IN MORTAL PERIL.
Listen to the water-wheel
All the live long day--
How the clinking of the mill
Wears the hours away.
--_Old Song_.
People always wondered why old Cooper ever built his saw-mill in
so wild a place as that lonely glen; but the scene, the crazy old
building, and the strange old man, all seemed to chime together, and
no one was surprised that when he died he expressed the wish to be
buried in the glen, close to the old mill, that his dreamless rest
might be soothed by the sound of the grinding wheel day by day. Madame
Rumor said that the old man's ghost haunted the wild, forbidding gorge,
and Kathleen shuddered with dread as she climbed up the rocky path,
with the cascade tumbling wildly beneath, on her rendezvous with her
unknown correspondent. She had come within half a mile in a cab, which
she left waiting for her while she made the rest of the journey on
foot. To escape Helen's kind inquiries, she had said she was going to
spend the night with Mrs. Stone, which she really intended doing on her
return.
How gloomy the old mill looked in the pallor of the swiftly falling
night! All winter the snows had held it bound in an icy thrall, but now
the April sun had sent the mass of foaming, dashing water tumbling over
the falls, and turned the old saw. What a scene for a crime! thought
Kathleen, with a thrill of superstitious dread, as she hurried on in
the deepening gloom, casting furtive glances about her, as though she
expected to see Cooper's disembodied spirit hovering near. Frightened
and nervous, she half regretted that she had come, and at the hooting
of an owl in the tree near by, she uttered a frightened scream which
rang through the gloomy glen in hollow, reverberating echoes, and fell
prostrate on the ground.
An icy fear seemed to clutch her heart. It seemed to her that she had
no strength to rise to go on. The gloom, the darkness, coupled with the
mystery of the whole affair, began to weigh with crushing force upon
her spirits.
She laid her fair golden head down on the rough stones, and prayed
piteously:
"Dear God! give me strength to go on, to bear whatever is before me!
For, oh! I love him so, I love him so! and I _must_ know if he is
worthy of that love! If he is not--if they tell me he is guilty of that
sin with which Fedora accused him, dear God, let me die! I can not
live and know him false and wicked! I would sooner throw myself over
those rocks down into the terrible cascade, and end my wretched young
life!"
New courage came with that incoherent prayer, and struggling to her
feet, she tottered on, murmuring faintly:
"Oh, Ralph, dear Ralph, how much I must love you to risk so much for
your sake!"
She gained the threshold at last. With a hopeful glance upward at the
feeble glimmering light in the window, she knocked upon the door. It
was jerked rudely open on the instant, and Kathleen saw before her a
frowsy-looking old woman with a short clay pipe in her mouth.
This repulsive old woman thrust out a hand and dragged the trembling
girl into the mill.
"What made you so long? I've been expecting you more than an hour!" she
exclaimed, in a tone of savage anger.
Not waiting for an answer, she dragged the girl rudely along with her
into a small room, and, turning quickly, slipped the bolt into the lock.
Kathleen gave a startled glance around the room. No one was there
but the old hag, who was gazing at her with malicious eyes, in whose
tigerish gleam of hate there was something so strangely familiar that
she shuddered with terror, and a name leaped to her lips:
"Fedora!"
"Yes, Fedora; but you have keen eyes to see through this disguise,"
cried the woman. "Do you remember, I told you I would murder you if I
ever got out of prison? Well, I shall keep my vow!" She sprung savagely
toward her, but at the cruel grasp of her foe Kathleen uttered a moan
of horror and slipped limply to the floor like one already dead.
"Is she dead so easily? I hope not, for I want to torture her first!"
hissed Fedora, spurning the prostrate body with her foot.
She tore open the door at a slight tap upon it, and stood face to face
with Ivan Belmont.
He spoke hurriedly:
"Ralph Chainey is coming, Fedora! Quick! lock the girl in, and come out
and meet him alone. I must not be seen yet."
Fedora obeyed him, and Kathleen, coming back to life with a shuddering
gasp, found herself alone, locked in, and heard outside the voice of
her lover, and the words spoken held her spell-bound.
"Kathleen? Where is Kathleen? She told me to meet her here."
With a hissing laugh of savage hate, Fedora flung off the hood that
she wore and stood revealed, scarred, hideous, gray-haired, but Fedora
still--the woman who held his honor in her light keeping and bore his
name.
"Kathleen is dead!" she laughed. "Dead, and I killed her without a
blow! My weapon was a lie. It slew her as fatally as a dagger!"
He could not speak. He could only stare at her in dumb horror as she
continued:
"Do you see these diamonds flashing in my ears? They are the ones that
were stolen from Kathleen Carew the night of the attempted murder, when
you found and saved her at Lincoln Station. I told her that you, my
husband, did that foul deed, and robbing her of her money and jewels,
brought them to me. A fiendish lie, you say? Ha! ha! but it killed her,
all the same. Do you want to know the real thief? It was Ivan Belmont,
my lover; and she was slain by a lie!"
Kathleen had struggled with difficulty to her feet. She tottered to
the little window that looked into the mill; she saw her noble lover's
handsome face, and uttered a piercing cry:
"Ralph! Ralph! I am here! Save me! Save me!"
He sprung toward the voice. The movement was fatal.
Ivan Belmont had stolen up softly behind him, bearing a heavy mallet in
his hand. A moment more, and it was lifted high in air, and Kathleen's
anguished eyes beheld her darling struck down before her into apparent
death!
Kathleen would never forget the horror of that moment. It seemed
to her that she went mad with grief and terror. Shriek after shriek
burst from her lips, and she beat her little hands wildly against
the smoky little window-pane, struggling wildly to get free. But the
fiends before her did not heed her cries. Between them they lifted the
inanimate form of their victim, and bearing it a short distance away,
but in full view of the window, they laid it on a plank upon a table
in front of the large steel circular saw. Kathleen saw his arms fall
limply to his side, and the dark curly head drop back heavily. The
death-white face, the closed eyes, assured her that he was either in a
deep swoon or already dead from the terrible blow that had felled him
to the ground.
Hushing the piercing shrieks upon her blanched lips, Kathleen watched
in terrible suspense the movements of the two fiends.
Perhaps they doubted whether their victim was already dead, for they
bent over him, feeling his pulse and listening for his heart.
"He lives," Ivan Belmont said, with fiendish joy. "Let us bind him hand
and foot, and leave him on the plank till he revives. I want to enjoy
his agony when he realizes the awful death that lies before him. He
must know that Kathleen is here, that she will witness his death, and
then meet the same horrible fate."
It was a scene on which the devils in hell might have gloated: the
old mill, with its dim lights and strange, flickering shadows; the
prostrate man, with his death-white face; the two fiends binding him
with strong cords, lest he should recover and escape their vengeful
fury; and looking on with anguished eyes at the doom of her beloved was
our beautiful Kathleen.
"He revives!" hissed Fedora.
"Good!" laughed Ivan, hoarsely; and he looked back over his shoulder at
Kathleen's convulsed, almost supernaturally pale face at the window.
"Ha! ha! my proud lady, you would send me to prison for stealing your
diamonds, would you? But I foiled your game! It was I that decoyed
you to Richmond with a lying letter; I that flung you into the deep,
dark river to perish. Well, you escaped then, but you will not be so
fortunate now. Do you realize the fate that lies before you? I decoyed
both you and your lover here. Why, you ask? For revenge upon you both.
Do you see yonder glittering saw, with its hungry teeth, waiting to cut
your delicate body to atoms and drink your life-blood? Well, we are
only waiting for you to see your lover dead before we devote you to the
same torture. He is dead already, you say? No; he is reviving. See that
tremor creep along his frame! See his eyelids tremble! Ha! his eyes
open! he sees! he understands! Oh, the anguish on his face! How happy
it makes me! Look, Fedora, at his tortures. Are we not already avenged?"
Her answer was a laugh of fiendish triumph.
"Oh, yes; it is glorious--glorious! I am in no haste for their death. I
like to see them suffering like this. I want to prolong their torture!"
she exclaimed. "What do you say, dear Ivan? Shall we let them live a
few hours yet to realize the horrors that surround them? What avails
their love, their beauty, their wealth now? To-morrow they will be
lifeless clods, and I the rich widow, Mrs. Chainey!"
"Baffled!" said a hoarse, triumphant voice, and, turning, she met
Ralph Chainey's burning gaze. "You mistake," said her victim, faintly
but audibly. "I made my will weeks ago, and divided my whole fortune
between my mother and Kathleen."
A scream of baffled fury escaped her lips; but Ivan said, quickly:
"You can contest the will, Fedora."
"Yes; I will fight for my rights to the bitter end!" she shrieked, then
sprung toward him in a fury. "Let us end this farce; let us show them
no further mercy. He dies now, Ivan! Go, set the saw in motion!"
He moved forward in eager obedience to her order, and Ralph Chainey
realized that his moments were indeed numbered, and that death in the
most horrible and soul-sickening shape was approaching. He made an
almost superhuman effort to burst the bonds that held him fast, but
the attempt was useless. He was weakened by the illness through which
he had just passed, and could not move. With a prayer in his heart
to Heaven, he turned his dark, despairing eyes toward the beautiful,
anguished face at the window.
"Courage, my own love!" he called to her, bravely. "Death is but a
fleeting pang, and then it will be life forever. Turn your sweet eyes
away, my own Kathleen; do not torture yourself with the sight of my
fate. You will come to me soon, and we----" His voice broke, drowned by
the whir of the wheel as it began its revolutions, slowly drawing the
plank with its doomed victim within its jaws.
Oh, God, what a moment!
Surely the pitying angels, who know and see all things, hovered near
and aided weak, despairing Kathleen in her frantic struggle for liberty.
As Ivan Belmont stepped out to open the water-chute, she sprung with
a strength born of despair against the door. The rusty lock yielded
to her onslaught, the door fell crashing beneath her weight, and
staggering, tottering, her loosened golden hair flying like a banner
behind her, Kathleen fled across the moonlit space, the torturing sound
of the revolving wheel grating on her ears, the flying sawdust blinding
her eyes, and gained his side. Brave Kathleen, noble Kathleen, you are
not one-half a second too soon! The swift revolutions of the saw are
drawing your doomed lover closer to the encroaching steel! Throw out in
an agony those fair white arms, gifted with such momentary, wondrous
strength, grasp your loved one wildly, eagerly, and draw him madly from
his couch of deadly peril! Saved! And watching angels weep joyful tears
at the victory of love over hate and revenge.
Fedora, dazed with wonder, mad with rage, darted forward to thwart
Kathleen's angelic purpose. But Heaven had interposed. Ere she reached
them, Kathleen's frenzied hands had dragged Ralph from the fatal plank.
His falling body struck the fiend, tripping and throwing her violently
upon the cruel saw. Blindly she threw up her arms, shrieked in demoniac
fear, and then--there came a horrible, grating sound, the sickening
smell of fresh blood spurting into the air, and--Fedora's headless body
fell with an awful thud upon the floor, while from the gloom beyond
there followed upon her dying shriek the sound of pistol-shots and
men's angry voices! Jack Wren and Teddy Darrell had arrived upon the
scene; but only that the heavenly hosts had helped Kathleen, they would
have come too late.
Ivan Belmont, in the midst of his exultation over his terrible crime,
had met a swift retribution. Turning to rejoin Fedora, and gloat
with her over the destruction of their victims, he was confronted by
the detective and Teddy Darrell. Snatching a pistol from his breast,
he fired at the foremost one, and received in return a fatal bullet
from the ready weapon of the dashing detective. He fell dead, and his
crime-stained soul wandered forth on the wings of the night, with that
of Fedora, to the realms of darkness and eternal gloom.
* * * * *
Hastening into the mill in search of Kathleen, the two men were
horrified to find upon the floor the ghastly, decapitated body of
Fedora.
In another moment they saw near at hand the inanimate forms of Ralph
and Kathleen.
"Oh, Heaven, we are too late! They are all dead!" exclaimed Teddy in
anguish; but a low moan from Kathleen arrested him.
He stooped over his beautiful betrothed and lifted her in his arms.
She opened her eyes, but they gazed blankly into his, and Kathleen
murmured, gladly:
"Ralph, darling! I have saved you from a terrible death. Thank God!
thank God! for I love only you, and had you died, I should have gone
mad with grief!"
Teddy Darrell started and shivered, but the arms that held Kathleen
did not let her fall, only pressed her closer to his throbbing heart.
"She loves Ralph Chainey. That is the key to the mystery of her
coldness for me," he murmured, sadly. "Oh, my beautiful love! must I
then lose you? I loved you so, and I would have tried to make you so
happy. Must I give you up?" And only the pitying angels knew the pang
that rent his heart.