by Frank Norris
Lloyd’s love for him was dead. Who now to bid him godspeed as his vessel’s prow swung northward and the water whitened in her wake? Who now to wait behind when the great fight was dared again, to wait behind and watch for his home-coming; and when the mighty hope had been achieved, the goal of all the centuries attained, who now to send that first and dearest welcome out to him when the returning ship showed over the horizon’s rim, flagged from her decks to her crosstrees in all the royal blazonry of an immortal triumph?
Now, that triumph was never to be for him. Ambition, too, was dead; some other was to win where now he could but lose, to gain where now he could but fail; some other stronger than he, more resolute, more determined. At last Bennett had come to this, he who once had been so imperial in the consciousness of his power, so arrogant, so uncompromising. Beaten, beaten at last; defeated, daunted, driven from his highest hopes, abandoning his dearest ambitions. And how, and why? Not by the Enemy he had so often faced and dared, not by any power external to himself; but by his very self’s self, crushed by the engine he himself had set in motion, shattered by the recoil of the very force that for so long had dwelt within himself. Nothing in all the world could have broken him but that. Danger, however great, could not have cowed him; circumstances, however hopeless, could not have made him despair; obstacles, however vast, could not have turned him back. Himself was the only Enemy that could have conquered; his own power the only one to which he would have yielded. And fate had so ordered it that this one Enemy of all others, this one power of all others, had turned upon and rent him. The mystery of it! The terror of it! Why had he never known? How was it he had never guessed? What was this ruthless monster, this other self, that for so long had slept within his flesh, strong with his better strength, feeding and growing big with that he fancied was the best in him, that tricked him with his noblest emotion — the love of a good woman — lured him to a moment of weakness, then suddenly, and without warning, leaped at his throat and struck him to the ground?
He had committed one of those offences which the law does not reach, but whose punishment is greater than any law can inflict. Retribution had been fearfully swift. His career, Ferriss, and Lloyd — ambition, friendship, and the love of a woman — had been a trinity of dominant impulses in his life. Abruptly, almost in a single instant, he had lost them all, had thrown them away. He could never get them back. Bennett started sharply. What was this on his cheek; what was this that suddenly dimmed his eyes? Had it actually come to this? And this was he — Bennett — the same man who had commanded the Freja expedition. No, it was not the same man. That man was dead. He ground his teeth, shaken with the violence of emotions that seemed to be tearing his heart to pieces. Lost, lost to him forever! Bennett bowed his head upon his folded arms. Through his clenched teeth his words seemed almost wrenched from him, each word an agony.
“Dick — Dick, old man, you’re gone, gone from me, and it was I who did it; and Lloyd, she too — she — God help me!”
Then the tension snapped. The great, massive frame shook with grief from head to heel, and the harsh, angular face, with its salient jaw and hard, uncouth lines, was wet with the first tears he had ever known.
He was roused at length by a sudden movement on the part of the dog. Kamiska had risen to her feet with a low growl, then, as the gate-latch clinked, she threw up her head and gave tongue to the night with all the force of her lungs. Bennett straightened up, thanking fortune that the night was dark, and looked about him. A figure was coming up the front walk, the gravel crunching under foot. It was the figure of a man. At the foot of the steps of the veranda he paused, and as Bennett made a movement turned in his direction and said:
“Is this Dr. Pitts’s house?”
Bennett’s reply was drowned in the clamour of the dog, but the other seemed to understand, for he answered:
“I’m looking for Mr. Ferriss — Richard Ferriss, of the Freja; they told me he was brought here.”
Kamiska stopped her barking, sniffed once or twice at the man’s trouser legs; then, in brusque frenzy of delight, leaped against him, licking his hands, dancing about him on two legs, whining and yelping.
Bennett came forward, and the man changed his position so that the light from the half-open front door shone upon his face.
“Why, Adler!” exclaimed Bennett; “well, where did you come from?”
“Mr. Bennett!” almost shouted the other, snatching off his cap. “It ain’t really you, sir!” His face beamed and radiated a joy little short of beatitude. The man was actually trembling with happiness. Words failed him, and as with a certain clumsy tenderness he clasped Bennett’s hand in both his own his old-time chief saw the tears in his eyes.
“Oh! Maybe I ain’t glad to see you, sir — I thought you had gone away — I didn’t know where — I — I didn’t know as I was ever going to see you again.”
Kamiska herself had been no less tremulously glad to see Adler than was Adler to see Bennett. He stammered, he confused himself, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes danced, he laughed and choked, he dropped his cap. His joy was that of a child, unrestrained, unaffected, as genuine as gold. When they turned back to the veranda he eagerly drew up Bennett’s chair for him, his eyes never leaving his face. It was the quivering, inarticulate affection of a dog for its master, faithful, submissive, unquestioning, happy for hours over a chance look, a kind word, a touch of the hand. To Adler’s mind it would have been a privilege and an honour to have died for Bennett. Why, he was his chief, his king, his god, his master, who could do no wrong. Bennett could have slain him where he stood and Adler would still have trusted him.
Adler would not sit down until Bennett had twice ordered him to do so, and then he deposited himself in a nearby chair, in as uncomfortable a position as he could devise, allowing only the smallest fraction of his body to be supported as a mark of deference. He remained uncovered, and from time to time nervously saluted. But suddenly he remembered the object of his visit.
“Oh, but I forgot — seeing you like this, unexpected, sir, clean drove Mr. Ferriss out of my mind. How is he getting on? I saw in the papers he was main sick.”
“He’s dead,” said Bennett quietly.
Adler was for the moment stricken speechless. His jaw dropped; he stared, and caught his breath.
“Mr. Ferriss dead!” he exclaimed at length. “I — I can’t believe it.” He crossed himself rapidly. Bennett made no reply, and for upward of five minutes the two men sat motionless in the chairs, looking off into the night. After a while Adler broke silence and asked a few questions as to Ferriss’s sickness and the nature and time of his death — questions which Bennett answered as best he might. But it was evident that Bennett, alive and present there in the flesh, was more to Adler than Ferriss dead.
“But you’re all right, sir, ain’t you?” he asked at length. “There ain’t anything the matter with you?”
“No,” said Bennett; looking at him steadily; then suddenly he added:
“Adler, I was to blame for Mr. Ferriss’s death. If it hadn’t been for me he would probably have been alive to-night. It was my fault. I did what I thought was right, when I knew all the time, just as I know now, that I was wrong. So, when any one asks you about Mr. Ferriss’s death you are to tell him just what you know about it — understand? Through a mistake I was responsible for his death. I shall not tell you more than that, but that much you ought to know.”
Adler looked at Bennett curiously and with infinite amazement. The order of his universe was breaking up about his ears. Bennett, the inscrutable, who performed his wonders in a mystery, impenetrable to common eyes, who moved with his head in the clouds, behold! he was rendering account to him, Adler, the meanest of his subjects — the king was condescending to the vassal, was admitting him to his confidence. And what was this thing he was saying, that he was responsible for Ferriss’s death? Adler did not understand; his wits could not adjust themselves to such information. Ferriss was dead
, but how was Bennett to blame? The king could do no wrong. Adler did not understand. No doubt Bennett was referring to something that had happened during the retreat over the ice — something that had to be done, and that in the end, and after all this lapse of time, had brought about Mr. Ferriss’s death. In any case Bennett had done what was right. For that matter he had been responsible for McPherson’s death; but what else had there been to do?
Bennett had spoken as he did after a moment’s rapid thinking. To Adler’s questions as to the manner of the chief engineer’s death Bennett had at first given evasive replies. But a sudden sense of shame at being compelled to dissemble before a subordinate had lashed him across the face. True, he had made a mistake — a fearful, unspeakable mistake — but at least let him be man enough to face and to accept its consequences. It might not be necessary or even expedient to make acknowledgment of his folly in all quarters, but at that moment it seemed to him that his men — at least one of them — who had been under the command of himself and his friend, had a right to be told the truth. It had been only one degree less distasteful to undeceive Adler than it had been to deceive him in the first place. Bennett was not the general to explain his actions to his men. But he had not hesitated a moment.
However, Adler was full of another subject, and soon broke out with:
“You know, sir, there’s another expedition forming; I suppose you have heard — an English one. They call it the Duane-Parsons expedition. They are going to try the old route by Smith Sound. They are going to winter at Tasiusak, and try to get through the sound as soon as the ice breaks up in the spring. But Duane’s ideas are all wrong. He’ll make no very high northing, not above eighty-five. I’ll bet a hat. When we go up again, sir, will you — will you let me — will you take me along? Did I give satisfaction this last—”
“I’m never going up again, Adler,” answered Bennett.
“Sho!” said Adler a little blankly. “I thought sure — I never thought that you — why, there ain’t no one else but you can do it, captain.”
“Oh, yes, there is,” said Bennett listlessly. “Duane can — if he has luck. I know him. He’s a good man. No, I’m out of it, Adler; I had my chance. It is somebody else’s turn now. Do you want to go with Duane? I can give you letters to him. He’d be glad to have you, I know.”
Adler started from his place.
“Why, do you think—” he exclaimed vehemently— “do you think I’d go with anybody else but you, sir? Oh, you will be going some of these days, I’m sure of it. We — we’ll have another try at it, sir, before we die. We ain’t beaten yet.”
“Yes, we are, Adler,” returned Bennett, smiling calmly; “we’ll stay at home now and write our book. But we’ll let some one else reach the Pole. That’s not for us — never will be, Adler.”
At the end of their talk some half-hour later Adler stood up, remarking:
“Guess I’d better be standing by if I’m to get the last train back to the City to-night. They told me at the station that she’d clear about midnight.” Suddenly he began to show signs of uneasiness, turning his cap about between his fingers, changing his weight from foot to foot. Then at length:
“You wouldn’t be wanting a man about the place, would you, sir?” And before Bennett could reply he continued eagerly, “I’ve been a bit of most trades in my time, and I know how to take care of a garden like as you have here; I’m a main good hand with plants and flower things, and I could help around generally.” Then, earnestly, “Let me stay, sir — it won’t cost — I wouldn’t think of taking a cent from you, captain. Just let me act as your orderly for a spell, sir. I’d sure give satisfaction; will you, sir — will you?”
“Nonsense, Adler,” returned Bennett; “stay, if you like. I presume I can find use for you. But you must be paid, of course.”
“Not a soomarkee,” protested the other almost indignantly.
The next day Adler brought his chest down from the City and took up his quarters with Bennett at Medford. Though Dr. Pitts had long since ceased to keep horses, the stable still adjoined the house, and Adler swung his hammock in the coachman’s old room. Bennett could not induce him to room in the house itself. Adler prided himself that he knew his place. After their first evening’s conversation he never spoke to Bennett until spoken to first, and the resumed relationship of commander and subordinate was inexpressibly dear to him. It was something to see Adler waiting on the table in the “glass-room” in his blue jersey, standing at attention at the door, happy in the mere sight of Bennett at his meals. In the mornings, as soon as breakfast was ready, it was Adler’s privilege to announce the fact to Bennett, whom he usually found already at work upon his writing. Returning thence to the dining-room, Adler waited for his lord to appear. As soon as he heard Bennett’s step in the hall a little tremor of excitement possessed him. He ran to Bennett’s chair, drawing it back for him, and as soon as Bennett had seated himself circled about him with all the pride and solicitude of a motherly hen. He opened his napkin for him, delivered him his paper, and pushed his cup of coffee a half-inch nearer his hand. Throughout the duration of the meal he hardly took his eyes from Bennett’s face, watching his every movement with a glow of pride, his hands gently stroking one another in an excess of satisfaction and silent enjoyment.
The days passed; soon a fortnight was gone by. Drearily, mechanically, Bennett had begun work upon his book, the narrative of the expedition. It was repugnant to him. Long since he had lost all interest in polar exploration. As he had said to Adler, he was out of it, finally and irrevocably. His bolt was shot; his role upon the stage of the world was ended. He only desired now to be forgotten as quickly as possible, to lapse into mediocrity as easily and quietly as he could. Fame was nothing to him now. The thundering applause of an entire world that had once been his was mere noise, empty and meaningless. He did not care to reawaken it. The appearance of his book he knew was expected and waited for in every civilised nation of the globe. It would be printed in languages whereof he was ignorant, but it was all one with him now.
The task of writing was hateful to him beyond expression, but with such determination as he could yet summon to his aid Bennett stuck to it, eight, ten, and sometimes fourteen hours each day. In a way his narrative was an atonement. Ferriss was its hero. Almost instinctively Bennett kept the figure of himself, his own achievements, his own plans and ideas, in the background. On more than one page he deliberately ascribed to Ferriss triumphs which no one but himself had attained. It was Ferriss who was the leader, the victor to whom all laurels were due. It was Ferriss whose example had stimulated the expedition to its best efforts in the darkest hours; it was, practically, Ferriss who had saved the party after the destruction of the ship; whose determination, unbroken courage, endurance, and intelligence had pervaded all minds and hearts during the retreat to Kolyuchin Bay.
“Though nominally in command,” wrote Bennett, “I continually gave place to him. Without his leadership we should all, unquestionably, have perished before even reaching land. His resolution to conquer, at whatever cost, was an inspiration to us all. Where he showed the way we had to follow; his courage was never daunted, his hope was never dimmed, his foresight, his intelligence, his ingenuity in meeting and dealing with apparently unsolvable problems were nothing short of marvellous. His was the genius of leadership. He was the explorer, born to his work.”
One day, just after luncheon, as Bennett, according to his custom, was walking in the garden by the house, smoking a cigar before returning to his work, he was surprised to find himself bleeding at the nose. It was but a trifling matter, and passed off in a few moments, but the fact of its occurrence directed his attention to the state of his health, and he told himself that for the last few days he had not been at all his accustomed self. There had been dull pains in his back and legs; more than once his head had pained him, and of late the continuance of his work had been growing steadily more obnoxious to him, the very physical effort of driving the pen from line
to line was a burden.
“Hum!” he said to himself later on in the day, when the bleeding at the nose returned upon him, “I think we need a little quinine.”
But the next day he found he could not eat, and all the afternoon, though he held doggedly to his work, he was troubled with nausea. At times a great weakness, a relaxing of all the muscles, came over him. In the evening he sent a note to Dr. Pitts’s address in the City, asking him to come down to Medford the next day.
On the Monday morning of the following week, some two hours after breakfast, Lloyd met Miss Douglass on the stairs, dressed for the street and carrying her nurse’s bag.
“Are you going out?” she asked of the fever nurse in some astonishment. “Where are you going?” for Lloyd had returned to duty, and it was her name that now stood at the top of the list; “I thought it was my turn to go out,” she added.
Miss Douglass was evidently much confused.
Her meeting with Lloyd had apparently been unexpected. She halted upon the stairs in great embarrassment, stammering:
“No — no, I’m on call. I — I was called out of my turn — specially called — that was it.”
“Were you?” demanded Lloyd sharply, for the other nurse was disturbed to an extraordinary degree.
“Well, then; no, I wasn’t, but the superintendent — Miss Bergyn — she thought — she advised — you had better see her.”
“I will see her,” declared Lloyd, “but don’t you go till I find out why I was skipped.”
Lloyd hurried at once to Miss Bergyn’s room, indignant at this slight. Surely, after what had happened, she was entitled to more consideration than this. Of all the staff in the house she should have been the one to be preferred.
Miss Bergyn rose at Lloyd’s sudden entrance into her room, and to her question responded: