MELEESE
For many minutes Howland stood waiting as if life had left him. His eyes
were on the door, but unseeing. He made no sound, no movement again
toward the aperture in the wall. Fate had dealt him the final blow, and
when at last he roused himself from its first terrible effect there
remained no glimmering of hope in his breast, no thought of the battle
he had been making for freedom a short time before. The note fluttered
from his fingers and he drew his watch from his pocket and placed it on
the table. It was a quarter after five. There still remained
forty-five minutes.
Three-quarters of an hour and then--death. There was no doubt in his
mind this time. Ever in the coyote, with eternity staring him in the
face, he had hoped and fought for life. But here there was no hope,
there was to be no fighting. Through one of the black holes in the wall
he was to be shot down, with no chance to defend himself, to prove
himself innocent. And Meleese--did she, too, believe him guilty of
that crime?
He groaned aloud, and picked up the note again. Softly he repeated her
last words to him: "If God fails to answer my prayers I will still do as
I have promised, and follow you." Those words seemed to cry aloud his
doom. Even Meleese had given up hope. And yet, was there not a deeper
significance in her words? He started as if some one had struck him, his
eyes agleam.
"_'I will follow you._'"
He almost sobbed the words this time. His hands trembled and he dropped
the paper again on the table and turned his eyes in staring horror
toward the door. What did she mean? Would Meleese kill herself if he was
murdered by her brothers? He could see no other meaning in her last
message to him, and for a time after the chilling significance of her
words struck his heart he scarce restrained himself from calling aloud
for Jean. If he could but send a word back to her, tell her once more of
his great love--that the winning of that love was ample reward for all
that he had lost and was about to lose, and that it gave him such
happiness as he had never known even in this last hour of his torture!
Twice he shouted for Croisset, but there came no response save the
hollow echoings of his own voice in the subterranean chambers. After
that he began to think more sanely. If Meleese was a prisoner in her
room it was probable that Croisset, who was now fully recognized as a
traitor at the post, could no longer gain access to her. In some secret
way Meleese had contrived to give him the note, and he had performed his
last mission for her.
In Howland's breast there grew slowly a feeling of sympathy for the
Frenchman. Much that he had not understood was clear to him now. He
understood why Meleese had not revealed the names of his assailants at
Prince Albert and Wekusko, he understood why she had fled from him
after his abduction, and why Jean had so faithfully kept secrecy for her
sake. She had fought to save him from her own flesh and blood, and Jean
had fought to save him, and in these last minutes of his life he would
liked to have had Croisset with him that he might have taken has hand
and thanked him for what he had done. And because he had fought for him
and Meleese the Frenchman's fate was to be almost as terrible as his
own. It was he who would fire the fatal shot at six o'clock. Not the
brothers, but Jean Croisset, would be his executioner and murderer.
The minutes passed swiftly, and as they went Howland was astonished to
find how coolly he awaited the end. He even began to debate with himself
as to through which hole the fatal shot would be fired. No matter where
he stood he was in the light of the big hanging lamp. There was no
obscure or shadowy corner in which for a few moments he might elude his
executioner. He even smiled when the thought occurred to him that it
was possible to extinguish the light and crawl under the table, thus
gaining a momentary delay. But what would that delay avail him? He was
anxious for the fatal minute to arrive, and be over.
There were moments of happiness when in the damp horror of his
death-chamber there came before him visions of Meleese, grown even
sweeter and more lovable, now that he knew how she had sacrificed
herself between two great loves--the love of her own people and the love
of himself. And at last she had surrendered to him. Was it possible that
she could have made that surrender if she, like her brothers, believed
him to be the murderer of her father--the son of the man-fiend who had
robbed her of a mother? It was impossible, he told himself. She did not
believe him guilty. And yet--why had she not given him some such word in
her last message to him?
His eyes traveled to the note on the table and he began searching in his
coat pockets. In one of them he found the worn stub of a pencil, and
for many minutes after that he was oblivious to the passing of time as
he wrote his last words to Meleese. When he had finished he folded the
paper and placed it under his watch. At the final moment, before the
shot was fired, he would ask Jean to take it. His eyes fell on his watch
dial and a cry burst from his lips.
It lacked but ten minutes of the final hour!
Above him he heard faintly the sharp barking of dogs, the hollow sound
of men's voices. A moment later there came to him an echo as of swiftly
tramping feet, and after that silence.
"Jean," he called tensely. "Ho, Jean--Jean Croisset--"
He caught up the paper and ran from one black opening to another,
calling the Frenchman's name.
"As you love your God, Jean, as you have a hope of Heaven, take this
note to Meleese!" he pleaded. "Jean--Jean Croisset--"
There came no answer, no movement outside, and Howland stilled the
beating of his heart to listen. Surely Croisset was there! He looked
again at the watch he held in his hand. In four minutes the shot would
be fired. A cold sweat bathed his face. He tried to cry out again, but
something rose in his throat and choked him until his voice was only a
gasp. He sprang back to the table and placed the note once more under
the watch. Two minutes! One and a half! One!
With a sudden fearless cry he sprang into the very center of his prison,
and flung out his arms with his face to the hole next the door. This
time his voice was almost a shout.
"Jean Croisset, there is a note under my watch on the table. After you
have killed me take it to Meleese. If you fail I shall haunt you to
your grave!"
Still no sound--no gleam of steel pointing at aim through the black
aperture. Would the shot come from behind?
Tick--tick--tick--tick--
He counted the beating of his watch up to twenty. A sound stopped him
then, and he closed his eyes, and a great shiver passed through
his body.
It was the tiny bell of his watch tinkling off the hour of six!
Scarcely had that sound ceased to ring in his brain when from far
through the darkness beyond the wall of his prison there came a creaking
noise, as if a heavy door had been swung slowly on its hinges, or a trap
opened--then voices, low, quick, excited voices, the hurrying tread of
feet, a flash of light shooting through the gloom. They were coming!
After all it was not to be a private affair, and Jean was to do his
killing as the hangman's job is done in civilization--before a crowd.
Howland's arms dropped to his side. This was more terrible than the
other--this seeing and hearing of preparation, in which he fancied that
he heard the click of Croisset's gun as he lifted the hammer.
Instead it was a hand fumbling at the door. There were no voices now,
only a strange moaning sound that he could not account for. In another
moment it was made clear to him. The door swung open, and the
white-robed figure of Meleese sprang toward him with a cry that echoed
through the dungeon chambers. What happened then--the passing of white
faces beyond the doorway, the subdued murmur of voices, were all lost to
Howland in the knowledge that at the last moment they had let her come
to him, that he held her in his arms, and that she was crushing her face
to his breast and sobbing things to him which he could not understand.
Once or twice in his life he had wondered if realities might not be
dreams, and the thought came to him now when he felt the warmth of her
hands, her face, her hair, and then the passionate pressure of her lips
on his own. He lifted his eyes, and in the doorway he saw Jean Croisset,
and behind him a wild, bearded face--the face that had been over him
when life was almost choked from him on the Great North Trail. And
beyond these two he saw still others, shining ghostly and indistinct in
the deeper gloom of the outer darkness. He strained Meleese to him, and
when he looked down into her face he saw her beautiful eyes flooded with
tears, and yet shining with a great joy. Her lips trembled as she
struggled to speak. Then suddenly she broke from his arms and ran to the
door, and Jean Croisset came between them, with the wild bearded man
still staring over his shoulder.
"M'seur, will you come with us?" said Jean.
The bearded man dropped back into the thick gloom, and without speaking
Howland followed Croisset, his eyes on the shadowy form of Meleese. The
ghostly faces turned from the light, and the tread of their retreating
feet marked the passage through the blackness. Jean fell back beside
Howland, the huge bulk of the bearded man three paces ahead. A dozen
steps more and they came to a stair down which a light shone. The
Frenchman's hand fell detainingly on Howland's arm, and when a moment
later they reached the top of the stairs all had disappeared but Jean
and the bearded man. Dawn was breaking, and a pale light fell through
the two windows of the room they had entered. On a table burned a lamp,
and near the table were several chairs. To one of these Croisset
motioned the engineer, and as Howland sat down the bearded man turned
slowly and passed through a door. Jean shrugged his shoulders as the
other disappeared.
"_Mon Dieu_, that means that he leaves it all to me," he exclaimed. "I
don't wonder that it is hard for him to talk, M'seur. Perhaps you have
begun to understand!"
"Yes, a little," replied Howland. His heart was throbbing as if he had
just finished climbing a long hill. "That was the man who tried to kill
me. But Meleese--the--" He could go no further. Scarce breathing, he
waited for Jean to speak.
"It is Pierre Thoreau," he said, "eldest brother to Meleese. It is he
who should say what I am about to tell you, M'seur. But he is too full
of grief to speak. You wonder at that? And yet I tell you that a man
with a better soul than Pierre Thoreau never lived, though three times
he has tried to kill you. Do you remember what you asked me a short time
ago, M'seur--if I thought that _you_ were the John Howland who murdered
the father of Meleese sixteen years ago? God's saints, and I did until
hardly more than half an hour ago, when some one came from the South and
exploded a mine under our feet. It was the youngest of the three
brothers. M'seur we have made a great mistake, and we ask your
forgiveness."
In the silence the eyes of the two men met across the table. To Howland
it was not the thought that his life was saved that came with the
greatest force, but the thought of Meleese, the knowledge that in that
hour when all seemed to be lost she was nearer to him than ever. He
leaned half over the table, his hands clenched, his eyes blazing. Jean
did not understand, for he went on quickly.
"I know it is hard, M'seur. Perhaps it will be impossible for you to
forgive a thing like this. We have tried to kill you--kill you by a slow
torture, as we thought you deserved. But think for a moment, M'seur, of
what happened up here sixteen years ago this winter. I have told you how
I choked life from the man-fiend. So I would have choked life from you
if it had not been for Meleese. I, too, am guilty. Only six years ago we
knew that the right John Howland--the son of the man I slew--was in
Montreal, and we sent to seek him this youngest brother, for he had been
a long time at school with Meleese and knew the ways of the South better
than the others. But he failed to find him at that time, and it was only
a short while ago that this brother located you.
"As Our Blessed Lady is my witness, M'seur, it is not strange that he
should have taken you for the man we sought, for it is singular that you
bear him out like a brother in looks, as I remember the boy. It is true
that Francois made a great error when he sent word to his brothers
suggesting that if either Gregson or Thorne was put out of the way you
would probably be sent into the North. I swear by the Virgin that
Meleese knew nothing of this, M'seur. She knew nothing of the schemes by
which her brothers drove Gregson and Thorne back into the South. They
did not wish to kill them, and yet it was necessary to do something that
you might replace one of them, M'seur. They did not make a move alone
but that something happened. Gregson lost a finger. Thorne was badly
hurt--as you know. Bullets came through their window at night. With
Jackpine in their employ it was easy to work on them, and it was not
long before they sent down asking for another man to replace them."
For the first time a surge of anger swept through Howland.
"The cowards!" he exclaimed. "A pretty pair, Croisset--to crawl out from
under a trap to let another in at the top!"
"Perhaps not so bad as that," said Jean. "They were given to understand
that they--and they alone--were not wanted in the country. It may be
that they did not think harm would come to you, and so kept quiet about
what had happened. It may be, too, that they did not like to have it
known that they were running away from danger. Is not that human,
M'seur? Anyway, you were detailed to come, and not until then did
Meleese know of all that had occurred."
The Frenchman stopped for a moment. The glare had faded from Howland's
eyes. The tense lines in his face relaxed.
"I--I--believe I understand everything now, Jean," he said. "You traced
the wrong John Howland, that's all. I love Meleese, Jean. I would kill
John Howland for her. I want to meet her brothers and shake their hands.
I don't blame them. They're men. But, somehow, it hurts to think of
her--of Meleese--as--as almost a murderer."
"_Mon Dieu_, M'seur, has she not saved your life! Listen to this! It
was then--when she knew what had happened--that Meleese came to me--whom
she had made the happiest man in the world because it was she who
brought my Mariane over from Churchill on a visit especially that I
might see her and fall in love with her, M'seur--which I did. Meleese
came to me--to Jean Croisset--and instead of planning your murder,
M'seur, she schemed to save your life--with me--who would have cut you
into bits no larger than my finger and fed you to the carrion ravens,
who would have choked the life out of you until your eyes bulged in
death, as I choked that one up on the Great Slave! Do you understand,
M'seur? It was Meleese who came and pleaded with me to save your
life--before you had left Chicago, before she had heard more of you than
your name, before--"
Croisset hesitated, and stopped.
"Before what, Jean?"
"Before she had learned to love you, M'seur."
"God bless her!" exclaimed Howland.
"You believe this, M'seur?"
"As I believe in a God."
"Then I will tell you what she did, M'seur," he continued in a low
voice. "The plan of the brothers was to make you a prisoner near Prince
Albert and bring you north. I knew what was to happen then. It was to be
a beautiful vengeance, M'seur--a slow torturing death on the spot where
the crime was committed sixteen years ago. But Meleese knew nothing of
this. She was made to believe that up here, where the mother and father
died, you would be given over to the proper law--to the mounted police
who come this way now and then. She is only a girl, M'seur, easily made
to believe strange things in such matters as these, else she would have
wondered why you were not given to the officers in Prince Albert. It was
the eldest brother who thought of her as a lure to bring you out of the
town into their hands, and not until the last moment, when they were
ready to leave for the South, did she overhear words that aroused her
suspicions that they were about to kill you. It was then, M'seur, that
she came to me."
"And you, Jean?"
"On the day that Mariane promised to become my wife, M'seur, I promised
in Our Blessed Lady's name to repay my debt to Meleese, and the manner
of payment came in this fashion. Jackpine, too, was her slave, and so we
worked together. Two hours after Meleese and her brothers had left for
the South I was following them, shaven of beard and so changed that I
was not recognized in the fight on the Great North Trail. Meleese
thought that her brothers would make you a prisoner that night without
harming you. Her brothers told her how to bring you to their camp. She
knew nothing of the ambush until they leaped on you from cover. Not
until after the fight, when in their rage at your escape the brothers
told her that they had intended to kill you, did she realize fully what
she had done. That is all, M'seur. You know what happened after that.
She dared not tell you at Wekusko who your enemies were, for those
enemies were of her own flesh and blood, and dearer to her than life.
She was between two great loves, M'seur--the love for her
brothers and--"
Again Jean hesitated.
"And her love for me," finished Howland.
"Yes, her love for you, M'seur."
The two men rose from the table, and for a moment stood with clasped
hands in the smoky light of lamp and dawn. In that moment neither heard
a tap at the door leading to the room beyond, nor saw the door move
gently inward, and Meleese, hesitating, framed in the opening.
It was Howland who spoke first.
"I thank God that all these things have happened, Jean," he said
earnestly. "I am glad that for a time you took me for that other John
Howland, and that Pierre Thoreau and his brothers schemed to kill me at
Prince Albert and Wekusko, for if these things had not occurred as they
have I would never have seen Meleese. And now, Jean--"
His ears caught sound of movement, and he turned in time to see Meleese
slipping quietly out.
"Meleese!" he called softly. "Meleese!"
In an instant he had darted after her, leaving Jean beside the table.
Beyond the door there was only the breaking gloom of the gray mornings
but it was enough for him to see faintly the figure of the girl he
loved, half turned, half waiting for him. With a cry of joy he sprang
forward and gathered her close in his arms.
"Meleese--my Meleese--" he whispered.
After that there came no sound from the dawn-lit room beyond, but Jean
Croisset, still standing by the table, murmured softly to himself: "Our
Blessed Lady be praised, for it is all as Jean Croisset would have
it--and now I can go to my Mariane!"