He sank back, that last bright spark quenched in the effort of speaking; the life, which had been so full of fire and of wild restlessness, now ebbed gently away without struggle or pain; the man, whose whole existence had been passed in hatred of and rebellion against those set over him by fate, had come to his death in the act of rescuing his enemy.
So was the presentiment fulfilled, which had been borne in upon him yesterday as he listened to the murmuring water; from the inner depths of the earth the stream had brought Death's greeting to his victim. Ulric, truly, had no need to look beyond the morrow, shrouded from him by the impenetrable veil; all had indeed come to an end for him with that "morrow"--all and everything!
From the high-road out yonder sounded the regular march of an advancing troop, with now and again a word of command or the clashing of arms; the help, which had been requested and expected from the town, had arrived. As soon as he reached the first outlying houses of the settlement the officer in command learned what had happened. Drawing up his men in the road, he himself, accompanied by a slight escort, went over to the scene of the accident, and asked to speak to the proprietor.
Arthur went forward to meet him.
"I thank you, Captain," he said quietly and gravely, "but you have come too late. I do not need your help now. For the last ten hours we have fought together, my people and I, for the lives of some of us who were in danger, and during that time we have made peace--I trust for ever."
CHAPTER XXVI.
Summer had come again. Once more mountains and valleys lay bathed in sunshine and verdant with beauty, and down in the Berkow settlement there was busy life and movement as in the old days, only freer and more cheerful than it had ever been before. There was an atmosphere of liberty and happy contentedness about the works now; extensive as ever, they had gained all that had previously been wanting, but this had not come about in weeks or even in months. Years had been needed, and those following the catastrophe had not been years of ease. When work had been resumed, a heavy load still rested on the young master's shoulders. He had, it is true, made peace with his people, but he stood on the brink of ruin. The crisis was past, the moment of danger when personal courage and personal sacrifices could suffice to restrain the excesses of a rebellious multitude; but now came a time harder to bear, a time of constant arduous toil, of struggling, often desperate, against the force of circumstances by which Arthur was well nigh crushed. But in the first trial he had learnt to test his strength, in the second he knew how to use it.
For more than a year it remained doubtful whether the works could be kept on under their then owner, and even when this critical period had been tided over, there were still dangers and losses enough to be faced. Even during the last years of the elder Berkow's lifetime the position had been seriously shaken, the fortune impaired by his wild speculation, his lavish expenditure, and, above all, by that unscrupulous system of working which only aimed at great and immediate profits and eventually recoiled on the employer himself.
Then came the interruption of all business, which had lasted nearly a month, the accident in the shafts, requiring most important repairs; all this combined threatened completely to overwhelm a situation already greatly imperilled. More than once it seemed impossible the works could be preserved, more than once it seemed as though the memory of past wounds, caused by harsh treatment and by the late open strife, rankled too deeply ever to be allayed; but Arthur's character, aroused so late, steeled itself and grew to fuller development in this school of incessant and strenuous activity.
All the foundations were shaken and the edifice tottering to its fall when, years before, Arthur had undertaken the difficult task of bringing order out of the chaos of debts, engagements and claims upon him, which had to be met first of all, and of establishing a perfectly new system. But he had learnt confidence in himself; his wife was at his side, and on his exertions depended Eugénie's future prosperity and his own. That thought gave him courage to withstand, where any other would have yielded in despair; supported him even in moments when the task seemed beyond his strength, and obtained for him the victory at last. Now every lingering ill effect of the catastrophe had been overcome; the name of Berkow, stripped of all the evil which had attached to it, had won back for itself the old luck, and stood pure and honourable before the world.