and I did in a way as I do now. He is such a good man, but I have found
out that goodness, just by itself, is not enough. It may make love last,
but it can't make it begin. Why, I never even thought whether my Paul
was good or not. I must have loved him just the same."
"But you couldn't love a man if you found out that he was bad, after
believing him to be good. It wouldn't be possible for you to do that,
would it?" in strange, agitated haste.
She lifted her head and looked at him wonderingly. "I don't know what
you mean. My Paul is good! Why, he is here in the wilderness solely for
love of humanity, giving his strength, his skill, his time, and all that
he has to the service of his country and his kind, just because he is
good, and for no other reason. There is no better man living, not even
Father Orin, not even you, sir," throwing her arms around his knee and
giving it a loving squeeze. "And you know it, too, you are only laughing
at me. I don't mind at all. I am too happy to care for teasing."
She laid her head back on his knees and fell happily silent, gazing
dreamily into the flames. The wind was rising, and went roaring through
the trees around the house; but she heard it with the peaceful feeling
of shelter and safety that only happiness feels in wild weather.
Presently she asked him if he thought that souls could speak to one
another.
"It was at Anvil Rock," she said as simply as if she had been thinking
aloud. "I had never thought about loving him. He had never told me that
he loved me, but I knew then that he did. Something told me while he was
lying on the ground like a dead man. What do you think it could have
been? What was it?"
Looking up she saw the shrinking in his face, and she thought it came
from his dislike of any mention of painful subjects; but her whole heart
was in this question so that she could not let it go without pressing it
a little further.
"But tell me, dearest, can souls communicate without speech or sign--if
they only love enough?" she urged.
"You are a fanciful, romantic child," he said, trying to smile and to
speak lightly. "Why--the man was an utter stranger then--you didn't know
him at all."
He had taken her chin in his hand, and his eyes were now looking
steadily into hers; but the courage of the moment fled when she
involuntarily drew away. He was alarmed at the effect of this one slight
effort.
"Such things are too subtle for an old man, my child, too subtle,
perhaps, for any man either young or old," he said hurriedly and
confusedly. "You women see and feel many things that fly high above our
heads. And then I am duller than usual to-night. I am anxious about
business matters. The river is rising rapidly, there is danger of a
disastrous flood. My boats are not in safe places, and worst of all the
Cold Plague broke out to-day on one of them. The boat is tied up to the
island. I sent it over there immediately so that you, and the rest of
the family, might be in no danger from the spread of the epidemic. But
it worries me, and one of the boatmen is said to be dying."
"Send for my Paul. He can cure him. The plague-stricken hardly ever die
if he can get to them in time."
She said this with a pretty air of pride in her lover, and a gentle lift
of her head. He made no reply, and she turned her eyes from the fire to
his face to see why he was silent so long. He was pale with a strange
gray pallor, and he met her gaze with a startled, alarmed look. It was
the look of a man who blanches and shrinks before some sudden great
temptation. She misread the look, taking it for unwillingness to send
for her lover.
"You mustn't think of sending for Doctor Colbert if you prefer the other
doctor," with swift, fiery jealousy. "But I warn you that if you do, the
man will certainly die."
"Do you know where he is to be found in case I should want to send for
him?" he said after a moment's silence, and with constraint and
hesitation.
"He is riding so much that it is hard to tell; but, uncle, dear,"
melting and putting her arms about him, "I should not be really
offended, of course, if you were to send for the other doctor. You can,
dear, if you want to. I like him ever so much better myself, since he
took such good care of my Paul."
He laughed uneasily and got up, saying that he was going to see about
the trouble on the boat. He saw that he must have a cleared mind and
steadied nerves with time to think. And he could not think in her
presence, he could only feel her blue eyes on his face and her little
hands clasped around his knee or about his arm. He tried not to look at
her, and hurriedly began buttoning his coat before starting on his cold
way home. In drawing his coat closer, his hand came in contact with the
pearls which he had forgotten. He drew them out and hung them again
around her neck. She thanked him with a smile, but he saw that she
scarcely looked at them, that she was thinking only of her love and her
lover, though she held his hand and walked beside him to the front door.
From it they could see dimly and were able to make out the black bulk of
the boat lying far out in the river beside the island. As he looked at
it a feeling of the worthlessness of all that he owned swept over him,
overwhelming him with despair. All the gold that he had gathered, or
ever could gather, would be worthless yellow dust if he might not use it
to give her comfort or pleasure or happiness. He realized suddenly that
this was everything that his riches had meant to him ever since she had
wound herself around his heart. Money could do little for him; he was
weary and old and sad and had come to feel--as every rich man must come
to feel sooner or later--that for himself his riches meant, after all,
only food and clothes. And now he found himself facing the end of the
sole interest and happiness that he could ever hope to find in life.
Henceforth it would be with the utmost that he could do, as it had been
just now with these pearls. He fully recognized the hopelessness of
trying to win her away from her lover. That had grown plainer with every
gentle word that she had said while they had sat before the fire. And he
knew that this proud young fellow, whose glance had met his like the
crossing of swords, would never allow her to touch a penny of his money,
or anything that it could buy, if he could help it. The thought was like
tearing the heart out of his breast, and another thought sprang up again
in defence of all that he held dear. He began to breathe quickly and
heavily, like a man who has been running. He feared that she must feel
the plunging of his heart, for she was leaning against him, looking out
at the wild, windy night. But she heard only the mournful wail of the
wind through the great trees, and the roar of the river rushing under
the misty darkness. There was no moon, but the stars were shining in the
dark dome of the universe.
"I wonder why the stars look so old, while the world looks so new," she
murmured, with her head on his shoulder and her face upturned. "I wonder
why there is such a look of changelessness about the heavens, while the
earth seems changing so fast!"
Her eyes were wandering over the infinite starry spaces with wondering
awe, but he was looking down at her and he started when she cried out in
amazement, touched with alarm. She lifted her hand and pointed, and
following its direction, he saw that the comet had disappeared.
The celestial visitor was gone almost as suddenly and mysteriously as it
had come.
XXV
THE PASSING OF PHILIP ALSTON
The cold wind died down with the coming of dawn. Going to the window to
call the birds, she found the air grown unseasonably warm and saw that
it was filled with a dull mist. Leaning from the window, she looked up
the forest path, wondering if Paul had ridden along it during the night
on his way to the boat. The low, broad craft was still lying in the same
place beside the island, with no movement about it. She thought of the
sick man with pity, wishing that she could do something for him; but if
Paul had been called in time, all must be well--she had not a doubt of
that; and an unconscious smile of pride touched her anxious face. She
hardly knew why she felt vaguely anxious and uneasy, but thought that it
might be on account of the gloom of the dreary morning, and the strange
look of the swollen river. How gray and dark it was, and how heavily it
ran, almost like molten lead.
As her wandering gaze followed the stream, she saw something which was
still grayer and darker than the troubled waters. She could not tell at
first what it was, for it was a long way off, and far up the river.
With her hands over her eyes, she strained her sight, but the distance
was too great, and the yellow haze too thick. She could make out only a
wide, dark line, wavering down from the woods to the water--a strange,
moving thing without beginning or end--which seemed to be going faster
than the river. The strangeness of the night alarmed her and as she
gazed at it, fascinated, she saw David running toward the house and
waving his arms to call her attention.
"Look! Look up the river!" he shouted as soon as he had come within
hearing. "I was afraid you wouldn't see it. It's an army of squirrels
marching steadily, just like soldiers, millions and millions of them! It
has been like that for hours. I have been watching it since daylight.
The squirrels are trying to cross the river, and thousands and thousands
are already drowned. The water is brown with their bodies."
"The poor little things! What in the world can it mean, David? And look
at the birds! They don't come at all when I call them. What is the
matter with them? I don't see anything to disturb them, yet see how they
look! And hear the waterfowl screaming! And the trees, too. Why do the
leaves droop like that? How can it be so hot in December? It was never
like this before. There isn't a breath of air."
"I have noticed how strange everything seems. The forest is stiller than
I ever saw it, but the wild things that live in it are strangely
restless. I have been watching them all the morning, and I heard them in
the night."
"But what does it mean, dear? Surely some dreadful thing must be going
to happen! I wish Paul would come. Have you seen him? He is always
riding, and the woods are dangerous in a storm, and it can't be anything
else. Why don't you answer? I asked if you had seen him."
The boy turned from gazing at the strange, dark line which was still
wavering ceaselessly from the woods to the water.
"Yes, I saw him and Father Orin going home an hour or so ago. They had
been out all night." He said this absently, with his eyes turning back
to the wonderful spectacle.
"My Paul is wanted in many places at once," she said, forgetting her
uneasiness in a woman's pride in the power of the man she loves. "But I
hope he found time to visit the sick man on uncle Philip's boat,"
mindful even then of a woman's wish to draw together the men she loves.
"Can you see any clouds, David? I can't--and yet this strange yellow
vapor that thickens the air is certainly growing heavier every moment.
What can it be? It isn't at all like a fog. I am frightened. Come
indoors. I am coming downstairs. Maybe uncle Robert or William can tell
us what all this means."
But there was nothing to be learned in the great room below. The men of
the family were as helpless as the women. All were waiting and watching
for some nameless calamity, weighed down by that overwhelming,
paralyzing dread of the unknown which unnerves the bravest and makes the
most powerful utterly powerless. The old ladies, trembling and silent,
clung close to the chimney-corner, scarcely looking at one another. The
judge and his nephew were sitting in silence near the front door which
had been opened on account of the sudden heat. They got up hurriedly,
and turned nervously, startled even by the faint rustle of Ruth's skirts
on the stairs. And before they could speak, the strained stillness was
violently torn by a sudden loud, shrill sound, such as none of the
terrified listeners had ever heard before--a long, unearthly shriek,
which seemed to come from neither brute nor human. For a moment not a
cry was uttered, not a word was spoken, and terrified eyes stared
unseeingly into whitening faces. And then the judge, suddenly realizing
what the sound was, broke into shaken, painful laughter.
"It is the whistle of the steamboat--the first steamboat on the Ohio.
How could we have forgotten?" he said. "It is the _Orleans_ passing down
the river. Come to the door. We must see it go by. It doesn't stop here
and none of us should miss seeing it, for the sight of the first steamer
on western waters is something to be stored in memory. Never mind the
signs of the storm. There will be many other storms, but never another
first steamboat down the Ohio. Come out and see it."
"We can get a better view from the river bank," cried Ruth. "Come along,
David!"
Holding hands, the girl and the boy ran to the shore, leaving the others
to watch the great spectacle from the doorstep. And thus all stood,
marvelling like every living creature whose eyes followed it down that
long river. But only the judge could partly grasp the greatness of the
event; only he could partly realize what it meant to the West and the
world. Yet every one waited and watched as if spellbound, till the last
of those first victorious banners of blue smoke thus unfurled over the
conquered wilderness, had waved slowly out of sight around the great
river's majestic bend.
This had brought a momentary forgetfulness of the strange look of the
heavens and the earth; but the consciousness of it now rushed back with
increased alarm. There were still no clouds to be seen anywhere, no
visible signs of an approaching storm; but the thick veil of yellowish
vapor was fast drawing an unnatural twilight over the noonday. Through
this awful dimness the sun was shining faintly, like a great globe of
heated copper, thus shedding a strange light, even more alarming than
the sinister darkness.
Every soul in the wilderness must now have shrunk, shuddering and
appalled, before this unmistakable approach of some frightful
convulsion of nature. The people of Cedar House, like all the rest,
could do nothing but wait in agony for the unknown blow to fall. It
seemed an endless time in falling; under the breathless, torturing
suspense the moments became hours, with no change except a darkening of
the unnatural twilight, an increase of the unnatural sultriness, and a
deepening of the unnatural stillness. The little group in the great room
of Cedar House sat still and silent, save as they unconsciously drew
closer together, moved by the instinct of humanity in common danger.
The girl alone kept her post by the open door and her watch over the
forest path, looking for the coming of her lover. She knew that but one
thing could keep him from her side, and with all her longing for his
presence, a thrill of happiness came from his absence. Through all its
distress her heart exulted in the thought that he was faithful in his
service to suffering humanity, even when love itself beckoned him away.
A great tide of religious gratitude rose in her heart sweeping all fear
before it. The love of a man who was both strong and good--the greatest
gift that life could give to any woman--was safely hers. Holding this
assurance to her heart, she grew wonderfully calm. There could be
nothing to fear. In this world or the next, all was well. A wonderful
spiritual exaltation bore her upward on its strong, swift wings, high
above all the surrounding gloom and terror, till she rested on a white
height of perfect peace. There was a rapt look on her quiet, pale face
as she sat thus with it turned toward the forest path. She arose quietly
and stood in the door, gazing at a shadowy form which came suddenly from
under the dark trees. The thick yellow mist wrapped it darkly, but she
presently knew by intuition rather than by sight that Paul was really
coming at last, and she flew toward him like a homing bird. He was
urging his horse, but the animal held back with an unwillingness such as
he had never shown before; so that when the young man saw the girl
flying toward him he leapt from the saddle, leaving the horse to follow
or not as he would, and ran to meet her. As soon as she could speak, she
told him that she was not afraid now that he had come, saying it over
and over; yet she nevertheless clung to him as if she would never let
him go.
"And you will take care of the others, too," she said. "Uncle Robert
doesn't know what to do, nor William. Oh! Look! The poor black people!
There they come running up from the quarters. See how they are crowding
round the door, wild with terror! But you will know what to say to them
as well as the others. I am not afraid, with you," quietly looking up in
his grave face. "Is it the end of the world, dear heart?"
He said that he knew no more than herself what it could be, unless some
terrific tempest might be near. They moved hurriedly on toward the
house, and as they went he told her that he was going to the boat where
he had been called to see a man ill of the plague. The call had come
during the night, but he could not leave another patient to answer it
more quickly. And now he would not leave her, for all the rest of the
world, till they knew what this awful thing was which seemed about to
happen. The white people had come out of the house and stood speechless
and motionless, looking up at the heavens and down at the earth, seeing
both but dimly through that ghastly twilight so awfully lit by that
lurid ball of fire.
"Here comes Father Orin!" cried the doctor. "Look at Toby and my horse;
see how they are walking!"
The horses could be indistinctly seen advancing slowly and reluctantly
through the yellowish gloom with a curious, sliding motion, as if
stepping on ice. Paul started toward them, but paused, struck
motionless, and held by a sight still more strange. The same breathless
stillness brooded over everything; the windless air now weighed like
lead, and yet at this moment the greatest trees and smallest bushes
suddenly began to quiver from bottom to top. As far as the horror-struck
eyes could reach through that unnatural twilight, the mightiest
cottonwoods were now bending and nodding like the frailest reeds. And
then there arose in the far northeast a faint rumbling which rushed
swiftly onward toward the southeast, growing, louder as it came, and
breaking over Cedar House in a thunderous roar. At the deafening crash
Paul turned and ran back to Ruth, catching her in his arms. The ground
was now sliding beneath their feet. The solid earth was waving and
rising and falling like a stormy sea.
"It's an earthquake," he whispered, with his lips against her cheek.
"Don't fear, it will pass."
A second shock followed the first, and there was no lightening of the
dreadful gloom which was one of the greatest horrors of that horrible
time. But the men were rallying now that they knew what they had to
meet, and they quickly and firmly drew the terror-stricken, helpless old
women further away from the house, fearing that the massive logs of its
walls might be shaken down.
"That isn't far enough," said Father Orin. "Come still farther,"
glancing round for the safest refuge. "Merciful God! Look at the river!"
The Ohio, beaten back by the lashed and maddened Mississippi, was
leaping in great furious waves, high and wild, as the ocean's in a
tempest. These monstrous, foaming billows were springing far up the
shores on both sides of the river, and devouring vast stretches of land
covered with gigantic trees. The giants of the forest fell, groaning,
into the boiling, swirling flood which leapt to catch them and swallowed
them up with a hideous, hissing noise. Sunken trees which had lain for
ages on the bottom of the river rose above the water like ghosts rising
to meet the newly slain.
"The boat," moaned Ruth. "Uncle Philip's boat, and the sick man!"
Every eye turned in the direction of the island. No one spoke after that
first look. None marvelled to see that the boat was missing; nothing
afloat could live in that seething maelstrom, thickened with melted
earth and tangled with fallen trees. The overwhelming thing which their
faculties could not grasp was the fact that the island itself was gone.
They could only stand staring, expecting to see it between the
mountainous waves, utterly unable to believe the truth, that it had sunk
out of sight and was resting on the bottom of the river. And as they
were thus still searching the wild, dark flood with incredulous eyes,
they suddenly saw a small row-boat in the middle of the stream. It
darted down a towering wave and flew up the next, and came flying on
like some wild, winged thing, toward the Kentucky shore. Another and a
wilder wave caught it, lifted it aloft, and tossed it still nearer the
land. It was not far away now, and there came a sudden lightening of the
gloom, so that they could see two men in the little boat.
"They can never live to reach the shore!" cried the doctor.
"As God wills," said the priest.
Instinctively every eye but the girl's was scanning the shore, trying to
find something that would float, something that might help to save the
men in the boat. But there was nothing in sight; the fierce waves had
swallowed everything, and the helpless people on the bank could only
turn again to watch the little boat. Ruth's gaze had never wandered from
it, and she still watched it flying from one wave to another, gazing as
intently as she could through the tears that rained over her pale
cheeks. She saw it go up a gigantic wave with a flying leap and dart
down again, and then it was lost to sight so long that they thought it
was gone. But at last it came up near the shore, overturned, and with
only one man clinging to it. He was on the far side of the frail shell,
so that they could not see him distinctly, although he was not far from
the shore and there was more light. And then a swirl of the wild waters
brought him to the nearer side, and raised him higher.
"It's an old man!" sobbed Ruth. "His head is white. Oh! Oh! It's uncle
Philip! It's uncle Philip! He has been to the island. Save him, Paul!"
The doctor had already thrown off his coat, and was throwing aside his
boots. He had not waited for her last words; he was not sure that it
was Philip Alston; but he knew that some fellow-creature was perishing
almost within reach of his arm. He was now running down the trembling
bank, and in another instant had plunged into the boiling, roaring,
furious flood, and was swimming toward that wildly rising and falling
silver head, which shone like a beacon, through the lurid light. It was
hard to keep anything in sight. He was a strong swimmer, but his full
strength had not come back, and the fury of the waves was swirling trees
like straws.
After that one involuntary appeal, Ruth was silent. Her heart almost
stopped beating as she realized what her cry had done. A woman's mind
acts with marvellous quickness when all she loves is at stake. As in a
lightning flash she knew that she had sent her lover to risk his life
for her foster-father, without knowing what she did. What she would have
done had there been time to hesitate she could not tell, dared not
think. It must have been a bitter choice, this risking of her lover's
life against the certainty of her father's death. But now she realized
nothing, felt nothing, except that the desperate die was cast. She did
not notice that the others followed as she flew after Paul to the
river's very brink. The earth had ceased quivering, but the shores were
still crumbling under the crushing blows of the maddened waves. The
thick, dark water coiled unheeded about her feet, as she stood silent,
straining her eyes after her lover as he swam toward that silver head
which still rose and fell with the waves. She did not move when she saw
a gigantic cottonwood lean, uprooted and tottering. She did not utter a
cry when it fell behind him, cutting him off and hiding him, so that
neither he nor the silver head could be seen from the land. She stood as
if turned to stone, waiting--only waiting--hardly hoping that it had not
carried them both down. She began to weep softly, and her hands were
suddenly and unconsciously clasped in silent prayer, when she saw him
once more swimming--still swimming--but coming back around the top of
the tree.