 | CHAPTER XXVIII.
DENSDETH'S FAREWELL. Cecil Dreeme |  |
28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
DENSDETH'S FAREWELL.
“The carriage is here,” said Locksley, at the
door. What with indignation at Densdeth, the
janitor had got far beyond his usual bristly porcupine
condition. He presented a spiky aspect.
I hope no boy of the Chrysalids tried a tussle
with him that day.
“Will you allow me to join your party?”
Raleigh asked. “I may make myself of use.”
“Certainly. Well, Towner, we leave you with
friend Locksley. But, man!” continued Churm,
in surprise, “what have you been doing to yourself?”
Well he might be astonished! Towner had
risen, and was standing erect and vigorous. His
manner was eager, almost to wildness. His little,
unmeaning eyes were open wide, as if he
saw something that made him young and unwrinkled
again. There was a hot, hectic spot in
his cheek, just now mere pale parchment.
“Embers ablaze at last!” thought I. “The
man has struck a blow for freedom, and now he
off Densdeth; he looks as if he could turn and
tear him.”
“I should like to go with you, Mr. Churm, if
you please,” said Towner. “The drive will do
me good. Huffmire knows me. He might open
his doors to me, as Densdeth's friend, when he
would exclude you.”
“Very well,” said Churm; “come, if you feel
strong enough. But you must let Locksley fit
you out with clothes.”
Towner hurried off with the janitor. He had
skulked into my room, at the beginning of the
interview, like a condemned spy; he moved
away like a brave and a victor.
“I take him,” said Churm, “because I doubt
his resolution. The old allegiance might prove
too strong. He might confess to Densdeth that
he had confessed to us. That would baffle us.
We must not lose sight of him.”
“Churm,” said I, “I go with you, of course,
through thick and thin. But Cecil Dreeme, — I
feel that my first duty is to seek and succor him.
I long to aid the young lady. But she is a stranger,
and has you. Dreeme is part of my heart,
and has no one.”
“Patience, Robert! One thing at a time. Let
us but run Densdeth to earth, and I dare promise
you will find your friend. You for yours, and I
must prevail. If I doubted one moment of my
child's safety, I should not be searching for her
now, but chasing him.”
“Not to impose upon him the mild sentence
you spoke of long ago? Not to condemn him to
bless as many lives as he has cursed?”
“I fear it is too late for such gentle treatment.
Do you suppose, Towner, a life so cursed as his
will be contented with that indirect application
of the lex talionis? No; Densdeth must be
stopped and punished.”
The boys of Chrysalis, the College, were swarming
in the corridor and upon the staircase under
the plaster fan-tracery as we passed. Little
enough of the honey of learning had they sucked
from their mullein-stalk of a professor that day,
and they buzzed indignantly or bumbled surlily
about. Far different was the kind of education
and discipline I was getting in the same cloisters.
The great book of sin and sorrow, that time-worn,
tear-marked, blood-stained volume, had
been opened to me here, and I was reading it
by the light of my own experience. And as I
read, I felt that there were pages awaiting my
record, — pages that I could already fill, and
others that the future would sternly teach me
to fill, before my story ended.
At the great western door we found Churm's
in an old blue camlet cloak, — a garment that
the months had disdained for a score of years, when
in Locksley's prosperity they had choice pasturage
of broadcloth to graze over. This queer
figure and the elegant Raleigh took the back
seat. Churm and I were on the box.
Churm's bays are not known to the Racing
Calendar; but there are teams of renown that
always pull up on the road, when they hear the
accurate cadence of their coming hoofs, and
recognize Churm's peculiar whistle as he signals,
“More seconds out of that mile!” We drove
fast through town to the nearest ferry, crossed,
and presently, off the stones across the water,
bowled along the Bushley turnpike, as merrily as
if we were on our way to a country wedding festival.
Little was said. We knew the past, and
that was too painful to talk of. We did not
know the future, and could not interpret its
omens.
From time to time I turned to glance at
Towner. He sat erect and alert, with cheeks
burning and eyes aflame. The inner fire had
kindled up his manhood again. “I would not
give much for Densdeth's life,” thought I, “if
his late serf should meet him now. The man
is capable of one spasm of vengeance. He
looks, with his twitching face and uneasy fingers,
debased him, and then die.”
So we drove on, mile after mile, in the chilly
March afternoon, and at last pulled up at a
door, in a white stuccoed wall, — a whited wall,
edging the road like a bank of stale snow.
Within we could see an ugly, dismal house,
equally stuccoed white, peering suspiciously at
us over the top of the enclosure, from its sinister
grated windows of the upper story.
A boy was walking up and down the road
at a little distance a fine black horse, all in
a lather with hard riding, and cut with the
spurs. The animal plunged about furiously,
almost dragging the lad off his feet.
“You will see Huffmire, Towner,” said Churm,
“and tell him that I want to talk with him.”
“Yes,” cried Towner, eagerly, “let me manage
it!”
He shook off his cloak, sprang down with
energetic step, and rang the bell. A man looked
through a small shutter in the door, and asked
his business, gruffly enough.
“Tell Dr. Huffmire that Mr. Towner wishes
to see him.”
The porter presently returned, and said that
Dr. Huffmire would see the gentleman, alone.
“Huffmire will know my name. Send him
out here to me, Towner, if he will come; if
Churm.
Towner passed in. The porter closed the
outer door upon him, and then looked through
the shutter at us, with a truculent stare, as if
he were accustomed to inquisitive visitors, and
liked to baffle them. He had but one eye, and
his effect, as he grinned through the square porthole
in the gate, was singularly Cyclopean and
ogre-ish. He probably regarded men merely as
food, sooner or later, for insane asylums, — as
morsels to be quietly swallowed or forcibly choked
down by the jaws of Retreats.
“What!” whispered Raleigh to me, as the
boy led the snorting and curvetting black horse
by us. “That fellow at the eye-hole magnetized
me at first. I did not notice that horse.
Do you know it?”
“No,” said I. “I have never seen him. A
splendid fellow! His rider must have been in
hot haste to get here. Perhaps some errand
like our own!”
“Densdeth,” again whispered Raleigh, “Densdeth
told me he had been looking at a new black
horse.”
We glanced at each other. All felt that Densdeth's
appearance here, at this moment, might
be harmful. Churm's name brought Huffmire
speedily to the door. Churm, the philanthropist,
opened the door, and stood just within, defending
the entrance. He was a large man, with
a large face, — large in every feature, and exaggerated
where for proportion it should have
been small. He suffered under a general rush
of coarseness to the face. He had a rush of
lymphatic puffiness to the cheeks, a rush of
blubber to the lips, a rush of gristle to his
clumsy nose, a rush of lappel to the ears,
a rush of dewlap to the throat. A disgusting
person, — the very type of man for a vulgar
tyrant. His straight black hair was brushed
back and combed behind the ears. He was
in the sheep's clothing of a deacon.
“You have a young lady here, lately arrived?”
said Churm, bowing slightly, in return to the
other's cringing reverence.
“I have several, sir. Neither youth nor beauty
is exempt, alas! from the dreadful curse of
insanity, which I devote myself, in my humble
way, to eradicate. To e-rad-i-cate,” he repeated,
dwelling on the syllables of his word,
as if he were tugging, with brute force, at something
that came up hard, — as if madness were
a stump, and he were a cogwheel machine extracting
it.
“I wish to know,” said Churm, in his briefest
and sternest manner, “if a young lady named
Denman was brought here yesterday.”
“Denman, sir! No sir. I am happy to be
able to state to you, sir, that there is no unfortunate
of that name among my patients, —
no one of that name, — I rejoice to satisfy you.”
“I suppose you know who I am,” said Churm.
I saw his fingers clutch his whip-handle.
A rush of oiliness seemed to suffuse the man's
coarse face. “It is the well-known Mr. Churm,”
said he. “The fame of his benevolence is coextensive
with our country, sir. Who does not
love him? — the friend of the widow and the
orphan! I am proud, sir, to make your acquaintance.
This is a privilege, indeed, — indeed,
a most in-es-ti-ma-ble pri-vile-age.”
“Do you think me a safe man to lie to?” said
Churm, abruptly.
“I confess that I do not take your meaning,
sir,” said Huffmire, in the same soft manner, but
stepping back a little.
“Do you think it safe to lie to me?”
“I, sir! lie, sir!” stammered Huffmire. The
oiliness seemed to coagulate in his muddy skin,
and with his alarm his complexion took the texture
and color of soggy leather.
“Yes; the lady is here. I wish to see her.”
As Churm was silent, looking sternly at the
pretended doctor, there rose suddenly within the
building a strange and horrible cry.
A strange and horrible cry! Two voices mingled
mocking tone, now smitten with despair; and
yet the change that gave it its horror was so
slight, that I doubted if the old mockery had not
all the while been despair, suppressed and disguised.
The other voice, mingling with this,
rising with it up into silence that grew stiller as
they climbed, and then, disentangling itself, over-topping
its companion, and beating it slowly down
until it had ceased to be, — this other voice was
like the exulting cry of one defeated and trampled
under foot, who yet has saved a stab for his
victor.
They had met — Towner and Densdeth!
We three sprang from the carriage, thrust
aside the Doctor, and, following our memories of
the dead sound for a clew, ran across the court
and through a half-open door into the hall of the
Asylum.
All was still within. The air was thick with
the curdling horror that had poured into it. We
paused an instant to listen.
A little muffled moan crept feebly forth from a
room on the left. It hardly reached us, so faint
it was. It crept forth, and seemed to perish at
our feet, like a hopeless suppliant. We entered
the room. It was a shabby parlor, meanly furnished.
The stained old paper on the walls was
covered with Arcadian groups of youths and
by a shepherd, who sat upon a broken column
under a palm. On the floor was a tawdry carpet,
all beflowered and befruited, — such a meretricious
blur of colors as a hotel offers for vulgar
feet to tread upon. So much I now perceive
that I marked in that mean reception-room. But
I did not note it then.
For there, among the tawdry flowers of the
carpet, lay Densdeth, — dead, or dying of a
deadly wound. The long, keen, antique dagger
I had noticed lying peacefully on my table was
upon the floor. Its office had found it at last,
and the signet of a new blood-stain was stamped
upon its blade, among tokens of an old habit of
murder, latent for ages.
Beside the wounded man sat Towner. His
spasm was over. The freed serf had slain his
tyrant. All his life had been crowded into that
one moment of frenzy. He sat pale and drooping,
and there was a desolate sorrow in his face,
as if his hate for his master had been as needful
to him as a love.
“I could not help it,” said Towner, in a dreary
whisper. “He came to me while I was waiting
here. He told Huffmire to send you off, and
leave me to him. And then he stood over me,
and told me, with his old sneer, that I belonged to
him, body and soul. He said I must obey him.
mean villany as I was made for. I felt that in
another instant I should be his again. I only
made one spring at him. How came I by that
dagger? I never saw it until I found it in my
hand, at his heart. Is he dead? No. I am
dying. Shall I be safe from him hereafter? I
have n't had a fair chance in this world. What
could a man do better — born in a jail?”
Towner drooped slowly down as he spoke.
He ended, and his defeated life passed away from
that worn-out body, the comrade of its ignominy.
I raised Densdeth's head. The strange fascination
of his face became doubly subtle, as he
seemed still to gaze at me with closed eyelids,
like a statue's. I felt that, if those cold feline
eyes should open and again turn their inquisition
inward upon my soul, devilish passions would
quicken there anew. I shuddered to perceive
the lurking devil in me, slumbering lightly, and
ready to stir whenever he knew a comrade was
near.
“Spare me, Densdeth!” I rather thought than
spoke; but with the thought an effluence must
have passed from me to him.
His eyes opened. The look of treachery and
triumph was gone. He murmured something.
What we could not hear. But all the mockery
scream it avowed itself despair. The tones we
caught were sweet and childlike.
With this effort blood gushed again from his
murderous wound. He, too, drooped away and
died. The soul that had had no other view of
brother men than through the eyes of a beast
of prey, fled away to find its new tenement.
His face settled into marble calm and beauty. I
parted the black hair from his forehead.
There was the man whom I should have loved
if I had not hated, dead at last, with this vulgar
death. Only a single stab from another, and my
warfare with him was done. I felt a strange
sense of indolence overcome me. Was my business
in life over, now that I had no longer to
struggle with him daily? Had he strengthened
me? Had he weakened me? Should I have
prevailed against him, or would he have finally
mastered me, if this chance, this Providence, of
death had not come between us?
I looked up, and found Churm studying the
dead man.
“Can it be?” said I, “that a soul perilous to
all truth and purity, a merciless tempter, a being
who to every other man was the personification
of that man's own worst ideal of himself, — can
it be that such an unrestful spirit has dwelt
within this quiet form? What was he? For
the orderly world of God?”
“That is the ancient mystery,” said Churm,
solemnly.
“Can it never be solved in this world?”
“It is not yet solved to you? Then you must
wait for years of deeper thought, or some moment
of more fiery trial.”
| CHAPTER XXVIII.
DENSDETH'S FAREWELL. Cecil Dreeme | |