The World For Sale: Chapter 19

Chapter 19

THE KEEPER OF THE BRIDGE

   "Like the darkness of the grave, which is darkness itself--"

Most of those who break out of the zareba of life, who lay violent hands
upon themselves, do so with a complete reasoning, which in itself is
proof of their insanity. It may be domestic tragedy, or ill-health, or
crime, or broken faith, or shame, or insomnia, or betrayed
trust--whatever it is, many a one who suffers from such things, tries to
end it all with that deliberation, that strategy, and that cunning which
belong only to the abnormal.

A mind which has known a score or more of sleepless nights acquires an
invincible clearness of its own, seeing an end which is without
peradventure. It finds a hundred perfect reasons for not going on, every
one of which is in itself sufficient; every one of which knits into the
other ninety and nine with inevitable affinity.

To the mind of Ingolby came a hundred such reasons for breaking out of
life's enclosure, as the effect of the opiate Rockwell had given him wore
off, and he regained consciousness. As he did so, someone in the room was
telling of that intervention of Gabriel Druse and the Monseigneur at the
Orange funeral, which had saved the situation. At first he listened to
what was said--it was the nurse talking to Jim Beadle with no sharp
perception of the significance of the story; though it slowly pierced the
lethargy of his senses, and he turned over in the bed to face the
watchers.

"What time is it, Jim?" he asked heavily. They told him it was sunset.

"Is it quiet in both towns?" he asked after a pause. They told him that
it was.

"Any telegrams for me?" he asked.

There was an instant's hesitation. They had had no instructions on this
point, and they hardly knew what to say; but Jim's mind had its own
logic, and the truth seemed best to him now. He answered that there were
several wires, but that they "didn't amount to nothin'."

"Have they been opened?" Ingolby asked with a frown, half-raising
himself. It was hard to resign the old masterfulness and self-will.

"I'd like to see anybody open 'em 'thout my pe'mision," answered Jim
imperiously. "When you's asleep, Chief, I'm awake; and I take care of
you' things, same as ever I done. There ain't no wires been opened, and
there ain't goin' to be whiles I'm runnin' the show for you."

"Open and read them to me," commanded Ingolby. Again Ingolby was
conscious of hesitation on Jim's part. Already the acuteness of the blind
was possessing him, sharpening the senses left unimpaired. Although Jim
moved, presumably, towards the place where the telegrams lay, Ingolby
realized that his own authority was being crossed by that of the doctor
and the nurse.

"You will leave the room for a moment, nurse," he said with a brassy
vibration in the voice--a sign of nervous strain. With a smothered
protest the nurse left, and Jim stood beside the bed with the telegrams.

"Read them to me, Jim," Ingolby repeated irritably. "Be quick."

They were not wires which Ingolby should have heard at the time, when his
wound was still inflamed, when he was still on the outer circle of that
artificial sleep which the opiates had secured. They were from Montreal
and New York, and, resolved from their half-hidden suggestion into bare
elements, they meant that henceforth others would do the work he had
done. They meant, in effect, that save for the few scores of thousand
dollars he had made, he was now where he was when he came West.

When Jim had finished reading them, Ingolby sank back on the pillows and
said quietly:

"All right, Jim. Put them in the drawer of the table and I'll answer them
to-morrow. I want to get a little more sleep, so give me a drink, and
then leave me alone--both nurse and you--till I ring the bell. There's a
bell on the table, isn't there?"

He stretched out a hand towards the table beside the bed, and Jim softly
pushed the bell under his fingers.

"That's right," he added. "Now, I'm not to be disturbed unless the doctor
comes. I'm all right, and I want to be alone and quiet. No one at all in
the room is what I want. You understand, Jim?"

"My head's just as good to get at what you want as ever it was, and you
goin' have what you want, I guess, while I'm on deck," was Jim's reply.

Jim put a glass of water into his hand. He drank very slowly, was indeed
only mechanically conscious that he was drinking, for his mind was far
away.

After he had put the glass down, Jim still stood beside the bed, looking
at him.

"Why don't you go, as I tell you, Jim?" Ingolby asked wearily.

"I'm goin'"--Jim tucked the bedclothes in carefully--"I'm goin', but,
boss, I jes' want to say dat dis thing goin' to come out all right
bime-by. There ain't no doubt 'bout dat. You goin' see everything, come
jes' like what you want--suh!"

Ingolby did not reply. He held out his hand, and black fingers shot over
and took it. A moment later the blind man was alone in the room.

The light of day vanished, and the stars came out. There was no moon, but
it was one of those nights of the West when millions of stars glimmer in
the blue vault above, and every planet and every star and cluster of
stars are so near that it might almost seem they could be caught by an
expert human hand. The air was very still, and a mantle of peace was
spread over the tender scene. The window and the glass doors that gave
from Ingolby's room upon the veranda on the south side of the house, were
open, and the air was warm as in Midsummer. Now and then the note of a
night-bird broke the stillness, but nothing more.

It was such a night as Ingolby loved; it was such a night as often found
him out in the restful gloom of the trees, thinking and brooding,
planning, revelling in memories of books he had read, and in dreaming of
books he might write-if there were time. Such a night insulated the dark
moods which possessed him occasionally almost as effectively as fishing
did; and that was saying much.

But the darkest mood of all his days was upon him now. When Rockwell
came, soon after Jim and the nurse left him, he simulated sleep, for he
had no mind to talk; and the doctor, deceived by his even breathing, had
left, contented. At last he was wholly alone with his own thoughts, as he
desired. From the moment Jim had read him the wires, which were the real
revelation of the situation to which he had come, he had been travelling
hard on the road leading to a cul-de-sac, from which there was no egress
save by breaking through the wall. Never, it might have seemed, had his
mind been clearer, but it was a clearness belonging to the abnormal. It
was a straight line of thought which, in its intensity, gathered all
other thoughts into its wake, reduced them to the control of an
obsession. It was borne in on his mind that his day was done, that
nothing could right the disorder which had strewn his path with broken
hopes and shattered ambitions. No life-work left, no schemes to
accomplish, no construction to achieve, no wealth to gain, no public good
to be won, no home to be his, no woman, his very own, to be his
counsellor and guide in the natural way!

As myriad thoughts drove through his brain on this Indian-summer night,
they all merged into the one obsession that he could no longer stay. The
irresistible logic of the brain stretched to an abnormal tenuity, and an
intolerable brightness was with him. He was in the throes of that intense
visualization which comes with insomnia, when one is awake yet apart from
the waking world, where nothing is really real and nothing normal. He had
a call to go hence, and he must go. Minute after minute passed, hours
passed, and the fight of the soul to maintain itself against the
disordered mind went on. All his past seemed but part of a desert, lonely
and barren and strange.

In the previous year he had made a journey to Arizona with Jowett, to see
some railway construction there, and at a ranch he had visited he came
upon some verses which had haunted his mind ever since. They fastened
upon his senses now. They were like a lonesome monotone which at length
gave calm to his torturing reflections. In his darkness the verses kept
repeating themselves:

     "I heard the desert calling, and my heart stood still
     There was Winter in my world and in my heart:
     A breath came from the mesa and a message stirred my will,
     And my soul and I arose up to depart.
     I heard the desert calling; and I knew that over there,
     In an olive-sheltered garden where the mesquite grows,
     Was a woman of the sunrise, with the starshine in her hair,
     And a beauty that the almond-blossom blows.
     In the night-time when the ghost-trees glimmered in the moon,
     Where the mesa by the watercourse was spanned,
     Her loveliness enwrapped me like the blessedness of June,
     And all my life was thrilling in her hand.
     I hear the desert calling, and my heart stands still;
     There is Summer in my world and in my heart;
     A breath comes from the mesa, and a will beyond my will
     Binds my footsteps as I rise up to depart."

This strange, half-mystic song of the mesa and the olive-groves, of the
ghost-trees and the moon, kept playing upon his own heated senses like
the spray from a cooling stream, and at last it quieted him. The dark
spirit of self-destruction loosened its hold.

His brain had been strained beyond the normal, almost unconsciously his
fingers had fastened on the pistol in the drawer of the table by his bed.
It had been there since the day when he had travelled down from
Alaska--loaded as it had been when he had carried it down the southern
trail. But as his fingers tightened on the little engine of death, from
the words which had been ringing in his brain came the flash of a
revelation:

       ". . . And a will beyond my will
        Binds my footsteps as I rise up to depart."

A will beyond his will! It was as though Fleda's fingers were laid upon
his own; as though she whispered in his ear and her breath swept his
cheek; as though she was there in the room beside him, making the
darkness light, tempering the wind of chastisement to his naked soul. In
the overstrain of his nervous system the illusion was powerful. He
thought he heard her voice. The pistol slipped from his fingers, and he
fell back on the pillow with a sigh. The will beyond his will bound his
footsteps.

Who can tell? The grim, malign experience of Fleda in her bedroom with
the Thing she thought was from beyond the bounds of her own life; the
voice that spoke to Ingolby, and the breath that swept over his cheek
were, perhaps, as real in a sense as would have been the corporeal
presence of Jethro Fawe in one case and of Fleda Druse in the other. It
may be that in very truth Fleda Druse's spirit with its poignant
solicitude controlled his will as he "rose up to depart." But if it was
only an illusion, it was not less a miracle. Some power of suggestion
bound his fleeing footsteps, drew him back from the Brink.

He slept. Once the nurse came and looked at him and returned to the other
room; and twice Jim stole in silently for a moment and retired again to
his own chamber. The stars shone in at the doors that opened out from the
quiet room into the night, the watch beside the bed ticked on, the
fox-terrier which always slept on a mat at the foot of the bed sighed in
content, while his master breathed heavily in a sleep full of dreams that
hurried past like phantasmagoria--of a hundred things that had been in
his life, and that had never been; of people he had known, distorted,
ridiculous and tremendous. There were dreams of fiddlers and barbers, of
crowds writhing in passion in a room where there was a billiard-table and
a lucky horseshoe on the wall. There were dreams that tossed and mingled
in one whirlpool vision; and then at last came a dream which was so cruel
and clear that it froze his senses.

It was the dream of a great bridge over a swiftflowing river; of his own
bridge over the Sagalacof that bridge being destroyed by men who crept
through the night with dynamite in their hands.

With a hoarse, smothered cry he awoke. His eyes opened wide. His heart
was beating like a hammer against his side. Only the terrier at his feet
heard the muttered agony. With an instinct all its own, it slipped to the
floor.

It watched its master get out of bed, cross the room and feel for a coat
along the wall--an overcoat which he used as a dressing-gown at times.
Putting it on hastily, with outstretched hands Ingolby felt his way to
the glass doors opening on the veranda. The dog, as though to let him
know he was there, rubbed against his legs. Ingolby murmured a soft,
unintelligible word, and, in his bare feet, passed out on to the veranda,
and from there to the garden and towards the gate at the front of the
house.

The nurse heard the gate click lightly, but she was only half-awake, and
as all was quiet in the next room, she composed herself in her chair
again with the vain idea that she was not sleeping. And Jim the faithful
one, as though under a narcotic of fate, was snoring softly beside the
vacant room. The streets were still. No lights burned anywhere so far as
eye could see. But now and then, in the stillness through which the river
flowed on, murmuring and rhythmic, there rose the distant sounds of
disorderly voices. Ingolby was in a state which was neither sleep nor
waking, which was in part delirium, in part oblivion to all things in the
world save one--an obsession so complete, that he moved automatically
through the street in which he lived towards that which led to the
bridge.

His terrier, as though realizing exactly what he wished, seemed to guide
him by rubbing against his legs, and even pressing hard against them when
he was in any danger of losing the middle of the road, or swerving
towards a ditch or some obstruction. Only once did they pass any human
being, and that was when they came upon a camp of road-builders, where a
red light burned, and two men slept in the open by a dying fire. One of
them raised his head when Ingolby passed, but being more than
half-asleep, and seeing only a man and a dog, thought nothing of it, and
dropped back again upon his rough pillow. He was a stranger to Lebanon,
and there was little chance of his recognizing Ingolby in the
semi-darkness.

As they neared the river, Ingolby became deeply agitated. He moved with
his hands outstretched. Had it not been for his dog he would probably
have walked into the Sagalac; for though he seemed to have an instinct
that was extra-natural, he swayed and staggered in the delirium driving
him on. There was one dreadful moment when, having swerved from the road
leading on to the bridge, he was within a foot of the river-bank. One
step farther, and he would have plunged down thirty feet into the stream,
to be swept to the Rapids below.

But for the first time the terrier made a sound. He gave a whining bark
almost human in its meaning, and threw himself at the legs of his master,
pushing him backwards and over towards the road leading upon the bridge,
as a collie guides sheep. Presently Ingolby felt the floor of the bridge
under his feet; and now he hastened on, with outstretched arms and head
bent forward, listening intently, the dog trotting beside, with what
knowledge working in him Heaven alone knew.

The roar of the Rapids below was a sonorous accompaniment to Ingolby's
wild thoughts. One thing only he felt, one thing only heard--the men in
Barbazon's Tavern saying that the bridge should be blown up on the
Saturday night; and this was Saturday night--the night of the day
following that of the Orange funeral. He had heard the criminal hireling
of Felix Marchand say that it should be done at midnight, and that the
explosive should be laid under that part of the bridge which joined the
Manitou bank of the Sagalac. As though in very truth he saw with his
eyes, he stopped short not far from the point where the bridge joined the
land, and stood still, listening.

For several minutes he was motionless, intent, as an animal waiting for
its foe. At last his newly-sensitive ears heard footsteps approaching and
low voices. The footsteps came nearer, the voices, though so low, became
more distinct. They were now not fifty feet away, but to the delirious
Ingolby they were as near as death had been when his fingers closed on
the pistol in his room.

He took a step forward, and with passionate voice and arms outstretched,
he cried:

  "You shall not do it-by God, you shall not touch my bridge!
   I built it. You shall not touch it. Back, you devils-back!"

The terrier barked loudly.

The two men in the semi-darkness in front of him cowered at the sight of
this weird figure holding the bridge they had come to destroy. His words,
uttered in so strange and unnatural a voice, shook their nerves. They
shrank away from the ghostly form with the outstretched arms.

In the minute's pause following on his words, a giant figure suddenly
appeared behind the dynamiters. It was the temporary Chief Constable of
Lebanon, returning from his visit to Tekewani. He had heard Ingolby's
wild words, and he realized the situation.

"Ingolby--steady there, Ingolby!" he called. "Steady! Steady! Gabriel
Druse is here. It's all right."

At the first sound of Druse's voice the two wreckers turned and ran.

As they did so, Ingolby's hands fell to his side, and he staggered
forward.

"Druse--Fleda," he murmured, then swayed, trembled and fell.

With words that stuck in his throat Gabriel Druse stooped and lifted him
up in his arms. At first he turned towards the bridge, as though to cross
over to Lebanon, but the last word Ingolby had uttered rang in his ears,
and he carried him away into the trees towards his own house, the
faithful terrier following. "Druse--Fleda!" They were the words of one
who had suddenly emerged from the obsession of delirium into sanity, and
then had fallen into as sudden unconsciousness.

"Fleda! Fleda!" called Gabriel Druse outside the door of his house a
quarter of an hour later, and her voice in reply was that of one who knew
that the feet of Fate were at her threshold.

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