The Vision of Elijah Berl Part 36

"They know now,--that I was right, that--I did right?" The eyes again wavered between intelligence and stupor.

"Yes, Elijah, they know now."

His voice was querulous.

"Why didn't they trust me? After all I had done; why didn't they trust me?"

"They do trust you now. Come back, Elijah. All is forgiven."

Elijah's reply was again querulous, almost peevish.

"Why didn't they trust me? Why didn't they trust me before it was too late?" The bitterness dropped from voice and manner. His voice was loud and terrible. "Don't you hear me? It is too late! Listen! It is too late! Don't you know what this means? Listen! The roar of the water has stopped! Don't you know what this means? The flood gates are closed. In a few minutes, in a few hours, the reservoir will fill, and the water will go over the dam. Don't you know what that means? It is too late!"

He paused! there was a strained look in his eyes. Then he sprang into action.

"Is it too late? My G.o.d! Is it too late?"

He was in the saddle, the pony's head pointing up the canon, his flanks shrinking from the pounding stirrups, and from the lashings of the bridle thongs.

Helen watched the flying horseman. For a moment she was struck motionless with uncomprehending terror. What did it all mean? What could she do? Oh, if Ralph were only here! For a moment she stood; then she was on her pony and riding hard toward the camping place and Ralph.

Through scrubby sage and cedar, stumbling in burrows, shying at stinging cactus, her horse was driving madly on. Her thoughts were all on finding Ralph; but mingling with these, were the beady eyes of the alert Mexicans, and the silenced waters of the Sangre de Cristo. These had a meaning for her now.

From the summit of a low ridge, she saw below her the camp of the party for which she was so eagerly watching. One tall figure she singled out and kept her eyes upon him. He turned. She could almost see his questioning eyes as he strode out from his companions. He was near enough to hear her cry--

"Oh, Ralph! The dam! The dam! Elijah is at the dam!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Winston asked no questions. Whatever else there might be to learn, could be learned at the dam with no waste of precious time. As to what time meant, Winston was fully alive. As to what effect the constant, lonely ferment over real or fancied wrongs would have upon a morbidly sensitive mind, he took no moment to forecast. He knew the ruin that could be wrought; for he knew the strength and the weakness of the dam; and he knew Elijah. The thought that Elijah could be driven to wreck the crowning work of years of struggle, seemed to him monstrous, but he knew that it was possible; and he knew Elijah. He knew also the sinister conditions in the note to Mellin. He knew that they were harmless now; but Elijah did not know.

Winston could count upon his men and they followed his lead. He was eager, anxious; but neither eagerness nor anxiety prevented the calm judgment which spared his horse while pushing it to the limit; and his men followed his lead.

As he flew past the intake gates of the ca.n.a.l he noted that they were closed. This fact pointed to the worst. As he rode through the canon he noted the silence, the oily threads of water sliding between the boulders; these facts made suspicion certainty. The worst had happened or was on the way.

As he came near the dam, he did not need the sight of the thin, wrinkling veil that was sliding over the crest, and, in ever increasing volume, was plunging into the depths below, to tell him what had happened. As he sprang from his horse, he did not need to see the tangled ma.s.s of earth and timber that choked the waste weir to the brim, nor did he need to see the closed gates and the broken wheels that forbade the hope of opening them. Long ago, so it seemed, he had forecast the design and the method of its execution.

He saw another sight which he had not forecast. He saw repentance--repentance, he saw surely; atonement, if within the reach of time, and life, and sacrifice of life. He saw Repentance with bared brow, with gray, drawn face, with glowing eyes that directed crashing strokes of a shining axe, eating deep into a locking tree-trunk which held back with its ma.s.s of crushed timbers and close-packed earth, the seething waters of the weir. He saw it all, and his heart swelled and pulsed and throbbed with the glory of it. He saw and felt the glory of it, that lifts man above the beasts that raven, the angels who adore, and places him at the side of G.o.d, the crowning labor of his mighty hands.

But through the swelling, flaming glory that bathed the world with the light of heaven, the earthborn instinct thrust; to save a human life though repentance and atonement were laid low, and the light that they radiated was quenched. Through the oily, sliding, deepening veil Ralph dashed, shouting as he went--

"Come back! Come back! Elijah! Come back"!

But Repentance heeded not the call. Once again the shining blade bit deep in the straining timber, and Atonement had gained its perfect work.

A crash like riving thunder drowned the swirl of falling water, and the huddled ma.s.s of rock and earth and timber groaned and swelled and thrust, and then, with a crash and roar, swept through the stone-paved weir and plunged into the yawning canon.

The blade had fallen from the bared hands; the gray, drawn face was lifted to the heavens; but the grayness was gone. In its place was the light that comes from but one source. Repentance was crowned with atonement; but life had departed.

Not quite. From a boiling eddy, struggling, impatient to join the swirling rush of turbid waters, pitying hands drew a torn, bruised body.

A rough, kind hand brushed earth-stained locks from the still face.

"My G.o.d! That sight would make a man of the devil!" This was the tribute of a dormant soul cased in a toil-calloused body.

Ralph was bending low. The eyelids fluttered, then sprang open; but the vision was not of this world. The lips trembled--

"Amy! Amy!" Then they closed forever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Had a ball of fire, shot from the cloudless sky, smitten one of their number to eternal silence, no greater, no more awesome hush could have fallen upon the merry party below the dam. Men looked at each other with stricken eyes, then turned to watch the speeding hors.e.m.e.n led by Winston. As Helen rode nearer to them, questioning eyes were turned to her, but she gave no heed. Only in the white, set face they read the outlines of some awful tragedy. Uncle Sid was first at her side.

"Come with me," she commanded. Then she turned and rode slowly toward the canon. Uncle Sid rode close beside her.

"What is it, little girl?" There was a pitying, restful caress in the softened voice.

Helen longed to throw herself in his arms, to bury her head on his breast, to pour out her soul in confession before him. She controlled herself, her voice.

"I have found Elijah." Then she told him all. It was good to unburden herself. She told of the pitiful wreck from which reason had all but fled; the burst of insane rage when Seymour's name was mentioned; the dumb struggle to grasp the a.s.surance that he was forgiven, was free; the hopeless plaint, "Why didn't they trust me before it was too late,--"

the silence of the river; the wild cry,--"Is it too late, my G.o.d, is it too late?" the mad ride, fury driven, up the canon trail. She told him of her fears for the dam, how easily it could be wrecked, and her voice, steady until now, broke pitifully. "I should have told Ralph all. Only my wicked pride kept me from it."

Uncle Sid reined his pony closer and laid a soothing hand on her arm.

"It isn't too late, little girl. Listen! You have saved Elijah. You have saved the dam!"

They were near the canon now, and a heavy murmur, growing in intensity, pulsed in the quiet air. A great, hopeful light glowed in Helen's eyes; then it suddenly gave place to anxious fear. Was it too late after all?

Had the dam given way? A moment and her questions would be answered. She sat with parted lips, and straining eyes, waiting for the rending, crashing thunder that would come if--then a sigh of relief escaped her.

At the canon's mouth, the turbid, soil-stained waters of the Sangre de Cristo were leaping and falling, but the volume was decreasing. She turned to Uncle Sid.

"Wait here. I am going up the canon."

She felt that she was losing control of herself; she was striving against it, but in vain. Try as she would, she could lay hold of nothing in the past that could aid her. What had been her past? A sense of right and a determination to live in accord with it, and with what results? In self-confident pride she had looked down with contempt upon Ysleta boomers and their methods. At the first beck of Elijah, yielding to the subtle, intangible influence which he had thrown around her, she had abandoned her principles and had become as one of them. Not openly, not strongly, not defiantly, here was the shame and the pain of it; she had not been herself, but another. She had protested, to herself, to Elijah, she had stood up against him and had gone down before him. Day after day, the meshes of this sinister influence had held her more closely in its silken web; day after day, her past stood out more clearly with all its pitiful failures, and day after day the future, even with the light of the past beating white upon it, saw her yet more strongly bound. What deeper depths would have yawned to engulf her, had not Elijah's declaration jarred her to a loathsome recognition of what she was, of what she might become, she shuddered to forecast. A smile of bitter self-contempt played over her lips for a moment; then was gone.

In her darkness, there was yet a ray of light. She had failed, failed miserably. She bore this in upon her soul with no softening words. This was her darkness.

Brave, strong, patient hands had laid hold upon Elijah. If they had not saved him, they had saved his work. They had laid hold upon her. If they had not saved her, they had made her failures harmless. This was her light. She could forget herself, her pain, her shame, in the glory of Ralph's triumph. From the dust of her humiliation, she could yet raise a heart filled with unselfish love.

Yet was there not hope? Ralph had known all that had lain on the surface and he had offered her his love and had asked for hers in return. She would be brave. She would tell him all. Even though he cast her aside, she would yet have her love for him which could not harm him, but save her. She would tell him all. Then if the light of love still shone in his eyes, the light of the love he offered, the light of the love he asked, she would know it; she could trust it without fear. She was learning a lesson that might not avail her; but she was learning a lesson. On the somber background of repentance the brightest pictures of life are painted.

Through the pine boughs that hung low over the trail, she caught a glimpse of hatless men who were carrying a burden between them. For a moment her heart stood still. It was death. Then her heart once more beat high. She saw Ralph's face, a face clouded with grief but yet lightened by a supernal glow. She slipped from her pony and with bowed head waited for the covered burden to pa.s.s by. Then her eyes were raised to Ralph's; her hand was in his.

"It is all over, Helen; but his death was glorious. It was worth a thousand lives."