THE IMAGE OF GOD
The story which I have to tell will be briefer than the others you have
heard, but it is the story of twenty-three long, delusive years. It
is the story of an ambition that was reaching up to Heaven when, like
Babel’s tower, it succumbed to confusion, and fell crumbling to the
earth.
My father, dying just after I became of age, left me a large, carefully
invested fortune, and if I had acted in accordance with his last wishes
I would have addressed myself to commercial pursuits, as he had done.
But Art had enthralled my mind, and I made my home in Paris where I
studied painting under several masters.
From the first, fortune favored me, and critics already were beginning
to refer to me as the most promising painter that the New World ever
had given to the old. My head was turned, and I aspired to climb to
artistic heights that few men had been bold enough to try to scale.
I conceived the idea of a great painting that should be my masterpiece.
In this the central figure was to be the Deity, Himself. For more than
two years I sought a model for this wonderful figure, but my search was
vain. My idea had its inception in the scriptural authority that “God
created man in his own image.” I sought the perfect man. During this
period I made hundreds of sketches, trying to evolve from many models
points of perfection that might be embodied in an harmonious whole.
I had no suggestion from any of the old masters to aid me. Every deity
that the world has worshipped has been, at some time and in some
manner, represented by the reverent hands of sculptors and painters.
But few Christian sculptors ever attempted to give form to Him who made
man in His own image, and these few were content to imitate the ancient
conceptions of Jove.
Late one New Year’s Eve, I knew that I had failed, so, collecting all
the sketches I had made, I hurled them into my fireplace. Then, with
a sharp knife, I went to the end of the studio where stood the great
canvas, with its background partly painted, on which I had designed to
place my conception of the wonderful image.
I mounted a stepladder, and was about to thrust the knife into the top
of the canvas when a sound, coming to me from the hall, caused me to
hesitate.
It was the cry of a new-born child!
I knew its parents. The father had died six months before this
plaintive cry, even now, had reached my ears. He had been an
unfortunate artist, and had left his widow so destitute that I was
contributing to her support. She was nearly forty now, and, in
her youth she had been very beautiful. But poverty and care had
extinguished many of her former charms long before this, her first,
child came into the world to share her life of misery.
A new idea now flashed into my mind, and, as I thought, I slowly
descended the ladder.
Half an hour later, when I laid the gleaming knife upon my table, the
canvas was still untouched by the blade, and in that still, grimy old
studio it remains untouched at this very hour, for no foot has crossed
the threshold since that fateful New Year’s Eve.
I took the infant from its dying mother’s arms, and before the first
month of the new year was ended the babe was in the United States. Here
I confided it to the care of a New England woman who, for two years,
cared for it as if it had been her own.
I had been shooting and painting in the Adirondacks several years
before, and, profoundly impressed by the grandeur of its great mountain
fastnesses, I thought that somewhere among them it might be possible
to find one which no human foot, unguided by mine, would tread for a
quarter of a century.
I now determined to search for such a valley, and, taking with me
Glenagassett, the most perfect type of Indian manhood I had ever met, I
set out on my quest.
In course of time, we came to what is now known as Deadwood Valley.
There I found a little natural cave, and across the front of this
Glenagassett and I built a wall of logs. Then, returning to New York,
I took the two-year-old child, and, retracing my steps through the
mountains, I found myself again in the valley. Here I gave the child
into the care of Glenagassett.
To the Indian I then confided my purpose. I told him that this child
was Rayon Demain--“the beam of to-morrow”--that he was the son of the
Great Spirit, himself, and that he should come to possess all the
Great Spirit’s powers should he attain his twenty-third year without
seeing the face of a woman, or exchanging words with any man whom I
did not take to him myself. Amid these solitudes the child should be
taught that he was lord of all, and that when the right hour came, his
supremacy over nature and man would be fully proclaimed.
The boy, Rayon, was to be taught the language of the forest as Indians
had been able to understand it. He should be impressed, too, with
the belief that the storm, the waves and every living thing in the
wilderness were daily beseeching him to exert in their behalf his
god-like, dormant power.
I told the Indian also that not until the boy was ten years old would
I see him again, but that at that time, when his forest education was
done, I would bring other teachers.
All this was in accordance with a theory that I had formed--a theory
that the human mind is the sculptor of the features and poise that
express its meaning. In short, that if a man is to have the facial
expression of a god, he must think as a god, and have god-like things
to look upon.
When the workmen left the valley, Rayon and Glenagassett reentered
it. While he was away the boy had seen no face other than that of the
Indian.
When the lad was ten I visited him. I saw Glenagassett had done well.
Whether Rayon talked, walked, ran, or swam in the dark lake, his grace,
dignity and self-possession amazed me, and, always clean-minded and
with more than even a proud man’s self-respect, he already had begun to
develop the most remarkable beauty I ever had seen on a human face.
I then had a new and more spacious rock chamber finished, and I sent to
Rayon teachers whom I could trust to carry out the delusion I had been
so carefully fostering in his mind. Believing me to be a messenger of
the Great Spirit, his father, he corresponded with me, reporting to me
on what he had learned each day. The books, music and pictures I sent
to him were carefully chosen, and were of a nature to encourage in him
a belief that he was superior to the human race.
When the boy was eighteen I began to visit him more frequently. Amazed
by the manner in which my theory was working out, I began to feel
myself inferior to this strange youth, whose mind was dominated by a
sense of power, and into whose heart no guile had ever entered. There
were times when even I was half-tempted to share Glenagassett’s belief
that the youth really possessed divine attributes.
At length, when the boy was twenty, I assured myself that I would have
only three or four years more to wait, and that then the marvelous
figure would at last find its place on the big canvas in my closed
Parisian studio.
Clouds at last began to rise above the horizon, however. In the valley
below Deadwood lake a woman established a summer home, and brought
several servants with her. Glenagassett wanted to burn the log-house
then, but, fool that I was, I forbade him to do so. I was beginning to
be confident of Rayon’s own power now.
Rayon had just entered his twenty-second year when, on a visit to the
valley, I learned that a beautiful young woman had passed through the
mountains. The Indian feared she was going to live with Mrs. Seaver.
“Shall I kill her?” Glenagassett asked me, eagerly.
But--still a fool--I told him ‘no’--to wait and see.
One day, while I was sitting in the cavern, there came a violent storm.
I rose, and, walking to one of the windows, I watched the tempest as it
rocked and threshed the valley. When it was over I lay down and slept.
When I awoke a sweet, strange sound was coming to me through the window
I left open. Rising quickly I hurried to the window and listened.
It was a love-song--sung by a woman whose voice, stealing through and
over the silent wilderness, was as beautiful as an angel’s.
Hurrying down the shore, I ran like a madman toward the place from
which the voice was rising--the very spot on which I stood when I
first delivered the little Rayon into the keeping of Glenagassett.
It was a long, hard scramble that I had undertaken, and my way lay over
soggy mounds, shifting stones and fallen trees. Branch after branch
smote me as I ran, until, with my strength all spent, I was compelled
to pause before I reached my destination.
The first song had ceased, then, after a pause, the voice of the singer
rose again. She was singing “The Lost Chord.”
Once more I staggered on, and, when I came upon the singer, I saw that
Rayon stood beside her in the moonlight, with a hand resting on one of
her arms.
Despair suddenly gripped my heart as I realized that the woman was no
less beautiful than her wondrous voice!
My effort to draw Rayon away was successful, but, all the way back to
the cavern he strode ahead of me, gazing sullenly to the ground.
At the cavern entrance he turned.
“Are all the devils as fair as that?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“No, no,” I answered, gravely. “The fairest has been sent to tempt the
strongest man.”
He looked at me long and steadily.
“If you have deceived me, you must not live longer, Nathan,” he said;
then, as if thinking aloud, he added: “I will see, I will see.”
That night the cavern chambers were too narrow to hold my thoughts,
so I went out into the valley, and for more than three hours I walked
alone beneath the stars.
Returning to the cavern I woke Glenagassett.
“The women must leave the valley below,” I said.
“They shall go,” Glenagassett answered.
Not once on the following day did Rayon speak to me. At night he
retired early to his chamber.
The following morning, when I saw Glenagassett, I said:
“The women are not gone.”
“They will go to-night,” he replied, gloomily.
I nodded, and passed on. That day Rayon started off alone, but the
Indian followed him. In the evening Rayon came to me.
“Does the Prince of Evil always look like the pictures we see of him,
Nathan?” he asked.
“I think so,” I answered. “But why do you ask me that?”
“Because I’ve seen him,” he muttered, thoughtfully. “He haunts her
every night, and----”
“Haunts who?” I asked.
“The woman.”
“Well, may he take her, then!” I retorted, irritably.
“Do you think he will?”
“I have not the slightest doubt that he will get her eventually,” I
muttered.
“The Prince of Darkness must be tamed,” he said, gloomily. “We’ll see
to that--Glenagassett and I.”
Half-choked by emotions of anger and fear, I looked at him several
moments, without speaking. Rayon was looking down the valley toward the
stream through which the waters of Deadwood Lake pass to the valley
below.
“You have been going to the log-house at night?” I asked.
“He is always there,” Rayon went on moodily, “and, night before last, I
met him face to face. Nathan, what is fear? How does one feel, who has
it?”
“He feels as you must never feel, Rayon,” I replied, looking at him
wonderingly.
“Is it a shrinking feeling--a feeling that a man might have if some
great eagle fastened its talons in his head and was jerking out all his
thoughts? Is it a thing that traps his voice, and holds down his hands
when he would raise them--that grips his feet like boggy places?”
“Yes--yes,” I faltered. “But----”
“Then I have felt it, Nathan,” he went on, gravely. “I have been a
coward.”
“In Heaven’s name, Rayon!” I began, but, with one of his imperious
gestures, he silenced me.
“For the last two nights, while you thought me sleeping, I have been in
the other valley,” the young man said. “When I went there on the night
I saw the woman, a strange thing happened. I had it in my mind to seize
her and bring her here, where I might look at her and make her sing
whenever it pleased me to hear her. But in the log-house there were
many windows, and, while I stood in a shadow, wondering which might be
the window of her room, I saw a figure that I took to be a man steal
around the corner of the house. Leaving the shadow, I walked toward the
figure. It turned, and, when I saw its features, I knew it was no man.
It was the Prince of Darkness, himself.”
“Come--Rayon, Rayon!” I muttered, protestingly.
“It was he, and no other,” the young man said, with an appearance of
the most unmistakable conviction. “And, as I looked at his grinning,
triangular, black-bearded face, I felt that thing which, as I know now,
was fear.”
“Did he speak?” I asked, sharply.
“Not there. For a long time--it may have been one minute or thirty, but
I felt as if it would never end--he kept his gaze on mine. I could not
tell whether he had expected me, or whether my coming had taken him by
surprise. The evil smile on his hideous face revealed nothing. His
awful eyes held me as a serpent’s holds a bird’s. Their beams burned
like brands. Though he was smiling, no muscle of his face had moved. He
stood like a thing of stone.”
Thrill after thrill passed over me. Was Rayon crazed, or had he,
indeed, seen this hideous thing? A great chill smote me as I saw that
drops of perspiration were gathering on the speaker’s brow. Ay, it
was plain that fear had come to him, at last. For the first time, in
many years, I remembered that he had had a mother. The creature I had
labored so long to invest with divine attributes had woman’s blood in
him, after all. He who created man in His own image made the first of
our race All-Man. It was not until the first man learned to love a
woman that there came into the world those strange hybrids who were to
people it--men with some of the weaknesses of women, and women with
some of those higher, and partly divine, attributes, with which God
invested man.
After a pause, Rayon went on:
“At length the creature looked toward the open window he had been
approaching when my footsteps attracted his attention. For a few
moments, the fear passed from me, and, with my eyes, I tried to measure
his strength. I saw that he was as powerful as I. I think I should have
thrown myself upon him had not he turned again to me so soon. Then
my will left me. He pointed to a dark, heavily timbered spot in the
forest, just beyond the clearing. Like a child, I did his bidding, and,
as I walked, I heard him following slowly.
“At last I heard his voice. It was so different from yours or
Glenagassett’s--so much like my own--that it startled me.
“‘Let us stop here,’ he said.
“I halted, and, as I turned to him, I saw his back was to the narrow
shaft of moonlight that came through a rift in the mass of foliage
above. Of this I was glad, for, if we were to talk, I would not be
compelled to see his face. But I soon knew he had not taken me to that
dark place to hear me speak.
“‘Among these mountains there are many valleys, and no man is lord of
all,’ he began. ‘The valley above is yours, to have and to hold until
that man comes who shall cast you out. But this valley belongs to me,
and I hold it by virtue of a stronger will than your own. When you
leave it now, take with you the knowledge that, if you return to it,
the old impious fool who so long has deluded you, will never again look
on the living form of Rayon Demain. Now go.’
“As he spoke, he turned from me and moved quickly into the darker
shadows that lay around us. But if he thought that I, standing in the
moonlight, did not see him take a revolver from his pocket, he did not
know that my eyes could penetrate far darker shades than those in which
he stood to watch me.
“I was unarmed, and, having felt that thing which comes over forest
animals when men approach them, I knew that you had lied to me--that,
after all, I was only a man, and would die like a deer, or bear or
stricken bird if this strange being discharged his weapon at me. And so
I did his bidding. I came back to this valley, and, as I stole hither,
like a scourged hound, I heard stealthy footsteps following me as I
went. I knew they were the footsteps of him who had taught me how to
fear. It was not until I entered the valley that I knew my enemy had
turned back.
“But, though I had walked that night as one who did the bidding of
a master, my thoughts were not those of a coward. Nor were they the
thoughts of one who was still a fool. I knew many things I had not
known before. I knew that I was only a man--that he whom you have
just told me was the Prince of Darkness was only a man; that when my
enemy had spoken of ‘the old impious fool’ who had so long deluded me,
he meant you--you, whom I have known as Nathan--you who would have a
creature who is capable of feeling fear believe himself to be a god.”
As he bent his gaze on me now, I shrank appalled from what I saw.
His eyes were burning fires in which seemed to be generated the
whiteheated hate that was trembling on his face.
The man whom I had striven to make god-like had become an angered
demon. In the Babel I had reared the confusion of tongues already had
entered. Fear and Hate had gained admission, and I, the trembling
architect, felt as if it were too late for me to escape from the
tottering walls before they fell.
For several moments, confronted by that great hate, I doubted not that
the man it had mastered would take my life. But his will fought back
the fires, and once more a look of sullenness settled on his face. Then
he spoke as quietly as he had done before.
“And so, knowing these things, I knew that the devil-faced creature,
who had triumphed over me while I was unarmed, would have to die--that
I must kill him before I would be able to get the woman,” he went on.
“That is why I went again to the log-house last night. Hour after hour
I sat in the fringe of the forest, watching for the man I had gone
there to slay. But he did not come. I would have taken the woman then,
had I not believed that he might follow and take me unawares while I
had her in my arms. But, whether or not he comes to-night, I will bring
the woman here.”
Trembling with astonishment and anger, more than fear, I laid a hand on
one of his broad shoulders.
“Rayon--Rayon--are you mad?” I gasped.
Drawing back, he laughed harshly. Then, with a sudden movement he
reached forward and, grasping me with his powerful hands, he raised me
from the ground and held me out at arms’ length, shaking me as if I
were a child.
“Yes, mad--mad--mad--you old fool graybeard--mad!” he cried. “But I am
not half so mad as you would make me.”
Then, with a wild, rough laugh, he flung me to the ground with such
force that, writhing with pain, I could not draw a breath.
When, at last, quivering with physical pain and mental anguish, I
scrambled to my feet, I saw I was alone.
Raising my voice, I feebly called the name of Glenagassett. There was
no response. Where had the Indian gone? Had I not told him to keep
Rayon always in his sight? As my strength returned to me, I called
louder.
Then suddenly I remembered that when I last had seen the Indian,
earlier in the day, he had told me that the women in the valley below
would “leave to-night.”
I never had known Glenagassett to break his word. How he designed to
get the women away I did not know. It was a subject that I had feared
to think upon, but I knew the next morning would not find them there.
Glenagassett undoubtedly was in the lower valley, and Rayon was now
well on his way thither. What would happen if they met?
Into one of my pockets I slipped a revolver, then, with long, eager
strides, I set out along the path that led to the valley below.
My strides soon quickened to a run. Then, losing breath, I slackened
my pace to a walk again. On and on I went--now walking, now running,
until Deadwood Valley was well behind me. At length, however, I heard a
sound that brought me to a halt.
It was the sound of a pistol shot, and, as I listened, others broke the
stillness of the night.
I had not far to go, and, as I ran, I dropped the burden of my years.
A mighty resolve had hardened my heart and steeled my sinews. As I
pressed on, the revolver that I brought with me was in my hand. The
woman who was the cause of all this mischief should die, even if every
bullet that I might fire should pass through her body into the heart of
Rayon Demain!
I heard the shouts of men, and I knew that it was no one-sided battle
that was on. Glenagassett had told me that the old woman’s two
menservants were well-seasoned forest men of the same hard stuff of
which the Adirondack guides are made. I had seen these from a distance,
and I knew that neither of them was the “devil-faced” man Rayon had
encountered. Who this stranger was I was unable to guess.
Shots and shouts ceased suddenly, then I heard a woman’s shrieks. These
encouraged me in the belief that, thus far, victory lay with Rayon--or
Glenagassett. It was the triumph of Glenagassett for which I was hoping
now.
Suddenly, a dull, red glare began to steal through and over the forest
trees. The odor of burning wood was in my nostrils. A wild, quavering,
exultant cry issued from my throat, for I knew that the victory lay
with Glenagassett--that it was mine.
From the log-house now there came no sound. The cries of the frightened
women were still, and the fire glow became so bright that I could see
distinctly the outlines of the boughs under which I was passing. Among
the trees and bushes, however, the inhabitants of the forest were
astir. Birds and squirrels had scented that which they dread even more
than man--the smoke of an Adirondack forest fire.
Suddenly I remembered that I was old. My strength was spent, and my
heaving chest felt as if it were filled with molten metal. My limbs
were palsied by the violence of the unwonted efforts I had required of
them. As I tottered on, the revolver fell from the hand that had been
grasping it. I stooped to pick it up. I saw it gleaming--gleaming at my
feet. I touched it--fell, and felt the damp earth against my throbbing
temples.
“I will sleep,” I murmured. “All is well. Glenagassett has triumphed,
and the woman--the woman----”
Ay, I slept, and when I woke the sun was shining.
So stiff was I in every joint and muscle that even the slightest
movement gave me pain. The atmosphere was laden with the dank, heavy
odor of burnt wood, but I saw no smoke.
Rising weakly, I looked around me. I had fallen in the forest, near
the edge of the clearing that surrounded the log-house. But now I saw
that the log-house was gone. A mass of black, faintly smoking embers
was all that was left of the picturesque little home that an honest,
nature-loving old woman had built here in the wilderness beside the
still smiling lake.
But the blackened fragments of the log-house and barn were not all I
saw. Lying in the clearing there were other objects, and, as these met
my view, I knew they were human sacrifices that had been laid before
the altar of my ambition.
All unmindful of the pains that had been racking my body and limbs,
I passed from one still form to another. The first I saw was that of
poor, devoted Glenagassett. The two others apparently were the bodies
of servants--one a man and the other a woman. Of Rayon, of the woman
who had owned the log-house, and of the young woman who had been her
guest there was no trace.
One thing, however, was certain, and the knowledge of this made me a
coward. Murder had been done, and those who sought the persons who were
responsible for the night attack might, even now, be on their way to
this valley. Thus, in the sunset of my wasted life, I was nothing more
than a wretched criminal, for, though I had not been present when these
three hapless beings were slain, I was as responsible for their deaths
as if they had fallen before the revolver I had taken with me to the
spot.
Had Rayon succeeded in getting the young woman to the cavern, after
all? Did he know that, whether he had done this or not, the law would
seek him out and punish him? Should I not go to the cavern and tell him
of his peril?
I shook my head.
No, neither Rayon nor the woman was anything to me now. If he still
lived, he was young and I was old. I had failed in all things. Let him
work out his destiny alone.
Beside the body of the manservant lay his rifle, and around the waist
was a cartridge belt. After taking possession of these, I knelt down
beside Glenagassett and took from one of his pockets the flint and
steel with which, for many years, he had kindled all his fires. Then,
after one long, last look toward Deadwood Valley, I plunged into the
wilderness, nor did I emerge from it again until the songbirds had
taken flight for the Southland, and the frost was causing the nuts to
drop from the trees. When I returned to civilization, it was at a point
far distant from those from which I had been wont to approach Deadwood
Valley.
Since the day I found Glenagassett’s body, it has been only in my
dreams that I have heard the voice of Rayon Demain. But I knew that he
did not die in the Adirondacks. From time to time newspapers published
accounts of efforts that had been made to capture him. At first, he was
sought only as “the Adirondack murderer,” but later other crimes in
distant parts of the country were laid to his charge. How a man with
such a striking face and figure could succeed in escaping capture, I
could not understand.
At length, however, newspapers reported a misadventure that befell him
in the West, and through them I learned the name of one who was able to
give me the details of the affair. That gentleman, replying to a letter
which I wrote to him, told me a story which is little less remarkable
than the one you have just heard from my lips. He is that guest who is
known to you as the Duckhunter, and you doubtless soon will hear from
him the strange facts he has to tell.
* * * * *
The eyes of all except two of the guests were turned toward the
Duckhunter. While the Hypochondriacal Painter had been speaking, the
Aeronaut had drawn her veil over her face again, and, from that moment,
those who glanced toward her saw that not once was her gaze turned
from the Gargoyle. As if conscious of this fact, the Gargoyle sat with
his head bowed. His right arm rested on the table, and his right hand
shielded his eyes and part of his face.
There was a little pause, then, as no one seemed inclined to speak,
Westfall nodded toward the Duckhunter, who forthwith began his story.