Chapter VI––By a Candle’s Flame
Asa Arnold sat in the small upstairs room at the hotel of Hans Becher. It was the same room that Ichabod and Camilla had occupied when they first arrived; but he did not know that. Even had he known, however, it would have made slight difference; nothing could have kept them more constantly in his mind than they were at this time. He had not slept any the night before; a fact which would have spoken loudly to one who knew him well; and this morning he was very tired. He lounged low in the oak chair, his feet on the bed, the usual big cigar in his mouth.
This morning, the perspective of the little man was anything but normal. Worse than that, he could not reduce it to the normal, try as he might.
His meeting with Camilla yesterday had produced a deep and abiding shock; for either of them to have been so moved signified the 200 stirring of dangerous forces. They––and especially himself––who had always accepted life, even crises, so calmly; who had heretofore laughed at all display of emotion––for them to have acted as they had, for them to have spoken to each other the things they had spoken, the things they could not forget, that he never could forgive––it was unbelievable! It upset all the established order of things!
His anger of yesterday against Camilla had died out. She was not to blame; she was a woman, and women were all alike. He had thought differently before; that she was an exception; but now he knew better. One and all they were mere puppets of emotion, and fickle.
In a measure, though, as he had excused Camilla he had incriminated Ichabod. Ichabod was the guilty one, and a man. Ichabod had filched from him his possession of most value; and without even the form of a by-your-leave. The incident of last evening at the saloon (for he had heard of it in the hour, as had every one in the little town) had but served to make more implacable his resentment. By the satire of 201 circumstances it had come about that he again, Asa Arnold, had been the cause of another’s defending the honor of his own wife,––for she was his wife as yet,––and that other, the defender, was Ichabod Maurice!
The little man’s face did not change at the thought. He only smoked harder, until the room was blue; but though he did not put the feeling in words even to himself, he knew in the depths of his own mind that the price of that last day was death. Whether it was his own death, or the death of Ichabod, he did not know; he did not care; but that one of them must die was inevitable. Horrible as was the thought, it had no terror for him, now. He wondered that it did not have; but, on the contrary, it seemed to him very ordinary, even logical––as one orders a dinner when he is hungry.
He lit another cigar, calmly. It was this very imperturbability of the little man which made him terrible. Like a great movement of Nature, it was awful from its very resistlessness; its imperviability to appeal. Steadily, as he had lit the cigar, he smoked until the air 202 became bluer than before. In a ghastly way, he was trying to decide whose death it should be,––as one decides a winter’s flitting, whether to Florida or California; only now the question was: should it be suicide, or,––as in the saloon yesterday,––leave the decision to Chance? For the time the personal equation was eliminated; the man weighed the evidence as impartially as though he were deciding the fate of another.
He sat long and very still; until even in the daylight the red cigar-end grew redder in the haze. Without being conscious of the fact, he was probably doing the most unselfish thinking of his life. What the result of that thought would have been no man will ever know, for of a sudden, interrupting, Hans Becher’s round face appeared in the doorway.
“Ichabod Maurice to see you,” coughed the German, obscured in the cloud of smoke which passed out like steam through the opening.
It cannot be said that Asa Arnold’s face grew impassive; it was that already. Certain it was, though, that behind the mask there occurred, at that moment, a revolution. Born of it, the old mocking smile sprang to his lips. 203
“The devil fights for his own,” he soliloquized. “I really believe I,”––again the smile,––“I was about to make a sacrifice.”
“Sir?”
“Thank you, Hans.”
The German’s jaw dropped in inexpressible surprise.
“Sir?” he repeated.
“You made a decision for me, then. Thank you.”
“I do not you understand.”
“Tell Mr. Maurice I shall be pleased to see him.”
The round face disappeared from the door.
“Donnerwetter!” commented the little landlord in the safe seclusion of the stairway. Later, in relating the incident to Minna, he tapped his forehead, suggestively.
Ichabod climbed the stair alone. “To your old room,” Hans had said; and Ichabod knew the place well. He knocked on the panel, a voice answered: “Come,” and he opened the door. Arnold had thrown away his cigar and opened the window. The room was clearing rapidly.
Ichabod stepped inside and closed the door 204 carefully behind him. A few seconds he stood holding it, then swung it open quickly and glanced down the hallway. Answering, there was a sudden, scuttling sound, not unlike the escape of frightened rats, as Hans Becher precipitately disappeared. The tall man came back and for the second time slowly closed the door.
Asa Arnold had neither moved nor spoken since that first word,––“come”; and the self-invited visitor read the inaction correctly. No man, with the knowledge Ichabod possessed, could have misunderstood the challenge in that impassive face. No man, a year ago, would have accepted that challenge more quickly. Now––But God only knew whether or no he would forget,––now.
For a minute, which to an onlooker would have seemed interminable, the two men faced each other. Up from the street came the ring of a heavy hammer on a sweet-voiced anvil, as Jim Donovan, the blacksmith, sharpened anew the breaking ploughs which were battling the prairie sod for bread. In the street below, a group of farmers were swapping yarns, an 205 occasional chorus of guffaws interrupting to punctuate the narrative. The combatants heard it all, as one hears the drone of the cicada on a sleepy summer day; at the moment, as a mere colorless background which later, Time, the greater adjuster, utilizes to harmonize the whole memory.
Ichabod had been standing; now he sat down upon the bed, his long legs stretched out before him.
“It would be useless for us to temporize,” he initiated. “I’ve intruded my presence in order to ask you a question.” The long fingers locked slowly over his knees. “What is your object here?”
The innate spirit of mockery sprang to the little man’s face.
“You’re mistaken,” he smiled; “so far mistaken, that instead of your visit being an intrusion, I expected you”––an amending memory came to him––“although I wasn’t looking for you quite so soon, perhaps.” He paused for an instant, and the smile left his lips.
“As to the statement of object. I think”––slowly––“a disinterested observer would have 206 put the question you ask into my mouth.” He stared his tall visitor up and down critically, menacingly. Of a sudden, irresistibly, a very convulsion shot over his face. “God, man, you’re brazen!” he commented cumulatively.
Ichabod had gambled with this man in the past, and had seen him lose half he possessed without the twitch of an eyelid. A force which now could cause that sudden change of expression––no man on earth knew, better than Ichabod, its intensity. Perhaps a shade of the same feeling crept into his own answering voice.
“We’ll quarrel later, if you wish,”––swiftly. “Neither of us can afford to do so now. I ask you again, what are your intentions?”
“And I repeat, the question is by right mine. It’s not I who’ve changed my name and––and in other things emulated the hero of the yellow-back.”
Ichabod’s face turned a shade paler, though his answer was calm.
“We’ve known each other too well for either to attempt explanation or condemnation. You wish me to testify first.” The long fingers unclasped 207 from over his knee. “You know the story of the past year: it’s the key to the future.”
A smile, sardonic, distinctive, lifted the tips of Arnold’s big moustaches.
“Your faith in your protecting gods is certainly beautiful.”
Ichabod nursed a callous spot on one palm.
“I understand,”––very slowly. “At least, you’ll answer my question now, perhaps,” he suggested.
“With pleasure. You intimate the future will be but a repetition of the past. It’ll be my endeavor to give that statement the lie.”
“You insist on quarrelling?”
“I insist on but one thing,”––swiftly. “That you never again come into my sight, or into the sight of my wife.”
One of Ichabod’s long hands extended in gesture.
“And I insist you shall never again use the name of Camilla Maurice as your wife.”
The old mocking smile sprang to Asa Arnold’s face.
“Unconsciously, you’re amusing,” he derided. 208 “The old story of the mouse who forbids the cat.... You forget, man, she is my wife.”
Ichabod stood up, seemingly longer and gaunter than ever before.
“Good God, Arnold,” he flashed, “haven’t you the faintest element of pride, or of consistency in your make-up? Is it necessary for a woman to tell you more than once that she hates you? By your own statement your marriage, even at first, was merely of convenience; but even if this weren’t so, every principle of the belief you hold releases her. Before God, or man, you haven’t the slightest claim, and you know it.”
“And you––”
“I love her.”
Asa Arnold did not stir, but the pupils of his eyes grew wider, until the whole eye seemed black.
“You fool!” he accented slowly. “You brazen egoist! Did it never occur to you that others than yourself could love?”
Score for the little man. Ichabod had been pinked first. 209
“You dare tell me to my face you loved her?”
“I do.”
“You lie!” blazed Ichabod. “Every word and action of your life gives you the lie!”
Not five minutes had passed since he came in and already he had forgotten!
Asa Arnold likewise was upon his feet and they two faced each other,––a bed length between; in their minds the past and future a blank, the present with its primitive animal hate blazing in their eyes.
“You know what it means to tell me that.” Arnold’s voice was a full note higher than usual. “You’ll apologize?”
“Never. It’s true. You lied, and you know you lied.”
The surrounding world turned dark to the little man, and the dry-goods box with the tin dipper on its top, danced before his eyes. For the first time in his memory he felt himself losing self-control, and by main force of will he turned away to the window. For the instant all the savage of his nature was on the surface, 210 and he could fairly feel his fingers gripping at the tall man’s throat.
A moment he stood in the narrow south window, full in the smiling irony of Nature’s sunshine; but only a moment. Then the mocking smile that had become an instinctive part of his nature spread over his face.
“I see but one way to settle this difficulty,” he intimated.
A taunt sprang to Ichabod’s tongue, but was as quickly repressed.
“There is but one, unless––” with meaning pause.
“I repeat, there is but one.”
Ichabod’s long face held like wood.
“Consider yourself, then, the challenged party.”
They were both very calm, now; the immediate exciting cause in the mind of neither. It seemed as if they had been expecting this time for years, had been preparing for it.
“Perhaps, as yesterday, in the saloon?” The points of the big moustaches twitched ironically. “I promise you there’ll be no procrastination as––at certain cases recorded.” 211
The mockery, malice inspired, was cleverly turned, and Ichabod’s big chin protruded ominously, as he came over and fairly towered above the small man.
“Most assuredly it’ll not be as yesterday. If we’re going to reverse civilization, we may as well roll it away back. We’ll settle it alone, and here.”
Asa Arnold smiled up into the blue eyes.
“You’d prefer to make the adjustment with your hands, too, perhaps? There’d be less risk, considering––” He stopped at the look on the face above his. No man vis-à-vis with Ichabod Maurice ever made accusation of cowardice. Instead, instinctive sarcasm leaped to his lips.
“Not being of the West, I don’t ordinarily carry an arsenal with me, in anticipation of such incidents as these. If you’re prepared, however,––” and he paused again.
Ichabod turned away; a terrible weariness and disgust of it all––of life, himself, the little man,––in his face. A tragedy would not be so bad, but this lingering comedy of death––One thing alone was in his mind: to have it over, and quickly. 212
“I didn’t expect––this, either. We’ll find another way.”
He glanced about the room. A bed, the improvised commode, a chair, a small table with a book upon it, and a tallow candle––an idea came to him, and his search terminated.
“I may––suggest––” he hesitated.
“Go on.”
Ichabod took up the candle, and, with his pocket-knife, cut it down until it was a mere stub in the socket, then lit a match and held the flame to the wick, until the tallow sputtered into burning.
“You can estimate when that light will go out?” he intimated impassively.
Asa Arnold watched the tall man, steadily, as the latter returned the candle to the table and drew out his watch.
“I think so,” sotto voce.
Ichabod returned to his seat on the bed.
“You are not afraid, perhaps, to go into the dark alone?”
“No.”
“No,” again, very slowly. Arnold understood now.
“You swear?” Ichabod flashed a glance with the question.
“I swear.”
“And I.”
A moment they both studied the sputtering candle.
“It’ll be within fifteen minutes,” randomed Ichabod.
Arnold drew out his watch slowly.
“It’ll be longer.”
That was all. Each had made his choice; a trivial matter of one second in the candle’s life would decide which of these two men would die by his own hand.
For a minute there was no sound. They could not even hear their breathing. Then Arnold cleared his throat.
“You didn’t say when the loser must pay his debt,” he suggested.
Ichabod’s voice in answer was a trifle husky.
“It won’t be necessary.” A vision of the future flashed, sinister, inevitable. “The man who loses won’t care to face the necessity long.” 214
Five minutes more passed. Down the street the blacksmith was hammering steadily. Beneath the window the group of farmers had separated; their departing footsteps tapping into distance and silence.
Minna went to the street door, calling loudly for Hans, Jr., who had strayed,––and both men started at the sound. The quick catch of their breathing was now plainly audible.
Arnold shifted in his chair.
“You swear––” his voice rang unnaturally sharp, and he paused to moisten his throat,––“you swear before God you’ll abide by this?”
“I swear before God,” repeated Ichabod slowly.
A second, and the little man followed in echo.
“And I––I swear, I, too, will abide.”
Neither man remembered that one of this twain, who gave oath before the Deity, was an agnostic, the other an atheist!
A lonely south wind was rising, and above the tinkle of the blacksmith’s hammer there sounded the tap of the light shade as it flapped in the wind against the window-pane. Low, drowsy, moaning,––typical breath of 215 prairie,––it droned through the loosely built house, with sound louder, but not unlike the perpetual roar of a great sea-shell.
Ten minutes passed, and the men sat very still. Both their faces were white, and in the angle of the jaw of each the muscles were locked hard. Ichabod was leaning near the candle. It sputtered and a tiny globule of hot tallow struck his face. He winced and wiped the drop off quickly. Observing, Arnold smiled and opened his lips as if to make comment; then closed them suddenly, and the smile passed.
Two minutes more the watches ticked off; very, very slowly. Neither of the men had thought, beforehand, of this time of waiting. Big drops of sweat were forming on both their faces, and in the ears of each the blood sang madly. A haze, as from the dropping of a shade, seemed to have formed and hung over the room, and in unison sounds from without acquired a certain faintness, like that born of distance. Through it all the two men sat motionless, watching the candle and the time, as the fascinated bird watches its charmer; as the subject watches the hypnotist,––as if the 216 passive exercise were the one imperative thing in the world.
“Thirteen minutes.”
Unconsciously, Arnold was counting aloud. The flame was very low, now, and he started to move his chair closer, then sank back, a smile, almost ghastly, upon his lips. The blaze had reached the level of the socket, and was growing smaller and smaller. Two minutes yet to burn! He had lost.
He tried to turn his eyes away, but they seemed fastened to the spot, and he powerless. It was as though death, from staring him in the face, had suddenly gripped him hard. The panorama of his past life flashed through his mind. The thoughts of the drowning man, of the miner who hears the rumble of crumbling earth, of the prisoner helpless and hopeless who feels the first touch of flame,––common thought of all these were his; and in a space of time which, though seeming to him endless, was in reality but seconds.
Then came the duller reaction and the events of the last few minutes repeated themselves, impersonally, spectacularly,––as though they 217 were the actions of another man; one for whom he felt very sorry. He even went into the future and saw this same man lying down with a tiny bottle in his hand, preparing for the sleep from which there would be no awakening,––the sleep which, in anticipation, seemed so pleasant.
Concomitant with this thought the visionary shaded into the real, and there came the determination to act at once, this very afternoon, as soon as Ichabod had gone. He even felt a little relief at the decision. After all, it was so much simpler than if he had won, for then––then––He laughed gratingly at the thought. Cursed if he would have known what to have done, then!
The sound roused him and he looked at his watch. A minute had passed, fourteen from the first and the flame still sputtered. Was it possible after all––after he had decided––that he was not to lose, that the decision was unnecessary? There was not in his mind the slightest feeling of personal elation at the prospect, but rather a sense of injury that such a scurvy trick 218 should be foisted off upon him. It was like going to a funeral and being confronted, suddenly, with the grinning head of the supposed dead projecting through the coffin lid. It was unseemly!
Only a minute more: a half now––yes, he would win. For the first time he felt that his forehead was wet, and he mopped his face with his handkerchief jerkily; then sank back in the chair, instinctively shooting forward his cuffs in motion habitual.
“Fifteen seconds.” There could be no question now of the result; and the outside world, banished for the once, returned. The blacksmith was hammering again, the strokes two seconds apart, and the fancy seized the little man to finish counting by the ring of the anvil.
“Twelve, ten, eight,” he counted slowly. “Six” was forming on the tip of the tongue when of a sudden the tiny flame veered far over toward the holder, sputtered and went out. For the first time in those interminable minutes, Arnold looked at his companion. Ichabod’s face was within a foot of the table, and in line 219 with the direction the flame had veered. Swift as thought the small man was on his feet, white anger in his face.
“You blew that candle!” he challenged.
Ichabod’s head dropped into his hands. An awful horror of himself fell crushingly upon him; an abhorrence of the selfishness that could have forgotten––what he forgot; and for so long,––almost irrevocably long. Mingled with this feeling was a sudden thanksgiving for the boon of which he was unworthy; the memory at the eleventh hour, in time to do as he had done before his word was passed. Arnold strode across the room, his breath coming fast, his eyes flashing fire. He shook the tall man by the shoulder roughly.
“You blew that flame, I say!”
Ichabod looked up at the furious, dark face almost in surprise.
“Yes, I blew it,” he corroborated absently.
“It would have burned longer.”
“Perhaps––I don’t know.”
Arnold moved back a step and the old smile, mocking, maddening, spread over his face; 220 tilting, perpendicular, the tips of the big moustaches.
“After all––” very slowly––“after all, then, you’re a coward.”
The tall man stood up; six-feet-two, long, bony, immovable: Ichabod himself again.
“You know that’s a lie.”
“You’ll meet me again,––another way, then?”
“No, never!”
“I repeat, you’re a cursed coward.”
“I’d be a coward if I did meet you,” quickly.
Something in Ichabod’s voice caught the little man’s ear and held him silent, as, for a long half-minute, the last time in their lives, the two men looked into each other’s eyes.
“You’ll perhaps explain.” Arnold’s voice was cold as death. “You have a reason?”
Ichabod walked slowly over to the window and leaned against the frame. Standing there, the spring sunshine fell full upon his face, drawing clear the furrows at the angles of his eyes and the gray threads of his hair. He paused a moment, looking out over the broad prairie shimmering indistinctly in the heat, and 221 the calm of it all took hold of him, shone in his face.
“I’ve a reason,” very measuredly, “but it’s not that I fear death, or you.” He took up his hat and smoothed it absently. “In future I shall neither seek, nor avoid you. Do what you wish––and God judge us both.” Without a glance at the other man, he turned toward the door.
Arnold moved a step, as if to prevent him going.
“I repeat, it’s my right to know why you refuse.” His feet shifted uneasily upon the floor. “Is it because of another––Eleanor?”
Ichabod paused.
“Yes,” very slowly. “It’s because of Eleanor––and another.”
The tall man’s hand was upon the knob, but this time there was no interruption. An instant he hesitated; then absently, slowly, the door opened and closed. A moment later indistinct, descending steps sounded on the stairway.
Alone, Asa Arnold stood immovable, looking blindly at the closed door, listening until the tapping feet had passed into silence. Then, in 222 a motion indescribable, of pain and of abandon, he sank back into the single chair.
His dearest enemy would have pitied the little man at that moment! 223