true in anything beyond appearances. We are all apt, no matter how
conceited we may be, to underestimate at times the extent of our own
usefulness--or, rather, we are unconscious of the direction in which it
is most productive. If what you say is so, then all that is lacking is
the opportunity, and that is sure to come. We may squander many
opportunities, and, hardly less probably, actually turn to account in a
way we do not perceive many which we seem to ourselves to squander. In
any event, others will come. A woman once said to me that the good in
her was not cultivated nor exercised with a view to _individual
immortality_. That seemed to me to mean so much that I've built up quite
a little creed on it. It's the principle, isn't it, upon which the whole
scheme of the world hinges? A million leaves fall and decay to enrich
the soil wherefrom two million more may spring. An infinity of little
shell-fish die, and the ages grind their shells to powder to make the
sands and the chalk cliffs. Countless raindrops sacrifice their identity
to maintain that of one great river. And why should it not be so with
us? If only we can contribute in the smallest degree to the uplifting of
our kind, to the advancement of the race, to the maintenance of what we
know to be right, what possible difference can it make whether, in the
effort to be of such service, we live or succumb? We were put here, it
seems to me, very much as separate notes are put into one great harmony.
Each note is struck at the proper time, serves its purpose, and goes
into nothingness. Each plays its part, however small. We can't all be
included in the wonderful final chords. Our place may seem trivial to
us, and yet in some sense we may be sure we are all contributors to the
unity and perfection of the whole. That ought to be enough. No one note
achieves individual immortality, but each does something to assure the
immortality of the composition of which it forms a part. If we don't
believe that, if we are not content to have it so, how is it possible to
believe in any divine purpose, any scheme of justice at all? Look at the
indescribable waste of life on all sides of us. If only in the case of
humanity, people are dying by hundreds every minute, unheeded,
unlamented, unrecorded. Human life is such a little thing!--as little as
the life of the leaf or the raindrop. And yet in the death of these last
we are able to perceive the working of a vast system which must be the
outcome of a direct purpose, and whereby the best interest of each
species is furthered. And so, the human race. Why should it be less
than lesser things? One man dies in order that two may live. A
confederacy--as in the case of our own Rebellion--perishes in order that
a nation may endure. Everywhere, in short, the individual sacrifices his
individual existence in order that it may contribute to and fertilize
the growth of his species. So far as I am concerned, I am perfectly
content to have it so. I should ask nothing better, when my own time
comes, than the assurance that, in one way or another, my death had a
significance,--that it was for a person or a principle, and not merely a
natural phenomenon. I may not be able to believe that; but there is one
belief possible to all of us,--I mean that, if not in death, then
assuredly in life, we have been of service to our race and time. We are
often told that the indispensable thing does not exist. I think the same
may be said of the useless one. I don't believe even the humblest of
God's creatures goes out of life without having been at one time or
another an influence for good. I even have hopes of Diogenes. Some day
there will be a scrap of refuse or an ugly little bug which mars the
symmetry of the pool, and Diogenes will eat it,--and perhaps die of
indigestion as a martyr to principle!"
The silence which followed her words was broken by a hoarse sob from Mr.
Rathbawne, and, turning, they saw that his head had fallen back against
the chair, with his eyes, wide and staring, fixed upon the glass roof,
and his breath coming in short, thick gasps from between his parted
lips. In an instant Natalie was on her knees by his side, with her arms
about him.
"Don't be frightened," she said, looking up at Cavendish with a brave
little smile. "It's his heart. He has had these attacks frequently of
late. Will you get me the whiskey decanter and a glass? You'll find them
in the dining-room--on the sideboard--to the left."
Decanter in hand, Cavendish stood watching her, as she tenderly poured a
little of the raw spirit between her father's lips. The effect was
almost instantaneous. Rathbawne choked, swallowed the restorative, and
presently raised his head and looked at her, patting her hand
tremulously with his own. They were so absorbed in each other that
neither noted a sudden, strange transformation in Cavendish's
expression. From the wide-mouthed decanter in his hand, the faint acrid
odor of Peter Rathbawne's fine old Scotch whiskey crept upward, stung
his nostrils, and, of a sudden, set him all a-quiver, like a startled
animal. The smell was almost that of pure alcohol, and set his mouth
watering, and drove his breath out in a little shuddering gasp that was
like a revulsion from some sickening medicine, just swallowed. But he
knew it, none the less, for something which belonged to and was part of
him. For weeks he had avoided it. Now it assailed him like that foe of
Hercules, of whom he had spoken to Barclay, whose strength was
multiplied a hundred-fold for every time his opponent trod him under
foot.
As he told the Lieutenant-Governor, at the moment when least he
expected it, the demon touched his arm. For a minute he fought
desperately against the suggestion, with his eyes closed, and his teeth
cutting into his inner lip. He clung madly to the thought of the
presence in which he was, conscious that the girl's words had
uplifted him immeasurably, given him a clearer insight into the
essential significance of life than he had ever known. It was
useless--useless--useless! There was nothing left in the world but the
smell of the liquor that he loathed and that he loved!
"If you were to leave us alone"--
At the suggestion, Cavendish bowed and went slowly back toward the
dining-room. Once out of sight of the others, he paused, glanced back
over his shoulder, and then, abruptly, supporting himself with one hand
against the side-post of the doorway, raised the decanter in the other
to his lips, and drank.
XIII
THE INSTRUMENT OF FATE
The day had been deliciously warm and still, one of those eloquent
heralds of spring that are touched with a peculiar beauty rivaling her
own. As Cavendish came out of the Rathbawne residence, Bradbury Avenue
was splashed with huge blotches of dazzling yellow, where the light of
the westwardly sun poured between the houses and was spilled upon the
smooth pavement. The man choked slightly at the after-taste of the raw
whiskey he had just swallowed, but almost immediately he smiled.
"I knew it would come," he said to himself as he turned out into the
avenue, "and here it is. I'm not surprised. I'm glad, God help me--I'm
_glad_!"
His mouth was watering, and he felt, as it were, every inch of the
stimulant's progress through his veins, warming him with its familiar
glow. When he had left the conservatory, he had been trembling
pitifully. Now he was calm, and as steady as if his nerves had been
cords of steel. Responsibility, resolution, remorse--they had fallen
from him like so many discarded garments. He was sharply alive to the
pleasure of the moment, keenly appreciative of the sunlight, the soft
air, the laughter of the children romping in the streets. Of a singular
languor which had been wont to come over him toward the close of each
busy day of the past six weeks there was now no hint. He walked rapidly,
with his shoulders thrown back, and his chin well elevated, but his
course was not in the direction of his home, nor yet in that of the
"Sentinel" office. Instinctively, he had turned toward that part of the
city where were the large restaurants, the playhouses, and the more
pretentious saloons.
At a corner, he wheeled abruptly into one of these last, and, seating
himself at a small table, called for an absinthe. The place was already
lighted, and each glass in the pyramids behind the bar twinkled with a
tiny brilliant reflection of the nearest incandescent globes. The air
was faintly redolent of lemon and the mingled odors of many liquors. To
Cavendish it was all very familiar, and all very pleasant. Again he told
himself that he was glad, glad that the restraint he had been exercising
was at an end. He was free, he thought, free to accomplish his own
inevitable damnation. He had no patience for the tedious operation of
dripping the water into his absinthe over a lump of sugar, but ordered
gum, and stirring the two rapidly together, filled the glass to the brim
from a little pitcher at his side. Then he drank, slowly but steadily,
barely touching the glass to the table between his sips.
Presently, he was conscious of a slight numbness at his wrists, a barely
perceptible tingling in his knees and knuckles. His heart was
fluttering, and his temples pulsed pleasurably. He glanced toward the
glittering pyramids of glasses, and for a fraction of time they seemed
to shift in unison a foot to the right, returning immediately to their
original position with a jerk. Then he rose, and went toward the door,
catching sight of his face in a mirror as he passed. It was very pale,
and he crinkled his nose at it derisively, and then smiled at the
whimsical oddity of his reflected expression. On the threshold he
paused, looking toward the west, blazing with the red and saffron of the
departed sun.
"Oof!" he said, with a downward tug at his waistcoat. "It comes quickly.
That's what it is to be out of practice."
He dined alone in a corner of an unfrequented restaurant, eating little,
but drinking steadily, absinthe at first, then whiskey, four
half-goblets of it, barely diluted with water. Then he found himself
once more in the streets, now brilliantly lighted, going on and on
without purpose, save when the blazing colored glass of a saloon swerved
him from his path. He knew that he was walking steadily, avoiding
obstacles as if by instinct, stepping from and on to kerbs without any
actual perception of them. Faces swam past him, staring. Men,
particularly those at the bars he leaned against, were talking loudly,
but, as it seemed to him, brilliantly. He often smiled involuntarily,
and sometimes spoke to one of them, drank with him, and presently was
alone again, walking on and on. Occasionally a white-faced clock bulged
at him out of the night; and then he noticed that time was galloping. It
was close upon one when he found himself in a quarter which his recent
employment had made familiar--the neighborhood of the Rathbawne Mills.
Here, suddenly, his mind emerged from a mist, and every detail of his
surroundings stood out sharp and clear-cut. The street was
insufficiently illuminated, but the light of a full moon cut across the
buildings on one side, half way between roof and sidewalk. Cavendish
perceived, with a kind of dull surprise, that the pavements were
thronged, and that almost every window framed a figure or two. A hoarse
murmur pulsed in the air, and his quickened ear was greeted on every
side by foul jests and grumbled oaths, broken now and again by drunken
imprecations, scuffles, or the shrill invective of women invisible in
the throng. Once a girl touched his arm, and he found her face close to
his, thin, haggard, and imploring. He shook her off, and turned
unsteadily into the doorway of a saloon; stumbling, as he did so, over a
little boy crying on the step.
Inside, the air was reeking with rank smoke and the fumes of stale beer.
The floor was strewn with sawdust, streaked and circled by shuffling
feet; the mirror backing the bar was covered with soiled gauze dotted
with tawdry roses, and an indescribable dinginess seemed to have laid
its sordid fingers on all the fittings.
The room was crowded, nevertheless--crowded not only with the men
themselves, but, to the stifling point, with their voices and their
gestures and the spirit of their unrest and discontent. Cavendish,
leaning against the end of the bar, looked wearily down the line of
flushed faces and backward at the disputing groups which rocked and
swayed, as the men argued and swore, grasping the lapels of each others'
coats, and spilling the liquor from their glasses as they gesticulated.
He was wholly sober now. It was the stage of dissipation which
experience had taught him to dread the most--the emergence from dulled
sensibility into a nervous tension upon which stimulant had no apparent
effect. He was trembling again, too, and his face, as he saw it in the
mirror through the clouding gauze, was as that of a stranger, a stranger
of whom he was afraid. He swallowed the whiskey he had ordered, and,
supporting himself by the bar, swung back and gave his attention to what
the men about him were saying. It did not need his sharpened perception
to appreciate the fact that he was in the thick of the worst element of
the Rathbawne strikers, or that the situation was a crisis. What little
restraint had characterized the earlier stages of the strike was now,
most evidently, at an end. Starvation was no longer a mere possibility,
or violence a mere threat. The men raved like wild creatures against
Rathbawne and John Barclay, recounting maudlinly the destitution of
their families, and, anon, flaming forth into cries for vengeance. How
long the babel lasted Cavendish could not have said. Long since, the
doors had been closed, and the lights half lowered, in mock deference to
a supposedly vigilant police, when suddenly a hush fell upon the
assemblage. A side door had opened, and Michael McGrath stood in the
midst of his followers, with his arms folded and a thin smile upon his
lips. There was not a whisper as he began to speak. The men leaned
toward him breathlessly, their mouths open, their eyes starting glassily
out of their sodden faces.
"And how long is _this_ going to go on?" demanded their leader, with a
sneer. "Talk--talk--talk! That's always the way, and nothing done, after
all. Well, there's been about enough of it, and that's flat. You've
been living on the Union, and I suppose you think you can go on living
on it till hell freezes over. Now listen to me. When the strike began we
had plenty of funds, and more came to us from the Central Federation.
The funds are gone, d' you hear, and the Federation is asking what we
mean to do. There is six hundred and odd dollars in the treasury. No
need to tell you how far that much will go, is there? Not one day! And
with all your talk, you've everything your own way, if only you knew
it--a police that doesn't dare lift a finger against you, and a Governor
that won't budge an inch till I give the word! Well, to-morrow I give
the word, understand me? To-morrow I throw you over, and you can get out
of this the best way you can. I'm sick of your talk. I'm sick of your
doing nothing. Your daughters are on the streets, your wives and your
children are starving, and _you_--by God! _you_ are boozing in a bar
till daylight, and _talking_! So that's enough. To-morrow, the strike's
at an end. To-morrow, the Governor comes down on you like ten thousand
of brick! And I'm the man that gives the word! Unless"--
He paused and cast a keen glance at the faces which surrounded him. His
last words had been greeted by a low growl.
"Unless," he continued, "you know your business, and make a move that's
worth the name."
The hush of attention seemed to deepen into the leaden silence of
expectancy.
"There are two men who must be put out of the way," said McGrath slowly,
"and that before another midnight. I don't care how it's done, but done
it must be, for the sake of example. It's easy enough to manage it, as
things are. There'll be a howl, but we have the authorities fixed. And
those two men must go!"
In the tense silence which followed, a man's voice whispered two words
hoarsely:--
"Mr. Rathbawne!"
"Ay, _Mr._ Rathbawne!" echoed McGrath, flashing into that passionate
manner of his which carried all before it. "_Mr._ Rathbawne, who's
starving you! _Mr._ Rathbawne, who's making your sons drunkards! _Mr._
Rathbawne, who's debauching your daughters! _Mr._ Rathbawne, who's
killing your wives by inches! _Mr._ Rathbawne, and _Mr._ John Hamilton
Barclay, Lieutenant-Governor of Alleghenia!"
For a moment it seemed as if he would be swept off his feet by a torrent
of enthusiasm. The men crowded about him, slapping him upon the
shoulders, shouting their approval, reaching for his hand. One
brandished a revolver under his nose, with a shrill cry of "This'll do
it, Mac! This'll do it, by God!" The rest had turned to each other,
embracing frantically, and repeating his words in a kind of frenzy.
Presently McGrath raised his hand, and, as silence was restored at the
signal, turned to the bar-tender with his thin smile.
"Set 'em up, Dick," he said composedly. "It's on me, this time, and
we'll drink to better days."
In the confusion Cavendish made his way to the side-door, and passing
through it into the street, hesitated, dazzled by a brilliant light. It
was broad day.
* * * * *
As the Lieutenant-Governor entered his ante-room that morning his eyes
contracted suddenly, and he stopped, with his hand upon the knob of the
door. There could be no mistaking the look in the face of the man who
sat facing him, gripping desperately at the arms of his chair. Cavendish
was as white as chalk, with the hunted look of despair which lay so
vividly on Barclay's remembrance of the night when they had met on
Bradbury Avenue. He rose as the Lieutenant-Governor appeared and drew
himself up with an effort at steadiness, conscious that the others
present were observing him narrowly. But Barclay's hesitation was as
brief as it had been involuntary. With a bare glance at his
subordinates, he came forward cordially to take Cavendish's hand, and
then, opening the door of his private office, motioned him to enter
first.
"Glad to see you," he said steadily, as their hands met.
Once inside, the manner of both men changed as abruptly as it had been
assumed. The Lieutenant-Governor went slowly toward his desk, with his
head bent, and Cavendish, throwing himself into the nearest chair, and,
with no attempt at concealment, drew a flask from his pocket and drank a
long draught. He looked up to find that the Lieutenant-Governor had
wheeled at the desk, and was standing with his eyes fixed upon him.
"Wait a minute," said Cavendish, as Barclay seemed about to speak. "We
won't discuss this, for the moment, if you please."
He held up the flask with a shrug.
"In fact we needn't discuss it at all," he continued. "I've simply gone
to hell, that's all there is about it. I knew I would. I told you so
long ago. I didn't come here to make excuses--or to receive rebukes,
John Barclay. I've a means here of settling the problem which can give
cards and spades to all your projects of reform." And he tapped his
pocket, where the cloth bulged slightly, with a smile. The
Lieutenant-Governor made no attempt to interrupt him.
"What I did come to say," went on Cavendish, more steadily, "is that
your life and Mr. Rathbawne's are in danger. You're to be put out of the
way, both of you, before twelve to-night. McGrath's determined on it,
and there's no lack of men to carry out his orders. The strikers are
desperate. I overheard their talk, while--well, while I was getting
drunk! _What's that?_"
He stopped, with his hand to his ear. Some one was tapping at the
communicating door.
"Put up that flask!" said Barclay under his breath, adding aloud, as
Cavendish obeyed:
"Come in!"
The door swung open softly, and Governor Abbott, smiling and rubbing his
hands, appeared upon the threshold.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Barclay," he said. "I did not know you were
engaged. We have the pleasure of another visit from the Citizens'
Committee, and, by a singularly opportune coincidence, Mr. McGrath has
called at the same time. Can you spare us a few moments of your time?"
With a bow, and a glance at Cavendish, Barclay followed his superior
silently from the room.
In the Governor's office he found a dozen men, all standing. McGrath,
with his back to the others, was examining with an elaborate air of
interest a map of Alleghenia which hung upon the wall. Colonel
Broadcastle and his fellow-members of the Citizens' Committee, stood
close to, and facing, the Governor's desk. The air was electric with
suggestion of a crisis about to come.
When the Governor began to speak, it was in his habitually suave voice,
yet he was visibly nervous.
"Colonel Broadcastle has been good enough to observe," he said, "that if
I do not call out the militia within three hours, to protect the
interests of Mr. Peter Rathbawne, his committee will appeal for aid to
the federal government. Now--er--now, in my place, and in such a
situation, Mr. Barclay--er--what would you do?"
The Lieutenant-Governor's nerve, strained beyond endurance by the events
of the past twenty-four hours, snapped like a dry twig at the
contemptuous hypocrisy of the other's tone.
"_Do!_" he thundered--"_do?_ Why, as God is my witness, Elijah Abbott,
if I were in your place I would do what any honest man would do! I would
do what my oath demanded of me! I would clap that man McGrath into jail
for iniquitous inciting to riot, and place Colonel Broadcastle, at the
head of his regiment, in charge of the city to restore order and the
reign of law, and to redeem Alleghenia from the disgrace that is
overwhelming her. _Do?_ Before God, the Republic, and the state,
Governor Abbott, I would do my duty as a man!"
"_Then do it!_"
The words, spoken from the threshold of Barclay's office, rent the
silence like a thunderclap, and before those present had time to turn,
there came the sound of a pistol-shot, and Governor Abbott, wheeling
slowly on his heels, crashed headforemost through the plate-glass window
behind him, and lay, limp and motionless, across the sill.
"Then do it, by God, _Governor Barclay_!" repeated Cavendish, and flung
his revolver into the centre of the room.
The apartment was already filled with those attracted from the corridors
and adjacent offices by the sound of the shot. Several seized Cavendish,
who stood without movement, smiling. Barclay, Colonel Broadcastle, and
the other members of the committee lifted the Governor's body from the
position in which it had fallen, and laid it upon a couch. After a brief
examination, the Colonel looked up into Barclay's eyes.
"He's dead, sir," he said. "The assassin was right. You are Governor of
Alleghenia."
For an instant, Barclay returned his glance with one of earnest inquiry.
"Even in the face of this tragedy," added Colonel Broadcastle in a low
voice, "I trust you will not forget the exigencies of the situation. It
is for you to act, sir."
Barclay suddenly raised himself to his full height, and faced the silent
gathering.
"Gentlemen," he said firmly, "the Governor is dead. For the moment, at
least, I act in his stead. Kenton City is under martial law. Those who
have the assassin in charge will see that he is immediately turned over
to the chief of police. Mr. McGrath, you will consider yourself under
arrest. Colonel Broadcastle, you will immediately assemble your regiment
at its armory, issue three days' rations, and twenty rounds of ball
cartridge, and hold yourself and your command in readiness for riot
duty, subject to my orders."
Then he faced Cavendish.
"There's a message I'd like to have delivered, to the Fairy Princess,"
said the latter, still smiling. "It is that Diogenes has eaten the ugly
little bug."
XIV
THE VOICE OF ALLEGHENIA
As Barclay had foreseen, the adoption of stringent measures was all that
was needed to break the back-bone of the strike at the Rathbawne Mills.
The presence of the Ninth Regiment, under command of that noted
disciplinarian, Colonel Broadcastle, and terribly in earnest, as was
evinced by the ball cartridges gleaming in their belts, was sufficient
to discourage any further attempts at disorder; the sudden shift of base
of the newspapers which had formerly supported the rioters, and now,
taking their cue from the policy of the new Governor, counseled
immediate surrender; above all, the trial, conviction, and sentence of
their moving spirit, McGrath, to a term of years for inciting to
riot--all were irresistible factors in the Union's capitulation. Two
weeks after the death of Governor Abbott, the Rathbawne Mills were
running once more, and Peter Rathbawne himself, though whiter of hair
and but a shadow of his old self, was, nevertheless, on the high road to
recovery.
The trial and conviction of Spencer Cavendish were accomplished with
unexampled celerity. He would admit of no defense, although the lawyer
appointed for him by the court was strenuous for a plea of insanity,
based upon the singular remark which he had made upon the announcement
of Elijah Abbott's death, and which was construed by those who heard it
as ample proof of irresponsibility. Called upon in court to give his
defense, Cavendish stated in a loud, clear voice that he was strictly
accountable for his act, that he was in full possession of his senses at
the time, and that he had killed the Governor in the firm conviction
that he was a menace to the safety of the community, and that the
latter's sole salvation lay in his removal, and the succession of the
Lieutenant-Governor to the position of chief executive.
"I desire," he concluded, with the same odd smile that he had worn at
the moment of the Governor's death, "nothing but the full penalty of the
law."
The next day Spencer Cavendish was sentenced to be executed on the
thirtieth of the following month at the State's Prison at Mowberly.
Then followed the most remarkable manifestation of popular sentiment
ever known in Alleghenia. As Barclay had once said of them, the citizens
of his long degraded state were less vicious than callous, and their
callousness was effectively cured by the dramatic event which had
removed a corrupt official from the head of the state government, and
put in his place a man whose first acts were proofs positive of
strength, integrity, and singleness of purpose. The revulsion of feeling
was overwhelming. Even the press which had sneered at and cried down
John Barclay was forced to the other extreme. Relieved from the burden
of lawlessness which had lain on Kenton City for close upon three
months, the citizens went over in a body to the support of their new
Governor. He was cheered on his every appearance in public as
assiduously as he had been ignored before, and, responding with the
whole force of his sensitive nature to this longed-for and unexpected
popularity, he devoted himself more and more earnestly, day by day, to
the welfare of the state which was his idol.
But following in the wake of this revulsion of feeling in favor of
Barclay came one, hardly less complete, in favor of Spencer Cavendish.
While strictly speaking there could be no condoning his act, it was none
the less evident to even the most rigid adherents of law that by it he
had conferred an indisputable benefit upon the state of Alleghenia, and
his open statement of his reasons at the time of his trial militated for
rather than against him. So it was that a public petition was framed and
circulated, asking, at the hands of Governor Barclay, the commutation of
the death sentence to one of life imprisonment. Little by little the
list of signatures grew, until, a week before the date fixed for
Cavendish's execution, they were numbered by tens of thousands. Then the
petition, rolled into a cylinder, was presented to the Governor by a
committee, and left for his consideration.