he was known as Grettir Asmundson and not Grettir the Outlaw; and as he
sang, his mind went back through the years of all that wild, troubled
life of his, and he remembered many things. Back again in the old home
at Biarg, free and happy once more he saw himself as he should have
been, head of his mother's household, his foot upon his own hearthstone,
his head under his own rooftree. And there should be no more foes to
fight, and no more hiding and night-riding; no noontime danger to be
faced down; no enemies that struck in the dark to be baffled. And he
would be free again; he would be among his fellows; he would touch the
hand of friends, would know the companionship of brave and honest men
and the love of good and honest women. Would it all be his again some
day? Would the old, old times come back again? Would there ever be a
home-coming for him? Fighter though he was, a hero and a warrior, and
though battles and man-slayings more than he could count had been his
portion, even though the shock of swords was music to him, there were
other things that made life glad. The hand the sword-hilt had calloused
could yet remember the touch of a maiden's fingers, and at times, such
as this, strange thoughts grew with a strange murmuring in his brain.
He was a young man yet; could he but make head against his enemies and
his untoward fortune till the sentence of outlawry was overpassed, he
might yet begin his life all new again. A wife should be his, and a son
should be born to him--a little son to watch at play, to love, to
cherish, to boast of, to be proud of, to laugh over, to weep over, to be
held against that mighty breast of his, to be enfolded ever so gently in
those mighty sword-scarred arms of his. Strange thoughts; strange,
indeed, for a wounded outlaw, on that storm-swept, barren rock in the
dark, dark hours before the dawn.
"I think," said Grettir after a while, "that now I may sleep a little."
Illugi made him comfortable upon the sheep-pelts, and put his rolled-up
cloak under his head; then, when Grettir had closed his eyes, put a new
log upon the fire and sat down nigh at hand.
Long time the lad sat thus watching his brother's face as sleep smoothed
from it the lines of pain; as the lips under the long, blond mustaches
relaxed a little, and the frown went from the forehead.
It was a kindly face, after all; none of the harshness in it, none of
the fierceness in it that so bitter a life as his should have stamped it
with--a kindly face, serious, grave even, the face of a big-hearted,
generous fellow who bore no malice, who feared no evil, who uttered no
complaint, and who looked fate fearless between the eyes.
Something shocked heavily at the door of the hut, and the Outlaw stirred
uneasily, and his blue eyes opened a little.
"It is only the old ram, brother," said Illugi. "He butts hard to get
in."
"Hard and over hard," muttered Grettir, and as he spoke the door split
in twain, and the firelight flashed upon the face of Thorbjorn Hook.
Instantly Illugi was on his feet, his spear in hand. It had come at
last, the end of everything. Fate at last was knocking at the door.
Grettir was to fight the Last Fight there in that narrow hut, there on
that night of storm, in the rain and under the scudding clouds.
Behind him, as he stood facing the riven door and the men that were
crowding into the doorway, he heard Grettir struggling to his feet. The
fire flared and smoked in the wind, and the rain, as it swept in from
without, hissed as it fell among the hot embers. From far down on the
beaches came the booming of the surf.
The onset hung poised. After that first splintering of the door The
Hook and his men made no move. No man spoke. Illugi, his spear held
ready, was a statue in the midst of the hut; Grettir, upon one knee,
with his great sword in his fist, one hand holding by Illugi's belt, did
not move. His eyes, steady, earnest, were upon those of The Hook, and
the two men held each other's glances for a moment that seemed
immeasurably long. Then at last:
"Who showed thee the way hither?" said Grettir quietly.
"God showed us the way," The Hook made answer.
"Nay, nay, it was the hag, thy foster-mother."
But the sound of voices broke the spell. In an instant the great
fight--the fight that would be told of in Iceland for hundreds of years
to come--burst suddenly forth like the bursting of a dyke. Illugi had
leaped forward, and through the smoke of the weltering fire his
spear-blade flashed, curving like the curving leap of a salmon in the
rapids of the Jokulsa. There was a cry, a rush of many feet, a parting
of the group in the doorway, and Hialti Thinbeard's hands shut their
death-grip upon the shaft of Illugi's spear as the blade of it tore out
between his shoulders.
But now men were upon the roof--Karr, son of Karr, thrall of
Tongue-stone, Vikaar and Haldarr of the household of Eirik of Good-dale,
Hafr of Meadness in the Fleets and Thorwald of Hegra-ness--tearing away
the thatch and thrusting madly downward with sword and spear. Illugi
dropped the haft of the weapon that had slain Hialfi, and catching up
another one, made as if to drive it through the hatch. But even as he
did so the whole roof cracked and sagged; then it gave way at one
corner, and Karr, son of Karr, fell headlong from above. Grettir caught
him on his sword-point as he fell, and at the same moment The Hook drave
a small boar-spear clean through Illugi's head.
And from that moment all semblance of consecutive action was lost.
Yelling, shouting, groaning, cursing, the men rushed together in one
blurred and furious grapple. The wrecked hut collapsed, crashing upon
their heads; the fire, kicked and trampled as the fight raged back and
forth, caught the thatch and sheep-pelts, and flamed up fiercely in and
around the combat. They fought literally in fire--in fire and thick
smoke and driving rain. The arms that thrust with spear or hewed with
sword rose and fell all ablaze. Those who fell, fell among hot coals
and fought their fellows--their own friends--to make way that they might
escape the torment.
Twice Grettir, dying though he was, flung the fight from him and rose to
his full height, a dreadful figure, alone for an instant, bloody,
dripping, charred with ashes, half naked, his clothes all burning; and
twice again they flung themselves upon him, and bore him down, so that
he disappeared beneath their mass. And ever and again from out the
swirl of the onset, from that unspeakable jam of men, mad with the
battle-madness that was upon them, crawled out some horrid figure,
staggering, gashed, and maimed, or even dying, done to death by the
great Outlaw in the last fight of his life. Thorfin, Gamli's man, had
both arms broken at the very shoulders; Krolf of Drontheim reeled back
from the battle with a sword-thrust through his hip that made him go on
crutches the rest of his life; Kolbein, churl of Svein, died two days
later of a spear-thrust through the bowels; Ognund, Hakon's son, never
was able to use his right arm after that night.
Hardly a man of all the twenty that did not for all the rest of his life
bear upon his body the marks of Grettir's death-fight. Still Grettir
bore up. He had with one arm caught Thorir, The Hook's stoutest
house-carle, around the throat, while his other arm, that wielded his
sword, hewed and hewed and smote and thrust as though it would never
tire. Even above the din of the others rose the clamour of Thorir's
agony. Once again Grettir cleared a space around him, and stood with
dripping sword, his left arm still crushing Thorir in that awful
embrace. Thorir was weaponless, his face purple. No thought of battle
was left in him, and frantic, he stretched out a hand to his fellows,
his voice a wail:
"Help me, Thorbjorn. He is killing me. For Christ's sake----"
And Grettir's blade nailed the words within his throat. The wretch slid
to the ground doubled in a heap, the blood gushing from his mouth.
Then those that yet remained alive, drawn off a little, panting, spent,
saw a terrible sight--the death of Grettir.
For a moment in that flicker of fire he seemed to grow larger. Alone,
unassailable, erect among those heaps of dead and dying enemies, his
stature seemed as it were suddenly to increase. He towered above them,
his head in swirls of smoke, the great bare shoulders gleaming with his
blood, the long braids of yellow hair soaked with it. Awful, gigantic,
suddenly a demi-god, he stood colossal, a man made more than human. The
eyes of him fixed, wide open, looked out into the darkness above their
heads, unwinking, unafraid--looked into the darkness and into the eyes
of Death, unafraid, unshaken.
There he stood already dead, yet still upon his feet, rigid as iron, his
back unbent, his neck proud; while they cowered before him holding their
breaths waiting, watching. Then, like a mighty pine tree, stiff,
unbending, he swayed slowly forward. Stiff as a sword-blade the great
body leaned over farther and farther; slowly at first, then with
increased momentum inclined swiftly earthward. He fell, and they could
believe that the crash of that fall shook the earth beneath their feet.
He died as he would have wished to die, in battle, his harness on, his
sword in his grip. He lay face downward amid the dead ashes of the
trampled fire and moved no more.
_*The Guest of Honour*_
*PART ONE*
The doctor shut and locked his desk drawer upon his memorandum book with
his right hand, and extended the left to his friend Manning Verrill,
with the remark:
"Well, Manning, how are you?"
"If I were well, Henry," answered Verrill gravely, "I would not be
here."
The doctor leaned back in his deep leather chair, and having carefully
adjusted his glasses, tilted back his head, and looked at Verrill from
beneath them. He waited for him to continue.
"It's my nerves--I _suppose_," began Verrill. "Henry," he declared
suddenly leaning forward, "Henry, I'm scared; that's what's the matter
with me--I'm scared."
"Scared," echoed the doctor, "What nonsense! What of?"
"Scared of death, Henry," broke out Verrill, "scared _blue_!"
"It is your nerves," murmured the doctor. "You need travel and a
bromide, my boy. There's nothing the matter with you. Why, you're good
for another forty years,--yes, or even for another fifty years. You're
sound as a nut. You, to talk about death!"
"I've seen thirty--twenty-nine I should say, twenty-nine of my best
friends go."
The doctor looked puzzled a moment; then--"Oh! you mean that club of
yours," said he.
"Yes," said Verrill, "Great heavens! to think that I should be the last
man after all--well, one of us had to be the last. And that's where the
trouble is, Henry. It's been growing on me for the last two years--ever
since Curtice died. He was the twenty-sixth. And he died only a month
before the Annual Dinner. Arnold, Brill, Steve--Steve Sharrett, you
know, and I--just the four,--were left then; and we sat down to that big
table alone; and when we came to the toast of 'The Absent Ones' ...
Well, Henry, we were pretty solemn before we got through. And we knew
that the choice of the last man,--who would face those thirty-one empty
covers and open the bottle of wine that we all set aside at our first
dinner, and drink 'The Absent Ones,'--was narrowing down pretty fine.
"Next year there were only Arnold and Steve, and myself left.
Brill--well you know all about his death. The three of us got through
dinner somehow. The year after that we were still three, and even the
year after that. Then poor old Steve went down with the _Dreibund_ in
the bay of Biscay, and four months afterward Arnold and I sat down to
the table at the Annual, alone. I'm not going to forget that evening in
a hurry. Why, Henry--oh! never mind. Then--"
"Well," prompted the doctor as his friend paused:
"Arnold died three months ago. And the day of our Annual--I mean
my--the club's," Verrill changed his position. "The date of the dinner,
the Annual Dinner, is next month, and I'm the only one left."
"And, of course, you'll not go," declared the doctor.
"Oh, yes," said Verrill. "Yes, I will go, of course. But--" He shook
his head with a long sigh. "When the Last Man Club was organised," he
went on, "in '68, we were all more or less young. It was a great idea,
at least I felt that way about it, but I didn't believe that thirty
young men would persist in anything--of that sort very long. But no
member of the club died for the first five years, and the club met every
year and had its dinner without much thought of--of consequences, and of
the inevitable. We met just to be sociable."
"Hold on," interrupted the doctor, "you are speaking now of thirty. A
while ago you said thirty-one."
"Yes, I know," assented Verrill, "There were thirty in the club, but we
always placed an extra cover--for--for the Guest of Honour."
The doctor made a movement of impatience. Then in a moment, "Well," he
said, resignedly, "go on."
"That's about the essentials," answered Verrill. "The first death was in
'73. And from that year on the vacant places at the table have steadily
increased. Little by little the original bravado of the thing dropped
out of it all for me; and of late years--well I have told you how it is.
I've seen so many of them die, and die so fast, so regularly--one a year
you might say,--that I've kept saying 'who next, who next, who's to go
this year?' ... And as they went, one by one, and still I was left ... I
tell you, Henry, the suspense was, ... the suspense is ... You see I'm
the last now, and ever since Curtice died, I've felt this thing weighing
on me. _By God, Henry, I'm afraid; I'm afraid of Death! It's
horrible!_ It's as though I were on the list of 'condemned' and were
listening to hear my name called every minute."
"Well, so are all of us, if you come to that," observed the doctor.
"Oh, I know, I know," cried Verrill, "it is morbid and all that. But
that don't help me any. Can you imagine me one month from to-morrow
night. Think now. I'm alone, absolutely, and there is the long empty
table, with the thirty places set, and the extra place, and those places
are where all my old friends used to sit. And at twelve I get up and
give first 'The Absent Ones,' and then 'The Guest of the Evening.' I
gave those toasts last year, but there were two of us, then, and the
year before there were three. But ever since Curtice died and we were
narrowed down to four, this thing has been weighing on me--this idea of
death, and I've conceived a horror of it--a--a dread. And now I am the
last. I had no idea this would ever happen to me; or if it did, that it
would be like this. I'm shaken, Henry, shaken. I've not slept for three
nights. So I've come to you. You must help me."
"So I will, by advising you. You give up the idiocy. Cut out the
dinner this year; yes, and for always."
"You don't understand," replied Verrill, calmly. "It is impossible. I
could not keep away. I _must_ be there."
"But it's simple lunacy," expostulated the doctor. "Man, you've worked
upon your nerves over this fool club and dinner, till I won't be
responsible for you if you carry out this notion. Come, promise me you
will take the train for, say Florida, tomorrow, and _I'll_ give you
stuff that will make you sleep. St. Augustine is heaven at this time of
year, and I hear the tarpon have come in. Shall--"
Verrill shook his head.
"You don't understand," he repeated. "You simply don't understand. No,
I shall go to the dinner. But of course I'm--I'm nervous--a little. Did
I say I was scared? I didn't mean that. Oh, I'm all right; I just want
you to prescribe for me, something for the nerves. Henry, death is a
terrible thing,--to see 'em all struck down, twenty-nine of
'em--splendid boys. Henry, I'm not a coward. There's a difference
between cowardice and fear. For hours last night I was trying to work
it out. Cowardice--that's just turning tail and running; but I shall go
through that Annual Dinner, and that's ordeal enough, believe me. But
fear,--it's just death in the abstract that unmans me. _That's_ the
thing to fear. To think that we all go along living and working and
fussing from day to day, when we _know_ that this great Monster, this
Horror, is walking up and down the streets, and that sooner or later
he'll catch us,--that we can't escape. Isn't it the greatest curse in
the world! We're so used to it we don't realise the Thing. But suppose
one could eliminate the Monster altogether. _Then_ we'd realise how
sweet life was, and we'd look back at the old days with horror--just as
I do now."
"Oh, but this is rubbish," cried the doctor, "simple drivel. Manning,
I'm ashamed of you. I'll prescribe for you, I suppose I've got to. But
a good rough fishing-and-hunting-trip would do more for you than a
gallon of drugs. If you won't go to Florida, get out of town, if it's
only over Sunday. Here's your prescription, and _do_ take a
Friday-to-Monday trip. Tramp in the woods, get tired, and _don't go to
that dinner_!"
"You don't understand," repeated Verrill, as the two stood up. He put
the prescription into his pocket-book. "You don't understand. I
couldn't keep away. It's a duty, and besides--well I couldn't make you
see. Good-by. This stuff will make me sleep, eh? And do my nerves
good, too, you say? I see. I'll come back to you if it don't work.
Good-by again. _This_ door, is it? Not through the waiting-room, eh?
Yes, I remember.... Henry, did you ever--did you ever face death
yourself--I mean--"
"Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense," cried the doctor. But Verrill persisted.
His back to the closed door, he continued:
"_I_ did. _I_ faced death once,--so you see I should know. It was when
I was a lad of twenty. My father had a line of New Orleans packets and
I often used to make the trip as super-cargo. One October day we were
caught in the equinox off Hatteras, and before we knew it we were
wondering if she would last another half-hour. Along in the afternoon
there came a sea aboard, and caught me unawares. I lost my hold and
felt myself going, going.... I was sure for ten seconds that it was the
end,--_and I saw death then, face to face_!
"And I've never forgotten it. I've only to shut my eyes to see it all,
hear it all--the naked spars rocking against the grey-blue of the sky,
the wrench and creak of the ship, the threshing of rope ends, the
wilderness of pale-green water, the sound of rain and scud.... No, no,
I'll not forget it. And death was a horrid specter in that glimpse I got
of him. I--I don't care to see him again. Well, good-by once more."
"Good-by, Manning, and believe me, this is all hypochondria. Go and
catch fish. Go shoot something, and in twenty-four hours you'll believe
there's no such thing as death."
The door closed. Verrill was gone.
*PART TWO*
The banquet hall was in the top story of one of the loftiest
sky-scrapers of the city. Along the eastern wall was a row of windows
reaching from ceiling to floor, and as the extreme height of the
building made it unnecessary to draw the curtains whoever was at the
table could look out and over the entire city in that direction. Thus
it was that Manning Verrill, on a certain night some four weeks after
his interview with the doctor, sat there at his walnuts and black coffee
and, absorbed, abstracted, looked out over the panorama beneath him,
where the Life of a great nation centered and throbbed.
To the unenlightened the hall would have presented a strange spectacle.
Down its center extended the long table. The chairs were drawn up, the
covers laid. But the chairs were empty, the covers untouched; and but
for the presence of the one man the hall was empty, deserted.
At the head of the table Verrill, in evening dress, a gardenia in his
lapel, his napkin across his lap, an unlighted cigar in his fingers, sat
motionless, looking out over the city with unseeing eyes. Of thirty
places around the table, none was distinctive, none varied. But at
Verrill's right hand the thirty-first place, the place of honour,
differed from all the rest. The chair was large, massive. The oak of
which it was made was black, while instead of the usual array of silver
and porcelain, one saw but two vessels,--an unopened bottle of wine and
a large silver cup heavily chased.
From far below in the city's streets eleven o'clock struck. The sounds
broke in upon Verrill's reverie and he stirred, glanced about the room
and then, rising, went to the window and stood there for some time
looking out.
At his feet, far beneath lay the city, twinkling with lights. In the
business quarter all was dark, but from the district of theatres and
restaurants there arose a glare into the night, ruddy, vibrating, with
here and there a ganglion of electric bulbs upon a "fire sign"
emphasising itself in a whiter radiance. Cable-cars and cabs threaded
the streets with little starring eyes of coloured lights, while
underneath all this blur of illumination, the people, debouching from
the theatres, filled the sidewalks with tiny ant-like swarms, minute,
bustling.
Farther on in the residence district, occasional lighted windows watched
with the street-lamps gazing blankly into the darkness. In particular
one house was all ablaze. Every window glowed. No doubt a great
festivity was in progress and Verrill could almost fancy that he heard
the strains of the music, the rustle of the silks.
Then nearer at hand, but more to the eastward, where the office
buildings rose in tower-like clusters and somber groups, Verrill could
see a vista of open water--the harbour. Lights were moving here, green
and red, as the great hoarse-voiced freighters stood out with the tide.
And beyond this was the sea itself, and more lights, very, very faint
where the ships rolled leisurely in the ground swells; ships bound to
and from all ports of the earth,--ships that united the nations, that
brought the whole world of living men under the view of the lonely
watcher in the empty Banquet Hall.
Verrill raised the window. At once a subdued murmur, prolonged,
monotonous,--the same murmur as that which disengages itself from
forests, from the sea, and from sleeping armies,--rose to meet him. It
was the mingling of all the night noises into one great note that came
simultaneously from all quarters of the horizon, infinitely vast,
infinitely deep,--a steady diapason strain like the undermost bourdon of
a great organ as the wind begins to thrill the pipes.
It was the stir of life, the breathing of the Colossus, the push of the
nethermost basic force, old as the world, wide as the world, the murmur
of the primeval energy, coeval with the centuries, blood-brother to that
spirit which in the brooding darkness before creation, moved upon the
face of the waters.
And besides this, as Verrill stood there looking out, the night wind
brought to him, along with the taint of the sea, the odour of the
heaped-up fruit in the city's markets and even the suggestion of the
vegetable gardens in the suburbs.
Across his face, like the passing of a long breath, he felt the abrupt
sensation of life, indestructible, persistent.
But absorbed in other things, Verrill, unmoved, and only dimly
comprehending, closed the window and turned back into the room. At his
place stood an unopened bottle and a glass as yet dry. He removed the
foil from the neck of the bottle, but after looking at his watch, set it
down again without drawing the cork. It lacked some fifteen minutes to
midnight.
Once again, as he had already done so many times that evening, Verrill
wiped the moisture from his forehead. He shut his teeth against the
slow thick labouring of his heart. He was alone. The sense of
isolation, of abandonment, weighed down upon him intolerably as he
looked up and down the the empty table. Alone, alone; all the rest were
gone, and he stood there, in the solitude of that midnight; he, last of
all that company whom he had known and loved. Over and over again he
muttered:
"All, all are gone, the old familiar faces." Then slowly Verrill began
to make the circuit of the table, reading, as if from a roll call, the
names written on the cards which lay upon the place-plates. "Anderson,
... Evans, ... Copeland,--dear old 'crooked-face' Copeland, his camp
companion in those Maine fishing-trips of the old days, dead now these
ten years.... Stryker,--'Buff' Stryker they had called him, dead,--he
had forgotten how long,--drowned in his yacht off the Massachusetts
coast; Harris, died of typhoid somewhere in Italy; Dick Herndon, killed
in a mine accident in Mexico; Rice, old 'Whitey Rice' a suicide in a
California cattle town; Curtice, carried off by fever in Durban, South
Africa." Thus around the whole table he moved, telling the bead-roll of
death, following in the footsteps of the Monster who never relented, who
never tired, who never, never,--never forgot.
His own turn would come some day. Verrill, sunken into his chair, put
his hands over his eyes. Yes his own turn would come. There was no
escape. That dreadful face would rise again before his eyes. He would
bow his back to the scourge of nations, he would roll helpless beneath
the wheels of the great car. How to face that prospect with fortitude!
How to look into those terrible grey eyes with calm! Oh, the terror of
that gorgon face, oh, the horror of those sightless, lightless grey
eyes!
But suddenly midnight struck. He heard the strokes come booming upward
from the city streets. His vigil was all but over.
Verrill opened the bottle of wine, breaking the seal that had been
affixed to the cork on the night of the first meeting of the club.
Filling his glass, he rose in his place. His eyes swept the table, and
while for the last time the memories came thronging back, his lips
formed the words:
"To the Absent Ones: to you, Curtice, Anderson, Brill, to you, Copeland,
to you, Stryker, to you, Arnold, to you all, my old comrades, all you
old familiar faces who are absent to-night."
He emptied the glass, but immediately filled it again. The last toast
was to be drunk, the last of all. Verrill, the glass raised,
straightened himself.