THE SHAME-BORN CHILD.
Calm Death,--Thou comest not to such as these,--
Their griefs affright thee,--their sad faces fail to please.
Probably the length of time that elapsed (which seemed like an eternity
to Elizabeth,) was, in reality, not more than half an hour before a ray
of light greeted her eyes, coming through a ragged chink in the
crumbling masonry of the heavy walls.
Creeping cautiously forward she put her eye to the crevice and looked
eagerly into the inner room.
The scene she witnessed was well calculated to chill the blood of an
able bodied man, but to a delicate woman, still trembling from the
effects of her awful plunge into the river;--hampered by dripping
garments and nearly frantic with the fear of momentary violence, the
sight was more than doubly horrible.
The room was nothing more than a large vault or closet built into the
solid walls, probably for no definite purpose, but so well adapted to
its present use that one would think its designer must have foreseen its
ultimate fate.
Several battered and smoking lanterns hung on nails, which had been
wedged firmly between loose bricks in the decaying walls, their outlines
appearing to her excited imagination not unlike the red eye balls and
smoke begrimed faces of the score of beings upon whom their dismal
glimmer fell.
This score of individuals, representing a class of monsters, born in the
slime of cellars; nourished on the odors of decomposition and trained to
accomplishments of vice and evil, were busy at the ghoulish work of
robbing two human bodies, whose swollen and livid members plainly
proclaimed them trophies from the river's unfailing supply.
Ragged females with bloated faces and keen eyes were squabbling like
cats over the articles which had been removed from the dead woman's
body, while the males cursed and struck at each other in a frantic
struggle for the watch and jewels which the other water-soaked victim
had worn.
The scene was horrible, pile upon pile of rubbish was heaped about the
room, and one and all seemed interested in claiming and getting
possession of as much plunder as they could, by fair means or foul.
Elizabeth plainly identified her rescuers who were among the most
quarrelsome of the lot, but, even in her bewilderment, she noticed that
there was no mention made of _their_ evenings work or of her body,
which, of course, they supposed was safe in the recesses of that
loathsome cellar.
At this instant a vague thought flitted through her mind as to what
booty her body had afforded them. She felt for her rings, but they were
gone. She thrust her hand into the bosom of her dress for her watch, and
her lips grew white as ashes, while a new horror, passing through her
brain, overcame for the moment all fear of personal violence. The paper
which had been safe in her bosom when she sprang from the bridge was not
there. She had determined that the secret which it held should die with
her, but now that her plan for death had failed, the recovery of that
treasured paper must be the whole aim and purpose of her life.
Again the miserable creature who had rescued her from death became the
unknowing instrument of her good fortune.
The young thief, whom she recognized as "Bill," became violently angry
over the unequal distribution of the jewels and, throwing off his coat,
struck wildly at his partner, while the others proceeded with their
individual bickerings, apparently unconscious of the pugilistic
encounter.
The coat in falling obscured, in a measure, Elizabeth's view of the
inner room.
She had lost all thought of fear in her wild determination to secure the
missing paper.
Pushing her hand cautiously into the hole in the masonry she dislodged a
portion of brick with little trouble, then forcing her white arm
carefully through the opening she touched the coat and pulled it gently
aside.
Her idea was simply to gain another unobstructed view of the room, but
accidently her fingers touched the edge of a folded paper protruding
from the pocket, and quick as flash Elizabeth closed her fingers upon
it and drew it toward her through the hole. She could not see it, but
the familiarity of touch and feeling convinced her that it was her bosom
companion for the past ten months, and even in the excitement and danger
of the situation she stood motionless for a moment while she pressed it
fervently to her lips.
Then, taking advantage of a particularly noisy scuffle, Elizabeth
slipped softly by the door. The terrors of nightmare were upon her. She
imagined she heard them pursuing her but could not run for fear of
falling in the darkness; pitching down some hidden trap or making some
accidental sound that would tell them of her presence.
At last, after almost innumerable windings, a glimmer of electric light
came down upon her through a cellar grating which opened directly upon
the street. A little further on and another flight of worm eaten steps
were before her. Up these she climbed, and raised, with all her strength
a heavy grating, then, feeling once more the pure air upon her brow and
the sense of freedom in her soul, she reeled and fell heavily forward,
like an inanimate body, upon the damp, gray curb stone. How long she
lay there she could not tell, but the bell of a distant cathedral,
tolling the hour of midnight, aroused her, and she crawled along until
her strength in a measure returned, then, rising, she walked as quickly
as possible away from this terrible neighborhood. On and on she went,
her strength failing her at every step, until once more exhausted she
sank down before the gateway of a large building, which, fortunately for
her, proved to be a Hospital.
Here she was found by a resident physician on his return from the Opera
in the early morning hours.
Some time during the following day an employee of the Hospital
discovered a soiled and water-stained Marriage Certificate, which the
wind had evidently blown behind the massive gates. The Certificate was
placed in the physician's private desk for safe keeping, but no
connection between it and the suffering woman was ever suspected.
Elizabeth was placed immediately in the ward, and every care given her,
but for four weeks she hovered between life and death, raving of murder,
robbery, suicide and all such frightful happenings, until the anxious
physician feared for her reason as well as for her life. It was not
until her child was born, a month after her entrance, that she gained,
either mentally or physically, but after another four weeks of excellent
nursing she was discharged from the Hospital as needing no further
treatment.
She had given the authorities a false name in an almost involuntary
effort toward self-protection and the concealment of her degradation,
receiving at their hands that disinterested and strictly impartial
attention bestowed upon all their patients. She was to them but one of
thousands who drift on the shoals of sin and are left to perish, or are
floated off by the tide of life to a longer struggle and a fiercer death
on the ragged rocks of crime, therefore it was only natural that her
case elicited no special comment from the busy officials. Thus, sick at
heart, homeless, friendless, with no money, and with her shame-born
child resting heavily upon her arm, Elizabeth went forth once more into
the streets of London.