At the Mercy of Tiberius Part 18

CHAPTER IX.

Nowhere in the vast vista of literature is there an episode more exquisitely pathetic than that serene picture of the Grove at Colonus, sacred to the "Semnai Theai;" where the dewy freshness, the floral loveliness, the spicery, and all the warbling witchery of nature pay tribute to the Avenging G.o.ddesses.

Twenty-two centuries have sifted their dust over the immortal figures seated on the marble bench within the precincts consecrated to the Eumenides, but in deathless tenacity, the rich aroma of Sophocles'

narcissus, and the soft crocus light linger there still; while from thickets of olive, nightingales break their hearts in song, as thrilling as the melody that smote the ears of doomed and dying Oedipus.

So in all ages, we, born thralls of grief, lift streaming eyes, and chant elegies to stony-hearted Mother-Earth, but her starry orbs s.h.i.+ne on, undimmed by sympathetic tears; her smiling lips show only suns.h.i.+ne in their changeless dimples, and her myriad fingers sweeping the keys of the Universal Organ, drown our De Profundis in the rhythmic thunders of her Jubilate. Wailing children of Time, we crouch and tug at the moss-velvet, daisy-sprinkled skirts of the mighty Mater, praying some lullaby from her to soothe our pain; but human woe frets not her sublime serenity, as deaf as desert sphinx, she fronts the future.

Some echo of this maddening mystery sounded in the ears of the lonely woman, who clutched the bars of her dungeon, and stared through its iron lattice, at the peaceful, happy, outside world. At her feet lay X---, divided by the silvery river, which, here rushed with arrowy swiftness under the gray stone arches of the bridge, and there widened into gla.s.sy lakelets, as if weary from the mad plunge over a distant rocky ledge in mid-stream, whence the dull steady roar of the "falls"

thrilled the atmosphere, like the "tremolo" in a dim cathedral, where fading daylight dies on painted apse and gilded pipes. As a chessboard the squares of buildings were spread out, defined by wide streets, where humanity and its traffic sped, busy as ants. In a green plot, the sombre facade of the court-house surmounted by an eyeless stone statue of Justice, frowned on the frivolous throng below; and along the verge of the common, marble fingers pointed up to the heaven of blue that bent above "G.o.d's Acre"; while now and then, bulbous towers, and glittering steeple vanes, caught the suns.h.i.+ne on their polished crests.

Beyond the whole, and bounding the valley filled with a billowy sea of bluish-green pine tops, rose a wooded eminence, wearing still its Persian robe of autumn foliage, and on its brow the colonnade and chimneys of "Elm Bluff" blotted the southern sky, like a threatening phantom.

To-day forest, stream, earth and sky, appeared branded with one fatal word, as if the world's wide page held only "Ricordo! Ricordo!"

Beryl shut her eyes and groaned; but the scene merely s.h.i.+fted to a dell under the shadow of Carrara hills, where olives set "Ricordo" among their silver leaves; and lemons painted "Ricordo" in their pale gold; and scarlet pomegranates and nodding violets, burning anemones and tender green of trailing maiden-hair ferns all blazoned "Ricordo."

The fierce tide of wrath, that indignation and her keen sense of outraged innocence had poured like molten lead through her throbbing arteries, was oozing sluggishly, congealing under the awful spell of that one word "Ricordo." Hitherto, the shame of the suspicion, the degradation of the imprisonment had caught and empaled her thoughts; but by degrees, these became dwarfed by the growing shadow of a possibly ignominious death, which spread its sable pinions along the rosy dawn of her womanhood, and devoured the glorious sun of her high hopes. The freezing gloom was creeping nearer, and to-day she could expect no succor, save by one avenue.

Islam believes that only the cimeter edge of Al Sirat divides Paradise from perdition. Beryl realized that in her peril, she trod an equally narrow snare, over yawning ruin, holding by a single thread of hope that handkerchief. Weak natures s.h.i.+ver and procrastinate, shunning confirmation of their dread; but to this woman had come a frantic longing to see, to grasp, to embrace the worst. She was in a death grapple with appalling fate, and that handkerchief would decide the issue.

Physical exhaustion was following close upon the mental agony that had stretched her on the rack, for so many days and nights. To sit still was impossible, yet in her wandering up and down the narrow room, she reeled, and sometimes staggered against the wall, dizzy from weakness, to which she would not succ.u.mb.

Human help was no more possible for her, than for Moses, when he climbed Nebo to die; and alone with her G.o.d, the brave soul wrestled.

Wearily she leaned against the window bars, twining her hot fingers around them, pressing her forehead to the cold barrier; and everywhere "Ricordo" stabbed her eyes like glowing steel.

The door opened, some words were uttered in an undertone, then the bolt clicked in its socket, and Mr. Dunbar approached the window.

Mechanically Beryl glanced over her shoulder, and a s.h.i.+ver crept across her.

"I believe you know me. Dunbar is my name."

He stood at her side, and they looked into each other's eyes, and measured lances. Could this worn, pallid woman, be the same person who in the fresh vigor of her youthful beauty, had suggested to him on the steps of "Elm Bluff," an image of Hygeia? Here insouciante girlhood was dead as Manetho's dynasties, and years seemed to have pa.s.sed over this auburn head since he saw it last. Human faces are Nature's highest type of etchings, and mental anguish bites deeper than Dutch mordant; heart-ache is the keen needle that traces finest lines.

"Yes, I know you only too well. You are Tiberius."

Her luminous deep eyes held his at bay, and despite his habitual, haughty equipoise, her crisp tone of measureless aversion stung him.

"Sarcasm is an ill-selected arbiter between you and me; and your fate for all time, your future weal or woe is rather a costly shuttlec.o.c.k to be tossed to and fro in a game of words. I do not come to bandy phrases, and in view of your imminent peril, I cannot quite understand your irony."

"Understand me? You never will. Did the bloodthirsty soul of Tiberius comprehend the stainless innocence of the victims he crushed for pastime on the rocks below Villa Jovis? There is but one arbiter for your hatred, the hang-man, to whom you would so gladly hurry me.

Hunting a woman to the gallows is fit sport for men of your type."

Unable to withdraw his gaze from the magnetism of hers, he frowned and bit his lip. Was she feigning madness, or under the terrible nervous strain, did her mind wander?

"Your language is so enigmatical, that I am forced to conclude you resort to this method of defence. The exigencies of professional duty compel me to a.s.sume toward you an att.i.tude, as painfully embarra.s.sing to me as it is threatening to you. Because the stern and bitter law of justice sometimes entails keen sorrow upon those who are forced to execute her decrees, is it any less obligatory upon the appointed officers to obey the solemn behests?"

"Justice! Into what a frightful mockery have such as you degraded her wors.h.i.+p! No wonder justice fled to the stars. You are the appointed officer of a harpy screaming for the blood of the innocent. How dare you commit your crimes, raise your red hands, in the sacred name of justice? Call yourself the priest of a frantic vengeance, for whom some victim must be provided; and libel no more the attribute of Jehovah."

Scorn curled her lips, and beneath her glowing eyes, his grew restless, as panoplied in conscious innocence she seemed to defy attack.

"You evidently credit me with motives of personal animosity, which would alike disgrace my profession and my manhood. For your sake, rather than my own, I should like to remove this erroneous impression from your mind. If you could only understand--"

She threw up her hand, with an imperious gesture of disdain.

"Save your sophistries; they are wasted here. Why multiply cobwebs? I understand you. If doves have a sixth sense that warns them before they hear the hawk's cry, or discern the shadow of his circling wings, and if mice, dumb in a cat's claws, surmise the exact value of the preliminary caresses, the graceful antics, the fatal fondling of the velvet paw, so we, the prey of legal 'Justice' know instinctively what the swinging of censers, and the chanting of her high priest mean, when he draws near us. I understand you. You intend to hang me if you can."

He drew his breath with a hissing sound, and a dark flush Stained his broad smooth brow.

"On my honor as a gentleman, I came here to-day solely to--"

"Solely to a.s.sure yourself of some doubtful link you must weld into your chain; solely to plunge the scalpel of some double-edged question.

If there must be an ante mortem examination, we will wait, if you please, for the legal dissection when I am stretched before the jury-box. Until then, you have no right to intrude upon the misery you have brought on an innocent woman."

They stood so near each other, that he could count the fierce throbbing of the artery in her round snowy throat, and see the shadow of her long lashes; and again some electric current flashed from her feverishly bright eyes, burning its way to the secret chambers of his selfish heart, melting the dross that ambition and greed had slowly cemented, and dropping one deathless spark into a deep adytum, of the existence of which he had never even dreamed. Unconsciously he leaned toward her, but she pressed back against the iron bars, and drew her dress aside as if shunning a leper. There was no petulance in the motion, but its significance p.r.i.c.ked him, like a dagger point.

"It was the hope of finding you an innocent woman, that must plead my pardon for what you consider an unwarrantable 'intrusion.' Will you believe me, if I swear to you, that I have come as a friend?"

"As a friend to me? No. As a friend to General Darrington and his adopted son Prince? Yes. Oh, Tiberius! Your rosy apples are flavored like those your forefather offered Agrippina."

"Do you regard me as an unscrupulous, calculating villain, who pretending kindness, plots treachery? Do you deliberately offer me this wanton insult?"

His swart face reddened, and the fine lines of his handsome mouth hardened.

She shrank a few inches closer to the window, and compressed her lips.

"If you were a man, I should swiftly resent the affront you have thrust upon me, and suitable redress would be peculiarly sweet and welcome; but you are a defenceless and unfortunate woman, and my hands are tied.

I desire to help you; you repulse me and insult my manhood. I will do my painful duty, because it is sternly and inexorably my duty; but, I wish to G.o.d, I had never set my eyes on you."

The sudden pa.s.sionate ring in his voice surprised her, and she looked searchingly at him, wondering into what pitfall it was intended to lure her.

"If you had never set your eyes on me? Ah, would to G.o.d I had died ten thousand times before I encountered their evil spell! If you had never set your eyes on me? I should be now, a happy, hopeful girl, with life beckoning me like the rosy Syrian plains that smiled on the desert-weary. The world looked so bright to me that day, when first I smelled the sweet resinous pines, and dreamed of my work, and all the glory of the victory, I knew that I should win over poverty and want. I was so poor in worldly goods, but oh!--Croesus could not have bought my proud hopes! So rich, so overflowing with high hope! As I think of my feelings that day, among the primroses and pine cones, it seems a hundred years ago, and I recall the image of a girl long dead; such a proud girl; so happy in the beautiful world of the art she loved! Then some strange awful curse that had lain in wait, ambushed among the flowers I gathered that last day of my dead existence, fell upon me--I saw you! No wonder I s.h.i.+vered, when you met me. I saw you. Then my sun sickened and went out, and my hopes crumbled, and my youth shrivelled and perished forever; and the wide world is a rayless dungeon, and the girl Beryl is buried so deep, that the Angels of the Resurrection will never find her!--and I?--I am only a withered, disgraced woman, hurled into a den; trampled, branded; with a soul devoured by despairing bitterness, with a broken heart, a brain on fire! If you had drawn a knife across my throat, or sent a bullet through my temples, my spirit might have rested in the Beyond, and I could have forgiven that which hastened me to heaven; but you strangled my hopes, and mutilated my youth, and dishonored my father's name!--You robbed me of my stainless character, and cast me among outlaws and fiends!--Worse yet, oh!

blackest of all your crimes!--you have almost throttled my faith in Christ. You have torn away my hold upon the eternal G.o.d! You are the curse of my life. You wish you had never set your eyes on me? Take courage, finish your work; the best of me is utterly dead already, and when you have taken my blood, and laid my polluted body in a convict's shallow grave, your enmity will be satiated. Then I, at least, I shall be free from my hideous curse. If there be any comfort left me, it lurks in the knowledge that when you succeed in convicting me, the same world will no longer hold us both."

Was it the fever of disease, or incipient madness that blazed in her eyes, flamed on her cheeks, and lent such thrilling cadence to her pure clear voice? Was she a consummate actress, or had he made a frightful mistake, and goaded an innocent girl to the verge of frenzy? Some occult influence seemed clouding his. .h.i.therto infallible perceptions, melting his heart, paralyzing his will. He walked up and down the floor, with his hands clasped behind him, then came close to the prisoner.

"If I have unjustly suspected and persecuted you, may G.o.d forgive me!

If I have wronged you by suspicion and accusation of a crime which you did not commit, then my atonement shall be your triumphant vindication.

I would give a good deal to know that your hands are as pure as they look, and innocent of theft and murder. Tell me--tell me the truth. I will save you, I will give you back all that you have lost, and tenfold more. For G.o.d's sake, for your own sake, and for mine, I entreat you to tell me the truth. Did you go back to 'Elm Bluff' that night, after I met you in the pine woods?"

His dark face was close to hers, and his keen blue eyes seemed to probe the recesses of her soul. If she answered, would the steel springs of some trap close upon her?

"I did not go back to 'Elm Bluff.' My hands, my heart, my soul are as free from crime as they were when G.o.d sent them into the world. I am innocent--innocent--innocent as any baby only a week old, lying dead in its little coffin. Innocent--but defiled, disgraced; innocent as the Lord Jesus was of the sins for which He died; but you can not save what you have destroyed. You have ruined my life."

He was a strong man, cold, collected, priding himself upon his superb physique, his nerves of steel; but as he watched and listened, he trembled, and the girl's eyes dilated, sparkled through the sudden moisture that so strangely and unexpectedly gathered in his own.

"Then you must prove the truth of your solemn words; and it was this faint hope that induced me to come here to-day. Only one circ.u.mstance stands between the Grand Jury and your indictment for murder; and time presses. Now tell me, do you know this?"