University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH.
“A LITTLE PRIVATE CONVERSATION.”

Lemuel began to move along the iron floor,
slowly, almost imperceptibly, and without raising
his feet. Not for an instant did he remove
his gaze from Caleb's face. He was chained
to Caleb's eyes, as by the power of an irresistible
magnetism.

“To the door! Discover the secret spring!
I command you!”

Brother Caleb dared not turn away his eyes
from Lemuel's face. That steady gaze, one
instant changed, and all was lost. But he felt
the air was growing warmer every moment,
and the smoke issuing from the aperture, now
began to flow like a misty veil before his face.

Gliding, shuffling over the floor, Lemuel approached
the wall, where it was supposed the
secret door was concealed.

His features were terribly agitated; he was
gathering all the force of his Will, in order to
combat the fascination of Goodleigh's gaze.
Halting abruptly, he flung his body backward,
while his feet moved as if in opposition to his
will. And as he struggled with that gaze, as
a man would wrestle with an enemy, arm to
arm and breast to breast, Brother Caleb drew
nearer, until the lamp which he held came
within the reach of Lemuel's uplifted arm.

The face of Caleb was bathed in moisture.
His eyes flashed with a sinister, malignant lustre.

“You dare not disobey!” he said, and —

Lemuel's struggling arm, dashed the lamp
from his hand. They were alone in the Iron
Room, alone in the darkness, enveloped in the
stifling atmosphere, as in a shroud of heat and
smoke. The power of Caleb's gaze was
gone; and a burst of mocking laughter
which seemed to resound from the very heart
of Lemuel, told Caleb that the hour of the
madman's vengeance was at hand.

“Ha! Ha! This atmosphere grows comfortably
warm. How do you like it Reuben?”

“Devil!” gasped Caleb through his grating
teeth.

“You can hear the State House bell?
Hark! to the sound of the firemen's tread
as they are hurrying along the street. But
they cannot save you Caleb. No! No!
N-o-o!”

Caleb uttered a howl of despair and plunged
in the direction of his enemy's voice, but Lemuel
slid like a snake from his outstretched
arms.

“When I stood upon the threshold, I thought
to myself, that it would be better for me to obtain
the proofs of your guilt before I had you
arrested. But I changed my mind, Reuben,
changed my mind — d' ye hear? I will not
arrest you; I want no proofs of your guilt. I
only want” — another burst of laughter —
“the opportunity of a little private conversation
with you.”

“This place stifles me,” groaned Caleb —
“I can scarcely breathe. By Satan it is only
a horrible nightmare. Lemuel! Lemuel!
Relieve me from this place, and name your
price. I am rich — rich” —

“And you must die the death of a leprous
negro in a burning ship,” whispered Lemuel
in his ear.

“I have riches scattered over all the world.
Release me, and I will share with you! You
have heard of my plantation in the West Indies?
A beautiful place that stretches from
the sea-shore, adorned with everything that
can please a man of pleasure. Beautiful slaves
— they are mine — cellars filled all with old
wine — a voluptuous atmosphere — days and
nights of sensual pleasure. These — these I
offer you as the price of my life! Quick,
Lemuel, quick, I say! There is no time to
be lost!”

“You grow poetical, Reuben,” was the
only reply that resounded from the darkness:
“Strike a more practical vein. Somehow I
like the sound of your voice.”

“Do you desire money? Long condemned
to poverty, you shall taste the enjoyment of
money for money's sake. You shall become
a Capitalist. You shall have the control of
half my fortune. Think of it Lemuel! As a
man of money, you can revenge the insults received
in a lifetime of poverty, you can command”
—

“The twenty thousand dollars of which you
robbed me, at rouge et noir in the good city
of Paris. Eh, Reuben?”

That roaring sound, which throbbed through
the burning mansion, was now heard with appalling
distinctness. Faster and thicker poured
the smoke through the aperture in the iron

walls. The heat became intolerable. Caleb
groaned in anguish: he heard the sound of
bells and trampling feet, and shouting voices,
all subdued and deadened by thick walls, and
every sound penetrated his heart like his funeral
knell.

“Will no one save me!” he shrieked —
“Must I die in this cursed place?”

“I burn! I burn!” answered the voice of
Lemuel — “These iron plates are heating.
Reuben, Reuben I say” —

“You relent — you will discover the secret
spring?”

There was silence, only interrupted by that
dull, roaring sound.

Lemuel roused from his monomania by the
near prospect of an appalling death, had indeed
relented. The madness which had seized
him, after his entrance into the iron room, now
suddenly passed away. He started from his
frenzy, like a man roused abruptly from a horrible
dream.

“Search for the spring. Reuben,” he cried
in a changed voice — “Years ago, the secret
of that spring was communicated to me by
the lock-smith, on his death-bed. In his last
hour, he repented that he had made the lock,
for the death of the burglar weighed heavy on
his soul” —

“The spring!” shrieked Caleb, “Where is
it? Do you not feel that we are burning
alive?”

“A small iron knob projects from the iron
panel. It is about half-way between the ceiling
and the floor.”

In the darkness, they began to search for
the iron knob. While the atmosphere grew
more dense, Caleb and Lemuel placed their
hands upon the iron panels, already warming
under the influence of the fire, and with the
eagerness of despair sought for the inside
spring.'

They passed around the narrow room, in
opposite directions, and met again, their hands
pressed upon the iron panel, touching in the
darkness.

“I cannot find it,” groaned Lemuel — “We
shall be burned alive —”

“Dog! This is your work?” hissed Caleb
through his set teeth: “You will share my
fate. We shall die together. Ho, ho, friend
Lemuel are you caught in your own trap —”

“But I am not rich,” whispered Lemuel.

Goodleigh mad with rage, sprung toward
him in the darkness. Lemuel avoided his grasp,
and Goodleigh stumbled and fell upon the iron
floor. A sensation of intolerable heat, pervaded
his frame, as he came in contact with the
heated panels.

“I would give ten years of my life, to have
you in my grasp,” he shrieked, as he staggered
to his feet.

“You had better think of your misdeeds,
Reuben,” answered Lemuel — “Think of
Ann Clarke who was innocent, until you
crossed my path, and made her the Murderess
of her own child” —

“And you, now that you are about to die,
shut up in flames, you my good Lemuel, think
of the Church whose rites you have blasphemed,
whose vows you have broken. Think of that
life of forty years, which is marked in its every
moment, by the tricks of a craven and a
swindler —”

“Think of Alice Bayne! You are silent —
have I touched you? Ah, cowardly knave!
Did not your heart fail you, when you stole
into that peaceful home, and under the cloak
of your profession, damned the purity of a
mother, drove the father to suicide, and sent
the children adrift upon the world? Did you
ever feel remorse good Reuben?”

“I did not creep to the bed of a dying woman,
and under the cloak of a Preacher's
frock, extort from her fears a will that made
her children beggars. Indeed I did not. That
was reserved for a `Converted Monk.”'

“But you robbed this Preacher of the inheritance
of the children — robbed him at the
gambling table — at the very moment, when
he was about to return to America, and surrender
his ill-gotten wealth. Do you remember
Frascati's?”

“Is there no way of escape?” groaned Caleb
in a changed voice. “Ah! This is a horrible
death!”

He gasped for breath, and staggered over the
floor, while his temples throbbed with an intolerable
torture. The roaring sound grew
more distinct. It drowned the tramp of the
thousands who hurried along the street, and
enveloped the iron room on every side.

Panting for breath, his lungs oppressed by
the stifling air, the sinews of his throat writhing

under a sense of suffocation, his brain fevered
and his temples throbbing with acute
agony, Brother Caleb felt that his consciousness
was rapidly passing away, that he was
sinking fast into that stupor which terminates
only in Eternity.

He began to utter incoherent oaths and imprecations
of despair, as he staggered over the
heated floor.

“Alice! I defy you! You shall not drag
me down! A ship in sight, did you say?
Ho, ho, we'll foil them! Into the sea with
our living cargo — overboard with them all!
Wash the stain of blood from the decks, and
let hand-cuff and manacle follow the negroes,
into the sea. For the sea is silent — it tells
no tales! How much did you say I was
worth? Half a million? A great deal of
money! Change it into gold, gold, d'ye hear?
Let me see it all in gold. Let me bathe in it,
let me swim in it, for with gold a man can
move the world. Curses upon the knaves!
This gold is heated — it withers the flesh from
my fingers as I grasp it!”

Staggering to and fro, Brother Caleb at last,
encountered the form of Lemuel.

Lemuel was on his knees, muttering as he
gasped for breath, a prayer of the Catholic
Church.

They grappled together, and fought in the
darkness, Caleb endeavoring to dash the head
of Lemuel against the heated wall, while Lemuel
clinging to him, with maniac strength,
sunk his teeth into Caleb's shoulder.

Their curses died half-uttered on their lips.
Suffocating with the intolerable heat, they lost
the power and coherence of audible speech.

It was a fearful struggle which they maintained
in the darkness, in that Iron Room,
enveloped in a whirlpool of flame.