He who has not left something sad behind him, and reawoke in the
sunshine to feel the golden elixir of health and happiness moving in
his veins anew, may take it that he has at least one pleasure yet
unspent.
I opened my eyes the next morning in as sweet a frame of contentment
as any one could wish for. They had put me to sleep in a chamber in
that same wing of the rearward buildings where slept Elizabeth and
her father; thus, when I roused, the yellow sun was pouring in at my
lattice, rich with sweet country scents, and the April air was swaying
the white curtains, hung by dainty female hands across the diamond
panes, with youth and sweetness in every breath. I lay and basked in
it, and lazily wondered what all this changing fortune might mean.
Where had I got to? Who was I? I turned about and stared upon the
smooth white walls of the little room, patterned and tinseled with the
dancing sunshine from outside, then gazed at the great carved columns
of my four-post bedstead, then to the head, where, in a wide wooden
field, were blazoned old Faulkener’s arms and cognizance. I turned to
all the chairs, dusted so clean and set back true and straight, to the
ewer and the basin, full of limpid water from the well that caught the
morning shine and threw a dancing constellation of speckled light upon
the ceiling; I wondered even at the bare floor, scrubbed until there
was no spot upon it, and the snowy furniture of my couch and those
downy pillows upon which I presently sank back in luxurious indolence.
Was I indeed that rude, rough captain of a grizzled cohort, with sinews
of steel and frame impervious to the soft touch of pleasure, who only
yesterday had burst through all the glittering phalanxes of France,
and cut a way with that arm that lay supine upon the coverlet right
down through the thickets of their spears to where the white fleur de
lys flashed in their midmost shelter? Could I be that same wanderer
who, down the devious ways of chance, had tried a thousand ventures,
and slept in palaces and ditches, and drank from the same cup with
kings and the same trough with outlaws? I laughed and stretched, and
presently gave over speculating, and rose.
I washed and dressed, and went to the lattice, and looked forth. It
was as sweet a morning as you could wish for. The tepid sunshine
spread over everything, fleecy clouds were floating overhead upon the
softest of winds, the sweet new-varnished leaves were glittering in the
dew upon every bush, the small birds singing far and near, the kine
lowing as they went to grass, the distant cock crowed proudly from his
vantage-point among the straw, and everything seemed fair, fresh, and
happy in that budding season.
I had not been luxuriating in that sweet leisure many minutes when by
below came Mistress Bess, with cheeks like roses, and kerchief whiter
than snow, and brown unstranded hair that lifted on the breeze--a very
fair vision indeed. That maid tripped across the grass and down the
cobblestones, rattling the shiny milk-pan she was carrying until she
caught a sight of me, and stopped below my window. Then, saucy, she
began: “How looks the world from there, Sir? A little too young and
chilly for your tenderness? Get back abed, it will presently be June,
and then, no doubt, more nicely suited to your valor’s mind.”
“Nay, but lady,” I explained, “I was enjoying the morning air, and just
coming to seek you----”
“That were a thousand pities,” she laughed, “the sun has not yet been
up more than some poor hour or two and the world is not yet nicely
warmed; you might have a chill, and that were much to be deplored;
besides, a silken suit is rarely needed where work has to be done. Back
to thy nest, Sir ’Prentice! Back to thy nest, and I’ll send old Margery
to tuck thee snugly up!” And the young girl, laughing like a brook in
springtime, went on and left me there discomfited.
Nevertheless, I went down and took the plain but wholesome breakfast
that they offered me, and afterward whiled away an hour or so upon the
bench in wondering silently what all this meant, where it was drifting
to, how it would end, whether it were, indeed, ending or beginning. And
then came round the girl again, and, railing me on my melancholy, took
me out to see the herds and fields, and was all the time so sweetly
insolent, after her nature, and yet so velvet soft, that I was fairly
glamoured by her.
This maid, with the quick woman tongue, that was so pointed, and could
at need hurt so much, and the blue, speaking eyes that were as tender
and straightforward as her speech was full of covert thorns, led me
out into the orchards. First she took me to where the milk was stored,
a roomy open shed, smelling of cool cleanliness, with white benches
down the sides and red-flagged floor, and great open pans of crimson
ware full of frothy milk. Outside the low straw eaves the swallows were
chattering, while the emerald meadows, through the farther doorway,
glistened and gleamed in the bright spring sunshine. Here we discovered
two country girls at work making curds and cheese and butter; ruddy,
buxom damsels with strong round arms bare to the shoulder, with
rattling clogs upon their feet, white gowns tucked up, and kerchiefs
on their heads. These curtsied as we entered, and rattled the pans
about, and sent the strong streams of warm new milk gushing from pail
to pan. And then presently, when I had watched a time their busy
labor, nothing would suit Mistress Faulkener but I should try! That
saucy, laughing girl would have it so! and, glancing at the delighted
milkmaids, dragged me to a churn, there bidding me roll a sleeve to the
elbow, and take the long handle thus, and thus, and “put my strength
into it,” and show I could do something to earn a luncheon. And I,
ever strong and willing, did her bidding, and rolled back my silk and
lawn, and bared the thews that had made me dreadful and victorious in
a thousand combats, and seized that white straight rod. But, Hoth!
’twas not my trade, I had more strength than art, and the first stroke
that I made upon the curdling stuff within the white fluid leaped in
a glittering fountain to the roof above and drenched the screaming
maidens; the second stroke from my stalwart shoulders started two iron
hoops binding the strong ash ribs of that churn and made it swirl upon
the tiles, while at the third mighty fall the rammer was shivered to
the grasp, and the milk escaped and went in twenty meandering rivulets
across the floor! At this uprose those fair confederates and drove me
forth with boisterous anger, saying I had wasted more value in good
milk than most likely all my life so far had earned.
While they put right my amiss I sat upon a mossy wall and wiped dry my
hose and doublet. Nor was there long to sit before out came my comely
hostess with forgiveness in her smiling eyes. “Did I now see,” she
queried, “how presumptuous it was to meddle with such things as were
beyond one’s capacity?”
To which I answered that I truly saw. “And did I crave
forgiveness--would I make amends?” And to that I said she had but to
try me in some venture where my rough, unruly strength might tell,
and she should see. So peace was made between us, and on we went again
to note how the crimson buds were setting on the sunny, red garden
walls; to explore her sloping orchards, and count the frolic lambs that
clustered round the distant folds.
It was her kingdom, and here her knowledge bettered mine. This she soon
found out; and when I showed at fault in the stratagems of husbandry,
or tripped in politics of herds or flocks, she would glance at me
through her half-shut lids, and demurely ask:
“Are you of good learning, friend?”
And to that I answered that “I had so much as might be picked up in a
reasonably long life--not scholarly or well polished, but sufficient
and readily accessible.”
“I am glad of it,” she said; “then you can tell the difference between
a codling and a pippin?”
“Nay, I fear I cannot.”
“Oh! Nor why one hen will lay white eggs and another brown?”
“Sweet maid, my wonder never went as far as that!”
“I do greatly doubt you and your wonder! What would you do if butter
would not come upon the churn milk?”
“Faith! I would leave it as not worth asking for--a poor, white,
laggard stuff no man should meddle with.”
“Heigho! and what is rosemary good for, and what rue?”
“By Heaven, I do not know.”
“How soon mayst wean a February lamb, and what wouldst thou wean it on?”
“Hoth! I cannot tell!”
“Nor when to cut meadow grass or make ketchup? Nor how to cure
bee-stings or where to look for saffron? Nor when to plant green
barley or pull rushes for winter candles?”
“Not one of these; but if you would show me, such a tutor such a pupil
never would have had----”
Whereon the lady burst out laughing. “Oh,” she said, “you are shallow
and ignorant past all conception and precedent. Why, the rosiest urchin
that ever went afield upon a plow-horse has better stock of learning!
In faith, I shall have to put you to school at the very beginning!”
I let the fair maid mock, for her gentle raillery was all upon her
lips, and in her eyes was dawning a light it moved me much to see.
We wandered away through pleasant copses, where the yellow catkins
and the red were out upon the hazels, and late ivory blackthorn buds,
like webs of pearls, were overhung upon those ebony-fingered bushes,
and fair pale primroses shone in starry carpets under the fresh green
canopy of the new-tented woods. And my fair Bess knew where the mavis
built; and when I began to speak warm, and close into her ear, she
would turn away her head and laugh, and, to change the matter, play
traitor to the little birds and point their mossy home, and make me
stoop and peer under the leaves, and in pretty excitement--but was it
all absent-mindedly?--would lay a hand upon my own and be cheek to
cheek with me for a moment, and then, with country pleasure, take the
sapphire shells of future woodland singers in her rosy palm, and count
and con them, and post me in the lore of spots and specks and hues and
colors, and all the fair, incomprehensible alchemy of nature--then put
those tender things back, and lead on again to more.
Pleasant is the sunshine in such circumstances! Fair Elizabeth knew
all the flowers by name. She knew where the gorgeous celandine, like
bright-blazoned heralds of the spring, was flashing down by the
stream that ran sparkling through the woods; the underglow upon the
frail anemone was not fairer than her English skin, as she did bind
a bunch into her bosom-knot. She could tell the reasons of affinity
between cuckoo-pint and cuckoo, and how it was that orchid-leaves
came spotted, and the virtue of the blue-eyed pimpernels, and why the
gently rasping tongues of the great meadow kine forswore the nodding
clumps of buttercup. And she liked cowslips and made me pick them--ah!
swarthy, strong, and sad-eyed me--me, with the wild alarums of battle
still ringing in the ambient country air--me, to whose eyes the fleecy
clouds, even as she babbled, were full of pictures of purple ambition,
of red mêlée, of the sweeping yellow war-dust that canopies contending
hosts--me, who heard on every sigh of the valley wind the shouting
of princes and paladins, the fierce deep cry of captains and the
struggling cheer that breaks from swinging ranks fast locked in deadly
conflict as the foemen give.
But nothing she knew of that, and would lead from cowslip-banks back to
coppice, and from coppice-path to orchard, and there mayhap, in the eye
of the sun, secure from interruption we would sit--she meetly throned
upon the great stem of a fallen apple-tree, whose rind was tapestried
betimes for that dear country sovereign by green moss and tissued gold
and silver lichens, and overhead the leaves, and at her feet the velvet
cushions of the turf, and me a solitary courtier there.
A very pleasant wooing--and if you call me fickle, why should I argue
it? Think of the vast years that lapsed between my lovings; think how
solitary was the lovely, loveless world I was born into anew each time;
think how I longed to light it with the comradeship that shines in dear
eyes and hearts, how I thirsted to prejudice some sweet stranger to my
favor against all others, and claim again kinship of passion for a
moment with one, at least, of those dear, fickle, mocking shadows that
glanced through this fitful dream of mine!
Besides, I was young--only some trivial fifteen hundred years or so had
gone by since they first swaddled me and dried my mother’s tears--my
limbs were full and round, my blood beat thick and fast, youth and
soldier spirit shone in my undimmed eyes; not a strand of silver
glanced in that beard I peaked so carefully; and if my mind was full
of ancient fancies--ah! crowded with the dust and glitter of bygone
ages fuller than yonder old fellow’s strange museum--why, my heart was
fresh. Jove! I think it was as young as it had ever been; and that
maid was fair and rosy, and kind and tender. All in the glow of her
hat-brim her face shone like the ripe side of a peach; her smooth hands
hung down convenient to my touch, and her head, crowned with its sweet
crown of sunlit hair, was ever bent indulgent to catch my courtier
whispers. What? I argued, shall the river play with no more blossoms
because last year its envious fingers shook some petals down into its
depth? Must the lonely hill forever frown in solitude and put by the
white mist’s clinging arms, because, forsooth, some other earlier cloud
once harbored on its rugged bosom? ’Twas miserly and monstrous, said my
youthfulness. So, nothing forgetting and nothing diminishing of those
memories that I had, I plunged into the new.
And that kind country girl played Phyllis to my new-tried Corydon as
prettily as any one could wish. I will not weary you with all we did or
said--the murmur of a summer brook is only good to go to sleep by--but
picture us immersed in solitary conclave, or wandering about in the
sweet green math of April meadows and finding the long days some six
hours all too short to say the nothing that we had to. Suppose this
written, and I turn to other scenes which, perhaps, shall amuse you
better.
* * * * *
It by no means followed that because Mistress Elizabeth proved so
charming, her father was neglected. That old fellow had taken me for
his helper, had fed and harbored me, and something seemed owing him in
return. His huge and bulky engine was growing apace; indeed, it was
just upon the finishing. It was that my strong arms might second him
in some final parts he had brought me hither, and, being by nature
something of a smith, I helped him readily.
Each day was spent in the sunshine and flowers, then, when evening came
and my fair playmate was gone to bed, I descended into old Faulkener’s
crypt, and, adding one more character to the many already played,
turned Vulcan. Hard and long we worked. Had you looked upon us, you
would have seen, by the sullen furnace glow, two men, bare-armed and
leather-aproned, toiling in that black gallery until the sweat ran
trickling from them; forging, riveting, and hammering bars of iron,
plying the creaking bellows until the white heart of the fire-heap
was whiter than a glowworm-lamp; hurrying here and there about that
glistening mountain of cunning-fashioned steel that they were building;
filling their grimy den with flying dust and smoke and sparks; and thus
working on and on through the long midnight hours as though their very
lives depended on it, until the black curtain of the night outside
faded to pallid blue, and the chirrup of the homing bats coming to
sleep upon the rafters sounded pleasantly; and the furnace gave out,
and tired muscles flagged, and the night’s work was over with the night!
Evening after evening we toiled upon the iron giant that was to do such
wondrous things, old Faulkener directing, and I supplying with my thews
and sinews the help he needed. Then one day it was finished--finished
in every point and part--complete, gigantic, wonderful! I do confess
something of the old man’s spirit entered into me when our work was
thus accomplished. I stood minute by minute before it overcome with
an awe and wonder inexplicable. And if the ’prentice felt like that,
the master was mad with expectation and delight. Nothing now would
do but he must try it, and the next night we did so. We sent the
household early to their rest, and, as soon as it was dark, I, carrying
a spluttering torch, and Faulkener the great cellar key, stole like
thieves across the cobbled courtyard to our workshop. The scholar’s
fingers trembled till he scarce could fit the key into the wards, but
presently the door was opened, and we entered.
“No strangers trespass here to-night,” the old man chuckled, while he
closed and double-locked the iron-studded door, and put the key into
his belt and the torch into a socket.
Well, all agog with excitement, we lit the fires in the iron stomach
of that finished monster; we filled his gullet with kegs of water,
slewed his guiding-wheels round, laid heavy, sloping oaken planks for
his highness to leave his birthplace by, set back the litter, and,
lastly, turned the tap that brought the fire and water together, and
put the blood of that iron beast in motion. He came down from off the
pedestal for all the world like some black Gorgon issuing from a den!
Resplendent in weight and strength, he came sliding down from off the
platform of his cradle, and amid the crash of struts and stays, amid
flying splinters and the dust of transit, rolled out majestic into
the red furnace light; where, trembling in every fiber, and gently
swaying like a young giant feeling his strength for the first time,
with the strong breath within murmuring, and the great steel heart
pulsating audibly, our iron toy was born and launched, and came forth
magnificent, huge, overpowering--then, checked by its anchor-chains,
swerving round to face the farther end, and halted.
Old Faulkener was possessed with joy, dancing and capering round that
huge carcass as though he were a ten-years’ urchin, his white beard all
astream, his elfin locks shaggy on his head, his black venerable robes
flapping like the wings of a great bat, his hands clasped fervidly as
he leaped and skipped with pleasure, and his lips moving rapidly as he
babbled incoherent adulation and love upon that firstling of his hopes.
Even I, grave and thoughtful, was elated, and walked round and round
the wondrous thing, patting its iron sides as one might a charger’s
just led from stall, while, half in wonder and half in pleasure,
catching a fraction of the old man’s fancies. So far everything had
happened as we wished for, and Faulkener, when he could get his breath,
burst out in wild rhapsodies of all his bantling should do, and I put
in a sentence here and there amid his pæans; and then he capped on a
hope, and I again a fancy, and so, nodding and laughing to each other,
we bandied words across that carcass for twenty minutes, and felt its
sinews, and marveled at its tractableness and grace.
And what was our sweet Cyclops doing all that while? Oh! we were young
in mechanics; and all the time we talked and capered the glowing fires
were working in that body, and presently the wheels began to ramble and
the bars to move; strange dull thunder came fitfully from under those
steel ribs, and quaint, unaccountable knockings sounded deep within;
the furnace glowed white and hot as angry jets of steam commenced to
spit from every weak point in the monster’s harness. All this I noticed
and pointed out to the master; but he was stupid with gratification
in that moment of consummated labor, and now our vast machine began
to fret! It was impatient, I saw with a presage of coming evil, and
the great circles above began to grit their iron teeth and spin like
distaff wheels under a busy housewife’s hand, the pistons were shooting
to and fro faster and ever faster, while that fifty tons of metal,
glowing hot, now began to yank hungrily upon its chains, and start
forward a foot and then come back, and sniff and snort and tremble,
and strain in every part, and thunder and pant as the hot life surged
stronger and stronger into its veins, until it was rocking like a skiff
at anchor, and bellowing like a bull in agony.
“By every saint, old Andrew Faulkener!” I shouted through the gathering
roar--“by every saint in Paradise, have a care for this frightful beast
of thine!”
And I think he saw at last our danger, for the hundredth rhapsody died
unfinished upon his lips, and, dropping from the clouds at once, with
an anxious look, he scanned the now flying wonders of his offspring,
and then ran round and seized the handle which should have shut off
the red-hot vapor which was the breath and being of the puissant thing
he had conjured into being. Twice and thrice he bore upon that handle,
then turned to me with a wild and frightened look. ’Twas as hot as hot
could be, and could not move an inch! Hardly had I read that in his
face, when with an angry plunge the engine started forward, and the
philosopher missed his footing, rolling over headlong to the ground
at my feet. And now our beast was mad with waiting, and stronger than
fifty elephants, and fiercer than the nettled lion. The chains that
held him upon either side were as thick as a man’s arm, being fastened
to mighty staples in the forge. Our swaddling came back two yards upon
those chains--then started forward, and was brought up all on a sudden
with such a jerk as made the ground tremble, and filled us with a
sickly dread. Back came our splendid plaything again in no good mood,
and then forward once more, putting his mighty shoulders against his
bonds until the great steel chains stretched and groaned beneath the
strain, and Andrew Faulkener yelled in fear. The third time the monster
did this the staples gave, and all the forge fell into one dusty
smoking ruin, while the great engine twirled up those heavy chains upon
its thundering axles, and, laughing in savage joyfulness, recognized
the fatal fact that it was free!
Then began a wild scene of chaos which brings the dampness of fear and
exertion on my forehead even to remember. What mattered chains or bars
or fetters to that splendid life that we could hear humming there under
those iron ribs?--to that unruly devil-heart which knew its strength,
and thundered in proud tumultuous rhythm to the consciousness? The
wonderful new Titan was born, and there in his own den, in the black
cradle of his nativity, would brook no master--he was born for strength
and might, and, Hoth! they were running hot within him, and we could
but cower in the shadows waiting and watching.
And now that hideous monster, being free to do what he listed, set
off for the far end of the stony cellar, and, like a great black ship
floundering in a chopping sea, went plunging and reeling over the
uneven floor. We held our breath. What would he do when he reached
the end? And in a minute he was there, and through the gloom we heard
him crash into the rocky walls and recoil; then, with a scream like
an angry devil-baby, charge the native masonry again and again. But
Faulkener’s wretched cunning had put the guiding-wheels on pivots, and
now they slewed, and here he was coming down the walls toward us.
We did not stop or wait to parley. We ran and dodged behind the
pillars, whence we heard him thud into the broken forge--ay, through
the reek and cloudy steam we caught the sound of that fifty tons of
metal clambering over the fallen masonry, all the time screeching in
his anger like a peevish Fury at being so thwarted; then back we dodged
again, and the huge thing went lumbering by us full of a horrid giant
life no valor availed against, no mortal hands could shackle.
The more he beat about the bounds of that narrow infernal kingdom, the
less our Cyclops seemed to like it. His rage mounted at each turn he
made and found his prison-cell so narrow, and every rebuff swelled his
budding choler. Therefore, seeing how hopeless it was to strive to tame
him in this present mood, I waited till Cyclops was exploring at the
bottom of the hall; then, plunging through the dusty turmoil, found
old Faulkener. That gray inventor was reeling like a drunken man, and
witless with terror.
“The key--the key!” I shouted in his ear. “To the door! We can do
no good here. Let your infernal beast burn out some of his accursed
spleen--then we’ll make a shift to tame him. But ’tis no good now! Hear
how he thunders! And--see--he is coming back again!”
“Ah, the door, good friend, the door!” gasped Faulkener; and, clinging
to my arm, hotly pursued by the monster behind--whose red-hot madness
now seemed tinged with cruel purpose--we fled down the long black
cavern to the iron-studded postern. There was not a second to spare:
the old man plunged his trembling hands into his belt and felt all
round it, then turned to me with a horrid stare in his eyes and a
sickly smile upon his thin white lips--the key was gone!
I dragged that old man back just as the great engine--ramping
hot--lurched down and cut a long smoking groove half a foot deep from
the rocky wall whereby we had been standing, then, disappointed of
us, went howling on into the blackness. And now there was nothing to
do but to stay and fight it out, no exit for us, and none for our
sweet bantling, and he seemed to know it! Round and round he drove us
through the flickering gloom and shadows of that dismal cockpit, till
the gushing sweat ran from us, and our choking breath came short and
panting through our parching throats. Oh! it was a sight to see that
shrieking monster, spurting steam at every joint and howling like a
pack of winter wolves, come careering through the darkness at us, with
every plate of his mighty harness quivering with the force within, and
all his thundering vitals glowing white and spawning golden trails of
molten embers as he lurched along. Down I would see him come, perhaps,
hunting something in savage mood, and as I dodged behind a pillar
and looked, out of the vortex of the shadows would leap old Andrew
Faulkener, as a leveret leaps from the ferns under a lurcher’s nose,
and, with ashy wild face, and flying wizard locks, and ragged sorrel
cloak flapping in shreds behind him, the master would flash in frenzied
fear across the glow that shimmered from the heart of his young Titan,
and then be swallowed up again by the next friendly blackness, and I
scarce dare breathe as, with a hideous parody of vindictive cunning,
that great thing would swirl and swerve, and be after him again!
It was a wild, wonderful game, and the longer it went the hotter it
grew. Closer, denser, and blacker grew the gloom of that place, until
at length you could not see an arm’s-stretch ahead of you in the
sulphurous reek--a hot, steamy pall of dismal vapor, through which
glimmered redly, now and then, the ashes of the overturned furnace
place, and the rosin-dripping splutter of the feeble torch which we
had put into the socket by the door. Ah! that was all we had to light
us as we crawled and leaped and dodged before the vengeful fury of
that screaming harpy of ours--all but his own red copper glow that
flamed now here, now there, on the black horizon of our den. Darker and
still darker and hotter became the air, until at last--in half an hour
perhaps--the torch and the furnace ashes were sickly stars, too pallid
to light our merriment to any purpose, and even the glow of Faulkener’s
great invention was a red-hot haze, only illumining the seething dust
and smoke a yard or two about it, and everywhere else reigned black,
choking, Stygian, infernal darkness.
A blank midnight void hung about the arena where we danced to that
great being--sprung like a black Minerva from my master’s over-fertile
brain. Yet, Jove! ’twas midnight dark, but there was no midnight
stillness in it. The very air seemed palpitating to the thunderous
beat of that beast’s mighty life--every hollow cavern-niche in our
rocky walls bellowed into our startled ears a hideous mockery of his
screeching; while the ceaseless roar of his cruel stride rattled down
the ragged juts of our stony roof like dislocated thunder. And in
that darkness and ear-splitting din we dodged and dipped and scuttled
like two cornered rats. I have been brave--by this time I hope you
know it--but what was mortal strength or valor against the strength
and recklessness of that iron god? No, he had the upper hand, and
screamed for blood like the devil that he was, pressing us with such
fury that my very soul seemed oozing through my sweating skin. As for
dignity--gods! I had none! At one moment I and Faulkener would be
struggling for a narrow passage like two hoggets in a meadow gate; then
I was anon crawling on hands and satin knees through pools half a foot
deep with filthy furnace-water, or straddling greasy heaps of brash
and ashes with the beast close behind to fire my flagging spirits,
spurting flame and scalding steam, and crunching with his ponderous
weight through the iron litter of the den as though it were an August
stubble.
And this was not all. Being so dark, as I have said, presently that
iron monster, inspirited with the soul of a Fury, found it more and
more difficult to follow us, and went reeling and bellowing through the
steamy blackness ever more at random. Thereon he stopped a spell and
seemed to listen, and, though we could only tell his whereabouts by
the great fiery nebulæ of his glowing sides, we could plainly hear his
thousand steel teeth champing, and the gush of the boiling force flying
within him. We held our breath, and then we heard something change in
the machinery--some pin or rivet fail--and the next minute Faulkener’s
baby was off again with a scream like a lost spirit and possessed of a
cursed, brand-new idea. I have said the chains wherewith he had been
held to the forge were fastened to great revolving bars upon his side.
When he burst free he had torn these from the solid masonry and wound
them up upon the spinning axles, whereto by some misguided cunning
Faulkener had welded them. And now that devil was ramping round to find
us in the void, and had unwound those hideous flails, and with infernal
patience was beating down one wall and up the other. Oh! it was sickly
to hear the screech of those steel whips sweeping unseen through the
startled air, to hear them thud upon the trembling ground and cut deep
furrows in it at every savage lash--now here, now there, flogging the
frightened shadows and scourging the trembling rocks, and whistling
overhead like a thousand winged snakes--and all for us!--while that
great babe of my master’s hunted slowly round about our narrow prison,
and thundered and howled and rattled like a tempest in a mountain pass,
and, as though he were some great monster in a deep sea cave, shot out
and drew in those humming tentacles, and tried each nook and corner,
and squirted steam and fire into every crevice, and plied his cruel
whips madly about in that darkness till ’twas all like Pandemonium.
Well, I will say no more, or you may think I wrap sober fact in that
mantle of fancy which the gods have lent me. We had dodged and ducked
at this game for many minutes when Faulkener’s mind gave way! I chanced
upon him in the middle space, laughing and screaming and taking off his
cloak and vest. He saw me stalk from the shadows, and, with a frightful
grin and caper, shouted that he knew what was the matter--“his pretty
firstling needed a bloody sacrifice, and who could provide it better
than himself?” Just then the engine turned and came looming through the
mist toward us, and the old enthusiast made ready to cast himself under
those mighty wheels.
“Come back!” I shouted, “come back!” But Faulkener yelled: “Touch me at
your peril, the sweet one must not be balked!” And made toward it.
I seized him by the arm and dragged him to one side, whereat, without
further parley, like a furious wild cat, he turned, and in a twinkling
had me by the throat, with those old talons of his deep buried in my
gullet, and his long, lean legs twirled round mine like thongs of
leather, and his mad eyes flashing, his white face lit up with maniac
passion; and so we heaved and struggled, then down upon our knees, and
over and over upon the floor, the old man striving all he knew to kill
me; while I, for my part, heaved and wrenched--all my splendid strength
cramped up in the wild grip of that sinewy old recluse--and over us,
as we fought upon the earth, was glimmering in a minute the red-copper
glow, the towering form, and the cruel, shrieking flails of that
exulting demon we had invented!
We rolled and plunged in the dust, just where that circle of red light
fell on it, while guttural sobs and sighs came from us, as, forgetful
of all else, now one was on top, in that ruddy arena, and then the
other. The veins were big upon my forehead; I felt faint and sick; I
could not loosen Faulkener’s iron fingers, deep bedded in my neck, and
did not care; and that grim old fellow had no desire now but to watch
me die. I saw the glowing haze wherein we fought, and dimly understood
it. I heard, faintly and more faintly, the rattle of the chains, and
the thunderous, black laughter of our plaything, and then, just as
that glowing Fury seemed drawing itself together for one final effort
which should crush us both from all form and shape, that very effort
put something out of gear--the tangled wheels fell into dead-lock all
on a sudden, the heavy chains jerked wildly in their swing and twisted
together, the mighty rods and pistons went all asplay like a handful of
broken straws, the great beast trembled and reeled and shook, and then
split open from end to end, and, with a thunderous roar that shook our
cellar to its deepest foundations, amid a wild gust of flame and steam,
blew up!
I rose unhurt from the dust and ashes, and unwinding Faulkener’s
lifeless limbs from about me, found a hammer by the forge, and,
scrambling over the now pulseless remnants of the giant, burst open the
door, and a few minutes later laid the great inventor’s body down upon
a bench in the peaceful moonlit courtyard.