IV.
Armstrong turned aside to hide his excitement. After all, then, the vision had not been in vain: it was the complement of the first; and now all was clear. The Mystery of Human Pain! His own great book on the subject! He laughed aloud. All that thought and time and labour had been wasted, and here was the truth, shown to him in a dream—the truth that all the world should know. A strange exaltation filled his spirit.
“I suffered pain, and now I reap my reward—strong, happy, a healer of wounds, myself knowing no suffering. He inflicted pain and torture, and now he suffers for it.”
The patient in the chair moved uneasily and groaned. Armstrong went on: “A righteous Judge rewards me for what I have undergone, and scourges him for the evil he has wrought.”
“The Lord have Mercy on his Soul!”
It was a deep voice that spoke, the words booming and reverberating like the notes of heavy bells. It touched a new chord in Armstrong’s mind, and sent the blood throbbing and pulsing through his head. “The Lord have mercy on his soul!” Why? What mercy had he had for others? And with that the fury of hate returned to him and surged through his veins, till he felt himself more demon than man. Every pang, every pain, every racking agony that he had suffered in those two terrible visions, returned to him threefold, burned into his soul, branded on every limb and sinew. Curse him with the curse of the martyr, and blast him with the breath of his iniquities!
And then a cold, unnatural calm fell upon Armstrong, and his quivering hands grew steady and cunning as before.
*********
It was all so easy! The man lay there, half conscious—with enough sensation left to feel every torture inflicted on him, but yet unable to speak or groan. It was a carefully managed anæsthetic, administered just sufficiently to glaze the eyes and paralyze the tongue, but no more. And the brain lay so near at hand!
The mad fury of revenge had left Armstrong, and he was cold, scientific and deliberate—no movement hurried, no torment left untried, and all done with the mechanical, even touch of the skilled workman. A pang for a pang, a stab for a stab, a scald for a scald; Armstrong remembered each pain he had endured, and paid it back threefold. On the subtle mechanism of the head he played as on a keyed instrument, sending hot, shooting pains, and dull, numbing clutches, to the remotest parts of the wretched frame.
All the poor worn nerves centered within his grasp, and to his eyes they were visible throughout their hidden course, coming to one common end, where he grasped them as with a handle, and turned and ground and twisted and crushed, till they stretched, strained, groaned and quivered under his racking touch. He hissed taunting words in his ears—words that he knew could not be answered; he mocked at the helpless agony. And all the while he watched the blue lips, striving to curse and moan, but bound by the hellish drug as with a gag; and the bloodshot, straining eyes, too fixed even to appeal; and the dumb agony of the whole wretched form. And a grim, silent laughter shook him.
But it could not last forever: his hand wearied, and his head reeled. He fell to the ground in a swoon. * * *
Bells were ringing—light, airy, joyous bells; and he roused himself. The bells grew slower, fainter—died out altogether—and in their place a voice was in his ears, very soft and low. What was it saying? It was so faint, so indistinct * * *
“On your soul may the Lord have mercy!”
Armstrong rose as from a dream. In the chair lay a shape, not mangled, indeed, but pale-faced, shrunken, distorted, horrible. He bent his head down and listened to the heart; there were two feeble beats, a faint flicker, and then it stopped.
There was a strange catch in the surgeon’s breath. The room was hot and close; he pushed the curtains back, and looked out. It was night now—a deep blue sky, studded with a myriad stars. And one star shot upwards in a blaze of silver light.
Armstrong turned away, breathing heavily. There was the body still, and there were the little instruments he had used.
The present did not stir him, gave him no thought; but the knowledge of the future was upon him, and he groaned aloud in the new-born agony of his soul. For he knew what he had done: it was his chance, and he had missed it; it was his trial, his ordeal, and he had failed * * * And in the next life on earth his torture would be longer and harder to bear. The Lord would have no mercy on his soul.
D. L. B. S.
XII