RALPH ST. ALBAN.
A snarl of tiger like rage and hate came from the lips of Ferris at
those few emphatic words from the lips of his foe. He growled, hoarsely:
“Curse you forever for that base lie! How dare you thus condemn an
innocent man?”
Talbot Strangemore did not answer him. He was looking at his comrades.
“You know now, my friends, why the asp was placed in my bed to-night.
Oswald Ferris knew that I suspected him and that I would follow him
from one end of the earth to the other to convict him of his sin and
clear the memory of my martyred bride, so he took that means of ridding
himself of his foe.”
“It is false, false!” the accused ground out between his clenched
teeth, vindictively, but no one paid any regard to his denials. Every
man was against him. The terrible purpose that had been frustrated by
the arrival of John Armstrong flamed up into their minds again.
“Lynch law is too good for this villain!” they shouted, angrily.
Oswald Ferris sprang up, he caught John Armstrong hurriedly by the arm.
“Do not let this horrible thing go on, do not let them murder me,” he
cried, imploringly.
Armstrong shook himself scornfully free.
“What can I say or do to prevent them from carrying out their threat?
You have shown yourself such a wicked wretch that the injuries of your
victims cry out against you for vengeance!” he said.
“But I tell you solemnly that I have injured no one. The evidence
against me is all of a purely circumstantial nature. You say yourself
that Mrs. Strangemore has been proven guilty of the murder of Sibyl St.
Alban. That fact clears me fairly from Strangemore’s idiotic charge.
For the other, no one can swear that I placed the serpent in his bed.
They merely supposed so from the fact that Wilson saw me looking at
his pet asp last evening. I ask you, are these baseless accusations
sufficient evidence for Judge Lynch to proceed upon?” clamored Ferris,
sharply.
“He took away the box with the asp and I could swear that he placed it
under the pillow of Strangemore. He is a guilty wretch, and deserves
to have summary justice executed upon him!” exclaimed Harvey Wilson,
threateningly.
“We will take him out to the highest palm-tree we can find and swing
him from the end of a rope,” shouted the men.
“We will thus avenge the murder of Mrs. St. Alban and the attempted one
of Talbot Strangemore,” added Harvey Wilson.
“No, no, no,” shrieked Ferris, and again he clutched Mr. Armstrong’s
arm, imploringly.
“For God’s sake, exert your influence and save me from the fury of this
mob!” he cried. “You will not permit them to commit a cold blooded
murder!”
But John Armstrong had become thoroughly imbued with the belief in
his guilt, and his indignation ran as high as that of the others. He
resolutely refused to speak one word to the excited and angry men.
“You overrate my influence,” he said, coldly. “What can the word of one
man avail against a determined mob?”
“Then help me to fight for my life and I will at least sell it at as
dear a cost as possible,” exclaimed the shuddering victim, to whom
retribution was now hastening on.
“I will have nothing to do with the matter. I believe it was all
settled before I came upon the scene and I have no wish to meddle with
the decision of the self-constituted judge and jury,” Mr. Armstrong
replied, decisively, and then, suddenly bursting into a gust of
passion, he added, furiously:
“Rather would I see you hanged for the murder of that poor soulless
butterfly, Sibyl St. Alban, than lift a finger to save you! Man, do you
guess who I am whom you are begging to save you from the consequences
of your double sin?”
Every one stared in amazement at this sudden change of manner in one
whom they had always known as cold, reserved and proud. Oswald Ferris
stammered, faintly:
“I know nothing of you except your name!”
A strange, cold smile curled the lips of John Armstrong.
“No, you do not even know my name,” he said. “I am not John Armstrong
as I call myself, and as these trusty comrades call me and believe me.
I am a man supposed to be dead, a man to whom a costly monument has
been erected by his widow. I am a man whose happiness was ruined like
yours by Sibyl St. Alban, but who did not have the cruelty that you
did, to kill her for her sin!”
What dazed, wondering faces that moon of Egypt shone upon as they
crowded around the excited speaker. Oswald Ferris cried, blankly:
“You are not John Armstrong--then who are you?”
“I am Ralph St. Alban, the husband of the woman whom you ruthlessly
murdered,” the man answered, unhesitatingly.
No one spoke for a moment, so great was the shock of wonder. Then
Talbot Strangemore sprang forward, hastily, and faced the speaker.
“Let me see if you speak the truth,” he cried. “I knew Ralph St. Alban,
and I hated him once because he took Sibyl from me. The years have
changed you, but, yes, I remember you now. You are indeed St. Alban,
but how have you come to life again from the grave where they laid you?”
In the moonlight a weary smile flickered over Ralph St. Alban’s thin,
worn face.
“I was never dead,” he said. “I was half maddened by Sibyl’s coquetries
and cruelty. She was vain, light, false, falser than all fancy fathoms,
falser than all songs have sung! I soon learned that she did not love
me. She actually disliked and defied me. Her brilliant successes in the
social world filled her with such intoxicating triumph that she had
no other thoughts but to ruin the peace of other women and to break
men’s hearts as well. With all her folly and wrongdoing I adored her,
but no expostulation availed to turn her from her wild career. Then my
love changed to hatred and despair. I might have divorced her and so
freed myself from the incubus she had become upon me, but I was too
proud to drag my name through the scandal of a divorce court. After
wretched days and nights while my life was a torture to me I hit upon
a startling plan to free myself from her. With the aid of a party
too heavily bribed to betray me, I carried out my plan. The man that
dropped dead suddenly in the street was not Ralph St. Alban, but a
dead man from the morgue, dressed in my clothes, and propped up in my
carriage, from which, of course, he tumbled lifeless into the street
when the driver opened the door. But I practised the fraud triumphantly
upon everybody, and while Sibyl was ordering the grand monument for
my grave I was _en route_ for Egyptian deserts. I had been in Egypt
as a boy with my father who was a noted traveler, and in my misery my
thoughts turned thitherward again. You know it has been written,” he
added, with a cold, sad smile, “that ‘he who has drunk of the Nile will
always long to return and drink of its waters again.’”
Every one was gazing at him in wonder and amazement while he talked,
and seeing this, he turned suddenly upon Oswald Ferris and said,
hoarsely:
“Now you know why I will not help you, why I am ready to see you
perish. It was my wife whom you slew in your murderous wrath, and
for this I hate and loathe you. She had wronged me more than any
human being on earth, but I never once thought of ending her frail,
butterfly existence by violence. I exiled myself for her sake, and left
her to the pleasures that tempted her, the pleasures she could buy with
the gold for which she had sold herself to me. And, God help me, some
of the love I once bore her lingers in me yet, and prompts me to pity
her for her terrible fate, and to hate you because your cruel hand
plunged the murderous dagger into the white breast that was once mine!”
He paused, and one of those men who loved him as chosen comrades love
each other, called out furiously:
“He shall pay for his devil’s crime with his worthless life!”
Those words were the signal for an attack upon Ferris.
The men sprang at him in a body, and in spite of his desperate
struggles and outcries they succeeded in pinioning his arms and legs
so that it was impossible for him to move from the spot. During the
enactment of the dreadful scene, Talbot Strangemore, Ralph St. Alban,
and Harvey Wilson stood apart with folded arms and gloomy brows looking
on.
A great struggle was going on in Talbot Strangemore’s mind.
Pity and humanity alike prompted him to rescue Oswald Ferris from the
wrath of the justly angry mob, while at the same time the natural
indignation and resentment within him held him sternly back.
“He deserves his fate,” clamored justice. “Think of Sibyl St. Alban’s
dreadful death, and of Nina’s unmerited disgrace and suffering with the
shadow of the scaffold looming over her golden head. Let him die the
most ignominious death possible, and even then he would scarcely have
atoned for his sins.”
And yet his better nature revolted against the horrible deed they were
going to do out there beneath the palms of old Egypt with the murmur
of the storied Nile in their ears. It was a horrible thing after all,
he thought, to thrust a guilty, craven, crime-stained soul out of its
earthly tabernacle and send it wandering through space to the terrors
of judgment. Unconsciously he lifted his eyes to the sky. The blue
dome sprinkled with innumerable stars, and the great calm moon rolling
through illimitable space, suggested heavenly witnesses.
He shuddered through his whole frame.
“Do God’s angels behold this scene?” he asked himself in fear and
dread, for already the men had selected a rope and a tree, and without
even the formal ceremony of a mock trial were about to lead their
captive to his doom.
Suddenly even as they had dragged him to the chosen spot and were
adjusting the terrible slip-knot about his neck, Talbot Strangemore
stepped boldly forward, held up his hand, and hoarsely shouted:
“Hold!”
They desisted from their awful occupation a moment to look around in
amazement.
“Say your prayers if you know any, quick now, while we see what
Strangemore wants,” one said, carelessly, to the prisoner, while
another asked:
“Well, what is it you wish, Strangemore?”
He answered, eagerly.
“Grant me this great boon. Spare the life of your victim!”
There ensued a moment of ominous, unbroken silence. While it lasted
Talbot Strangemore advanced through the little group of men that
surrounded the prisoner. He put up his hand and touched the rope about
his neck.
“Let me take this away, please. Let us be men, not devils,” he said,
boldly.
There was a low murmur of anger and dissatisfaction. Harvey Wilson
advanced a step nearer.
“Better leave them alone, Stangemore,” he said. “The villain richly
merits his fate, and the men will not easily be balked of executing
justice upon him.”
“But surely they will listen to me,” Talbot said. “Remember I am the
one most deeply wronged, and they must hear me when I beg for mercy and
not justice for Oswald Ferris.”
“You would have us let him go?” one asked.
“Yes, because I want him to live. I have a great boon to ask of him,
and I believe that surely if you spare his life at my request he will
have mercy upon me!”
They stood round about the prisoner listening silently for Talbot’s
further speech.
“Friends and comrades,” he continued, “At the dawn of day I must leave
you to journey back to my own land to my wife who lies in prison
in deadly peril of her life. But even when I go how can I deliver
her from the fatal power of the law unless I can carry with me the
confession of the real murderer of poor erring Sibyl St. Alban?”