The World for Sale Part 24

"His eyes will not feed upon her," interrupted the old man, "So cease the prattle which can alter nothing. Begone."

For a moment Jethro Fawe stood like one who did not understand what was said to him, but suddenly a look of triumph and malice came into his face, and his eyes lighted with a reckless fire. He threw back his head, and laughed with a strange, offensive softness. Then, waving a hand to the window from which Fleda had gone, he swung his cap on his head and plunged into the trees.

A moment afterwards his voice came back exultingly, through the morning air:

"But a Gorgio sleeps 'neath the greenwood tree He'll broach my tan no more: And my love, she sleeps afar from me But near to the churchyard door."

As the old man turned heavily towards the house, and opened the outer door, Fleda met him.

"What did you mean when you said that Ingolby's eyes would not feed upon me?" she asked in a low tone of fear.

A look of compa.s.sion came into the old man's face. He took her hand.

"Come and I will tell you," he said.

CHAPTER XII. "LET THERE BE LIGHT"

In Ingolby's bedroom, on the night of the business at Barbazon's Tavern, Dr. Rockwell received a shock. His face, naturally colourless, was almost white, and his eyes were moist. He had what the West called nerve. That the crisis through which he had pa.s.sed was that of a friend's life did not lessen the poignancy of the experience. He had a singularly reserved manner and a rare economy of words; also, he had the refinement and distinction of one who had, oforetime, moved on the higher ranges of social life. He was always simply and comfortably and in a sense fashionably dressed, yet there was nothing of the dude about him, and his black satin tie gave him an air of old-worldishness which somehow compelled an extra amount of respect. This, in spite of the fact that he had been known as one who had left the East and come into the wilds because of a woman not his wife.

It was not, however, strictly true to say that he had come West because of a woman, for it was on account of three women, who by sudden coincidence or collusion sprang a situation from which the only relief was flight. In that he took refuge, not because he was a coward, but because it was folly to fight a woman, or three women, and because it was the only real solution of an ungovernable situation. At first he had drifted from one town to another, dissolute and reckless, apparently unable to settle down, or to forget the unwholesome three. But one day there was a terrible railway accident on a construction train, and Lebanon and Manitou made a call upon his skill, and held him in bondage to his profession for one whole month. During this time he performed two operations which the surgeons who had been sent out by the Railway Directors at Montreal declared were masterpieces.

When that month was up he was a changed man, and he opened an office in Lebanon. Men trusted him despite his past, and women learned that there was never a moment when his pulses beat unevenly in their presence.

Nathan Rockwell had had his lesson and it was not necessary to learn it again. To him, woman, save as a subject of his skill, was a closed book.

He regarded them as he regarded himself, with a kindly cynicism. He never forgot that his own trouble could and would have been avoided had it not been for woman's vanity and consequent cruelty. The unwholesome three had shared his moral lapse with wide-open eyes, and were in no sense victims of his; but, disregarding their responsibility, they had, from sheer jealousy, wrecked his past, and, to their own surprise, had wrecked themselves as well. They were of those who act first and then think--too late.

Thus it was that both men and women called Rockwell a handsome man, but thought of him as having only a crater of exhausted fires in place of a heart. They came to him with their troubles--even the women of Manitou who ought to have gone to the priest.

He moved about Lebanon as one who had authority, and desired not to use it; as one to whom life was like a case in surgery to be treated with scientific, coolness, with humanity, but not with undue sympathy; yet the early morning of the day after Ingolby had had his accident at Barbazon's Hotel found him the slave of an emotion which shook him from head to foot. He had saved his friend's life by a most skilful operation, but he had been shocked beyond control when, an hour after the operation was over, and consciousness returned to the patient in the brilliantly lighted room, Ingolby said:

"Why don't you turn on the light?"

It was thus Rockwell knew that the Master Man, the friend of Lebanon and Manitou, was stone blind. When Ingolby's voice ceased, a horrified silence filled the room for a moment. Even Jim Beadle, his servant, standing at the foot of the bed, clapped a hand to his mouth to stop a cry, and the nurse turned as white as the ap.r.o.n she wore.

Dumbfounded as Rockwell was, with instant professional presence of mind he said:

"No, Ingolby, you must be kept in darkness a while yet." Then he whipped out a silk handkerchief from his pocket. "We will have light," he continued, "but we must bandage you first to keep out the glare and prevent pain. The nerves of the eyes have been injured."

Hastily and tenderly he bound the handkerchief round the sightless eyes.

Having done so, he said to the nurse with unintentional quotation from the Gospel of St. John, and a sad irony: "Let there be light."

It all gave him time to pull himself together and prepare for the moment when he must tell Ingolby the truth. In one sense the sooner it was told the better, lest Ingolby should suddenly discover it for himself.

Surprise and shock must be avoided. So now he talked in his low, soothing voice, telling Ingolby that the operation had put him out of danger, that the pain now felt came chiefly from the nerves of the eye, and that quiet and darkness were necessary. He insisted on Ingolby keeping silent, and he gave a mild opiate which induced several hours'

sleep.

During this time Rockwell prepared himself for the ordeal which must be pa.s.sed as soon as possible; gave all needed directions, and had a conference with the a.s.sistant Chief Constable to whom he confided the truth. He suggested plans for preserving order in excited Lebanon, which was determined to revenge itself on Manitou; and he gave some careful and specific instructions to Jowett the horse-dealer. Also, he had conferred with Gabriel Druse, who had helped bear the injured man to his own home. He had noted with admiration the strange gentleness of the giant Romany as he, alone, carried Ingolby in his arms, and laid him on the bed from which he was to rise with all that he had fought for overthrown, himself the blind victim of a hard fate. He had noticed the old man straighten himself with a spring and stand as though petrified when Ingolby said: "Why don't you turn on the light?" As he looked round in that instant of ghastly silence he had observed almost mechanically that the old man's lips were murmuring something. Then the thought of Fleda Druse shot into Rockwell's mind, and it hara.s.sed him during the hours Ingolby slept, and after the giant Gipsy had taken his departure just before the dawn.

"I'm afraid it will mean more there than anywhere else," he said sadly to himself. "There was evidently something between those two; and she isn't the kind to take it philosophically. Poor girl! Poor girl! It's a bitter dose, if there was anything in it," he added.

He watched beside the sick-bed till the dawn stared in and his patient stirred and waked, then he took Ingolby's hand, grown a little cooler, in both his own. "How are you feeling, old man?" he asked cheerfully.

"You've had a good sleep-nearly three and a half hours. Is the pain in the head less?"

"Better, Sawbones, better," Ingolby replied cheerfully. "They've loosened the tie that binds--begad, it did stretch the nerves. I had gripes of colic once, but the pain I had in my head was twenty times worse, till you gave the opiate."

"That's the eyes," said Rockwell. "I had to lift a bit of bone, and the eyes saw it and felt it, and cried out-shrieked, you might say. They've got a sensitiveness all their own, have the eyes."

"It's odd there aren't more accidents to them," answered Ingolby--"just a little ball of iridescent pulp with strings tied to the brain."

"And what hurts the head may destroy the eyes sometimes," Rockwell answered cautiously. "We know so little of the delicate union between them, that we can't be sure we can put the eyes right again when, because of some blow to the head, the ricochet puts the eyes out of commission."

"That's what's the matter with me, then?" asked Ingolby, feeling the bandage on his eyes feverishly, and stirring in his bed with a sense of weariness.

"Yes, the ricochet got them, and has put them out of commission,"

replied Rockwell, carefully dwelling upon each word, and giving a note of meaning to his tone.

Ingolby raised himself in bed, but Rockwell gently forced him down again. "Will my eyes have to be kept bandaged long? Shall I have to give up work for any length of time?" Ingolby asked.

"Longer than you'll like," was the enigmatical reply. "It's the devil's own business," was the weary answer. "Every minute's valuable to me now.

I ought to be on deck morning, noon, and night. There's all the trouble between the two towns; there's the strike on hand; there's that business of the Orange funeral, and more than all a thousand times, there's--" he paused.

He was going to say, "There's that devil Marchand's designs on my bridge," but he thought better of it and stopped. It had been his intention to deal with Marchand directly, to get a settlement of their differences without resort to the law, to prevent the criminal act without deepening a feud which might keep the two towns apart for years.

Bad as Marchand was, to prevent his crime was far better than punishing him for it afterwards. To have Marchand arrested for conspiracy to commit a crime was a business which would gravely interfere with his freedom of motion in the near future, would create complications which might cripple his own purposes in indirect ways. That was why he had declared to Jowett that even Felix Marchand had his price, and that he would try negotiations first.

But what troubled him now, as he lay with eyes bandaged and a knowledge that to-morrow was the day fixed for the destruction of the bridge, was his own incapacity. It was unlikely that his head or his eyes would be right by to-morrow, or that Rockwell would allow him to get up. He felt in his own mind that the injury he had received was a serious one, and that the lucky horseshoe had done Maxchand's work for him all too well.

This thought shook him. Rockwell could see his chest heave with an excitement gravely injurious to his condition; yet he must be told the worst, or the shock of discovery by himself that he was blind might give him brain fever. Rockwell felt that he must hasten the crisis.

"Rockwell," Ingolby suddenly asked, "is there any chance of my discarding this and getting out to-morrow?" He touched the handkerchief round his eyes. "It doesn't matter about the head bandages, but the eyes--can't I slough the wraps to-morrow? I feel scarcely any pain now."

"Yes, you can get rid of the bandages to-morrow--you can get rid of them to-day, if you really wish," Rockwell answered, closing in on the last defence.

"But I don't mind being in the dark to-day if it'll make me fitter for to-morrow and get me right sooner. I'm not a fool. There's too much carelessness about such things. People often don't give themselves a chance to get right by being in too big a hurry. So, keep me in darkness to-day, if you want to, old man. For a hustler I'm not in too big a hurry, you see. I'm for holding back to get a bigger jump."

"You can't be in a big hurry, even if you want to, Ingolby," rejoined Rockwell, gripping the wrist of the sick man, and leaning over him.

Ingolby grew suddenly very still. It was as though vague fear had seized him and held him in a vice. "What is it? What do you want to say to me?"

he asked in a low, nerveless tone.

"You've been hit hard, Chief. The ricochet has done you up for some time. The head will soon get well, but I'm far from sure about your eyes. You've got to have a specialist about them. You're in the dark, and as for making you see, so am I. Your eyes and you are out of commission for some time, anyhow."

He leaned over hastily, but softly and deftly undid the bandages over the eyes and took them off. "It's seven in the morning, and the sun's up, Chief, but it doesn't do you much good, you see."

The last two words were the purest accident, but it was a strange, mournful irony, and Rockwell flushed at the thought of it. He saw Ingolby's face turn grey, and then become white as death itself.

"I see," came from the bluish-white lips, as the stricken man made call on all the will and vital strength in him.

For a long minute Rockwell held the cold hand in the grasp of one who loves and grieves, but even so the physician and surgeon in him were uppermost, as they should be, in the hour when his friend was standing on the brink of despair, maybe of catastrophe irremediable. He did not say a word yet, however. In such moments the vocal are dumb and the blind see.