THE RESCUE.
Madame had worked hard with the rest in beating back the fire, and now
that she saw that their united efforts had been successful and that
Perfection City was safe, she, in company with Balthasar, was going the
circuit of the defences of their home, just to see that there remained
nothing further for her to do. In the course of time she came to
Napoleon Pompey, who was in charge of the last scrap of back-firing,
intent on maintaining guard and on effecting a complete junction of the
two lines of fire, so as not to leave so much as a handsbreadth of
standing grass whereby the enemy might even at the last minute burst in
upon them. This finishing of the circle was important, and the lad was
in the midst of his work and his distress when Madame loomed out through
the darkness.
“Oh, Lordy, dey is both burned, dey is! Oh Lordy! Oh Lordy,” cried
Napoleon Pompey the instant he set eyes upon Madame.
“Who is burned?” asked Madame in bewilderment, well used to the
extravagant modes of speech indulged in by negroes.
“Mis’ Ollie an’ Mas’r Ezra fo’ shu’.”
“Are you mad, fool, what do you mean?” said Madame furiously.
“Mis’ Ollie done gone in der Gully ter fetch ole hat, an’ de fire’s
crope up, an’ it’ll cotch her, oh Lordy! oh Lordy! An’ Mas’r Ezra he
done gone ter fin’ her down dar,” said the boy, beginning to whimper.
Madame gripped his shoulder with a grasp of iron.
“Be quiet, and tell me what you mean. Sister Olive has gone home, I
passed her myself with her hat under her arm, and she told me to tell
Ezra she had gone back.”
“De Lord be praised!” ejaculated Napoleon Pompey. “Den it’s on’y Mas’r
Ezra’ll be burnt. Yah, you lemme go!”
This exclamation was in answer to the sudden pressure of Madame’s hand,
which was like the clutch of a vice.
“Where is Ezra? Tell me or I’ll wring your neck,” she said in a voice
the like of which Napoleon Pompey had never heard before in his life.
“Down dar,” said he terrified, pointing to the Gully.
“Show me where he started from.”
Madame still kept her hand upon Napoleon Pompey who hurried to the spot
where Ezra had stood.
“Dar’s his shingle, what he done drap when he run.”
“Ha!” said Madame pouncing upon the shingle. “Here, Balthasar, here
sweetheart!”
The dog came up to her, and she passed her trembling hands over his long
ears and whispered to him half crying, half coaxing. “Here, dear heart,
do this for me or I die.”
She put the shingle to his nose. He sniffed, raised his long and pointed
head. Then she lay upon the ground coaxing him to put his nose down. He
sniffed again, took a step to the right, to the left, back, then
forward. Madame followed clasping the shingle to her bosom and murmuring
cooing words of love to her dog. He raised his great tan head and gave a
long deep bay that echoed far and wide.
“Golly! She gwine ter run him down like he nigger slave,” said Napoleon
Pompey with a shiver, as he heard the dog’s voice.
Balthasar set off and Madame kept close at his heels. It was easy
enough, for the trail was fresh and strong. In three minutes they stood
beside the motionless form of Ezra at the brink of the tall weeds, and
Balthasar whined in anxiety as Madame lifted his head and called upon
him in agonised tones. Just then the sky was lit up with a lurid glare.
The first red tongue had tasted the dry fluffy weeds on Weddell’s
abandoned farm. Madame, startled by the flame, sprang to her feet and
gave one hasty glance around. Ezra lay motionless. She stepped a few
paces into the shorter grass of the ordinary prairie and set it on fire.
The little ring of flame spread on all sides, like the ripple from a
stone cast into still water. Then she paddled out the fire on the side
next Ezra, and the ripple of fire continued to spread rapidly in a sort
of broken circle. The roar of the burning weeds was like the on-coming
of an avalanche. Madame turned to Ezra and seizing him under the
shoulders dragged him backwards within the safety of her oasis of burnt
prairie. He was a big man and a heavy one, but her arm seemed endowed
with more than mortal strength. She dragged him further and further
within the circle, and then seeing that he was out of all danger, she
sat down beside him and took his head in her lap. She opened his collar
and fanned him with her hat. The now brightly burning weeds made it
light as day, and she could see that he looked pale even under the
blackened smoke that smeared his face, but his pulse was beating, he was
only hurt and stunned, not dead.
Balthasar was terrified. Ringed round by fire and with the ground where
he stood still smoking hot, what dog would not be alarmed? He lifted up
his voice once more in a long howl, and then sniffing at Ezra gave a
sweeping lick with his tongue all over his face.
“Ah! Ollie! Where are you? Come!” said Ezra, roused by this combined
demonstration. He raised his head in a weak and bewildered way. Madame
placed her hand on his forehead as he sank down again. He put his own
hand up and taking hers said: “Little wife!”
Madame shivered, and then steadying her voice said, “Olive is quite
safe!”
Ezra started up.
“Why, what are you doing here? Where is my wife?”
“I came to tell you that Olive had gone home, and that she had got her
hat all right. She never was in any danger at all. It was a mistake on
the part of that negro boy.”
“Madame!” began Ezra.
“Dear friend,” said she.
“I feel so strange and bewildered, I don’t seem to know what has
happened.”
“Lay your head down again,” said Madame, very gently. “You have had a
blow. You will soon be all right.”
Ezra’s head sank again into her lap. He gave a deep sigh.
“You came down here into the Gully after Olive who, according to the
negro, had gone in search of her hat. You could not surely have realized
that the fire was coming up against the wind and that it would be death
to be caught among the weeds.”
“I knew, I knew,” said Ezra. “That was why I came. Olive was here.”
“But she wasn’t, she never had been here at all,” interrupted Madame.
“I shouted, but no answer came. I could not find Olive. I remember the
awful agony of it. My head seemed turning to fire and I couldn’t find
Olive. I don’t remember any more.”
“You fell and knocked yourself senseless,” said Madame.
“Is Olive safe? Tell me, are you sure Olive is safe?”
“Didn’t I tell you I passed her on her way home?” said Madame a little
sharply.
“But this fire!” exclaimed Ezra, starting up. “We must get out of this.”
“Hush, lie down again,” said Madame, her voice dropping again into its
tone of caressing entreaty. “Your head must be still giddy or you would
perceive that we are surrounded. We can’t get out until the fires meet
and extinguish each other. Rest and be patient.”
Ezra saw that this was true. They were entirely surrounded by a ring of
retreating fire, the heat from which was oppressive. He sat down again,
but did not lay his head in Madame’s lap. Perhaps it was because he felt
less giddy.
He asked her how she came there, and Madame very briefly told him,
dwelling not at all upon her share in finding him, but rather upon the
sagacity of Balthasar. Ezra, however, was not to be deceived.
“You risked your life for me this night, Madame,” he said slowly, when
she had finished speaking.
“Possibly. I never thought about it. I could not leave you here to die,
to be burnt to death. Had the case been reversed you would have come to
my rescue.”
“You are the most generous of mortals, the noblest of women,” said Ezra
earnestly. “It was assuredly the brightest day of my life that led me
across your path. You taught me how to live, and to-night your generous
hand has saved me from death.”
“Hush!” said Madame faintly.
“I owe my life to you,” repeated Ezra. “What shall I do to repay such a
debt?”
“Am I a usurer that I should exact my pound of flesh?” answered Madame.
“Usurer!” exclaimed Ezra. “That is indeed the last word to be applied to
you. Is a usurer one who is always giving? Giving from her wealth freely
and without stint? Is a usurer one who is ever helping and directing
into the paths of righteousness those who are feeble and faltering of
step? Ah, Madame, I never can half tell you all that I owe you! How
narrow and selfish would my life have been but for you! Devoted to petty
cares, absorbed in personal ambitions, rejoicing in sordid gains,—such
would have been my fate, only Providence brought me to you to be taught,
guided, elevated, purified. My life is yours, you have made it, dearest,
wisest, best, of friends.”
“And Olive?” said Madame quietly.
“Ah, there too shall be your handiwork seen,” said Ezra. “My little
Olive is very young. Sometimes I think her mind is even younger than her
body, and she is barely twenty, you know, a mere child and easily
moulded.”
Madame remembering her last encounter with Olive, seemed to recall very
little that was either childlike or plastic in the concluding portion of
their conversation, but she did not say so to Ezra who went on talking.
“She often, however, puzzles me, she has such sudden freaks and fancies,
as if her heart was a wild creature not fully tamed and ever dashing
against the bars of its environment. I sometimes feel that I have not
the necessary wisdom or tact to guide and counsel her. She seems to need
someone who is wiser and more skilful than I am. Sometimes I fear she
does not quite realise the responsibilities of life. The problems which
have come up before us and which cry aloud for solution, seem to her but
trivial matters that may be trusted to settle themselves. We must
endeavour, dear friend, to arouse Olive’s enthusiasm about Perfection
City. She is capable of the highest and noblest aspirations, but her
heart must be turned into the right direction. She evinces a certain
hesitancy in throwing herself into our work and aims.”
“Perhaps she is opposed to the whole thing,” suggested Madame.
“That cannot be,” replied Ezra earnestly. “She must see as we do, when
she comes thoroughly to understand our motives in founding Perfection
City. I look to you, Madame, to open her eyes to the truth.”
“Ah!” said Madame laconically, and then she added, after a moment’s
pause, “I will ask you to do one thing for me.”
“Anything you ask I will do if it is in my power,” said Ezra.
“Do not tell Olive of your fall here, nor of the danger you were in, nor
of my coming to find you.”
After a moment of puzzled silence Ezra said, “Of course your wishes are
to me law. But may I ask why you make such a request?”
“Perhaps I am judging wrongly, but I am acting as if Olive had the same
feelings as I should have. If I were in her place, I should hate it.”
“Why?” asked Ezra in surprise.
Madame rose up, her pale face illumined by the light of the fire.
“If I loved a man,” she said, beginning very quietly, but her voice
gathered in intensity as she spoke. “If I loved a man, I could not bear
it. To think that my love had failed him in his sorest need. He was
lying stunned, helpless, within the clutch of deadly peril, and I went
home unwarned, leaving him to his fate, all unconscious of the whole
thing, while another woman—not I, but another woman—went to his rescue,
another woman—not I—found him, saved him, drew him out of danger, while
I walked heedlessly home. I should hate myself, I should hate—ah! I
should hate to the verge of killing that other woman who had saved him.
That is the way I should feel, if I loved.”
She concluded hastily, her voice dropping to a whisper. Ezra looked up
at her in amazement.
“Yours is a many-sided nature. I never suspected you could feel like
that. I never thought of you as being—as capable of——” he stopped in
confusion.
“Ah yes! You never thought of me as being able to love—to love a man and
not an impersonal cause. Ah yes! You never quite looked upon me as a
mere woman.”
“I have always regarded you as something higher than a mere woman,” said
Ezra.
“Listen,” she said, sitting down again beside him. “You have yet to know
me—the woman, I mean, and not the pioneer of Perfection City. My father
was a man of passionate nature. He had fine instincts, but these were
not developed. He was a Russian noble. I come of very good blood, as
they say in the old world.”
“I always knew you were of distinguished birth,” said Ezra.
“Not at all, quite the contrary,” said Madame, with a laugh that sounded
harsh. “My father was a wild, self-willed Russian noble. He was to have
married a lady of princely house, only that he refused to do one thing
which they made a condition of the marriage.”
“What was that?”
“To give up my mother. Do you understand? He could not marry the
princess, and he sacrificed wealth, position, and worldly honour,
because he would not give up the pale-haired English girl whom he loved
passionately, and who was my mother. She died, and my father died too,
not many years afterwards. He did what he could for me by leaving me his
fortune and the permission to bear his name, to which I had no legal
right. From my mother I inherited my brain, but my heart I inherited
from my father. Now let us go.”
“Must we?” said Ezra, to whom Madame’s sudden confession had been full
of interest. “There is nothing further for us to do. Perfection City is
safe.”
“But we must return to real life, Brother Ezra. Sitting here, ringed
around with fire, we were alone in a world of our own. For a few moments
we lived for each other, as it were. Our spirits communed, and I opened
my heart to you as never before to mortal being. Now we must go back to
real life again. See the fires are all out, and the world is itself
again—all dark.”
Ezra rose to his feet and staggered a little, as Madame perceived from
the stumble he made. She seemed preternaturally acute, and to be able to
understand by the help of some new sense, for she put out her hand and
touched his arm, “Lean on me, brother, you are still giddy from your
accident. We will walk very slowly.”
Ezra, feeling indeed faint enough, gratefully accepted the proffered
help and put his hand within her arm; thus very slowly they started back
towards the house through the inky black night. “Friend, what I said is
to be locked in your breast, a secret,” said Madame.
“I fully understand that,” replied Ezra, “and I feel it a high honour
that you should have chosen me as the repository of the secret of your
life. It is safe, nay more, it is sacred, with me.”
It took them a long time in the intense darkness to reach Ezra’s house
where a light was glimmering from the window. When they at length
reached the bars, Madame said, “I will not go in. Oh, I know what you
would say, but I would prefer not. Olive would resent my bringing you
back to her.”
“You mistake Olive utterly,” said Ezra earnestly. “Believe me, hers is a
simple nature, she would have no such feelings as you think.”
“Perhaps you are right, and that she is a child in mind and not yet a
woman in heart. Possibly I endow her with feelings she could not even
understand. I judge her by myself, and maybe all the while her little
soul is possessed with nothing but content at the thought that her
pretty hat is all safe. The butterfly must not be blamed if it does not
rise as high as the lark. Farewell.”
Olive was waiting for him impatiently, anxiously.
“Oh Ezra, where have you been? And isn’t your face black? You are every
whit as black as Napoleon Pompey. Wasn’t it fun?”
“Fun? What was fun?” asked Ezra languidly.
“Why, the fire of course, now that it is all over. It was so exciting. I
was as hungry as a hawk when I came in. I really could not wait, so I
had supper. You must have yours this very minute. Do you know, it is one
o’clock at night, and you have not tasted a morsel of food since twelve
o’clock yesterday? Do you realize that?”
She bustled around and got his supper ready, chatting brightly all the
while over the incidents of the fire, making fun and merriment out of
them all. Ezra sat stupidly watching her, his head throbbing so heavily
that he could scarcely think. He could eat nothing when the supper was
ready, and Olive felt aggrieved. “I think you might, just to please me.
It would do you good, for you must be hungry, I should think.”
He swallowed a few morsels and said he would go to bed, that rest was
what he most needed, his head ached badly. He was thankful she made no
inquiries after his adventures during that eventful night. He would have
found it difficult to tell a connected tale with that pain in his head.
He asked Olive if she had gone down into the Gully.
“No,” she said, “I started to go, but it was darker than I thought, so I
came up again and followed round by the high prairie where there was a
chance of meeting somebody. I came home with Willette.”
“The fire did get into the old field after all,” said Ezra.
“And were the weeds burnt?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! I wish I had been there to see. Wasn’t it a lovely blaze-up?”
“Yes, it blazed up,” said Ezra.
Olive didn’t notice that he seemed ill, he thought with some bitterness.
Madame would have divined it, no matter how hard he had tried to conceal
the fact. After all, it was not her fault that she was made differently.
The butterfly was not to be blamed if it did not soar as high as the
lark.