The Christian Part 88

This was the final madness, and he leaped to his feet in an outburst of uncontrollable rage. All at once he shuddered with a feeling that something terrible was brewing within him. He felt cold, a s.h.i.+ver was running over his whole body. But the thought he had been in search of had come to him of itself. It came first as a shock, and with a sense of indescribable dread, but it had taken hold of him and hurried him away.

He had remembered his text: "Deliver him up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord."

"Why not?" he thought; "it is in the Holy Book itself. There is the authority of St. Paul for it. Clearly the early Christians countenanced and practised such things." But then came a spasm of physical pain.

That beautiful life, so full of love and loveliness, radiating joy and sweetness and charm! The thing was impossible! It was monstrous! "Am I going mad?" he asked himself.

And then he began to be sorry for himself as well as for Glory. How could he live in the world without her? Although he had lost her, although an impa.s.sable gulf divided them, although he had not seen her for six months until today, yet it was something to know she was alive and that he could go at night to the place where she was and look up and think, "She is there." "It is true, I am going mad," he thought, and he trembled again.

His mind oscillated among these conflicting ideas, until the more hideous thought returned to him of Drake and the smile exchanged with Glory. Then the blood rushed to his head, and strong emotions paralyzed his reason. When he asked himself if it was right in England and in the nineteenth century to contemplate a course which might have been proper to Palestine and the first century, the answer came instantaneously that it _was_ right. Glory was in peril. She was tottering on the verge of h.e.l.l. It would not be wrong, but a n.o.ble duty, to prevent the possibility of such a hideous catastrophe. Better a life ended than a life degraded and a soul destroyed.

On this the sophism worked. It was true that he would lose her; she would be gone from him, she who was all his joy, his vision by day, his dream by night. But could he be so selfish as to keep her in the flesh, and thus expose her soul to eternal torment? And after all she would be his in the other world, his forever, his alone. Nay, in this world also, for being dead he would love her still. "But, O G.o.d, must _I_ do it?" he asked himself at one moment, and at the next came his answer: "Yes, yes, for I am G.o.d's minister."

That sent him back to his text again. "Deliver him up to _Satan_----"

But there was a marginal reference to Timothy, and he turned it up with a trembling hand. _Satan_ again, but the Revised Version gave "the Lord's servant," and thus the text should read, "Deliver him up to the Lord's servant for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." This made him cry out. He drank it in with inebriate delight. The thing was irrevocably decided. He was justified, he was authorized, he was the instrument of a fixed purpose.

No other consideration could move him now.

By this time his heart and temples were beating violently, and he felt as if he were being carried up into a burning cloud. Before his eyes rose the vision of Isaiah, the meek lamb converted into an inexorable avenger descending from the summit of Edom. It was right to shed blood at the divine command--nay, it was necessary, it was inevitable. And as G.o.d had commanded Abraham to take the life of Isaac, whom he loved, so did G.o.d call on him, John Storm, to take the life of Glory that he might save her from the risk of everlasting d.a.m.nation!

There may have been intervals in which his sense of hearing left him, for it was only now that he became conscious that somebody was calling to him from the other side of the door.

"Is anybody there?" he asked, and a voice replied:

"Dear heart, yes, this five minutes and better, but I didna dare come in, thinking surely there was somebody talking with you. Is there no somebody here then? No?"

It was Mrs. Callender, who was carrying a small glad-stone bag.

"Oh, it's you, is it?"

"Aye, it's myself, and sorry I am to be bringing bad news to you."

"What is it?" he asked, but his tone betrayed complete indifference.

She closed the door and answered in a whisper: "A warrant! I much mis...o...b.. but there's one made out for you."

"Is that all?"

"Bless me, what does the man want? But come, laddie, come; you must tak'

yoursel' off to some spot till the storm blows over."

"I have work to do, auntie."

"Work! You've worked too much already--that's half the botherment."

"G.o.d's work, auntie, and it must be done."

"Then G.o.d will do it himself, without asking the life of a good man, or he's no just what I've been takin' him for. But see," opening the bag and whispering again, "your auld coat and hat! I found them in your puir auld room that you'll no come back to. You've been looking like another body so long that naebody will ken you when you're like yoursel' again.

Come, now, off with these lang, ugly things----"

"I can not go, auntie."

"Can not?"

"I will not. While G.o.d commands me I will do my duty."

"Eh, but men are kittle cattle! I've often called you my ain son, but if I were your ain mother I ken fine what I'd do with you--I'd just slap you and mak' you. I'll leave the clothes, anyway. Maybe you'll be thinking better of it when I'm gone. Good-night to you. Your puir head's that hot and moidered---But what's wrang with you, John, man? What's come over ye anyway?"

He seemed to be hardly conscious of her presence, and after standing a moment at the door, looking back at him with eyes of love and pity, she left the room.

He had been asking himself for the first time how he was to carry out his design. Sitting on the end of the bed with his head propped on his hand he felt as if he were in the hold of a great s.h.i.+p, listening to the plash and roar of the stormy sea outside. The excitement of the populace was now ungovernable and the air was filled with groans and cries. He would have to pa.s.s through the people, and they would see him and detain him, or perhaps follow him. His impatience was now feverish. The thing he had to do must be done to-night, it must be done immediately. But it was necessary in the first place to creep out unseen. How was he to do it?

When he came to himself he had a vague sense of some one wis.h.i.+ng him good-night. "Oh, good-night, good-night!" he cried with an apologetic gesture. But he was alone in the room, and on turning about he saw the bag on the floor, and remembered everything. Then a strange thing happened. Two conflicting emotions took hold of him at once--the first an enthusiastic, religious ecstasy, the other a low, criminal cunning.

Everything was intended. He was only the instrument of a fixed purpose.

These clothes were proof of it. They came to his hand at the very moment when they were wanted, when nothing else would have helped him. And Mrs.

Callender had been the blind agent in a higher hand to carry out the divine commands. Fly away and hide himself? G.o.d did not intend it. A warrant? No matter if it sent him like Cranmer to the stake. But this was a different thing entirely, this was G.o.d's will and purpose, this----

Yet even while thinking so he laughed an evil laugh, tore the clothes out of the bag with trembling hands, and made ready to put them on. He had removed his ca.s.sock when some one opened the door.

"Who's there?" he cried in a husky growl.

"Only me," said a timid voice, and Brother Andrew entered, looking pale and frightened.

"Oh, you! Come in; close the door; I've something to say to you. Listen!

I'm going out, and I don't know when I shall be back. Where's the dog?"

"In the pa.s.sage, brother."

"Chain him up at the back, lest he should get out and follow me. Put this ca.s.sock away, and if anybody asks for me say you don't know where I've gone--you understand?"

"Yes; but are you well, Brother Storm? You look as if you had just been running."

There was a hand-gla.s.s on the washstand, and John s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and glanced into it and put it down again instantly. His nostrils were quivering, his eyes were ablaze, and the expression of his face was shocking.

"What are they doing outside? See if I can get away without being recognised," and Brother Andrew went out to look.

The pa.s.sage from the chambers under the church was into a dark and narrow street at the back, but even there a group of people had gathered, attracted by the lights in the windows. Their voices could be heard through the door which Brother Andrew had left ajar, and John stood behind it and listened. They were talking of himself--praising him, blessing him, telling stories of his holy life and gentleness.

Brother Andrew reported that most of the people were at the front, and they were frantic with religious excitement. Women were crus.h.i.+ng up to the rail which the Father had leaned his head upon for a moment after he had finished his prayer, in order to press their handkerchiefs and shawls on it.

"But n.o.body would know you now, Brother Storm--even your face is different."

John laughed again, but he turned off the lights, thinking to drive away the few who were still lingering in the back street. The ruse succeeded.

Then the man of G.o.d went out on his high errand, crept out, stole out, sneaked out, precisely as if he had been a criminal on his way to commit a crime.

He followed the lanes and narrow streets and alleys behind the Abbey, past the "Bell," the "Boar's Head," and the "Queen's Arms"--taverns that have borne the same names since the days when Westminster was Sanctuary.

People home from the races were going into them with their red ties awry, with sprigs of lilac in their b.u.t.tonholes; and oak leaves in their hats. The air was full of drunken singing, sounds of quarrelling, shameful words and curses. There were some mutterings of thunder and occasional flashes of lightning, and over all there was the deep hum of the crowd in the church square.

Crossing the bottom of Parliament Street he was almost run down by a squadron of mounted police who were trotting into Broad Sanctuary. To escape observation he turned on to the Embankment and walked under the walls of the gardens of Whitehall, past the back of Charing Cross station to the street going up from the Temple.

The gate of Clement's Inn was closed, and the porter had to come out of his lodge to open it.