A Maid of the Kentucky Hills Part 32

It differed in no way from all the others. A rough-surfaced, imperfect square with an average width of ten or twelve inches, the irregular interstices between it and its neighbors being filled with earth. It was on a level with the others. There was nothing to indicate that it hid a secret which meant so much. Now that I had come; now that any moment I could prove the truth or falsity of Hannibal Ellsworth's statement, I hesitated. Perhaps he had lied even at the last. A man capable of the fiendish act he had committed would likewise be capable of this sardonic jest. If this were true--if, when I lifted the stone, nothing was revealed, what then? This torturing thought decided me. I leaped up, took from the table the knife which Buck Steele had driven through my journal, and with its point began to pick away the dirt between the crevices. I worked feverishly, and presently, dropping the knife, I gripped the stone and heaved. It moved. Again I strained backward, and now the rock turned partly in its bed, where it had lain secure for a score of years. Regardless of the jagged edges, I forced my fingers down the rough sides through the loosened dirt, clawed and burrowed until I had secured another and a stronger hold. Again I tugged, and up came my burden bodily--up and out. I flung it rolling on the plank floor, and trembling with anxiety gazed into the cavity it had left. I saw nothing.

Nothing but the brown earth sides and the brown earth bottom. I sank backward with a groan. Ah! Hannibal Ellsworth! If you were alive, and these hands were at your throat! You trickster even in death! You chosen of Satan! You----A new thought came. Seizing the knife, I plunged it desperately into the hole, just as I would have thrust it in the black heart of Hannibal Ellsworth had he stood before me then. The point met with partial resistance, then went on. I drew the knife out, and impaled upon it was a small tin box--a tobacco box, nothing more. It had been wrapped around and tied with a string of some kind, for the moldering remnants still clung to it. It opened at the end. Now I was shaking with the violence of one palsied, and presently the top fell down. I sat upon the floor, drew the box from the knife point, and thrust in my finger and thumb. Something was inside--something closely folded which so filled the small s.p.a.ce that I could not grasp it. I desisted long enough to hold the opening to the light and peer within. I saw what appeared to be many folds of yellowish-white paper, fitting snugly in the narrow confines. A degree of calmness came now, and once more taking the knife, I managed to extract the contents of the box. What the priest in Notre Dame had written Father John was true. I held in my hand the attested certificate of the marriage of Hannibal Ellsworth and Araminta Kittredge, together with the license issued by the clerk of the county.

The papers were dry and crackled in my grasp; they were disfigured by yellow splotches, and bore that peculiar odor which old parchments always acquire.

All afternoon I sat in the same spot, with those priceless doc.u.ments before me. I read each of them an hundred times, and examined every letter of every written word. They were the pa.s.sports of my wife to enter into my world. Only when it grew too dark to see did I put them back in the box, put the box in the hole, and replace the stone upon the treasure. It would be safer right there until I could take it away.

After supper I went out to one of the benches in front, and smoked. The moon came up soon; a great, big, yellow moon, hoisting itself majestically over the forest sea. It seemed as big as the end of a sugar barrel, and the face of the lady etched upon it was a cameo of Celeste Ellsworth. I wonder if any other man anywhere in the world has ever dared to imagine this moon-lady bore a resemblance to someone in whom he was interested? He was very silly and presumptuous if he did, for the profile of this lunar enchantress reflects line for line that of my Dryad!

The soft, soundless, midsummer night wrought upon me in a wonderfully peaceful way. Yet a positive, adamantine resolve grew within me ere I came in. I shall wait one more day--one only. If Celeste does not return to-morrow, then the day after I take up the search. There is nothing to be gained by staying here longer, and all to lose, even life. When I find her--when I find her--my G.o.d! At the very thought my love surges through me so that my chest hurts and my eyelids are hot upon the b.a.l.l.s.

I write no more to-night. I am lonely, and I am starving--for her! I want to see her golden hair tremble in the breeze, hear her laugh, look into the deeps of her eyes, hold her to me and tell her that I love her--love her!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

IN WHICH I VANQUISH A DEMONIAC, AND ENTER INTO GLORY

This is written a month later.

The next day pa.s.sed eventless. I kept to the plateau, for now I had even greater cause not to incur needless risks. After supper I sought my seat of the night before, my mind made up. Again I saw the moon creep up the sky, and it was full that night; its immense disk was a perfect circle.

I sat watching the grotesque, ever-changing shapes evolved from my pipe smoke, silvery luminous in the moonshine, and wondering just how and where I would begin my search in the morning. Then my unchecked thoughts drifted to Celeste, and as the minutes glided by I felt the restraint which I had placed upon myself slipping more and more. I made no effort to stay my imaginings, or to turn their trend. The hour was made delicious by this mental revel; by sublime visions of what the future would be. Most rigidly had I held myself in check since that night on the peak, when I woke to a sense of my condition, and whither it was leading me. Now I would relax, and suffer my feelings to a.s.sume predominance again, for I was weary of the constant battle to banish this girl from my brain, and anyway, the game was about played. Unless Buck came upon me that night, I would speedily be beyond his reach.

As my unleashed emotions mastered me more and more, a keen restlessness seized me, the natural result of unsatisfied longing. The bench where I had pa.s.sed contented hours the night before became at length unendurable and I arose, my face set hungrily toward the whispering woods. Sweetly it lured me with its breath of odorous greenness; strongly it drew me by its very mystery of being, and I responded. I would go to the Dryad's Glade.

I was without coat or hat. My shirt was open at the throat and the sleeves were rolled above my elbows, for the day had been one of the hottest I had ever known, and in the early night the heat had not yet been conquered by the dew and the shadows. How well and strong I was! I tarried for a moment before the unlighted Lodge to enjoy a full conception of my superb physical vigor. It is something to make a man rejoice--this mere knowledge of brute power. I had it in perfection that night, and flooding my maligned lungs with a deep-drawn breath of Nature's exquisite attar, I moved away.

I had always loved to roam by night; I had always loved to tread the wild; I had always loved the face of old earth best when kissed by moonlight. These three conditions became important accessories to my mood that evening, a mood both tender and fierce. I reached the base of my hill of refuge, mechanically turned toward the west, and with bowed head and leisurely steps went forward where all was vast and dim and holy, to receive the benediction of the trees. I scarcely noticed my surroundings, although my perceptions received and appreciated the enveloping silence, and the pearl-gray gloom. The subtle scents of moss, and dew-soaked earth, and the indescribable tang from bark and leaf refreshed my nostrils with their blended odors. I felt that I was in the first sanctuary the world had ever known; a spot where Creator and creation were all but one; a place undefiled by the feet of grasping, sordid men. If a prayer were born in this temple it were born of the spirit, and not of mumbling lips more used to the shaping of lies and hypocrisies.

A sound came to me, threading the silence like a note from a flute; elfin, elusive, wild. For a moment I thought I was deceived. I stopped and listened. Piercing the continuous sigh which is never absent from a vast forest, even in times of greatest calm, the note came again, followed by a series of quirks and trills. Eerie enough was the sound.

Was the jest which I had offered the Satyr, while under the influence of liquor, coming true? Did the great G.o.d Pan yet live, in truth, and did he make merry o' summer nights in sylvan court and viney bower? My spine grew chilly at the thought, and for an instant I was tempted to believe.

Would I see him if I pressed forward cautiously, without noise? Would I find him dancing a drunken reel to his own music? For the nonce I cast logic and common sense aside, and determined to stalk this heathen deity. Bending forward, I advanced with the utmost care, walking on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet. At intervals I heard the pagan fantasy--jumbled measures of the most fascinating, tuneless music that was ever set afloat. From familiar signs I knew I was approaching my objective point.

My eagerness became intense as the pipe-notes sounded louder and louder, and then, suddenly, the scale fell a full octave, or more, and the liquid tones which now sifted through the motionless air were laden with a burden I knew. I stopped, grasped a tree, and threw my left hand to my forehead. I was listening to Jeff Angel's magic reed! He was playing the Song of the Brook, as he had played it for me that memorable night. Was the last vestige of his mind gone? Had he succeeded? Why was he dallying here when he must have known that my heart was aching and breaking for the news which he would bring? These thoughts and a dozen more congested my brain during the fleeting second I leaned against the tree. Then I was erect and dashing forward. It was a sort of natural lane down which I rushed, whose other end debouched into the Dryad's Glade. Fast and heedless as I sped, I saw that which checked me ere I dashed into the open; which drove me to one side, softly and breathlessly, where I could see without chance of discovery.

The Dryad had come home. I know that I can but poorly describe the scene to-night, but had I possessed pen and paper at that moment my plight would have been the same, or worse. About half of the little woodland court was whitened by the radiance from above, and the other portion was in alternate light and shadow. But even in this portion--which was next to me--a moving form could be plainly seen. The wildest, most bizarre, most graceful dance was in progress. Celeste was all in white; a loose, flowing robe with wing-like sleeves which waved and fluttered from her outstretched arms. Upon her head was a wreath of great, bell-shaped, snowy flowers, and draped loosely about her waist was a garland similarly wrought. They were the exquisite blooms of the jimson weed, that humble plant which grows undisturbed in every country barn lot in Kentucky. Back and forth and around she sped, in the intricate steps of a dance which made me dizzy to behold. Once she pa.s.sed near my hiding-place--so near that I heard the quick intake of her breath and caught the gleam of her teeth back of her parted lips. I saw the expression on her face, too, as she whirled by, and it was one of purest enjoyment. The Satyr was piping and dancing, too. Weird and fantastic he was, with the tails of his long coat flapping behind, and the sugar-loaf hat atop his head. Time and again he measured the diameter of the glade, turning when he had crossed it to retrace his route. His movements were very much like those of a cake walker on parade. His middle was thrust out, his shoulders back, and his face was turned squarely to the sky.

The goat-tuft bobbed and shook with each prancing step, and ever came that wonderful music, which he had taken from music's source.

Charmed into pa.s.siveness for the time, I crouched and stared at this strange sight. Then all at once the dancers abandoned the separate figures they had been treading, joined hands, his left in her right, and the Satyr, playing with one hand only, began a flute-like, dreamy movement, to whose bewitching melody they started afresh, an entirely different measure. This continued for a minute or more, not without a degree of stateliness, then, abruptly as a lightning flash, the Satyr sprang away from his partner with a burst of yelling laughter wholly uncivilized, and furiously began the Song of the Storm Wind. I had heard it before, but not as now. As if inspired to newer effort, each began to run. It was half race, half dance now, for even in the seeming carelessness of this rout I detected certain steps executed with regard to time and rhythm. Never had I seen such an extraordinary performance!

The very contrast of the partic.i.p.ants rendered it unique, but this unconscious revival of rites which had pa.s.sed away centuries ago lent a deeper and more enigmatical significance to it all. There was nothing unseemly in this revel, if I may call it such. It was simply an expression of their love for the forest which had cradled and nurtured them. In everything but this common affection they were far apart, but in worshiping at Nature's shrine they were one. Each felt the call to the still places, and if we, whom life has cruelly thrust among brick walls and stone streets and steel towers pine for such things until our very souls cry out, how much more should they slip out alone to take their joy of them. That was all it amounted to, and even my jealous eye could find naught at which to carp. Two children had come forth to gambol, nothing more.

The pace set by the Song of the Storm Wind was too furious to continue long. Presently the climax was reached, and Jeff flung himself upon the ground like a tired boy, his thin legs outstretched, his body inclined backward and supported by his arms thrust out behind him. Celeste stopped near me, almost in the center of the moonlighted s.p.a.ce, and throwing her arms high she bent her head sideways and gave a deep, happy sigh. I knew it was happy, for her countenance was tenderly aglow.

Quickly I advanced and stood before her, both hands outheld.

"Dryad! O little Dryad! I have missed you so!"

A startled look came to her face, but it pa.s.sed on the instant, and with a low, inarticulate cry she took one step and put her palms on mine.

Another instant both my arms were around her and I was pressing her closer, closer, closer, calling her all the precious names which only lovers know, kissing her face, her warm, sweet lips, her tumbled hair.

Her arms went about my neck, her soft young body sank trembling upon my breast. She was mine! What we said the next fifteen minutes does not need transcription. Her words formed the most divine speech which ever fell from mortal lips, but there are fools abroad in the world who would not understand, so I forbear. Then, her arm in mine, we walked toward the Satyr, still in his unconventional att.i.tude of rest. As we drew nearer, I saw that his ugly face bore an expression which indicated that he was scandalized beyond measure at the meeting he had witnessed. I was preparing to hail him jocularly, for my heart beat high with happiness which almost made me dizzy, when his features became convulsed in a look of mortal terror, and I knew that he was gazing at something behind me.

I had heard no sound, but intuition now flashed me the needed warning.

With the arm linked in hers I flung Celeste forward and from me as far as I could and wheeled at the same instant with the agility and ferocity of a tiger. I knew what I would see, but I was totally unprepared for the truly horrible spectacle which confronted me.

The smith was almost upon us. Bareheaded he came, stark naked to the waist. Barefooted, too, he was. His huge, hairy chest and arms, his bearded face and neck, and the long, unkempt hair of his head, invested him with a certain hideousness which might well have sent a tremor of fear to the stoutest heart. He was gnashing his teeth like a wolf--I could hear them click plainly--and muttering throaty, guttural sounds of wrath. He checked his rush short when I turned and faced him, and stood ten feet away, glaring insanely from me to Celeste, from Celeste to me.

His mind was gone; I knew it then. As I waited his attack, he gave vent to a yell which was a fearful mingling of screech and laugh, stooped as though about to charge me, then, with motions so swift I could not comprehend his h.e.l.lish purpose, he swung a short, thick club which he held and cast it with all his might--at Celeste! It sang fiendishly by my ear, I heard a scream, and there my Dryad was lying on the ground, a crumpled bit of white in the shadow-flecked glade. For a moment the night grew black. The darkness pa.s.sed. I looked again. Jeff Angel was bending over her. I could not go to her yet. Time to bury my dead when her murderer--A new sound dispelled the numbing lethargy which this devil's blow had thrown upon me. It was Buck laughing. He was bending over, his hands on his knees, and his insane merriment was grating and mechanical. I sprang for him then; silent, grim. He jumped aside with a gibing croak, and, yielding to some reasonless vagary, whirled and ran.

I was after him ere he had measured his first leap, for now I was harried by the hounds of Despair and Hate, and my life had been shorn of all aim and purpose but one. That one I knew I would accomplish--knew I must accomplish, or be a curse unto myself forever.

Buck ran with the speed of a greyhound, leaping now and then into the air like a demoniac, and striking out with his fists as he did so. He was never silent. Now he was shrieking his blood-chilling laugh, now shouting disjointed sentences in a voice which had ceased to be human, now singing something which might have been a war-chant of the Huns for all its consonantal slurring and meager scope. Neither did he ever look behind. He had taken the natural lane down which I had come, and down which he had doubtless followed me on unshod, noiseless feet. I put forth my strongest efforts and tried to overtake him. Though I ran steadily and with scientific care, and he expended strength and sacrificed distance during his numerous upward bounds, I could not gain an inch. I doubt if such a pursuit was ever undertaken before. A half-naked, hairy, maniac-giant leading, and a sane man well-nigh as big, whose holiest feelings had been outraged, following. On we swept through the checkered s.p.a.ces of the forest, our progress accompanied by that rumbling chant suggestive of forgotten ages. I do not know how such things are, but it may have been that the slumbering strain transmitted through many generations from some ancient warrior ancestor who lived and fought when the world was young, had been quickened in the primitive brain when reason left it. He had ceased laughing and mouthing indistinguishable words now, but with every breath there rolled out the sonorous staves of this chant of a remote past.

We reached the base of Bald k.n.o.b, and here, instead of holding to the ravine which led around it, Buck swerved into the road leading up. He was going to the Lodge. Well and good. I would as soon end it on the plateau as elsewhere. Through the weeds and vines which choked the ascent we crashed, and as I gained the level in front of the Lodge I saw with joy that I had lessened the distance between us. Buck sped straight toward the open door, and I flew to overtake him, for that which had to be had best occur in the open. In vain. I could not catch this Mercury-footed Vulcan. As I looked to see him disappear within the house, he made a dextrous flank movement and circled it. Instantly I was on his track again. Now he had set his face toward the belt of evergreens which loomed blackly above us in the brilliant moonshine. A dread seized me. Was it his sly intention to reach this shelter first, and hide ere I could come up? I harbored this idea only a second. This being did not fear me. That he had run when I sought to attack him was due solely to some antic twist of his unaccountable mind. Any moment his mood might change. The dense gloom swallowed him, but still, a guide through the darkness, floated back the chant. How he could keep it up under such fearful exertion I could not understand. He must have been made of iron and steel. I pressed on. Bursting through the furthest edge of the encircling band of trees, I saw him once more. He had quit running, as this was practically impossible here, and was toiling up the steep slope silently, for his song had at last ceased. I stood a moment, legs apart, my chest heaving laboredly, for I felt the hard chase. Up went the great figure, grisly in its seeming now--up toward the peak.

A remembrance of that white, crumpled form lying in the glade a.s.sailed me poignantly, and starting beneath it as under the touch of white-hot iron, I shouted a frightful curse, and threw myself at the acclivity. I must reach there when he did. I must top the crest at the same time, so that he would have no chance to make a descent on the other side. For a while I ran, though the task was Herculean, goaded as I was into temporary madness by the stinging thought of my lost love. So it was I came within my own length of the climbing demoniac, who never yet had cast a glance behind him, and who even now, though he must have heard my progress, went directly on, without a sign. It was gruesome. In the midst of the inferno wherein my soul burned I recognized the uncanny strangeness of the scene. Night. A wilderness. A towering gray-white peak of earth, and on its slope two crawling specks, one bent on--G.o.d knows what!--the other intent on revenge. The law of Moses reigned supreme in my mind that night: forgotten was the law of Christ.

Forgotten, or ignored. I knew no law. I was reduced to that simple plane where I was going to claim a life--a base and worthless life in exchange for the pure and priceless one he had taken. The united logic of all the united churches in Christendom or out could not have convinced me that I was wrong.

We reached the last ascent, almost perpendicular, and here I expected the smith to hesitate, or halt. He did neither. He put himself at it immediately, and I imitated him. His going here was swifter than mine.

It must have been because of his bare feet, which allowed him to grasp, cling and thrust with his sinewy toes. As we slowly neared the top he had drawn away from me for an appreciable distance. I increased my efforts. If I lost him now I probably never would see him again. I saw his huge arms, looking like moss-draped limbs, shoot up, and his fingers grip the top of the peak. I shut my teeth and my eyes and put out all there was in me. Now I was up, and yonder--yonder was Buck, crouched just across from me at the further rim, preparing evidently to descend, for one leg was over the rather abrupt edge. I could not reach him; he would slip down and be gone before I could make the pa.s.sage, brief though it was. My hand rested upon a small stone. Impelled by impulse more than by reason, I threw the stone at him. It struck him a smarting blow on one arm, and he turned with a snarl, half squatting, half sitting.

"Murderer!" I gasped; "come back and fight!" I cannot say if he understood. I doubt it, but my voice acted as a supplementary irritant to the cast stone. I heard the infuriate grinding of his teeth as he rose up, and came plunging toward me with the intention to hug. I had no wish for these tactics, and dodged just enough to escape him. Thereat he sent forth a roar, wheeled, and struck at me. The blow was not gauged at all, and I had no trouble warding it. Then for a little while we stood face to face, not over five feet between us, while our heavy respirations were the only sounds. Closely as I watched him, his subtlety exceeded my caution. He feigned to draw back, as if to circle, and the next moment was speeding toward me through the air in a prodigious leap. I might have avoided his onset; I do not know. But even as I saw him in mid-air the desperate resolve was born within me to end the score, and that quickly. So, instead of attempting any action which would mean delay, I gathered my strength and leaped to meet him! We crashed together both from earth, and locked with such holds as we could find. We came to our knees from the terrific force of the impact, and there for a while we stayed, chest to chest, and cheek to cheek. The deep, strained breath of the smith hissed by my ear in heavy gusts, and I was in no better strait, for my lungs seemed on fire and my inhalations brought no respite from the torture. It could not have been long that we remained thus, and while the lull lasted our embrace was so intense that we were as one body. Buck made the first move, for I was content to continue as we were for a time, and so recover in a measure from the exhaustion caused by the run and the steep climb. All at once I was aware that the steel-like bands which encircled me were pressing deeper into my flesh, with a suddenness and a violence which was terrifying. For a second I writhed, then the muscles of my back responded, and I felt them ridging and swelling in resistance. Now my body was wrapped and swathed in rigid folds of strength, and I strove to force my adversary backward. My brain was veiled in a b.l.o.o.d.y mist, and angry seas dashed and thundered in my ears, but I knew that he was yielding! Teeth set, eyes bulging, I called again upon myself, but now the s.h.a.ggy head dropped forward, and the fiend bit me savagely between shoulder and neck. The shock of the pain caused me to relax, and moved by a common impulse we arose to our feet. Then I saw his face, and had I not been well-nigh as crazy as he, the sight would have shaken every nerve. His curled-back lips were wet and red with my blood, his face expressed the insane rage which filled him, and his eyes--his eyes will haunt me to my last day, for there was no meaning in them whatever! Just two gla.s.sy, protruding orbs shining vacantly in the peaceful moonlight.

Then he laughed; hollow, hoa.r.s.e and rattling, and caught up again that devilish, rune-like battle-chant. It was only a momentary respite which came after we were up. This time I took the initiative, and at once closed with him silently. New strength had come to the smith, and during the next minute I was off my feet more than once, dragged bodily from the ground by his superb might. The spot where we fought was perhaps ten yards across, was almost perfectly flat, and was covered with a sort of granular deposit which prevented us from slipping. Over this narrow area we tugged and strove, sometimes approaching dangerously near the edge, but eventually working back to safer ground. If he had only ceased that brain-racking, heathenish litany! But after a time it came in gasps, and jerks, for despite his marvelous stamina, my enemy began at last to feel the strain. How long we battled upon the peak I do not know, but there came a time when I felt that I had been fighting Buck Steele since the dawn of creation. I was sore from head to foot; dizzy, and growing weak, but I was a.s.sured that his case was no better. So, locked like two stags which war to the death, we staggered and sprawled hither and yonder.

Then our efforts became automatic, for each had reached the point where he was incapable of intelligent action. Suddenly the moon fell from heaven, straight down to the top of the forest. Then it rebounded back into the sky, and began a series of most erratic movements. At this the glimmer of sense which I yet retained made me grow afraid. I knew that my limit had been reached. Then was projected upon that spark of conscious mentality the picture of my stricken Dryad--and now I laughed!

Yea, laughed wildly and mirthlessly, as I slid one arm under the smith's huge hams, and in a resistless access of frenzied power lifted his vast bulk as I would have raised an infant. If he struggled I did not know it, for in that supreme moment a t.i.tan had come to earth. To the flume-like chute I bore him and cast him down it--down to darkness and to h.e.l.l!

How I got back to the Lodge I do not know. But as I tottered to the open door, behold! there stood 'Crombie before the fireplace, the Satyr crouched on a box, and sitting near the table was my Dryad!

I fell forward at the sight, senseless.

My wife sits near me reading in the first reader as I pen these final lines of my journal. 'Crombie's presence at the Lodge is easily explained. The time had come for his annual trip to the great north woods, and he determined to run down and surprise me before he left, and see how I was getting along. He drove out from Cedarton, and arrived just as Jeff Angel was leading Celeste up to the Lodge. Buck's club had not struck her. When she saw his intention she had fainted from fright.

'Crombie's coming was opportune, for he has told me I would have died without his ready help. I was in a pretty bad way.

I am happy to relate that I did not kill Buck Steele. Just how he escaped destruction I cannot say, but the morning succeeding our awful combat 'Crombie made a thorough search at the base of the peak, at my suggestion, but found nothing. In some miraculous way the smith's life was preserved, although this was contrary to my intent and purpose at the time. But now, with my golden-haired Dryad here safe in my home, I am glad. I had some trouble persuading Granny that this arrangement was best, but Gran'fer stood by me valiantly and Father John also lent his aid, so the matter was arranged peaceably. I asked the Satyr how he managed to induce the runaways to come back, and the graceless rascal informed me that he told them I had gone back home! A blessed lie, dear Satyr!

I also questioned 'Crombie about the life-plant, for I had never been quite easy on the subject.

"You found it and did not know it, my son," he said, his good, honest face beaming. "Do you remember my description of it? Well, the vivid green stem is the universal green of Nature's dress; the golden leaves is the healing sunlight, and the flower--the cl.u.s.ter of clear little globules, is the crystalline air and water of the untainted wild. I deceived you in a way, my son, for it was all symbolical, but it was for your good. Now I think I was hasty in my diagnosis, and that nothing was wrong with you. Do you forgive me?"

He smiled upon me almost in a pathetic way.

"It was the best thing that could have happened to me!" I replied, thinking that by it I had gained Celeste.

Now it comes to me that I have told my story and have never told my name. Which goes to show that a name amounts to very little. But there may be some curious readers who would be glad to know it, and for such I do not mind declaring it.

It is Nicholas Jard.

THE END