The King of Arcadia

by Francis Lynde

  XXII

  A CRY IN THE NIGHT

  The little French office clock--Bromley's testimonial from hisenthusiastic and admiring classmates of the _Ecole Polytechnique_--hadchimed the hour of ten; the August moon rose high in a firmament ofinfinite depths above the deserted bunk shanties and the silentmachinery on the camp mesa; the big touring car, long since cooled fromits racing climb over the hills of the roundabout road, cast a grotesqueand fore-shortened shadow like that of a dwarfed band-wagon on thestone-chip whiteness of the cutting yard; and still the members of theauto party lingered on the porch of the adobe bungalow.

  For Ballard, though he was playing the part of the unprepared host, theprolonged stay of the Castle-'Cadians was an unalloyed joy. When he hadestablished Mrs. Van Bryck in the big easy-chair, reminiscent ofEngineer Macpherson and his canny skill with carpenter's tools, and haddragged out the blanket-covered divan for Miss Cantrell and Bigelow, hewas free. And freedom, at that moment, meant the privilege of sitting alittle apart on the porch step with Elsa Craigmiles.

  For the first time in weeks the Kentuckian was able to invite his souland to think and speak in terms of comfortable unembarrassment. The longstrain of the industrial battle was off, and Mr. Pelham's triumphalbeating of drums had been accomplished without loss of life, and with nomore serious consequences than a lamed arm for the man who was best ableto keep his own counsel. Having definitely determined to send in hisresignation in the morning, and thus to avoid any possible entanglementwhich might arise when the instability of the great dam's foundationsshould become generally known, the burden of responsibility wasimmeasurably lightened. And to cap the ecstatic climax in itssentimental part, Elsa's mood was not mocking; it was sympathetic to aheart-mellowing degree.

  One thing only sounded a jarring note in the soothing theme. That wasyoung Blacklock's very palpable anxiety and restlessness. When thecollegian had placed the big car, and had stopped its motor andextinguished its lights, he had betaken himself to the desert of stonechips, rambling therein aimlessly, but never, as Ballard observed,wandering out of eye-reach of the great gray wall of masonry, of thegrowing lake in the crooking elbow of the canyon, and the path-girtedhillside of the opposite shore. Blacklock's too ostentatioustime-killing was the latest of the small mysteries; and when theKentuckian came to earth long enough to remark it, he fancied that Jerrywas waiting for a cue of some kind--waiting and quite obviouslywatching.

  It was some time after Mrs. Van Bryck, plaintively protesting againstbeing kept out so late, had begun to doze in her chair, and Bigelow hadfetched wraps from the car wherewith to cloak a shuddery Miss Cantrell,that Ballard's companion said, guardedly: "Don't you think it would bein the nature of a charity to these two behind us if we were to shareJerry's wanderings for a while?"

  "I'm not sharing with Jerry--or any other man--just now," Ballardobjected. None the less, he rose and strolled with her across the stoneyard; and at the foot of the great derrick he pulled out one of thecutter's benches for a seat. "This is better than the porch step," hewas saying, when Blacklock got up from behind a rejected thorough-stonea few yards away and called to him.

  "Just a minute, Mr. Ballard: I've got a corking big rattler under thisrock. Bring a stick, if you can find one."

  Ballard found a stick and went to the help of the snake-catcher.

  "Don't give him a chance at you, Jerry," he warned. "Where is he?"

  The collegian drew him around to the farther side of the greatthorough-block.

  "It was only a leg-pull," was the low-toned explanation. "I've beentrying all evening to get a word with you, and I had to invent thesnake. Wingfield says we're all off wrong on the mystery chase--'wayoff. You're to watch the dam--that's what he told me to tell you; watchit close till he comes down here from Castle 'Cadia."

  "Watch the dam?" queried the engineer. "What am I to look for?"

  "I don't know another blessed thing about it. But there's somethingdoing; something bigger than--'sh! Miss Elsa's asking about the snake.Cut it out--cut it all out!"

  "It was a false alarm," Ballard explained, when he rejoined hiscompanion at the derrick's foot. "Jerry has an aggravated attack ofimaginationitis. You were saying----?"

  "I wasn't saying anything; but I shall begin now--if you'll sit down.You must be dying to know why we came down here to-night, of all thenights that ever were; and why we are staying so long past our welcome."

  "I never felt less like dying since the world began; and you couldn'toutstay your welcome if you should try," he answered, out of a fullheart. "My opportunities to sit quietly in blissful nearness to youhaven't been so frequent that I can afford to spoil this one withfoolish queryings about the whys and wherefores."

  "Hush!" she broke in imperatively. "You are saying light things again inthe very thick of the miseries! Have you forgotten that to-day--a fewhours ago--another attempt was made upon your life?"

  "No; I haven't forgotten," he admitted.

  "Be honest with me," she insisted. "You are not as indifferent as youwould like to have me believe. Do you know who made the attempt?"

  "Yes." He answered without realising that the single word levelled allthe carefully raised barriers of concealment; and when the realisationcame, he could have bitten his tongue for its incautious slip.

  "Then you doubtless know who is responsible for all the terriblehappenings; the--the _crimes_?"

  Denial was useless now, and he said "Yes," again.

  "How long have you known this?"

  "I have suspected it almost from the first."

  She turned upon him like some wild creature at bay.

  "Why are you waiting? Why haven't you had him arrested and tried andcondemned, like any other common murderer?"

  He regarded her gravely, as the hard, white moonlight permitted. No manever plumbs a woman's heart in its ultimate depths; least of all theheart of the woman he knows best and loves most.

  "You seem to overlook the fact that I am his daughter's lover," he said,as if the simple fact settled the matter beyond question.

  "And you have never sought for an explanation?--beyond the one whichwould stamp him as the vilest, the most inhuman of criminals?" she wenton, ignoring his reason for condoning the crimes.

  "I have; though quite without success, I think--until to-day."

  "But to-day?" she questioned, anxiously, eagerly.

  He hesitated, picking and choosing among the words. And in the end hemerely begged her to help him. "To-day, hope led me over into the valleyof a great shadow. Tell me, Elsa, dear: is your father always fullyaccountable for his actions?"

  Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap, and there were tense lines ofsuffering about the sweet mouth.

  "You have guessed the secret--my secret," she said, with the heart-breakin her tone. And then: "Oh, you don't know, you can't imagine, whatterrible agonies I have endured: and alone, always alone!"

  "Tell me," he commanded lovingly. "I have a good right to know."

  "The best right of all: the right of a patient and loving friend." Shestopped, and then went on in the monotone of despair: "It is in theblood--a dreadful heritage. Do you--do you know how your father died,Breckenridge?"

  "Not circumstantially; in an illness, I have been told. I was too youngto know anything more than I was told; too young to feel the loss. Didsome one tell me it was a fever?"

  "It was not a fever," she said sorrowfully. "He was poisoned--by ahorrible mistake. My father and his brother Abner were practisingphysicians in Lexington, your old home and ours; both of them young,ardent and enthusiastic in their profession. Uncle Abner was called toprescribe for your father--his life-long friend--in a trivial sickness.By some frightful mistake, the wrong drug was given and your fatherdied. Poor Uncle Abner paid for it with his reason, and, a few monthslater, with his own life. And a little while after his brother's deathin the asylum, Father threw up his practice and his profession, and camehere to bury himself in Arcadia."

  The Kentuckian remembered Colonel Cra
igmiles's sudden seizure at hisfirst sight of the dead Ballard's son, and saw the pointing of it.Nevertheless, he said, soberly: "That proves nothing, you know."

  "Nothing of itself, perhaps. But it explains all the fearful things Ihave seen with my own eyes. Two years ago, after the trouble with Mr.Braithwaite, father seemed to change. He became bitterly vindictiveagainst the Arcadia Company, and at times seemed to put his whole soulinto the fight against it. Then the accidents began to happen, and--oh,I can't tell you the dreadful things I have seen, or the more dreadfulones I have suspected! I have watched him--followed him--when he did notsuspect it. After dinner, the night you arrived, he left us all on theportico at Castle 'Cadia, telling me that he was obliged to come downhere to the mine. Are you listening?"

  "You needn't ask that: please go on."

  "I thought it very strange; that he would let even a business errandtake him away from us on our first evening; and so I--I made an excuseto the others and followed him. Breckenridge, I saw him throw the stonefrom the top of that cliff--the stone that came so near killing you orMr. Bromley, or both of you."

  There had been a time when he would have tried to convince her that shemust doubt the evidence of her own senses; but now it was too late: thatmilestone had been passed in the first broken sentence of her pitifulconfession.

  "There was no harm done, that time," he said, groping loyally for theavailable word of comforting.

  "It was God's mercy," she asserted. "But listen again: that other night,when Mr. Bromley was hurt ... After you had gone with the man who camefor you, I hurried to find my father, meaning to ask him to send Otto inthe little car to see if there was anything we could do. Aunt June saidthat father was lying down in the library: he was not there. I ranup-stairs. His coat and waistcoat were on the bed, and hismackintosh--the one he always wears when he goes out after sundown--wasgone. After a little while he came in, hurriedly, secretly, and he wouldnot believe me when I told him Mr. Bromley was hurt; he seemed to besure it must be some one else. Then I knew. He had gone out to waylayyou on your walk back to the camp, and by some means had mistaken Mr.Bromley for you."

  She was in the full flood-tide of the heart-broken confession now, andin sheer pity he tried to stop her.

  "Let it all go," he counselled tenderly. "What is done, is done; and nowthat the work here is also done, there will be no more trouble for you."

  "No; I must go on," she insisted. "Since others, who have no right toknow, have found out, I must tell you."

  "Others?" he queried.

  "Yes: Mr. Wingfield, for one. Unlike you, he has not tried to becharitable. He believes----"

  "He doesn't love you as I do," Ballard interrupted quickly.

  "He doesn't love me at all--that way; it's Dosia. Hadn't you suspected?That was why he joined Aunt Janet's party--to be with Dosia."

  "Thus vanishes the final shadow: there is nothing to come between usnow," he exulted; and his unhurt arm drew her close.

  "Don't!" she shuddered, shrinking away from him. "That is the bitterestdrop in the cup of misery. You refuse to think of the awful heritage Ishould bring you; but I think of it--day and night. When your telegramcame from Boston to Mr. Lassley at New York, I was going with theLassleys--not to Norway, but to Paris, to try to persuade Doctor Perard,the great alienist, to come over and be our guest at Castle 'Cadia. Itseemed to be the only remaining hope. But when you telegraphed yourchanged plans, I knew I couldn't go; I knew I must come home. And inspite of all, he has tried three times to kill you. You know he must beinsane; tell me you know it," she pleaded.

  "Since it lifts a burden too heavy to be borne, I am very willing tobelieve it," he rejoined gravely. "I understand quite fully now. And itmakes no difference--between us, I mean. You must not let it make adifference. Let the past be past, and let us come back to the present.Where is your father now?"

  "After dinner he went with Mr. Wingfield and Otto to the upper canyon.There is a breakwater at the canyon portal which they hoped might savethe power-house and laboratory from being undermined by the river, andthey were going to strengthen it with bags of sand. I was afraid of whatmight come afterward--that you might be here alone and unsuspecting. SoI persuaded Cousin Janet and the others to make up the car-party."

  From where they were sitting at the derrick's foot, the great boomleaned out like a giant's arm uplifted above the canyon lake. With themoon sweeping toward the zenith, the shadow of the huge iron beam wasclearly cut on the surface of the water. Ballard's eye had beenmechanically marking the line of shadow and its changing position as thewater level rose in the Elbow.

  "The reservoir is filling a great deal faster than I supposed it would,"he said, bearing his companion resolutely away from the painful things.

  "There have been storms on the main range all day," was the reply."Father has a series of electrical signal stations all along the uppercanyon. He said at the dinner-table that the rise to-night promises tobe greater than any we have ever seen."

  Ballard came alive upon the professional side of him with a suddenquickening of the workaday faculties. With the utmost confidence in thatpart of the great retaining-wall for which he was personallyresponsible--the superstructure--he had still been hoping that the hugereservoir lake would fill normally; that the dam would not be calledupon to take its enormous stresses like an engine starting under a fullload. It was for this reason that he had been glad to time the closingof the spillway in August, when the flow of the river was at itsminimum. But fate, the persistent ill-fortune which had dogged theArcadian enterprise from the beginning, seemed to be gathering itsforces for a final blow.

  "Cloud-bursts?" he questioned. "Are they frequent in the head basin ofthe Boiling Water?"

  "Not frequent, but very terrible when they do occur. I have seen theElbow toss its spray to the top of this cliff--once, when I was quitesmall; and on that day the lower part of our valley was, for a fewhours, a vast flood lake."

  "Was that before or after the opening of your father's mine overyonder?" queried Ballard.

  "It was after. I suppose the mine was flooded, and I remember there wasno work done in it for a long time. When it was reopened, a few yearsago, father had that immense bulkhead and heavy, water-tight door put into guard against another possible flood."

  Ballard made the sign of comprehension. Here was one of the mysteriesvery naturally accounted for. The bulkhead and iron-bound door of thezirconium mine were, indeed, fortifications; but the enemy to berepulsed was nature--not man.

  "And the electric signal service system in the upper canyon is a part ofthe defence for the mine?" he predicated.

  "Yes. It has served on two or three occasions to give timely warning sothat the miners could come up and seal the door in the bulkhead. But ithas been a long time since a cloud-burst flood has risen high enough inthe Elbow to threaten the mine."

  Silence supervened; the silence of the flooding moonlight, the starkhills and the gently lapping waters. Ballard's brain was busy with thenewly developed responsibilities. There was a little space for action,but what could be done? In all probability the newly completed dam wasabout to be subjected to the supreme test, violently and suddenlyapplied. The alternative was to open the spillway gate, using thecut-off tunnel as a sort of safety-valve when the coming flood watershould reach the Elbow.

  But there were an objection and an obstacle. Now that he knew thecondition of the honeycombed tunnel, Ballard hesitated to make it theraceway for the tremendously augmented torrent. And for the obstaclethere was a mechanical difficulty: with the weight of the deepening lakeupon it, the stop-gate could be raised only by the power-screws; and thefires were out in the engine that must furnish the power.

  The Kentuckian was afoot and alert when he said: "You know theprobabilities better than any of us: how much time have we before theseflood tides will come down?"

  She had risen to stand with him, steadying herself by the hook of thederrick-fall. "I don't know," she began; and at that instant a greatslice of the zirconiu
m mine dump slid off and settled into the eddyingdepths with a splash.

  "It is nothing but a few more cubic yards of the waste," he said, whenshe started and caught her breath with a little gasp.

  "Not that--but the door!" she faltered, pointing across the chasm. "Itwas shut when we came out here--I am positive!"

  The heavy, iron-studded door in the bulkhead was open now, at allevents, as they could both plainly see; and presently she went on in afrightened whisper: "Look! there is something moving--this side of thedoor--among the loose timbers!"

  The moving object defined itself clearly in the next half-minute; forthe two at the derrick-heel, and for another--young Blacklock, who wascrouching behind his rejected thorough-stone directly opposite the mineentrance. It took shape as the figure of a man, slouch-hatted andmuffled in a long coat, creeping on hands and knees toward the fartherdam-head; creeping by inches and dragging what appeared to be a six-footlength of iron pipe. The king's daughter spoke again, and this time herwhisper was full of sharp agony.

  "_Breckenridge!_ it is my father--just as I have seen him before! Thatthing he is dragging after him: isn't it a--merciful Heaven! he is goingto blow up the dam! Oh, for pity's sake can't you think of some way tostop him?"

  There are crises when the mind, acting like a piece of automaticmachinery, flies from suggestion to conclusion with such facile rapiditythat all the intermediate steps are slurred and effaced. Ballard markedthe inching advance, realised its object and saw that he would not havetime to intervene by crossing the dam, all in the same instant. Anotherclick of the mental mechanism and the alternative suggested itself, wasgrasped, weighed, accepted and transmuted into action.

  It was a gymnast's trick, neatly done. The looped-up derrick-fall was adouble wire cable, running through a heavy iron sheave which carried thehook and grappling chains. Released from its rope lashings at themast-heel, it would swing out and across the canyon like a monsterpendulum. Ballard forgot his bandaged arm when he laid hold of thesheave-hook and slashed at the yarn seizings with his pocket-knife; wasstill oblivious to it when the released pendulum surged free and swepthim out over the chasm.