Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani, George P. Snoga and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
A number of typographical errors found in the original text
have been corrected in this version. A list of these errors
is provided at the end of the book.
* * * * *
THE DOOMSMAN
BY
VAN TASSEL SUTPHEN
AUTHOR OF
"THE CARDINAL'S ROSE"
"THE GATES OF CHANCE"
ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
MCMVI
Copyright, 1905, 1906, by
The Metropolitan Magazine Company.
Copyright, 1906, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
Published June, 1906.
[Illustration: "CONSTANS AND NIGHT WERE DOWN." See p. 28]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE VERMILION FEATHER 1
II. THE NIGHT OF THE TERROR 14
III. THE NEW WORLD 19
IV. THE MAN ON HORSEBACK 25
V. THE RAT'S-HOLE 32
VI. TROY TOWN 41
VII. THE BREAD OF AFFLICTION 50
VIII. IN THE SHADOW OF DOOM 58
IX. THE KEYS OF POWER 67
X. THE MESSAGE 83
XI. THE SISTERS 93
XII. THE HEDGE OF ARROWS 106
XIII. GODS IN EXILE 120
XIV. ARCADIA HOUSE 136
XV. A MAN AND A MAID 150
XVI. AS IN A LOOKING-GLASS 162
XVII. THE AWAKENING 173
XVIII. A PROPHET OF EVIL 181
XIX. IN QUINTON EDGE'S GARDEN 188
XX. THE SILVER WHISTLE BLOWS 199
XXI. OXENFORD'S DAUGHTER 209
XXII. YET THREE DAYS 223
XXIII. THE RED LIGHT IN THE NORTH 231
XXIV. THE EVE OF THE THIRD DAY 238
XXV. ENTR'ACTE 242
XXVI. THE SONG OF THE SWORD 250
XXVII. DOOMSDAY 266
XXVIII. IN THE FULNESS OF TIME 274
XXIX. DEATH AND LIFE 281
XXX. THE STAR IN THE EAST 290
ILLUSTRATIONS
"CONSTANS AND NIGHT WERE DOWN" _Frontispiece_
"OUT LEAPED QUINTON EDGE'S SWORD" _Facing p._ 48
"CONSTANS LOOKED ABOUT HIM IN WONDERMENT" " 64
"THE BLOWS RAINED DOWN UPON HIS FACE" " 76
"THEY PARTED WITHOUT FURTHER SPEAKING" " 90
"AN INSTANT LATER THE BOWSTRING TWANGED" " 118
"SHE STOOD MUTE AND WIDE-EYED BEFORE HIM" " 156
"OF DOOM SHALL WE REQUIRE IT" " 220
* * * * *
THE DOOMSMAN
I
THE VERMILION FEATHER
A beach of yellow sand and a stranded log upon which sat a boy looking
steadfastly out upon the shining waters.
It was a delicious morning in early May, and the sun was at his back,
its warm rays falling upon him with affectionate caress. But the lad was
plainly oblivious of his immediate surroundings; in spirit he had
followed the leading of his eyes a league or more to the westward, where
a mass of indefinable shadow bulked hugely upon the horizon line.
Indefinable, in that it was neither forest nor mountain nor yet an
atmospheric illusion produced by the presence of watery vapor. It did
not change in density as does the true cloud; for all of its mistiness
of outline there was an impression of solidity about its deeper shadows,
something that the wind could not lift nor the light pierce. A mystery,
and the boy devoured it with his eyes, his head bent forward and his
shoulders held tensely.
The place was a rocky point of land jutting forth into a reef-strewn
tideway. The forest came down close to the strip of beach, but there was
comparatively little underwood, and the grass, growing up to the very
roots of the trees, gave to the glade an appearance almost parklike.
There was no house in sight, not even the thin, blue curl of a smoking
hearth to proclaim the neighborhood of man. Yet the sign of human
handicraft was not wholly wanting; through the tree trunks, at perhaps a
hundred yards away, appeared the line of a timber stockade--enormous
palisades, composed of twelve-foot ash and hickory poles, set in a
double row and bound together by lengths of copper wire. It was to be
further observed that the timbers had been stripped of their bark and
the knots smoothed down so as to afford no coigne of vantage to even a
naked foot. Add, again, that the poles had been charred and sharpened at
the top, and it will be understood that the barrier was a formidable one
against any assault short of artillery.
There was no beaten road or path near the line of palisades, but,
following the curving of the shore, a forest track, already green with
the young grass that was pushing its way through last year's stubble,
stretched away to the north and south. It was hardly more than a runway
for the deer and wild cattle, but it did not give one the impression of
having been originally plotted out by these creatures, after the
immemorial fashion of their kind. An animal does not lay out his road in
sections of perfectly straight lines connected by mathematical curves,
neither does he fill up gullies nor cut through hills, when it is so
easy to go around these obstructions.
The boy, who sat and dreamed at the water's edge, was in his eighteenth
year or thereabouts, slenderly proportioned, and with well-cut features.
The delicately moulded chin, the sensitive nostril--these are the signs
of the poet, the dreamer, rather than of the man of action. And yet the
face was not altogether deficient in indications of strength. That heavy
line of eyebrow should mean something, as also the free up-fling of the
head when he sat erect; the final impression was of immaturity of
character rather than of the lack of it. From the merely superficial
stand-point, it may be added that he had brown eyes and hair (the latter
being cut square across his forehead and falling to his shoulders), a
good mouth containing the whitest of teeth, and a naturally light
complexion that was already beginning to accumulate its summer's coat of
tan.
He was dressed in a tunic or smock of brown linen, gathered at the waist
by a belt of greenish leather, with a buckle that shone like gold. His
knees were bare, but around his legs were wound spiral bands of
soft-dressed deer-hide. Buskins, secured by thongs of red leather and
soled with moose-hide, to prevent slipping, covered his feet, while his
head-dress consisted of a simple band of thin gold, worn fillet-wise.
This last, being purely ornamental, was doubtless a token of gentle
birth or of an assured social station. A short fur coat, made from the
pelt of the much-prized forest cat, lay in a careless heap at the boy's
feet. It had felt comfortable enough in the still keenness of the early
morning hour, but now that the sun was well up in the sky it had been
discarded.
In his belt was stuck a long, double-edged hunting-knife, having its
wooden handle neatly bound with black waxed thread. A five-foot bow of
second-growth hickory leaned against the log beside him, but it was
unstrung, and the quiver of arrows, suspended by a strap from his
shoulders, had been allowed to shift from its proper position so that it
hung down the middle of his back and was, consequently, out of easy
hand-reach. But the youth was in no apparent fear of being surprised by
the advent of an enemy; certainly he had made no provision against such
a contingency, and the carelessness of his attitude was entirely
unaffected. It may be remarked that the arrows aforesaid were
iron-tipped instead of being simply fire-hardened, and in the feathering
of each a single plume of the scarlet tanager had been carefully
inserted. Presumably, the vermilion feather was the owner's private sign
of his work as a marksman. So far the lad's dress and accoutrements were
in entire conformity to the primeval rusticity of his surroundings.
Judge, then, of the reasonable surprise which the observer might feel at
discovering that the object in the boy's hand was nothing less
incongruous than a pair of binocular glasses, an exquisitely finished
example of the highest art of the optician. One of the eye-piece lenses
had been lost or broken, for, as the youth raised the glasses to sweep
again the distant sea-line, he covered the left-hand cylinder with a
flat, oblong object--a printed book. Its title, indeed, could be clearly
read as, a moment after, it lay partly open upon his knee--_A Child's
History of the United States_--and across the top of the page had been
neatly written in charcoal ink, "Constans, Son of Gavan at the Greenwood
Keep."
Mechanically, the boy began turning the leaves, stopping finally at a
page upon which was a picture of the lower part of New York City as seen
from the bay. Long and earnestly he studied it, looking up occasionally
as though he would find its visible presentment in that dark blur on the
horizon line. "It must be," he muttered, with a quick intake of his
breath. "The Forgotten City and Doom the Forbidden--one and the same.
Well, and what then?" and again he fell upon his dreaming.
For the best part of an hour the boy had sat almost motionless, looking
out across the water. Then, suddenly, he turned his head; his ear had
caught a suspicious sound, perhaps the dip of an oar-blade. Thrusting
the field-glass and book into his bosom, he drew the bow towards him and
listened. All was still, except for the chatter of a blue-jay, and after
a moment or so his attention again relaxed. But his eyes, instead of
losing themselves in the distance as before, remained fixed upon the
sand at his feet. Fortunately so, or he must have failed to notice the
long shadow that hung poised for an instant above his right shoulder and
then darted downward, menacing, deadly.
An infinitesimal fraction of a second, yet within that brief space
Constans had contrived to fling himself, bodily, forward and sideways
from his seat. The spear-shaft grazed his shoulder and the blade buried
itself in the sand. The treacherous assailant, overbalanced by the force
of his thrust, toppled over the log and fell heavily, ignominiously, at
the boy's side. In the indefinite background some one laughed
melodiously.
Constans was up and out upon the forest track before his clumsy opponent
had begun to recover his breath. It was almost too easy, and then he all
but cannoned plump into a horseman who sat carelessly in his saddle,
half hidden by the bole of a thousand-year oak. The cavalier, gathering
up his reins, called upon the fugitive to stop, but Constans, without
once looking behind, ran on, actuated by the ultimate instinct of a
hunted animal, zigzagging as much as he dared, and glancing from side to
side for a way of escape.
But none offered. On the right ran the wall of the stockade,
impenetrable and unscalable, and it was a long two miles to the north
gate. On the left was the water and behind him the enemy. A few hundred
yards and he must inevitably be brought to a standstill, breathless and
defenceless. Yet he kept on; there was nothing else to do.
The horseman followed, putting his big blood-bay into a leisurely
hand-gallop. A sword-thrust would settle the business quite as
effectually as a shot from his cross-bow, and he would not be obliged to
risk the loss of a bolt, a consideration of importance in this latter
age when good artisan work is scarce and correspondingly precious.
Constans could run, and he was sound of wind and limb. Yet, as the
thunder of hoofs grew louder, he realized that his chance was of a
desperate smallness. If only he could gain a dozen seconds in which to
string his bow and fit an arrow.
But he could not make or save those longed-for moments; already he had
lost a good part of his original advantage, and the horseman was barely
sixty yards behind. His head felt as though it were about to split in
two; a cloud, shot with crimson stars, swam before his eyes.
The track swung suddenly to the right, in a sharp curve, and Constans's
heart bounded wildly; he had forgotten how close he must be to the
crossing of the Swiftwater. Now the rotting and worm-eaten timbers of
the open trestle-work were under his feet; mechanically, he avoided the
numerous gaps, where a misstep meant destruction, and so at last gained
the farther bank and sank down panting on the short, crisp sward.
The cavalier reined in at the beginning of the trestle; he looked
doubtfully at the ford above the bridge; but the Swiftwater was in
spring flood, and, was the chase worth a wetting?
Evidently not, for, with a shrug of his shoulders, the horseman threw
one leg across the saddle-pommel and sat there, very much at his ease,
while he proceeded to roll himself a cigarette from coarse, black
tobacco and a leaf of dampened corn-husk.
Constans felt his face flush hotly as he noted the contempt implied in
his enemy's well-played indifference. Already he had put his bow in
order; now he stood up and, with some ostentation, proceeded to fit an
arrow to the string. The cavalier looked at these preparations with
entire calmness and busied himself again with his flint and steel.
"It would be murder," muttered Constans, irritably, and lowered his
hand. Then, moved by sudden impulse, he took aim anew and with more than
ordinary care. The arrow sung through the air and transfixed the fleshy
part of the cavalier's bridle-arm. The horse, whose withers had been
grazed by the shaft, started to rear, but his rider neither moved nor
changed color. Quieting the frightened animal with a reassuring word,
he deftly caught the tinder spark at the tip of his cigarette and drew
in a deep inhalation of the smoke. Then, with the utmost coolness, he
proceeded to snap the arrow-shaft in twain and draw out the barb,
Constans yielding him grudging admiration, for it was all very perfectly
done.
"Here is a man," thought Constans, and looked him over carefully.
And truly the cavalier made a gallant figure, dressed as he was in the
bravest raiment that the eyes of Constans had ever yet beheld. For his
close-fitting suit was of claret-colored velvet with gilt buttons, while
his throat-gear was a wonderfully fine lace jabot, with a great red
jewel fastened in the knot. A soft hat, trimmed with gold lace and an
ostrich-feather, covered his dark curls, while yellow gauntlets and high
riding-boots of polished leather completed his outward attire. Not an
unpleasing picture as he sat there in the sunshine astride the big
blood-bay, but Constans, looking upon him, knew that neither now nor
hereafter could there be any verity of peace between them. There is such
a thing as hate at first sight even as there is love.
The horseman had retained the feathered end of the arrow-shaft, and he
proceeded to examine it with an appearance of polite interest.
"Your private token, young sir?" he inquired, indicating the single
feather of scarlet. His voice was pitched in an affectedly high key, his
manner languidly ceremonious. Constans could only bow stiffly in the
affirmative.
"Ah, yes; it is one not to be easily forgotten. I, too, have my
sign-manual, and I should have been glad to have exchanged with you."
Again Constans bowed. He wanted to say something, but the words would
not come. The cavalier smiled.
"But there may be another opportunity later on," he continued. "At
least, we may hope so." He bowed, lifting his plumed hat. "To our future
acquaintance." He turned his horse's head to the southward, and rode
away at a slow canter without once looking back.
Constans watched the ostrich-crest as it rose and fell, until it was
lost to sight among the tree-trunks. Then, drawing his belt tight, he
started on a dog-trot in the contrary direction; the barrier, admitting
him to the protection of the stockade, was still some distance away, and
he must reach it without delay and give the warning. But, even as he
ran, he heard the tolling of a bell; it was the alarm that the Doomsmen
were abroad. Now, indeed, he must make haste or he would find the
barrier closed against himself.
Ten minutes later he stood before the northern entrance of the Greenwood
Keep. Already the warders were fitting into place the gates of
iron-studded oak, but they recognized the voice of their lord's son and
allowed him to squeeze his way through. Guyder Touchett, the burly
captain of the watch, clapped him familiarly on the back.
"Your legs have saved your skin, master. God's life! but you flashed
through the cover like a cock-grouse going down the wind. Yet I trembled
lest a cross-bow bolt might be following even faster."
"They have come--the Doomsmen?" panted Constans.
"Garth, the swineherd, reported their landing at the Golden Cove an
hour before sunup. Three war-galleys, which means twice that score of
men."
"Some mischance of wind or tide," said Constans, thoughtfully. "I
noticed that the water in the Gut was rougher than is usual at dawn."
"Like enough," assented Touchett. "These night-birds are not often seen
in a blue sky, and luckily so, for the safety of your father's ricks and
byres. After all, there is no certainty in the matter; Garth is stupid
enough betimes for one of his own boars, and there was a
christening-party at the barracks last night. You know what that
means--the can clinking until the tap runs dry."
"Yet you say he saw----"
Guyder Touchett shrugged his shoulders. "Anything you like. When the ale
is in the eye there are stranger things than gray cats to be discovered
at the half-dawn. In my opinion, Garth is a fool and a liar."
"And, as usual, your opinion is wrong," retorted Constans, "for the Gray
Men are really here. But I cannot wait; I must speak with Sir Gavan
himself."
"You will find him at the water gate," bawled Touchett, as the boy ran
past him.
Constans sped rapidly up the green slope leading to the house a quarter
of a mile away. As he ran, he mentally rehearsed the story of his late
adventure. Surely, now, Sir Gavan would permit him to bear a man's part
in the impending crisis. Had he not already drawn hostile blood--the
first?
Sir Gavan awaited his son at the water gate, his ruddy countenance
streaked with an unwonted pallor and his gray eyes dark with trouble.
"Where is your sister?" he asked, abruptly, as Constans ran up.
The boy stared. "She did not go out with me, sir. Do you mean that
Issa----"
"Hush! or your mother will overhear. Come this way." And Sir Gavan
preceded his son into the guard-room on the left of the vaulted
entrance, walking heavily, as one who bears an unaccustomed burden upon
his shoulders. Yet when he spoke again his voice had its accustomed
steadiness.
"No one has seen her since ten of the sundial. It is now noon, and the
alarm-bell has been ringing this half-hour."
Constans felt something tighten at his own throat. "You have searched
the enclosure?" he faltered.
"Every nook and corner," returned Sir Gavan. "Tennant, with a dozen men,
is now beating the upper plantations."
Constans thought guiltily of that cleverly concealed gap in the
palisades just beyond the intake of the Ochre brook. He and Issa had
shared it between them as a precious secret, and he had used it this
very morning as a short cut to the water-side. Tennant, their elder
brother, was not aware of its existence, but then Tennant was a prig,
and not to be trusted in truly momentous affairs.
There was his father's wrath. Constans turned sick at the thought of
arousing it. No; he could not tell him.
"I don't know," he said, vaguely.
Sir Gavan looked at him searchingly, then turned and strode out of the
room.
Constans felt his cheeks grow hot. Why had he not told all the truth?
He was a coward, a liar, in all but the actual word. He sat down on a
bench and buried his face in his hands; then the recurring thought of
Issa and of her peril stung him to his feet. Where had Sir Gavan gone?
Constans made his way, hesitatingly, into the court-yard of the keep. He
found it thronged with men, his father's retainers and servants. The
archers were busy putting new strings to their bows; the spearmen were
testing, with grave eagerness, the stout ash of their weapons, or
perchance whetting an edge on the broad blades. Half a dozen of the
younger men were engaged in covering the roof of the main and out
buildings with horse-hides soaked in water, as a protection against
burning arrows; others were driving the protesting cattle into the byres
and sacking up a quantity of newly threshed grain that lay upon the
flailing floor; everywhere the noise of shouting men and of hurrying
feet.
Sir Gavan was not to be seen, and Constans, after inquiring for him
through a fruitless quarter of an hour, entered the main house and
sought the fighting platform on its roof. Why had no lookout been
stationed here? Surely an oversight. He gazed eagerly about him.
Directly to the right of the house lay the home paddock, stretching away
some two hundred yards to the edge of a white-birch plantation. The
Ochre brook bounded it on one side, and the current had scoured out for
itself an ever-deepening channel in the soft, alluvial soil. A clump of
alders, just bursting into leaf, masked the bed of the stream at one
particular point, where the bank rose into a miniature bluff. Constans,
from his elevated position, was enabled to overlook this point, and so
to make out the figure of a mounted man behind the alder screen, his
horse standing belly deep in the water. It was the cavalier of the
ostrich-feathers; and then, through the white trunks of the birches, he
caught the flutter of a woman's gown. Constans tried to shout, to call
out, but the vocal chords refused to relax, the sounds rattled in his
throat.
II
THE NIGHT OF THE TERROR
The reader, desiring to inform himself _in extenso_ regarding the
physical and social changes that followed the catastrophe by which the
ancient civilization was so suddenly subverted, would do well to consult
the final authority upon the subject, the learned Vigilas, author of
_The Later Cosmos_ (elephant folio edition). But for our present purpose
a brief epitome should suffice. To borrow then, with all due
acknowledgments, from our admirable historian:
* * * * *
"It was in the later years of the twentieth century that the Great
Change came; at least, so the traditions agree, and how is a man to know
certainly of such things except as he learns them from his father's
lips? True, the accounts differ, and widely so at times, but that much
is to be expected--where were there ever two men who heard or saw the
same things in the same way? It is human nature that we should color
even transparent fact with the reflected glow of our passions and
fancies, and so the distortion becomes inevitable; we should be
satisfied if, to-day, we succeed in making out even the broad outlines
of the picture.
"It appears tolerably certain that the wreck of the ancient civilization
took place about three generations ago, the catastrophe being both
sudden and overwhelming; moreover, all the authorities agree that only
an infinitesimal portion of the race escaped, with whole skins, from
what were, in very sooth, cities of destruction. These fortunate ones
were naturally the politically powerful and the immensely rich, and they
owed their safety to the fact that they were able to seize upon the
shipping in the harbors for their exclusive use. The fugitives sailed
away, presumably to the southward, and so disappeared from the pages of
authentic history. We know nothing for certain; only that they departed,
and that we saw their faces no more.
"Let us reconstruct, as best we may, the panorama of those few but awful
days. The first rush was naturally to the country, but the crowds,
choking the ferry and railway stations, were quickly confronted with the
terror-stricken thousands of the suburbs, who were flocking to the city
for refuge. And all through the dragging hours the same despairing
reports flowed in from the remoter rural districts; everywhere the
Terror walked, and men were dying like flies. From ocean to ocean, from
the lakes to the gulf, the shadow rushed, and now the whole land lay in
darkness.
"Such was the situation in what was then the United States of America,
and similar conditions prevailed throughout the habitable world. London
and Hong-Kong, Vienna and Pekin, Buenos Ayres and Archangel--from every
direction came the same inquiry, to every questioner was returned the
same answer. It was the end of all things.
"Coincidently with this great recession of the human tide, occurred the
eclipse of industry, science, and, indeed, every form of thought and
progress. The plough rusted in the furrow, the half-formed web dropped
to pieces in the loom, the very crops stood unharvested in the fields,
to be finally devoured by the birds and by a horde of rats and mice. Up
to the last moment there had been confusion and dismay certainly, but
the wheels of trade and of the civil administration had continued to
turn; men had stood at their posts in answer to the call of duty or
impressed by the blind instinct of habit. And then, suddenly, the sun
went down, only to rise again upon a silent land.
"The relapse into barbarism was swift. The few who had escaped were
segregated from one another in small family groups, each man content
with the bare necessities of animal existence and fearing the face of
the stranger. Under such circumstances, there could be but little
neighborly intercourse, and the ancient highways speedily became
overgrown with grass and weeds, or else they were undermined and washed
out by the winter storms. It was not until the second generation after
the Terror that men once more began to draw together, in obedience to
inherited instincts, and even then the new movement must have been
largely brought about through the increasing aggressions of the
Doomsmen. But of this in another place.
"It has been asserted that fire played a principal part in the
destruction of the ancient cities, and it was at one time supposed that
these extensive conflagrations were partly accidental and partly
attributable to the wide-spread lawlessness that marked the closing
hours of the greatest drama in all history. But later researches have
evolved a new theory, and it now seems probable that the torch was
employed by the authorities themselves as a final and truly a desperate
measure. An heroic cautery, but, alas, a useless one.
"The comparative exemption of New York from the universal fate goes to
support rather than to discredit this hypothesis. It escaped the
dynamite cartridge and the torch simply because in that city no
recognized authority remained in power; there was no one to carry out
the imperative orders of the federal government. There were, of course,
many isolated cases of incendiarism, but the city did not suffer from
any general and organized conflagration, as was the fate of Philadelphia
and St. Louis and New Orleans. The destiny of the metropolis was decided
in a different way; already it had passed into the keeping of the
Doomsmen.
"In effect, then, the highly civilized North American continent had
relapsed, within the brief period of ninety years, into its primeval
estate. In every direction stretched an inhospitable wilderness of
morass and forest, with a few feeble settlements of the Stockade people
fringing the principal waterways, and here and there the smoke of an
encampment of the Painted Men rising in a thin spiral from out of the
vast ocean of green leaves. To-day the wild boar ranges where once the
tide of human passion most turbulently flowed, and the poor herdsman,
eating his noonday curds from a wooden bowl, crushes with indifferent
heel the priceless bit of faience lying half hidden in the rotting
leaves. Everywhere, the old order changing and disappearing, only to
recreate itself in form ever more fantastic and enfeebled, a dead being,
and yet inextricably bound up with the life of the new age. And over
all, the shadow of Doom, gigantic, threatening, omnipotent."
III
THE NEW WORLD
Again we make acknowledgment to the "Laudable" Vigilas and quote at
large from the luminous pages of _The Later Cosmos_. Now the reader,
scenting more learned discourse, may meditate upon skipping this
chapter; nay, will probably do so. Yet, to my thinking, he will act more
wisely in buckling down to it, seeing that it contains matter of moment
for the perfect understanding of the narrative proper. The studying of
guide-posts is not an amusing occupation, but it is infinitely less
tedious than to wander around all day in a fog and perhaps miss one's
destination altogether.
* * * * *
"It is, indeed, a small world as we know it to-day. Our philosophers,
reconstructing, as best they may, the science of the ancients from the
treatises, few and sadly incomplete, that have come down to us, affirm
that the earth is an orb and that another continent (perhaps more than
one) lies beyond the rim of the eastern horizon. It may be so, but the
issue is not of practical importance, seeing that there are none who
care to make adventure of the great salty gulf that lies between. And so
the sea keeps its mysteries.
"On the other hand, we count it inadvisable to wander far afield. To
the north, to the west, and to the south stretches the unbroken forest,
and in a few hours a man's legs may easily carry him out of hailing of
the voice of his kind. The waterways form the only regular channels for
social and commercial intercourse, and the busybody and gad-about are
not regarded with favor by honest people.
"It appears highly probable that the human race was virtually
annihilated over the general area of the ancient United States of
America; it persisted only in a few particularly favored localities and
through accidental circumstances of which we know nothing definite. In
our own day, the northern, central, and southern group of colonies
maintain a system of infrequent intercommunication, and beyond that
certain knowledge does not extend. It is possible that mankind may exist
in a degraded state, in many inaccessible corners of this vast continent
of ours, but this is only a possibility, concerning which the theories
of the learned are no more susceptible of proof than are the idle
speculations of the vulgar.
"For convenience, we will accept the popular classification of the human
race as it exists to-day--the Painted Men, the House People, and the
Doomsmen. To take them up in that order.
"The Painted Men, otherwise the Wood Folk, are the descendants of the
Indians of old, but the strain is largely mingled with that of the negro
race, and, with hardly an exception, it is the weaker qualities both of
body and of mind that have been emphasized in the hybrid. From their
Indian forebears they have preserved the custom of painting their face
with crude and hideous pigments upon all occasions of ceremony; hence
their popular designation--the 'Painted Men.'
"The House People are conveniently subdivided into two classes--the
townsmen, or House People proper, and the stockade dwellers,
colloquially, the Stockaders.
"The House People of the walled towns represent as nearly as may be the
middle classes of the ancient civilization. Originally, the family was
the political and social unit, just as with the patriarchs of Holy Writ,
but within the last generation the community idea has been growing
rapidly, and there are perhaps a score of towns and villages scattered
along the banks of the Greater and Lesser rivers.
"The Stockaders, reversing the procedure of their kinsmen of the towns,
live apart from one another, each proprietor depending wholly upon his
own resources for sustenance and defence. Some of the larger estates
contain several hundred acres enclosed by a strong timber stockade and
otherwise defended against the assaults of enemies. The head of the
family, or clan, as it might more properly be termed, is lord paramount
within his own borders, even possessing the rights of life and death.
But this last authority is rarely called in exercise, since these folk
of the free country-side are naturally wholesome, honest,
generous-hearted men, content to lead a simple life and coveting no
man's honor or goods. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the
stockade dweller is both provincial of habit and prejudiced of mind. He
looks down upon the townsman as a huckster in private and a shuffler in
public life, and this feeling of contemptuous enmity is fully returned
by the cit, who regards the free proprietor in the light of a boor and a
bully. Moreover, it rankles in the Houseman's breast that no Stockader
pays a farthing of head-money to the treasure-chest of the Doomsmen. Now
and then some well-to-do proprietor may suffer loss from cattle thieving
and rick burning, but as often as not the marauders pay full price for
all they get. And this leads us to a consideration of the Doomsman
himself, that foul excrescence upon our modern body politic.
Fortunately, history here speaks clearly, and we have only to listen to
her voice.
"It was a natural procedure, upon the coming of the Terror, to throw
open the doors of the jails and other punitive institutions, thereby
giving the wretched inmates an equal chance for life. The great mass of
these degraded beings gravitated inevitably towards the cities, seeking
plunder and opportunities for bestial dissipation that even the dread
presence of the Terror could not restrain. Without hope and without
fear, they rushed to the vulture's feast; here was wine and gold and
soft raiment; let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.
"It was the ancient city of New York that received the vast bulk of this
army of human rats; naturally so, since it was the supreme
treasure-house of the western world. In such overwhelming numbers did
these vermin come that the civil and military administrations were
literally swarmed over. Between two days the outlaws were in complete
possession, and the small remnant of the decent residents retired
precipitately, preferring to meet death under the open sky rather than
in company with their new masters.
"The years went on, but the changes that they brought were few. The
descendants of the ancient criminals remained in the ruined city, at
first of necessity, afterwards by choice, finding there fuel and shelter
in abundance besides large stores of non-perishable food supplies. When,
in the next generation, these provisions became exhausted it was
inevitable that the refugees should fix covetous eyes upon the
threshing-floors and herd-stalls of their rural neighbors. But although
the outlaws had continued to gain in numbers, their natural increase was
not proportionate to the growing power of their adversaries. Little by
little the Doomsmen began to lose ground; already they had been defeated
several times in pitched battle, and it looked as though the
hornet's-nest would soon be smoked out.
"It was at this critical juncture that the infamous personality of Dom
Gillian made itself of commanding account, and thenceforth the balance
began to incline the other way. It was but the weight of one man's hand
in the scale-pan, yet there are still many of us who remember how heavy
that hand could be.
"Infamous is the adjective deliberately applied, and with reason.
Dominus Gillian, to give him his full name, was a renegade, the unworthy
son of a distinguished Stockader family. Admittedly a man of fine
intellect and force, it is equally unquestionable that he was entirely
devoid of moral sense. He possessed a genius for organization, and he
succeeded in consolidating the unruly Doomsmen into a compact and
disciplined body of outlaws. Murder and rapine were quickly reduced to
exact sciences, and, unfortunately, the House People could not be made
to see the necessity of united action; the townsman and the stockade
dweller preferred to contend with each other rather than against the
common enemy. As a consequence, the freebooters had a clear road before
them, and so was established that intolerable tyranny under which the
land still groans. All this occurred upward of sixty years ago.
"It only remains to add that Dominus, or, more colloquially, Dom
Gillian, still lives, albeit he must be verging upon ninety years of
age. For many years he has not been seen in the field, and it is even
asserted that he no longer takes active part in the councils of the
Doomsmen. Be that as it may, his will still remains dominant to animate
and direct the malign powers created by his wicked genius. And the evil
that men do, doth it not live after them?
"Such is the world, or, rather, one infinitesimal portion of the cosmos,
in the year 2015, according to the ancient calendar, or 90 since the
Terror."
IV
THE MAN ON HORSEBACK
Gavan of the Greenwood Keep was a prosperous man according to the
standard of these latter days, and his estate was reckoned to be the
largest and finest holding in all the western country-side. A man might
walk from break of day until darkness and yet not complete the periphery
of its boundary-lines, but the palisaded portion included only the
arable land and home paddocks and was of comparatively limited extent.
Viewed from a bird's-eye elevation, this stockaded enclosure appeared to
be laid out in the shape of a pear, the house being situated near the
small end. The greatest length of the area thus enclosed was a mile and
a half, and it was three-quarters of a mile wide at the big or southern
side, tapering down to a couple of hundred yards at the northern
entrance or barrier.
A quarter of a mile back from the north gate stood the keep, not one
distinct building, but rather several, built in the form of a hollow
square and consolidated for mutual protection. The principal entrance,
the one at the northern end, was called the water gate, for it should be
explained that the keep stood on the bank of the Ochre brook and access
was only possible by means of a drawbridge. Some day Sir Gavan intended
to turn the course of the stream so as to carry it around the keep and
thereby secure the protection of a continuous moat. But hitherto other
duties had seemed more pressing, and the plan was still in abeyance.
Entering through the covered way of the water gate, with guard-room and
bailiff's office to the right and left, one found himself in the
court-yard, some fifty yards in the square. On the right were the
cow-barns, horse-stalls, granaries, tool-houses, and store-buildings,
while the dwelling proper, known as the Great House, occupied the entire
left of the square, the kitchens and other offices adjoining the
retainers' quarters on the south. An enormous hall, running clear to the
roof, took up the central portion of the house, staircases and galleries
affording access to the store and sleeping-rooms on the second and attic
stories. The roof proper was surmounted by a para-petted and loop-holed
structure called the fighting platform, and it was thither that Constans
had repaired upon receiving the startling intelligence of his sister's
disappearance. Let us rejoin him there.
In the leisurely moving figure glimpsed through the birches, Constans
had instantly recognized Issa. Plainly she had been out flower-hunting;
with the aid of his binoculars he could determine that she carried a
bunch of the delicate pink-and-white blossoms that we call May-bloom.
She was directing her steps straight for the house, but either she was
unaccountably deaf to the continuous clanging of the alarm-bell or,
still more strangely, unaware of its significance; she walked as though
in a reverie, slowly and with her head bent forward. Thunder of God! it
was a trap, and the foolish girl would not see. Unquestionably, the
Doomsmen had forced the stockade at some distant point and were even now
in ambush about the keep. But Constans, for all his keenness of vision
and the assistance of his glass, could discover nothing to indicate the
presence of any considerable body of men. There was no one in actual
sight save he who sat upon his blood-bay steed, girth deep in the Ochre
brook under shadow of the alders. Only one, but that one!
Constans found himself in the court-yard; how he scarcely knew. The
water gate still stood open with the drawbridge lowered, but both could
be easily secured within a few seconds should the enemy venture upon any
open demonstration. Sir Gavan stood in the covered way talking anxiously
with his eldest son Tennant, who had just returned from an unsuccessful
search of the upper orchard.
Constans, in his confusion of mind, did not notice his father and
brother; he ran across the court-yard to the horse-boxes. His black mare
Night whickered upon recognizing her master, and tried to rub her muzzle
against his cheek as he fumbled with the throat-latch of the bridle. An
instant longer, to lead out the mare and vault upon her back, and he was
clattering through the court-yard and covered way.
Upon reaching the open Constans saw that the situation had developed
into a crisis. The cavalier of the ostrich-feather had forced his horse
up the steep bank of the Ochre brook and was riding slowly towards the
girl, who stood motionless, realizing her perilous position, but unable
for the moment to cope with it. She half turned, as though to seek again
the shelter of the birchen copse; then, clutching at her impeding
skirts, she ran in the direction of the keep. He of the ostrich-plume
spurred to the gallop; inevitably their paths must intersect a few yards
farther on.
From behind came the noise of men shouting and the thud of quarrels
impinging upon stout oak; the Doomsmen, hitherto in hiding, were making
a diversion, in answer, doubtless, to a signal from their leader. A
hundred gray-garbed men showed themselves in the open, coming from the
shelter of the fir plantation back of the rickyards; they ran towards
the open water gate, exposing themselves recklessly in their eagerness
to reach it.
But the defenders were not to be surprised so easily, and Constans,
glancing backward, saw that the drawbridge was already in the air and
the gate closed. The outlaws, realizing that the surprise was a failure,
and unwilling to brave the arrows sent whistling about their ears from
the fighting platforms of the keep, fell back in some disorder. At the
same moment a solitary figure appeared, emerging as though by magic from
the solid wall of the keep--Sir Gavan himself, a father forgetful of all
else but the peril of his children. He must have used the "Rat's-Hole"
for egress; he hurried down the green slope, calling his daughter by
name. All this Constans saw in that swift backward glance. Well, there
was but one thing that he could do.
And Night knew it, too; brave little Night, how cleverly you forced
yourself under the towering bulk of that brute of a blood-bay! A thunder
of hoofs and they were in touch; Constans felt himself hurled into
space; the bridle-reins of tough plaited leather were torn from his
hands; Night and he were down.
The dust cloud cleared and the boy struggled up, although his head was
still spinning from the shock of the encounter. Ten yards away lay the
black mare with a broken foreleg. She was trying to rise, her eyes
glazed with pain and her flanks heaving horribly.
The blood-bay had kept his feet and his master his saddle--a hardy pair,
these two. But the desperate expedient had proved successful in that
Issa was safe. Already Sir Gavan had her in his arms, and before the
horseman had fully found himself the fugitives were under the shadow of
the keep's walls.
The question of his own danger did not immediately concern Constans; he
had no eyes for anything but Night lying there in her agony. His father
had given him the horse when she was a foal of a week old, and Constans
had broken and trained her himself. Well, she had served him faithfully,
and in return he would show her the last mercy. His knife-sheath hung
from his girdle; he drew out the blade and drove it home just behind the
glossy black shoulder. Night shuddered and lay still. The knife had
sunken deep, and Constans had to exert all his strength to withdraw it.
The bare point of a rapier touched him meaningly on the arm; he stood up
and faced his enemy.
The man on horseback laughed softly. "Oho, my young cockerel, it was but
a touch of the gaff, and now that you are ready is reason sufficient why
I should prefer to wait. But that neither of us may forget--" He bent
down and caught Constans by the shoulders, turning him around and
forcing him backward until his head rested against the blood-bay's
withers. Two slashes of his hunting-knife and a tiny, triangular nick
appeared on the upper part of the lad's right ear.
"That is my sign-manual of which I spoke to you an hour or more ago. It
is Quinton Edge's mark, as all men know, and it brands whatever bears it
as Quinton Edge's property. Some day I may deem it worth while to claim
my own; until then you can be my caretaker, my tenant. What! no answer?
And yet it is a generous offer, I think, considering how sore my arm has
grown and how impertinently you behaved just now in interfering between
me and a lady. Light of God! but she is a bewitching bundle of
femineity. But twice, boy, have I seen her; hardly a dozen words have
passed----"
He stopped abruptly and gazed hard at Constans. Then slowly:
"Your sister, I take it; there is the same straight line of eyebrow. No
answer again? Well, we will pass it over for the nonce; you have still
many things to learn, and, chiefly, to becomingly order body and soul in
the presence of your lord. After all, it pleases me better to have the
last word from the lady's own lips; she had been most discourteously
treated, and I would fain be shriven. Until we meet again, then."
The cavalier put spur to the blood-bay's flank and rode straight for the
Great House. The boy stood staring after him; he did not notice the
trickle of blood from the cut in his ear; he was not even conscious that
he was still in life. He remembered only the unforgivable affront which
this man had put upon him, the mark which was the infamous badge of the
bondman, the slave. Quinton Edge! Ah, yes; he would remember that face
and name.
The Doomsman had ridden in cool defiance up to the very walls of the
keep. It would have been an easy matter for one of the garrison to have
bored his gay jacket through with a feathered shaft, and for a moment
Constans trembled, fearing lest some overzealous partisan should thus
rob him of his future vengeance. But the very audacity of the man proved
the saving of his skin. They were brave men who manned the fighting
platforms of the Greenwood Keep, and they could not bring themselves to
set upon naked courage.
Constans fancied that the man spoke to some one who stood hidden in the
deep embrasure of a window, but it was too far to either see or hear.
Then it seemed that a small object fell lightly from the window-sill.
The Doomsman caught it dexterously and fastened it on his breast.
Another low bow and, wheeling his horse, he dashed down the slope.
Constans ran blindly to meet him; why, he did not know. He who named
himself Quinton Edge swerved slightly in his course so as to pass within
arm's-length, calling out as he did so:
"Gage of battle and gage of love; a fortunate day for me. Believe me
that at some future time I shall answer for them both."
It was a sprig of the May-bloom that the cavalier wore in his
button-hole; Constans had only time to recognize it when the blood-bay
broke into full gallop. The lad flung himself at full length upon the
turf, face downward, and lay there motionless.
V
THE RAT'S-HOLE
It was a warm, cloudy night some two weeks later, and Constans sat in
the great hall of the keep, listlessly regarding the preparations that
were being made for the evening meal. Six or seven of the house-servants
were bustling to and from the buttery laden with flagons and dishes,
which they deposited with a vast amount of noise and confusion upon the
tables. These latter were of the most primitive construction, nothing
more than puncheons smoothed down with the adze and supported by wooden
trestles.
The main table ran nearly the full length of the hall, and was intended
to accommodate the men-at-arms and the superior servants, together with
such strangers of low degree as might chance to be present. The
furniture was of the rudest pattern--platters of bass and white wood,
which were daily scoured with sand to keep them clean and sweet,
earthenware pitchers of a bricklike hue, drinking-cups of pewter and
leather, and clumsy iron forks. There was no provision of cutlery;
evidently the guests were expected to use their hunting-knives and
daggers for the dismemberment of the viands.
At the upper or dais end of the hall there was a second table, placed at
right angles to the long one and elevated above it by the height of the
superior flooring upon which it stood. This principal board was, of
course, for the exclusive use of the family and distinguished guests,
and from the circumstance of its being raised above the main level the
master could command an unobstructed view of the entire household in the
event of any overt disorder or indecorum.