CHAPTER I
"THE BLACK-ROBED PHANTOM 'DEATH'"
"Father Adrian!"
"I am here!"
"I saw the doctor talking with you aside! How long have I to live? Hetold you the truth! Repeat his words to me!"
The tall, gaunt young priest drew nearer to the bedside, and shook hishead with a slow, pitying gesture.
"The time was short--short indeed. Yet, why should you fear? Yourconfession has been made! I myself have pronounced your absolution;the holy Church has granted to you her most holy sacrament."
"Fear! Bah! I have no fear! It is a matter of calculation. Shall I seemorning break?"
"You may; but you will never see the mid-day sun."
The dying man raised himself with a slow, painful movement, andpointed to the window.
"Throw up the window."
He was obeyed. A servant who had been sitting quietly in the shadowsof the vast apartment, with his head buried in his hands, rose and didhis master's bidding.
"What hour is it?"
"Three o'clock."
"Gomez, strain your eyes seaward. Is there no light on the horizon?"
"None! The storm has wrapped the earth in darkness. Listen!"
A torrent of rain was swept against the streaming window pane, and agust of wind shook the frame in its sockets. The watcher turned awayfrom the window with a mute gesture of despair. No eye could piercethat black chaos. He sank again into his seat, and looked aroundshuddering. The high, vaulted chamber was lit by a pair of candlesonly, leaving the greater part of it in gloom. Grim, fantastic shadowslurked in the corners, and lay across the bare floor. Even the tallfigure of the priest, on his knees before a rude wooden crucifix,seemed weird and ghostly. The heavy, mildewed bed-hangings shookand trembled in the draughts which filled the room, and the candlesflickered and burnt low in their sockets. Gomez watched them with asort of anxious fascination. His master's life was burning out,minute for minute, with those candles. Twenty-five years of constantcompanionship would be ended in a few brief hours. Gomez was notdisposed to trouble much at this; but he bethought himself of a snuglittle abode in Piccadilly, where the discomforts now surrounding themwere quite unknown. Surely, to die there would be a luxury comparedwith this. He began to feel personally aggrieved that his mastershould have chosen such an out-of-the-way hole to end his days in.Then came a rush of thought, and he was grave. He knew why! Yes! heknew why!
The dying man lay quite still, almost as though his time were alreadycome. Once he raised himself, and the feeble light flashed across agrey, haggard face and a pair of burning eyes. But his effort wasonly momentary. He sank back again, and lay there with his eyes halfclosed, and breathing softly. He was nursing his strength.
One, two, three, four, five! The harsh clanging of a brazen clocksomewhere in the building had penetrated to the chamber, followed by adeep, resonant bell. The man on the bed lifted his head.
"How goes the storm?" he asked softly.
Gomez stood up and faced the window.
"The storm dies with the night, sir," he answered. "The wind hasfallen."
"When does day break?"
Gomez looked at his watch.
"In one hour, sir."
"Stay by the window, Gomez, and let your eyes watch for the dawn."
The priest frowned. "Surely the time has come when you should quityour hold on earthly things," he said quietly. "What matters the dawn!soon you will lose yourself in an everlasting sleep, and the dawn foryou will be eternity. Take this crucifix, and pray with me."
The dying man pushed it away with a gesture almost contemptuous.
"Is there no light on the sea yet, Gomez?" he asked anxiously.
Gomez leant forward till his face touched the window pane. He strainedhis eyes till they ached; but the darkness was impenetrable. Yetstay,--what was that? A feeble yellow light was glimmering far awayin the heart of that great gulf of darkness. He held his breath, andwatched it steadily. Then he turned round.
"There is a light in the far distance, sir," he said. "I cannot tellwhat it may be, but there is a light."
A wave of excitement passed over the strong, wasted features of theman upon the bed. He half raised himself, and his voice was almostfirm.
"Push my bed to the window," he ordered.
The two men, priest and servant, bent all their strength to the task,and inch by inch they moved the great, creaking structure. When atlast they had succeeded, and paused to take breath, the light in thedistance had become stronger and more apparent. Together the three menwatched it grow; master and servant, with breathless eagerness, thepriest with a show of displeasure in his severe face. Suddenly Gomezgave a little cry.
"The dawn!" he exclaimed, pointing to the north of the light. "Morningis breaking."
Sure enough, a grey, pallid light was stealing down upon the water.The darkness was becoming a chaos of grey and black; of towering seasand low-lying clouds, with cold white streaks of light falling throughthem, and piercing the curtains of night. There was no vestige ofcolouring--nothing but cold grey and slate white. Yet the dawn movedon, and through it the yellow light in the distance gleamed larger andlarger.
"Hold me up," ordered the man on the bed. "Prop me up with pillows!"
They did as he bade them, and for the first time his face was fullyrevealed in the straggling twilight. A flowing grey beard, stillplentifully streaked with black, rested upon his chest; and the eyes,steadily fixed upon the window pane, were dark and undimmed. A longillness had wasted his fine features, but had detracted nothing fromtheir strength and regularity of outline. His lips were closelyset, and his expression, though painfully eager, was not otherwisedispleasing. There was none of the fear of death there; nor was thereanything of the passionless resignation of the man who has biddenfarewell to life, and made his peace with God and man; nor, inthose moments of watching, had his face any of the physical signs ofapproaching death.
"Ah!"
They started at the sharp, almost triumphant exclamation which hadescaped from his white lips, and followed his long, quivering finger.Above that glimmering light was a faint, dim line of smoke, fading onthe horizon.
"It is a steamer, indeed," the priest said, with some interest. "Sheis making for the island."
"When is the supply boat due?" Gomez asked.
"Not for a fortnight," the priest answered; "it is not she, it is astranger."
There was no other word spoken. Soon the dawn, moving across the greatwaste of waters, pierced the dark background behind the steamer'slight. The long trail of white, curdling foam in her track gleamedlike a silver cleft in a dark gulf. The dim shape of her sails stoleslowly into sight, and they could see that she was carrying a greatweight of canvas. Then into the grey air, a rocket shot up like abrilliant meteor, and the sound of a gun came booming over the waters.
"Can she make the bay?" Gomez asked suddenly. "Look at the surf."
They all removed their eyes from the steamer, and fixed them nearerhome. The darkness had rolled away, and the outlook, though a littleuncertain in the misty morning light, was still visible. Right beforethe window, a little to the left, a great rocky hill, many hundredsof feet high, ran sheer down into the sea, and facing it on the right,was a lower range of rocks running out from the mainland. Inside thenatural harbour thus formed, the sea was quiet enough; but at theentrance, a line of white breakers and huge ocean waves were leapingup against the base of the promontory, and dashing over the lowerrange of rocks. Beyond, the sea was wild and rough, and the steamerwas often almost lost to sight in the hollow of the Waves.
"Ah!"
The faces of all three men underwent a sudden change. Three rockets,one after another, shot up into the sky from the top of the rockyhill, leaving a faint, violet glow overhead. The dying man set histeeth hard, and his eyes glistened.
"Three rockets," he muttered. "What is the meaning of that signal,Father?" he asked.
The priest looked downward, pityingly. "It is a warning that theentranc
e to the bay is unsafe," he answered. "Take comfort; it isthe hand of God keeping from you those who would distract your dyingthoughts from Heaven. Take comfort, and pray with me."
He seemed strangely deaf to the priest's words, and made no movementor sign in response. Only he kept his eyes the more steadfastlyfixed upon the steamer, now plainly visible. His face showed nodisappointment. It seemed almost as though he might have seen acrossthe grey sea, and heard the stern orders thundered out from a slim,motionless figure on the captain's bridge. "Right ahead, helmsman!Never mind the signal. There's fifty pounds for every man of you if wemake the bay. It's not so bad as it looks! Back me up like brave lads,and I'll remember it all your lives!"
Almost, too, he might have heard the answering cheer, for a faintsmile parted his white lips as he saw the steamer ploughing her wayheavily straight ahead, paying no heed to the warning signal.
On she came. The priest and the servant started as they saw herintention, and a sharp ejaculation of surprise escaped from theformer. Side by side, they watched the labouring vessel with strainedeyes. Her hull and shape were now visible in the dim morning twilight,as she rose and fell upon the waves. It was evident that she was alarge, handsome pleasure yacht, daintily but strongly built.
Close up against the high, bare window the three watchers,unconsciously enough, formed a striking-looking group. The priest,tall, pale, and severe, stood in the shadow of the bed-curtains, animpressive and solemn figure in his dark, flowing robes, but with theimpassibility of his features curiously disturbed. He, who had beenpreaching calm, was himself agitated. He had drawn a little on oneside, so that the cold grey light should not fall upon his face andbetray its twitching lips and quivering pallor; but if either of themen who shared his watch had thought to glance at him, the sicklycandlelight would have shown at once what he was so anxious toconceal. It was little more than chance which had brought this manto die in his island monastery, and under his care; little more thanchance which had revealed to him this wonderful secret. But the agonyof those last few hours, and the gloomy words of the priest who leantover his bedside, had found their way in between the joints of thedying man's armour of secrecy. Word by word, the story had beenwrested from him. In the cold and comfortless hour of death, thestrong, worldly man felt his physical weakness loosen the iron bandsof his will, and he became for a time almost like a child in the handsof the keen, swiftly-questioning priest. He had not found much comfortin the mumbled prayers and absolution, which were all he got inexchange for his life's secret,--and such a secret! He had not,indeed, noticed the fixed, far-away gaze in the priest's dark eyes ashe knelt by the bedside; but his prayers, his faint words of comfort,had fallen like drops of ice upon his quickened desire to be broughta little nearer to that mysterious, shadowy essence of goodness whichwas all his mind could conceive of a God. It had seemed like a deadform of words, lifeless, hopeless, monotonous; and all that faintstriving to attain to some knowledge of the truth--if indeed truththere was--had been crushed into ashes by it. As he had lived, so musthe die, he told himself with some return of that philosophic quietudewhich had led him, stout-hearted and brave, through many dangers. And,at that moment when he had been striving to detach his thoughts fromtheir vain task of conjuring up useless regrets, there had come whateven now seemed to be the granting of his last passionate prayer. Theman whom he had longed to see once more before his eyes were closedforever upon the world, with such a longing that his heart had grownsick and weary with the burden of it, had been brought as though by amiracle almost to his side. He knew as though by some strange instinctthe measure of his strength. He had no fear of dying before hisheart's dearest wish could be gratified. If only that fiercelylabouring vessel succeeded in her brave struggle, he knew that therewould be strength left to him to bear the shock of meeting, to beareven the shock of the tidings which could either sweeten his last fewmoments, or deepen the gloom of his passage into the unknown world.And so he lay there, with fixed, glazed eyes and shortened breath,watching and waiting.
The supreme moment came; the steamer had reached the dangerous point,and the waves were breaking over her with such fury that more thanonce she vanished altogether from sight, only to reappear in a momentor two, quivering and trembling from stern to hull like a livingcreature. After all, the struggle was a brief one, though it seemedlong to the watchers at the window. In less than ten minutes itwas over; she had passed the line of breakers, and was in thecomparatively smooth water of the bay, heading fast for the shoreunder leeway of the great wall of towering rocks, at the foot of whichshe seemed dwarfed almost into the semblance of a boy's toy vessel.Within a quarter of a mile from the shore, she anchored, and a boatwas let down from her side.
A new lease of life seemed to have come to the man on the bed. Themorning sun had half emerged from a bank of angry purple-colouredclouds, and its faint slanting beams lay across the white coverlet ofthe bed, and upon his face. His eyes were bright and eager, and thedeath-like pallor seemed to have passed from his features. His voice,too, was firm and distinct.
"Place my despatch-box upon the table here, Gomez," he ordered.
Gomez left his seat by the window, and, opening a portmanteau, broughta small black box to the bedside. His master passed his hand over it,and drew it underneath the coverlet.
"I am prepared," he murmured, half to himself. "Father, according tothe physician's reckoning, how long have I to live?"
"Barely an hour," answered the priest, without removing his eyes fromthe boat, whose progress he seemed to be scanning steadfastly. "Isyour eternal future of so little moment to you," he went on in a toneof harsh severity, "that you can give your last thoughts, your lastfew moments, to affairs of this world? 'Tis an unholy death! Take thiscross in your hands, and listen not to those whose coming will surelyestrange you from heaven. Let the world take its own course, but liftyour eyes and heart in prayer! Everlasting salvation, or everlastingdoom, awaits you before yonder sun be set!"
"I have no fear, Father," was the quiet reply. "What is, is; a fewfrantic prayers now could alter nothing, and, besides, my work onearth is not yet over. Speak to me no more of the end! Nothing thatyou or I could do now would bring me one step nearer heaven. Gomez,your eyes are good! Whom do you see in the boat?"
Gomez answered without turning round from the window, "Mr. Paul isthere, sir, steering!"
"Thank God!"
"There are others with him, sir!"
"Others! Who?"
"Strangers to me, sir. There is a man, a gentleman by his dress andappearance, and a child--a girl, I think. Two sailors from the yachtare rowing."
The dying man knitted his brows, and his fingers convulsively clutchedat the bed-clothes. He had lost something of that calm and effortlessserenity which seemed to have fallen upon him since the safety of thesteamer had been assured.
"The boat is quite close, Gomez! Can you not describe the stranger?"
"I can only see that he is thin, rather tall, and, I think, elderly,sir. He is very much wrapped up, as though he were an invalid."
"Lift me up so that I can see them. Father Adrian will help you."
The priest shook his head. "The effort would probably cost you yourlife," he said, "and it would be useless. Before you could see themthe boat would be round the corner."
"So near! God grant me strength! Gomez, give me a tablespoonful of thebrandy!"
Gomez moved silently to his side, and poured out the brandy.Afterwards his master closed his eyes, and there was an intensesilence in the chamber--the deep, breathless silence of expectancy.
The monastery itself, a small and deserted one, tenanted only by afew half-starved monks of one of the lower orders of the Church, waswrapped in a profound gloom. There was no sound from the half-ruinedchapel or the long, empty corridors. The storm had ceased, and thecasements no longer rattled in the wind. To the man who lay there,nursing his fast-ebbing strength, it seemed indeed like the silencebefore the one last tragedy of death, looming so black and so grimbefore him
.
It was broken at last. Away at the end of the corridor the faint soundof hurrying footsteps and subdued voices reached the ears of the threewatchers. They came nearer and nearer, halting at last just outsidethe door. There was a knock, a quick, impetuous answer, and thevisitors entered, ushered in by the priest, who had met them on thethreshold.
Of the two men, one advanced hastily with outstretched hand andpitying face to the bedside; the other moved only a step or twofurther into the room, and stood looking intently, yet without anysalutation or form of recognition, at the dying man. The former, whenhe reached the bed, sank on his knees and took the white hand whichlay upon the coverlet between his.
"Father! My father! I would have given the world to have found youbetter. Tell me that it is not true what they say. You will pull roundnow that I have come!"
There was no answer. The dying man did not even look into the handsomeyoung face so close to his. His eyes, bright and unnaturally large,were rivetted upon the figure at the foot of the bed. His breath camequickly, and he was shivering; an inarticulate sort of moan came fromhis lips.
"Father! you are agitated, and no wonder, to see him here. You had myletter preparing you; nothing that I could do would stop his coming."
It was Gomez who answered, advancing out of the gloom: "There has beenno letter."
There was an instant's silence. Then the younger man rose up, paleas death. "God! what a fool I was to trust to mails in thisout-of-the-way hole! Father! I shall never forgive myself. Blind idiotthat I was, to bring him in like this."
It seemed as if no one save he possessed the power of speech. Therewas a dead silence. He looked from one to another of the figures inthat silent drama in fast-growing despair. The face of the man whomhe had brought there revealed little, although in a certain way itsexpression was remarkable. The lips were parted in a slow,quiet smile, not in itself sardonic or cruel, although under thecircumstances it seemed so, for it was difficult to associate anyidea of mirth with the scene which was passing in that grim, gloomychamber. Something of the awe inseparable from this close approach ofdeath was visible in the faces of all the other watchers. Not so inhis! It was the contrast which seemed so strange. He stood there, withhis hands thrust deep into the pockets of his long travelling coat,returning the fixed, glazed stare of the dying man with a sort ofindifferent good humour. Perhaps a very close observer might havedetected a shade of mockery in those soft black eyes and faintlytwitching lips, but the light in the room was too obscure for any onethere to penetrate beneath the apparent indifference. It was he whobroke that deep, tragic silence, and his voice, light and even gay,struck a strange note in that solemn chamber of death.
"So you are dying, Martin, _mon ami_? How odd! If any one had told meone short month ago that I should have been here to watch your lastmoments, and start you on your journey to hell, bah! how mad I shouldhave thought them. 'Tis a pleasure I never anticipated."
His words seemed to dissolve the lethargy which his presence had castover the dying man. He turned away towards the younger figure by hisside.
"How came he here?" he asked feebly.
"Listen, and I will tell you," was the low reply. "I sought him firstat Monaco, but he had not been heard of there for two years. Then Ifound traces of him at Algiers; and followed up the clue to Cairo,Athens, Syracuse, and Belgrade. It was at Constantinople I foundhim at last--an officer--actually an officer in the Turkish army;'Monsieur le Captaine,' my interpreter called him," the young manadded, with a fine scorn in his raised voice. "Imagine it! Well,I gave him your letter, delivered the messages, and awaited hispleasure. He kept me waiting for two days before he vouchsafedone word of answer. On the third day he announced his intention ofaccompanying me here. Nothing that I could say made any difference.'His answer should be given to you in person, or not at all.' Iwrote to you three days before we started; that letter you never had.Forgive me, father, for the shock! As for you," he continued, turningabruptly towards the motionless figure at the foot of the bed, "I havekept my word, and brought you here in safety, though no one in theworld will ever know how near I came to breaking it, and throwing youinto the Dardanelles. Ah! I was sorely tempted, I can tell you. Speakyour answer, and go! This is no place for you to linger in."
"Upon my word, you are courteous, very! But, my dear friend Martin,as this is to be our farewell, I must really see you a little moredistinctly."
For the first time, the man in the long overcoat changed his position,and came a little nearer to the bed. The movement showed him thepriest, kneeling with closed eyes and uplifted hands before an ironcrucifix.
"Ah! we are not quite alone then, Martin, _cher ami_! the gentleman inthe long robe appears to be listening."
"He is as dead," answered the man on the bed slowly. "He is a monk;you can speak."
He raised himself slightly on the bed. One hand remained grasping hisdespatch-box under the bed-clothes; the other was held by the young manwho knelt by his side. His face was curiously changed; all the effectof his unlooked-for visitor's arrival seemed to have passed away. Hiseyes were bright and eager. His white lips were closely set and firm.
"You can speak," he repeated.
His visitor was leaning over the foot of the bed now, and the smilehad quite gone, leaving his face cold and white. He spoke a littlequicker than before.
"Here is your answer, Martin de Vaux! You offer me a fortune, oncondition that I give up to you on your deathbed the power by which Ihold those whom you love, my slaves. Money is dear to me, as it is tomost men, but I would die sooner than touch yours. Curse you, andyour money, and your family! Not for all the gold that was ever coinedwould I yield up my power! My day will come, and may the evil spiritbring you tidings of it down into hell! Curse you, Martin de Vaux! Nowyou know my mind."
The dying man was strangely calm. From under the bed-clothes came thefaint sound of the opening and shutting of the despatch-box.
"Yes, I know your mind," he repeated quietly. "You mean me to die withthe torturing thought that I have left a poisonous reptile to suckthe life and blood from those I love, and the honour from a grand oldname. But I will not! We will take our next journey together, Victor."
A sudden change had crept into his tone before the last sentence; andbefore it had died away, the priest and the man by the bedside hadleaped to their feet in horror. He whom they had thought too weak tostir was sitting bolt upright in bed, his eyes blazing and his handextended. There was a line of fire, a loud report, and then a singlecry of agony. The man who had leaned over the foot of the bed lay onthe ground just as he had fallen, shot dead through the heart, and achild, dark-skinned and thin, who had rushed in at the sound of thereport, was sobbing passionately with her arms wound around him.Across the bed, still grasping the pistol, but with his hands hanginghelplessly down, lay the man who had fired the shot. The effort hadkilled him.
The priest was the first in the room to move. He slowly bent over bothbodies, and then turned round to the other man.
"Dead?" he asked, with a dry, choking gasp.
"Both dead."
The priest and his companion, shocked and unnerved, looked at oneanother in silence. The child's sobs grew louder, and the morningsunlight stole across the bare floor, and fell upon the white, stillfaces.
The tragedy was over, and the seeds of another sown.