The Way of a Man - Emerson Hough (most read books of all time txt) 📗

of a musket. The great horse Satan pitched his head forward and dropped limp, sinking to his knees. As he rolled he caught his rider under him. I myself sprung down, shouting out some command toward the edge of the wood, that they should leave this man to me.

Whether my men heard me or not I do not know. Perhaps they heard rather the hoarse shouts of a fresh column in gray which came up in the pursuit, fagged with its own running. When these new men passed me all they saw was a bit of wood torn with shot and ball, and in the open two figures, both dusty and gray, one helping the other from what seemed to be a fall of his horse. Scenes like that were common. We were not disturbed by the men of either side. We were alone presently, Gordon Orme and I.

I stooped and caught hold of the hind leg of the great black horse, and even as I had once turned a dead bull, so now I turned this carcass on its back. I picked up the fallen rider and carried him to the woods, and there I propped his body against a tree. Slowly he opened his eyes, even pulled himself up more fully against the support.

"Thank you, old man," he said. "The horse was deucedly heavy—spoiled that leg, I think." He pointed to his boot, where his foot lay turned to one side. "I suffer badly. Be a good fellow and end it."

I answered him by tossing down one of his own pistols, both of which I had secured against need. He looked at it, but shook his head.

"Let's talk it over a bit first," he said. "I'm done. I'll not make any trouble. Did you ever know me to break parole?"

"No," said I, and I threw down the other weapon on the ground. "In mercy to us both, Orme, die. I do not want to kill you now; and you shall not live."

"I'm safe enough," he said. "It's through the liver and stomach. I can't possibly get over it."

He stared straight ahead of him, as though summoning his will. "Swami!" I heard him mutter, as though addressing some one.

"There, that's better," he said finally. He sat almost erect, smiling at me. "It is Asana, the art of posture," he said. "I rest my body on my ribs, my soul on the air. Feel my heart."

I did so, and drew away my hand almost in terror. It stopped beating at his will, and began again! His uncanny art was still under his control!

"I shall be master here for a little while," he said. "So—I move those hurt organs to ease the flow. But I can't stop the holes, nor mend them. We can't get at the tissues to sew them fast. After a while I shall die." He spoke clearly, with utter calmness, dispassionately. I never saw his like among men.

I stood by him silently. He put his own hand on his chest. "Poor old heart," he said. "Feel it work! Enormous pumping engine, tremendous thing, the heart. Think what it does in seventy years—and all for what—that we may live and enjoy, and so maybe die. What few minutes I have now I owe to having trained what most folk call an involuntary muscle. I command my heart to beat, and so it does."

I looked down at a strange, fascinating soul, a fearsome personality, whose like I never knew in all my life.

"Will you make me a promise?" he said, smiling at me, mocking at me.

"No," I answered.

"I was going to ask you, after my death to take my heart and send it back to my people at Orme Castle, Gordon Arms, in England—you know where. It would be a kindness to the family." I gazed at him in a sort of horror, but he smiled and went on. "We're mediaeval to-day as ever we were. Some of us are always making trouble, one corner or the other of the world, and until the last Gordon heart comes home to rest, there's no peace for that generation. Hundreds of years, they've traveled all over the world, and been lost, and stolen, and hidden. My father's is lost now, somewhere. Had it come back home to rest, my own life might have been different. I say, Cowles, couldn't you do that for me? We've nearly always had some last friend that would—we Gordons."

"I would do nothing for you as a favor," I answered.

"Then do it because it is right. I'd rather it should be you. You've a wrist like steel, and a mind like steel when you set yourself to do a thing."

"I say, old man," he went on, a trifle weary now, "you've won. I'm jolly well accounted for, and it was fair. I hope they'll not bag you when you try to get out of this. But won't you promise what I've asked? Won't you promise?"

It is not for me to say whether or not I made a promise to Gordon Orme, or to say whether or not things mediaeval or occult belong with us to-day. Neither do I expect many to believe the strange truth about Gordon Orme. I only say it is hard to deny those about to die.

"Orme," I said, "I wish you had laid out your life differently. You are a wonderful man."

"The great games," he smiled—"sport, love, war!" Then his face saddened. "I say, have you kept your other promise to me?" he asked. "Did you marry that girl—what was her name—Miss Sheraton?"

"Miss Sheraton is dead."

"Married?" he asked.

"No. She died within two months after the night I caught you in the yard. I should have killed you then, Orme."

He nodded. "Yes, but at least I showed some sort of remorse—the first time, I think. Not a bad sort, that girl, but madly jealous. Fighting blood, I imagine, in that family!"

"Yes," I said, "her father and brother and I, all three, swore the same oath."

"The same spirit was in the girl," he said, nodding again. "Revenge—that was what she wanted. That's why it all happened. It was what I wanted, too! You blocked me with the only woman—"

"Do not speak her name," I said to him, quietly. "The nails on your fingers are growing blue, Orme. Go with some sort of squaring of your own accounts. Try to think."

He shrugged a shoulder. "My Swami said we do not die—we only change worlds or forms. What! I, Gordon Orme, to be blotted out—to lose my mind and soul and body and senses—not to be able to enjoy. No, Cowles, somewhere there are other worlds, with women in them. I do not die—I transfer." But sweat stood on his forehead.

"As to going, no ways are better than this," he mused, presently. "I swear I'm rather comfortable now; a trifle numb—but we—I say, we must all—all go some time, you know. Did you hear me?" he repeated, smiling. "I was just saying that we must all go, one way or another, you know."

"I heard you," I said. "You are going now."

"Yes," he admitted, "one can't hold together forever under a pull like this. You're an awfully decent sort. Give me a bit of paper. I want to write." I found him a pencil and some pages of my notebook.

"To please you, I'll try to square some things," he said. "You've been so deuced square and straight with me, all along. I'm—I'm Gordon, now, I'm English. Word of a fighting man, my—my friend."

He leaned forward, peering down at the paper as though he did not clearly see; but he wrote slowly for a time, absorbed in thought.

In all the death scenes which our country knew in thousands during those years, I doubt if any more unbelievable than this ever had occurrence. I saw the blood soaking all his garments, lying black on the ground about him. I saw his face grow gray and his nails grow blue, his pallor deepen as the veins lost their contents. I saw him die. But I swear that he still sat there, calm as though he did not suffer, and forced his body to do his will. And—though I ask a rough man's pardon for intruding my own beliefs—since he used his last superb reserves to leave the truth behind him, I myself thought that there must be somewhere an undying instinct of truth and justice, governing even such as Gordon Orme; yes, I hope, governing such as myself as well. Since then I have felt that somewhere there must be a great religion written on the earth and in the sky. As to what this could offer in peace to Gordon Orme I do not say. His was a vast debt. Perhaps Truth never accepted it as paid. I do not know.

There he sat, at last smiling again as he looked up. "Fingers getting dreadfully stiff. Tongue will go next. Muscles still under the power for a little time. Here, take this. You're going to live, and this is the only thing—it'll make you miserable, but happy, too. Good-by. I'll not stop longer, I think."

Like a flash his hand shot out to the weapon that lay near him on the ground. I shrank back, expecting the ball full in my face. Instead, it passed through his own brain!

His will was broken as that physical instrument, the brain, wonder seat of the mysteries of the mind, was rent apart. His splendid mind no longer ruled his splendid body. His body itself, relaxing, sank forward, his head at one side, his hand dropping limp. A smile drew down the corner of his mouth—a smile horrible in its pathos; mocking, and yet beseeching.

* * * * *

At last I rubbed the blood from my own face and stooped to read what he had written. Then I thanked God that he was dead, knowing how impossible it would have been elsewise for me to stay my hand. These were the words: