The Sin That Was His

by Frank L. Packard

CHAPTER XVIII—THE CALL IN THE NIGHT

IT was very dark here in the front room, and somehow the darkness seemed tangible to the touch, like something oppressive, like the folds of a pall that was spread over him, and which he could not thrust aside. And it was still, and very quiet—save for the voices, and save that it seemed he could hear that faltering, irregular step from the rear room, where there was no longer any step to hear.

Surely it would be daylight soon—the merciful daylight. The darkness and the night were meant only for sleep, and it was an eternity since he had slept—no, not an eternity, only a week—it was only a week since he had slept. No, that was not true either—there had been hours, not many of them, but there had been hours when his eyes had been closed and he had not been conscious of his surroundings, but those hours had been even more horrible than when he had tossed on his bed awake. They had brought neither rest nor oblivion—they were full of dreams that were hideous—and the dreams would not leave him when he was awake—and the sleep when it came was a curse because the dreams remained to cast an added blight upon his wakefulness—and he had come even to fight against sleep and to resist it because the dreams remained.

Dreams! There was always the dream of the Walled Place which—no! Not that—now! Not that! Yes! The dream of the Walled Place. See—it went like this: He was in a sort of cavernous gloom in which he could not see very distinctly, but he was obsessed with the knowledge that there were hidden things from which he must escape. So he would run frantically around and around, following four square walls which were so high that the tops merged into the gloom; and the walls, as he touched them with his hands, seeking an opening, were wet with a slime that grew upon them. Then, looming out of the centre of this place, he would suddenly see what it was that he was running away from. There was a form, a human form, with something black over its head, that swayed to and fro, and was suspended from a bar that reached across from one wall to another; and on the top of this bar there roosted a myriad winged creatures like gigantic bats, only their eyes blazed, and they had enormous claws—and suddenly these vampires would rise with a terrifying crackling of their wings, and shrill, abominable screams, and swirl and circle over him, drawing nearer and nearer until his blood ran cold—and then, shrieking like a maniac, he would run again around and around the walls, beating at the slime until his hands bled. And the screaming things with outstretched talons followed him, and he stumbled and fell, and fell again, and shrieked out in his terror of these inhuman vultures that had roosted above the swaying thing with the black-covered head—and just as they were settling upon him there was an opening in the wall where there had been no opening before, and with his last strength he struggled toward it—and the way was blocked. The opening had become a gate that was all studded with iron spikes which if he rushed upon it would impale him, and which Valerie was closing—and as she closed it her head was averted, and one hand was thrown across her eyes, its palm toward him, as though she would not look upon his face.

Raymond's hands were wet with perspiration. They slipped from the arms of his chair, and hung downward at his sides. What time was it? It had been midnight when he had risen fully dressed from his bed in the rear room—that he occupied now that they had taken the man away to jail—and had come in here to sit at the desk. Since then the clock had struck many times, the half hours, and the hours. Ah—listen! It was striking again. One—two—three! Three o'clock! It was still a long way off, the daylight—the merciful daylight. The voices did not plague him so constantly in the warmth of the sunshine. Three o'clock! It would be five o'clock before the dawn came.

They had changed, those voices, in the last week—at least there was a new voice that had come, and an old one that did not recur so insistently. “Father—Father François Aubert—help me—I do not understand”—yes, that was still dinning forever in his ears; but, instead of that voice which said some one was to be hanged by the neck until dead, the new voice had quite a different thing to say. It was the voice of the “afterwards.” Hark! There it was now: “What fine and subtle shade of distinction is there between being hanged and imprisoned for life; what difference does it make, what difference could it make, what difference will it make—why do you temporise?”

He had fought with all his strength against that “afterwards”—and it was stronger than he. He could not evade the issue that was flung at him, and flung again and again until his brain writhed in agony with it. He was a gambler, but he was not a blind gambler. He did not want the man to lose his life, or his freedom for all of life—he did not want to lose his own life. While the appeal was pending something might happen, a thousand things might happen, there was always, always a chance. He would not throw away that chance—only a fool who had lost his nerve would do that. But he was not blind. The chance was one where the odds against him staggered him—there was so little chance that, fight as he would to escape it, logic and plain common sense had forced upon him the “afterwards.” And these days while the appeal was pending were like remorseless steps that led on and on to end only upon the brink of a yawning chasm, whose depth and whose blackness were as the depth and blackness of hell, and over which he sprang suddenly erect, his head flung back, the strong jaws clamped like a vise. Who had brought this torture upon him? He could not sleep! He knew no repose! God, or devil, or power infernal—who was it? Neither sleep nor repose might be his, but he was unbroken yet, and he could still fight! He asked only that—that the author of this torment stand before him—and fight! Why should he, unless the one meagre hope that something might happen in the meantime be fulfilled, why should he stand faced with the choice of swinging like a felon from the gallows, or of allowing that other innocent man to go to his doom? Yes, why should he submit to this torture, when that scarred-faced blackguard had brought his death upon himself—why should he submit to it, when it was so easy to escape it all! Once, that night in Ton-Nugget Camp, he had flung down the gauntlet in the face of God, and in the face of hell, and in the face of man, and in the face of beast. Was he a weakling and a fool now who had not sense enough to seize his opportunity to be quit of this, and to go his way, and live again the full, red-blooded, reckless life that he had lived since he was a boy, and that now, a young man still, beckoned to him with allurements as yet untasted! To-morrow—no, to-day when the daylight came—he had only to borrow Bouchard's boat, and the boat upturned would be found, and St. Mar-leau would mourn the loss of the good, young Father Aubert whose body had been swept out to sea, and the law would take its course on the man in the condemned cell, and Three-Ace Artie would be as free and untrammelled as the air—yes, and a coward, and a crawling thing, and—the paroxysm of fury passed. He sagged against the desk. This was the “afterwards”—but why should it come now! Between now and then there was a chance that something might intervene. He had only been trying to delude himself when he had said that in a life sentence there was all of time to plan and plot—he knew that. And he knew, too, that he was no more content that the man should be imprisoned for life than that the man should hang—that one was the equal of the other. He knew that this “all of time” was ended when the appeal was decided. He knew all that—that voice would not let him juggle with myths any more. But that moment had not come yet—there were still weeks before it would come—and in those weeks there lay a hope, a chance, a gambling chance that something might happen. And even in the appeal there lay a hope too, not that the sentence might be commuted to life imprisonment, that changed nothing now, but that they might perhaps after all consider the man's condition sufficient reason for not holding him to account for murder, and might therefore, instead, place him under medical treatment somewhere until, if ever, he recovered. He, Raymond, had not struck the man, he had not in even a remote particular been responsible for the man's wound, or the ensuing condition, and if the man were turned over to medical supervision the man automatically ceased to have any claim upon him.

But that was not likely to happen—it was only one of those thousand things that might happen—nothing was likely to happen except that the man would be hanged. And when that time came, if the appeal were lost and every one of those thousand chances swept away, and the only thing that could save the man's life would be to—God, would he never stop this! Would his mind never, even through utter exhaustion, cease its groping in this horrible turmoil! On, on, on! His brain was remorselessly driven on! It was like—like a slave that, already lacerated and bleeding, was lashed on again to renewed effort by some monstrous, brutal and inhuman master!

Yes, when that time came, and if that chance were gone, and supposing he gave himself up to stand in the other's place, could he in any way evade the rope, wriggle away from that dangling noose? Was there a loophole in the evidence anywhere? If only in some way he could prove that the act had been committed in self-defence! He had feared to risk such a plea that night, because he had feared that his own past would condemn him out of hand; and, moreover, however that might have been, the man lying in the road, whom he had thought dead, had seemed to offer the means of washing his hands for good and all of the whole matter. Self-defence! Ha, ha! Listen to those devils laugh! It was his own hand that had tied the knot in the noose so that it would never slip—it was he who had so cunningly supplied all the attendant details that irrevocably placed the stamp of robbery and murder upon the doings of that night. Here there was no delusion; here, where delusion was sought again, there was no delusion—if he gave himself up he would hang—hang by the neck until he was dead—and, since he had desecrated God's holy places, he would hang without the mercy of God upon his soul. Well, what odds did that make—whether there was mercy of God upon his soul-or not! Was there anything in common between—no, that was not what he had to think about now—it was quite another matter.