Novel Notes Part 28

"'I fancied you had,' said the other. 'I met her just now walking with her husband, of all men in the world, and making herself quite agreeable to him.'

"The friend strolled on, and the man sat down on a fallen tree, and lighted a cigar. He smoked and thought, and the cigar burnt out, but he still sat thinking.

"After a while he heard a faint rustling of the branches behind him, and peering between the interlacing leaves that hid him, saw the crouching figure of the woman creeping through the wood.

"His lips were parted to call her name, when she turned her listening head in his direction, and his eyes fell full upon her face. Something about it, he could not have told what, struck him dumb, and the woman crept on.

"Gradually the nebulous thoughts floating through his brain began to solidify into a tangible idea, and the man unconsciously started forward.

After walking a few steps he broke into a run, for the idea had grown clearer. It continued to grow still clearer and clearer, and the man ran faster and faster, until at last he found himself racing madly towards the lock. As he approached it he looked round for the watchman who ought to have been there, but the man was gone from his post. He shouted, but if any answer was returned, it was drowned by the roar of the rus.h.i.+ng water.

"He reached the edge and looked down. Fifteen feet below him was the reality of the dim vision that had come to him a mile back in the woods: the woman's husband swimming round and round like a rat in a pail.

"The river was flowing in and out of the lock at the same rate, so that the level of the water remained constant. The first thing the man did was to close the lower sluices and then open those in the upper gate to their fullest extent. The water began to rise.

"'Can you hold out?' he cried.

"The drowning man turned to him a face already contorted by the agony of exhaustion, and answered with a feeble 'No.'

"He looked around for something to throw to the man. A plank had lain there in the morning, he remembered stumbling over it, and complaining of its having been left there; he cursed himself now for his care.

"A hut used by the navvies to keep their tools in stood about two hundred yards away; perhaps it had been taken there, perhaps there he might even find a rope.

"'Just one minute, old fellow!' he shouted down, 'and I'll be back.'

"But the other did not hear him. The feeble struggles ceased. The face fell back upon the water, the eyes half closed as if with weary indifference. There was no time for him to do more than kick off his riding boots and jump in and clutch the unconscious figure as it sank.

"Down there, in that walled-in trap, he fought a long fight with Death for the life that stood between him and the woman. He was not an expert swimmer, his clothes hampered him, he was already blown with his long race, the burden in his arms dragged him down, the water rose slowly enough to make his torture fit for Dante's h.e.l.l.

"At first he could not understand why this was so, but in glancing down he saw to his horror that he had not properly closed the lower sluices; in each some eight or ten inches remained open, so that the stream was pa.s.sing out nearly half as fast as it came in. It would be another five- and-twenty minutes before the water would be high enough for him to grasp the top.

"He noted where the line of wet had reached to, on the smooth stone wall, then looked again after what he thought must be a lapse of ten minutes, and found it had risen half an inch, if that. Once or twice he shouted for help, but the effort taxed severely his already failing breath, and his voice only came back to him in a hundred echoes from his prison walls.

"Inch by inch the line of wet crept up, but the spending of his strength went on more swiftly. It seemed to him as if his inside were being gripped and torn slowly out: his whole body cried out to him to let it sink and lie in rest at the bottom.

"At length his unconscious burden opened its eyes and stared at him stupidly, then closed them again with a sigh; a minute later opened them once more, and looked long and hard at him.

"'Let me go,' he said, 'we shall both drown. You can manage by yourself.'

"He made a feeble effort to release himself, but the other held him.

"'Keep still, you fool!' he hissed; 'you're going to get out of this with me, or I'm going down with you.'

"So the grim struggle went on in silence, till the man, looking up, saw the stone coping just a little way above his head, made one mad leap and caught it with his finger-tips, held on an instant, then fell back with a 'plump' and sank; came up and made another dash, and, helped by the impetus of his rise, caught the coping firmly this time with the whole of his fingers, hung on till his eyes saw the stunted gra.s.s, till they were both able to scramble out upon the bank and lie there, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed close against the ground, their hands clutching the earth, while the overflowing water swirled softly round them.

"After a while, they raised themselves and looked at one another.

"'Tiring work,' said the other man, with a nod towards the lock.

"'Yes,' answered the husband, 'beastly awkward not being a good swimmer.

How did you know I had fallen in? You met my wife, I suppose?'

"'Yes,' said the other man.

"The husband sat staring at a point in the horizon for some minutes. 'Do you know what I was wondering this morning?' said he.

"'No,' said the other man.

"'Whether I should kill you or not.'

"'They told me,' he continued, after a pause, 'a lot of silly gossip which I was cad enough to believe. I know now it wasn't true, because--well, if it had been, you would not have done what you have done.'

"He rose and came across. 'I beg your pardon,' he said, holding out his hand.

"'I beg yours,' said the other man, rising and taking it; 'do you mind giving me a hand with the sluices?'

"They set to work to put the lock right.

"'How did you manage to fall in?' asked the other man, who was raising one of the lower sluices, without looking round.

"The husband hesitated, as if he found the explanation somewhat difficult. 'Oh,' he answered carelessly, 'the wife and I were chaffing, and she said she'd often seen you jump it, and'--he laughed a rather forced laugh--'she promised me a--a kiss if I cleared it. It was a foolish thing to do.'

"'Yes, it was rather,' said the other man.

"A few days afterwards the man and woman met at a reception. He found her in a leafy corner of the garden talking to some friends. She advanced to meet him, holding out her hand. 'What can I say more than thank you?' she murmured in a low voice.

"The others moved away, leaving them alone. 'They tell me you risked your life to save his?' she said.

"'Yes,' he answered.

"She raised her eyes to his, then struck him across the face with her ungloved hand.

"'You d.a.m.ned fool!' she whispered.

"He seized her by her white arms, and forced her back behind the orange trees. 'Do you know why?' he said, speaking slowly and distinctly; 'because I feared that, with him dead, you would want me to marry you, and that, talked about as we have been, I might find it awkward to avoid doing so; because I feared that, without him to stand between us, you might prove an annoyance to me--perhaps come between me and the woman I love, the woman I am going back to. Now do you understand?'

"'Yes,' whispered the woman, and he left her.

"But there are only two people," concluded Jephson, "who do not regard his saving of the husband's life as a highly n.o.ble and unselfish action, and they are the man himself and the woman."

We thanked Jephson for his story, and promised to profit by the moral, when discovered. Meanwhile, MacShaughna.s.sy said that he knew a story dealing with the same theme, namely, the too close attachment of a woman to a strange man, which really had a moral, which moral was: don't have anything to do with inventions.

Brown, who had patented a safety gun, which he had never yet found a man plucky enough to let off, said it was a bad moral. We agreed to hear the particulars, and judge for ourselves.

"This story," commenced MacShaughna.s.sy, "comes from Furtw.a.n.gen, a small town in the Black Forest. There lived there a very wonderful old fellow named Nicholaus Geibel. His business was the making of mechanical toys, at which work he had acquired an almost European reputation. He made rabbits that would emerge from the heart of a cabbage, flap their ears, smooth their whiskers, and disappear again; cats that would wash their faces, and mew so naturally that dogs would mistake them for real cats, and fly at them; dolls, with phonographs concealed within them, that would raise their hats and say, 'Good morning; how do you do?' and some that would even sing a song.

"But he was something more than a mere mechanic; he was an artist. His work was with him a hobby, almost a pa.s.sion. His shop was filled with all manner of strange things that never would, or could, be sold--things he had made for the pure love of making them. He had contrived a mechanical donkey that would trot for two hours by means of stored electricity, and trot, too, much faster than the live article, and with less need for exertion on the part of the driver; a bird that would shoot up into the air, fly round and round in a circle, and drop to earth at the exact spot from where it started; a skeleton that, supported by an upright iron bar, would dance a hornpipe; a life-size lady doll that could play the fiddle; and a gentleman with a hollow inside who could smoke a pipe and drink more lager beer than any three average German students put together, which is saying much.

"Indeed, it was the belief of the town that old Geibel could make a man capable of doing everything that a respectable man need want to do. One day he made a man who did too much, and it came about in this way.