Читать книгу The Victim - Jr. Thomas Dixon - Страница 29

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They built their home on the banks of the great river where the tide sweeps in graceful curve, all but completing the circle of an enchanted isle.

From the little flower-veiled porch through festoons of lacing boughs gleamed the waters of the huge curved mirror held by Nature's hand. The music from the decks of the steamers floated up on the soft air until music and perfume of flowers seemed one.

In the cool of the morning, on swift, high-bred horses, they rode side by side along the river's towering bluff and laughed in sheer joy at their foolish happiness. In the waning afternoon, hand in hand, they walked the sunlit fields and paused at dusk to hear the songs of slaves. The happiness of lovers is contagious. It sets the hearts of slaves to singing.

In the white solemn splendor of the Southern moon they strolled through enchanted paths of scented roses. On the rustic seat beneath a magnolia in full second bloom they listened to the song of a mocking-bird whose mate had built her nest in the rose trellis beside their door. They could count the beat of his bird heart night after night as he sang the glory of his love and the beauty of his coming brood of young.

"You are happy, dearest?" the lover sighed.

"In heaven—I am with you."

"And it shall be forever."

"Forever!"

"The old life of blood and strife—it seems an ugly dream."

"Except for the sweet days when you were near."

"This only is life, my own, to hold your hand, and walk the way together, to build, not to destroy, to make flowers bloom, birds and slaves sing, to create, not kill—production is communion with God. We live now in His peace that passeth understanding!"

A long silence followed. An owl in a distant tree top gave a shrill plaintive cry. The bride nestled closer and he felt her shiver.

"You are chill, dearest?" he murmured.

"Just a little."

"We're forgetting the late August night winds—"

"No—no—it's nothing—I'm just a wee bit afraid of an owl, that's all."

A dark figure slowly approached and stood with uncovered head.

"What is it, James?" the master asked.

"It's too late, sir, for you and the mistis to be out in dis air—it's chill an' fever time—"

"Thank you, James—we'll go in at once."

When the faithful footfall had died away, the lover lifted his bride in his arms and carried her in, while she softly laughed and clung to his strong young shoulders.

It came with swift, sure tread, the silent white figure of the Pestilence that walks in Tropic Splendor.

The lover laughed the doctor's fears to scorn and the old man was brave and cheerful in the presence of youth and happiness.

James Pemberton followed him to the gate and held his horse's bridle with a tremor in his black hand.

"You don't think, doctor—" he paused, afraid to say the thing—"you don't think my young mistis gwine ter die?"

"She's very ill, Jim—it's an even fight for life."

"Ef she do—hit'll kill my young marster—"

"Soldiers can't die that way—no—"

"Yassah—but dey ain't been married but three months, sah, an' he des worship de very groun' her little foot walks on—she des can't die—she too young an' putty, sah—hit des natchally can't be—"

The doctor's gray head slowly moved as if in remembrance of tragic scenes.

"Death loves a shining mark sometimes!"

He turned to the slave in tones of warning:

"Watch your master closely—"

"My marster—sah!"

"He'll go down next—"

"Yassah—yassah!"

Two days later, the strong man collapsed with a crash that took even the experienced old doctor by surprise. An iron will had bent over the bedside of his bride and fought with grim defiance the battle with unseen foe until the last ounce of strength had gone.

In his delirium they moved him to another room and he awoke to find himself in a prison cell on a desert island a thousand miles from the mate he adored.

He watched his jailers and at last his hour came. The tired guard beside his prison pallet slept. With fevered stealth he rose and with the strength of a giant, bent the bars of his cage and crawled and fought his way over hill and valley, rocks and mountains, back to the bedside of his beloved.

He paused in rapture at the door. She was sitting up in bed, the pillows propped behind her back, singing their favorite song—"Fairy Bells." How soft and weirdly sweet her voice—its notes so far away and plaintive—never had she sung so divinely!

He held his breath lest a word or quiver of its melody should be lost. And then he slipped his strong arms about her and looked into her eyes shining with unearthly beauty.

"You have come at last, my own!" she sighed. "I knew the Bells would call you—"

"Yes—dearest—and I'll never leave you again—they took me away a wounded prisoner of war—but I broke the bars and came when I heard you call—"

"Look," she whispered, pointing with the slender blue-veined finger, "there she is, in the doorway again with her baby in her arms, waving at sunset to her lover on the hill?—what does it matter, a cabin or a palace!"

The shining eyes grew dim, the figure drooped, and a wild piteous cry came from the lover's fevered lips:

"Lord God of Love and Pity—she's dying!—Help—Help—Help!"

His faithful servant, worn with watching day and night, heard the cry, rushed to his side and caught his fainting form, as the light of the world faded.