At the Mercy of Tiberius

by Augusta J. Evans

  CHAPTER XX.

  Drifting along the stream of testimony that rolled in front of thejury-box, an eager and excited public had with scarcely a dissentingvoice arrived at the conclusion, that the verdict was narrowed to thelimits of only two possibilities. It was confidently expected that thejury would either acquit unconditionally, or fail to agree; thusprolonging suspense, by a mistrial. It was six o'clock when, thejurors, bearing the andiron, handkerchief, pipe, and a diagram of thebedroom at "Elm Bluff", were led away to their final deliberation; yetso well assured was the mass of spectators, that they would promptlyreturn to render a favorable verdict, that despite the inclemency ofthe weather, there was no perceptible diminution of the anxious crowdof men and women.

  The night had settled prematurely down, black and stormy; and thoughthe fury of the gale seemed at one time to have spent itself, the windveered to the implacable east, and instead of fitful gusts, a steadyroaring blast freighted with rain smote the darkness. The officerconducted his prisoner across the dim corridor, and opened the door ofthe small anteroom, which frequent occupancy had rendered gloomilyfamiliar.

  "I wish I could make you more comfortable, and it is a shame to shutyou up in such an ice-box. I will throw my overcoat on the floor, andyou can wrap your feet up in it. Yes, you must take it. I shall keepwarm at the stove in the Sheriff's room. The Judge will not wait laterthan ten o'clock, then I'll take you back to Mrs. Singleton. It seemsyou prefer to remain here alone."

  "Yes, entirely alone."

  "You are positive, you won't try a little hot punch, or a glass ofwine?"

  "Thank you, but I wish only to be alone."

  "Don't be too down-hearted. You will never be convicted under thatindictment, at least not by this jury, for I have a suspicion thatthere is one man among them, who will stand out until the stars fall,and I will tell you why. I happened to be looking at him, when yourChristmas card was shown by Mr. Dunbar. The moment he saw it, hestarted, stretched out his hand, and as he looked at it, I saw himchoke up, and pass his hand over his eyes. Soon after Christmas, thatman lost his only child, a girl five years old, who had scarlet fever.To divert her mind, they gave her a Christmas card to play with, thatsome friend had sent to her mother. She had it in her hand when shedied, in convulsions, and it was put in her coffin and buried with her.My wife helped to nurse and shroud her, and she told me it was the cardshown in court; it was your card. The law can't cut out theheartstrings of the jury, and I don't believe that man would lift hishand against your life, any sooner than he would strike the face of hisdead child."

  He locked the door, and Beryl found herself at last alone, in thedreary little den where a single gas burner served only to show thesurrounding cheerlessness. The furniture comprised a wooden bench alongthe wall, two chairs, and a table in the middle of the floor; and onthe dusty panes of the grated window, a ray of ruddy light from a lamppost in the street beneath, broke through the leaden lances of therain, and struggled for admission.

  The neurotic pharmacopoeia contains nothing so potent as despair tosteady quivering nerves, and steel to superhuman endurance. For Beryl,the pendulum of suspense had ceased to swing, because the spring ofhope had snapped; and the complete surrender, the mute acceptance ofthe worst possible to come, had left her numb, impervious to dread. Asone by one the discovered facts spelled unmistakably the name of herbrother, allowing no margin to doubt his guilt, the necessity ofatonement absorbed every other consideration; and the desire to averthis punishment extinguished the last remnant of selfish anxiety. If bysuffering in his stead, she could secure to him life--the opportunitiesof repentance, of expiation, of making his peace with God, of savinghis immortal soul--how insignificant seemed all else. The innate loveof life, the natural yearning for happiness, the once ferventaspirations for fame--the indescribable longing for the fruition ofyouth's high hopes, which like a Siren sang somewhere in the goldenmists of futurity--all these were now crushed beyond recognition in thewhirlwind that had wrecked her.

  Her father slept under silvery olives in a Tuscan dell, her motherwithin hearing of the waves that broke on the Atlantic shore; and ifthe wanderer could be purified by penitential tears, what mattered theshattering of the family circle on earth, when in the eternal Beyond,it would be indissolubly reformed? Over the black gulf that yawned inher young, pure life, the wings of her Christian faith bore hersteadily, unwaveringly to the heavenly rest, that she knew remained forthe people of God; and so, she seemed to have shaken hands with thethings of time and earth, and to stand on the border land, girded fordeparture. To meet her beloved dead, with the blessed announcement thatBertie must join them after a while, because she had ransomed hisprecious soul; and that the family would be complete under the heavenlyroof, was recompense so rich, that the fangs of disgrace, of physicaland mental torture were effectually extracted. By day and by night theladder of prayer lifted her soul into that serene realm, where thefountains of balm are never drained; and into her face stole thereflection of that peace which only communion with the Christian's Godcan bring to those whom grief has claimed for its own.

  To-night, as she listened to the Coronach chanted by the gale, and thedismal accompaniment of the pelting rain, she realized how utterlyisolated was her position, and kneeling on the bare floor, crossed herarms on the table, bowed her bead upon them, and prayed for patienceand strength. The ordeal had been fiery, but the end was at hand, andrelease must be near.

  She heard quick steps in the corridor, and the key was turned in thelock. Had the jury so promptly decided to destroy her? For an instantonly, she shut her eyes; and when she opened them, Mr. Dunbar wasleaning over her, folding closely about her shoulders some heavy wrap,whose soft fur collar his fingers buttoned around her throat. She hadnot known that she was cold, until the delicious sensation of warmthcrept like a caressing touch over her chilled limbs. She did not stir,and neither spoke; but after a moment he turned toward the door; thenshe rose.

  "There is something I wish to say, and this is my last opportunity, asafter to-night we shall not meet again. During the past four months Ihave said harsh, bitter things to you, and have unjustly judged you. Ingrateful recognition of all that you have so faithfully essayed toaccomplish in my behalf, I ask you now to forget everything but mygratitude for your effort to save me; and I offer my hand to you, asthe one friend who sacrificed even his manly pride, and enduredhumiliation in order to redress my wrongs. I thank you very sincerely,Mr. Dunbar."

  He took her outstretched hand, pressed it against his cheek, his eyes,held it to his lips; then a half smothered groan escaped him, andafraid to trust himself, he went quickly out.

  Believing that she stood on the confines of another world, she hadpossessed her soul in patience, waiting for the consummation of thesacrifice; yet at the crisis of her fate, that singular,incomprehensible influence, long resisted, drew her thoughts to him,whom she regarded as the chosen puppet of destiny to hurry her into anuntimely grave. She had fought the battle with him, under fearful odds;conscious of sedition in the heart that defied him, warily clutchingwith one hand the throat of rebellion in her citadel, while with theother, she parried assault.

  Keeping lonely vigil, amid the strewn wreck of life and hope, she hadwaved away one persistent thought, that lit up the blackness with asudden glory, that came with the face of an angel of light, and babbledwith the silvery tongue of sorcery. As far as her future was concerned,this world had practically come to a premature end; but above the roarof ruin, and out of the yawning graves of slaughtered possibilities,rose and rang the challenge: If she had never come South, if she couldhave been allowed the chance of happiness that seemed every woman'sbirthright, if she had met and known Mr. Dunbar, before he was pledgedto another; what then? If she were once more the Beryl of old, and hewere free? If? What necromancy so wonderful, as the potentiality of if?Weighed in that popular balance--appearances--how stood the poorfriendless prisoner, loaded with suspicion, tarnished with obloquy, onthe verge of an ignominious death; in comparison
with the fair, proudheiress, dowered with blue blood, powerful in patrician influence, richin all that made her the envy of her social world?

  In the dazzling zenith of temporal prosperity, Leo Gordon consideredthe heart of her betrothed her most precious possession; the one jewelwhich she would gladly have given all else to preserve; and yet, fatetore it from her grasp, and laid it at the feet, nay thrust it into thewhite hand of the woman who must die for a fiendish crime. A latter-dayseer tells us, that in all realms, "Between laws there is no analogy,there is Continuity"; then in the universe of ethical sociology, whoshall trace the illimitable ramifications of the Law of Compensation?

  Up and down, back and forth, slowly, wearily walked the prisoner; andwhen the town clock struck eight, she mechanically counted each stroke.As in drowning men, the landmarks of a lifetime rise, huddle, almostpress upon the glazing eyes, so the phantasmagoria of Beryl's past,seemed projected in strange luminousness upon the pall of the present,like profiles in silvery flame cast on a black curtain.

  Holding her father's hand, she walked in the Odenwald; sitting besideher mother on a carpet of purple vetches, she stemmed strawberries in agarden near Pistoja; clinging to Bertie's jacket, she followed himacross dimpling sands to dip her feet in the blue Mediterranean waves,that broke in laughter, showing teeth of foam, where dying sunsetsreddened all the beach. Through sunny arcades, flushed withpomegranate, glowing with orange, silvered with lemon blossoms, camethe tinkling music of contadini bells, the bleating of kids, thetwittering of happy birds, the distant chime of an Angelus; all thesubtle harmony, the fragmentary melody that flickers through anImpromptu of Chopin or Schubert. She saw the simulacrum of her formerself, the proud, happy Beryl of old, singing from the score of the"Messiah", in the organ loft of a marble church; she heard the richtenor voice of her handsome brother, as he trilled a barcarole onenight, crossing the Atlantic; she smelled the tuberoses at Mentone, thefaint breath of lilies her father had loved so well, and then, blottingall else, there rose clear as some line of Morghen's, that attic room;the invalid's bed, the low chair beside it, the wasted figure, thesuffering, fever-flushed face of the beloved mother, as she saw herlast, with the Grand Duke jasmine fastened at her throat.

  The door was thrown open, and the officer beckoned her to follow him.Back into the crowded court-room, where people pressed even into thewindow sills for standing room, where Judge and counsel sat gravelyexpectant; where the stillness of death had suddenly fallen. Theofficer conducted her to the bar, then drew back, and Mr. Dunbar cameand stood at her side; resting his hand on the back of her chair.

  In that solemn hush, the measured tramp of the jury advancing, andfiling into their box, had the mournful, measured beat as of pallbearers, keeping step to a dismal dirge; and when the foreman laid uponthe table the fatal brass unicorn, the muffled sound seemed ominous asthe grating of a coffin lowered upon the cross bars of a gaping grave.As the roll was called, each man rose, and answered in a low butdistinct tone. Then the clerk of the court asked:

  "Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?"

  "We have," replied the foreman.

  "What say you! Guilty, or not guilty?"

  Beryl had risen, and the gaslight shining full upon her pale, Phidianface, showed no trace of trepidation. Only the pathetic patience of asublime surrender was visible on her frozen features. The eyespreternaturally large and luminous were raised far above the sea ofheads, and their strained gaze might almost have been fixed upon theunveiled face of the God she trusted. Her hands were folded over hermother's ring, her noble head thrown proudly back.

  "We the jury, in the case of the State against Beryl Brentano, finddefendant not guilty as charged in the indictment; but guilty ofmanslaughter in the first degree; and we do earnestly commend her tothe mercy of the Court."

  The girl staggered slightly, as if recoiling from a blow, and Mr.Dunbar caught her arm, steadied her. The long pent tide of popularfeeling broke its barriers, and the gates of Pandemonium seemed toswing open. Women sobbed; men groaned. In vain the Judge thundered"Silence", "Order!" and not until an officer advanced to obey thecommand, to clear the court-room, was there any perceptible lull, inthe storm of indignation.

  Turning to the Judge, Mr. Dunbar said:

  "In behalf of the prisoner, I most respectfully beg that the Court willend her suspense; and render her return to this bar unnecessary bypromptly pronouncing sentence."

  "Is it the wish of the prisoner, that sentence should not be delayed?"

  "She wishes to know her fate."

  She had uttered no sound, but the lashes trembled, fell over the tired,aching, strained eyes; and lifting her locked hands she bowed her chinupon them.

  Some moments elapsed, before Judge Parkman spoke; then his voice waslow and solemn.

  "Beryl Brentano, you have been indicted for the deliberate andpremeditated murder of your grandfather, Robert Luke Darrington. Twelvemen, selected for their intelligence and impartiality, have patientlyand attentively listened to the evidence in this case, and have underoath endeavored to discover the truth of this charge. You have had thebenefit of a fair trial, by unbiased judges, and finally, the jury inthe conscientious discharge of their duty, have convicted you ofmanslaughter in the first degree, and commended you to the mercy of theCourt. In consideration of your youth, of the peculiar circumstancessurrounding you, and especially, in deference to the wishes andrecommendation of the jury--whose verdict, the Court approves, Itherefore pronounce upon you the lightest penalty which the law affixesto the crime of manslaughter, of which you stand convicted; whichsentence is--that you be taken hence to the State Penitentiary, andthere be kept securely, for the term of five years."

  With a swift movement, Mr. Dunbar drew the crape veil over her face,put her arm through his, and led her into the corridor. Hurriedly heexchanged some words in an undertone with the two officers, whoaccompanied him to the rear entrance of the court-house; and then, inanswer to a shrill whistle, a close carriage drawn by two horses drewup to the door, followed by the dismal equipage set apart for thetransportation of prisoners. The deputy sheriff stepped forward, tryingto shield the girl from the driving rain, and assisted her into thecarriage. Mr. Dunbar sprang in and seated himself opposite. The officerclosed the door, ordered the coachman to drive on, and then enteringthe gloomy black box, followed closely, keeping always in sight of thevehicle in advance.

  The clock striking ten, sounded through the muffling storm a knell asmournful as some tolling bell, while into that wild, moaning Fridaynight, went the desolate woman, wearing henceforth the brand ofCain--remanded to the convict's home.

  She had thrown back her veil to ease the stifling sensation in herthroat, and Mr. Dunbar could see now and then, as they dashed past astreet lamp, that she sat upright, still as stone.

  At last she said, in a tone peculiarly calm, like that of one talkingin sleep:

  "What did it mean--that verdict?"

  "That you went back to 'Elm Bluff' with no intention of attacking Gen'lDarrington."

  "That I went there deliberately to steal, and then to avoid detection,killed him? That was the verdict of the jury?"

  She waited a moment.

  "Answer me. That was the meaning? That was the most merciful verdictthey could give to the world?"

  Only the hissing sound of the rain upon the glass pane of the carriage,made reply.

  They had reached the bridge, when a hysterical laugh startled the man,who leaned back on the front seat, with his arms crossed tightly over aheart throbbing with almost unendurable pain.

  "To steal, to rob, to plunder. Branded for all time a thief, a rogue, amurderess. I!--I--"

  A passionate wail told the strain was broken: "I, my father's darling,my father's Beryl! Hurled into a living tomb, herded with convicts,with the vilest outcasts that disgrace the earth--this is worse than athousand deaths! It would have been so merciful to crush out the lifethey mangled; but to doom me to the slow torture of this loathsomegrave, where deat
h brings no release! To die is so easy, so blessed;but to live--a convicted felon! O, my God! my God! Hast Thou indeedforsaken me?"

  In the appalling realization of her fate, she rocked to and fro for amoment only, fiercely shaken by the horror of a future never beforecontemplated. Then the proud soul stifled its shuddering sigh, liftedits burden of shame, silently struggled up its awful Via Crucis. Muteand still, she leaned back in the corner of the carriage.

  "I could have saved you, but you would not accept deliverance. Youthwarted every effort, tied the hands that might have set you free; andby your own premeditated course throughout the trial, deliberatelydragged this doom down upon your head. You counted the cost, and youelected, chose of your own free will to offer yourself as a sacrifice,to the law, for the crime of another. You are your own merciless fate,decreeing self-immolation. You were willing to die, in order to savethat man's life; and you can certainly summon fortitude to endure fiveyears' deprivation of his society; sustained by the hope that havingthereby purchased his security, you may yet reap the reward your heartdemands, reunion with its worthless, degraded idol. I have watched,weighed, studied you; searched every stray record of your fair younglife, found the clear pages all pure; and I have doubted, marvelledthat you, lily-hearted, lily-souled, lily-handed, could cast the pearlof your love down in the mire, to be trampled by swinish feet."

  The darkness of the City of Dis that seemed to brood under the wings ofthe stormy night, veiled Beryl's face; and her silence goaded himbeyond the limits of prudence, which he had warily surveyed for himself.

  "Day and night, I hear the maddening echo of your accusing cry, 'Youhave ruined my life!' God knows, you have as effectually ruined mine.You have your revenge--if it comfort you to know it; but I am incapableof your sublime renunciation. I am no patient martyr; I am, instead, anintensely selfish man. You choose to hug the ashes of desolation; Ipurpose to sweep away the wreck, to rebuild on the foundation of onehope, which all the legions in hell cannot shake. Between you and methe battle has only begun, and nothing but your death or my victorywill end it. You have your revenge; I intend to enjoy mine. Though heburrow as a mole, or skulk in some fastness of Alaska, I will track andseize that cowardly miscreant, and when the law receives its guiltyvictim, you shall be freed from suspicion, freed from prison, and mostprecious of all boons, you shall be freed forever from the vilecontamination of his polluting touch. For the pangs you have inflictedon me, I will have my revenge: you shall never be profaned by the nameof wife."

  Up the rocky hill toiled the horses, arching their necks as theystooped their faces to avoid the blinding rain: and soon the huge blotof prison walls, like a crouching monster ambushed in surroundinggloom, barred the way.

  In two windows of the second story, burned lights that borrowed luridrays in their passage through the mist, and seemed to glow angrily,like the red eyes of a sullen beast of prey. The carriage stopped. Amoment after, the deputy-sheriff sprang from his wagon and rang thebell close to the great gate. Two dogs bayed hoarsely, and somewhere inthe building an answering bell sounded.

  Beryl leaned forward.

  "Mr. Dunbar, there is one last favor I ask at your hands. I wantmy--my--I want that pipe, that was shown in court. Will you ask that itmay be given to me? Will you send it to me?"

  A half strangled, scarcely audible oath was his only reply.

  She put out her hand, laid it on his.

  "You dare caused me so much suffering, surely you will not deny me thisonly recompense I shall ever ask."

  His hand closed over hers.

  "If I bring it to you, will you confess who smoked it last?"

  "After to-night, sir, I think it best I should never see your faceagain."

  The officer opened the carriage door, the warden approached, carrying alantern in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Mr. Dunbar steppedfrom the carriage and turning, stretched out his arms, suddenlysnatched the girl for an instant close to his heart, and lifted her tothe ground.

  The warden opened the gate, swinging his lantern high to light the way,and by its flickering rays Lennox Dunbar saw the beautiful white face,the wonderful, sad eyes, the wan lips contracted by a spasm of pain.

  She turned and followed the warden; the lights wavered; the great irongate swung back in its groove, the bolt fell with a sullen clang; themassive key rattled, a chain clanked, and all was darkness as she waslocked irrevocably into her living tomb.