“There’s a kind of stinging sensation on my tongue,” she answered, with complete quietude, as though the scales of life and death for her had not an even balance. “And—well, my mouth feels a little numb and cold. Is that the poison?”
“Do you experience any dizziness?” His voice was hardly audible. By the lamp-light his pale face and widened eyes looked very strange. “Does your heart begin to accelerate? Here, let me see!”
He took her wrist, carefully observing the pulse.
“No, doctor,” she answered, “I don’t feel anything except just what I’ve already told you.”
“Thank the good God for that!” he exclaimed, letting her hand fall. “You’re all right. You got the harmless powder. Laura, you’re—you’re too wonderful for me even to try to express it. You’re—”
“We’re wasting time here!” she exclaimed. “Every second’s precious. You know which powder to use, now. Come along!”
“Yes, you’re right. I’ll come at once.” He turned, took up the knife, and with its blade scraped on to a bit of paper the powder that the girl had tested. This he wrapped up carefully and tucked into his waistcoat-pocket.
“Dow-nstairs, Laura!” said he. “If we can pull him through, it’s you that have saved him—it’s you!”
The thud of the old doctor’s feet seemed to echo in the captain’s heart like thunders of doom. He got up from beside the berth and faced the door, like a man who waits the summons to walk forth at dawn and face the firing-squad. Dr. Marsh, still seated by the berth, frowned and shook his head. Evidently he had no faith in this old man, relic of a school past and gone, who claimed to know strange secrets of the Orient.
“This boy is dying,” thought Marsh. “I don’t believe in all this talk about curaré. He’s dying of hemorrhage and shock. His pulse and respiration are practically nil—his skin is dusky with suffocation already. Even if the old chap has a remedy, he’s too late. Hal’s gone—and it will kill the captain, too. What a curse seems to have hung to this family! Wiped out, all wiped out!”
In the doorway appeared Laura and old Filhiol. The girl’s face was burning with excitement. The doctor’s eyes shone strangely.
“Still alive, is he?” demanded Filhiol.
“Yes,” answered Marsh. “But you’ve got no time for more than one experiment.”
“Got it, Filhiol?” choked the captain. His hands twitched with appeal. “Tell me you’ve—got it!”
“Water! The hypodermic needle!” directed Filhiol, his voice a whiplash.
He mixed the powder in a quarter-glass of water, and drew the solution up into the glass barrel of the syringe. Ezra, unable to bear any further strain, sank down in a chair, buried his face in both hands and remained there, motionless. Dr. Marsh, frankly skeptical, watched in silence. The girl, her arm about the captain, was whispering something to him. Through the room sounded a hollow roaring, blent of surf and tempest and wind-buffetings of the great chimney.
Filhiol handed the hypodermic to Marsh.
“Administer this,” he commanded. “Your hands have been sterilized, and mine haven’t. We mustn’t even waste the time for me to scrub up, and I’m taking no chances at all with any non-surgical conditions.”
Marsh nodded. The old man was undoubtedly a little cracked, but it could do no harm to humor him. Marsh quickly prepared an area of Hal’s arm, rubbing it with alcohol. He tossed away the pledget of cotton, pinched up the bloodless skin, and jabbed the needle home.
“All of it?” asked he, as he pushed down the ring.
“All!” answered Filhiol. “It’s a thundering dosage, but this is no time for half measures!”
The ring came wholly down. Marsh withdrew the needle, took more cotton and again rubbed the puncture. Then he felt Hal’s pulse, and very grimly shook his head.
“Laura,” said he, “I think you’d better go. Your father, when he left, told me to tell you he wanted you to go home.”
“I’m not afraid to see Hal die, if he’s got to die, any more than I’m afraid to have him live. He’s mine, either way.” Her eyes were wonderful. “I’m going to stay!”
“Well, as you wish.” Dr. Marsh turned back to his observation of the patient.
Filhiol stood beside him. Wan and haggard he was, with deep lines of exhaustion in his face. The old captain, seated now at the head of the berth, was leaning close, listening to each slow gasp. Now and again he passed a hand over his forehead, but always the sweat dampened it once more.
“Any change?” he whispered hoarsely.
“Not yet,” Marsh answered.
“It couldn’t take effect so soon, anyhow,” cut in Filhiol. “It’ll be ten minutes before it’s noticeable.”
Marsh curled a lip of scorn. What did this superannuated relic know? What, save folly, could be expected of him?
The seconds dragged to minutes, and still Marsh kept his hold on the boy’s wrist. A gust of wind puffed ashes out upon the hearth. Somewhere at the back of the house a loose blind slammed. The tumult of the surf shuddered the air.
“Oh, God! Can’t you tell yet?” whispered the captain. “Can’t you tell?”
“Shhh!” cautioned Filhiol. “Remember, you’re captain of this clipper. You’ve got to hold your nerve!”
The clock on the mantel gave a little preliminary click, then began striking. One by one it tolled out twelve musical notes, startlingly loud in that tense silence.
Marsh shifted his feet, pursed his lips and leaned a little forward. He drew out his watch.
“Humph!” he grunted.
“Better?” gulped Alpheus Briggs. “Better—or worse?”
“I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Marsh.
“What is it?”
“Dr. Filhiol, you’ve done it!”
“Is he—dead?” breathed Laura.
“Two more beats per minute already!” Marsh answered. “And greater amplitude. Captain Briggs, if nothing happens now, your boy will live!”
The old man tried to speak, but the words died on his white lips. His eyes closed, his head dropped forward as he sat there, and his arms fell limp. In his excess of joy, Captain Alpheus Briggs had fainted.
By early dawn the tempest, blowing itself clean away with all its wrack of cloud and rain, left a pure-washed sky of rose and blue over-arching the wild-tossing sea. The sun burned its way in gold and crimson up into a morning sprayed with spindrift from the surf-charges against the granite coast. All along the north shore that wave army charged; and the bell-buoy, wildly clanging, seemed to revel in furious exultation over the departed storm.
The early rays flashed out billions of jewels from drops of water trembling on the captain’s lawn. Through the eastward-looking portholes of the cabin, long spears of sunlight penetrated, paling the flames on the hearth. Those flames had been fed with wood surpassing strange—with all the captain’s barbarous collection of bows and arrows, blowpipes, spears and clubs, even to the brutal “Penang lawyer” itself.
Before the fire, in a big chair, Ezra slept in absolute exhaustion. Dr. Marsh was gone. By the berth Filhiol was still on guard with Laura and the captain. All three were spent with the terrible vigil, but happiness brooded over them, and none thought of rest or sleep.
In the berth, now with open eyes, lay Hal, his face white as the pillow. With the conquering of the paralysis, some slight power of motion had returned to him; but the extreme exhaustion of that heavy loss of blood still gripped him. His eyes, though, moved from face to face of the three watchers, and his blue lips were smiling.
A different look lay in those eyes than any that had ever been there, even in the boy’s moments of greatest good humor. No longer was there visible that latent expression of arrogance, of power, cruelty and pride that at any moment had been wont to leap like a trapped beast tearing its cage asunder. Hal’s look was now not merely weakness; it took hold on gentleness and on humanity; it was the look of one who, having always gloried in the right of might, had found it swiftly turn to the b
ursting bubble of illusion.
This Hal now lying bandaged and inert in the old captain’s berth was no longer the Hal of yesterday. That personality had died; another had replaced it. Something had departed from the boy’s face, never to return again. One would almost have said the eyes were those of madness that had become suddenly sane—eyes from which a curse had all at once been lifted, leaving them rational and calm.
Hal’s eyes drifted from the old doctor’s face to the captain’s, rested a moment on Laura, and then wandered to the fireplace. Surprise came, at sight of the bare bricks. The captain understood.
“They’re gone, Hal,” said he. “Burned up—they were all part and parcel of the old life; and now that that’s gone they can’t have any place here. I know you’ll understand.”
Hal made an effort. His lips formed the words soundlessly: “I understand.”
“He’ll do now,” said Filhiol. “I’m pretty far gone. I’ve got to get a little rest or you’ll have two sick men on your hands. If you need anything, call me, though. And don’t let him talk! That punctured lung of his has got to rest!”
He got up heavily, patted Hal’s hand that lay outside the spread, and hobbled toward the door.
The captain followed him, laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Doctor,” said he in a low tone, “if you knew what you’ve done for me—if you could only understand—”
“None of that, sir!” interrupted the old man sternly. “A professional duty, sir, nothing more!”
“A million times more than that! You’ve opened up a new heaven and a new earth. You’ve given Hal back to me! I can see the change. It’s real! The old book’s closed. The new one’s opened. You’ve saved a thing infinitely more than life to me. You’ve saved my boy!”
Filhiol nodded.
“And you, too,” he murmured. “Yes, facts are facts. Still, it was all in the line of duty. We’re neither of us too old to stand up to duty, captain. I hope we’ll never be. Hal’s cured. There can’t be any manner of doubt about that. The curse of unbridled strength is lifted from him. He’s another man now. The powers of darkness have defeated themselves. And the new dawn is breaking.”
He paused a moment, looking intently into the old captain’s face, then turned again toward the door.
“I’m very tired now,” said he. “There’s nothing more I can do. Let me go, captain.”
Alpheus Briggs clasped his hand in silence. For a long minute the hands of the two old men gripped each other with eloquent force. Then Filhiol hobbled through the door and disappeared.
The captain turned back to Laura. There were tears in his eyes as he said:
“If there were more like Filhiol, what a different world this would be!”
“It is a different world to-day, anyhow, from what it was yesterday,” smiled Laura. She bent over Hal and smoothed back the heavy black hair from his white forehead. “A different world for all of us, Hal!”
His hand moved slightly, but could not go to hers. She took it, clasped it against her full, warm breast, and raised it to her mouth and kissed it. She felt a slight, almost imperceptible pressure of his fingers. Her smile grew deep with meaning, for in that instant visions of the future were revealed.
The sunlight, strengthening, moved slowly across the wall whence now the kris had been torn down. A ray touched the old captain’s white hair, englorifying it. He laid his hand on Laura’s hand and Hal’s; and in his eyes were tears, but now glad tears that washed away all bitter memories.
From without, through a half-opened window that let sweet June drift in, echoed sounds of life. Voices of village children sounded along the hedge. Cartwheels rattled. The anvil, early at work, sent up its musical clank-clank-clank to Snug Haven.
From an elm near the broad porch, the sudden melody of a robin, greeting the new day after the night of storm, echoed in hearts now infinitely glad.
TEST TUBES
Originally published in Short Stories, March, 1921.
I have seen daisies growing on an ash-dump. I have seen perfumes made of evil chemicals in test tubes. Steel forms itself under slag, in crucibles. Freud tells us we are merely psychologically reacting automata, slaves of external stimuli. But some believe in free will. Does anybody know anything? All things are possible.
The chiming of the clock in Peter Brodbine’s library brought the banker to his feet.
“Midnight,” said he. “Let’s be going.”
Lillian nodded. “All right. It’s time we hit the pike!” She stood up and walked into the front hall.
Peter still delayed a minute. He remained there, looking round the library. On a rainy November night like this, it invited the soul to loaf and be warm. Peter loved his books. When he had been “Tony the Scratcher,” he had always loved to read. He had educated himself behind barred windows. But never until now had he possessed enough books. Much he hated to leave them. In a fugitive motorcar, however, one can’t be loaded with books. Everything would have to be abandoned. That meant pain to the banker. It hurt. In eleven years, a man accumulated so many things!
His eyes traveled in mute farewell round the room where innumerable evenings had been happily passed, where innumerable cigars and pipefuls had been smoked with the men of Rockville. Lots of business deals had been put through there, as well. Now, a smolder of ashes in the fireplace told where many a record of such had perished. Not that any of those deals had ever been crooked. Not one! Honesty had, indeed, been Brodbine’s trump, his joker. But the banker had not wanted to leave any records. Tonight’s deal was to be a cash one. Just cash.
The library seemed, somehow, to have grown into Peter’s heart. That heart wasn’t sentimental. Never had been. And yet—
“Well,” said Peter, and turned off the Wellsbach.
In the hallway, his wife already had her fur coat on, her rubbers, her doeskin gloves. A well-dressed woman. Always had been stylish even in the old days. The house listened to the wind and rain. It seemed so empty! Even the fact that Linda, the maid, had been sent away for a two days’ visit in Weavertown, somehow made it feel deserted. And in a few minutes it really would be deserted. Peter didn’t like the thought.
He fished his rubbers from the base of the hat-rack and drew them on. Rubbers would be necessary, tonight, for more than keeping his feet dry. The banker looked a little curiously at his own face, in the hat-rack mirror. One might have thought he expected the single gaslight in the hall to show him some change in that face. But the light was dim, and revealed nothing. An inconsequential thought crossed the banker’s mind:
“Next month I was going to have the new electric light system extended up here to North Rockville, and have lights in the house. But now it won’t be necessary.” That would save money, of course; and yet Brodbine felt sorry he hadn’t had it done.
By the single gaslight, Brodbine could see Lillian, vaguely. The woman was stouter, better-looking, smoother than she had been all those long years ago, when she had been his “moll” in Kansas City. But she still remained essentially the same woman. Determined. Oh, very.
A woman would have to be determined, to live as she had lived for the last eleven years, and never blow the game. To work into and mingle with Rockville. You know—Ladies’ Aid, Rebeccas, and all that. Lillian had done it. The stakes had been high enough to make it worthwhile. More than high enough. Nevertheless, Rockville had galled her. One can’t eternally smoke cigarettes in the attic and blow the smoke up a stovepipe hole. One can’t eternally put away the lure of the bright places. The old life stretches out such long, insistent tentacles.
“God, Tony!” she laughed, and her eyes danced. “I’m glad our time’s up. If anybody ever did an eleven-year bit, we’ve done it. Well, it’s our turnout, now. Nine hundred thousand isn’t such a much, for what we’ve plugged through. It’s only a little more than eighty-one thousand a year. And Lord! what a time we’ve had!”
“Let’s go,” said Peter Brodbine, putting on his hat and coat.
&nb
sp; He glanced about the hallway, as if mentally writing down for the last time all the pleasant, familiar things, from newel post to umbrella stand. His lips looked a little hard. But then, they always looked hard. They had looked hard when he had pulled that final pennyweight stunt in Albany and had vanished from all the world that had known him—vanished, for eleven years.
Brodbine had gray eyes, cold but businesslike; he had a voice that penetrated, that awakened confidence. His handshake made men like him. In the old days, his greatest assets in shoving his “scratch-work” had been just those qualities. They had boosted him, as well, since he had been on the level. His personality and his absolute, unswerving honesty for eleven years, had made his word his bond. Luck had favored him, too. Nobody had ever risen up in his path, from the other days. So he had gone ahead, following the chosen game of honesty as a means to an end. Honesty had been hard. Life habits cannot be easily changed. But his wife and he had made up their minds to it as the quickest way, in the end, to a big smash. When one plays for stakes that mean a set-up for life, only one policy is permissible. The copy-books all tell you what that policy is.
“Well” said Brodbine, as he turned off the gas in the hall, “you see I had it doped right. Those other times when I could have connected would have dragged down a good bundle, but they’d have crabbed the big wallop.” As the old life drew near again, the old speech once more enfolded him like a familiar cloak. “You were trying to wolf it too quick, Lil. We couldn’t have afforded to unhook anything till it was ripe. Only a mutt will grab off a hot cent on the avenue, when there’s a cold dollar waiting in the alley.”
“You can’t pull that stuff on me!” the woman retorted. “It was half my frame. I know as well as you do that if you play it square, long enough, you’ll sometime get to bat.”
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