A SIGNAL IN THE NIGHT
"How far that little candle throws his beams!"
--Merchant of Venice.
A month of dangerous and almost fatal sickness followed. When at last,
through the care of a faithful negro "mammy," the much-enduring man
crept out from the valley of the shadow of death, he learned that
Pepeeta had secured a little room in a tenement house and was supporting
herself with her needle, in the use of which she had become an expert in
those glad hours when she made her baby's clothes, and those sad ones
when she sat far into the night awaiting David's return.
On the morning of the first day in which he was permitted to leave the
house he made his way to Pepeeta's new quarters.
"And so this is to be her home," he said with a shudder as he looked up
to the attic window. Every day this pale young man was seen, by the
curious neighbors, hovering about the place. As for the object of his
love and solicitude, she began at once to be a bread-winner. The
delicate girl who never in her life until now had experienced a care
about the necessities of existence began to struggle for bread in
company with the thousands of poor and needy, creatures by whom she
found herself surrounded. The only hunger she experienced was that of
the heart. She soon became conscious of David's presence, and derived
from it a pleasure which only added to her pain. She avoided him as best
she could, and her determination and her sanctity prevented him from
approaching her.
David could never remember how many days were passed in this way, for he
lost count of time, and lived more like a man in a dream than like one
in a world of life and action.
But as his strength slowly returned, he grew more and more restive under
the restraint which Pepeeta's will imposed upon him. And so, while he
did not dare to approach her in person, he determined to put his case to
a final test, and if he could not win her back to leave forever a place
in which he was doomed to suffer perpetual torment.
In the execution of this purpose, he wrote her a letter in which, after
passionately pleading for her love, he asked her to give him a sign of
willingness to take him once more back into her life. "If I may cherish
hope of your ultimate relenting," he wrote, "place your candle on the
window sill. I will wait until midnight, and if you extinguish it then,
I shall accept your decision as final, and you will be responsible for
what follows. I am a desperate man, and life without you has become
intolerable."
With this letter in his hand, he waited until the street was quiet and
the halls of the tenement house deserted, and then crept up the long
staircase with trembling knees.
On tiptoe he picked his way across the corridor and slipped the note
under the door. So quietly did he step that he did not hear his own
footfall; but it did not escape the ears of the woman who sat stitching
her life into the garment lying upon her knees. There is often in a
footfall music sweeter than bird songs or harp tones.
Having thrust the letter under the door, David fled hastily down the
stairway and into the street, where he began to pace back and forth like
a sentry on his beat, never for a single instant losing sight of the
window whence streamed the feeble rays of the candle from which he was
to receive the signal of hope or despair.
Never did a condemned felon in a cell watch for the coming of a
messenger of pardon with more wildly beating heart than his as he gazed
at that window up in the wall of the gloomy tenement house. Never did a
mariner on a storm-tossed vessel keep his eye more resolutely fixed on
beams from a distant lighthouse.
It was then ten o'clock, and as he watched the slow-moving hands upon
the moonlit dial in the church tower, it seemed to him they were held
back by invisible fingers, and there came to his mind a forgotten story
of a man who, having been accidentally imprisoned in a sepulchre,
suffered in the twenty minutes which elapsed before his release all the
pangs of starvation, so powerfully was his imagination excited. This
story which he had once discredited he now believed, for it seemed to
him as if eternities were being crowded into single moments.
He had also heard that drowning men could review their entire lives in
the few instants that preceded their loss of consciousness, and he
acquired a new comprehension of this mystery. All the experiences of his
entire existence swept through his mind again and again with a rapidity
and a distinctness that astonished him. Like a great shuttle darting
back and forth through a fabric, his mind seemed to be passing again and
again forward and backward through all the scenes of the past. Finally,
and after what seemed uncounted ages, the great clock struck the hour of
midnight. One, two, three--he stood like a man rooted to the
ground,--four, five, six--his heart beat louder than the bell,--seven,
eight, nine--the blood seemed bursting through his temples,--ten,
eleven, twelve!--the light went out! The universe seemed to have been
instantaneously swallowed up in darkness. He could not see the figure
that crept to the window and gazed down upon him from behind the drapery
of the curtains. He did not know that Pepeeta had fallen upon her knees
in an agony deeper than his own, and was gazing down at him through
streaming tears. In those few succeeding moments the sense of his
personal loss was displaced by a sudden and overpowering sense of his
personal guilt. The full consciousness of his sin burst upon him. He saw
the selfishness of his love and the wickedness of his lust in a light
brighter than day.
There is a kind of rhododendron about Trebizond of which the bees make a
honey that drives people mad! He saw that illicit love was that honey of
Trebizond! He felt, as he had never felt before, the pressure of that
terrible power that over all and through all the discords and sins of
life makes resistlessly for righteousness. He perceived that a system of
wheels is attached to every thought and act, and that, each one sets in
motion the entire machinery of justice. He felt that every sleepless
starry eye in heaven penetrated the guilty secrets of his soul and was
pledged to the execution of judgment.
These perceptions confounded him with fear. His thoughts ceased to move
in order, tossing and teasing each other like straws in the wind. They
ceased to illumine the depths of his soul and only hung like flickering
candles above a dark mine.
Whether he looked up or down, without or within, he saw no hope, but it
was not until after the lapse of many and unnoted moments that the
disturbed machinery of his mind began to move. He awakened as from a
nightmare, drew his hands across his eyes and looked this way and that
as if to get his bearings.
"What next?" he said aloud, as if speaking to some one else. Receiving
no answer, he turned instinctively toward his gambling house, and went
stumbling along through the deserted streets. What is a man, after all,
but a stumbling machine? Progress is made by falling forward over
obstacles! The poor stumbler tottered across his own threshold into that
brilliant room where he had always received an enthusiastic welcome, but
which he had not visited since his sickness. If ever a man needed
kindness and encouragement it was he; but his sensitive spirit instantly
discovered that all was changed.
His superstitious companions had not forgotten the broken glass, and had
heard of his subsequent calamities. With them the lucky alone were the
adorable! The gods of the temples of fortunes are easily and quickly
dethroned and the worshipers had already prostrated themselves before
other shrines.
The coldness of his greeting sent a chill to his already benumbed heart
and increased his desperation. He was nervous, excited, depressed, and
feeling the need of something to distract his thought from his troubles,
he sat down and began to play; but from the first deal he lost--lost
steadily and heavily.
The habitués of the place exchanged significant glances as much as to
say, "I told you so!"
Whispered phrases passed from lip to lip.
"He is playing wild."
"He has lost his nerve."
"His luck has turned."
And so indeed it had! Within a few short hours he had staked his entire
fortune and lost it. It had gone as easily and as quickly as it had
come.
"I guess that is about all," he said, pushing himself wearily back from
the table at which he had just parted with the title to his desolated
home.
"Shall I stake you, Davy?" asked one of his friends, touched by the
pathos of the haggard face and hopeless voice.
"No," he answered, rising. "I have played enough. I am going away.
Good-bye, boys."
Without another word, he left them and passed out of the door.
"Good-bye," they cried, as he vanished, scarcely raising their eyes from
the tables.
Even in a crowd like that there will generally be found some heart which
still retains its tenderness. The young man who had offered to stake
him, followed the ruined gambler into the street.
"Where are you going, old man?" he said kindly, slipping his hand
through David's arm.
"I don't know," he answered absently.
"Are you dead broke, Davy?"
"Dead broke," in a lifeless echo.
"Will you accept a little loan? You can't go far without money."
"It's no use."
"Take it! I wouldn't have had it if it hadn't been for you, and I won't
have it long whether you take it or not."
As he spoke he slipped a roll of bills into his friend's pocket.
"Thanks!" said David.
"Don't mention it," he replied.
"Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
The sun was just rising as they parted. The first faint stir of life was
perceptible in the city streets; the green-grocers were coming in with
their fresh vegetables; the office boys were opening the doors and
putting away the shutters; there was a bright, morning look on the faces
which peered into the haggard countenance of the gambler as he crept
aimlessly along, but the fresh, sweet light gave him neither brightness
nor joy. His heart was cold and dead; he had not even formed a purpose.
And so he drifted aimlessly until the current that was setting toward
the levee caught him and bore him on with it. The sight of a vessel just
putting out to sea communicated to his spirit its first definite impulse
and he ascended the gang-plank without even inquiring its destination.
In a few moments the boat swung loose and turned its prow down the
river. The bustle of the embarkation distracted him. He watched the
hurrying sailors, gazed at the piles of merchandise, walked up and down
the deck, listened to the fresh breeze that began to play upon the
great, sonorous harp of the shrouds and the masts, and when at last the
vessel glided out into the waters of the gulf he lay down in a hammock
and fell into a long and dreamless sleep.