Roger Trewinion Part 36

"You drove her to her death, and now my turn has come."

"But you will not hurt me, Roger; you will not hurt your brother! What will you do?"

This touched me to the quick, and for a time I felt I could not hurt him.

Is there unspoken communication of thought? Is there a subtle interchange of mind which is instinctively felt? I think so, for no sooner did I feel that I could not harm Wilfred than his evident fear left him. He acted on the aggressive immediately, and spoke boldly.

"Yes, what will you do?" he said. "I refuse to know you. I refuse to recognise you. My brother Roger is dead, and was buried long years since. You are some impostor come here to claim what is not your own, under the paltry pretence of revenge."

My brother's villainy was now manifest, and my old hatred came surging back.

"Roger is not dead, and that you will soon find out," I said. "All your authority and power are gone, the son and heir has come; but Ruth's avenger is come too! 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' You shall suffer as she has suffered, you shall die as she died. I have a long score to pay. I have ten years of misery in the past to account for. I have a blackened future from which you are not free."

We were standing near the cliff as I said this, but I had my eye upon him, and it is well it was so, for he jumped at me savagely, and, had I not been prepared I should have fallen from the dizzy height to the ragged rocks below.

"Curse you," he cried; "but you have not a child to deal with, or the puny boy whose weakness you used to take advantage of. I am not going to let Trewinion go. I have not enjoyed it for ten years to lose it now. If Roger did not die ten years ago he shall die now."

With that he sought to drag me nearer the cliff, while I gripped him firmly. He did not fight defensively now. For him, everything depended on the struggle. To rob me of my love, and to rob me of my money, he had schemed to get me away, and now that I had come back he determined to hold by all he had stolen. Nor did I fight defensively.

I felt I had lost Ruth, ay, I had lost my life itself through him, and I gripped him with a grip of iron. I thought of misery, and revenge; he of disgrace and the loss of what he held dear.

I soon found out that, as he had said, I had not a child or a puny boy to deal with. His muscles seemed of iron, and he coiled around me like a serpent. If I hated, he hated still more, and with the malignity of a demon he sought to master me. I was, however, the bigger and the stronger man, while the past ten years of my life had developed my physical strength greatly. Toil and exposure had given me power of endurance unknown to him, and soon I felt his grasp weaken. Little by little I mastered him, until with the grip of a giant I crushed him in my arms.

He looked up at me despairingly.

"You will not kill me, Roger?" he gasped.

"Would you not have killed me if you could?" I said, for there was murder in my heart. "You have killed my Ruth, and now----"

I did not finish the sentence, for, in spite of myself, I felt him dragging me nearer the edge of the cliff, nor was I able to stop him until we were within a foot or so from the awful precipice. Then I lifted him from the ground and held him. His strength seemed gone, while mine was unabated.

What should I do with him? He was the destroyer of my life's happiness, he had killed my love, he had filled me with despair; but he was my brother. Should I destroy the venomous life that wrought only evil? or----

"Hurl him over!" said the devil within me, "he is your blight, your curse! Show him no mercy, let him be dashed to pieces, and thus you will avenge your misery, and avenge Ruth's death!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Hurl him over!' said the devil within me."]

"No, no, he's your brother, forgive him!" said another voice.

All this pa.s.sed through my mind in the moment, that I felt him struggle again, then, with an awful shriek, he fell from me.

I stood alone on that dizzy height--alone! I was the conqueror. I was avenged. Ruth's murderer was dead.

I looked around me, and I remembered where I stood.

Long years before I had gone to the vicarage, and on this spot I had seen a shadowy, shapeless figure in white!

On the night my father had died I was standing on this place when I saw between the p.r.o.ngs of the "Devil's Tooth" the omen of darkness.

Now, standing there alone, I realised what had been done on this place of evil memory.

I stood on the edge of the cliff and looked down I could see nothing, but below me I heard the waves break upon the rocks, and they seemed to laugh with fiendish glee, and mock me in my black despair.

CHAPTER XVIII

h.e.l.l!

I cried to G.o.d, "Oh, I am so weary."

G.o.d said, "You have not seen half h.e.l.l."

I said, "I cannot see more, I am afraid. In my own narrow little path I dare not walk, because I think that one has dug a pit for me; and if I put my hand to take a fruit I draw it back again, because I think it has been kissed. If I look out across the plains the mounds are covered houses; and when I pa.s.s among the stones I hear them crying.

The time of the dance is beaten in with sobs, and the wind is alive.

Oh, I cannot bear h.e.l.l."--OLIVE SCHREINER.

For some time I was conscious of nothing, but by degrees I realised what I had done. An awful crime rested upon my soul, a crime only the shadow of which had rested upon me before.

The hatred of years had found expression at last. The serpent that had lain in my heart, writhing and turning, and growing for years, had at last lifted its head, the latent devil had a.s.serted itself, and I was a murderer.

A murderer!

The ghastly, terrible truth pressed itself upon me more and more. I was alone on the weather-beaten cliff, around me all was still; beneath me was the ever sobbing sea telling me of what I had done.

A murderer?

Oh! The terror of that thought. Even now, after long years, I trembled at what I then realised. I, Roger Trewinion, trained by a G.o.dly father, surrounded during my early life with every good influence, was a murderer. In my madness I had arisen like Cain and taken away my brother's life; in my hatred I had wrought desolation.

Alone! alone; with only the mocking sea to speak to me from without; while within I felt the fires of h.e.l.l.

I saw, as in a lightning flash, the events of the past twenty years. I saw myself and Wilfred playing, rollicking on the cliffs, I saw us rushing home from school, and nutting among the woods. Again we were together in the waving cornfields, or swimming in the shining seas. We were reared in the same home, and had through our childhood slept in the same room. We both bore the same name, and the same blood ran in our veins.

And I remembered more than that. Thousands of incidents concerning the happy days of childhood flashed through my memory. Then we had few cares and many joys. I saw us sitting in the old family pew in church, and the lines of the old hymns we had sung came back to me, hymns about the love of G.o.d and the Cross of Christ.

And I had murdered him! Never, in my wildest moments, did I dream that my hatred of Wilfred would ever take outward form in actual killing. I did not mean to kill him when we stood together, and held him in my arms. But he fell from me--fell from that awful height, down, down, among the cruel jagged rocks, and would be dashed to pieces, while the mocking waves would sweep over him.

Now, where was the purpose of my hate, my revenge? They had not won back the lost years of my life, they had not given Ruth back to me. My evil deed had only made the evil more evil; had poisoned my own soul with a poison more deadly. What right had I to visit vengeance upon my brother's wrong-doing? Was I perfect? Had not hatred mastered my life for years? Had I not allowed my lower nature to conquer my higher?

Yet I had dared to avenge my wrong. I had dared to take the work of G.o.d into my own hands. "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay," said the Lord.

Bitterly now did I feel the truth of this, for G.o.d was taking His vengeance on me! I--I had broken His laws, I had yielded to the devil, I had hurled the crown of my manhood from me.

And I still stood alone, with bare head and burning eyes, while in my heart burned a scorching, tormenting, yet non-consuming fire.

Then a more terrible thought came. What I had done could never be undone. Never! Age upon age might pa.s.s away, but that fact, ghastly and black, would remain! It might be possible, I did not think He ever would, but it might be possible that in the far-off future G.o.d would forgive me. But then, even G.o.d could not undo the fact that I had killed my brother.

But I had not intended to throw him over the cliff. His death was due to an accident; I had not altogether yielded to the strivings of the devil. True, true, and yet murder was in my heart, for did I not hate him and had I not hated him for years.