But to reach this wanderer, it was first necessary for me to escape from
the house. This proved simple enough. The up-stairs room toward which I
rushed had a window overlooking one of the many lean-tos already
mentioned. This window was fastened, but I had no difficulty in
unlocking it or in finding my way to the ground from the top of the
lean-to. But once again on terra-firma, I discovered that the mist was
now so thick that it had all the effect of a fog at sea. It was icy cold
as well, and clung about me so that I presently began to shudder most
violently, and, strong man though I was, wish myself back in the little
attic bedroom from which I had climbed in search of one in more unhappy
case than myself.
But these feelings did not cause me to return. If I found the night
cold, she must find it bitter. If desolation oppressed my naturally
hopeful spirit, must it not be more overwhelming yet to one whose
memories were sad and whose future was doubtful? And the child! What
infant could live in an air like this! Edging away from the house, I
called out her name, but no answer came back. The persons whom we had
heard flitting in restless longing about the house a few moments before
had left in rage and she, possibly, with them. Yet I could not imagine
her joining herself to people of their stamp. There had been a
solitariness in her aspect which seemed to forbid any such
companionship. Whatever her story, at least she had nothing in common
with the two ill-favored persons whose faces I had seen looking in at
the casement. No; I should find her alone, but where? Certainly the ring
of mist, surrounding me at that moment, offered me little prospect of
finding her anywhere, either easily or soon.
Again I raised my voice, and again I failed to meet with response.
Then, fearing to leave the house lest I should be quite lost amid the
fences and brush lying between it and the road, I began to feel my way
along the walls, calling softly now, instead of loudly, so anxious was I
not to miss any chance of carrying comfort, if not succor, to the woman
I was seeking. But the night gave back no sound, and when I came to the
open door of a shed, I welcomed the refuge it offered and stepped in. I
was, of course, confronted by darkness,--a different darkness from that
without, blanket-like and impenetrable. But when after a moment of
intense listening I heard a soft sound as of weariful breathing, I was
seized anew by hope, and, feeling in my pocket for my match-box, I made
a light and looked around.
My intuitions had not deceived me; she was there. Sitting on the floor
with her cheek pressed against the wall, she revealed to my eager
scrutiny only the outlines of her pure, pale profile; but in those
outlines and on those pure, pale features, I saw such an abandonment of
hope, mingled with such quiet endurance, that my whole soul melted
before it, and it was with difficulty I managed to say:
"Pardon! I do not wish to intrude; but I am shut out of the house also;
and the night is raw and cold. Can I do nothing for your comfort or
for--for the child's?"
She turned toward me and I saw a tremulous gleam of pleasure disturb the
somber stillness of her face; then the match went out in my hand, and we
were again in complete darkness. But the little wail, which at the same
instant rose from between her arms, filled up the pause, as her sweet
"Hush!" filled my heart.
"I am used to the cold," came in another moment from the place where she
crouched. "It is the child--she is hungry; and I--I walked
here--feeling, hoping that, as my father's heir, I might partake in some
slight measure of Uncle Anthony's money. Though my father cast me out
before he died, and I have neither home nor money, I do not complain. I
forfeited all when--" another wail, another gentle "hush!"--then
silence.
I lit another match. "Look in my face!" I prayed. "I am a stranger, and
you would be showing only proper prudence not to trust me. But I
overheard your words when you withdrew from the room where your fortune
lay; and I honor you, madam. If food can be got for your little one, I
will get it."
I caught sight of the convulsive clasp with which she drew to her breast
the tiny bundle she held, then darkness fell again.
"A little bread," she entreated; "a little milk--ah, baby, baby, hush!"
"But where can I get it?" I cried. "They are at table inside. I hear
them shouting over their good cheer. But perhaps there are neighbors
near by; do you know?"
"There are no neighbors," she replied. "What is got must be got here. I
know a way to the kitchen; I used to visit Uncle Anthony when a little
child; if you have the courage--"
I laughed. This token of confidence seemed to reassure her. I heard her
move; possibly she stood up.
"In the further corner of this shed," said she, "there used to be a
trap, connecting this floor with an underground passageway. A ladder
stood against the trap, and the small cellar at the foot communicated by
means of an iron-bound door with the large one under the house. Eighteen
years ago the wood of that door was old; now it should be rotten. If you
have the strength--"
"I will make the effort and see," said I. "But when I am in the cellar,
what then?"
"Follow the wall to the right; you will come to a stone staircase. As
this staircase has no railing, be careful in ascending it. At the top
you will find a door; it leads into a pantry adjoining the kitchen. Some
one will be in that pantry. Some one will give you a bite for the child;
and when she is quieted and the sun has risen, I will go away. It is my
duty to do so. My uncle was always upright, if cold. He was perfectly
justified in exacting rectitude in his heirs."
I might have rejoined by asking if she detected rectitude in the faces
of the greedy throng she had left behind her with the guardian of this
estate; but I did not. I was too intent upon following out her
directions. Lighting another match, I sought the trap. Alas! it was
burdened with a pile of sticks and rubbish which looked as if they had
lain there for years. As these had to be removed in total darkness, it
took me some time. But once this debris had been scattered and thrown
aside, I had no difficulty in finding the trap and, as the ladder was
still there, I was soon on the cellar-bottom. When, by the reassuring
shout I gave, she knew that I had advanced thus far, she spoke, and her
voice had a soft and thrilling sound.
"Do not forget your own needs," she said. "We two are not so hungry that
we can not wait for you to take a mouthful. I will sing to the baby.
Good-by."
These ten minutes we had spent together had made us friends. The warmth,
the strength which this discovery brought, gave to my arm a force that
made that old oak door go down before me in three vigorous pushes.
Had the eight fortunate ones above not been indulging in a noisy
celebration of their good luck, they must have heard the clatter of this
door when it fell. But good eating, good drink, and the prospect of an
immediate fortune far beyond their wildest dreams, made all ears deaf;
and no pause occurred in the shouts of laughter and the hum of
good-fellowship which sifted down between the beams supporting the house
above my head. Consequently little or no courage was required for the
completion of my adventure; and before long I came upon the staircase
and the door leading from its top into the pantry. The next minute I was
in front of that door.
But here a surprise awaited me. The noise which had hitherto been loud
now became deafening, and I realized that, contrary to Eunice
Westonhaugh's expectation, the supper had been spread in the kitchen and
that I was likely to run amuck of the whole despicable crowd in any
effort I might make to get a bite for the famished baby.
I therefore naturally hesitated to push open the door, fearing to draw
attention to myself; and when I did succeed in lifting the latch and
making a small crack, I was so astonished by the sudden lull in the
general babble, that I drew hastily back and was for descending the
stairs in sudden retreat.
But I was prevented from carrying out this cowardly impulse, by catching
the sound of the lawyer's voice, addressing the assembled guests.
"You have eaten and you have drunk," he was saying; "you are therefore
ready for the final toast. Brothers, nephews--heirs all of Anthony
Westonhaugh, I rise to propose the name of your generous benefactor,
who, if spirits walk this earth, must certainly be with us to-night."
A grumble from more than one throat and an uneasy hitch from such
shoulders as I could see through my narrow vantage-hole testified to the
rather doubtful pleasure with which this suggestion was received. But
the lawyer's tones lost none of their animation as he went on to say:
"The bottle, from which your glasses are to be replenished for this
final draft, he has himself provided. So anxious was he that it should
be of the very best and altogether worthy of the occasion it is to
celebrate, that he gave into my charge, almost with his dying breath,
this key, telling me that it would unlock a cupboard here in which he
had placed a bottle of wine of the very rarest vintage. This is the key,
and yonder, if I do not mistake, is the cupboard."
They had already quaffed a dozen toasts. Perhaps this was why they
accepted this proposition in a sort of panting silence, which remained
unbroken while the lawyer crossed the floor, unlocked the cupboard and
brought out before them a bottle which he held up before their eyes with
a simulated glee almost saturnine.
"Isn't that a bottle to make your eyes dance? The very cobwebs on it are
eloquent. And see! look at this label. Tokay, friends, real Tokay! How
many of you ever had the opportunity of drinking real Tokay before?"
A long deep sigh from a half-dozen throats in which some strong but
hitherto repressed passion, totally incomprehensible to me, found sudden
vent, rose in one simultaneous sound from about that table, and I heard
one jocular voice sing out:
"Pass it around, Smead. I'll drink to Uncle Anthony out of that bottle
till there isn't a drop left to tell what was in it!"
But the lawyer was in no hurry.
"You have forgotten the letter, for the hearing of which you are called
together. Mr. Anthony Westonhaugh left behind him a letter. The time is
now come for reading it."
As I heard these words and realized that the final toast was to be
delayed and that some few moments must yet elapse before the room would
be cleared and an opportunity given me for obtaining what I needed for
the famishing mother and child, I felt such impatience with the fact
and so much anxiety as to the condition of those I had left behind me
that I questioned whether it would not be better for me to return to
them empty-handed than to leave them so long without the comfort of my
presence, when the fascination of the scene again seized me and I found
myself lingering to mark its conclusion with an avidity which can only
be explained by my sudden and intense consciousness of what it all might
mean to her whose witness I had thus inadvertently become.
The careful lawyer began by quoting the injunction with which this
letter had been put in his hands. "'When they are warm with food and
wine, but not too warm,'--thus his adjuration ran, 'then let them hear
my first and only words to them.' I know you are eager for these words.
Folk so honest, so convinced of their own purity and uprightness that
they can stand unmoved while the youngest and most helpless among them
withdraws her claim to wealth and independence rather than share an
unmerited bounty, such folk, I say, must be eager, must be anxious to
know why they have been made the legatees of so great a fortune, under
the easy conditions and amid such slight restrictions as have been
imposed upon them by their munificent kinsman."
"I had rather go on drinking toasts," babbled one thick voice.
"I had rather finish my figuring," growled another, in whose grating
tones no echo remained of Hector Westonhaugh's formerly honeyed voice.
"I am making out a list of stock--"
"Blast your stock! that is, if you mean horses and cows!" screamed a
third. "I'm going in for city life. With less money than we have got,
Andreas Amsberger got to be alderman--"
"Alderman!" sneered the whole pack; and the tumult became general. "If
more of us had been sick," called out one; "or if Uncle Luke, say, had
tripped into the ditch instead of on the edge of it, the fellows who
came safe through might have had anything they wanted, even to the
governorship of the state or--or--"
"Silence!" came in commanding tones from the lawyer, who had begun to
let his disgust appear, perhaps because he held under his thumb the
bottle upon which all eyes were now lovingly centered; so lovingly,
indeed, that I ventured to increase, in the smallest perceptible degree,
the crack by means of which I was myself an interested, if unseen,
participator in this scene.
A sight of Smead, and a partial glimpse of old Luke's covetous profile,
rewarded this small act of daring on my part. The lawyer was standing;
all the rest were sitting. Perhaps he alone retained sufficient
steadiness to stand; for I observed by the control he exercised over
this herd of self-seekers, that he alone had not touched the cup which
had so freely gone about among the others. The woman was hidden from me,
but the change in her voice, when by any chance I heard it, convinced me
that she had not disdained the toasts drunk by her brothers and
nephews.
"Silence!" the lawyer reiterated, "or I will smash this bottle on the
hearth." He raised it in one threatening hand and every man there seemed
to tremble, while old Luke put out his long fingers with an entreaty
that ill became them. "You want to hear the letter?" old Smead called
out. "I thought so."
Putting the bottle down again, but still keeping one hand upon it, he
drew a folded paper from his breast. "This," said he, "contains the
final injunctions of Anthony Westonhaugh. You will listen, all of you;
listen till I am done; or I will not only smash this bottle before your
eyes, but I will keep for ever buried in my breast the whereabouts of
certain drafts and bonds in which, as his heirs, you possess the
greatest interest. Nobody but myself knows where these papers can be
found."
Whether this was so, or whether the threat was an empty one thrown out
by this subtile old schemer for the purpose of safeguarding his life
from their possible hate and impatience, it answered his end with these
semi-intoxicated men, and secured him the silence he demanded. Breaking
open the seal of the envelope he held, he showed them the folded sheet
which it contained, with the remark:
"I have had nothing to do with the writing of this letter. It is in Mr.
Westonhaugh's own hand, and he was not even so good as to communicate to
me the nature of its contents. I was bidden to read it to such as should
be here assembled under the provisos mentioned in his will; and as you
are now in a condition to listen, I will proceed with my task as
required."
This was my time for leaving, but a certain brooding terror, latent in
the air, held me chained to the spot, listening with my ears, but
receiving the full sense of what was read from the expression of old
Luke's face, which was probably more plainly visible to me than to those
who sat beside him. For, being bent almost into a bow, as I have said,
his forehead came within an inch of touching his plate, and one had to
look under his arms, as I did, to catch the workings of his evil mouth,
as old Smead gave forth, in his professional sing-song, the following
words from his departed client:
"Brothers, nephews and heirs! Though the earth has lain upon my breast a
month, I am with you here to-night."
A snort from old Luke's snarling lips; and a stir--not a comfortable
one--in the jostling crowd, whose shaking arms and clawing hands I could
see projecting here and there over the board.
"My presence at this feast--a presence which, if unseen, can not be
unfelt, may bring you more pain than pleasure. But if so, it matters
little. You are my natural heirs and I have left you my money; why, when
so little love has characterized our intercourse, must be evident to
such of my brothers as can recall their youth and the promise our father
exacted from us on the day we set foot in this new land.
"There were nine of us in those days: Luke, Salmon, Barbara, Hector,
Eustace, Janet, Hudson, William and myself; and all save one were
promising, in appearance at least. But our father knew his offspring,
and when we stood, an alien and miserable band in front of Castle
Garden, at the foot of the great city whose immensity struck terror to
our hearts, he drew all our hands together and made us swear by the soul
of our mother, whose body we had left in the sea, that we would keep the
bond of brotherhood intact, and share with mutual confidence whatever
good fortune this untried country might hold in store for us. You were
strong and your voices rang out loudly. Mine was faint, for I was
weak--so weak that my hand had to be held in place by my sister Barbara.
But my oath has never lost its hold upon my heart, while yours--answer
how you have kept it, Luke; or you, Janet; or you Hector, of the smooth
tongue and vicious heart; or you, or you, who, from one stock, recognize
but one law: the law of cold-blooded selfishness which seeks its own in
face of all oaths and at the cost of another man's heart-break.
"This I say to such as know my story. But lest there be one amongst you
who has not heard from parent or uncle the true tale of him who has
brought you all under one roof to-night, I will repeat it here in words,
that no man may fail to understand why I remembered my oath through life
and beyond death, yet stand above you an accusing spirit while you quaff
me toasts and count the gains my justice divides among you.
"I, as you all remember, was the weak one--the ne'er-do-weel. When all
of you were grown and had homes of your own, I still remained under the
family roof-tree, fed by our father's bounty and looking to our father's
justice for that share of his savings which he had promised to all
alike. When he died it came to me as it came to you; but I had married
before that day; married, not, like the rest of you, for what a wife
could bring, but for sentiment and true passion. This, in my case, meant
a loving wife, but a frail one; and while we lived a little while on the
patrimony left us, it was far too small to support us long without some
aid from our own hands; and our hands were feeble and could not work.
And so we fell into debt for rent and, ere long, for the commonest
necessities of life. In vain I struggled to redeem myself; the time of
my prosperity had not come and I only sank deeper and deeper into debt
and finally into indigence. A baby came. Our landlord was kind and
allowed us to stay for two weeks under the roof for whose protection we
could not pay; but at the end of that time we were asked to leave; and I
found myself on the road with a dying wife, a wailing infant, no money
in my purse and no power in my arm to earn any. Then when heart and hope
were both failing, I recalled that ancient oath and the six prosperous
homes scattered up and down the very highway on which I stood. I could
not leave my wife; the fever was in her veins and she could not bear me
out of her sight; so I put her on a horse, which a kind old neighbor was
willing to lend me, and holding her up with one hand, guided the horse
with the other, to the home of my brother Luke. He was a straight
enough fellow in those days--physically, I mean--and he looked able and
strong that morning, as he stood in the open doorway of his house,
gazing down at us as we halted before him in the roadway. But his temper
had grown greedy with the accumulation of a few dollars, and he shook
his head as he closed his door, saying he remembered no oath and that
spenders must expect to be beggars.
"Struck to the heart by a rebuff which meant prolongation of the
suffering I saw in my dear wife's eyes, I stretched up and kissed her
where she sat half-fainting on the horse; then I moved on. I came to
Barbara's home next. She had been a little mother to me once; that is,
she had fed and dressed me, and doled out blows and caresses, and taught
me to read and sing. But Barbara in her father's home and without
fortune was not the Barbara I saw on the threshold of the little cottage
she called her own. She heard my story; looked in the face of my wife
and turned her back. She had no place for idle folk in her little house;
if we would work she would feed us; but we must earn our supper or go
hungry to bed. I felt the trembling of my wife's frame where she leaned
against my arm, and kissing her again, led her on to Salmon's. Luke,
Hector, Janet, have you heard him tell of that vision at his gateway,
twenty-five years ago? He is not amongst you. For twelve years he has
lain beside our father in the churchyard, but his sons may be here, for
they were ever alert when gold was in sight or a full glass to be
drained. Ask _them_, ask John, whom I saw skulking behind his cousins at
the garden fence that day, what it was they saw as I drew rein under the
great tree which shadowed their father's doorstep.
"The sunshine had been pitiless that morning, and the head, for whose
rest in some loving shelter I would have bartered soul and body, had
fallen sidewise till it lay on my arm. Pressed to her breast was our
infant, whose little wail struck in pitifully as Salmon called out:
'What's to do here to-day!' Do you remember it, lads? or how you all
laughed, little and great, when I asked for a few weeks' stay under my
brother's roof till we could all get well and go about our tasks again?
_I_ remember. I, who am writing these words from the very mouth of the
tomb, _I_ remember; but I did not curse you. I only rode on to the next.
The way ran uphill now; and the sun which, since our last stop, had been
under a cloud, came out and blistered my wife's cheeks, already burning
red with fever. But I pressed my lips upon them, and led her on. With
each rebuff I gave her a kiss; and her smile, as her head pressed harder
and harder upon my arm now exerting all its strength to support her,
grew almost divine. But it vanished at my nephew Lemuel's.
"He was shearing sheep, and could give no time to company; and when,
late in the day, I drew rein at Janet's, and she said she was going to
have a dance and could not look after sick folk, the pallid lips failed
to return my despairing embrace; and in the terror which this brought me
I went down, in the gathering twilight, into the deep valley where
William raised his sheep and reckoned, day by day, the increase among
his pigs. Oh, the chill of that descent! Oh, the gloom of the gathering
shadows! As we neared the bottom and I heard a far-off voice shout out a
hoarse command, some instinct made me reach up for the last time and
bestow that faithful kiss, which was at once her consolation and my
prayer. My lips were cold with the terror of my soul, but they were not
so cold as the cheek they touched, and, shrieking in my misery and need,
I fell before William where he halted by the horse-trough and--He was
always a hard man, was William, and it was a shock to him, no doubt, to
see us standing in our anguish and necessity before him; but he raised
the whip in his hand and, when it fell, my arm fell with it and she
slipped from my grasp to the ground, and lay in a heap in the roadway.
"He was ashamed next minute and pointed to the house near-by. But I did
not carry her in, and she died in the roadway. Do you remember it,
Luke? Do you remember it, Lemuel?
"But it is not of this I complain at this hour, nor is it for this I ask
you to drink the toast I have prepared for you."
The looks, the writhings of old Luke and such others as I could now see
through the widening crack my hands unconsciously made in the doorway,
told me that the rack was at work in this room so lately given up to
revelry. Yet the mutterings, which from time to time came to my ears
from one sullen lip or another, did not rise into frightened imprecation
or even into any assertion of sorrow or contrition. It seemed as if some
suspense, common to all, held them speechless if not dumbly
apprehensive; and while the lawyer said nothing in recognition of this,
he could not have been quite blind to it, for he bestowed one curious
glance around the table before he proceeded with old Anthony's words.
Those words had now become short, sharp, and accusatory.
"My child lived; and what remained to me of human passion and longing
centered in his frail existence. I managed to earn enough for his eating
and housing, and in time I was almost happy again. This was while our
existence was a struggle; but when, with the discovery of latent powers
in my own mind, I began to find my place in the world and to earn money,
then your sudden interest in my boy taught me a new lesson in human
selfishness; but not, as yet, new fears. My nature was not one to grasp
ideas of evil, and the remembrance of that oath still remained to make
me lenient toward you.
"I let him see you; not much, not often, but yet often enough for him to
realize that he had uncles and cousins, or, if you like it better,
kindred. And how did you repay this confidence on my part? What hand had
ye in the removal of this small barrier to the fortune my own poor
health warranted you in looking upon, even in those early days, as your
own? To others' eyes it may appear, none; to mine, ye are one and all
his murderers, as certainly as all of you were the murderers of the good
physician hastening to his aid. For his illness was not a mortal one. He
would have been saved if the doctor had reached him; but a precipice
swallowed that good Samaritan, and only I, of all who looked upon the
footprints which harrowed up the road at this dangerous point, knew
whose shoes would fit those marks. God's providence, it was called, and
I let it pass for such; but it was a providence which cost me my boy and
made _you_ my heirs."
Silence as sullen in character as the men who found themselves thus
openly impeached had, for some minutes now, replaced the muttered
complaints which had accompanied the first portion of this denunciatory
letter. As the lawyer stopped to cast them another of those strange
looks, a gleam from old Luke's sidewise eyes startled the man next him,
who, shrugging a shoulder, passed the underhanded look on, till it had
circled the board and stopped with the man sitting opposite the crooked
sinner who had started it.
I began to have a wholesome dread of them all and was astonished to see
the lawyer drop his hand from the bottle, which to some degree offered
itself as a possible weapon. But he knew his audience better than I did.
Though the bottle was now free for any man's taking, not a hand trembled
toward it, nor was a single glass held out.
The lawyer, with an evil smile, went on with his relentless client's
story.
"Ye had killed my wife; ye had killed my son; but this was not enough.
Being lonesome in my great house, which was as much too large for me as
my fortune was, I had taken a child to replace the boy I had lost.
Remembering the cold blood running in the veins of those nearest me, I
chose a boy from alien stock and, for a while, knew contentment again.
But, as he developed and my affections strengthened, the possibility of
all my money going his way roused my brothers and sisters from the
complacency they had enjoyed since their road to fortune had been
secured by my son's death, and one day--can you recall it, Hudson? can
you recall it, Lemuel?--the boy was brought in from the mill and laid at
my feet, dead! He had stumbled amongst the great belts, but whose was
the voice which had startled him with a sudden 'Halloo!' Can you say,
Luke? Can you say, John? I can say in whose ear it was whispered that
three, if not more of you, were seen moving among the machinery that
fatal morning.
"Again, God's providence was said to have visited my house; and again
_ye_ were my heirs."
"Stop there!" broke in the harsh voice of Luke, who was gradually
growing livid under his long gray locks.
"Lies! lies!" shrieked Hector, gathering courage from his brother.
"Cut it all and give us the drink!" snarled one of the younger men, who
was less under the effect of liquor than the rest.
But a trembling voice muttered "Hush!" and the lawyer, whose eye had
grown steely under these comments, took advantage of the sudden silence
which had followed this last objurgation and went steadily on.
"Some men would have made a will and denounced you. I made a will, but
did not denounce you. _I_ am no breaker of oaths. More than this, I
learned a new trick. I, who hated all subtlety and looked upon craft as
the favorite weapon of the devil, learned to smile with my lips while my
heart was burning with hatred. Perhaps this was why you all began to
smile too, and joke me about certain losses I had sustained, by which
you meant the gains which had come to me. That these gains were many
times greater than you realized added to the sting of this good
fellowship, but I held my peace; and you began to have confidence in a
good-nature which nothing could shake. You even gave me a supper."
_A supper!_
What was there in these words to cause every man there to stop in
whatever movement he was making and stare, with wide-open eyes, intently
at the reader. He had spoken quietly; he had not even looked up, but
the silence which, for some minutes back, had begun to reign over that
tumultuous gathering, now became breathless, and the seams in Hector's
cheeks deepened to a bluish criss-cross.
"_You remember that supper?_"
As the words rang out again, I threw wide the door; I might have stalked
openly into their circle; not a man there would have noticed me.
"It was a memorable occasion," the lawyer read on with stoical
impassiveness. "There was not a brother lacking. Luke and Hudson and
William and Hector and Eustace's boys, as well as Eustace himself; Janet
too, and Salmon's Lemuel, and Barbara's son, who, even if his mother had
gone the way of all flesh, had so trained her black brood in the love of
the things of this world that I scarcely missed her when I looked about
among you all for the eight sturdy brothers and sisters who had joined
in one clasp and one oath, under the eye of the true-hearted immigrant,
our father. What I did miss was one true eye lifted to my glance; but I
did not show that I missed it; and so our peace was made and we
separated, you to wait for your inheritance, and I for the death which
was to secure it to you. For, when the cup passed round that night, you
each dropped into it a tear of repentance, and tears make bitter
drinking. I sickened as I quaffed and was never myself again, as you
know. Do you understand me, you cruel, crafty ones?"
Did they not! Heads quaking, throats gasping, teeth chattering--no
longer sitting--all risen, all looking with wild eyes for the door--was
it not apparent that they understood and only waited for one more word
to break away and flee the accursed house?
But that word lingered. Old Smead had now grown pale himself and read
with difficulty the lines which were to end this frightful scene. As I
saw the red gleam of terror shine out from his small eyes, I wondered if
he had been but the blind tool of his implacable client and was as
ignorant as those before him of what was to follow this heavy
arraignment. The dread with which he finally proceeded was too marked
for me to doubt the truth of this surmise. This is what he found himself
forced to read:
"There was a bottle reserved for me. It had a green label on it,--"
A shriek from every one there and a hurried look up and down at the
bottles standing on the table.
"A green label," the lawyer repeated, "and it made a goodly appearance
as it was set down before me. But you had no liking for wine with a
green label on the bottle. One by one you refused it, and when I rose to
quaff my final glass alone, every eye before me fell and did not lift
again until the glass was drained. I did not notice this then, but I see
it all now, just as I hear again the excuses you gave for not filling
your glasses as the bottle went round. One had drunk enough; one
suffered from qualms brought on by an unaccustomed indulgence in
oysters; one felt that wine good enough for me was too good for him,
and so on and so on. Not one to show frank eyes and drink with me as I
was ready to drink with him! Why? Because one and all of you knew what
was in that cup, and would not risk an inheritance so nearly within your
grasp."
"Lies! lies!" again shrieked the raucous voice of Luke, smothered by
terror; while oaths, shouts, imprecations, rang out in horrid tumult
from one end of the table to the other, till the lawyer's face, over
which a startling change was rapidly passing, drew the whole crowd
forward again in awful fascination, till they clung, speechless, arm in
arm, shoulder propping shoulder, while he gasped out in dismay equal to
their own, these last fatal words:
"That was at your board, my brothers; now you are at mine. You have
eaten my viands, drunk of my cup; and now, through the mouth of the one
man who has been true to me because therein lies his advantage, I offer
you a final glass. Will you drink it? I drank yours. By that old-time
oath which binds us to share each other's fortune, I ask you to share
this cup with me. _You will not?_"
"No, no, no!" shouted one after another.
"Then," the inexorable voice went on, a voice which to these miserable
souls was no longer that of the lawyer, but an issue from the grave they
had themselves dug for Anthony Westonhaugh, "know that your abstinence
comes too late; that you have already drunk the toast destined to end
your lives. The bottle which you must have missed from that board of
yours has been offered you again. A label is easily changed and--Luke,
John, Hector, I know you all so well--that bottle has been greedily
emptied by you; and while I, who sipped sparingly, lived three weeks,
you, who have drunk deep, _have not three hours before you, possibly not
three minutes_."
O, the wail of those lost souls as this last sentence issued in a final
pant of horror from the lawyer's quaking lips! Shrieks--howls--prayers
for mercy--groans to make the hair rise--and curses, at sound of which
I shut my ears in horror, only to open them again in dread as, with one
simultaneous impulse, they flung themselves upon the lawyer who,
foreseeing this rush, had backed up against the wall.
He tried to stem the tide.
"I knew nothing of the poisoning," he protested. "That was not my reason
for declining the drink. I wished to preserve my senses--to carry out my
client's wishes. As God lives, I did not know he meant to carry his
revenge so far. Mercy! Mer--"
But the hands which clutched him were the hands of murderers, and the
lawyer's puny figure could not stand up against the avalanche of human
terror, relentless fury and mad vengeance which now rolled in upon it.
As I bounded to his relief he turned his ghastly face upon me. But the
way between us was blocked, and I was preparing myself to see him sink
before my eyes, when an unearthly shriek rose from behind us, and every
living soul in that mass of struggling humanity paused, set and
staring, with stiffened limbs and eyes fixed, not on him, not on me, but
on one of their own number, the only woman amongst them, Janet
Clapsaddle, who, with clutching hands clawing her breast, was reeling in
solitary agony in her place beside the board. As they looked she fell,
and lay with upturned face and staring eyes, in whose glassy depths the
ill-fated ones who watched her could see mirrored their own impending
doom.
It was an awful moment. A groan, in which was concentrated the despair
of seven miserable souls, rose from that petrified band; then, man by
man, they separated and fell back, showing on each weak or wicked face
the particular passion which had driven them into crime and made them
the victims of this wholesale revenge. There had been some sort of bond
between them till the vision of death rose before each shrinking soul.
Shoulder to shoulder in crime, they fell apart as their doom approached;
and rushing, shrieking, each man for himself, they one and all sought
to escape by doors, windows or any outlet which promised release from
this fatal spot. One rushed by me--I do not know which one--and I felt
as if a flame from hell had licked me, his breath was so hot and the
moans he uttered so like the curses we imagine to blister the lips of
the lost. None of them saw me; they did not even detect the sliding form
of the lawyer crawling away before them to some place of egress of which
they had no knowledge; and, convinced that in this scene of death I
could play no part worthy of her who awaited me, I too rushed away and,
groping my way back through the cellar, sought the side of her who still
crouched in patient waiting against the dismal wall.