The Bars of Iron - Ethel May Dell (top novels .txt) 📗

fountain with its marble basin seemed the end and aim of his existence. Often he forgot to be thirsty now, but he never forgot that he must reach the fountain before he died.
Sometimes his thirst would come back in burning spasms to urge him on, and he always knew that there was a great reason for perseverance, always felt that if he slackened he would pay a terrible penalty.
The fountain was very far away. He crawled along with ever-increasing difficulty, marking the progress of his own shadow in the strong moonlight. There was something pitiless about the moon. It revealed so much that might have been mercifully veiled.
From the far distance there came the long roll of cannon, shattering the peace of the night, but it was a long way off. In the chateau-garden there was no sound but the tinkle of the fountain and the laboured, spasmodic breathing of a man wounded wellnigh unto death.
Only a few yards separated him now from the running water. It sounded like a fairy laughter, and all the gruesome horrors of the place faded into unreality. Surely it was fed by the stream at home that flowed through the preserves--the stream where the primroses grew!
Only a few more yards! But how damnably difficult it was to cover them! He could hardly drag his weighted limbs along. It was the old game. He knew it well. But how devilish to fetter him so! It had been the ruin of his life. He set his teeth, and forced himself on. He would win through in spite of all.
The moonlight poured dazzlingly upon the white marble basin, and on the figure of a nymph who bent above it, delicately poised like a butterfly about to take wing. He wondered if she would flee at his approach, but she did not. She stood there waiting for him, a thing of infinite daintiness, the one object untouched in that ravaged garden. Perhaps after all it was she and not the fountain that drew him so irresistibly. He had a great longing to hear her speak, but he was afraid to address her lest he should scare her away. She was so slight, so spiritual, so exquisite in her fairy grace. She made him think of Jeanie--little Jeanie who had prayed for his happiness and had not lived to see her prayer fulfilled.
He drew near with a certain stealthiness, fearing to startle her. He would have risen to his feet, but his strength was ebbing fast. He knew he could not.
And then--just ere he reached the marble basin, the goal of that long, bitter journey--he saw her turn a little towards him; he heard her speak.
"Dear Sir Galahad!"
"Jeanie!" he gasped.
She seemed to sway above the gleaming water. Even then--even then--he was not sure of her--till he saw her face of childish purity and the happy smile of greeting in her eyes!
"How very tired you must be!" she said.
"I am, Jeanie! I am!" he groaned in answer. "These chains--these iron bars--I shall never get free!"
He saw her white arms reach out to him. He thought her fingers touched his brow. And he knew quite suddenly that the journey was over, and he could lie down and rest.
Her voice came to him very softly, with a hushing tenderness through the miniature rush and gurgle of the water. As usual she sought to comfort him, but he heard a thrill of triumph as well as sympathy in her words.
"He hath broken the gates of brass," she said. "And smitten the bars of iron in sunder."
His fingers closed upon the edge of the pool. He felt the water splash his face as he sank down; and though he was too spent to drink he thanked God for bringing him thither.
Later it seemed to him that a Divine Presence came through the garden, that Someone stooped and touched him, and lo, his chains were broken and his burden gone! And he roused himself to ask for pardon; which was granted to him ere that Presence passed away.
He never knew exactly what happened after that night in the garden of the ruined chateau. There were a great many happenings, but none of them seemed to concern him very vitally.
He wandered through great spaces of oblivion, intersected with terrible streaks of excruciating pain. During the intervals of this fearful suffering he was acutely conscious, but he invariably forgot everything again when the merciful unconsciousness came back. He knew in a vague way that he lay in a hospital-tent with other dying men, knew when they moved him at last because he could not die, suffered agonies unutterable upon an endless road that never seemed to lead to anywhere, and finally awoke to find that the journey had been over for several days.
He tried very hard not to wake. Waking invariably meant anguish. He longed unspeakably for Death, but Death was denied him. And when someone came and stooped over him and took his nerveless hand, he whispered with closed eyes an earnest request not to be called back.
"It's such--a ghastly business--" he muttered piteously--"this waking."
"Won't you speak to a friend, Piers?" a voice said.
He opened his eyes then. He had not heard his own name for months. He looked up into eyes that gleamed hawk-like through glasses, and a throb of recognition went through his heart.
"You!" he whispered, striving desperately to master the sickening pain that that throb had started.
"All right. Don't speak for a bit!" said Tudor quietly. "I think I can help you."
He did help, working over him steadily, with the utmost gentleness, till the worst of the paroxysm was past.
Piers was pathetically grateful. His high spirit had sunk very low in those days. No one that he could remember had ever done anything to ease his pain before.
"It's been--so infernal," he whispered presently. "You know--I was shot--through the heart."
Tudor's face was very grave. "Yes, you're pretty bad," he said. "But you've pulled through so far. It's in your favour, that. And look here, you must lie flat on your back always. Do you understand? It's about your only chance."
"Of living?" whispered Piers. "But I don't want to live. I want to die."
"Don't be a fool!" said Tudor.
"I'm not a fool. I hate life!" A tremor of passion ran through the words.
Tudor laid a hand upon him. "Piers, if ever any man had anything to live for, you are that man," he said.
"What do you mean?" Piers' eyes, dark as the night through which he had come, looked up at him.
"I mean just that. If you can't live for your own sake, live for hers! She wants you. It'll break her heart if you go out now."
"Great Scott, man! You're not in earnest!" whispered Piers.
"I am in earnest. I know exactly what I am saying. I don't talk at random. She loved you. She wants you. You've lived for yourself all your life. Now--you've got to live for her."
Tudor's voice was low and vehement. A faint sparkle came into Piers' eyes as he heard it.
"By George!" he said softly. "You're rather a brick, what? But haven't you thought--what might happen--if--if I went out after all? You used to be rather great--at getting me out of the way."
"I didn't realize how all-important you were," rejoined Tudor, with a bitter smile. "You needn't go any further in that direction. It leads to a blank wall. You've got to live whether you like it or not. I'm going to do all I can to make you live, and you'll be a hound if you don't back me up."
His eyes looked down upon Piers, dominant and piercingly intent. And--perhaps it was mere physical weakness, or possibly the voluntary yielding of a strong will that was in its own way as great as the strength to which it yielded--Piers surrendered with a meekness such as Tudor had never before witnessed in him.
"All right," he said. "I'll do--my best."
And so oddly they entered into a partnership that had for its sole end and aim the happiness of the woman they loved; and in that partnership their rivalry was forever extinguished.


CHAPTER IX
HOLY GROUND

"They say he will never fight again," said Crowther gravely. "He may live. They think he will live. But he will never be strong."
"If only I might see him!" Avery said.
"Yes, I know. That is the hardest part. But be patient a little longer! So much depends on it. I was told only this morning that any agitation might be fatal. No one seems to understand how it is that he has managed to live at all. He is just hanging on, poor lad,--just hanging on."
"I want to help him," Avery said.
"I know you do. And so you can--if you will. But not by going to him. That would do more harm than good."
"How else can I do anything?" she said. "Surely--surely he wants to see me!"
She was standing in Crowther's room, facing him with that in her eyes that moved him to a great compassion.
He put his hand on her shoulder. "My dear, of course he wants to see you; but there will be no keeping him quiet when he does. He isn't equal to it. He is putting up the biggest fight of his life, and he wants all his strength for it. But you can do your part now if you will. You can go down to Rodding Abbey and make ready to receive him there. And you can send Victor to help me with him as soon as he is able to leave the hospital. He and I will bring him down to you. And if you will be there just in the ordinary way, I think there will be less risk of excitement. Will you do this, Avery? Is it asking too much of you?"
His grey eyes looked straight down into hers with the wide friendliness that was as the open gateway to his soul, and some of the bitter strain of the past few weeks passed from her own as she looked back.
"Nothing would be too much," she said. "I would do anything--anything. But if he should want me--and I were not at hand? If--if--he should--die--" Her voice sank.
Crowther's hand pressed upon her. "He is not going to die," he said stoutly. "He doesn't mean to die. But he will probably have to go slow for the rest of his life. That is where you will be able to help him. His only chance lies in patience. You must teach him to be patient."
Her lips quivered in a smile. "Piers!" she said. "Can you picture it?"
"Yes, I can. Because I know that only patience can have brought him to where he is at present. They say it is nothing short of a miracle, and I believe it. God often works His miracles that way. And I always knew that Piers was great."
Crowther's slow smile appeared, transforming his whole face. He held Avery's hand for a little, and let it go.
"So you will do this, will you?" he said. "I think the boy would be just about pleased to find you there. And you can depend on me to bring him down to you as soon as he is able to bear it."
"You are very good," Avery said. "Yes, I will go."
But, as Crowther knew, in going she accepted the hardest part; and the weeks that she then spent at Rodding Abbey waiting, waiting with a sick anxiety, left upon her a mark which no time could ever erase.
When Crowther's message came to her at last, she was almost too crushed to believe. Everything was in readiness,