As his antagonist fell heavily to the floor, the force of the impact
shaking the crazy, ruinous superstructure of the boat with a sinister
menace, Floyd-Rosney’s first emotion was the stirring of the impulse of
self-preservation. Not one moment was wasted in indecision. He stepped
deftly across the prostrate body, wrenched the door open with a violent
effort and with satisfaction heard the dislocated spring slam it noisily
behind him. There the corpse would lie indefinitely, unless, indeed, the
man whom Ducie had professed to seek should come to keep an appointment;
probably he had already been here, and had gone, for the mustering
splendors of the evening sky betokened how the hours wore on to sunset.
As Floyd-Rosney took his way with a swift, sure step to the stair where
his boat still struggled at the end of the painter attached to the post,
he noted that Ducie had followed his example and secured his own skiff
in like manner. A sudden monition of precaution occurred to Floyd-Rosney
even in his precipitation, and in loosing his own craft he set the other
adrift, reflecting that to leave it here was to advertise the presence
of its owner aboard the _Cherokee Rose_; the current, sweeping as if
impelled by some tremendous artificial force as of steam or electricity,
set strongly toward the shore, and the boat, swiftly gliding on the
ripples, would ultimately ground itself on the bank, affording evidence
that Ducie had landed. As without an instant’s hesitation he busied
himself in putting his plan into execution he did not think once of the
powerful lenses of the binocle of the skipper, at watch for his return
on the bow of the beautiful _Aglaia_, lying there in the bend of the
river, not two miles away, like a swan on the water, between the radiant
evening sky, and the irradiated stream, reflecting her white breast as
she floated, a vision suspended in soft splendors.
He had a momentary doubt of the wisdom of his course, as he took up his
oars, and the possibility of this observation occurred to him. Then he
endeavored to reassure himself. It was the only practicable procedure,
he argued. He took the chance of being unobserved, while otherwise the
boat, swinging at the stairway, would unavoidably excite curiosity and
allure investigation. Still, he would have preferred to have had that
possibility in mind, before taking incriminating action,--to have had
his course a matter of choice instead of making the best of it.
From this moment circumstances seemed contorted and difficult of
adjustment. He had not noticed in his absorption that the cut inflicted
upon him from his own knife was bleeding profusely, and beginning to
sting and smart violently. He must have unwittingly scattered drops of
blood all along the deck and stairs as he came. It was a marvel, he
reflected, still optimistic in instinctive self-defense, that none had
fallen on his suit of white flannel. He held the wounded hand in the
water, hoping to stanch the flow, but the red drops welled forth with
an impetuous gush, as of a burst of tears. The cut was not deep, but it
was clear and clean, for the blade had been as sharp as a razor. With a
little time it would dry in the cicatrix and close the wound. His back
toward the _Aglaia_, he felt sufficiently free of espionage to tear his
linen handkerchief to shreds, using his teeth to start the rent, for
with that hand dripping not only with blood, but with bloodguiltiness,
he dared not search his pockets for his knife. He bound up the wound,
carefully, his plans forming in his mind with all minute detail as he
adjusted the bandages. He would loiter about the river, he said to
himself, till the bleeding ceased, which must be in half an hour’s time,
and the hand would then not be liable to notice. With his splendid
physical condition any wound would be swift in healing. It would be
close on nightfall, he meditated, and this was all the better, for he
would board the yacht under cover of the darkness and give orders to
drop down the river to the Gulf, thence to the open sea--his ultimate
destination being some port beyond the reach of extradition, for he had
lately tested his hold on public favor, and was resolved to risk nothing
on its uncertain tenure. He could perfect his plans when in mid-ocean.
Meantime, the present claimed all his faculties.
With the fast plying oars and the strong sweep of the current the skiff
shot along with a speed that suggested a winning shell in a ‘varsity
race. When he approached within ear-shot of the _Aglaia_ he hailed the
skipper, who promptly responded from the deck, and still at a
considerable distance, well in mid-channel, Floyd-Rosney shouted out his
intentions to proceed in the skiff a few miles further, as he wished to
investigate the old Duciehurst mansion, and ordered the _Aglaia_ to drop
down at six o’clock and pick him up there.
As his excitement and the fever of his fury began to subside, the flow
of blood slackened perceptibly. He noticed that the saturated portion of
the bandage was growing stiff and dry; that the blood no longer
continued to spread on the fabric. He would throw it away presently and
wash his hands clear of the traces in the river.
He looked up at the massive walls of Duciehurst with a deep rancor as he
approached the old mansion. The braided currents, making diagonally
across the river, were carrying him toward it as if he were borne
thither by no will of his own, and indeed this was in some sort true.
He loathed to see it again. He wished he had never seen it. Yet in the
same instant he upbraided his attitude of mind as folly. What man of
business instincts, he argued, would revolt against a great and
substantial accession to his fortune, coming to him in regular course of
law, because it was coveted by its former owners, ousted forty years
before. He felt hard hit by untoward fate. All had been against him,
from the beginning of this accursed imbroglio. He had done what he had
thought right and proper,--what any sane and just man would endorse--and
he had lost wife, child, and heavily in estate, and was possibly
destined to exile for life,--if--if that ghastly witness on the stranded
steamer should take up its testimony against him. But no! it was
silenced forever! It could not even protect the man whom Ducie had
expected to meet should that unlucky wight persist in keeping his
appointment, finding more than he bargained for, Floyd-Rosney said
grimly.
The boat was running cleverly in to his destination. The landing was
under water already, and the skiff glided over its location with never a
sign suggesting its submergence. The old levee was indicated in barely a
long ripple, washing continually above its summit, and this, too, the
skiff skimmed, undulating merely to the tossing of the waters about the
obstruction. The relative height of the ground on which the deserted
mansion stood alone protected it from inundation, although as yet the
disaster of overflow had nowhere fallen upon the land. But evidently the
water would soon be within the fine old rooms, and Floyd-Rosney, looking
with the eye of a wealthy as well as thrifty proprietor upon the scene,
not only willing but able to protect, felt with a surly sigh of
frustration that but for the impending lawsuit he would have built a
stanch levee to reclaim the old ruin, even though there was a
serviceable embankment protecting the lands in the rear.
The large arrogance of the massive cornice of the main building, the
wide spread of the wings on either side, appealed to his taste of a
justified magnificence. This structure was erected in the days of
princelings who had the opulence to sustain its pretensions, and of his
acquaintance he knew no man but himself who could afford the waste of
money on its restoration. There was something appealing to an esthetic
sense in the forwardness of the neglected vegetation about the glassless
goggle-eyed ruin. In the magnolias on either side of the wings he caught
sight of the white glint of blooms, so early though it was! the pink
wands of the almond blossoms waved here and there in the breeze. The
grass of the terraces was freshly springing. Vines draped the broken
pedestals that had once upheld stone vases, and on the façade of the
tall structure the sun crept up and up as suavely benign, as loath to
leave as in the days when its splendors dominated the Mississippi, the
“show place” of all the river.
Floyd-Rosney walked slowly along the broad pavement and up the long
flight of steps to the wide doorless portal. Within shadows lurked, and
memories--how bitter! He hesitated to go in--the influence of the place
was like the thrall of a fate. He wished again he had never seen it. But
he could hear, so definitely the water transmitted the sound, the
engines of the _Aglaia_ getting up steam, and he was conscious of the
scrutiny of the skipper’s powerful lenses.
Through all the vacant vastness swept the fresh breath of the river, so
close at hand. The light from the sinking sun, broadly aslant, fell
through the gaping windows and lay athwart the rooms in immaterial bands
of burnished gold. The illusion of motion was continuous on the grand
staircase where the motes danced in ethereal, hazy illumination. The
contrasting dun-gray shadows imparted a depth and richness to the flare
of ruddy gold, reddening dreamily as the day slowly tended to its close.
All was silence, absolute silence. As he wandered aimlessly from room to
room, his step loud in the quietude, the delicate scent of a white
jessamine, early abloom, bringing its vernal tribute of incense to the
forlorn old ruin year after year, despite half a century of neglect,
thrilled his senses and smote some chord of softer feeling. A sentiment
of self-justification rose in his breast. How was it that all had gone
with him so strangely awry! Wherein had he erred? He had but exerted his
prerogative to order the affairs of his family according to his best
judgment in its interest, as any man might and should do, and--behold,
this tumult of tortures was unloosed upon him. His wife had utilized the
opportunity as a pretext to flee to Randal Ducie, and but for this day’s
work the deserted and divorced would have been fleeced by the courts to
finance the new matrimonial venture. He had done right, he said,
thrusting his white cap back from his heated brow. He had done well.
It had not been his intention to kill an unarmed man; the fatality of
the blow had been an accident, but it was irrevocable, and it behooved
him to look to the future. No one but the skipper of the _Aglaia_ could
have known of his entrance upon the derelict, and if he had chanced to
observe it, a word in his employee’s ear, that he had discovered the
body there--murdered probably--and did not wish to be called as witness
would be sufficient for the present; the skipper would have forgotten
the whole incident before he had entered the first day’s run at sea in
the log of the _Aglaia_. There was no reason to connect him with the
tragedy except that the two were on the river the same day. He had
retracted, and exonerated, and handsomely eaten all manner of humble
pie, and it was to be supposed that relations had been established as
friendly as could exist between rival claimants of an estate now to be
adjudicated by the courts.
He looked down at his hand. The wound that had so perversely bled showed
only pallid lips, but no sign of red. He could not remember if he had
thoroughly wiped the gory knife and began apprehensively to search his
pockets. Not here--not there. He grew ghastly pale. His breath came
quick in suffocating gasps as he realized the truth. He had failed to
repossess himself of the knife at that supreme moment of tragedy. He had
an illuminating recollection, as if he beheld the scene anew, that the
blade had caught on some strong ligament or cartilage in the man’s
throat and as the victim swayed and fell heavily he had not sought to
secure it.
“Fool! Fool!” the empty building rang with the sound, and a score of
frantic echoes shouted opprobrium upon him. He clasped his quivering
hands above his head and sought to command his thoughts. He had been too
drunk at the time to realize the fact, but the knife was a witness which
would indubitably fix the crime upon him. Like all his personal
accessories it was the handsomest thing of the kind that could be
bought, and on the silver plate on the handle was engraved, according to
his wont, his monogram. He started violently toward the hall. He must go
back,--but he could never row the distance, exhausted, as he was,
against the current. He would have the _Aglaia_ to steam up on some
pretext, and in company with the skipper they would discover the body,
when unperceived he could repossess himself of the knife. He was
terrified at the prospect of the attempt. He felt himself already in
toils. He tossed his hands above his head and wrung them wildly. A
hoarse cry of agony burst from his lips, suddenly dying in his throat,
for--was that an echo in the resounding vacancy? A strange sound, a
great pervasive sound was filling all the air, as if the old house
quavered, and groaned, and cried out in long endured anguish. There was
a rush upon the staircase; he saw through the open doors of the
drawing-rooms shadowy, flitting figures descending in crowds as if the
ancient ghosts that had found harbor here were fleeing their refuge.
Nay, only coils on coils of dust. As he rushed forth into the hall he
perceived at the end of the long perspective the great Mississippi
River, as in some strange dislocation of the angle of vision,
reaching--illuminated and splendid--to the flaunting evening sky.
And from the Mississippi River the lenses of the steam yacht _Aglaia_,
focused on the old mansion of Duciehurst, saw it at one moment still and
silent, majestic even, in its melancholy ruin, the sun lingering on its
massive cornice and columnated portico. The next it slid as softly from
vision as an immaterial mirage. The caving bank had gone down into the
unimaginable depths of the river, carrying on its floods a thousand
acres of disintegrating land and the turbulent waters of the liberated
Mississippi were flowing deep over the cotton fields of Duciehurst
plantation, two miles inland.
In the widespread commotion of the flood it was fortunate for the
_Aglaia_, even though so far up stream--distant in the bight of the
bend--that steam was already up in the boilers. Forging up the river,
against the current, at her maximum speed, the yacht in the seething
turmoil found no safe anchorage till near the bar where the derelict
lay. Here she swung round and the officers sought to inaugurate measures
to recover if it were possible the body of Floyd-Rosney, who had
indubitably perished in the submergence of the mansion. The whole region
was aroused and aghast at the magnitude of the disaster. From the deck
of the yacht were visible hurrying groups as the population pressed
toward the ill-fated scene. The skipper’s megaphone was in constant
requisition as being an eye-witness of the calamity he alone could give
authentic information. Randal Ducie, hastening down to his levee, was
met on the summit by the information that his ancestral estate had
ceased to exist, swept from the face of the earth as completely as if it
had never been. Its restoration had long been the object nearest his
heart, its sequestration in alien possession was the hardship of his
life. But he showed scant emotion. Some subtle, inexplicable premonition
of catastrophe infinitely heart-rending annulled the sense of loss.
“Where’s my brother?” he demanded irrelevantly, and despite the
remonstrances of the by-standers he threw himself into a skiff at the
landing and pulled out on the tossing, turbulent tide. As the rage of
the river subsided the search was joined by others, and a wild rumor of
some disaster to Adrian Ducie quickly pervaded the vicinity. The finding
of his rowboat on the Arkansas shore did not prove his landing,
according to Floyd-Rosney’s forecast, for the craft was caught in a
tangle of saw-grass in a marshy swamp where footing was impracticable.
The old negro to whom Floyd-Rosney had spoken in the afternoon was now
returning from his errand down the river, which was gray with a slowly
gathering mist, and melancholy with a cast of the silent and pallid
moon. He hove near the little fleet of rowboats that roved the shadows
and asked a question concerning the appearance of the missing man, with
whom he thought it possible he had had some conversation an hour or so
ago.
“He looks like me,” said Randal Ducie, throwing his face into high
relief with an electric flashlight, and turning with poignant hope
toward the boatman.
“Oh, no, sah! No, sah!” disconsolately admitted the old darkey, blinking
in the glare. “Nebber saw two folks more onsimilar. Mr. Ran Ducie, I
knowed you, Sah, from way back. Knowed yer daddy. Dis man looked like he
thunk I war de wum o’ de yearth, an’ de yearth war built fur him, though
I never p’sumed ter talk ter him. ’Twar him fust p’sumed ter talk ter
me. He war dressed beautified, too, with white flannel suit, an’ a white
cap, an’ handsome ter kill.”
“Floyd-Rosney,” Randal muttered through his set teeth. “And where did he
go?”
“Ter de ole _Cher’kee Rose_, sah,” the negro pointed at the derelict,
lying on the bar, visible amidst the shadows thronging the river in the
ghostly gleams of the moon that was wont to patrol the deck, and seek
out the dark recesses of the cabin where the rise and subsidence of the
water registered its fluctuations, and to look through the windows of
the pilot-house where the steersman at the wheel once took his bearings.
It was a stupendous moment in a man’s life when Randal Ducie stood in
the shattered old pilot-house and looked down into his own dead face, as
it were, ghastly pale and silent, under the moon’s desolate light. The
tie between the brothers had been more than the love of women, and the
heart of the whole countryside bled for Randal’s grief. The
extraordinary resemblance of the two, their fraternal devotion, their
exile from the home of their fathers, and its wrongful detention in the
possession of others, the destruction of the property by the caving
bank, the greatest disaster the country had known for a half century,
when its restoration to its rightful heirs seemed imminent, all appealed
with tender commiseration to the heart of the world, albeit not easily
touched, and a flood of condolence poured in unregarded upon Randal
where he sat in his solitary home with bowed head and bated pulses,
scarcely living himself, admitting no business, seeing no friend,
opening no letter.
The knife that Floyd-Rosney had left piercing the dead man’s throat had
fixed the crime upon him, together with the testimony at the inquest of
the old negro boatman, who had seen him take his way to the derelict,
and that of the skipper who had watched him through the binocle of the
_Aglaia_ descend the steps, unloose both the boats that swung on the
tide, secured to a post, and set one adrift while he rowed the other,
the appurtenance of the _Aglaia_.
It was well, Randal felt, taking in these proceedings the only interest
he could scourge his mind to entertain, that he was not called upon to
prosecute on circumstantial evidence some forlorn water rat, or some
friendless negro for the millionaire’s crime, as doubtless Floyd-Rosney
had contemplated. Though the death of the gentle and genial Adrian went
unavenged, save by the heavy hand of Heaven itself, it wrought no
calamity to others, except in his incomparable loss.