The Doomsman by Van Tassel Sutphen (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📗

Constans went to the inner door and opened it. Esmay was kneeling at the window; he went over and touched her on the shoulder. "Come," he said. She looked up at him, and he saw that her face whitened for all of the glare from the flaming sky that fell upon it. Yet she let him lead her, unresisting, into the other room, where Quinton Edge still stood motionless and looked upon the floor. Constans plucked at his sleeve, drawing him out into the full circle of the lamp-light. Face to face for the last time, and, though no word was said, each knew that there was peace between them.

"Go to her," whispered Constans, and pushed him gently towards the couch.

Now the room had fallen into semi-darkness, for the oil had failed in the lamp, and there was only that dull-red line along the edge of the window-curtains. And there was silence, too, for all that words could say had been said already.

The minutes passed, but the man had ceased to count them. The hand that lay in his was growing cold, but the knowledge had ceased to concern him; the brain no longer registered the messages sent by[Pg 287] the nerves, and he was conscious only of an immense weariness, of an overwhelming desire to sleep. The maiden Issa's hair lay within the hollow of his arm, a pool of rippled gold; it was like looking down into an enchanted well; the waters seem to rise and meet him. The glow at the curtain-edge grew stronger; now it was a lake of liquid fire into which he gazed.

The threshold of the door had warped and sprung, and through the crack crept a thin line of smoke; it raised itself sinuously, as does a snake; it darted its head from side to side, preparing to strike.

Descending the staircase, Constans saw that the time was growing perilously short. On three sides of them the buildings were burning, and Arcadia House itself was on fire at the southern wing. The hurricane, shifting back to the northwest, was at its wildest, and the air was full of ashes and incandescent sparks. As Constans and Esmay emerged from the shelter of the house, it seemed as though the universe itself was on fire. Could they ever hope to reach the river? His heart sank as he looked at that fiery rain through which they must pass. He turned to Esmay.

"It is the only way," he began, and then stopped, wondering that she should look so strangely upon him.

"I thought you dead," she answered, humbly. "It was the last thing I heard—the silver whistle and Nanna misunderstood my question."

"Oh," said Constans, enlightened, and at the same time subtly warned that he must not press her too far.[Pg 288] "So you feared that it might have been my spirit that came to fetch you?"

"No; not feared," she answered, and with such sweet confidence that Constans's heart thrilled to new courage. By God's splendor! this woman trusted him and he would save her.

Half way to the boat-stage they were caught in a whirlwind of choking vapor; they struggled onward for a few steps, and then the girl fell. With infinite difficulty Constans half carried, half dragged her down the last slope to the landing. The boat, a small canoe or dugout, was there, but he could find only one broken paddle. It was a mad thing to venture out upon the wind-lashed river with equipment so imperfect, but there could be no choice of another way.

The tide was running out strongly and Constans could do nothing more than keep the craft on a straight course and out of the trough of the heavier seas. He looked longingly at the opposite shore, so near to the eye and so impossible to attain against that wind and tide; he realized that they were drifting down into the open bay, and that would be the end. Yet he would fight for it, and now that the fresh air had aroused Esmay from her swoon, she crept to his side and sat there comforting him.

Four hours later the keel grated on a pebbly shingle, and Constans, looking about him with weary eyes, recognized the little bay, with its fringing semicircle of trees. Here was the very log upon which he had sat and dreamed of unutterable things that bright May morning in the long ago, a dream from which he had awakened to make first acquaintance with Quinton Edge.[Pg 289]

A little way up the grassy glade a fire was burning, and there was the savory odor of roasted meat in the air. Constans helped Esmay out of the boat, and with stiffened limbs they dragged themselves up the forest way. There was a little shriek, a rush of feet, and swishing skirts, and Nanna's arms were about her sister, while Constans was looking into Piers Minor's honest eyes.

Far in the north, a smoke as of a furnace ascended, and the sky was darkened. But here the sun shone brightly, the grass was green underfoot, the birds sang in the branches above their heads, and the smell of the spring-tide was in the air. Truly, life and light are sweet to him who has once walked in the shadow.[Pg 290]

It was in October of the same year that Constans and Esmay stood one day in the court-yard of the Greenwood Keep, now restored and rebuilt.

His father's blood friends had helped generously in the rehabilitation of his fortunes, and Constans had worked hard with his own hands. Now the task was finished, and he had persuaded Esmay to ride over from the River Barony and pronounce in person upon its merits. For let it be known that Piers Minor had lost no time in bringing home his bride, and both he and Nanna had insisted that Esmay must live with them. And Esmay had accepted gratefully, for all that she was an heiress in her own right, through inheritance of her uncle Hugolin's estate, and could have bought and sold Piers Minor and Nanna, and all their holdings, ten times over. But all of her red gold could not buy love, and Esmay was wise enough to know this. Moreover, the River Barony was but twenty miles distant from the Greenwood Keep, and at least twice every week Constans rode over and spent the night. It was pleasant to hear him tell proudly of the progress of the work; how yesterday the roofing of the guard-house had been started, and how to-day they had turned for the first time the waters of the[Pg 291] Ochre brook into the moat. Esmay always listened attentively, and it pleased her to think that Constans looked at her when he talked, even though his actual words might be addressed to Piers Minor or to Nanna. Listening always, but speaking seldom, for she felt that he was waiting purposely until some milestone of achievement had been passed, and she feared that he might consider her unwomanly. So the summer had gone, the great work was accomplished, and now they were viewing it together. They had seen everything, going in turn from lighting platform to calving-barn; from forge and smithy to my lady's bower. And Esmay had duly admired all and pronounced it good.

Now they were standing in the great hall watching the martins as they circled around the red-capped gatehouse, and the white doves cooing in the eaves. A silence had fallen between them, and Constans, leaning against the window-casement, seemed to have forgotten of Esmay's very existence. Quietly she drew aside and left him, impelled by an irresistible desire to know if he would notice her absence and would follow her. Hardly had she stolen five steps away than she heard him start, and then turn to seek her. A sheer delight coursed through her veins, and she began to run.

"Esmay!" he called, but she would not stop, gathering up her skirts in both her hands, and trying not to look behind her. But he was quickly at her heels, and an inexplicable terror seemed to seize her; she looked about for a hiding-place; a door presented itself, and she clutched the handle desperately, but it refused to turn. Seeing her discomfiture, Constans believed that he was entitled to enjoy his triumph. He walked up [Pg 292]with leisurely deliberation. "You are a goose," he said, and took her hands in his, as one who reproves a wilful child.

She assented meekly.

"To run away like that—so foolish, when I had something serious to say to you. Why do you suppose I brought you here? Why should I want you to see the house? why did I build it at all? Be good enough to answer me."

She looked up at him with the most innocent expression in the world. "Why?" she echoed, as though mightily puzzled, and immediately the male creature became miserably bewildered, and lost his confident bearing in the twinkling of an eye. Had she really misunderstood him? had he been deceiving himself from the very beginning? He turned pale and dropped her hands, and she, misinterpreting this relinquishment of ownership, felt the blood receding from her own checks. Two utterly foolish creatures, and yet their folly is not to be argued away by the wise men. For while it is the accepted theory that a woman always knows when she is loved (with which men please themselves), and per contra that a man is never unconscious of the favor in which he stands (with which women torment themselves), yet the truth is that neither man nor woman is ever certain of the fact until it is finally proclaimed in actual speech. So this is why lovers are always being asked to repeat and repeat again the magic words upon which all their happiness depends.

"The reason—you know—the reason why," he stammered, and then she came to his aid.

"Yes, I know, but tell me."

And thereupon he did tell her.[Pg 293]

A year later, and Constans and his wife sat on a high point of land that overlooked the waters of the Lower bay and the broad, salt sea beyond the dunes. Several of Constans's neat-cattle had strayed, and he had determined to ride to the fishermen's village below the Narrows to inquire if the estrays had been seen in that direction. Esmay had accompanied him, and they had been all day in the saddle and were weary. Nevertheless, they were satisfied, for the lost cattle had been recovered, and in the morning the herdsmen would be sent over to drive them home.

They had shared a frugal supper of bread and cheese and dried grapes, and now they were waiting until the horses should have cropped their fill. There was no hurry, the moon not rising for an hour yet, and it was useless to arrive at the Kills before the time of slack water. Constans had his back against a pine-stump, and Esmay's head rested on her husband's shoulder. They sat in silence, gazing out upon the gray sea, content in their present happiness and looking forward to a yet greater one in the near future. For to Constans Esmay had just made a wife's final confession, the secret being whispered into his inmost ear, though there was only the land and the sea to overhear.

Suddenly, on the darkened eastern sky-line, a bright light flashed out, in color like to a star, and yet incomparably more brilliant. And the light was not fixed, but continually changed its base, as was shown by the broad band of rays that now swept the surface of the sea and then traced their luminous way on the overhanging clouds. Another shift and the shining pathway reached to their very feet, illuminating with its radiance every object within its focus, down to the[Pg 294] tiniest shell upon the beach. Esmay, startled, clung to her husband's arm.

"What is it?" she asked, but he could not answer her.

Yet as they gazed upon the new star, insensibly they became comforted. Whatever this prodigy foretold, it could not be an omen of lasting evil. Had they not seen for themselves that, even in the worst of worlds, righteousness and justice and truth had been something more than names. Doom had fallen; for more than a twelvemonth the ruins had smouldered, and to-day they were but the harmless haunt of bat and badger. And the world relieved of that intolerable incubus, and recovered of its purging and cleansing sickness, had started once more upon its appointed path—slowly, indeed, at the first, but ever onward and upward.

"It is only one more