Winston asked no questions. Whatever else there might be to learn, could
be learned at the dam with no waste of precious time. As to what time
meant, Winston was fully alive. As to what effect the constant, lonely
ferment over real or fancied wrongs would have upon a morbidly sensitive
mind, he took no moment to forecast. He knew the ruin that could be
wrought; for he knew the strength and the weakness of the dam; and he
knew Elijah. The thought that Elijah could be driven to wreck the
crowning work of years of struggle, seemed to him monstrous, but he knew
that it was possible; and he knew Elijah. He knew also the sinister
conditions in the note to Mellin. He knew that they were harmless now;
but Elijah did not know.
Winston could count upon his men and they followed his lead. He was
eager, anxious; but neither eagerness nor anxiety prevented the calm
judgment which spared his horse while pushing it to the limit; and his
men followed his lead.
As he flew past the intake gates of the canal he noted that they were
closed. This fact pointed to the worst. As he rode through the canyon he
noted the silence, the oily threads of water sliding between the
boulders; these facts made suspicion certainty. The worst had happened
or was on the way.
As he came near the dam, he did not need the sight of the thin,
wrinkling veil that was sliding over the crest, and, in ever increasing
volume, was plunging into the depths below, to tell him what had
happened. As he sprang from his horse, he did not need to see the
tangled mass of earth and timber that choked the waste weir to the brim,
nor did he need to see the closed gates and the broken wheels that
forbade the hope of opening them. Long ago, so it seemed, he had
forecast the design and the method of its execution.
He saw another sight which he had not forecast. He saw
repentance--repentance, he saw surely; atonement, if within the reach of
time, and life, and sacrifice of life. He saw Repentance with bared
brow, with gray, drawn face, with glowing eyes that directed crashing
strokes of a shining axe, eating deep into a locking tree-trunk which
held back with its mass of crushed timbers and close-packed earth, the
seething waters of the weir. He saw it all, and his heart swelled and
pulsed and throbbed with the glory of it. He saw and felt the glory of
it, that lifts man above the beasts that raven, the angels who adore,
and places him at the side of God, the crowning labor of his mighty
hands.
But through the swelling, flaming glory that bathed the world with the
light of heaven, the earthborn instinct thrust; to save a human life
though repentance and atonement were laid low, and the light that they
radiated was quenched. Through the oily, sliding, deepening veil Ralph
dashed, shouting as he went--
"Come back! Come back! Elijah! Come back"!
But Repentance heeded not the call. Once again the shining blade bit
deep in the straining timber, and Atonement had gained its perfect work.
A crash like riving thunder drowned the swirl of falling water, and the
huddled mass of rock and earth and timber groaned and swelled and
thrust, and then, with a crash and roar, swept through the stone-paved
weir and plunged into the yawning canyon.
The blade had fallen from the bared hands; the gray, drawn face was
lifted to the heavens; but the grayness was gone. In its place was the
light that comes from but one source. Repentance was crowned with
atonement; but life had departed.
Not quite. From a boiling eddy, struggling, impatient to join the
swirling rush of turbid waters, pitying hands drew a torn, bruised body.
A rough, kind hand brushed earth-stained locks from the still face.
"My God! That sight would make a man of the devil!" This was the tribute
of a dormant soul cased in a toil-calloused body.
Ralph was bending low. The eyelids fluttered, then sprang open; but the
vision was not of this world. The lips trembled--
"Amy! Amy!" Then they closed forever.