by Dolly
As I sat poring over the sheets, struggling to extract sense and coherency from the mangled contribution, Ethel, after making me promise faithfully to stop at eleven o'clock, whether I had finished or not, went up to bed.
I finished before eleven, and had the satisfaction of seeing all the sheets ready for the compositors on the morrow. Then I too went upstairs. Ethel had fallen asleep, and I stood looking down at her with a thrill of gratitude to Heaven for having blessed me with such a wife.
The pure young face was turned slightly from me, and I could see the line of the dark lashes that touched her cheek and swept upward again.
One bare, rounded arm was thrown upward in curves of graceful beauty, until the little hand was lost in the loosened coils of fair hair beneath her head.
Her whole attitude, in its youthful freshness and repose, whispered a witchery more thrilling than the charm of her waking moments. But as I stood watching the placid heave of her bosom, the fond smile faded from my lips, and I set my teeth; for a diabolical plan had commenced to insinuate itself into my mind—an impulse that made me quiver with terror and fall back a step as I fought frantically to thrust it aside. I knew perfectly what it was, knew too whence it emanated; and with the knowledge came the ghastly conviction that it was useless to struggle against the growing dominance, that I must obey or, what was worse, yield up my body to the force, that it might work its will.
Not one detail of what occurred within the next twenty minutes was hidden from me; I could no more have concealed from myself what I was doing than I could have averted it.
In the dining-room stood a Japanese charcoal stove that we had bought as an ornament, but which we sometimes used as a unique footwarmer on unusually cold evenings.
This I now dragged out and ignited, creeping steadily back to the room with it in my arms. With fiendish deliberation, I chose the most convenient place in which to put it, and carefully closed the doors, blocked up the chimney, and assured myself that the window was firmly fastened. Then I stirred the glowing embers to brisker life, piled them in a heap, and sat down to watch the effects of the fumes on my sleeping wife.
I was going to suffocate her, to stifle her, as one smokes out a rat in its hole; and I had to stay here and watch her until the fumes became too dense to be longer endured, or perhaps to perish myself.
Oh, the hell-hound! the fiend incarnate! He was making me commit murder—murder of the foulest kind—and I helpless and powerless to prevent it! Ah, why had I let him live to draw another breath when I had him for the moment in my power there in the gardens ? Why did I turn and fly to save my own miserable life, and so ensure the destruction of Ethel's ?
The insidious fumes grew denser! I rose from my knees beside the furnace, where I had been fanning the charcoal into a fiercer glow, and contemplated it from a safer distance. In the lurid glow of the embers I thought I traced the vile features of Rawdon looking out at me with his sardonic leer. I could even trace in the grey ash on the upper pieces the bristling sandy hair, stiff and erect, as I had too often seen it.
Once I almost shook myself free of this frightful obsession and ran forward to the brazier; but my purpose was changed before I reached it, and I but stirred the glowing embers afresh.
The fumes grew heavier still in their deadly pungency. Ethel stirred slightly, and allowed her arm to sink to her side. I watched her with bated breath, fearful she might wake.
The room was becoming untenable; I retreated slowly toward the closed door. I would gladly, had I been allowed, have laid myself down beside my girl-wife and the little child yet unborn and have shared their fate, but the inexorable force prevented me. I must leave them, must close the door, and leave them there to die, while I preserved my miserable life until such time as the scaffold claimed it and the world branded me with the blood of my young wife.
I reached the door, and stood there swaying to and fro in anguish, a terrible struggle going on between my own will and this that was ruling my body—such a struggle as I had never made before. May God shield any conscious being from such a one again ! And while I stood rocking thus in the agony of impotence, Ethel stirred once more.
They say a person suffocating from the fumes of charcoal sees visions of wondrous beauty. I do not doubt it, for as I gazed, Ethel turned in her sleep and smiled. Her sweet face was turned full towards me, and while the ghost of that smile of ineffable peace still lingered round the corners of her mouth, I felt something go like a ripping seam behind my ear.
It was freedom! It was the swift transition from obsession to free will!
My brain reeled with the joy of the thought as I clung to the door handle, for one brief second, as stunned and inert as I had been before under the influence of the force. The next, the intense desire for action tingled its way sharply through every fibre of my body. I sprang forward, and dashed my fist through every pane of the window in rapid succession. Then I bounded back to the door, threw it wide open, and tore the rug from the chimney where I had stuffed it. Lastly, I seized the brazier of glowing charcoal, regardless of my searing flesh, and dashed it with all my force through the broken window, tearing away with it the useless framework.
The crash aroused Ethel from the lethargy into which she was sinking.
She opened her eyes languidly and looked around. The gas-jet was still burning low, but gradually brightening under the indraught of sweet, fresh air from the shattered window.
She looked around in bewilderment, slowly raising herself on her hands. As she did so the coils of hair became unfastened and fell about her shoulders in a glorious cascade of shimmering bronze. Her nightgown had slipped from one bare shoulder and her bosom was heaving quickly. I sent one wild prayer of thanks to Heaven as I saw her bosom heaving. My eyes were fixed upon her face, while my fingers fumbled in frantic haste for the bottle of chloroform I kept in a case of drugs I had used for killing and curing the natural history specimens I had been accustomed to send to an enthusiastic friend at home.
The look of bewilderment was giving place to one of terror in the eyes of Ethel as I rose to my feet. Her voice was pitifully weak and strained, and she could scarcely articulate the words as she asked—
"What is the matter, Harry?" and a moment after, " Harry, where are you going ? "
" Nothing! Nowhere! " I replied quickly. " Ethel, I am going out. Try to think as lightly of me as you can."
As I reached the door I glanced back. She had thrown her hair back from her eyes, and was striving to get up, while the bewildered look crept back into her eyes at her unaccountable weakness. XIII.
That was the last time I saw my wife, except for the brief interviews here under the eyes of the warder, and that is the picture I shall carry with me into the grave; aye, and beyond.
The next instant I had darted through the door, and, gaining the street, was hurrying wildly toward Arnold Rawdon's surgery in Szechuen Road, with but one thought in my mind, but one purpose, one duty looming large and clear before my eyes.
As I hurried blindly through the deserted streets my mind was made up, my purpose implacably fixed. It was the choice between the murder of the innocent girl I loved and the extermination— one could not call it murder to hurl such a viper out of existence—of this fiend who was trying to make me stain my soul with the blood of my wife.
He had called me many a time, and I had come ; now I was coming to him without his bidding. Now was the time to do it—now while I knew his power was for the time gone. Now! now ! while he had overreached himself and was in a state of mental remission of the force spent! Thank God, it had come in time ! Perhaps he thought his vile purpose already accomplished, and had allowed his mind to wander and sink from its intensity of concentration.
I feared that if I dallied, his power might return before I could wreak my vengeance. I knew my utter helplessness if it should, and hurried still more, until I dashed up to the house in Szechuen Road breathless and palpitating. The boy opened to my vigorous knock with a look of grieve
d astonishment in his sleepy eyes, but I pushed roughly past him and rushed up the stairs. He knew me, however, or was too sleepy to heed my wild looks, and crept gladly back to his bed. I could see by the streak of light from beneath the door that a lamp was burning in the study; I pushed the door ajar and peered cautiously in. Yes, Rawdon was there !
Stepping swiftly into the room I closed the door behind me. He was lying on a couch against the opposite wall, a rug thrown over his knees. His pale face was livid and ghastly, and beneath the shifty eyes were heavy shadows that the lamplight from above intensified. He had been expecting me, I think, for as I turned from closing the door, he raised himself on his elbow, and without a word stared at me with eyes in which I thought I detected a glance of terror
1 turned again to the door. There was no key in the lock, but immediately below it was a stout bolt; this I shot.
It was clear to both of us, as our eyes met once more, there beneath the swinging lamp, that but one of us could hope to draw that bolt again and pass out a living man.
I had been fumbling in my pocket for the bottle of chloroform which it had been my intention to hurl at him and smash in his face before he could use the terrible power of his eyes; but now, as he fixed those eyes on mine, the impatient movement of my fingers was stilled. And so for a space we stood and eyed each other, each conscious that a life depended on the result—that it was now or never he must gain the mastery.
It may have been only for minutes, but it seemed to me interminable hours that we stood there wrestling in that terrible death-grip of the eyes, as I crouched like a tiger waiting his chance to spring.
Twice, as his hair bristled and stood on end, the sensuous face blurred away from my sight, and twice the jets of blue-grey vapour leapt forth to meet me. But with a desperate effort I shook myself free from the spell that was mastering me and met his gaze.
Then there came a change. His face turned yet more livid in its ghastly pallor, and his brow puckered and wrinkled, while the corners of the weak mouth were drawn suddenly downward, as one sees in a child that is about to burst into tears. Then his eyes seemed to snap and crackle for a moment, ere with contracted pupils, that dilated again with fear, they glazed swiftly over. With a despairing gasp, the only sound that had been uttered, Rawdon fell back on the couch.
I had conquered!
With one terrible bound I hurled myself across the room to his side. In my triumph the chloroform and all my carefully laid plans were forgotten, for my knee was planted on his breast and my fingers were busy at his throat.
Into that deadly grip I threw my own strength and the strength of the demons of revenge that possessed me, until I could see the face beneath me grow purple, then black, as his jaw slowly dropped and the tongue protruded. His mouth closed with a sharp, convulsive snap, and I could hear the white teeth meet and grate together in the yielding flesh. And still I pressed with my whole strength the throat into which my fingers were sinking. I seemed to have but one all-absorbing desire, to squeeze the throat of my victim until I forced the eyes, already protruding so far, completely from their sockets. And so I pressed and pressed, never heeding that all sign of life had fled from the bloated, purple face beneath me, or that the body on which my knee was pressed was growing cold and rigid in death. Those fiendish eyes must come out—they must! they must! And I tried to put yet a little more force into the grip of iron, smiling exultantly when I thought they seemed to be protruding a half-inch farther than before. In my frenzied triumph I expected to see them, could I but compress the villainous throat hard enough, shoot out of their sockets, as one sees the pulp of a grape pop out of the skin when it is squeezed.
Perhaps at this point the bottle of chloroform capsized in my pocket and some of the fluid leaked out, for its penetrating odour suddenly filled my nostrils, the room spun round as I gasped for breath, and all was darkness.
XIV.
They said in their evidence in court, that next morning they found me lying across the body of Arnold Rawdon, my fingers stiffened at his throat, and the nails so deeply sunk in the flesh that they had considerable difficulty in relaxing my grasp.
But I have saved my Ethel. I have taken the one course left for a desperate man, and I care nothing.
Five days from to-day the law has decreed that I shall die, " and may God have mercy on my soul!"
Five short days, and then, under the peremptory hand of the public executioner, I must quit the sweet, balmy air of the Shanghai spring, quit the glorious sunshine, and plunge into the vortex of death that is to whirl me—whither ?
And yet I am resigned—nay, almost cheerful—in spite of contemplation of myself as the author of " the most heinous artocity that has for years confronted the community of Shanghai." It is a stock phrase of theirs (do I not know the tricks of the trade ?), and would be applied with equal glibness to the despatch of a chicken were the season slack and stirring news scarce. For, despite of the ban of Justice, despite the fiat of condemnation that has gone forth against me, I feel that I have done a goodly act; and I know that did the world but learn the why and wherefore, it would applaud the deed, even as my conscience applauds.
This story I have determined shall be laid before it after my death, not before, for I cannot bring myself to believe that it will meet with credence when spread abroad, though stamped with the awful solemnity that belongs to the confession of a dying man. So rather than be pitied and branded a dangerous maniac, I have chosen the shorter shrift and an unhallowed grace.
If when my poor wife reads this manuscript, after I have paid the last penalty of the law, she will search my desk, Rawdon's note, written before I started for Chefoo, will be found I think beneath the bundle of English letters that are the last epistles I had from my aged mother before death claimed her. It will be the one slender proof I can bring forward, that what I here relate is the ghastly truth and not the wild fantasy of a demented brain.
I can hear, as I pause now, the monotonous tramp of the warder on the stone flags outside the iron-bound door, and I know, without looking up, when they cease for a moment, that the poor fool is peering in upon me through the grating lest I use the pen to do myself an injury. Perhaps 1 might, but that I have far more important work for it to do; and what are five days more or less in the balance against eternity ?
And what is the dreary waiting through the awful continuity and eternity itself for the sight of a face I shall never see, when by one swift stroke I have saved my innocent darling's honour and her life ?
Will the good God, I wonder, look upon the deed as murder?
And yet—and yet—I bow my head and repeat in the solemn words of the judge, " May God have mercy on my soul! Amen."
CERBERUS.
1WAS walking through the Hong-Kong Lunatic Asylum, when my attention was attracted to a gaunt, wild-eyed individual, who appeared to be stealthily following our every step. I am a nervous man, and the gleam of almost ferocious cunning in his eye disconcerted me. I mentioned the matter to my guide.
"Oh, he's quite harmless," said he confidently. " The poor fellow murdered his two children and slew a cat, the family pet, during a fit of insanity, brought on by excesses in some strange drug; but he's as docile as a lamb now."
He passed on, and a few moments after, while my guide's attention was diverted to some other part of the ward, I felt a light tap on the shoulder, and swung hastily round to find myself confronted by our friend of the previous encounter. He was gesticulating wildly, with a sly leer of intensest cunning at the warder's broadly-turned back, while he tried to thrust into my hand, with signs of great secrecy, a roll of paper.
In order to humour him, or more, perhaps, for fear of a scene should I exasperate him by a refusal, I accepted it with an equal show of profound secrecy, concealing it in my breastpocket, at which he slunk away apparently well satisfied.
In the painful interest of the scenes I afterward witnessed I forgot completely the little bundle the madman had thrust into my hands, and it wa
s not until evening, when searching my pockets for my cigarette case, that my hand found and drew forth the roll. I was about to throw it carelessly on the fire, as the idle freak of a demented mind, when my eye caught some writing on it, and I undid the string that bound it.
Judge of my surprise on finding that it was a genuine manuscript, consisting of several closelywritten sheets of Asylum note-paper, the last three sheets crossed and re-crossed in a manner that called for considerable care in deciphering them.
Many years have passed since I first perused this manuscript and locked it away with a shudder in my desk.
I give it now to the world just as it stands, unaltered except for the insertion of a few stops where the maniac in his frantic haste had forgotten to punctuate it.
I have the less compunction in making this extraordinary revelation public, as I know that the principal actors in it have.passed away to a larger stage, and even in the memory of the older inhabitants of Shanghai, the details of that terrible crime will be but a misty, elusive recollection.
As to whether the madman's ghastly story is true or merely the hallucination of a disordered intellect, that seeks to account for what it has done, will never be known, and each must draw his own conclusions as to its probability.
They say here that I am mad, the cowardly curs! pretending that I am not responsible for my actions, and so keep me incarcerated in durance against my will, nor will they allow me even to go to the wife of my bosom, who needs me, who must need me, in her loneliness and grief.