"
Elijah, too, seemed to realize that he had thrown away his last chance.
He could only stretch out his hands with the tears streaming down his
wrinkled face and repeat in his broken voice: "Mercy, David, mercy for
Timeh and Juri and Elijah!"
But the face of David was iron.
"Look at Juri," he commanded. "She is flawless, strong, sound of hoof
and heart and limb. And that is because her sire and her mother before
her were well seen to. No narrow forehead has ever been allowed to come
into the breed of the Eden Grays. I have heard Paul condemn a colt
because the very ears were too long and flabby and the carriage of the
horse dull. The weak and the faulty have been gelded and sent from the
Garden or else killed. And therefore Juri to-day is stout and noble, and
Glani has a spirit of fire. It is not easy to do. But if I find a sin in
my own nature, do I not tear it out at a price of pain? And shall I
spare a colt when I do not spare myself? A law is a law and a fault is a
fault. Timeh must die!"
The extended arms of Elijah fell. Connor felt Ruth surge forward from
beside him, but he checked her strongly.
"No use!" he said. "You could change a very devil more easily than you
can change David now! He's too proud to change his mind."
"Oh," sobbed the girl softly, "I hate him! I hate him!"
"Let Timeh live until the morning," said David in the same calm voice.
"Let Juri be spared this night of grief and uneasiness. If it is done in
the morning she will be less anxious until the dark comes, and by that
time the edge of her sorrow shall be dulled."
"Whose hand," asked Elijah faintly--"whose hand must strike the blow?"
"Yesterday," said David, "you spoke to me a great deal of the laws of
the Garden and their breaking. Do you not know that law which says that
he from whose household the faulty mare foal has come must destroy it?
You know that law. Then let it not be said that Elijah, who so loves the
law, has shirked his lawful burden!"
At this final blow poor Elijah lifted his face.
"Lord God!" he said, "give me strength. It is more than I can bear!"
"Go!" commanded the master of the Garden.
Elijah turned slowly away. As if to show the way, Timeh galloped before
him.
_CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE_
David watched them go, and while his back was turned a fierce, soft
dialogue passed between Ruth Manning and Ben Connor.
"Are you a man?" she asked him, through her set teeth. "Are you going to
let that beautiful little thing die?"
"I'd rather see the cold-hearted fool die in place of Timeh. But what
can we do? Nothing. Just smile in his face."
"I hate him!" she exclaimed.
"If you hate him, then use him. Will you?"
"If I can make him follow me, tease him to come, make him think I love
him, I'll do it. I'd do anything to torture him."
"I told you he was a savage."
"You were right, Ben. A fiend--not a man! Oh, thank Heavens that I see
through him."
Anger gave her color and banished her tears. And when David turned he
found what seemed a picture of pleasure. It was infinitely grateful to
him. If he had searched and studied for the words he could not have
found anything to embitter her more than his first speech.
"And what do you think of the justice of David?" he asked, coming to
them.
She could not speak; luckily Connor stepped in and filled the gap of
awkward silence.
"A very fine thing to have done, Brother David," he said. "Do you know
what I thought of when I heard you talk?"
"Of what?" said David, composing his face to receive the compliment. At
that Ruth turned suddenly away, for she dared not trust her eyes, and
the hatred which burned in them.
"I thought of the old story of Abraham and Isaac. You were offering up
something as dear to you as a child, almost, to the law of the Garden of
Eden."
"It is true," said David complacently. "But when the flesh is diseased
it must be burned away."