The day after the funeral, Bennett returned alone to Dr. Pitts's house
at Medford, and the same evening his trunks and baggage, containing his
papers--the records, observations, journals, and log-books of the
expedition--followed him.
As Bennett entered the gate of the place that he had chosen to be his
home for the next year, he was aware that the windows of one of the
front rooms upon the second floor were wide open, the curtains tied up
into loose knots; inside a servant came and went, putting the room to
rights again, airing it and changing the furniture. In the road before
the house he had seen the marks of the wheels of the undertaker's wagon
where it had been backed up to the horse-block. As he closed the front
door behind him and stood for a moment in the hallway, his valise in his
hand, he saw, hanging upon one of the pegs of the hat-rack, the hat
Ferriss had last worn. Bennett put down his valise quickly, and,
steadying himself against the wall, leaned heavily against it, drawing a
deep breath, his eyes closing.
The house was empty and, but for the occasional subdued noises that came
from the front room at the end of the hall, silent. Bennett picked up
his valise again and went upstairs to the rooms that had been set apart
for him. He did not hang his hat upon the hat-rack, but carried it with
him.
The housekeeper, who met him at the head of the stairs and showed him
the way to his apartments, inquired of him as to the hours he wished to
have his meals served. Bennett told her, and then added:
"I will have all my meals in the breakfast-room, the one you call the
glass-room, I believe. And as soon as the front room is ready I shall
sleep there. That will be my room after this."
The housekeeper stared. "It won't be quite safe, sir, for some time. The
doctor gave very strict orders about ventilating it and changing the
furniture."
Bennett merely nodded as if to say he understood, and the housekeeper
soon after left him to himself. The afternoon passed, then the evening.
Such supper as Bennett could eat was served according to his orders in
the breakfast-room. Afterward he called Kamiska, and went for a long
walk over the country roads in a direction away from the town,
proceeding slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. Later, toward ten
o'clock, he returned. He went upstairs toward his room with the
half-formed idea of looking over and arranging his papers before going
to bed. Sleep he could not; he foresaw that clearly.
But Bennett was not yet familiar with the arrangement of the house. His
mind was busy with other things; he was thoughtful, abstracted, and upon
reaching the stair landing on the second floor, turned toward the front
of the house when he should have turned toward the rear. He entered what
he supposed to be his room, lit the gas, then stared about him in some
perplexity.
The room he was in was almost bare of furniture. Even part of the carpet
had been taken up. The windows were wide open; a stale odour of drugs
pervaded the air, while upon the bed nothing remained but the mattress
and bolster. For a moment Bennett looked about him bewildered, then he
started sharply. This was--had been--the sick-room. Here, upon that bed,
Ferriss had died; here had been enacted one scene in the terrible drama
wherein he, Bennett, had played so conspicuous a part.
As Bennett stood there looking about him, one hand upon the foot-board of
the bed, a strange, formless oppression of the spirit weighed heavily
upon him. He seemed to see upon that naked bed the wasted,
fever-stricken body of the dearest friend he had ever known. It was as
though Ferriss were lying in state there, with black draperies hung
about the bier and candles burning at the head and foot. Death had been
in that room. Empty though it was, a certain religious solemnity, almost
a certain awe, seemed to bear down upon the senses. Before he knew it
Bennett found himself kneeling at the denuded bed, his face buried, his
arms flung wide across the place where Ferriss had last reposed.
He could not say how long he remained thus--perhaps ten minutes, perhaps
an hour. He seemed to come to himself once more when he stepped out into
the hall again, closing and locking the door of the death-room behind
him. But now all thought of work had left him. In the morning he would
arrange his papers. It was out of the question to think of sleep. He
descended once more to the lower floor of the silent house, and stepped
out again into the open air.
On the veranda, close beside him, was a deep-seated wicker arm-chair.
Bennett sank down into it, drawing his hands wearily across his
forehead. The stillness of a summer night had settled broadly over the
vast, dim landscape. There was no moon; all the stars were out. Very far
off a whippoorwill was calling incessantly. Once or twice from the
little orchard close at hand an apple dropped with a faint rustle of
leaves and a muffled, velvety impact upon the turf. Kamiska, wide awake,
sat motionless upon her haunches on the steps, looking off into the
night, cocking an ear to every faintest sound.
Well, Ferriss was dead, and he, Bennett, was responsible. His friend,
the man whom most he loved, was dead. The splendid fight he had made for
his life during that ferocious struggle with the Ice had been all of no
effect. Without a murmur, without one complaint he had borne starvation,
the bitter arctic cold, privation beyond words, the torture of the frost
that had gnawed away his hands, the blinding fury of the snow and wind,
the unceasing and incredible toil with sledge and pack--all the terrible
hardship of an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Pole, only to die
miserably in his bed, alone, abandoned by the man and woman whom, of all
people of the world, he had most loved and trusted. And he, Bennett, had
been to blame.
Was Ferriss conscious during that last moment? Did he know; would he,
sometime, somewhere, know? It could not be said. Forever that must
remain a mystery. And, after all, had Bennett done right in keeping
Lloyd from the sick-room? Now that all was over, now that the whole
fearful tragedy could be judged somewhat calmly and in the light of
reason, the little stealthy doubt began to insinuate itself.
At first he had turned from it, raging and furious, stamping upon it as
upon an intruding reptile. The rough-hewn, simple-natured man, with his
arrogant and vast self-confidence, his blind, unshaken belief in the
wisdom of his own decisions, had never in his life before been willing
to admit that he could be mistaken, that it was possible for him to
resolve upon a false line of action. He had always been right. But now a
change had come. A woman had entangled herself in the workings of his
world, the world that hitherto had been only a world of men for him--and
now he faltered, now he questioned himself, now he scrutinised his
motives, now the simple became complicated, the straight crooked, right
mingled with wrong, bitter with sweet, falseness with truth.
He who had faith in himself to remove mountains, he who could drive his
fellow-men as a herder drives his sheep, he who had forced the vast grip
of the Ice, had, with a battering ram's force, crushed his way through
those terrible walls, shattered and breached and broken down the
barriers, now in this situation involving a woman--had he failed? Had he
weakened? And bigger, stronger, and more persistently doubt intruded
itself into his mind.
Hitherto Bennett's only salvation from absolute despair had been the
firm consciousness of his own rectitude. In that lay his only comfort,
his only hope, his one, strong-built fabric of defence. If that was
undermined, if that was eaten away, what was there left for him?
Carefully, painfully, and with such minuteness as he could command, he
went over the whole affair from beginning to end, forcing his unwilling
mind--so unaccustomed to such work--to weigh each chance, to gauge each
opportunity. If _this_ were so, if _that_ had been done, then would
_such_ results have followed? Suppose he had not interfered, suppose he
had stood aside, would Lloyd have run such danger, after all, and would
Ferriss at this time have been alive, and perhaps recovering? Had he,
Bennett, been absolutely mad; had he been blind and deaf to reason; had
he acted the part of a brute--a purblind, stupid, and unutterably
selfish brute--thinking chiefly of himself, after all, crushing the
woman who was so dear to him, sacrificing the life of the man he loved,
blundering in there, besotted and ignorant, acting the bully's part,
unnecessarily frightened, cowardly where he imagined himself brave;
weak, contemptibly weak, where he imagined himself strong? Might it not
have been avoided if he had been even merely reasonable, as, in like
case, an ordinary man would have been? He, who prided himself upon the
promptness and soundness of his judgment in great crises, had lost his
head and all power of self-control in this greatest crisis of all.
The doubt came back to him again and again. Trample it, stifle it, dash
it from him as he would, each time it returned a little stronger, a
little larger, a little more insistent. Perhaps, after all, he had made
a mistake; perhaps, after all, Lloyd ran no great danger; perhaps, after
all, Ferriss might now have been alive. All at once Bennett seemed to be
sure of this.
Then it became terrible. Alone there, in the darkness and in the night,
Bennett went down into the pit. Abruptly he seemed to come to
himself--to realise what he had done, as if rousing from a nightmare.
Remorse, horror, self-reproach, the anguish of bereavement, the infinite
regret of things that never were to be again, the bitterness of a
vanished love, self-contempt too abject for expression, the
heart-breaking grief of the dreadful might-have-been, one by one, he
knew them all. One by one, like the slow accumulation of gigantic
burdens, the consequences of his folly descended upon him, heavier, more
intolerably, more inexorably fixed with every succeeding moment, while
the light of truth and reason searched every corner of his mind, and his
doubt grew and hardened into certainty.
If only Bennett could have believed that, in spite of what had happened,
Lloyd yet loved him, he could have found some ray of light in the
darkness wherein he groped, some saving strength to bear the weight of
his remorse and sorrow. But now, just in proportion as he saw clearer
and truer he saw that he must look for no help in that direction. Being
what Lloyd was, it was impossible for her, even though she wished it, to
love him now--love the man who had broken her! The thought was
preposterous. He remembered clearly that she had warned him of just
this. No, that, too, the one sweetness of his rugged life, he must put
from him as well--had already, and of his own accord, put from him.
How go on? Of what use now was ambition, endeavour, and the striving to
attain great ends? The thread of his life was snapped; his friend was
dead, and the love of the one woman of his world. For both he was to
blame. Of what avail was it now to continue his work?
Ferriss was dead. Who now would stand at his side when the darkness
thickened on ahead and obstacles drew across the path and Death overhead
hung poised and menacing?
Lloyd's love for him was dead. Who now to bid him godspeed as his
vessel's prow swung northward and the water whitened in her wake? Who
now to wait behind when the great fight was dared again, to wait behind
and watch for his home-coming; and when the mighty hope had been
achieved, the goal of all the centuries attained, who now to send that
first and dearest welcome out to him when the returning ship showed over
the horizon's rim, flagged from her decks to her crosstrees in all the
royal blazonry of an immortal triumph?
Now, that triumph was never to be for him. Ambition, too, was dead; some
other was to win where now he could but lose, to gain where now he could
but fail; some other stronger than he, more resolute, more determined.
At last Bennett had come to this, he who once had been so imperial in
the consciousness of his power, so arrogant, so uncompromising. Beaten,
beaten at last; defeated, daunted, driven from his highest hopes,
abandoning his dearest ambitions. And how, and why? Not by the Enemy he
had so often faced and dared, not by any power external to himself; but
by his very self's self, crushed by the engine he himself had set in
motion, shattered by the recoil of the very force that for so long had
dwelt within himself. Nothing in all the world could have broken him but
that. Danger, however great, could not have cowed him; circumstances,
however hopeless, could not have made him despair; obstacles, however
vast, could not have turned him back. Himself was the only Enemy that
could have conquered; his own power the only one to which he would have
yielded. And fate had so ordered it that this one Enemy of all others,
this one power of all others, had turned upon and rent him. The mystery
of it! The terror of it! Why had he never known? How was it he had never
guessed? What was this ruthless monster, this other self, that for so
long had slept within his flesh, strong with his better strength,
feeding and growing big with that he fancied was the best in him, that
tricked him with his noblest emotion--the love of a good woman--lured
him to a moment of weakness, then suddenly, and without warning, leaped
at his throat and struck him to the ground?
He had committed one of those offences which the law does not reach, but
whose punishment is greater than any law can inflict. Retribution had
been fearfully swift. His career, Ferriss, and Lloyd--ambition,
friendship, and the love of a woman--had been a trinity of dominant
impulses in his life. Abruptly, almost in a single instant, he had lost
them all, had thrown them away. He could never get them back. Bennett
started sharply. What was this on his cheek; what was this that suddenly
dimmed his eyes? Had it actually come to this? And this was
he--Bennett--the same man who had commanded the Freja expedition. No, it
was not the same man. That man was dead. He ground his teeth, shaken
with the violence of emotions that seemed to be tearing his heart to
pieces. Lost, lost to him forever! Bennett bowed his head upon his
folded arms. Through his clenched teeth his words seemed almost wrenched
from him, each word an agony.
"Dick--Dick, old man, you're gone, gone from me, and it was I who did
it; and Lloyd, she too--she--God help me!"
Then the tension snapped. The great, massive frame shook with grief from
head to heel, and the harsh, angular face, with its salient jaw and
hard, uncouth lines, was wet with the first tears he had ever known.
He was roused at length by a sudden movement on the part of the dog.
Kamiska had risen to her feet with a low growl, then, as the gate-latch
clinked, she threw up her head and gave tongue to the night with all the
force of her lungs. Bennett straightened up, thanking fortune that the
night was dark, and looked about him. A figure was coming up the front
walk, the gravel crunching under foot. It was the figure of a man. At
the foot of the steps of the veranda he paused, and as Bennett made a
movement turned in his direction and said:
"Is this Dr. Pitts's house?"
Bennett's reply was drowned in the clamour of the dog, but the other
seemed to understand, for he answered:
"I'm looking for Mr. Ferriss--Richard Ferriss, of the Freja; they told
me he was brought here."
Kamiska stopped her barking, sniffed once or twice at the man's trouser
legs; then, in brusque frenzy of delight, leaped against him, licking
his hands, dancing about him on two legs, whining and yelping.
Bennett came forward, and the man changed his position so that the light
from the half-open front door shone upon his face.
"Why, Adler!" exclaimed Bennett; "well, where did you come from?"
"Mr. Bennett!" almost shouted the other, snatching off his cap. "It
ain't really you, sir!" His face beamed and radiated a joy little short
of beatitude. The man was actually trembling with happiness. Words
failed him, and as with a certain clumsy tenderness he clasped Bennett's
hand in both his own his old-time chief saw the tears in his eyes.
"Oh! Maybe I ain't glad to see you, sir--I thought you had gone away--I
didn't know where--I--I didn't know as I was ever going to see you
again."
Kamiska herself had been no less tremulously glad to see Adler than was
Adler to see Bennett. He stammered, he confused himself, he shifted his
weight from one foot to the other, his eyes danced, he laughed and
choked, he dropped his cap. His joy was that of a child, unrestrained,
unaffected, as genuine as gold. When they turned back to the veranda he
eagerly drew up Bennett's chair for him, his eyes never leaving his
face. It was the quivering, inarticulate affection of a dog for its
master, faithful, submissive, unquestioning, happy for hours over a
chance look, a kind word, a touch of the hand. To Adler's mind it would
have been a privilege and an honour to have died for Bennett. Why, he
was his chief, his king, his god, his master, who could do no wrong.
Bennett could have slain him where he stood and Adler would still have
trusted him.
Adler would not sit down until Bennett had twice ordered him to do so,
and then he deposited himself in a nearby chair, in as uncomfortable a
position as he could devise, allowing only the smallest fraction of his
body to be supported as a mark of deference. He remained uncovered, and
from time to time nervously saluted. But suddenly he remembered the
object of his visit.
"Oh, but I forgot--seeing you like this, unexpected, sir, clean drove
Mr. Ferriss out of my mind. How is he getting on? I saw in the papers he
was main sick."
"He's dead," said Bennett quietly.
Adler was for the moment stricken speechless. His jaw dropped; he
stared, and caught his breath.
"Mr. Ferriss dead!" he exclaimed at length. "I--I can't believe it." He
crossed himself rapidly. Bennett made no reply, and for upward of five
minutes the two men sat motionless in the chairs, looking off into the
night. After a while Adler broke silence and asked a few questions as to
Ferriss's sickness and the nature and time of his death--questions which
Bennett answered as best he might. But it was evident that Bennett,
alive and present there in the flesh, was more to Adler than Ferriss
dead.
"But _you're_ all right, sir, ain't you?" he asked at length. "There
ain't anything the matter with you?"
"No," said Bennett; looking at him steadily; then suddenly he added:
"Adler, I was to blame for Mr. Ferriss's death. If it hadn't been for me
he would probably have been alive to-night. It was my fault. I did what
I thought was right, when I knew all the time, just as I know now, that
I was wrong. So, when any one asks you about Mr. Ferriss's death you are
to tell him just what you know about it--understand? Through a mistake I
was responsible for his death. I shall not tell you more than that, but
that much you ought to know."
Adler looked at Bennett curiously and with infinite amazement. The order
of his universe was breaking up about his ears. Bennett, the
inscrutable, who performed his wonders in a mystery, impenetrable to
common eyes, who moved with his head in the clouds, behold! he was
rendering account to him, Adler, the meanest of his subjects--the king
was condescending to the vassal, was admitting him to his confidence.
And what was this thing he was saying, that he was responsible for
Ferriss's death? Adler did not understand; his wits could not adjust
themselves to such information. Ferriss was dead, but how was Bennett to
blame? The king could do no wrong. Adler did not understand. No doubt
Bennett was referring to something that had happened during the retreat
over the ice--something that had to be done, and that in the end, and
after all this lapse of time, had brought about Mr. Ferriss's death. In
any case Bennett had done what was right. For that matter he had been
responsible for McPherson's death; but what else had there been to do?
Bennett had spoken as he did after a moment's rapid thinking. To Adler's
questions as to the manner of the chief engineer's death Bennett had at
first given evasive replies. But a sudden sense of shame at being
compelled to dissemble before a subordinate had lashed him across the
face. True, he had made a mistake--a fearful, unspeakable mistake--but
at least let him be man enough to face and to accept its consequences.
It might not be necessary or even expedient to make acknowledgment of
his folly in all quarters, but at that moment it seemed to him that his
men--at least one of them--who had been under the command of himself and
his friend, had a right to be told the truth. It had been only one
degree less distasteful to undeceive Adler than it had been to deceive
him in the first place. Bennett was not the general to explain his
actions to his men. But he had not hesitated a moment.
However, Adler was full of another subject, and soon broke out with:
"You know, sir, there's another expedition forming; I suppose you have
heard--an English one. They call it the Duane-Parsons expedition. They
are going to try the old route by Smith Sound. They are going to winter
at Tasiusak, and try to get through the sound as soon as the ice breaks
up in the spring. But Duane's ideas are all wrong. He'll make no very
high northing, not above eighty-five. I'll bet a hat. When we go up
again, sir, will you--will you let me--will you take me along? Did I
give satisfaction this last--"
"I'm never going up again, Adler," answered Bennett.
"Sho!" said Adler a little blankly. "I thought sure--I never thought
that you--why, there ain't no one else but you _can_ do it, captain."
"Oh, yes, there is," said Bennett listlessly. "Duane can--if he has
luck. I know him. He's a good man. No, I'm out of it, Adler; I had my
chance. It is somebody else's turn now. Do you want to go with Duane? I
can give you letters to him. He'd be glad to have you, I know."
Adler started from his place.
"Why, do you think--" he exclaimed vehemently--"do you think I'd go with
anybody else but you, sir? Oh, you will be going some of these days, I'm
sure of it. We--we'll have another try at it, sir, before we die. We
ain't beaten yet."
"Yes, we are, Adler," returned Bennett, smiling calmly; "we'll stay at
home now and write our book. But we'll let some one else reach the Pole.
That's not for us--never will be, Adler."
At the end of their talk some half-hour later Adler stood up, remarking:
"Guess I'd better be standing by if I'm to get the last train back to
the City to-night. They told me at the station that she'd clear about
midnight." Suddenly he began to show signs of uneasiness, turning his
cap about between his fingers, changing his weight from foot to foot.
Then at length:
"You wouldn't be wanting a man about the place, would you, sir?" And
before Bennett could reply he continued eagerly, "I've been a bit of
most trades in my time, and I know how to take care of a garden like as
you have here; I'm a main good hand with plants and flower things, and I
could help around generally." Then, earnestly, "Let me stay, sir--it
won't cost--I wouldn't think of taking a cent from you, captain. Just
let me act as your orderly for a spell, sir. I'd sure give satisfaction;
will you, sir--will you?"
"Nonsense, Adler," returned Bennett; "stay, if you like. I presume I can
find use for you. But you must be paid, of course."
"Not a soomarkee," protested the other almost indignantly.
The next day Adler brought his chest down from the City and took up his
quarters with Bennett at Medford. Though Dr. Pitts had long since ceased
to keep horses, the stable still adjoined the house, and Adler swung his
hammock in the coachman's old room. Bennett could not induce him to room
in the house itself. Adler prided himself that he knew his place. After
their first evening's conversation he never spoke to Bennett until
spoken to first, and the resumed relationship of commander and
subordinate was inexpressibly dear to him. It was something to see Adler
waiting on the table in the "glass-room" in his blue jersey, standing at
attention at the door, happy in the mere sight of Bennett at his meals.
In the mornings, as soon as breakfast was ready, it was Adler's
privilege to announce the fact to Bennett, whom he usually found already
at work upon his writing. Returning thence to the dining-room, Adler
waited for his lord to appear. As soon as he heard Bennett's step in the
hall a little tremor of excitement possessed him. He ran to Bennett's
chair, drawing it back for him, and as soon as Bennett had seated
himself circled about him with all the pride and solicitude of a
motherly hen. He opened his napkin for him, delivered him his paper, and
pushed his cup of coffee a half-inch nearer his hand. Throughout the
duration of the meal he hardly took his eyes from Bennett's face,
watching his every movement with a glow of pride, his hands gently
stroking one another in an excess of satisfaction and silent enjoyment.
The days passed; soon a fortnight was gone by. Drearily, mechanically,
Bennett had begun work upon his book, the narrative of the expedition.
It was repugnant to him. Long since he had lost all interest in polar
exploration. As he had said to Adler, he was out of it, finally and
irrevocably. His bolt was shot; his role upon the stage of the world was
ended. He only desired now to be forgotten as quickly as possible, to
lapse into mediocrity as easily and quietly as he could. Fame was
nothing to him now. The thundering applause of an entire world that had
once been his was mere noise, empty and meaningless. He did not care to
reawaken it. The appearance of his book he knew was expected and waited
for in every civilised nation of the globe. It would be printed in
languages whereof he was ignorant, but it was all one with him now.
The task of writing was hateful to him beyond expression, but with such
determination as he could yet summon to his aid Bennett stuck to it,
eight, ten, and sometimes fourteen hours each day. In a way his
narrative was an atonement. Ferriss was its hero. Almost instinctively
Bennett kept the figure of himself, his own achievements, his own plans
and ideas, in the background. On more than one page he deliberately
ascribed to Ferriss triumphs which no one but himself had attained. It
was Ferriss who was the leader, the victor to whom all laurels were due.
It was Ferriss whose example had stimulated the expedition to its best
efforts in the darkest hours; it was, practically, Ferriss who had saved
the party after the destruction of the ship; whose determination,
unbroken courage, endurance, and intelligence had pervaded all minds and
hearts during the retreat to Kolyuchin Bay.
"Though nominally in command," wrote Bennett, "I continually gave place
to him. Without his leadership we should all, unquestionably, have
perished before even reaching land. His resolution to conquer, at
whatever cost, was an inspiration to us all. Where he showed the way we
had to follow; his courage was never daunted, his hope was never dimmed,
his foresight, his intelligence, his ingenuity in meeting and dealing
with apparently unsolvable problems were nothing short of marvellous.
His was the genius of leadership. He was the explorer, born to his
work."
One day, just after luncheon, as Bennett, according to his custom, was
walking in the garden by the house, smoking a cigar before returning to
his work, he was surprised to find himself bleeding at the nose. It was
but a trifling matter, and passed off in a few moments, but the fact of
its occurrence directed his attention to the state of his health, and he
told himself that for the last few days he had not been at all his
accustomed self. There had been dull pains in his back and legs; more
than once his head had pained him, and of late the continuance of his
work had been growing steadily more obnoxious to him, the very physical
effort of driving the pen from line to line was a burden.
"Hum!" he said to himself later on in the day, when the bleeding at the
nose returned upon him, "I think we need a little quinine."
But the next day he found he could not eat, and all the afternoon,
though he held doggedly to his work, he was troubled with nausea. At
times a great weakness, a relaxing of all the muscles, came over him. In
the evening he sent a note to Dr. Pitts's address in the City, asking
him to come down to Medford the next day.
* * * * *
On the Monday morning of the following week, some two hours after
breakfast, Lloyd met Miss Douglass on the stairs, dressed for the street
and carrying her nurse's bag.
"Are you going out?" she asked of the fever nurse in some astonishment.
"Where are you going?" for Lloyd had returned to duty, and it was her
name that now stood at the top of the list; "I thought it was my turn to
go out," she added.
Miss Douglass was evidently much confused.
Her meeting with Lloyd had apparently been unexpected. She halted upon
the stairs in great embarrassment, stammering:
"No--no, I'm on call. I--I was called out of my turn--specially
called--that was it."
"Were you?" demanded Lloyd sharply, for the other nurse was disturbed to
an extraordinary degree.
"Well, then; no, I wasn't, but the superintendent--Miss Bergyn--she
thought--she advised--you had better see her."
"I will see her," declared Lloyd, "but don't you go till I find out why
I was skipped."
Lloyd hurried at once to Miss Bergyn's room, indignant at this slight.
Surely, after what had happened, she was entitled to more consideration
than this. Of all the staff in the house she should have been the one to
be preferred.
Miss Bergyn rose at Lloyd's sudden entrance into her room, and to her
question responded:
"It was only because I wanted to spare you further trouble and--and
embarrassment, Lloyd, that I told Miss Douglass to take your place. This
call is from Medford. Dr. Pitts was here himself this morning, and he
thought as I did."
"Thought what? I don't understand."
"It seemed to me," answered the superintendent nurse, "that this one
case of all others would be the hardest, the most disagreeable for you
to take. It seems that Mr. Bennett has leased Dr. Pitts's house from
him. He is there now. At the time when Mr. Ferriss was beginning to be
ill Mr. Bennett was with him a great deal and undertook to nurse him
till Dr. Pitts interfered and put a professional nurse on the case.
Since then, too, the doctor has found out that Mr. Bennett has exposed
himself imprudently. At any rate, in some way he has contracted the same
disease and is rather seriously ill with it. Dr. Pitts wants us to send
him a nurse at once. It just happened that it was your turn, and I
thought I had better skip your name and send Louise Douglass."
Lloyd sank into a chair, her hands falling limply in her lap. A frown of
perplexity gathered on her forehead. But suddenly she exclaimed:
"I know--that's all as it may be; but all the staff know that it is my
turn to go; everybody in the house knows who is on call. How will it
be--what will be thought when it is known that I haven't gone--and
after--after my failing once--after this--this other affair? No, I must
go. I, of all people, must go--and just because it is a typhoid case,
like the other."
"But, Lloyd, how _can_ you?"
True, how could she? Her patient would be the same man who had
humiliated her and broken her, had so cruelly misunderstood and wronged
her, for whom all her love was dead. How could she face him again? Yet
how refuse to take the case? How explain a second failure to her
companions? Lloyd made a little movement of distress, clasping her hands
together. How the complications followed fast upon each other! No sooner
was one difficult situation met and disposed of than another presented
itself. Bennett was nothing to her now, yet, for all that, she recoiled
instinctively from meeting him again. Not only must she meet him, but
she must be with him day after day, hour after hour, at his very side,
in all the intimacy that the sick-room involved. On the other hand, how
could she decline this case? The staff might condone one apparent and
inexplicable defection; another would certainly not be overlooked. But
was not this new situation a happy and unlooked-for opportunity to
vindicate her impaired prestige in the eyes of her companions? Lloyd
made up her mind upon the instant. She rose.
"I shall take the case," she said.
She was not a little surprised at herself. Hardly an instant had she
hesitated. On that other occasion when she had believed it right to make
confession to her associates it had been hard--at times almost
impossible--for her to do her duty as she saw and understood it. This
new complication was scarcely less difficult, but once having attained
the fine, moral rigour that had carried her through her former ordeal,
it became easy now to do right under all or any circumstances, however
adverse. If she had failed then, she certainly would have failed now.
That she had succeeded then made it all the easier to succeed now. Dimly
Lloyd commenced to understand that the mastery of self, the steady, firm
control of natural, intuitive impulses, selfish because natural, was a
progression. Each victory not only gained the immediate end in view, but
braced the mind and increased the force of will for the next shock, the
next struggle. She had imagined and had told herself that Bennett had
broken her strength for good. But was it really so? Had not defeat in
that case been only temporary? Was she not slowly getting back her
strength by an unflinching adherence to the simple, fundamental
principles of right, and duty, and truth? Was not the struggle with
one's self the greatest fight of all, greater, far greater, than had
been the conflict between Bennett's will and her own?
Within the hour she found herself once again on her way to Medford. How
much had happened, through what changes had she passed since the
occasion of her first journey; and Bennett, how he, too, changed; how
different he had come to stand in her estimation! Once the thought that
he was in danger had been a constant terror to her, and haunted her days
and lurked at her side through many a waking night. Was it possible that
now his life or death was no more to her than that of any of her former
patients? She could not say; she avoided answering the question.
Certainly her heart beat no faster at this moment to know that he was in
the grip of a perilous disease. She told herself that her Bennett was
dead already; that she was coming back to Medford not to care for and
watch over the individual, but to combat the disease.
When she arrived at the doctor's house in Medford, a strange-looking man
opened the door for her, and asked immediately if she was the nurse.
"Yes," said Lloyd, "I am. Is Dr. Pitts here?"
"Upstairs in his room," answered the other in a whisper, closing the
front door with infinite softness. "He won't let me go in, the doctor
won't; I--I ain't seen him in four days. Ask the doctor if I can't just
have a blink at him--just a little blink through the crack of the door.
Just think, Miss, I ain't seen him in four days! Just think of that! And
look here, they ain't giving him enough to eat--nothing but milk and
chicken soup with rice in it. He never did like rice; that's no kind of
rations for a sick man. I fixed him up a bit of duff yesterday, what he
used to like so much aboard ship, and Pitts wouldn't let him have it. He
regularly laughed in my face."
Lloyd sent word to the doctor by the housekeeper that she had arrived,
and on going up found Pitts waiting for her at the door of the
sick-room, not that which had been occupied by Ferriss, but another--the
guest-chamber of the house, situated toward the rear of the building.
"Why, I expected Miss Douglass!" exclaimed the doctor in a low voice as
soon as his eye fell upon Lloyd. "Any one of them but you!"
"I had to come," Lloyd answered quietly, flushing hotly for all that.
"It was my turn, and it was not right for me to stay away."
The doctor hesitated an instant, and then dismissed the subject, putting
his chin in the air as if to say that, after all, it was not his affair.
"Well," he said, "it's queer to see how things will tangle themselves
sometimes. I don't know whether he took this thing from Ferriss or not.
Both of them were exposed to the same conditions when their expedition
went to pieces and they were taken off by the whaling ships--bad water,
weakened constitution, not much power of resistance; in prime condition
for the bacillus, and the same cause might have produced the same
effect; at any rate, he's in a bad way."
"Is he--very bad?" asked Lloyd.
"Well, he's not the hang-on sort that Mr. Ferriss was; nothing undecided
about Captain Ward Bennett; when he's sick, he's sick; rushes right at
it like a blind bull. He's as bad now as Mr. Ferriss was in his third
week."
"Do you think he will recognise me?"
The doctor shook his head. "No; delirious most of the time--of
course--regulation thing. If we don't keep the fever down he'll go out
sure. That's the danger in his case. Look at him yourself; here he is.
The devil! The animal is sitting up again."
As Lloyd entered the room she saw Bennett sitting bolt upright in his
bed, staring straight before him, his small eyes, with their deforming
cast, open to their fullest extent, the fingers of his shrunken, bony
hands dancing nervously on the coverlet. A week's growth of stubble
blackened the lower part of his face. Without a moment's pause he
mumbled and muttered with astonishing rapidity, but for the most part
the words were undistinguishable. It was, indeed, not the same Bennett,
Lloyd had last seen. The great body was collapsed upon itself; the skin
of the face was like dry, brown parchment, and behind it the big,
massive bones stood out in great knobs and ridges. It needed but a
glance to know that here was a man dangerously near to his death. While
Lloyd was removing her hat and preparing herself for her work the doctor
got Bennett upon his back again and replenished the ice-pack about his
head.
"Not much strength left in our friend now," he murmured.
"How long has he been like this?" asked Lloyd as she arranged the
contents of her nurse's bag on a table near the window.
"Pretty close to eight hours now. He was conscious yesterday morning,
however, for a little while, and wanted to know what his chances were."
They were neither good nor many; the strength once so formidable was
ebbing away like a refluent tide, and that with ominous swiftness.
Stimulate the life as the doctor would, strive against the enemy's
advance as Lloyd might, Bennett continued to sink.
"The devil of it is," muttered the doctor, "that he don't seem to care.
He had as soon give up as not. It's hard to save a patient that don't
want to save himself. If he'd fight for his life as he did in the
arctic, we could pull him through yet. Otherwise--" he shrugged his
shoulders almost helplessly.
The next night toward nine o'clock Lloyd took the doctor's place at
their patient's bedside, and Pitts, without taking off his clothes,
stretched himself out upon the sofa in one of the rooms on the lower
floor of the house, with the understanding that the nurse was to call
him in case of any change.
But as the doctor was groping his way down the darkened stairway he
stumbled against Adler and Kamiska. Adler was sitting on one of the
steps, and the dog was on her haunches close at his side; the two were
huddled together there in the dark, broad awake, shoulder to shoulder,
waiting, watching, and listening for the faint sounds that came at long
intervals from the direction of the room where Bennett lay.
As the physician passed him Adler stood up and saluted:
"Is he doing any better now, sir?" he whispered.
"Nothing new," returned the other brusquely. "He may get well in three
weeks' time or he may die before midnight; so there you are. You know as
much about it as I do. Damn that dog!"
He trod upon Kamiska, who forbore heroically to yelp, and went on his
way. Adler resumed his place on the stairs, sitting down gingerly, so
that the boards should not creak under his weight. He took Kamiska's
head between his hands and rocked himself gently to and fro.
"What are we going to do, little dog?" he whispered. "What are we going
to do if--if our captain should--if he shouldn't--" he had no words to
finish. Kamiska took her place again by his side, and the two resumed
their vigil.
Meanwhile, not fifty feet away, a low voice, monotonous and rapid, was
keeping up a continuous, murmuring flow of words.
"That's well your number two sledge. All hands on the McClintock
now. You've got to do it, men. Forward, get forward, get forward;
get on to the south, always to the south--south, south, south!...
There, there's the ice again. That's the biggest ridge yet. At it
now! Smash through; I'll break you yet; believe me, I will! There,
we broke it! I knew you could, men. I'll pull you through. Now,
then, h'up your other sledge. Forward! There will be double rations
to-night all round--no--half-rations, quarter-rations.... No,
three-fifths of an ounce of dog-meat and a spoonful of alcohol--that's
all; that's all, men. Pretty cold night, this--minus thirty-eight.
Only a quarter of a mile covered to-day. Everybody suffering in their
feet, and so weak--and starving--and freezing." All at once the voice
became a wail. "My God! is it never going to end?... Sh--h, steady,
what was that? Who whimpered? Was that Ward Bennett? No whimpering,
whatever comes. Stick it out like men, anyway. Fight it out till we
drop, but no whimpering.... Who said there were steam whalers off
the floe? That's a lie! Forward, forward, get forward to the
south--no, not the south; to the _north_, to the north! We'll reach
it, we'll succeed; we're most there, men; come on, come on! I tell
you this time we'll reach it; one more effort, men! We're most
there! What's the latitude? Eighty-five-twenty--eighty-six." The
voice began to grow louder: "Come on, men; we're most there!
Eighty-seven--eighty-eight--eighty-nine-twenty-five!" He rose to a
sitting position. "Eighty-nine-thirty--eighty-nine-forty-five." Suddenly
the voice rose to a shout. "Ninety degrees! _By God, it's the Pole!_"
The voice died away to indistinct mutterings.
Lloyd was at the bedside by now, and quietly pressed Bennett down upon
his back. But as she did so a thrill of infinite pity and compassion
quivered through her. She had forced him down so easily. He was so
pitifully weak. Woman though she was, she could, with one small hand
upon his breast, control this man who at one time had been of such
colossal strength--such vast physical force.
Suddenly Bennett began again. "Where's Ferriss? Where's Richard Ferriss?
Where's the chief engineer of the Freja Arctic Exploring Expedition?"
He fell silent again, and but for the twitching, dancing hands, lay
quiet. Then he cried:
"Attention to the roll-call!"
Rapidly and in a low voice he began calling off the muster of the
Freja's men and officers, giving the answers himself.
"Adler--here; Blair--here; Dahl--here; Fishbaugh--here; Hawes--here;
McPherson--here; Muck Tu--here; Woodward--here; Captain Ward
Bennett--here; Dr. Sheridan Dennison--here; Chief Engineer Richard
Ferriss--" no answer. Bennett waited for a moment, then repeated the
name, "Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss--" Again he was silent; but after
a few seconds he called aloud in agony of anxiety, "Chief Engineer
Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call!"
Then once more he began; his disordered wits calling to mind a different
order of things:
"Adler--here; Blair--died from exhaustion at Point Kane; Dahl--here;
Fishbaugh--starved to death on the march to Kolyuchin Bay; Hawes--died
of arctic fever at Cape Kammeni; McPherson--unable to keep up, and
abandoned at ninth camp; Muck Tu--here; Woodward--died from starvation
at twelfth camp; Dr. Sheridan Dennison--frozen to death at Kolyuchin
Bay; Chief Engineer Richard Ferriss--died by the act of his best friend,
Captain Ward Bennett!" Again and again Bennett repeated this phrase,
calling: "Richard Ferriss! Richard Ferriss!" and immediately adding in a
broken voice: "Died by the act of his best friend, Captain Ward
Bennett." Or at times it was only the absence of Ferriss that seemed to
torture him. He would call the roll, answering "here" to each name until
he reached Ferriss; then he would not respond, but instead would cry
aloud over and over again, in accents of the bitterest grief, "Richard
Ferriss, answer to the roll-call; Richard Ferriss, answer to the
roll-call--" Then suddenly, with a feeble, quavering cry, "For God's
sake, Dick, answer to the roll-call!"
The hours passed. Ten o'clock struck, then eleven. At midnight Lloyd
took the temperature (which had decreased considerably) and the pulse,
and refilled the ice-pack about the head. Bennett was still muttering in
the throes of delirium, still calling for Ferriss, imploring him to
answer to the roll-call; or repeating the words: "Dick Ferriss, chief
engineer--died at the hands of his best friend, Ward Bennett," in tones
so pitiful, so heart-broken that more than once Lloyd felt the tears
running down her cheeks.
"Richard Ferriss, Richard Ferriss, answer to the roll-call; Dick, old
man, won't you answer, won't you answer, old chap, when I call you?
Won't you come back and say 'It's all right?' Ferriss, Ferriss, answer
to my roll-call. ... Died at the hands of his best friend. ... At
Kolyuchin Bay. ... Killed, and I did it. ... Forward, men; you've got to
do it; snowing to-day and all the ice in motion. ... H'up y'r other
sledge. Come on with y'r number four; more pressure-ridges, I'll break
you yet! Come on with y'r number four! ... Lloyd Searight, what are you
doing in this room?"
On the instant the voice had changed from confused mutterings to
distinct, clear-cut words. The transition was so sudden that Lloyd, at
the moment busy at her nurse's bag, her back to the bed, wheeled sharply
about to find Bennett sitting bolt upright, looking straight at her with
intelligent, wide-open eyes. Lloyd's heart for an instant stood still,
almost in terror. This sudden leap back from the darkness of delirium
into the daylight of consciousness was almost like a rising from the
dead, ghost-like, appalling. She caught her breath, trembling in spite
of her best efforts, and for an instant leaned a hand upon the table
behind her.
But on Bennett's face, ghastly, ravaged by disease, with its vast,
protruding jaw, its narrow contracted forehead and unkempt growth of
beard, the dawning of intelligence and surprise swiftly gave place to an
expression of terrible anxiety and apprehension.
"What are you doing here, Lloyd?" he cried.
"Hush!" she answered quickly as she came forward; "above all things you
must not sit up; lie down again and don't talk. You are very sick."
"I know, I know," he answered feebly. "I know what it is. But you must
leave here. It's a terrible risk every moment you stay in this room. I
want you to go. You understand--at once! Call the doctor. Don't come
near the bed," he went on excitedly, struggling to keep himself from
sinking back upon the pillows. His breath was coming quick; his eyes
were flashing. All the poor, shattered senses were aroused and quivering
with excitement and dread.
"It will kill you to stay here," he continued, almost breathless. "Out
of this room!" he commanded. "Out of this house! It is mine now; I'm the
master here--do you understand? Don't!" he exclaimed as Lloyd put her
hands upon his shoulders to force him to lie down again.
"Don't, don't touch me! Stand away from me!"
He tried to draw back from her in the bed. Then suddenly he made a great
effort to rise, resisting her efforts.
"I shall put you out, then," he declared, struggling against Lloyd's
clasp upon his shoulders, catching at her wrists. His excitement was so
intense, his fervour so great that it could almost be said he touched
the edge of his delirium again.
"Do you hear, do you hear? Out of this room!"
"No," said Lloyd calmly; "you must be quiet; you must try to go to
sleep. This time you cannot make me leave."
He caught her by one arm, and, bracing himself with the other against
the headboard of the bed, thrust her back from him with all his might.
"Keep away from me, I tell you; keep back! You shall do as I say! I have
always carried my point, and I shall not fail now. Believe me, I shall
not. You--you--" he panted as he struggled with her, ashamed of his
weakness, humiliated beyond words that she should know it. "I--you
shall--you will compel me to use force. Don't let it come to that."
Calmly Lloyd took both his wrists in the strong, quiet clasp of one
palm, and while she supported his shoulders with her other arm, laid him
down among the pillows again as though he had been a child.
"I'm--I'm a bit weak and trembly just now," he admitted, panting with
his exertion; "but, Lloyd, listen. I know how you must dislike me now,
but will you please go--go, go at once!"
"No."
What a strange spinning of the wheel of fate was here! In so short a
time had their mutual positions been reversed. Now it was she who was
strong and he who was weak. It was she who conquered and he who was
subdued. It was she who triumphed and he who was humiliated. It was he
who implored and she who denied. It was her will and no longer his that
must issue victorious from the struggle.
And how complete now was Bennett's defeat! The very contingency he had
fought so desperately to avert and for which he had sacrificed
Ferriss--Lloyd's care of so perilous a disease--behold! the mysterious
turn of the wheel had brought it about, and now he was powerless to
resist.
"Oh!" he cried, "have I not enough upon my mind already--Ferriss and his
death? Are you going to make me imperil your life too, and after I have
tried so hard? You must not stay here."
"I shall stay," she answered.
"I order you to go. This is my house. Send the doctor here. Where's
Adler?" Suddenly he fainted.
An hour or two later, in the gray of the morning, at a time when Bennett
was sleeping quietly under the influence of opiates, Lloyd found herself
sitting at the window in front of the small table there, her head
resting on her hand, thoughtful, absorbed, and watching with but
half-seeing eyes the dawn growing pink over the tops of the apple-trees
in the orchard near by.
The window was open just wide enough for the proper ventilation of the
room. For a long time she sat thus without moving, only from time to
time smoothing back the heavy, bronze-red hair from her temples and
ears. By degrees the thinking faculties of her brain, as it were, a
myriad of delicate interlacing wheels, slowly decreased in the rapidity
and intensity of their functions. She began to feel instead of to think.
As the activity of her mind lapsed to a certain pleasant numbness, a
vague, formless, nameless emotion seemed to be welling to the surface.
It was no longer a question of the brain. What then? Was it the heart?
She gave no name to this new emotion; it was too confused as yet, too
undefinable. A certain great sweetness seemed to be coming upon her, but
she could not say whether she was infinitely sad or supremely happy; a
smile was on her lips, and yet the tears began to brim in her dull-blue
eyes.
She felt as if some long, fierce struggle, or series of struggles, were
at last accomplished; as if for a long period of time she had been
involved in the maze and tortuous passages of some gloomy cavern, but at
length, thence issuing, had again beheld the stars. A great tenderness,
a certain tremulous joy in all things that were true and good and right,
grew big and strong within her; the delight in living returned to her.
The dawn was brightening and flushing over all the world, and colour,
light, and warmth were coming back into her life. The night had been
still and mild, but now the first breath of the morning breeze stirred
in the trees, in the grass, in the flowers, and the thick, dew-drenched
bushes along the roadside, and a delicious aroma of fields and woods and
gardens came to her. The sweetness of life and the sweetness of those
things better than life and more enduring, the things that do not fail,
nor cease, nor vanish away, suddenly entered into that room and
descended upon her almost in the sense of a benediction, a visitation,
something mystic and miraculous. It was a moment to hope all things, to
believe all things, to endure all things.
She caught her breath, listening--for what she did not know. Once again,
just as it had been in that other dawn, in that other room where the
Enemy had been conquered, the sense of some great happiness was in the
air, was coming to her swiftly. But now the greater Enemy had been
outfought, the morning of a greater day was breaking and spreading, and
the greatest happiness in the world was preparing for her. How it had
happened she did not know. Now was not the moment to think, to reason,
to reflect. It seemed as though the rushing of wings was all about her,
as though a light brighter than the day was just about to break upon her
sight, as though a music divinely beautiful was just about to burst upon
her ear. But the light was not for her eye; the music was not for her
ear. The radiance and the harmony came from herself, from within her.
The intellect was numb. Only the heart was alive on this wonderful
midsummer's morning, and it was in her heart that the radiance shone and
the harmony vibrated. Back in his place once more, high on his throne,
the love that she believed had forever departed from her sat exalted and
triumphant, singing to the cadence of that unheard music, shining and
magnificent in the glory of that new-dawned light.
Would Bennett live? Suddenly that question leaped up in her mind and
stood in the eye of her imagination, terrible, menacing--a hideous, grim
spectre, before which Lloyd quailed with failing heart and breath. The
light, the almost divine radiance that had burst upon her, nevertheless
threw a dreadful shadow before it. Beneath the music she heard the growl
of the thunder. Her new-found happiness was not without its accompanying
dismay. Love had not returned to her heart alone. With it had returned
the old Enemy she had once believed had left her forever. Now it had
come back. As before, it lurked and leered at her from dark corners. It
crept to her side, to her back, ready to leap, ready to strike, to
clutch at her throat with cold fingers and bear her to the earth,
rending her heart with a grief she told herself she could not endure and
live. She loved him now with all her mind and might; how could it ever
have been otherwise? He belonged to her--and she? Why, she only lived
with his life; she seemed so bound to him as to be part of his very
self. Literally, she could not understand how it would be possible for
her to live if he should die. It seemed to her that with his death some
mysterious element of her life, something vital and fundamental, for
which there was no name, would disintegrate upon the instant and leave
her without the strength necessary for further existence. But this
would, however, be a relief. The prospect of the years after his death,
the fearful loneliness of life without him, was a horror before which
she veritably believed her reason itself must collapse.
"Lloyd."
Bennett was awake again and watching her with feverish anxiety from
where he lay among the pillows. "Lloyd," he repeated, the voice once so
deep and powerful quavering pitifully. "I was wrong. I don't want you to
go. Don't leave me."
In an instant Lloyd was at his side, kneeling by the bed. She caught one
of the great, gnarled hands, seamed and corded and burning with the
fever. "Never, never, dearest; never so long as I shall live."