DIGITUS DEI
Much ado there was at St. Gabriel's when it was found that the door of
the tobacco-house stood open, and the prisoner was gone. All the more
exasperating was it when it proved that there was no one to be blamed
or held responsible, because the jailor was gone too.
Each member of the household took the news of the escape differently.
Cecil jumped for joy. Father White betook himself to solitude and
prayer in his oratory. Mary Brent made few comments, but went about
with her mouth pursed up as though she feared to relax the muscles lest
they betray her into rash words. Her light lashes too were cast down
and her eyes carefully discharged of all expression.
Such silence has more power to irritate than reproaches or curses.
Elinor felt this irritation so keenly that she could not stay in the
house with her cousin, but took refuge in the woods beneath the calm
sky, in that silence of Nature which holds only balm for wounded hearts.
Brent too thought it well to give his sister a wide berth. His own
irritation found vent in an honest volley of oaths directed impartially
at himself and each member of the household except perhaps Ralph Ingle,
to whom he turned for that comfort which a strong and autocratic nature
finds in a pliant one. With such a man as Brent, to concur is to
conquer.
Ingle in return gave him sympathy and silence. Silences differ as
widely as speech, and Ingle's silence was no more like that of Mary
Brent than the calm of a sunny day is like the electric stillness
preceding storm. Ingle's silence was full of delicate suggestions of
assent, of a sympathy too subtle to be put into words, of comradeship
and support to that self-esteem which just now felt itself sadly shaken.
No wonder his company was desired! We succeed with others as we
comprehend them. We value others as they comprehend us.
Giles Brent was a man of action, and lost no time in locking and double
barring the stable door after the horse was stolen.
Two messengers he despatched to St. Mary's to learn, if they could,
whether any news had reached the town of Neville's escape. The other
available men he divided into parties of four, and sent them to scour
the woods in all directions. Then, taking Ralph Ingle with him, he
buckled on his sword, lifted two guns from the rack in the hall, and
marched grimly down the little path to the wharf.
"You have a keen eye, Ingle, and are a mariner born and bred. Therefore
have I brought you with me, for it seems far likelier that Neville
has made his escape by sea than by land. I will take the helm, and do
you go before the mast and keep a sharp lookout for any small boat,
especially one that may seem to hug the wooded points at the mouth of
the river."
Ingle ventured a few words by way of conversation, but found his
companion in a taciturn mood and not to be drawn into conversation.
Both men scanned every headland and inlet till their eyes ached, but
with no success, till at length Ingle called out,--
"There's a ship yonder,--a packet, I should say, from the size and
build of her."
"Ay, for a guess 'tis Prescott's. I ordered him from St. Mary's
yesterday for being too much hand in glove with that scapegrace brother
of thine."
A pained look crossed Ralph Ingle's face.
"Forgive me!" said Brent, who had a soft heart under a quick temper.
"Whatever may be said of your brother, I put trust in you, and here's
my hand on 't."
Ingle did not note the outstretched hand, for his eyes were fixed on
something beyond the ship, a smaller boat making for St. Mary's.
"Look!" he said, "to the right there, to the southward of Pine Point!
Damnation, how the fog is shutting down!"
Even as he spoke a film gathered between him and the two boats,--a film
deepening into a thick veil and that into an impenetrable, impalpable
wall of fog.
Brent held his boat straight on her course. On, on, till once again he
caught the outline of the packet looming close at hand. Then from the
other side he heard a voice which he recognized as Neville's shouting
"Boat ahoy!" Then a crash as if a sea monster had both boats and were
grinding them between his teeth. A rebound, and then another crash, and
above the noise the voice of Philpotts crying, "My God! He's gone!" and
a woman's voice sobbing, "O Kit! Dead! Dead!"
"Hard alee!" shouted Ingle to Brent. "Hard alee! or we shall be in the
coil with the rest;" and running aft he threw his whole weight on the
tiller just in time to shave the packet. They swept into open water,
and the wind bore them away till once more the two boats looked like
gray phantoms against the grayer sky.
"Well done, Ingle! But for your quickness we should have been snarled
up with the other boats. Next time we must come to them with more
caution."
"Why take the risk again? Death has been before us in claiming our
prisoner."
"Ay, but his jailor and the accomplices are yet to be reckoned with if
Maryland justice is not to become a byword and a hissing."
"Governor Brent," Ingle spoke in slow, reluctant tones, "did you chance
to read the name of the larger packet as we passed?"
"Nay, I was too much occupied with saving the skin of my own boat. Did
you?"
"I did."
"And the name--"
"Was _The Reformation_."
"Ah!"
"Yes, and I saw Dick aboard her striding up and down the deck in a
fury, swearing like the cutthroat he is."
"Yet shall he not hinder me from the performance of my duty. No man
shall say that Giles Brent is a coward."
"No fear that any man will ever say that. Let none have cause to say
that the Lieutenant-General, Admiral, Chancellor, Keeper of the Great
Seal, Chief Captain, Magistrate, and Commander of the Province forgot
the sacredness of trust involved in all these offices and ran risks.
Do not drive me to say what risks; but believe me when I say that I
know my brother well, and I know he would stop at nothing,--even to the
carrying off of an officer of the King. He is mad, fairly mad, over his
treatment at St. Mary's yonder."
Brent frowned, shook his head, and hesitated as if uncertain what
course to pursue, then he gave the helm to Ingle entirely, saying,--
"You are right. It is hard to draw the line betwixt cowardice and
caution; but in Calvert's absence I have no right to run risks."
Still in the distance hovered the two phantom ships gray against the
universal grayness, yet dimly discernible, the smaller boat settling
lower and lower like some despairing animal feeling death near at hand
yet struggling to the last.
"It is the end," said Ralph Ingle. "The man is drowned, and his boat is
sunk. Whatever he has done, he has made the fullest atonement man can
make."
"Yes," said Brent, uncovering his head. "I think that we have seen the
end of this unhappy business. A life has been given for a life. The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Ralph Ingle bowed his head as one too much moved for words.
Silently they drifted shoreward and still silently clewed up the sail
and tied the boat to the dock. Once more Brent held out his hand. "You
have proved yourself a tried and trusty comrade this day, and if you
have aught to ask of me, be sure I stand ready to grant it."
"Nay, nay," said Ralph, with his frank smile, "'twere poor comradeship
to begin with asking of favors; besides, there is naught in your gift
that I crave unless--unless--"
"Out with it, man!"
"Well, then, your influence with your kinswoman, Mistress Elinor
Calvert."
Brent started.
"I never dreamed of this," he said.
"Nor I, on my faith, till I was so deep there was no turning back. She
is one of those women that to love once is to love always. I would do
anything for her,--sacrifice my life, nay, my soul itself,--but she is
cold as the ice floating in yonder river."
Giles Brent's face grew set and stern.
"I can well believe it, for I fear 'tis not alone that she loves you
not; but that her heart has been given to another and clings but the
closer, the unworthier she finds him."
"Then it _was_ Neville. I suspected as much. But now, surely now that
he is dead, there may be a chance for me."
"My friend, you little know Elinor Calvert. She has made this murderer
into a saint, and she will burn candles to his memory and say masses
for his soul while she lives."
"Hush! is this not she coming down the path?"
"Ay, go you round through the underbrush and leave me to tell her."
So advised, Ingle took a short cut through the woods, and Brent,
walking on alone, met Elinor face to face.
"Good morrow, Cousin!"
"Would it were a _good_ morrow, Giles! But that can scarce be till we
are good ourselves and credulous of good in others."
"I have no time to play with words. I am come from stern scenes that
wring men's souls."
Elinor turned pale.
"Hast thou seen him?"
"By _him_ signifying Christopher Neville, I doubt not. Now I might put
thee off by saying I have not seen him, as in a sense I have not; yet I
have been near him and in a way to know his fate, which, not to delay
ill news in the telling, is death by drowning."
Elinor answered not a word. She grew deadly white, bowed her head, and
turning about began to walk toward the house.
Brent would not have been surprised to see her swoon at his feet, but
this unnatural calmness terrified him.
"Whither art thou bound?" he asked, catching up with her.
"To the manor-house--there to say a prayer for the soul of him that's
gone, then to pack my belongings and Cecil's."
"To _pack_?"
"Ay, and to make ready for our departure to St. Mary's. There we will
make our home till we can betake ourselves to Cecil Manor. The house of
the Brents can never again be shelter for me or mine."
"Elinor! Have I deserved this?"
"Thou hast been a kind kinsman to me, Giles, and for the past I thank
thee; but thou art a hard man, and my heart is bitter against thee for
the part thou hast played in driving an innocent man to his death."
"I drive the poltroon!" muttered Brent. "Was he not drowned in a
cowardly attempt to escape from a trial he dared not face?"
"No!" flamed Elinor.
"Thou dost speak as one who knows. Perhaps thou hast information. How
canst thou talk so bold?"
"I talk so bold because I do know--alas! none better. I--I tempted
him--the other night--I promised him aid and begged him to escape, and
he would not. He scorned the cowardice and vowed he would stand his
trial and abide by the result."
"Some other must have had more influence with him, then, for there was
a woman's voice in the boat when he sank."
"Bless her!" cried Elinor, "whoever she was, that did plan his
safety--but hold. I know who it was,--his sister Peggy,--who, as we
thought, went back to St. Mary's yesterday; whether he be taken with
or against his will, she is with him. God has been kind to her, but
she deserved it, for she was stanch and true. She has her deserts, and
I had mine. 'Twas God's truth she spoke when she told me I had been
false, and vowed she never wished to see my face again. I know how she
felt, for I feel it now toward thee. Ay, stand back, Giles, and hear
my vow: Never again after this day will I hold converse with thee or
remember that there is a bond of kinship between us till thou shalt
kneel as I have knelt in contrition and shame for the part thou hast
played."
"These are wild vows, Elinor, and will be repented when thou dost
consider them. I would be well-nigh as glad as thou to see Christopher
Neville acquitted of the charge of this terrible crime. To say truth,
against all the evidence, against reason itself, I cherished faint
hope that something might be unearthed even yet to show us that we had
all been mistaken, but now that he hath skulked away under cover of
darkness--why, 'tis the same as a confession."
"Ay, and for that reason he has never done it. Never--_never_--_never_!
'Tis not in his nature, not near so much as to have done the murder
of which he stands accused. Giles, 'tis but a little while since thou
didst urge my taking Christopher Neville for my tenant yonder at Cecil
Manor; and why? Because, thou saidst, he was the boldest and the truest
and the faithfullest man in Maryland. So he was and is. Thinkst thou a
man's soul is changed in a day or two days or a week? Fie! thou hast
not enough knowledge of human nature to be ruler of a county, much less
a commonwealth."
Brent drew his brows together impatiently.
"'Tis all very well to rail like that, but it proves nothing. He
is gone. That is a fact not to be gainsaid. What is it, then, but
jail-breaking?"
"Ay, but he may not have gone of his free will."
"A likely story. Who, then, hath taken him by force?"
"How do I know? Some that have reason to profit by his accusation,
yet fear to press the trial to the end. Perchance the fathers of St.
Inigo's."
Giles Brent was furious, all the more that the same possibility had
been floating dimly in his own mind. He answered coldly,--
"Since thou art so lost to all sense of dignity and decency in the
cause of thy lover as to accuse Holy Church herself rather than admit
what one who runs may read, that he hath done a dastardly deed and then
hath run away to escape the consequences, why, I will waste neither
argument nor entreaty, but when the day comes that all is made clear,
thou wilt have a heavy account to settle."
"I know not how it may be in the future of this world, Giles; but when
the day comes that the secrets of all hearts are laid open, I feel sure
as that I stand here that Christopher Neville will have naught to fear.
For myself my shame will be that I loved not too much, but too little.
To love cautiously is not to love at all. For thee, thy punishment--the
hardest, I believe, for a just man--shall be to see too late the
wrong thou hast done; the friendship lightest held where it should
have been strongest, the faith withheld where the hand should have
been outstretched in aid, the life sacrificed that should have been a
bulwark to the state,--all this will be laid at thy door--"
Then,--with a sudden break,--"God forgive me! What a hypocrite I am! My
sin is heavier than thine. I knew him, I loved him, and I failed him.
Death holds no bitterness like this."
Without another word she turned and left him.
Brent fell back, awed by the force of her passion, and stood still
watching her as she swept on, a tall vision of Nemesis, vague and
gray in the mist that clung about the long folds of her cloak. On she
walked, slowly at first, then faster and faster till she was almost
running. At the third bend of the path a man slipped out from behind
the twisted pine, and fell in with her step so naturally that she was
scarcely conscious of his companionship.
There was a softness in Ralph Ingle's silence, a soothing quality in
his sympathy that made itself felt. Elinor's gait slowed, and she
removed the hands that had been pressed to her temples, as if to quiet
the intolerable throbbing pain.
"Pity me!"--Ralph Ingle spoke low.
"I pity thee! Have I room in my heart for pity of any save myself?"
"Thou shouldst have for one more miserable than thou."
"That cannot be; and why shouldst thou need pity?"
"Because thou art sorrowful, and I can give thee no help. Is not that
reason enough?"
Elinor stopped and looked at him with wide, half-seeing eyes, striving
to force herself to put aside her own trouble enough to realize that of
another.
"Do not!" she cried, stretching out defensive hands, "do not tell me
that I have made someone else wretched too! My life seems destined to
be a calamity to all who fall within its fateful shadow."
"No; speak no such sad words," cried Ingle, falling on his knees before
her. "To me your presence has been pure sunshine; but were life all
shadow, I would rather live under the clouds with thee than in the
light of heaven itself without thee."
"Forgive me!" answered Elinor, wearily, brushing her hand across her
eyes. "It is idle to talk thus. I loved--I love--Christopher Neville,
and I cannot listen to any other."
"My words were untimely; I spoke too soon."
"Nay, for me there is no time any more,--only a waiting for eternity."
"Think a moment, Elinor! I must call thee so once if nevermore. Wilt
thou in good earnest condemn me to despair?"
"I condemn no one. If despair be thy portion, thou must needs drink
the cup as I am draining mine. Farewell!"
"Farewell, then, Elinor Calvert! And on thy head be my soul's ruin, and
all that may befall me or thee hereafter!"
So absorbed in her own grief was Elinor that her ear scarcely caught
his words, nor did her mind take note of his wild look and manner as he
flung away into the forest. She quickened her pace and saw with relief
the walls of the manor-house rising between the trees. A few more paces
and she would reach the house, then if Fate were kind, her room, and
then she could at least be alone with her despair; but no, she thought
bitterly, even this poor comfort was to be denied her, for, as she drew
near the house, she saw Father White standing in the doorway. She would
have swerved from the path and sought entrance through the side room,
but it was too late; she had been seen. Father White moved toward her
like some strong merciful angel, holding healing and benediction in his
outstretched hands.
"My daughter, thou art ill."
"Ay, Father, so ill that I must needs with all speed seek rest in my
chamber."
"Is it indeed illness, or grief?"
"They are much alike."
"Ay, but they may need differing treatment."
"Rest and solitude are best for both."
"Nay, for bodily sickness thou hast need of a physician of the body,
and for soul sickness of a physician of the soul."
"Father," said Elinor, sinking on her knees before him, "I am past all
help of medicine for body or soul--_He is dead!_"
The old priest raised his eyes to heaven, murmuring to himself,
"_Digitus Dei est hic._--Yes," he added slowly, "surely it is the
finger of God himself, and it is the Lord who has spoken."
Aloud he said: "I know how troubles such as thine shake the soul till
there is no power left to seek aid. Then the Lord sends the help the
sufferer is too weak to reach out a hand for. If thou shouldst probe
this wound of thine, thou wouldst find that its deepest hurt lay not in
what hath befallen without, but from that which hath gone wrong within."
"'Tis God's truth thou speakest."
"There lies no help in man."
"None! None!"
"Then look above! Oh, my daughter, hast thou not before found comfort
at the confessional, at the foot of the altar? Listen: I am a priest
of God and charged with power to absolve sin and declare His pardon to
weary, struggling souls like thine."
With a wild cry Elinor threw up her arms above her head.
"Talk not to me of God's pardon! Will that bring Christopher Neville to
life? Will that save his poor heart one of the pangs my distrust dealt,
or his faithful soul one hour of the weary years my cold disdain cost
him? Nay, Father, save pardon and penance for those who can still use
them! I tell you, it is _I_ who cannot forgive _myself_,--_I_!"