The Bishop of Cottontown Part 61

drop that stuff."

The old man smiled sadly as if he pitied Jack. Then he repeated slowly:

"Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore Thee Castin' down their golden crowns around the gla.s.sy sea; Cherubim an' Seraphim, fallin' down before Thee Which wert an' art, an' ever more shall be."

Feebly he leaned on Jack, the tears ran down his cheek: "'Tain't weakness, Jack, 'tain't that--it's joy, it's love of G.o.d, Whose done so much for me. It's the glory, glory of them lines--Oh, G.o.d--what a line of poetry!"

"Castin' down their golden crowns around the gla.s.sy sea!"

Ben Butler stood ready, the bell clanged again. Jack helped him into the sulky; never had he seen the old man so feeble. Travis was already at the post.

They got the word immediately, but to the old man's dismay, Travis's mare shot away like a scared doe, trotting as frictionless as a glazed emery wheel.

The old man shook up Ben Butler and wondered why he seemed to stand so still. The old horse did his best, he paced as he never had before, but the flying thing like a red demon flitted always just before him, a thing with tendons of steel and feet of fire.

"Oh, G.o.d, Ben Butler, what is it--what? Have you quit on me, ole hoss?--you, Ben Butler, you that come in answer to prayer? My G.o.d, Cap'n Tom, s.h.i.+loh!"

And still before him flew the red thing with wings.

At the half, at the three-quarters: "Now ole hoss!" And the old horse responded gamely, grandly. He thundered like a cyclone bursting through a river-bed. Foot by foot, inch by inch, he came up to Travis's mare. Nose to nose they flew along. There was a savage yell--a loud cracking of Travis' whip in the blind horse's ears.

Never had the sightless old horse had such a fright! He could not see--he could only hear the terrible, savage yell. Frightened, he forgot, he dodged, he wavered--

"Steady, Ben Butler, don't--oh--"

It was a small trick of Travis', for though the old pacer came with a rush that swept everything before it, the drive had been made too late. Travis had the heat won already.

Still there was no rule against it. He could yell and crack his whip and make all the noise he wished, and if the other horse was frightened, it was the fault of his nerves. Everybody who knew anything of racing knew that.

A perfect tornado of hisses met Travis at the grand-stand.

But he had won the heat! What did he care? He could scarcely stop his mare. She seemed like a bird and as fresh. He pulled her double to make her turn and come back after winning, and as she came she still fought the bit.

As he turned, he almost ran into the old pacer jogging, broken-hearted behind. The mare's mouth was wide open, and the Bishop's trained eye fell on the long tusk-like lower teeth, flas.h.i.+ng in the sun.

Startled, he quivered from head to foot. He would not believe his own eyes. He looked closely again. There was no doubt of it--she was eight years old!

In an instant he knew--his heart sank, "We're robbed, Cap'n Tom--s.h.i.+loh--my G.o.d!"

Travis drove smilingly back, amid hisses and cheers and the fluttering of ladies' handkerchiefs in the boxes.

"How about the gloves and candy now?" he called to them with his cap in his hand.

Above the judges had hung out:

_6th Heat:_ _Lizzette, 1st_; _Ben Butler, 2nd._ _Time_, 2:14.

When Flecker of Tennessee saw the time hung out, he jumped from his seat exclaiming: "Six heats and the last heat the fastest? Who ever heard of a tired mare cutting ten seconds off that way? By the eternal, but something's wrong there."

"Six heats an' the last one the fastest--By gad, sah," said Col.

Troup. "It is strange. That mare Lizzette is a wonder, an' by gad, sah, didn't the old pacer come? By gad, but if he'd begun that drive jus' fifty yards sooner--our money"--

Flecker groaned: "We're gone, Colonel--one thousand we put up and the one we hedged with."

"By gad, sah, but, Flecker, don't you think Lizzette went smoother that last heat? She had a different stride, a different gait."

Flecker had not noticed it. "But it was a small thing," he said--"to frighten the old horse. No rule against it, but a gentleman--"

The Colonel smiled: "d.a.m.n such gentlemen, sah. They're a new breed to me."

The old man went slowly back to the stable. He said nothing. He walked dazed, pale, trembling, heart-broken. But never before had he thought so keenly.

Should he expose Travis?--Ruin him, ruin him--here? Then there pa.s.sed quickly thoughts of Cap'n Tom--of Miss Alice. What a chance to straighten every thing out, right every wrong--to act for Justice, Justice long betrayed--for G.o.d. For G.o.d? And had not, perhaps, G.o.d given him this opportunity for this very purpose? Was not G.o.d,--G.o.d, the ever merciful but ever just, behind it all? Was it not He who caused him to look at the open mouth of the first mare? Was it not He giving him a chance to right a wrong so long, so long delayed? If he failed to speak out would he not be doing every man in the race a wrong, and Cap'n Tom and s.h.i.+loh, and even Miss Alice, so soon to marry this man--how it went through him!--even G.o.d--even G.o.d a wrong!

He trembled; he could not walk. He sat down; Jack and Bud had the horse, the outlaw's eyes flas.h.i.+ng fire as he led him away. But Bud, poor Bud, he was following, broken-hearted, blubbering and still saying between his sobs: "Great--hoss--he skeered him!"

The grand-stand sat stupefied, charged to the explosive point with suppressed excitement. Six terrible heats and no horse had won three.

But now Lizzette and Ben Butler had two each--who would win the next, the decisive heat. G.o.d help the old preacher, for he had no chance.

Not after the speed that mare showed.

Colonel Troup came up: "By gad, sah, Bishop--don't give up--you've got one mo' chance. Be as game as the ole hoss."

"We are game, sir--but--but, will you do as I tell you an' swear to me on yo' honor as a gentleman never to speak till I say the word?

Will you swear to keep sacred what I show you, until I let you tell?"

The Colonel turned red: "What do you mean, sah?"

"Swear it, swear it, on yo' honor as a gentleman--"

"On my honor as a gentleman, sah? I swear it."

"Go," said the old man quickly, "an' look in the mouth of the mare they are jes' bringin' in--the mare that won that heat. Go, an'

remember yo' honor pledged. Go an' don't excite suspicion."

The old man sat down and, as he waited, he thought. Never before had he thought so hard. Never had such a burden been put upon him. When he looked up Colonel Troup stood pale and silent before him--pale with close-drawn lips and a hot, fierce, fighting gleam in his eyes.

"You've explained it, sah--" he said. Then he fumbled his pistol in his pocket. "Now--now, give me back my promise, my word. I have two thousand dollars at stake, and--and clean sport, sah,--clean sport.

Give me back my word."

"Sit down," said the old man quietly.

The Colonel sat down so still that it was painful. He was calm but the Bishop saw how hard the fight was.

Then the old man broke out: "I can't--O G.o.d, I can't! I can't _make_ a character, why should I _take_ one? It's so easy to take a word--a nod--it is gone! And if left maybe it 'ud come agin. Richard Travis--it looks bad--he may be bad--but think what he may do yet--if G.o.d but touch him? No man's so bad but that G.o.d can't touch him--change him. We may live to see him do grand and n.o.ble things--an' G.o.d will touch him," said the old man hotly, "he will yet."

"If you are through with me," said Colonel Troup, coolly, "and will give me back my promise, I'll go and touch him--yes, d.a.m.n him, I'll shoot him as he should be."

"But I ain't gwine to give it back," smiled the old man.

Colonel Troup flushed: "What'll you do, then? Let him rob you an' me, sah? Steal my two thousand, and Flecker's? Your purse that you've already won--yours--yours, right this minute? Rob the public in a fake race, sah? You've won the purse, it is yours, sah. He forfeited it when he brought out that other mare. Think what you are doing, sah!"