THE SWORD OF ESAU.
Jason went back to his lodging by the Cathedral, found the old
caretaker sitting up for him, made some excuse for returning late,
and turned in to bed. His room was the guest-chamber--a little,
muggy, stifling box, with bed and bedding of eider down sewed into
canvas sacks. He threw off his boots and lay down in his clothes.
Hour followed hour and he did not sleep. He was nevertheless not
wholly awake, but retained a sort of sluggish consciousness which his
dazed brain could not govern. Twelve had chimed from the great clock
of the turret overhead as he lay down, and he heard one, two, three,
and four follow in their turn. By this time he was feeling a dull
pain at the back of his head, and a heavy throbbing in his neck.
Until then he had been ever a man of great bodily strength, with
never an ache or ailment. "I am making myself ill before anything is
done," he thought, "and if I fall sick nothing can come of my
enterprise. That must not be." With an effort of will he composed
himself to sleep. Still for a space he saw the weary night wear on;
but the lapse, the broken thread, and the dazed sense stole over him
at last, and he dropped into a deep slumber. When he awoke the white
light of midday was coming in strong dancing bars through the rents
of the dark blanket that covered the little window, the clock of the
Cathedral was chiming twelve once again, and over the little cobble
causeway of the street in front there was the light patter of many
sealskin shoes. "How could I sleep away my time like this with so
much to do?" he thought, and leapt up instantly.
His old landlady had more than once looked in upon him during the
morning, and watched him with an air of pity. "Poor lad, he looks
ill," she thought; and so left him to sleep on. While he ate his
breakfast, of skyr and skate and coffee, the good soul busied herself
about him, asking what work he had a mind to do now that he had come
back, and where he meant to look for it, with other questions of a
like kind. But he answered her many words with few of his own, merely
saying that he intended to look about him before deciding on
anything, and that he had something in his pocket to go on with in
the meanwhile.
Some inquiries he made of her in his turn, and they were mainly about
the new President, or Governor; what like he was to look upon, and
what his movements were, and if he was much seen in the town. The
good body could tell him very little, being old, very deaf, and
feeble on her feet, and going about hardly at all farther than the
floors of the Cathedral on cleaning days. But her deaf old husband,
hobbling in from the street at that moment, said he had heard
somebody say that a session of Althing was sitting then, and that
under the Republic that had lately been proclaimed, Michael Sunlocks
presided at the parliament-house daily about midday.
Hearing this, Jason rose from his unfinished breakfast, and went out
on some pretended errand; but when he got to the wooden shed where
Althing held its session he found the sitting over and the delegates
dispersed. His only object had been to see Michael Sunlocks that he
might know him, and having lost his first opportunity he returned the
following day, coming earlier, before the sitting had begun or the
delegates had yet gathered. But though he lounged within the door
yard, while the members passed through, jesting and laughing
together, he saw no one young enough to answer to Michael Sunlocks.
He was too much in dread of attracting attention to inquire of the
few idlers who looked on like himself, so he went away and came yet
again the next day after and waited as before. Once more he felt that
the man he looked for had not passed in with the rest, and, between
fear of exciting suspicion and of throwing away further chances, he
questioned the doorkeeper of the Chamber. This person stuttered
before every word, but Jason learned at length that Michael Sunlocks
had not been there for a week, that by the rule of the new
Constitution the Governor presided only at the sittings of the higher
house, the Council, and that the present sittings were those of the
lower house, the Senate.
That was Thursday, and Jason reflected that though four days were
gone nothing was done. Vexed with himself for the caution that had
wasted so much time, he boldly started inquiries on many sides. Then
he learned that it was the daily practice of the Governor to go at
twelve o'clock noon to the embankment in front of the merchant
stores, where his gangs of masons were throwing up the new fort. At
that hour that day Jason was there, but found that the Governor had
already been and gone. Going earlier the next day, Friday, he learned
that the Governor had not yet come, and so he lay about to wait for
him. But the men whom he had questioned began to cast curious glances
in his direction, and to mutter together in groups. Then he
remembered that it was a time of revolution, that he might be
mistaken for a Danish spy, and as such be forthwith seized and
imprisoned. "That would stop everything," he thought, and moved away.
In a tavern of a by-street, a long lean youth, threadbare and tipsy,
formerly a student and latterly expelled from the college for
drunkenness, told him that the new Governor turned in at the Latin
school every evening at dusk, to inspect the drill of the regiment he
had enrolled. So to the Latin school at dusk Jason made his way, but
the place was dark and silent when he came upon it, and from a lad
who was running out at the moment he heard that the drill-sergeant
had fallen ill, and the drill been discontinued.
On the wharf by the jetty the boatman who had recognized him on
landing, old Jon Olafsson, told him that serving whiting and skate to
the Bishop's Palace he found that the new Governor was ever coming
and going there. Now of all houses Jason had most avoided that house,
lest he should be seen of those eyes that would surely read his
mission at a glance. Yet as night fell in, and he might approach the
place with safety, he haunted the ways that led to it. But never
again did he see Michael Sunlocks even in the uncertain darkness, and
thinking how hard it was to set eyes on this man, whom he must know
of a surety before ever his enterprise could be ripe, a secret dread
took hold of him, and he all but renounced his design. "Why is it
that I cannot see him?" he thought. "Why, of all men in the town, is
he the only one whom I can never meet face to face? Why, of all men
here, am I the only one whom he has never seen?" It was as if higher
powers were keeping them apart.
By this time he realized that he was being observed, for in the dusk,
on the Thingvellir road, that led past Government House, three men
overtook him, and went on to talk with easy confidence in signs and
broken words. He saw that they were Danes; that one was old and
white-headed; another was young, sallow, and of a bitter spirit; and
the third, who was elderly, was of a meek and quiet manner.
"How are they going on in the old country? Anything done yet? When
are they coming?" said the young man.
"Ah, don't be afraid," said the old man. "We know you are watching
him," he added, with a side-long motion of the head towards
Government House. "But he will send no more of our sons and brothers
to the sulphur mines, to slave like beasts of burden. His days are
numbered."
Then the young man laughed bitterly.
"They say he is to be married. Let him make merry while he may," he
said with a deep oath.
And at that Jason faced about to them.
"You have been mistaken, sirs," he said. "I am not a spy, and neither
am I an assassin."
He walked away with what composure he could command, but he trembled
like a leaf, for by this encounter three new thoughts possessed him;
first, that when his attempt had been made and his work done, he who
believed himself appointed by God as the instrument of His righteous
retribution, would stand no otherwise before man than as a common
midnight murderer; next, that unless he made haste with his design he
would be forestalled by others with baser motives; and, again, that
if his bearing had so nearly revealed his purpose to the Danes it
might suggest it to others with more interest in defeating it.
In his former rashness he had gone everywhere, even where the throngs
were thickest, and talked with everyone, even the six stalwart
constables who had taken the place of the rheumatic watchmen whom he
knew in earlier days. But from the hour of that meeting with the
Danes he found himself going about as stealthily as a cat, watching
everybody, thinking everybody was watching him, shrinking from every
sight, and quaking at every sound. "They can do what they like with
me after it is over," he thought, "but first let it be done."
He felt afraid, who had never before known the taste of fear; he felt
weary, who had never until then known what it was to be tired. "Oh,
what is this that is coming over me?" he thought. "If I am doing
well, why do I tremble?" For even while he planned his daring attempt
a great feebleness seemed to be in all his members.
Thus it chanced that on the next day thereafter, Saturday, he saw
many busy preparations along the line of the High Street and its
byways, such as the swinging of pulley ropes from house front to
house front and the shaking out of bunting, without asking what
festival they purported. But returning to his lodging in the evening
he found his landlady busy with preparations of a like kind about the
entrance to the yard of the Cathedral, and then he knew too well what
new thing was coming. All the same he asked, and his landlady
answered him:
"Lord bless me," she cried, "and haven't you heard that the young
Governor is to be wedded?"
"When?" said Jason.
"To-morrow," said the old body.
"Where?"
"Why, in the Cathedral, surely. It will be a bonny sight, I promise
you. You would like to see it, I make no doubt. Well, and so you
shall, my son. I'll get you in. Only leave it to me. Only leave it to
me."
Jason had expected this answer; like a horse that quivers under the
lash, while it is yet hissing over his head, he had seen the blow
coming, yet when it came it startled and stunned him. He got up,
touching no food, and staggered back into the street.
It was now dark night. The stores were lit up by their open lamps,
whose noisome smoke streamed out over the pathway, and mingled with
the foul vapors that came from the drinking shops. The little town
was very busy; throngs of people passed to and fro, and there was
much shouting and noisy laughter.
To Jason all this was a mass of confusion, like a dream that is vague
and broken and has no semblance of reality. His knees smote together
as he walked, and his mind was clogged and numbed. At length he was
conscious that some brawlers who were lounging at the door of a
tavern were jeering as he went by them, and that a woman who was
passing at the same moment was rating them roundly.
"Can't you see he's ill?" she was saying, and they were laughing
lustily.
He turned towards the sea, and there, with only the black beach
before his eyes and the monotonous beat of the waves in his ears, his
faculties grew clearer. "Oh God!" he thought, "am I to strike him
down before her face and at the very foot of the altar? It is
terrible. It must be true that I am ill--or perhaps mad--or both."
But he wrestled with his irresolute spirit and overcame it. One by
one he marshalled his reasons and bit by bit he justified himself.
When his anger wavered against the man who had twice supplanted him,
he recalled his vow to execute judgment, and when his vow seemed
horrible he remembered that Greeba herself had wronged him.
Thus he had juggled with himself night after night, and if morning
after morning peace had come with the coming of light, it was gone
forever now. He rehearsed everything in his mind and saw it all as he
meant it to be. To-morrow while the bells were ringing he would go
into the Cathedral. His old landlady, the caretaker, would put him
in the front seat before the altar-rail. The pews would already be
thronged, and there would be whispering behind him, and little light
fits of suppressed laughter. Presently the old Bishop would come,
halting along in his surplice, holding the big book in his trembling
hands. Then the bridegroom would step forward, and he should see him
and mark him and know him. The bride herself would come next in a
dazzling cloud of her bridesmaids, all dressed in white. Then as the
two stood together--he and she, hand in hand, glancing softly at each
other, and with all other eyes upon them, he himself would rise
up--_and do it_. Suddenly there would be a wild cry, and she would
turn towards him, and see him, and understand him, and fall fainting
before him. Then while both lay at his feet he would turn to those
about him and say, very calmly, "Take me. It was I." All being done,
he would not shrink, and when his time came he would meet his fate
without flinching, and in the awful hereafter he would stand before
the white throne and say, "It would have been an evil thing if God's
ways had not been justified before men: so I have executed on earth
His judgment who has said in His Holy Writ that the wrongdoer shall
surely suffer vengeance, even to the third and fourth generation of
his children."
Thinking so, in the mad tangle of his poor, disordered brain, yet
with a great awe upon him as of one laden with a mission from on
high, Jason went back to his lodging, threw himself down, without
undressing, upon the bed, and fell into a heavy sleep.
When he awoke next morning the bells in the turret overhead were
jangling in his ears, and his deaf old landlady was leaning over him
and calling to him.
"Get up, love, get up: it's late, love; you'll miss it all, love;
it's time to go in, love," she was saying; and a little later she led
him by a side door into the Cathedral.
He took a seat where he had decided to take it, in a corner of the
pew before the altar-rail, and all seemed the same as he had
pictured. The throngs of people were behind him, and he could hear
their whispering and light laughter while they waited. There was the
door at which the venerable Bishop would soon enter, carrying his big
book, and there was the path, kept free and strewn with flowers, down
which the bride and her train would pass on to the red form before
him. Ah! the flowers--blood red and purple--how sweetly they trailed
over altar-rail, and pulpit, and the tablet of the ten commandments!
Following them with his eyes, while with his hands he fumbled his
belt for _that_ which he had concluded to carry there, suddenly he
was smitten with an awful dread. One line of the printed words before
him seemed to come floating through the air down to his face in a
vapor of the same blood-red.
_Thou shalt do no murder!_
Jason started to his feet. Why was he there? What had he come to do?
He must go. The place was stifling him. In another moment he was
crushing his way out of the Cathedral. He felt like a man sentenced
to death.
Being in the free air again he regained his self-control. "What
madness! It is no murder," he thought. But he could not get back to
his seat, and so he turned to where the crowd was thickest outside.
That was down the line of the pathway to the wide west entrance. As
he approached this point he saw that the people were in high
commotion. He hurried up to them and inquired the cause. The bridal
party had just passed through. At that moment the full swell of the
organ came out through the open doors. The marriage service had
begun.
After a while Jason had so far recovered his composure as to look
about him. Deep as the year had sunk towards winter, the day was
brilliant. The air was so bright that it seemed to ring. The sea in
front of the town smiled under the sunlight; the broad stretch of
lava behind it glistened, the glaciers in the distance sparkled, and
the black jokulls far beyond showed their snowy domes against the
blue sky. Oh, it was one of God's own mornings, when all His earth
looks glad. And the Cathedral yard--for all it slept so full of dead
men's bones--was that day a bright and busy place. Troops of happy
girls were there in their jackets of gray, braided with gold or
silver, and with belts of filigree; troops of young men, too, in
their knee breeches, with bows of red ribbon, their dark-gray
stockings and sealskin shoes; old men as well in their coats of
homespun; and old women in their long blue cloaks; children in their
plaited kirtles, and here and there a traveller with his leather
wallet for his snuff and money. At the entrance gate there was a
triumphal arch of ribbons and evergreens, and under its shadow there
were six men with horns and guns, ready for a salute when the bride
appeared; and in the street outside there was a stall laden with
food and drink for all who should that day come and ask.
Only to Jason was the happy place a Gethsemane, and standing in the
thick of the crowd, on a grave with a sunken roof, under the shadow
of the Cathedral, he listened with a dull ear to the buzz of talk
between two old gossips behind him. He noticed that they were women
with prominent eyeballs, which produced a dreamy, serious,
half-stupid, half-humorous look, like that of the dogs in the picture
that sit in the judgment-seat.
"She's English," said one. "No, Irish. No, Manx--whatever that means.
Anyway, she's foreign, and can't speak a word that anybody can
understand. So Mother Helda says, and she's a worthy woman, you know,
and cleans the floors at the Palace."
"But they say she's a sweet lady for all that," said the other; and
just then a young student at their back pushed his laughing face
between their shoulders and said,
"Who? Old Mother Helda?"
"Mother Helda be bothered. The lady. And her father has been wrecked
in coming to her wedding, too! Poor old man, what a pity! The
Governor sent my son Oscar with twenty of Loega's men to Stappen to
look for me. That was a fortnight ago. I expect him back soon."
"They might have waited until he came. Why didn't they?"
"Oscar?" said the laughing face between them.
"The father, goose. Poor lady, how lonely she must feel! But then the
old Bishop is so good to everybody."
"Well, he deserves a good wife."
"The old Bishop?" said the student, shaking his sides.
"The young Governor, I'm talking of; and don't be so quick in
snapping folks up, Jon Arnason. He's the best Governor we ever had.
And what a change from the last one. Why, he doesn't mind speaking to
anyone. Just think, only yesterday he stopped me and said, 'Good
morning;' he said, 'your son won't be long away now,' quite humble
and homelike."
"Well, God bless him--and her too, foreign or not--and may they live
long----"
"And have a good dozen," added the laughing voice behind them.
And then all three laughed together.
By this time the organ which had been silent for a little while, had
burst forth afresh, and though its strains were loud and jubilant,
yet to Jason they seemed to tell the story of his sorrow and all the
trouble of his days. He tried not to listen, and to pass the moments
in idly watching the swaying throng, whose heads beneath his own rose
and fell like a broken sea. But his mind _would_ be active, and the
broad swell of the music floated into his soul and consumed it. "Can
it be possible," he thought, "that I intend to smite him down when he
comes through that doorway by her side? And yet I love her--and he is
my brother."
Still the organ rang out over graveyard and people, and only by an
effort of will could Jason hold back his tears. "Man! man!" he cried
in his heart, "call it by its true name--not judgment, but murder.
Yes, murder for jealous love, murder for love despised!"
A new and awful light had then illumined his gloomy mind, and his
face betokened his sufferings, for, though no tears fell down his
hard cheeks, his eyes were bloodshot. In complete self-forgetfulness
he pressed forward, until his way was stopped by a little iron cross
that stood at the head of a grave. "My mother's," he thought. "No,
hers is next."
The organ broke into yet another strain at that moment--a proud,
triumphant peal of song, which in the frenzy of Jason's mind seemed
either to reach up to heaven's gate or to go down to the brink of
hell. There was a movement among the people, a buzz of voices, a
hush, and a whispered cry, "They are coming, they are coming!"
"God bless them," said one.
"Heaven protect them," said another.
And every blessing fell on Jason like a curse. "Murder let it be," he
thought, and turned his eyes where other eyes were looking. Then
passing under the broad arch, stepping out of the blue shadow into
the white sunshine, all radiant in her grace and lovely sweetness,
meek and tender, with tears in her soft brown eyes--it was she, it
was she; it was Greeba--Greeba--Greeba.
Jason felt his strength exhausted. A strange dizziness seized him. He
looked down to avoid the light. His eyes fell on the iron cross
before him, and he read the name graven upon it. _The name was his
own._
Then everything seemed to whirl around him. He remembered no more,
save a shuffling of feet, a dull hum over his head, like the noise
of water in the ears of a drowning man, and a sense of being lifted
and carried.
But another consciousness came to him, and it was very sweet, though
uncertain. He was floating up--up--up to where the mountains were
green, and the sea was tranquil, and the trees made music in the
quiet air. And Greeba was there, and she was laying her cool hand on
his hot forehead, and he was looking at the troubled heaving of her
round bosom. "Aren't you very proud of yourself, Jason?" she was
whispering softly, and then he was clasping the beautiful girl in his
arms and kissing her, and she was springing away, blushing deeply,
and he was holding down his head, and laughing in his heart.
"Lie still, love; lie you still," fell on his ear, and he opened his
eyes. He was in his own room at the little cottage of the caretakers.
The old woman was bending over him, and bathing his forehead with one
hand, while with the other hand she was holding her apron to her
eyes.
"He's coming round nicely, praise the Lord," she said, cheerily.
"I remember," said Jason, in a weak voice. "Did I faint?"
"Faint, love?" said the good soul, putting her deaf ear close to his
lips. "Why, it's fever, love; brain fever."
"What time is it?" said Jason.
"Time, love? Lord help us, what does the boy want with the time? But
it's just the way with all of them. Mid-evening, love."
"What day is it--Sunday?"
"Sunday, love? No, but Tuesday. It was on Sunday you fell senseless,
poor boy."
"Where was that?"
"Where? Why, where but in the Cathedral yard, just at the very minute
the weddiners were coming out at the door."
And hearing this Jason's face broke into a smile like sunshine, and
he uttered a loud cry of relief. "Thank God. Oh, thank God."
But while an angel of hope seemed to bring him good tidings of a
great peril averted, and even as a prayer gushed from his torn heart,
he remembered the vision of his delirium, and knew that he was
forever a bereaved and broken man. At that his face, which had been
red as his hair, grew pale as ashes, and a low cunning came over him,
and he wondered if he had betrayed himself in his unconsciousness.
"Have I been delirious?" he asked.
"Delirious, love? Oh, no, love, no; only distraught a little and
cursing sometimes, the Saints preserve us," said the old landlady in
her shrill treble.
Jason remembered that the old woman was deaf, and gathering that she
alone had nursed him, and that no one else had seen him since his
attack, except her deaf husband and a druggist from the High Street
who had bled him, he smiled and was satisfied.
"Lord bless me, how he mends," said the hearty old woman, and she
gave him the look of an affectionate dog.
"And now, good soul, I am hungry and must make up for all this
fasting," said Jason.
"Ay, ay, and that you must, lad," said the old woman, and off she
went to cook him something to eat.
But his talk of hunger had been no more than a device to get rid of
her, for he knew that the kind creature would try to restrain him
from rising. So when she was gone he stumbled to his feet, feeling
very weak and dazed, and with infinite struggle and sweat tugged on
his clothes--for they had been taken off--and staggered out into the
streets.
It was night, and the clouds hung low as if snow might be coming, but
the town seemed very light, as with bonfires round about it and
rockets shot into the air, and very noisy, too, as with guns fired
and music played, so that Jason's watery eyes felt dazzled, and his
singing ears were stunned. But he walked on, hardly knowing which way
he was going, and hearing only as sounds at sea the voices that
called to him from the doors of the drinking-shops, until he came out
at the bridge to the Thingvellir road. And there, in the sombre
darkness, he was overtaken by the three Danes who had spoken to him
before.
"So your courage failed you at the last moment--I watched you and saw
how it was. Ah, don't be afraid, we are your friends, and you are one
of us. Let us play at hide-and-seek no longer."
"They say he is going down the fiord in search of his wife's father.
Take care he does not slip away. Old Jorgen is coming back.
Good-night."
So saying, without once turning their faces towards Jason's face,
they strode past him with an indifferent air. Then Jason became
conscious that Government House was ablaze with lights, that some of
its windows were half down, that sounds of music and dancing came
from within, and that on the grass plat in front, which was lit by
torches men and women in gay costumes were strolling to and fro, in
pairs.
And turning from the bridge towards the house he saw a man go by on
horseback in the direction of the sea, and remembered in a dull way
that just there and at that hour he had seen Michael Sunlocks ride
past him in the dusk.
What happened thereafter he never rightly knew, only that in a
distempered dream he was standing with others outside the rails about
Government House while the snow began to fall through the darkness,
that he saw the dancers circling across the lighted windows and heard
the music of the flutes and violins above the steady chime of the
sea, that he knew this merry-making to be a festival of her marriage
whom he loved with a love beyond that of his immortal soul, that the
shame of his condition pained him, and the pain of it maddened him,
the madness of it swept away his consciousness, and that when he came
to himself he had forced his way into the house, thinking to meet his
enemy face to face, and was in a room alone with Greeba, who was
cowering before him with a white face of dismay.
"Jason," she was saying, "why are you here?"
"Why are _you_ here?" he asked.
"Why have you followed me?" she cried.
"Why have you followed _him_?"
"What have you come for?"
"Is _this_ what _you_ have come for?"
"Jason," she cried again, "I wronged you, that is true, but you
forgave me. I asked you to choose for me, and if you had said 'stay,'
I should have stayed. But you released me, you know you did. You gave
me up to him, and now he is my husband."
"But this man is Michael Sunlocks," said Jason.
"Didn't you know that before?" said Greeba. "Ah, then, I know what
you have come for. You have recalled your forgiveness, and have come
to punish me for deserting you. But spare me! Oh, spare me! Not for
my own sake, but his; for I am his wife now and he loves me very
dearly. No, no, not that, but only spare me, Jason," she cried, and
crouched at his feet.
"I would not harm a hair of your head, Greeba," he said.
"Then what have you come for?" she said.
"This man is a son of Stephen Orry," he said.
"Then it is for him," she cried, and leaped to her feet. "Ah, now I
understand. I have not forgotten the night in Port-y-Vullin."
"Does _he_ know of that?" said Jason.
"No."
"Does he know I am here?"
"No."
"Does he know we have met?"
"No."
"Let me see him!"
"Why do you ask to see him?"
"Let me see him."
"But why?" she stammered. "Why see him? It is I who have wronged
you."
"That's why I want to see him," said Jason.
She uttered a cry of terror and staggered back. There was an ominous
silence, in which it passed through Greeba's mind that all that was
happening then had happened before. She could hear Jason's labored
breathing and the dull thud of the music through the walls.
"Jason," she cried, "What harm has he ever done you? I alone am
guilty before you. If your vengeance must fall on anyone let it fall
on me."
"Where is he?" said Jason.
"He is gone," said Greeba.
"Gone?"
"Yes, to find my poor father. The dear old man was wrecked in coming
here, and my husband sent men to find him, but they blundered and
came back empty-handed, and not a half an hour ago he went off
himself."
"Was he riding?" said Jason; but without waiting for an answer he
made towards the door.
"Wait! Where are you going?" cried Greeba.
Swift as lightning the thought had flashed though her mind, "What if
he should follow him!"
Now the door to the room was a heavy, double-hung door of antique
build, and at the next instant she had leaped to it and shot the
heavy wooden bar that bolted it.
At that he laid one powerful hand on the bar itself, and wrenched it
outward across the leverage of its iron loops, and it cracked and
broke, and fell to the ground in splinters.
Then her strong excitement lent the brave girl strength, and her fear
for her husband gave her courage, and crying, "Stop, for heaven's
sake stop," she put her back to the door, tore up the sleeve of her
dress, and thrust her bare right arm through the loops where the bar
had been.
"Now," she cried, "you must break my arm after it."
"God forbid," said Jason, and he fell back for a moment at that
sight. But, recovering himself, he said, "Greeba, I would not touch
your beautiful arm to hurt it; no, not for all the wealth of the
world. But I must go, so let me pass."
Still her terror was centred on the thought of Jason's vengeance.
"Jason," she cried, "he is my husband. Only think--my husband."
"Let me pass," said Jason.
"Jason," she cried again, "my husband is everything to me, and I am
all in all to him."
"Let me pass," said Jason.
"You intend to follow him. You are seeking him to kill him."
"Let me pass."
"Deny it."
"Let me pass."
"Never," she cried. "Kill _me_ if you will, but until you have done
so you shall not pass this door. Kill me!"
"Not for my soul's salvation!" said Jason.
"Then give up your wicked purpose. Give it up, give it up."
"Only when _he_ shall have given up his life."
"Then I warn you, I will show you no pity, for you have shown none to
me."
At that she screamed for help, and presently the faint music ceased,
and there was a noise of hurrying feet. Jason stood a moment
listening; then he looked towards the window, and saw that it was of
one frame, and had no sash that opened. At the next instant he had
doubled his arms across his face and dashed through glass and bars.
A minute afterwards the room was full of men and women, and Jason was
brought back into it, pale, sprinkled with snow and blood-stained.
"I charge that man with threatening the life of my husband," Greeba
cried.
Then it seemed as if twenty strong hands laid hold of Jason at once.
But no force was needed, for he stood quiet and silent, and looked
like a man who had walked in his sleep, and been suddenly awakened by
the sound of Greeba's voice. One glance he gave her of great
suffering and proud defiance, and then, guarded on either hand,
passed out of the place like a captured lion.