Eleven Possible Cases
Page 2
CHAPTER II.
The full moon looked for Mary Warriner's little house that night as soonas a clearance of the sky permitted, and then beamed down on her abodeeffulgently. But it was eleven o'clock before the gusty wind blew thethick clouds aside and let the orb illumine Overlook. Back of the shedin which the telegrapher worked by day was a structure in which sheslept at night. It was built of slabs, with big growing trees to formits irregular corners, and their lowest limbs contributed the rafters,while stripped bark and evergreen boughs made the roof. The foliageswayed above in the fitful wind, and covered the cabin and the grassaround it with commingling, separating, capering shadows of leaves, asthough a multitude of little black demons were trying to get to theslumberer within. Their antics looked spiteful and angry at first: butas the wind lessened to a breeze, and as the moon seemed to mollifythem, they became frolicsome without malice; and at length, when themerest zephyrs impelled their motions, they gambolled lazily,good-humoredly above and around the couch of Mary Mite.
It was midnight when a man shot into the open space around the cabinlike a missile. He ran first to the front of the structure, where atarpaulin curtained the shed for the night, and gazed for a momentblankly at this indication that the hour was not one of business.Tremendous haste was denoted in his every step and gesture. He pluckedtwice at the canvas, as though to pull it down. Then he skurried aroundto the single window of Mary's apartment, whose only door opened intothe shed, and pounded with his knuckles on the ill-fitted sash, makingit clatter loudly. Silence within followed this noise without. "Hello!Wake up!" he cried. "Don't fool for a minute. Wake up!"
There was no response, and he skipped to and fro in his impatience. Hewas an ordinary shoveler and pounder, with nothing to distinguish himfrom the mass of manual laborers at Overlook, but, unlike the usual manwith an errand at the telegraphic station, flourished a scrap of paper.
"I want to telegraph," he shouted, and struck the window again. "Get upquick! It's life and death!"
Mary Warriner was convinced that her services were urgently and properlyrequired. She peeped warily out to inspect the man, estimated him to bemerely a messenger, and then opened wide the sash, which swung laterallyon hinges. Her delicate face bore the same sort of calm thatcharacterized it in business hours, but the moon shone on it now, thehair had got loose from the bondage of knot and pin, and for an outergarment she was carelessly enwrapped in a white, fleecy blanket. The mandid not give her time to inquire what was wanted.
"You're the telegraph girl, ain't you?" he exclaimed. "Well, here'ssomething to telegraph. It's in a hurry, hurry, hurry. Don't lose aminute."
"I couldn't send it to-night," Mary said.
"You must."
"It isn't possible. There is nobody at the other end of the line toreceive it. The wire is private--belongs to the railroad company--isn'toperated except in the daytime. You'll have to wait until to-morrow."
"To-morrow I'll be a hundred years old, or else dead," the man almostwailed in despair.
"What?"
"I was only ten years old yesterday. To-night I'm sixty. To-morrow'll betoo late. Here--here--send it to-night, Miss. Please send it to-night."
The mystified girl mechanically took the piece of paper which he thrustinto her hands, but her eyes did not drop before they discovered theinsanity in his face, and when they did rest on the paper they saw ascrawl of hieroglyphics. It was plain that this midnight visitor was amaniac. She screamed for help.
A watchman responded almost instantly to her call. Upon seeing the causeof the girl's fright, he treated the incident as a matter of course. Thelunatic wobbled like a drunken man about to collapse, as he mumbled hisrequest over and over again.
"Here, now, Eph," the watchman said, with as much of cajolery ascommand, "you mustn't bother the young lady. Ain't you ashamed to scareher this way? Get right out of this."
The watchman took the other by the arm, and, as they started off--oneinsisting and one objecting--the official looked back to say: "He won'thurt nobody, Miss Warriner--he's just a little cranky, that's all."
Mary watched them out of sight, and while she was doing so, Gerald Heathapproached from the contrary direction. He had heard the girl's scream.Why he was within earshot he might not have been able to explainsatisfactorily, for it was not his habit to take midnight walks, evenwhen the air was so brightly moonlit and so temporarily fine; but ifcross-questioned, he would doubtless have maintained that he had soughtonly to escape from the darkness and closeness of his shanty quarters.Besides, where would he so likely wander, in quest of good sight andbreath, as to the spot whence he could view the scenery which he in vainasked the railway company to exhibit to their passengers. As he turnedthe corner of the cabin he saw Eph and the watchman departing, andcomprehended the disturbance.
"Eph has been frightening you, Miss Warriner," he said.
Mary screamed again, but this time it was a low, musical little outcryof modesty. She had not observed Gerald's approach. She clutched theblanket closely around her white throat, which had been almost as muchexposed as by an ordinary cut of frock, and drew under cover thegleaming wrists which had all day been bared to a greater extent bysleeves of handy working length. Then she reached out one taper arm, andswung the sash around on its hinges, so its inner covering of muslinmade a screen between her and the visitor. He did not apologize for hisintrusion, and she pouted a little on her safe side of the sash, at hisfailure to do so.
"I see it was Eph that alarmed you," he said. "What did he do?"
She told him, and then asked: "Who is he, and what ails him?"
"He is a common laborer with an uncommon affliction," was the reply."One day an excavation caved in, and for an hour he was buried. Sometimbers made a little space around his head, but the rest of him waspacked in earth. He had breathed the inclosed air two or three timesover, and was almost suffocated when we got him out. He was insensible.He never came back to his senses. He believes he is living at the rateof more than a year every hour. This is why he was in such a hurry withhis imaginary message."
"Poor fellow," came from the obverse side of the sash.
"Yes, poor fellow," the narrator assented. "I understood hishallucination at once. When a man is suddenly placed in mortal peril,his past life dashes before him. Half drowned men afterward tell ofreviewing in a minute the events of years. It is a curious mentalphenomenon. Well, this poor chap had that familiar experience, but witha singular sequence. The impression that all his lifetime before theaccident happened in a brief time has remained in his disordered mind.He believes that his whole earthly existence is condensed--that futureyears, as well as his past ones, are compressed into days, and his daysinto minutes. Nothing can disabuse him of this idea. Everything is tohim ephemeral. That's why I nicknamed him Eph--short for Ephemeral, yousee. He doesn't remember his real name, and on the roll he had only anumber. He has done his work well enough until within a few days, butnow his malady seems to have turned to the worst. He has talked wildlyof getting some physicians to check the speed of time with him, and itmay have been that he wished to telegraph to this fancied expert."
"It is singular," Mary said, "and very sad."
The midnight incident seemed to have come to a conclusion. It was aproper time for Gerald to say good-night and go away. He still stood onthe opposite side of the half-open sash, around the edge of whichappeared a small set of finger tips, which pulled the screen a littlecloser, showing that the girl was minded to shut herself in. But a handtwice as big opposed hers, gently yet strongly, and in doing so ittouched hers; upon which she let go, and the window flew open.
"Oh, you mustn't see me," Mary exclaimed, as Gerald got a vanishingglimpse of the white-draped figure. "Good-night."
"You will be afraid if left alone," Gerald protested; "you can't go tosleep, nervous as you must be."
"I surely can't go to sleep talking," was her rejoinder, with the firsttouch of coquetry she had indulged in at Overlook.
"I won't talk, then.
I'll only keep guard out here until daylight. Ephmay return."
"But there's the watchman. It is his duty."
"It would be my delight."
That silenced the invisible inmate of the cabin. The moon shone into thesquare opening, but Mary was ensconced somewhere in the darkness thatbordered the income of light.
"Should I apologize?" Gerald at length began again. "It is like this,Miss Warriner. I used to know how to behave politely to a lady. But forsix years I've lived in wildernesses--in railroad camps--from Canada toMexico. We've had no ladies in these rough places--no women, except oncein a while some mannish washerwoman or cook. That's what makes you sorare--so unexpected--that is why it would be a delight to be a patrolmanoutside your quarters--that is why I don't wish to go away."
"Oh!--oh! I am interesting because I am the only specimen of my sex atOverlook. That isn't a doubtful compliment; it is no compliment at all.Good-night."
"You misconstrue me altogether. I mean----"
"I am sure you do not mean," and now the tone was pleadingly serious,"to remain here at my window after I request you to go away. I am, asyou have said, the only girl at Overlook."
"If there were a thousand girls at Overlook----"
"Not one of them, I trust, would prolong a dialogue with a younggentleman at night through the open window of her bedroom."
Half in respectful deference to Mary's unassailable statement of therule of propriety applicable to the situation, and half in inconsideratepetulance at being dismissed, Gerald let go of the sash with an impulsethat almost closed it. This time two miniature hands came out under theswinging frame. Would more than one hand have been naturally used? Wasit not an awkward method of shutting a window? And Mary Warriner was nota clumsy creature. But there were the hands, and Gerald grasped them.They fluttered for freedom, like birds held captive in broad palms bycompletely caging fingers. Then he uncovered them, but for an instantkept them prisoners by encircling the wrists long enough to impetuouslykiss them. Another second and they were gone, the window was closed, andthey were alone.
He walked slowly away, accusing himself of folly and ungentlemanliness,and he felt better upon getting out of the clear, searching moonshineinto the dim, obscuring shade of rocks and trees, among which the pathwound crookedly. There rapid footsteps startled him, as though he was askulking evildoer, and the swift approach of a man along an intersectingpathway, made him feel like taking to cowardly flight. But he recognizedthe monomaniac, Eph, who was in a breathless tremor.
"Mr. Heath, could a man walk to Dimmersville before the telegraphstation there opens in the morning?" Eph asked, with several catches ofbreath and a reeling movement of physical weakness.
"You go to bed, Eph," was the reply, meant to be soothing, "and I'll seethat your telegram goes from here the earliest thing in the morning.That won't be more than six or seven hours from now."
"Six or seven hours," the poor fellow deploringly moaned; "I'll be agood many years older by that time. Oh, it's awful to have your life gowhizzing away like mine does," and he clutched at Gerald with hisfidgety hands, with a vague idea of slowing himself by holding to anormal human being.
Then he darted away, swaying from side to side with faintness, anddisappeared in the foliage which lined the path he was following.
Gerald watched him out of sight, and was about to resume his owndifferent way when the voice of Tonio Ravelli was heard, with itsItalian extra a to the short words and a heavy emphasis on the finalsyllable of the long ones.
"Mistair Heath," he said, "I saw-a your affectionate par-ting weez MeesWarriner."
Gerald had just then the mind of a culprit, and he began to explainapologetically: "It was cowardly in me to insult a defenseless girl. Shedidn't invite it. I am ashamed of myself."
He hardly realized to whom he was speaking. The two men were now walkingrapidly, Ravelli taking two strides to one of the bigger Gerald, inorder to keep alongside.
"You-a should be ashamed--you-a scoundrel."
As much of jealous fury and venomous malice as could be vocalized in sixwords was in Ravelli's sudden outbreak. Gerald was astounded. He turnedupon his companion, caught him by both lapels of the coat, and shook himso violently that his boot-soles pounded the ground. Ravelli staggeredback upon being loosed, and threw one arm around a tree to steadyhimself.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," said Gerald, "but you shouldn't be recklesswith your language. Perhaps you don't know what scoundrel means inEnglish."
"I saw you-a kiss her hands."
"Did you? Well, do you know what I'd do to you, Ravelli, if I saw youkiss her hands--as I did--without her consent? I'd wring your miserableneck. Now, what are you going to do to me?"
"I am-a going to keel you!"
The blade of a knife flashed in Ravelli's right hand, as he made afurious onslaught; but the stronger and quicker man gripped both of hisassailant's wrists, threw him violently to the ground, and tortured himwith wrenches and doublings until he had to drop the weapon. In theencounter the clothes of both men were torn, and when Ravelli regainedhis feet blood was dripping from his hand. The blade had cut it.
"You meant to kill me," Gerald exclaimed.
"I said-a so," was the sullen, menacing response.
"And with my own knife!" and Gerald, picking up the knife, recognizedit.
"Your own knife--ze one zat you carve-a Mary's hand with so lovingly."
Ravelli had retained it since the previous afternoon, when he had pickedit up from Mary Warriner's desk. Its blade was now red with blood, asGerald shut and pocketed it.
"You cowardly murderer!"
"Murderer? Not-a yet. But I meant to be."
Ravelli turned off by the cross-path, and Gerald passed on.