CHAPTER XLVII.
ON THE MARGINS OF TWO WORLDS.
The discovery of Gerald's death necessitated a change of plans. The concealment of Slippery Dick and Edward must necessarily be accomplished at Ilexhurst. There were funeral arrangements to be made, the property cared for and Virdow to be rescued from his solitary and embarrassing position. Moreover, the gray dawn was on ere the confession was written, and Virdow had briefly explained the circumstances of Gerald's death. Exhausted by excitement and anxiety and the depression of grief, he went to his room and brought Edward a sealed packet which had been written and addressed to him during the early hours of the night.
"You will find it all there," he said; "I cannot talk upon it." He went a moment to look upon the face of his friend and then, with a single pathetic gesture, turned and left them.
One of the eccentricities of the former owner of Ilexhurst had been a granite smoke-house, not only burglar and fireproof but cyclone proof, and with its oaken door it constituted a formidable jail.
With food and water, Dick, freed of his bonds, was ushered into this building, the small vents in the high roof affording enough light for most purposes. A messenger was then dispatched for Barksdale and Edward locked himself away from sight of chance callers in his upper room. The general, thoughtful and weary, sat by the dead man.
The document that Virdow had prepared was written in German. "When your eye reads these lines, you will be grieved beyond endurance; Gerald is no more! He was killed to-night by a flash of lightning and his death was instantaneous. I am alone, heartbroken and utterly wretched. Innocent of any responsibility in this horrible tragedy I was yet the cause, since it was while submitting to some experiments of mine that he received his death stroke. I myself received a frightful electric shock, but it now amounts to nothing. I would to God that I and not he had received the full force of the discharge. He might have been of vast service to science, but my work is little and now well-nigh finished.
"Gerald was kneeling under a steel disk, in the glass-room, you will remember where we began our sound experiments, and I did not know that the steel wire which suspended it ran up and ended near a metal strip, along the ridge beam of the room. We had just begun our investigation, when the flash descended and he fell dead.
"At this writing I am here under peculiar circumstances; the butler who came to my call when I recovered consciousness assisted me in the attempt at resuscitation of Gerald, but without any measure of success. He then succeeded in getting one or two of the old negroes and a doctor. The latter declared life extinct. There was no disfigurement—only a black spot in the crown of the head and a dark line down the spine, where the electric fluid had passed. That was all."
Edward ceased to read; his chin sank upon his breast and the lines slipped from his unfocused eyes. The dark line down the spine! His heart leaped fiercely and he lifted his face with a new light in his eyes. For a moment it was radiant; then shame bowed his head again. He laid aside the paper and gave himself up to thought, from time to time pacing the room. In these words lay emancipation. He resumed the reading: