CHAPTER XXVI
FRANK MULLER'S FAMILIAR
The study of the conflicting elements which go to make up a characterlike that of Frank Muller, however fascinating it might prove, is notone which can be attempted in detail here. Such a character in itsdeveloped form is fortunately well-nigh impossible in a highly civilisedcountry, for the dead weight of the law would crush it back to the levelof the human mass around it. But those who have lived in the wild placesof the earth will be acquainted with its prototypes, more especiallyin the countries where a handful of a superior race rule over the densethousands of an inferior. Solitudes are favourable to the production ofstrongly marked individualities. The companionship of highly developedmen, on the contrary, whittles individualities away; the differencebetween their growth being the difference between the grown of a tree ona plain and a tree in the forest. On the plain the tree takes the innatebend of its nature. It springs in majesty towards the skies; it spreadsitself around, or it slants along the earth, just as Nature intendedthat it should, and in accordance with the power of the providentialbreath which bends it. In the forest it is different. There the treegrows towards the light wherever the light may be. Forced to modify itsnatural habit in obedience to the pressure of circumstances over whichit has no command, it takes such form and height as its neighbours willallow it to, all its energies being directed to the preservation of itslife in any shape and at any sacrifice.
Thus is it with us all. Left to ourselves, or surrounded only by thescrub of humanity, we become outwardly that which the spirit withinwould fashion us to, but, placed among our fellows, shackled by custom,restrained by law, pruned and bent by the force of public opinion, wegrow as like one to another as the fruit bushes on a garden wall. Thesharp angles of our characters are fretted away by the friction of thecrowd, and we become round, polished, and, superficially, at any rate,identical. We no longer resemble a solitary boulder on a plain, but areas a worked stone built into the great edifice of civilised society.
The place of a man like Frank Muller is at the junction of the watersof civilisation and barbarism. Too civilised to possess those savagevirtues which, such as they are, represent the quantum of innate goodNature has thought fit to allow in the mixture, Man; and too barbarousto be subject to the tenderer constraints of cultivated society, he isat once strong in the strength of both and weak in their weaknesses.Animated by the spirit of barbarism, Superstition; and almost entirelydestitute of the spirit of civilisation, Mercy, he stands on the edge ofboth and an affront to both, as terrific a moral spectacle as the worldcan afford.
Had he been a little more civilised, with his power of evil trained byeducation and cynical reflection to defy the attacks of those spasms ofunreasoning spiritual terror and unrestrainable passion that have theirnatural dwelling-place in the raw strong mind of uncultivated man, FrankMuller might have broken upon the world as a Napoleon. Had he been alittle more savage, a little farther removed from the unconsciousbut present influence of a progressive race, he might have ground hisfellows down and ruthlessly destroyed them in the madness of his rageand lust, like an Attila or a T'Chaka. As it was he was buffeted betweentwo forces he did not realise, even when they swayed him, and thus atevery step in his path towards a supremacy of evil an unseen power madestumbling-blocks of weaknesses which, if that path had been laid alonga little higher or a little lower level in the scale of circumstances,would themselves have been deadly weapons of overmastering force.
See him as, with his dark heart filled up with fears, he thunders alongfrom that scene of midnight death and murder which his brain had notfeared to plan and his hand to execute. Onward his black horse strides,companioned by the storm, like a dark thought travelling on the wings ofNight. He does not believe in any God, and yet the terrible fears thatspring up in his soul, born fungus-like from a few drops of blood, takeshape and form, and seem to cry aloud, "_We are the messengers of theavenging God_." He glances up. High on the black bosom of the storm thefinger of the lightning is writing that awful name, and again and againthe voice of the thunder reads it aloud in spirit-shaking accents. Heshuts his dazed eyes, and even the falling rhythm of his horse's hoofsbeats out, "_There is a God! there is a God!_" from the silent earth onwhich they strike.
And so, on through the tempest and the night, flying from that which noman can leave behind.