16. CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.
THE DEATH-ROOM IN BONUS COURT.
We are once more in Bonus Court. Again
we behold the face of the Priest, who is held
to the couch of death, by the clutch of the
dying woman's hand.
“I could not live apart from the children.
I knew that Lemuel Gardiner had procured
that will by fraud. I stole the children from
Oakleaf, and changed their names. For years
I worked and slaved to give them a support,
and —” she paused and gasped for breath —
“Behold the end of all!”
Her eyes wandered about the desolate room,
and the light revealed each repulsive feature of
her pestilence-smitten face.
The Priest, stricken as he was by horror,
mustered sufficient calmness to ask a question:
“Have you ever since 1826 heard of Lemuel
Gardiner?”
“Once, after his flight, I heard that he still
lived — that he was preaching against the Pope
in a distant part of the country.”
Even touched as it was by death, her face
assumed an expression of scornful laughter.
“And Reuben Gatherwood — this treacherous
Physician — have you ever heard of him
since 1826?”
“Some years ago, it was stated that he was
engaged in the African Slave Trade. The
name under which he passed was Captain
something, Brad — Bradbury, or some such
name.”
The Priest's brow became clouded.
“And the children?”
“One a white slave; and the other an outcast.
Yes, yes —” her voice rose in a
shriek of horrible laughter — “One is hastening
rapidly to the public streets — you hear
me? Her future is that of the woman who
traffics her favors for bread. The other is
hastening as rapidly to the Penitentiary. And
these are the children of Arthur and Alice
Bayne! Don't you think this Reuben will
have a rich account to settle up yonder?”
She laughed again: “And Lemuel — O, the
Apostate and three-fold Traitor! Would I
could see him now, to tell him what his crimes
will bring him to at last!”
The Priest trembled at the horrible expression
of her countenance. He endeavored to
withdraw his hand, but she only clutched his
wrist with a firmer grasp.
“Come,” he said, “I will absolve you for
all these sins. I must leave you now.”
He began to repeat a prayer from the ritual
of the Roman Church. It was the same
prayer which many years before, Ann Clarke
had uttered by the bed of the dying Alice:
“Depart, Christian soul! out of this world,
in the Name of God the Father Almighty who
created thee: in the Name of Jesus Christ,
Son of the living God, who suffered for thee:
in the Name of —”
“Death is near, and there is no longer a
mist before my soul,” cried the dying woman,
as her eyes flamed with an unnatural light —
“Do not pray for me Priest — not yet! not
yet! Not until I have told you the fate of
Reuben Gatherwood and Lemuel Gardiner!”
“Hold!” faltered the Priest, “you must not
employ your last hour in curses.”
The tone of the dying woman became
strangely calm and measured.
“I do not curse,” she whispered, “I only
predict. This Reuben and this Lemuel are
linked together in crime. Reuben a Physician
false to God and man, and steeped to the lips
in pollution. Lemuel an apostate Priest, a
faithless lover, a wretch in holy robes who
guided the hand of Alice, when she signed
away the heritage of her children. Do you
behold those comrades in iniquity? Have you
listened to the history of their crimes? Now
listen, while I describe the manner of their
death.”
“No! No!” shrieked the Priest, struggling
with the hand which clutched his wrist — “I
will not hear you. Remember! you are about
to leave this world, with all its trials and its
hatreds. Do not curse.”
Up in the wretched bed, started the miserable
woman. She flung her black hair, streaked
with silver, aside from her hideous face.
Then, clutching the Priest with one hand, she
stretched forth the other — blotched by disease
— as though pointing toward a scene, which
rose before her glazing eyes:
“They shall die together,” she whispered,
“Reuben and Lemuel locked in the embrace
of despair, and taunting each other with
their mutual crimes. Do you not see them?
Look! Look! There —”
Her voice was gone. With that prophecy,
uttered by lips livid and loathsome with the
pestilence, her soul passed away. The Priest
was grasped by a dead hand, whose fingers
encircled his wrist with a clutch of iron.
His harsh features, thrown into relief by his
skull-cap, were distorted by a look of fright
and terror.
“Take your hand from my wrist,” he cried,
“I will not hear your curses! Away! away!
Don't force me to battle with a dying woman.”
Bewildered by his fright, he started to his
feet, but the hand still clutched his wrist.
“Curses upon my folly! Why did I enter
this den? Why, lured by the hope of hearing
something that might bring me gold, did I
hurry to the death bed of Ann Clarke?” with
his freed hand he wiped the cold moisture
from his forehead — “Ann, you should not be
revengeful,” his voice fell into an accent of
whining entreaty — “We are all frail — not
one of us is free from sin. I am not the cause
of the degradation of these children. Indeed I
am not.”
His voice grew faint and fainter. He sank
on his knees. His eyes closed, and his head
fell forward, upon the ragged coverlet. His
black skull-cap and dark attire, were distinctly
disclosed by the light fading in its socket, while
gaunt and loathsome, the body of the dead
woman, half uncovered, was stretched upon
that bed of despair.
No one was there to close her lifeless lids.
Her jaw had fallen, and her cold eyes seemed
to glare with a defiant look, upon the Priest,
whose face was buried in the coverlet near her
side.
The light was fading low and lower, the
place was still with the stillness of death, and
the dead woman's hand still clutched the wrist
of the Priest.
Once more we return to the room on the
first floor.
