of the schooner whose bowsprit she was destined to carry away. The
steamer was making about ten knots an hour: the schooner was slowly
drifting with the tide into the line of the steamer's course. The
catastrophe was therefore about twenty-seven minutes distant.
IX.
THE VOICE OF DARKNESS.
The fog-whistle screeched dismally. Helwyse took his feet off the
camp-stool in front of him, and sat upright.
"Do you know this secret of sin?" he asked.
"It must, of course, be an object of speculation to a thoughtful man,"
answered the voice, modestly parrying the question. "But I assure you
that only a man of intellect--of genius--has in him the intelligence,
the sublime reach of soul, which could attain the full solution of the
problem; they who merely blunder into it would fail to grasp the grand
significance of the idea."
"But you affirm that whoever fairly masters the problem of absolute
sin would have God and His kingdom at his mercy?"
"I am loath to appear boastful; but I apprehend the fact to be not
unlike what you suggest," the voice replied, with a subdued gusto. "It
would depend upon our hypothetical person's discretion, and his views
as to the claims of the august Being who has so long controlled the
destinies of the human race, how much the existing order of things
might have to fear from him. I should imagine that the august Being,
if He be as wise as they say He is, would be careful how He treated
this hypothetical person!"
"You are a liar," said Helwyse, unceremoniously. "Why is not Satan,
who must possess this all-powerful knowledge, supreme over the
universe?"
Instead of taking offence (as Helwyse, to do him justice, hoped it
would; for his Berserker blood, which boiled only at heaven-and-hell
temperature, was beginning to stir in him),--so far from being
offended, the voice only uttered its peculiar quiet chuckle.
"Your frankness charms me! it proves you worthy to learn.
Satan--supposing there be such a personage--divides, with the other
august Being, the sovereignty of the spiritual world. Were I a cynic,
I should say he owned at least half of the physical world into the
bargain! But Satan is only a spirit, and his power over men is but as
the power of a dream. Were a Satan to arise in the flesh, so that men
could see and touch him, and hear his voice with their fleshy
ears,--there were a Satan! Already has the Incarnation of goodness
appeared to mankind, and, though the world be moved to virtue only
slowly and with reluctance, mark how mighty has been his influence!
What think you, then, would be the power of a Christ of evil, showing
to men the path they already grope for? I tell you, the human race
would be his only; Hell, full to bursting with their hurrying souls,
would outweigh Heaven in the balance; the teller of the secret would
be king above all,--forever!"
The sinuous voice twined round the listener's mind, swaddling the
vigorous limbs into imbecile inertia. But when before now did a sane
human brain let itself be duped by sophistry? This case were worth
marking, if only because it is unparalleled.
"And the only punishable sin is ignorance!" muttered Helwyse.
"Well, I have thought so, too. And I have questioned whether a man
might have power over himself, to put his hand to evil or to good
alike, and to remain impartial and impassive; and so make evil and
good alike minister to his culture and raise him upwards!"
"The question does credit to your wit," chimed in the voice of
darkness. "Whoever has in him the making of a deity must learn the
nature of opposites. The soldier will not join battle without studying
the tactics of the enemy. Without experimental knowledge of both evil
and good, none but a fool would believe that man can become
all-powerful."
"From the care with which you avoid speaking the name of God, if from
no other cause, I should suppose you to be the Devil himself!"
observed Helwyse, bluntly.
"Well, profanity is vulgar! As to my being the Devil, it is too dark
here for either denial or acknowledgment to be of practical use. But
(to be serious)--about this secret--"
The voice paused interrogatively. Lucifer, speaking through Helwyse's
lips, demanded sullenly,--
"Well, what is the secret?"
What, indeed! Why, there is no such secret;--it is a bugbear! But the
moral perversion of the person who could soberly ask the question that
Helwyse asked is not so easily disposed of. It met, indeed, with full
recognition. As for the subtile voice, having accomplished its main
purpose, it began now to evade the point and to run into digressions;
until the collision came, and ended the conversation forever.
"Unfortunately," said the voice, "the secret is not such as may be
told in a word. Like all profound knowledge, it can only be
communicated by leading the learner, step by step, over the ground
traversed by the original discoverer. Let me, as a sort of
preliminary, suppose a case."
Hereupon ensued a considerable silence, and Helwyse seemed once more a
detached atom, flying through infinite darkness without guide or
control. Where was he?--what was he? Did the world exist,--the broad
earth, the sunny sky, the beauty, the sound, the order and sweet
succession of nature? Was he a shadow that had dreamed for a moment a
strange dream, and would anon be quenched, and know what had seemed
Self no more? Strangely, through the doubt and uncertainty, Helwyse
felt the pressure of his shoulders against the cabin wall, and the
touch of the dead cigar between his fingers.
The voice, resuming, restored him to a reality that seemed less
trustworthy than the doubt. The tone was not quite the same as
heretofore. The smooth mocking had given place to a hurried
excitement, alien to the philosophic temperament.
"A man kidnaps the child of his enemy, through the child to revenge
himself. Kill it?--no! he is no short-sighted bungler; he has
refinement, foresight, understanding. She is but an infant,--open and
impressible, warm and sanguine! He isolates her from sight and reach.
He pries into her nature with keenest delicacy,--no leaf is unread.
Being learnt, he works upon it; touches each budding trait with
gentlest impulse. No violence! he seems to leave her to her own
development; yet nothing goes against his will. More than half is left
to nature, but his scarce perceptible touches bias nature. Ah! the
idealization of education!"
"This sounds more real than hypothetical!" thought Helwyse.
"So cunning was he, he reversed in her mind the universal law. Evil
was good; good, evil. She grew fast and strong, for evil is the
sweeter food; it is rich earth to the plant. She never knew that evil
existed, yet evil was all she knew! For whatever is forced reacts; he
never taught her positive sin, lest she perversely turn to good."
"Did he mean insensibly to initiate her into the knowledge of absolute
sin?"
"Such would be his purpose,--such would be his purpose. To make her a
devil, without the chance of knowing it possible to be anything else!"
"He was a fool," growled Helwyse. "The plan is folly,--impracticable
in twenty ways. A soul cannot be so influenced. Devils are not made by
education. The only devil would be the educator!"
But the voice had forgotten his presence. It ceased not to mutter to
itself while he was speaking, and now it broke forth again.
"Years have passed,--she is a woman now. She knows not that the world
exists. All is yet latent within her. But the time is at hand when the
hidden forces shall flower! Plunged into life, with nothing to hold
by, no truth, no divine help; her marvellous powers and passions in
full strength,--all trained to drag her down,--not one aspiring,
maddened by new thoughts, limitless opportunities opening before
her,--she will plunge into such an abyss of sin as has been undreamt
of since the Deluge!"
"Well,--what of it? what is the upshot?" questioned Helwyse with
sullen impatience. The emotion now apparent in the voice, uncanny
though it was, counteracted the spell wrought by its purely
intellectual depravity. Helwyse was perhaps beginning to understand
that he had ventured his stock of virgin gold for a handful of unclean
waste-paper!
"He will come back,--her father,--my enemy! I have waited for him from
youth to age. I have seen him in my dreams, and in visions. I am with
him continually,--we talk together. At first, cringingly and softly, I
lead him to recall the past, to speak of the dead wife,--the lost
child,--her baby ways and words. I lure him on till imagination has
fired his love and given life and vividness to his memory. Then I
whisper,--She lives! she is near! in a moment he shall behold her! And
while his heart beats and he trembles, I bring her forth in her
beauty. Take her! your daughter! the one devil on earth; but devils
shall spring like grass in the track of her footsteps!"
The voice had worked itself into a frenzy, and, forgetting caution,
had crazily exposed itself. Its owner was probably some poor lunatic,
subject to fits of madness. But Helwyse was full of scorn and anger,
born of that bitterest disappointment which admits not even the poor
consolation of having worthily aspired. He had been duped,--and by the
cobwebs of a madman's brain! He broke into a short laugh, harsh to the
ear, and answering to no mirthful impulse.
"So! you are the hero of your story? You have brooded all your life
over a crazy scheme of stabbing a father through his child, until you
have become as blind as you are vicious! As for the girl, you may have
made her ignorant and stupid, or even idiotic; but that she should
become queen of Hell or anything of that kind--"
He stopped, for his unseen companion was evidently beyond hearing him.
The man seemed to be actually struggling in a fit,--gasping and
choking. It was a piteous business,--not less piteous than revolting.
But Helwyse felt no pity,--only ugly, hateful, unrelenting anger,
needing not much stirring to blaze forth in fearful passion. Where now
were his wise saws,--his philosophic indifference? Self-respect is the
pith of such supports; which being gone, the supports fail.
"My music,--my music!" gasped the voice; "my music, or I shall die!"
"Die? Yes, it were well you should die. You cumber the earth! Shall I
do it?" Helwyse muttered to his heart,--"merely as a means of
culture!"
Perhaps it was said only in a mood of sardonic jesting. The next
moment, no doubt, Balder Helwyse would have retired to his cabin,
leaving the voice of darkness forever. But at that moment the hurried
flash of a lantern on the captain's bridge fell full on the young
man's face and shoulders, gleaming in his eyes, and lighting up the
masses of yellow hair and mighty beard. He was standing with one hand
resting on the taffrail. The dim halo of the fog, folding him about,
made him look like a spirit.
X.
HELWYSE RESISTS THE DEVIL.
As the light so fell, hoarse voices shouted, and then a concussion
shivered through the steamer, and her headway was slackened. But of
this Helwyse knew nothing; for the voice had burst forth in a cry of
fear, amazement, and hate; and in another breath he found himself
clutched tightly in long, wiry arms, and felt panting breath hot
against his face.
He struggled at first to free himself,--but he was held in the grip of
a madman! Then did the turbid current of his blood begin to leap and
tingle, and strange half-thoughts darted through his mind like
deformed spectres, capering as they flew! The bulwark of his will was
overthrown; he could not poise himself long enough to recover his
self-sway. He was sliding headlong down a steep, the velocity momently
increasing.
Was it Balder Helwyse that was struggling thus furiously, his body
full of fire, his brain of madness, his heart quick-beating with
savage, wicked, thirsty joy? His soul--his own no longer--was
bestridden by a frantic demon, who, brimming over with hot glee,
drove him whirling blindly on, with an ever-growing purpose that
surcharged each smallest artery, and furnished a condensed dart of
malice wherewith to stab and stab again the opposing soul. He waxed
every instant madder, wickeder, more devilishly exultant; and now,
although panting, breathless, pricking at every pore from the agony of
the strain, he could scarce forbear screaming with delight! for he
felt he was gaining, and--O ecstasy!--knew that his adversary felt it
also, and that his heart was as full of black despair and terror as
was his conqueror's of intolerable triumph! Gaining still!
Strange, that all through this wild frenzy in which body and soul were
rapt, the essential part of Balder Helwyse seemed to be looking on,
with a curious, repellent twist of feature, commenting on what was
going forward, and noting, with quiet interest and precision, each
varying phase of the struggle,--noting, as of significance, that the
sway of the demon of murder made the idea of other crimes seem beyond
words congenial, enticing, delicious!
Steadily through this storm of lawless fury has the predestined
victory been drawing near! The throbbing of his enemy's
heart,--Helwyse feels it; did ever lover so rejoice in the
palpitations of his mistress? O the wine of life! drunk from the cup
of murder! Hear how the wretch's voice breaks choking from his
throat!--he would beg for mercy, but cannot, shall not! Keep your
fingers in his throat; the other hand creeps warily downwards. Now
hurl him up,--over!--
* * * * *
But with what an ugly gulp the black water swallowed his body!
XI.
A DEAD WEIGHT.
Was it not well done? Tempted to covet imaginary wickedness, Helwyse
was ripe for real crime,--and who so worthy to suffer as the tempter?
He leaned panting against taffrail. His predominant feeling was that
he had been ensnared. His judgment had been drugged, and he had been
lured on to evil. An infamous conspiracy!
His breath regained, he stood upright and in a mechanical manner
arranged his disordered dress. His haversack was gone,--had been torn
from his shoulders and carried overboard. An awkward loss! for it
contained, among other things, valuable letters and papers given him
by his father; not to mention a note-book of his own, and Uncle
Glyphic's miniature. His dead enemy had carried off the proofs of his
murderer's identity!
Not till now did Helwyse become aware of an unusual tumult on the
steamer. Had they seen the deed?--He stood with set teeth, one hand on
the taffrail. Rather than be taken alive, he would leap over!
But it soon became evident that the nucleus of excitement was
elsewhere. The "Empire State" was at a stand-still. Captain and mates
were shouting to one another and at the sailors. By the flying light
of the lanterns Helwyse caught glimpses of the sails and tall masts of
a schooner. He began to comprehend what had happened.
"Thank God! that saves me," he said with a sense of relaxation. Then
he turned and peered fearfully into the black abyss beyond the stern.
Nothing there! nothing save the heavy breathing of remorseless waves.
The statistics of things God has been thanked for,--what piquant
instances would such a collection afford! Any unusual stir of emotion
seems to impel a reference to something higher than the world. Only a
bloodless calm appears to be secure from God's interference. It is
worthy of remark that this was the first time in Helwyse's career--at
least since his arrival at years of discretion--that he had thanked
God for anything. This was not owing to his being of a specially
ungrateful disposition, but to peculiar ideas upon the subject of a
Supreme Being. God, he believed, was no more than the highest phase of
man; and in any man of sufficient natural endowment, he saw a possible
God; just as every American citizen is a possible President! What is
of moment at present, however, is the fact that the young man's first
inconsistency of word with creed dates at the time his self-control
forsook him on board the midnight steamer.
In that thanksgiving prayer his passion passed away. After unnaturally
distending every sense and faculty, it suddenly ebbed, leaving the
consciousness of an irritating vacuum. Something must be done to fill
it. One drawback to crime seems to be its insufficiency to itself. It
creates a craving which needs must be fed. The demon returns,
demanding a fresh task; and he returns again forever!
Helwyse, therefore, plunged into the midst of the uproar consequent on
the collision, and tried to absorb the common excitement,--to identify
himself with other men; no longer to be apart from them and above
them. But he did not succeed. It seemed as though he would never feel
excitement or warmth in the blood again! His deed was a dead weight
that steadied him spite of his best efforts. His aim has hitherto
been, not to forget himself;--let him forget himself now if he can!
The uproar was over all too soon, and the steamer once more under way.
"No serious harm done, sir!--no harm done!" observed a spruce steward.
"No; no harm."
"By the way, sir,--thought I heard some one sing out aft just afore we
struck. You heard it, sir? Thought some fellow'd gone overboard, may
be!"
"I saw no one," answered Helwyse; nor had he. But he turned away,
fearing that the brisk steward might read prevarication in his face.
No, he had seen no one; but he had heard a plunge! He revolted from
the memory of it, but it would not be banished. Had there been a soul
in the body before it made that dive? even for a few minutes
afterwards? He would have given much to know! In theorizing about
crime, he had always maintained the motive to be all in all. But now,
though unable to controvert the logic of his assertion, he felt it
told less than the whole truth. He recognised a divine conservative
virtue in straws, and grasped at the smallest! Through the long
torture of self-questioning and indecision, let us not follow him.
Uncertainty is a ghastly element in such a matter.
He groped his way back to the taffrail. Why, he knew not; but there he
was at last. He might safely soliloquize now; there was no listener.
He might light a cigar and smoke; no one would see him. Yet, no; for,
on second thoughts, his cigars had gone with the haversack!
He bent over the slender iron railing. Where was--it now? Miles away
by this time, swinging, swaying down--down--down to the bottom of the
Sound! Slowly turning over as it sinks, its arms now thrown out, now
doubled underneath; the legs sprawling helplessly; the head wagging
loosely on the dead neck. Down--down, pitching slowly head forwards;
righting, and going down standing, the hair floating straight on end.
Down! O, would it never be done sinking--sinking--sinking? Was the sea
deep as Hell?
But when it reached the bottom, would it rest there? No, not even
there. It would drift uneasily about for a while on the dark sand, the
green gloom of the water above it. Every hour it would grow less and
less heavy; by and by it would begin slowly to rise--rise! Horrible it
looked now; not like itself, that had been horrible enough before.
Rising,--rising. O fearful thing! why come to tell dead men's tales
here? You are done with the world. What wants mankind with you?
Begone! sink, and rise no more! It will not sink; still it rises, and
the green gloom lightens as it slowly buoys upwards. The light rests
shrinkingly on it, revealing the dreadful features. The limbs are no
longer pliant, but stiff,--terribly stiff and unyielding. Still it
rises, nearer and nearer to the surface. See where the throat was
gripped! Up it comes at last in the morning sun, among the sparkling,
laughing, pure blue waves,--the swollen, dead thing!--dead in the
midst of the world's life, hideous amidst the world's beauty. It bobs
and floats, and will sink no more; would rise to heaven if it could!
No need for that. The tide takes it and creeps stealthily with it
towards the shore, and casts it, with shudder and recoil, upon the
beach. There it lies.
Such visions haunted Helwyse as he leaned over the taffrail. He had
not suspected, at starting, upon how long a voyage he was bound. How
many hours might it be since he and the cook had so merrily dined
together? Was such a contrast possible? Surely no more monstrous
delusion than this of Time ever imposed upon mankind! For months and
years he jogs on with us, a dull and sober-paced pedestrian. Then
comes a sudden eternity! But Time thrusts a clock in our faces, and
shows us that the hands have marked a minute only. Shall we put faith
in him?
Helwyse suffered from a vivid imagination. He went not to his room
that night. He kept the deck, and tried to talk with the men,
following them about and asking aimless questions, until they began to
give him short answers. Where were his pride and his serene
superiority to the friendship or enmity of his race? where his
philosophic self-criticism and fanciful badinage? his resolute,
conquering eyes? his bearing of graceful, careless authority? Had all
these attributes been packed in his haversack, and cast with that upon
the waters? and would they, no more than he to whose care they had
been intrusted, ever return?
With each new hour, morning seemed farther off. In his objectless
wanderings, Helwyse came to the well of the engine-room and hung over
it, gazing at the bright, swift-sliding machinery, studying the parts,
tracing the subtle transmission of force from piece to piece. Here at
last was companionship for him! The engine was a beautiful
combination,--so polished, effective, and logical; like the minds of
some philosophers, moving with superhuman regularity and power, but
lifeless!
Helwyse watched it long, till finally its monotony wearied him. It was
doing admirable work, but it never swerved from its course at the call
of sentiment or emotion. Its travesty of life was repulsive. Machinery
is the most admirable invention of man, but is modelled after no
heavenly prototype, and will have no part in the millennium. It seems
to annul space and time, yet gives us no taste of eternity. Man lives
quicker by it, but not more. With another kind of weapon must the true
victory over matter be achieved!
XII.
MORE VAGARIES.
Most benign and beautiful was the morning. The "Empire State" emerged
from the fog and left it, a rosy cloud, astern. The chasing waves
sparkled and danced for joy. The sun was up, fresh and unstained as
yesterday. Night, that had changed so much, had left the sun undimmed.
With the same power and brightness as for innumerable past centuries,
his glorious glance colored the gray sky blue. Helwyse--he was at the
stern taffrail again--looked at the marvellous sphere with unwinking
eyes, until it blurred and swam before him, and danced in colored
rings. It warmed his face, but penetrated no deeper. Looking away,
black suns moved everywhere before his eyes, and the earth looked dim
and shabby, as though blighted by a curse.
Helwyse had not slept, partly from disinclination to the solitude of
his berth, partly because the thought of awakening dismayed him.
Nevertheless, he could scarcely believe in what had happened, now. He
stood upon the very spot; here was the semicircle of railing, the
camp-stools, the white cabin-wall against which he had leaned. But the
blackness of night had so utterly past away that it seemed as though
the deed done in it must in some manner have vanished likewise. What
is fact at one time looks unreal at another. It must be associated
with all times and moods before it can be fully comprehended and
accepted.
Glancing down at the deck, Helwyse saw there the cigar he had been
smoking the night before, flattened out by the tread of a foot, and
lying close beside it a sparkling ring. He picked it up; it was a
diamond of purest water, curiously caught between the mouths of two
little serpents, whose golden and black bodies, twisted round each
other, formed the hoop. Realizing, after a moment, from whose finger
it must have fallen, he had an impulse to fling it far into the sea;
but his second thought was not to part from it. The idea of its former
owner must indeed always be hateful to his murderer; but the bond
between their souls was closer and more indissoluble than that between
man and wife; and of so unnatural a union this ring was a fair emblem.
Unnatural though the union were, to Helwyse it seemed at the time
better than total solitude.