Mr. Achilles Part 8

But the man did not stir.

The woman lifted her eyes and looked at Achilles. There was no recognition in the glance--only a kind of impatience that he was there.

The Greek moved toward the door--but the great man stayed him. "Don't go," he said. He reached up a hand to his wife, laying it on her shoulder. "We can't pay, dearest," he said slowly.

Her open lips regarded him and the quick tears were in her eyes. She brushed them back, and looked at him--"Let _me_ pay!" she said fiercely, "I will give up--everything--and pay!" She had crouched to him, her groping fingers on his arm.

Above her head the glances of the two men met.

Her husband bent to her, speaking very slowly... to a child.

"Listen, Louie--they might give her back to-day--if we paid... but they would take her again--to-morrow--next week--next year. We shall never be safe if we pay. n.o.body will be safe--"

Her face was on his arm, sobbing close. "I hate--it!" she said brokenly, "I _hate_--your--money! I want Betty!" The cry went through the room--and the man was on his feet, looking down at her--

"Don't, Louie," he said--"don't, dear--I can't bear that! See, dear--sit down!" He had placed her in the chair and was crooning to her, bending to her. "We shall have her back--soon--now."

The telephone was whirring and he sprang to it.

The woman lifted her face, staring at it.

The Greek's deep eyes fixed themselves on it.

The room was so still they could hear the tiny, ironic words flinging themselves spitefully in the room, and biting upon the air. "Time's up," the Thing t.i.ttered--"Make it fifty thousand now--for a day. Fifty thousand down and the child delivered safe--Br-r-r-r!"

The woman sprang forward. "Tell them we'll pay, Phil--give it to me--Yes--yes--we'll pay!" She struggled a little--but the hand had thrust her back and the receiver was on its hook.

"We shall _not_ pay!" said the man sternly, "not if they make it a million!"

"I think they make it a million," said Achilles quietly.

They looked up at him with startled eyes.

"They know you--rich--" His hands flung themselves. "So rich! They _make_ you pay--yes--they make everyone pay, I think!" His dark eyes were on the woman significantly--

"What do you mean?" she said swiftly.

"If you pay--they steal them everywhere--little children." His eyes seemed to see them at play in the sunshine--and the dark shadows stealing upon them. The woman's eyes were on his face, breathless.

"They have taken Betty!" she said. It was a broken cry.

"We find her," said Achilles simply. "Then little children play--happy."

He turned to go.

But the woman stayed him. Her face trembled to hold itself steady under his glance. "I want to save the children, too," she said. "I will be brave!"

Her husband's startled face was turned to her and she smiled to it bravely. "Help me, Phil!" she said. She reached out her hands to him and he took them tenderly. He had not been so near her for years. She was looking in his face, smiling still, across the white line of her lip. "I shall help," she said slowly. "But you must not trust me, dear--not too far.... I want my little girl--"

There were tears in the eyes of the two men--and the Greek went softly out, closing the door. Down the wide hallway--out of the great door, with its stately carvings and the two pink stone lions that guarded the way--out to the clear night of stars. The breeze blew in--a little breath from the lake, that lapped upon the breakwater and died out.

Achilles stood very still--lifting his face to it. Behind him, in the city, little children were asleep... and in the great house the man and the woman waited alone--for the help that was coming to them--running with swift feet in the night. It sped upon iron rails and crept beneath the ground and whispered in the air--and in the heart of Achilles it dreamed under the quiet stars.

XIV

THE PRICE ACHILLES PAID

The little shop was closed. The fruit-trays had been carried in and the shutters put up, and from an upper window a line of light gleamed on the deserted street. Achilles glanced at it and turned into an alley at the side, groping his way toward the rear. He stopped and fumbled for a k.n.o.b and rapped sharply. But a hand was already on the door, scrambling to undo it, and an eager face confronted him, flashing white teeth at him.

"You come!" said the boy swiftly.

He turned and fled up the stairs and Achilles followed. A faint sense of onions was in the air. Achilles sniffed it gratefully. He remembered suddenly that he had not eaten since morning. But the boy did not pause for him--he was beckoning with mysterious hand from a doorway and Achilles followed. "Alcie--got hurt," whispered the boy. He was trembling with fear and excitement, and he pointed to the bed across the room.

Achilles stepped, with lightest tread, and looked down. A boy, half asleep, murmured and turned his head restlessly. A red-clotted blur ran along the forehead, and the face, streaked with mud, was drawn in a look of pain. As Achilles bent over him, the boy cried out and threw up a hand; then he turned his head, muttering, and dozed again.

Achilles withdrew lightly, beckoning to the boy beside him.

Yaxis followed, his eyes on the figure on the bed. "All day," he said, "he lie sick."

Achilles closed the door softly and turned to him. "Tell me, Yaxis, what happened," he said.

The boy's face opened dramatically. "I look up--I see Alcie--like that--" his gesture fitted to the room--"He stand in door--all covered mud--blood run--cart broke--no fruit--no hat." The boy's hands were everywhere, as he spoke, dispensing fruit, smashing carts and filling up the broken words with horror and a flow of blood. Achilles's face grew grave. The Greeks were not without persecution in the land of freedom, and his boy had lain all day suffering--while he had been lost in the great house by the lake.

He took off his coat and turned back his sleeves. "You bring water," he said gently. "We will see what hurts him."

But the boy had put his supper on the table and was beckoning him with swift gesture. "You eat," he said pleadingly. And Achilles ate hastily and gave directions for the basin of water and towels and a sponge, and the boy carried them into the room beyond.

Half an hour later Alcibiades lay in bed, his clothes removed and the blood washed from his face and hair. The clotted line still oozed a little on the temple and the look of pain had not gone away. Achilles watched him with anxious eyes. He bent over the bed and spoke to him soothingly, his voice gentle as a woman's in its soft Greek accents; but the look of pain in the boy's face deepened and his voice chattered shrill.

They watched the ambulance drive away from in front of the striped awning. Achilles held a card in his thin fingers--a card that would admit him to his boy. Yaxis's eyes were gloomy with dread, and his quick movements were subdued as he went about the business of the shop, carrying the trays of fruit to the stall outside and arranging the fruit under the striped awning. He was not to go out with the push-cart to-day. There was too much work to do--and Achilles could not let the boy go from him. Later, too, Achilles must go to the hospital--and to the big house on the lake, and someone must be left with the shop.

So he kept the boy beside him, looking at him, now and then, with deep, quiet eyes that seemed to see the city taking its toll of life--of children--the children at play and the children at work. This land that he had sought with his boys--where the wind of freedom blew fresh from the prairies and the sea... and even little children were not safe! He seemed to see it--through the day--this great monster that gathered them in--from all lands--and trod them beneath its great feet, crushing them, while they lifted themselves to it and threw themselves--and prayed to it for the new day--that they had come so far to seek.

But when Achilles presented his ticket for the boy, at the hospital door, it was a woman of his own race who met him, dark-eyed and strong--and smiled at him a flash of sympathy. "Yes--he is doing well.

They operated at once. Come and see. But you must not speak to him." She led him cautiously down the long corridor between the beds. "See, he is asleep." She bent over him, touching the bandage. Beneath it, the dark skin was pallid, but the breath came easily from the sleeping lips.

She smiled at Achilles, guiding him from the room, ignoring the tears that looked at her. "He is doing well, you see. It was pressure that caused the fever, the bone was not injured. He will recover quickly.

Yes. We are glad!"

And Achilles, out under the clear sky, raised his face and caught the sound of the city--its murmured, innumerable toil and the great clang of wheels turning. And he drew a deep, quick breath. A city of power and swift care for its own. The land of many hands reaching out to the world. And Achilles's head lifted itself under the sky; and a mighty force knit within him--a deep, quiet force out of the soul of the past--pledging itself.

XV

THE POLICE MOVE

Life was busy for Achilles. There were visits to the hospital--where he must not speak to his boy, but only look at him and catch little silent smiles from the bandaged face--and visits to the great house on the lake, where he came and went freely. The doors swung open of themselves, it seemed, as Achilles mounted the steps between the lions. All the pretty life and flutter of the place had changed. Detectives went in and out; and instead of the Halcyon Club, the Chief of Police and a.s.sistants held conferences in the big library. But there was no clue to the child!... She had withdrawn, it seemed, into a clear sky. James had been summoned to the library many times, and questioned sharply; but his wooden countenance held no light and the tale did not change by a hair.