The Ten-foot Chain Part 7

Imagination became more real than reality. He saw his ideal of the woman, that picture which every man carries in his heart to think of in the times of silence, to see in every void. And she saw her ideal of manly power. The dark pressed them together as if with the force of physical hands. For a moment they waited, and in that moment each knew the heart of the other, for in that utter void of light and sound, they saw with the eyes of the soul and they heard the music of the spheres.

Then she seemed to hear the voice of the prince: "You should be grateful to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing you that love of which you dreamed. _Le Dieu, c'est moi!_"

Yes, it was the voice of doom which had spoken from those sardonic lips.

The dark which annihilates time made their love a century old.

"In all the world," she whispered, "there is one man for every woman. It is the hand of Heaven which gives me to you."

"Come closer--so! And here I have your head beside mine as G.o.d foredoomed. Listen! I have power to look through the dark and to see your eyes--how blue they are!--and to read your soul beneath them. We have scarcely spoken a hundred words and yet I see it all. Through a thousand centuries our souls have been born a thousand times and in every life we have met, and known--"

And through the utter dark, the merciful dark, the deep, strong music of his voice went on, and she listened, and forgot the truth and closed her eyes against herself.

On the night which closed the third day the prince approached the door of the sealed room. To the officer of the secret police, who stood on guard, he said: "Nothing has been heard."

"Early this afternoon there were two shots, I think."

"Nonsense. There are carpenters doing repair work on the floor above.

You mistook the noise of their hammers."

He waved the man away, and as he fitted the key into the lock he was laughing softly to himself: "Now for the revelation, the downward head, the shame. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

He opened the door and flashed on his electric lantern. They lay upon a couch wrapped in each other's arms. He had shot her through the heart and then turned the weapon on himself; his last effort must have been to draw her closer. About them was wrapped the chain, idle and loose.

Surely death had no sting for them and the grave no victory, for the cold features were so illumined that the prince could hardly believe them dead.

He turned the electric torch on the painter. He was a man about fifty, with long, iron-gray hair, and a stubble of three days' growth covering his face. It was a singularly ugly countenance, strong, but savagely lined, and the forehead corrugated with the wrinkles of long, mental labor. But death had made Bertha beautiful. Her eyes under the shadow of her lashes, seemed a deep-sea blue, and her loose, brown hair, falling across the white throat and breast, seemed almost golden under the light of the torch. A draft from the open door moved the hair and the heart of the prince stirred in him.

He strove to loosen the arms of the painter, but they were frozen stiff by death.

"She was a fool, and the loss is small," sighed the prince. "After all, perhaps G.o.d was nearer than I thought. I bound them together with a chain. He saw my act and must have approved, for see! He has locked them together forever. Well, after all--_le Dieu, c'est moi!_"

THIRD TALE

PLUMB NAUSEATED

BY E. K. MEANS

I.

"Yes, suh, I feels plum' qualified to take on a wife."

The black negro blushed to a darker hue and his face shone like polished ebony in the blazing August sun. In his embarra.s.sment he twisted his shapeless wool hat into a wad, thrust it under his arm like a bundle, turned his back upon the white man's quizzical eyes, and sat down upon the lowest step of the porch.

At the feet of the white man lay half a dozen pairs of handcuffs. He stooped and picked up a pair which showed rusty in the bright light, rubbed the rust off with sand-paper, squirted some oil into the mechanism from a little can, and busied himself for a few minutes seeing that his police hardware was in good condition.

The sheriff remained silent for so long that the negro imagined he had been forgotten. Then Flournoy fired a question so unexpectedly that the black man winced: "What's your name?"

"Dey calls me Plaster Sickety."

"Gosh!" the sheriff exploded. "Can any woman be induced to exchange a perfectly decent name for a smear like that?"

"Suttinly," the negro grinned. "Dat gal's name ain't so awful cute. Dey calls her Pearline Flunder."

"Plaster Sickety and Pearline Flunder--help, everybody! What sort of children will issue from a matrimonial alliance of such names?"

"I reckin our chillun will all be borned Huns, Ma.r.s.e John; but I cain't he'p it."

Under his manipulation the sheriff's worn handcuffs took on a polish like new. At intervals he glanced up from his task to see the sunlight spraying from the pecan-trees like water and the heat rising from the ground, visible as a boiling cloud. Once he heard an eagle scream, and glanced toward the Little Moca.s.sin swamp to behold a black speck sail into the haze that hung like a curtain of purple and gold upon the horizon. The negro sat motionless except for glowing black eyes restless as mercury and all-perceiving.

Suddenly the bear-trap mouth of the big sheriff twisted into a little smile.

"How'd you like to give your girl one of these things for a wedding-present, Plaster?" he asked, as he tossed a polished pair of handcuffs on the step beside the negro.

"I's kinder pestered in my mind 'bout gittin' a fitten weddin'-present, Ma.r.s.e John, but--" Plaster rose to his feet and returned the manacles without completing his sentence.

"How much money have you got?" Flournoy asked.

"I ain't got none till yit."

"How you going to buy the license? How you going to pay the preacher?"

Flournoy asked.

"Dat's whut I come to git a view from you about, Ma.r.s.e John. All de cullud folks gives you a rep dat you is powerful good to n.i.g.g.e.rs an' I figgered dat you an' me mought fix up some kind of shake-down so I could git married 'thout costin' me nothin'."

"Don't you ever read the Bible?" Flournoy growled. "Even Adam's wife cost him a bone."

"Yes, suh," the negro grinned. "But I figger ef Sheriff Flournoy had been aroun' anywheres at dat time, maybe Adam would 'a' got off a whole lot cheaper."

"Have you got a job to support your wife?" Flournoy asked.

"Naw, suh."

"Have you got a house to live in?"

"Naw, suh."

"Where are you going to live with her--in a hollow sycamore-tree?"

"Yes, suh, I reckin so--dat is, excusin' ef you don't he'p us none."

"Where are you two idiots going to derive your sustenance--from the circ.u.mambient atmosphere?"

"Dat's de word, Ma.r.s.e John--dat is, excusin' ef you don't loant us a hand in our troubles," the negro murmured, wondering what the sheriff's big talk meant.