terrifying?’ I asked; ‘and this country, with its glaring sunlight and
impenetrable shade, its rank, exuberant, primordial peoples——’ I heard
her give a short gasp in her throat; then she turned to me, bringing her
white face, with its delicate features and great, luminous eyes, close
to mine.
“‘They _live_!’ she answered, in a low, fierce voice. ‘They _live_, and
_feel_, and their blood runs——’
“She sank back, and at this moment Dr. Fouchère returned and offered me
a cigar, which I took thankfully, for I wanted to drown the sensual
smell of plant and fern wafted from the woods beneath and the maddening
odor of the stephanotis growing in the garden at our feet. If he had
offered me strong drink, cognac, absinthe, or even opium, I might have
taken it, too, for there was something in the darkness of the night that
blinded the reason and voices in the soft air and scent-laden breeze
that called insidiously to the senses; and all the while droned on the
amphorous note of the drum, though now it seemed to come from the
inside, impelling one to fervid action.
“‘Those fools will dance and drink and revel to-night,’ growled
Fouchère, ‘and to-morrow there will not be one in the village fit to
stand upon his feet.’
“‘Then,’ said I, with an attempt at jocularity, ‘they may seek your
professional advice.’
“‘No,’ he muttered, ‘they will go to the _papa-loi_—the priest—the
arch-devil——’
“There was a swift rustle, and Madame had leapt to her feet and was
pacing the verandah with clinging, cat-like steps. I arose.
“‘I am fatigued from sitting still,’ she explained, with a light but
nervous laugh. ‘See, the moon is rising.’
“I glanced toward the east and saw a dull yellow glow before which the
low stars paled. Madame permitted herself another turn of the verandah,
and as she passed the banded shaft of light which smote through the
jalousies from the illuminated room I noticed that her slim fingers were
closing and opening as if she were in pain. Her light footsteps fell in
unison with the beat of the bamboula.
“My host and I talked on different things, and still Madame paced back
and forth, and every time she passed the barred zone of light I saw the
white fingers writhing in and out, and at times clutching the light
fabric of her skirt in a grip that left it creased and seamed—and still
the drum beat on and on. Fouchère’s manner of speech had changed; his
statements were short and arbitrary, as if challenging contradiction;
his chair had come down to all four legs, and he sat bolt upright,
tense, together, as if prepared to spring upward at a bound. As the
light over the mountain glowed brighter I could see the silhouette of
his straight back against the sky, as straight and cleanly cut as one of
the posts of the verandah.
“Soon Madame paused in her promenade, and, walking to the rail, gazed at
the glowing light in the sky, and as she stood, the drum, partially
drowned before by her light step and the swish of her skirts, welled out
resonantly. I glanced at her curiously. It was still too dark to
distinguish her features, but a naturalist, or, more properly, perhaps,
a collector, can see things to which better eyes than his are blind, and
it seemed to me that I caught a swift quiver as it flashed across her
mobile face. Suddenly she turned.
“‘I think that I shall beg to be excused,’ she said, in a low voice.
‘The heat of the day has fatigued me, and the night air is cool and
promises refreshing sleep. Would not Monsieur wish also to retire?’
“Dr. Fouchère arose as if to show me to my room. I had no desire to go
to bed, for I did not think I could sleep; but, following the line of
least resistance, I went.
“Lying on my bed, with that old and jaundiced moon peering through the
window and the whole earth wrapped in the stillness of utter space, the
bamboula, which had never ceased, seemed pounding at the portals of my
brain. Have you ever, after a day of almost superhuman physical
exertion—say a long march through the jungle carrying a double pack—lain
too tired to sleep and listened to your overtaxed heart pounding its
pulse against your ear-drums? No? Well, it is hard to say what else that
drum was like. It appeared, too, to have grown louder, although the time
continued to be exactly the same.
“Before long I dozed a little, but the drum beat on, weaving weird and
distorted pictures. I saw the stark, whirling figures glistening
ebony-red in the lurid firelight, the outer circle of fantastic shadows
gyrating in a wider arc; the flash of flames between the circling
shapes—others partly hidden—watching from the black hollows between the
buttressed boles of the trees. The old, old rites—bursting out in this
civilized era like embryonic cells in the adult—cancer-cells—you
understand, Doctor. Later on, the sickly yellow moon, high in the
zenith, its pale light quenching that of the dying embers of the fire
and waning itself before the dawn. The things it looked down upon—the
heaving figures of the devotees—and all about the pure, sweet peace of
the tropic night!
“‘Tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom-tom,’ went the drum, and then I awoke with
a shiver and began to dress. I stepped to the window for added light,
and other noises than those of the drum welled up from the valley
beneath. Air was stirring, and it blew through my jalousies and filled
the room with the smell of the stephanotis.
“Quietly as a cat I slipped down the stairs and out into the night. Not
a sound, not a flicker of light came from any of the little houses in
the village. I followed the road down the mountain for a way, and then,
as I am a tracker and the moon was well up, I found a path which others
had taken since the dew. It skirted the hill, then dipped abruptly into
the jungle.
“It was easy to guess its course, for with my bushman’s education I saw
that many persons had traveled that trail since sunset. Down it went,
twisting and turning, this way and that; but all the time the beat of
the drum, though muffled by the heavy foliage, was growing nearer and
nearer.
“It was dark in the jungle, but the moon was up, and there were open
spaces here and there. The smell of the smoke—and another smell—were in
the air, and I was growing wary and looking for sentries, when my eye
was caught by something white hanging to a thorn. I loosed it and held
it in a moon-ray—and recognized a fragment of the gown worn that night
by Madame Fouchère.”
Leyden stopped speaking, then began to hum a little German doggerel.
Down below the visitors were saying good-night, and I could hear the men
kissing each other on their thick lips. “_Ah, mon cher!_” they kept
saying. “_Oh—oh, mon cher!—Oh, m’cher!_” Then there would be a rattle of
very good Parisian French, because the better classes pride themselves
upon their elegance of speech.
“And then?” said I, presently, to Dr. Leyden. He threw out his hands
with a Teutonic gesture of disgust.
“_Ach!_—then I went back, of course. I found a muddy spot in the open,
just to make sure, and I saw that Fouchère had passed also. He wore the
latest French boots—Madame was still in her high-heeled French slippers
at twenty francs the pair.”
He turned to me with a languid air. “One does not spy upon one’s host
and hostess during their religious devotions, you know. You understand,
Doctor. Those things are not quite—shall we say dignified? Besides—by
the way, have you a cigar, or shall I ring? Ah, thanks! As I was about
to say, the thing had lost its—its glamour. Madame was too nearly white.
It was the primitive element that had so strongly appealed to me—not the
hyper-æsthetic. One need not go to Hayti for that. Fouchère belonged at
the party, perhaps—but Madame....
“No, I went back, and the sound of a bamboula has never since been able
to strike a sympathetic chord in me—but I detest the odor of the
stephanotis.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTO THE DARK
“TO-NIGHT, Doctor,” said Leyden one evening as we went on deck, “let us
forswear the exchange of blood-curdling yarns. Let us be sociable and
play poker with my Czechian friend, Rosenthal, and Mr. Mallock.”
I agreed and we went into the _rook kamer_, where the others presently
joined us. We played for perhaps an hour; I do not remember just how the
game stood when we were interrupted by a tragic incident.
From somewhere beneath us there came a sudden muffled roar; the little
vessel quivered as though struck by a shell; an instant of silence, then
up from below there came a scream so wild and hoarse and laden with
fearful human anguish that we all leaped to our feet. Shouts, yells,
orders in half a dozen tongues rose in a clamorous medley; but through
them all as a bugle rings out on the firing-line there rose again that
wild, wide-throated scream of intolerable physical pain.
I knew the sound. I had heard it several times. The latest was in San
Francisco on one of the big United States transports when a stevedore
had up-ended a crate of primers which had exploded and filled the man’s
body with splinters so that he looked like a porcupine. Leyden had heard
it also, as the first glance at his face told me, and from his
expression I saw that he had guessed the present cause; but there was no
time to inquire, for the screams now followed each other in quick
succession and were approaching, and such screams! Opposite me
Rosenthal, who had thrown down his hand at the beginning of the play and
was about to take a swallow of his Rhine wine, paused, the glass half
way to his lips, and hardened, world-worn adventurer that the Jew was,
he positively looked sickened at the sound.
And then the clamor reached our deck, but forward, and we turned as one
man and stepped out of the _rook kamer_. Abreast of the steam
steering-gear there was a confused mass of yelling, gyrating figures,
and from these we saw emerge a single one who with outspread arms and
wide fingers came lurching toward us, and as he ran he screamed.
The bulk of my professional work has been of an emergency character, so
that even as the man approached I was framing a diagnosis, and before he
had reached the part of the deck where we stood, it was made. The jar of
the explosion, the screams of appalling pain, and now, swiftly as he
approached, the suffocating fumes of ammonia had preceded him, and I
knew on the instant that there had been an explosion of the ice-making
machine and that the victim was one who had bathed in the liquid fire
set loose. Then as he bore down upon us, followed by the clamoring crowd
who sought to restrain him for his good, something of the spirit of the
hunted animal fastened on the poor frenzied intellect and he sprang for
the rail.
“_Ach_, no!” muttered Leyden in my ear, and at the same instant leaped
like a cat; one of his powerful, nervous hands closed on the man’s naked
shoulder and the next moment the poor wretch was on his back, pawing the
air, groping at his livid face, while his screams smote back the crowd
of the curious.
“Quick, Doctor!” said Leyden, and the words wedged in his throat as the
pungent fumes gripped his trachea. He tried again to speak, but by that
time I had seized Rosenthal’s bottle of Rhine wine from the table and
had begun to pour it over the man’s face. Of course, there are better
things than Rhine wine with which to neutralize stronger ammonia, but
that was the nearest at hand and haste was requisite.
Presently the ship’s doctor arrived with dilute acetic acid; by that
time Leyden and I were both nearly asphyxiated and the man was in a
syncope, poor fellow! He saw light again, but never outline.
Our game was abandoned. Leyden and I strolled aft to our favorite place
by the hand steering-gear, where Leyden puffed at his porcelain pipe in
silence for so long a time that I began to think that he would hold to
the resolution made early in the evening and not tell the story which
hung on the edge of his mind.
“_Ach!_” he exclaimed suddenly, and taking the pipe from his mouth,
tapped the horn mouth-piece against the awning stanchion. “_Ach!_ One
would almost think that God might spare a man two such spectacles as
that which we have just witnessed. I am accustomed to seeing men killed,
Doctor; also to seeing men suffer within reasonable limits, but I
protest against casually witnessing torture....
“It was not so long ago, Doctor,” he resumed presently, “I was going out
to Java via Singapore, and the first night out, while chatting with the
chief engineer, who was an old friend of mine, his second came to the
door to report on something concerning the engines. I did not notice
what he said, for the moment he stepped into the blaze of the
incandescent lights I set my memory at work to place him.
“This second engineer was, I think, Doctor, the most strikingly
beautiful man I have ever seen. Really, the poor fellow was so handsome
that he was almost disagreeably conspicuous, because one felt that no
matter how great the effort, his deeper personality would never be able
to hold the pace set by his physical appearance. I will not try to
describe him; figure to yourself a powerful frame of athletic
perfection, the face of a very masculine archangel, broad forehead,
blazing sapphire eyes, with rather dark lashes, although his hair was
yellow, a wide mouth of singularly winning expression and a jaw which
was aristocratically masterful. He said but half a dozen words, and then
at a nod from the chief, went out, but brief as was my glimpse of him I
was no less impressed by his striking beauty than by the fact that I had
known some of his breed.
“‘Who is that fellow?’ I asked of old Burton, the chief.
“‘Dalton, my second,’ said he; ‘a good looking lad, is he not?’
“‘Extremely,’ I answered; ‘is he as good as he looks?’
“‘Aye, and the more credit to him for that, to my mind,’ said Burton,
and went on, ‘D’ye know, Doctor Leyden, the Almighty puts an awful
strain on the moral construction of a man when he models him on the
lines of yon lad! And the boy knows it and is not too proud to shun the
danger. You’ll scarce lay eyes on him between here and Singapore.’
“‘Is he shy of his good looks?’ I asked.
“‘Less that than proper-minded. If ever a man was built to carry an
overload of women’s fancies, ’tis this same Dalton. They can see nothing
else when the poor lad’s about, not that he seems to notice it.’
“‘Is he a good man professionally?’ I inquired.
“‘He is all of that and more,’ answered Burton, and was going on to tell
me that, although off duty at that moment, Dalton was hard at work
superintending some repairs on the ice-machine when he was interrupted
... just as we were a few moments ago.”
“No!” I cried involuntarily, as Leyden paused; “not that!”
“Yes, Doctor ... the sequence of events was almost identical: the same
explosion ... the same sensation as of being hit by a shell ... the same
instant’s pause followed by cries, one louder than the others, and the
same stampede for the deck, the air, freedom from torture and
suffocation; but in Dalton’s case no one was quick-witted enough to
think of Rhine wine or vinegar, and we had to hold him until the doctor
came.... _Ach!_...
“It seemed a long time, Doctor, especially as the man’s strength was so
great that after his first mad rush his mind grappled with the situation
and he lay without a moan, without a struggle. I assisted the surgeon in
the little that it was possible to do for the poor fellow, and it was
while we were bathing his face that I solved the problem of his
identity. For many years, Doctor, I have, whenever in England, made a
tour of inspection of several large estates where I occupy a rather
unique position of consulting horticulturist. To these patrons I
sometimes ship from different parts of the world bulbs or plants or
seeds or specimens in which I judge they will be interested. It was
while on one of these visits, some of which have become more of a social
than professional character, that I met Dalton, which, of course, was
not his name. He was then at school, a charming boy, an only son and the
heir to one of the oldest titles and most magnificent estates in
England.
“This discovery did not come to me with any shock of surprise, for
England is unlike America, where one often sees the thoroughbred working
with his hands, and I had suspected that his was either some youthful
tragedy or the baton sinister.
“Dalton lay quite still while the surgeon dressed and bandaged his face;
then, as the last pin was being inserted, he said in a steady voice:
“‘How about my eyes, Doctor?’
“We’ll hope for the best, old chap,’ said this doctor, and I saw
Dalton’s mouth, the only feature in sight, set with the rigidity of a
death-mask. His chest filled deeply and he swallowed once or twice, and
when he spoke again his voice was dry but quite firm.
“‘You think the chances are against me, don’t you, Doctor?’ he said
quietly. The surgeon looked doubtfully at me and I nodded.
“‘Your case is like this, Dalton,’ said he, ‘if the caustic action of
the ammonia has not burned through the conjunctiva and into the cornea
the prognosis is good; otherwise it is bad—but I don’t anticipate total
blindness.’
“‘How soon will you be able to tell with certainty?’ asked Dalton,
calmly.
“‘Probably when I dress your eyes to-morrow,’ said the Doctor, adding,
‘at the worst, you will never be in the dark....’
“‘I know....’ Dalton’s voice was very low, very quiet; ... ‘you mean
that I will live behind ground glass....’
“The firm mouth stiffened and the triangular space which it occupied
beneath the bandages grew suddenly white. At a sign from the doctor we
picked him up and carried him to his berth and left him there to fight
his fight alone.
“That night I sat late with Burton and the pious old chief had a sharp
tussle to remain within the bounds of Christian submission as we
discussed the accident. I soon discovered that he knew more of Dalton
than he cared to tell, but I asked no questions. When I left him at
eleven o’clock I passed the open door of Dalton’s room, and as I did so
I was conscious of one of those long, deep, shuddering inspirations
which scarcely carry sound and seem wrung less from the body than the
tortured soul.
“‘Are you in pain?’ I whispered, for I did not wish to wake him if he
should be asleep.
“‘In torture, Doctor Leyden,’ came the low answer; ‘but it is not of the
flesh.’
“This was the first indication that I was known to him. I slipped into
the room and went to the head of his bunk.
“‘May I sit with you?’ I asked.
“‘Thanks ... you know me, of course?’
“‘Yes,’ said I. I dropped on the locker beside him, and for several
moments neither of us spoke.
“‘What do _you_ think of my chances of losing my sight, Doctor?’ he
asked presently.
“‘I think,’ said I, ‘that your sight will be impaired, but not entirely
destroyed. One eye appears to have been less injured than the other.’
“‘Do you think that I will be able to do my work?’ he asked quickly.
“‘Perhaps ... it is impossible to tell, my dear boy, until
to-morrow—very likely not for several days.’
“Again I felt that shuddering sigh which was less a sound than an
impression.
“‘It is not for myself that I am afraid, Doctor Leyden,’ he said in a
few moments. ‘There is some one else ... other people....” My word! One
could see his very heart squirming in the grip of his feudal pride.
“‘Tell me all about it, my boy,’ said I. ‘Life has shown me many of her
poisons ... and their antidotes; perhaps I can help you.’
“‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said he, and went on to tell me his story.
Briefly, he had several years before committed the indiscretion of
running off with another man’s wife; not long afterward the husband had
died and Dalton had married the woman. His father had cut him off
without a penny, but through a friend he had got a billet as engineer,
for which his technical education had fitted him, and had in time risen
solely through his merits. The wife and their two children were living
in Singapore.
“There were qualities in the romance, Doctor, which raised it to a plane
higher than most similar affairs. Ten years of poverty had brought them
no regrets, and this alone seemed to me sufficient to warrant the breach
of etiquette; then, the former husband was a rake, or, what is far
worse, an ex-rake. Also, the love of this man and woman had grown and
deepened and gathered volume until, and this I gathered from what Dalton
did _not_ tell me, the love itself contained in him had raised the
nature of this man to a sublime height, where it would almost seem that
he had undergone an apotheosis; this perfect love which had begun so
imperfectly had matured this creature, who was the result of generations
of highly bred and highly cultured ancestors, until the man was an
Olympian, Doctor, a demi-god, or I am no judge of men.
“Before long I left him, soothed as much as might be, and promising to
sleep. When I visited him the following day he was calm, and one read
only in the lines of the firm and beautiful mouth which cut the
triangular space between the bandages, ‘_I wait_.’”
Leyden’s voice grew muffled.
“My word! I couldn’t stand it, Doctor, for very long; it was worse than
the accident itself. I sneaked off into Burton’s room, and there the
surgeon found me an hour later lying on the old man’s bunk, for he was
below at the time, and holding a capsized book in front of my face.
There was a simplicity about this doctor which appealed to me.
“‘Oh, hell!’ said he, and dropped into Burton’s desk chair and buried
his face in his hands, and there he sat until presently the chief came
in. From behind my book I could feel the grizzled old fellow looking
from one to the other of us, and presently he gave a husky and inquiring
grunt.
“‘Blind,’ said the doctor, ... stone blind,’ and with that old Burton
kicked shut the door which opened on the boiler-room, and the three of
us began to snivel in the shamefaced way characteristic of certain
emotional members of the Anglo-Saxon race. I think Burton prayed a
little, for he was inclined to be theosophical.
“‘Does he know?’ asked Burton, presently.
“‘No,’ muttered the doctor, ... I ... I put him off....’
“‘You put him off!’ I snapped. ‘Do you mean to say that you have any
hope?’
“‘There’s none to have,’ he answered a bit sulkily; ‘the cornea might
just as well have been seared with a Paquelin....’
“‘And yet you put him off!’ I snarled, ‘and add the hell of uncertainty
to the agony he’s got to suffer anyway when he hears the truth!’
“‘Go in and tell him yourself then,’ grumbled this doctor.
“‘I will,’ said I, and flung open the door and went out. I found Dalton
lying on his bunk, his face swathed in fresh bandages, his straight
mouth sphinx-like.
“‘Dalton,’ said I, roughly, ‘the doctor has just told me that you are
blind.’
“‘Has he?’ said Dalton, calmly. ‘The poor chap lacked the nerve to tell
me, and I don’t know that I blame him much. Beastly thing, that, to have
to tell a chap that he’s blind.’
“I began to choke up again, Doctor. I had been purposely rough,
commonplace, and I had expected and in fact half wished an hysterical
outburst. As it was, the situation was infinitely more difficult. For
several minutes Dalton did not speak.
“‘Would you like me to stay with you?’ I asked, ‘or shall I get out?’
“The bandaged head rolled toward me and the fine mouth curved in a smile
which showed the white, even teeth.
“‘Don’t stay, Doctor; it is horribly depressing for you and I am so busy
thinking that I don’t notice being alone. Come in and see me to-night,
if you like.’
“I left him then and went aft on the other side of the ship from
Burton’s room, and as I went I looked my hardest at the blue water and
the blue sky and the bright-work and the bright faces of the children
scampering up and down the deck ... and then a mist came before my eyes
and my vision was as Dalton’s would be, ‘behind ground glass.’
“That night I went to him again. He greeted me quietly as I came in.
“‘Doctor Leyden,’ said he, ‘it is a terrible thing to be blind, is it
not?’
“I did not answer.
“‘But it is not a terrible thing to die. We none of us fear to face
death; most of us enjoy a bit of a tussle with the grim old man.’
“I had expected this and waited for him to go on.
“‘To myself,’ said Dalton, ‘I consider that I am dead, practically
dead.’ He was silent for a few minutes and then said, ‘Do you not
consider, Doctor Leyden, that we have all of us a certain claim upon
each other as fellow-men?’
“‘Undoubtedly,’ I answered.