Paul Courtland never knew how he had been saved from that perilous
position high up on a ledge in the top of the theater, with the burning,
fiery furnace below him. Whether his senses came back sufficiently to
guide him along the narrow footing that was left, to the door of the
fire-escape, where some one rescued him, or whether a friendly hand
risked all and reached out to draw him to safety.
He only knew that back there in that blank daze of suspended time,
before he grew to recognize the whiteness of the hospital walls and the
rattle of the nurse's starched skirt along the corridor, there was a
long period when he was shut in with four high walls of smoke. Smoke
that reached to heaven, roofing him away from it, and had its
foundations down in the burning fiery pit of hell where he could hear
lost souls struggling with smothered cries for help. Smoke that filled
his throat, eyes, brain, soul. Terrible, enfolding, imprisoning smoke;
thick, yellow, gray, menacing! Smoke that shut his soul away from all
the universe, as if he had been suddenly blotted out, and made him feel
how stark alone he had been born, and always would be evermore.
He seemed to have lain within those slowly approaching walls of smoke a
century or two ere he became aware that he was not alone, after all.
There was a Presence there beside him. Light, and a Presence! Blinding
light. He reasoned that other men, the men outside of the walls of
smoke, the firemen perhaps, and by-standers, might think that light came
from the fire down in the pit, but he knew it did not. It radiated from
the Presence beside him. And there was a Voice, calling his name. He
seemed to have heard the call years back in his life somewhere. There
was something about it, too, that made his heart leap in answer, and
brought that strange thrill he used to have as a boy in prep. school,
when his captain called him into the game, though he was only a
substitute.
He could not look up, yet he could see the face of the Presence now.
What was there so strangely familiar, as if he had been looking upon
that face but a few moments before? He knew. It was that brave spirit
come back from the pit. Come, perhaps, to lead him out of this daze of
smoke and darkness. He spoke, and his own voice sounded glad and
ringing:
"I know you now. You are Stephen Marshall. You were in college. You were
down there in the theater just now, saving men."
"Yes, I was in college," the Voice spoke, "and I was down there just
now, saving men. But I am not Stephen Marshall. Look again."
And suddenly he understood.
"Then you are Stephen Marshall's Christ! The Christ he spoke of in the
class that day!"
"Yes, I am Stephen Marshall's Christ. He let me live in Him. I am the
Christ you sneered at and disbelieved!"
He looked and his heart was stricken with shame.
"I did not understand. It was against reason. But had not seen you
then."
"And now?"
"Now? What do you want of me?"
"You shall be shown."
The smoke ebbed low and swung away his consciousness, and even the place
grew dim about him, but the Presence was there. Always through suspended
space as he was borne along, and after, when the smoke gave way, and
air, blessed air, was wafted in, there was the Presence. If it had not
been for that he could not have borne the awfulness of nothing that
surrounded him. Always there was the Presence!
There was a bandage over his eyes for days; people speaking in whispers;
and when the bandage was taken away there were the white hospital walls,
so like the walls of smoke at first in the dim light, high above him.
When he had grown to understand it was but hospital walls, he looked
around for the Presence in alarm, crying out, "Where is He?"
Bill Ward and Tennelly and Pat were there, huddled in a group by the
door, hoping he might recognize them.
"He's calling for Steve!" whispered Pat, and turned with a gulp while
the tears rolled down his cheeks. "He must have seen him go!"
The nurse laid him down on the pillow again, replacing the bandage. When
he closed his eyes the Presence came back, blessed, sweet--and he was at
peace.
The days passed; strength crept back into his body, consciousness to his
brain. The bandage was taken off once more, and he saw the nurse and
other faces. He did not look again for the Presence. He had come to
understand he could not see it with his eyes; but always it was there,
waiting, something sweet and wonderful. Waiting to show him what to do
when he was well.
The memorial services had been held for Stephen Marshall many days, the
university had been draped in black, with its flag at half-mast, the
proper time, and its mourning folded away, ere Paul Courtland was able
to return to his room and his classes.
They welcomed him back with touching eagerness. They tried to hush their
voices and temper their noisiness to suit an invalid. They told him all
their news, what games had been won, who had made Phi Beta Kappa, and
what had happened at the frat. meetings. But they spoke not at all of
Stephen!
Down the hall Stephen's door stood always open, and Courtland, walking
that way one day, found fresh flowers upon his desk and wreathed around
his mother's picture. A quaint little photograph of Stephen taken
several years back hung on one wall. It had been sent at the class's
request by Stephen's mother to honor her son's chosen college.
The room was set in order, Stephen's books were on the shelves, his few
college treasures tacked up about the walls; and conspicuous between the
windows hung framed the resolutions concerning Stephen the hero-martyr
of the class, telling briefly how he had died, and giving him this
tribute, "He was a man!"
Below the resolutions, on the little table covered with an old-fashioned
crocheted cotton table-cover, lay Stephen's Bible, worn, marked, soft
with use. His mother had wished it to remain. Only his clothes had been
sent back to her who had sent him forth to prepare for his life-work,
and received word in her distant home that his life-work had been
already swiftly accomplished.
Courtland entered the room and looked around.
There were no traces of the fray that had marred the place when last he
saw it. Everything was clean and fine and orderly. The simple saint-like
face of the plain farmer's-wife-mother looked down upon it all with
peace and resignation. This life was not all. There was another. Her
eyes said that. Paul Courtland stood a long time gazing into them.
Then he closed the door and knelt by the little table, laying his
forehead reverently upon the Bible.
Since he had returned to college and things of life had become more
real, Reason had returned to her throne and was crying out against his
"fancies." What was that experience in the hospital but the phantasy of
a sick brain? What was the Presence but a fevered imagination? He had
been growing ashamed of dwelling upon the thought, ashamed of liking to
feel that the Presence was near when he was falling asleep at night.
Most of all he had felt a shame and a land of perplexity in the
biblical-literature class where he faced "FACTS" as the professor called
them, spoken in capitals. SCIENCE was another force which
mocked his fancies. PHILOSOPHY cooled his mind and wakened him
from his dreams. In this atmosphere he was beginning to think that he
had been delirious, and was gradually returning to his normal state,
albeit with a restless dissatisfaction he had never known before.
But now in this calm, rose-decked room, with the quiet eyes of the
simple mother looking down upon him, the resolutions in their
chaplet-of-palm framing, the age-old Bible thumbed and beloved, he knew
he had been wrong. He knew he would never be the same. That Presence,
Whoever, Whatever it was, had entered into his life. He could never
forget it; never be convinced that it was not; never be entirely
satisfied without it! He believed it was the Christ! Stephen Marshall's
Christ!
By and by he lifted up his head and opened the little worn Bible,
reverently, curiously, just to touch it and think how the other boy had
done. The soft, much-turned leaves fell open of themselves to a heavily
marked verse. There were many marked verses all through the book.
Courtland's eyes followed the words:
He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in
himself.
Could it be that this strange new sense of the Presence was "the
witness" here mentioned? He knew it like his sense of rhythm, or the
look of his mother's face, or the joy of a summer morning. It was not
anything he could analyze. One might argue that there was no such thing,
science might prove there was not, but he _knew_ it, had _seen_ it,
_felt_ it! He had the witness in himself. Was that what it meant?
With troubled brow he turned over the leaves again:
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God.
Ah! There was an offer, why not close with it?
He dropped his head on the open book with the old words of
self-surrender:
"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
A moment later Pat McCluny opened the door, cautiously, quietly; then,
with a nod to Tennelly back of him, he entered with confidence.
Courtland rose. His face was white, but there was a light of something
in his eyes they did not understand.
They went over to him as if he had been a child who had been lost and
was found on some perilous height and needing to be coaxed gently away
from it.
"Oh, so you're here, Court," said Tennelly, slapping his shoulder with
gentle roughness, "Great little old room, isn't it? The fellows' idea
to keep flowers here. Kind of a continual memorial."
"Great fellow, that Steve!" said Pat, hoarsely. He could not yet speak
lightly of the hero-martyr whom he had helped to send to his fiery
grave.
But Courtland stood calmly, almost as if he had not heard them. "Pat,
Nelly," he said, turning from one to the other gravely, "I want to tell
you fellows that I have met Steve's Christ and after this I stand for
Him!"
They looked at him curiously, pityingly. They spoke with soothing words
and humored him. They led him away to his room and left him to rest.
Then they walked with solemn faces and dejected air into Bill Ward's
room and threw themselves down upon his couch.
"Where's Court?" Bill looked up from the theme he was writing.
"We found him in Steve's room," said Tennelly, gloomily, and shook his
head.
"It's a deuced shame!" burst forth Pat. (He had cut out swearing for a
time.) "He's batty in the bean!"
Tennelly answered the shocked question in the eyes of Bill with a nod.
"Yes, the brightest fellow in the class, but he sure is batty in the
bean! You ought to have heard him talk. Say! I don't believe it was all
the fire. Court's been studying too hard. He's been an awful shark for a
fellow that went in for athletics and everything else. He's studied too
hard and it's gone to his head!"
Tennelly sat gloomily staring across the room. It was the old cry of the
man who cannot understand.
"He needs a little change," said Bill, putting his feet up on the table
comfortably and lighting a cigarette. "Pity the frat. dance is over. He
needs to get him a girl. Be a great stunt if he'd fall for some jolly
girl. Say! I'll tell you what. I'll get Gila after him."
"Who's Gila?" asked Tennelly, gloomily. "He won't notice her any more
than a fly on the wall. You know how he is about girls."
"Gila's my cousin. Gila Dare. She's a good sport, and she's a winner
every time. We'll put Gila on the job. I've got a date with her
to-morrow night and I'll put her wise. She'll just enjoy that kind of
thing. He's met her, too, over at the Navy game. Leave it to Gila."
"What style is she?" asked Tennelly, still skeptical.
"Oh, tiny and stylish and striking, with big eyes. A perfect little
peach of an actress."
"Court's too keen for acting. He'll see through her in half a second.
She can't put one over on Court."
"She won't try," said the ardent cousin. "She'll just be as innocent.
They'll be chums in half an hour, or it'll be the first failure for
Gila."
"Well, if any girl can put one over on Court, I'll eat my hat; but it's
worth trying, for if Court keeps on like this we'll all be buying
prayer-books and singing psalms before another semester."
"You'll eat your hat, all right," said Bill Ward, rising in his wrath.
"Nelly, my infant, I tell you Gila never fails. If she gets on the job
Court'll be dead in love with her before the midwinter exams.!"
"I'll believe it when I see it," said Tennelly, rising.
"All right," said Bill. "Remember you're in for a banquet during
vacation. Fricaseed hat the _pièce de resistance_!"