I shrank from the hand that touched me and, moving quickly aside, struck
a match and peered around. By its light I could discern the form of a
man standing near the edge of the thicket. Rising to my feet I took down
the lantern and lighted it. There, standing before me, was the grinning
mute who had admitted me to the house. My uncle, who was still kneeling,
rose feebly to his feet, his eyes wet with tears.
“Good friend!” said he, taking the lantern from me and handing it to the
mute. “He alway comes for me here.”
We followed the old servant in silence through the thick boughs of cedar
until we came to the door of a low-roofed wooden building that stood
by itself in the thicket. The mute opened the door, ushering us into
a small room containing a bed and some simple furniture. A comfortable
wood fire was burning in a large open stove, and we both sat down in
front of it, shivering from exposure to the chilly air of the night. My
uncle handed a key to the mute, who unlocked a cupboard, taking from it
a decanter of whiskey, which he set before us with glasses.
“It will warm you,” said my uncle, pouring out the spirits: “I have
seen my wife. She always comes to me there--when the light goes out. She
knows your heart better than I. We shall leave Rayel to your care. It is
the last time I shall come here. My work is nearly finished.”
We emptied our glasses in silence, but my mind was busy thinking on
those impressive words, “She always comes to me there--when the light
goes out.”
It was strange--this going out of the light just at that moment. Was it
not possible, I asked myself, that the lantern, being always hung on the
same projection, was thus in the way of a current of air passing down
the trunk of the tree when a gust of wind struck its lofty branches? If
so, the knot would naturally conduct the current into the opening at
the top of the lantern. My reflections were interrupted by my uncle, who
rose, and, taking a candle, asked me to accompany him. I followed him
into a cellar filled with casks and barrels containing, as I supposed,
wine and provisions for future use. Returning, we passed through a
large room, in one end of which many boxes and barrels were stored. I
afterward learned that there was a large garden and poultry yard in this
lonely nook where my uncle's only servant was sequestered.
I was glad when we started back through the thicket, for the hour was
late and I felt the need of sleep.
“He gives us our food,” said my uncle, when we were at length in the
courtyard. “We have enough of everything needful--but little meat. It
destroys mental power. It is fools' food.”
Next day my uncle was unable to leave his bed. I determined to go to
the hotel for my baggage and to post some letters, one of which gave Mr.
Earl an account of my experiences since the October night when I became
an inmate of that house.
It was midwinter now, and the long stretches of pasturage and meadow
land outside the walls were blasted and sere when the old mute, whom I
had seen twice before, let me out of the big gate. When I returned he
was there to open the gate for me and help me with my baggage.
I found Rayel at his father's bedside. The sick man was asleep, and I
went at once to the library, where Rayel soon came, as was his custom
in the afternoon, for a lesson in talking. Both my uncle and myself had
taken great pains to teach him this accomplishment, and his progress
had been even more rapid than we thought possible. He caught the
significance of words with astonishing ease, but found some difficulty
in producing their sound. He went about it with great patience, however,
repeating the hardest words after me until he was able to pronounce them
correctly. But although the work was often tedious we both got much fun
out of it. I had never heard the sound of laughter in that house. One
day I broke its solemn spell by laughing heartily at the grotesque
distortion of my cousin's face incidental to the production of a
difficult sound. He stopped suddenly and looked at me, half alarmed.
This made me laugh more heartily, and he grasped my hand with the
serious air of a physician feeling the pulse of his patient.
Being assured there was no danger, he indulged in a little offhand
cachinnation himself and was, I judged, well pleased with the trial, for
he repeated it frequently afterward, and greatly to his amusement.
The word “woman,” and others related to it, puzzled him not a little,
for he had never seen a woman, except through the medium of my own mind
and that of his father. The subject interested him, and he gave much
serious thought to it, questioning me closely at some of our interviews,
as if dissatisfied with the idea conveyed to him. Our discussions,
however, had reached some slumbering chord in him, which, once touched,
stirred his blood with its vibrations. I do not think his isolation
could have lasted much longer, for he became restless and eager to see
the world.
Rayel was greatly depressed by his father's illness. For months after
that night, the excitement of which had so hastened the failure of the
old man's strength, the silence of the great house was rarely broken by
the sound of our voices. My uncle lay helpless in a deep sleep most of
the time, never able to leave his bed until, revived by the freshness
of approaching summer, he had strength enough to sit in an easy-chair by
the window. Some fatal malady, the nature of which he did not disclose
to me, was evidently sapping his strength. I had urged him more than
once to let me summon a physician, but he would not permit me to do
so. When summer came at last, he grew stronger, and was able to walk,
supported by Rayel, to his chair in the open courtyard among the
flowers.
The lion, which had been confined in its cage most of the time since my
uncle had grown so feeble as to need Rayel's constant attention sickened
and died in the warm days of early June. Rayel was sorely grieved by the
death of his pet, and although he stood in the shadow of a far greater
sorrow, he felt deeply the loss of this lifelong friend. The summer
passed slowly, one day like another, casting on us the same burden of
anxiety and silence. I spent much of the time in my uncle's library,
poring over his books and trying to shake off the melancholy thoughts
suggested by my daily life.
One day in early autumn, Rayel was sitting with me near an open window
overlooking the courtyard, where his father was enjoying the open air.
“He will die to-day,” said Rayel, calmly. “He told me he would die
to-day.”
“He seems the same as usual,” I said. “We cannot tell; he may live for
months yet.”
Rayel shook his head incredulously, and sat for a long time looking out
of the window in silence.
“And I will go with you then?” he asked suddenly turning toward me.
“Yes,” I answered.
It was the first time he had ever asked me a question, for he could read
my mind like an open book, and to him all questioning was unnecessary.
While we were sitting there, thinking over our plans, my uncle summoned
us by rapping with his cane. Rayel turned pale, and, with a whispered
ejaculation, hurried out of the room and ran down the path to his
father, followed closely by myself. My uncle was breathing heavily.
“Count it,” said he, feebly extending his hand. Rayel counted his
pulse-beats.
“Ninety-four, and growing quicker!” he exclaimed, turning toward me with
a frightened look.
“It won't increase much,” my uncle whispered, feebly, but with a
cool and professional air. “It will go down soon, and then death will
follow.”
“Be calm, Rayel,” he continued, almost sternly, as his son began
weeping. “Be calm, I say! That music! do you hear it, child? Do you see
what is passing now? Tell it. Let me hear you.”
“I cannot hear it,” said Rayel, looking earnestly into his father's
face.
“Hallucination!” he whispered, groping about until his hand rested
on the head of his son, who was kneeling beside him. “I seem to see
millions of forms around me. I seem to hear them, but I cannot see
you--nor hear you.”
As if exhausted by the effort, his head fell back upon Rayel's shoulder,
and he lay for a time, his eyes closed, struggling for breath. The
dying man's faculties would no longer obey the whip of his mighty will.
Indeed, they had done him their final service, for in a few moments
he was dead. Tenderly and manfully, uttering no sound of grief, Rayel
lifted the lifeless body of his father, and bore it into the house.