often the first shock of some unexpected mental blow shakes from the soul, not its corresponding emotion, but that emotion’s exact antithesis. thus, when jason spoke i laughed. i could not on the moment believe that such hideous retribution was demanded of my already writhed and repentant conscience, and it seemed to me that he must be jesting in very ugly fashion.
perhaps he looked astonished; anyhow he said:
“you needn’t make a joke of it. are you awake? modred’s dead, i tell you.”
i sprung from the bed; i clutched him and pulled him to and fro.
“tell me you lie—you lie—you lie!” i cried.
he did not. i could see it in his face. there and then the drought of tophet withered and constricted my life. i was branded and doomed forevermore; a thing to shudder at and avoid.
“i will dress and come!” i said, relaxing from my hold on him, and turned away and began to hurry on my clothes. i had not felt so set in quietness since the morning of two days past. i could even think calmly and balance the pros and cons of my future behavior.
each man must be his own judge, his own plaintiff, his own defendant—an atom of self-contained equity. by his own ruling in matters of right and wrong he must abide, suffer his own punishments, enjoy his own rewards. he is a lonely organism, in whom only himself took an interest, and as such he must be content to endure with calmness the misinterpretations of aliens.
modred had forgiven me. whatever was the condition, whatever the deed, it was too late now to convince me that no justification existed for my rebellion against fate.
my elder, my only brother now, watched me in silence as i dressed.
“where is he?” i said, when i had finished.
“in bed as he was left,” said jason. “i went in this morning, while you were asleep, and found him—ah, he looks horrible,” he cried, and broke off with a shudder.
i did not shrink; i felt braced up to any ordeal.
they were all in the room when we entered it. my father, dr. crackenthorpe, zyp—even old peggy, who was busying herself, with the vulture relish of her kind, over the little artificial decencies of dress and posture that seem such an outrage on the solemn unresistance of the dead.
directly we came in zyp ran to jason and clung to him sobbing. i noticed it with a sort of dull resignation, and that was all; for peggy, who had drawn a sheet over the lifeless face, pulled it down that i might look.
then, for all my stoicism, i gave a cry.
i had left my brother the night before tired, needing rest, but, save for the extra pallor of his complexion that never boasted a great deal of color, much like his usual self. now the dead face lying back on the pillows was awful to look upon. spots and bars of livid purple disfigured its waxen whiteness—on the cheeks, the ears, the throat, where a deep patch was. it was greatly swollen, too, and the mouth so rigidly open that it had defied all effort to bind it close. a couple of pennies, like a hideous pair of glasses, lay, one over each eye, where they could only be kept in position by means of a filament drawn tightly round the head. the hands, stiffly crossed, with the fingers crooked like talons, lay over the breast, fastened into position with a ligature.
i turned away, feeling sick and faint. i think i reeled, for presently i found that dr. crackenthorpe was supporting me against his arm.
“oh, why is he like that?” i whispered.
“’tis a common afterclap in deaths by drowning,” said he, speaking in a loud, insistent voice, as if not for the first time. “a stoppage—a relapse. during the weak small hours, when the patient’s strength is at its lowest, the overwrought lungs refuse to work—collapse, and he dies of suffocation.”
he looked at my father as he spoke, but elicited no response. it was palpable that the heavy potations of the night had so deadened the latter’s faculties as to make him incapable for the moment of realizing the full enormity of the sight before him.
“mark me,” said the doctor; “it’s a plain case, i say, nothing out of the way; no complications. the wretched boy to all intents and purposes has been drowned.”
“who drowned him?” said my father. he spoke thickly, stupidly; but i started, with a dreadful feeling that the locked jaws must relax and denounce me before them all.
seeing his hopeless state, the doctor took my father’s arm and led him from the room. zyp still clung to my brother.
“cover it up,” whispered jason. “he isn’t a pretty sight!”
“he wasn’t a pretty boy,” muttered peggy, reluctantly hiding the dreadful face; “to a old woman’s view it speaks of more than his deserts. nobody’ll come to look at me, i expect.”
“you heard what the doctor said?” asked jason, looking across at me.
“yes.”
“drowned—you understand? drowned, renny?”
“drowned,” i repeated, mechanically.
“come, zyp,” he said; “this isn’t the place for you any longer.”
they passed out of the room, she still clinging to him, so that her face was hidden.
i did not measure his words at that time. i had no thought for nice discriminations of tone; what did i care for anything any longer?
presently i heard old peg muttering again. she thought the room was emptied of us and she softly removed the face cloth once more.
“ay, there ye lies, modred—safe never to spy on poor old rottengoose again! ye were a bad lot, ye were; but peg’s been more’n enough for you, she has, my lad.”
suddenly she saw me out of the tail of her eye, and turned upon me, livid with fury.
“what are ye listening to, renalt? a black curse on spies, renalt, i say!”
then her manner changed and she came fawning at me fulsomely.
“what a good lad to stay wi’ his brother! but peg’ll do the tending, renalt. she be a crass old body and apt to reviling in her speech, but she don’t mean it, bless you; it’s the tic doldrums in her head.”
i repelled the horrible old creature and fled from the room. what she meant i neither knew nor cared, for we had always looked upon her as a feckless body, with a big worm in her brain.
all the long morning i wandered about the house, scarcely knowing what i did or whither i went. once i found myself in the room of silence, not remembering when i had come there or for what reason. the fact, merely, was impressed upon me by a gradual change in the nature of my sensations. something seemed to be asking a question of me which i was striving and striving to answer. it didn’t distress me at first, for a nearer misery overwhelmed everything, but by and by its insistence pierced a passage through all dull obstacles, and the something took up its abode in me and reigned and grew. i felt myself yielding, yielding; and strove now to beat off the inevitable horror of the answer that was rising in me. i did not know what it was, or the question to which it was a response—only i saw that if i yielded to it and spoke it, i should die then and there of the black terror of its revelation.
i sprung to my feet with a cry, and saw, or thought i saw, modred standing by the water wheel and beckoning to me. if i had strength to escape, it was enough for that and no more, for everything seemed to go from me till i found myself sitting at the foot of the stairs, with jason looking oddly down upon me.
“i needn’t get up,” i said. “modred isn’t dead, after all.”
i think i heard him shout out. anyhow, i felt myself lifted up and carried somewhere and put down. if they had thought to restrain me, however, they should have managed things better; for i was up in a moment and out at the window. i had often thought one wanted only the will to forget gravity and float through the air, and here i was doing it. what a glorious sensation it was! i laughed to think how long i had remained like a reptile, bound to the plodding miserable earth, when all the time i had power to escape from myself and float on and on far away from all those heart-breaking troubles. if i only went very swiftly at first i should soon be too distant for them to track me, and then i should be free. i felt a little anxious, for there was a faint noise behind me. i strove to put on pace; if my limbs had responded to my efforts no bird could have outstripped me. but i saw with agony that the harder i fought the less way i made. i struggled and sobbed and clutched myself blindly onward, and all the time the noise behind grew deeper. if i pushed myself off with a foot to the ground i only floated a very little way now. then i saw a railing and pulled myself along with it toilsomely, but some great pressure was in front of me and my feet slipped into holes at every step. panting, straining, slipping, as if on blood—why! it was blood! i had to yield at last.
my passion of hope was done with. i lay in a white set horror, not daring to move or look. how deadly quiet the room was, but not for long, for a little stealthy rustle of the sheet beside me prickled through my whole being with its ghastly stirring. then i knew it had secretly risen on its elbow and was leaning over and looking down upon me. if i could only perspire, i thought, my bonds would loosen and i could escape from it. but it was cunning and knew that, too, and it sealed all the surface of my skin with its acrid exhalations. suddenly it clutched me in its crooked arms and bore me down, down to the room of silence. there was a sickening odor there and the covering of the wheel was open. then, with a shudder, as of death, i thought i found the answer; for now it was plain that the great wheel was driven by blood, not water. as i looked aghast, straining over, it gave me a stealthy push and, with a shriek, i splashed among the paddles and was whirled down. for ages i was spun and beaten round and round, mashed, mangled, gasping for breath and choked with the horrible crimson broth that fed the insane and furious grinding of the wheel. at the end, glutted with torture, it flung me forth into a parching desert of sand, and, spinning from me, became far away a revolving disk of red that made the low-down sun of that waste corner of the world.
i was alone, now—always alone. no footsteps had ever trod that trackless level, nor would, i knew, till time was ended. i had no hope; no green memory for oasis; no power of speech even. then i knew i was dead; had been dead so long that my body had crackled and fallen to decay, leaving my soul only, like the stone of a fruit, quick with wretched impulse to shoot upward but dreadfully imprisoned from doing so.
sometimes in the world the massive columns of the cathedral had suggested to me a like sensation; a moral impress of weight and stoniness that had driven me to bow my head and creep, sweating away from their inexorable stolidity. now i was built into such a body—more, was an integral part of it. yet could my pinioned nerves never assimilate its passionless obduracy, but jerked and struggled in agony to be free. oh, how divine is the instinct that paints heaven all light and airiness, and innocent forevermore of the sense of weight!
suddenly i heard zyp’s voice, singing outside in the world, and in a moment tears, most blessed, blessed tears, sprung from my eyes and i was free. the stone cracked and fell asunder, and i leaped out madly shrieking at my release.
she was sitting under a tree in a beautiful meadow and her young voice rose sweetly as she prinked her hat with daisies and yellow king-cups. she called me to her and gave me tender names and smoothed away the pain from my forehead with kisses and the cunning of her elfish brown hand.
“come, drink,” she said, “and you will be better.”
i woke to life and looked up. she was standing by my bed, holding a cup toward my lips, and at the foot jason leaned, looking on.
“have i been ill?” i said, in a voice so odd to me that i almost laughed.
“yes, yes—a little; but you have come out of the black pit now into the forest.”
