The Gilded Chair: A Novel

by Melville Davisson Post

Moreover, he had been "afeard."

Afeard! The man had been all night in the immediate presence of death. He had stood unmoved and observing under the very loom of it. He had crossed again and again under its extended arm, under its descending hand; within a twinkling of the eye, a ticking of the clock of death.

It ought to be remembered that the Marchesa Soderrelli was an experienced and educated woman, skilled in the subtleties of speech, and in deft probing. And yet, with all the arts and tricks of it, she was not clearly able to discover wherein the mountaineer accused himself of fear.

It seemed that the man, following a definite impulse which he believed to be a direction of God, had arrived on the spur of the mountain above the château before the revolt was on. But here in the deeps of the forest he had stopped to consider what he ought to do, and in this he had been "afeard," not for his life, but to trust God. He should have gone on into the château, then he might have brought all safely away. But he had "taken thought."

When he heard the cracking of the rifle, he had tied the mule to a tree, and descended the stone steps. But he arrived there after the attack was ended. Concealed by the vines, he had concluded that the occupants of the château were already gone out on the road to the coast.

He had returned for the mule, made a detour around to the road, and advanced toward the château. But he found no one. The château was in flames. He now thought that if any of its occupants had escaped, they would be in the mountain from which he had descended, and would come down the trail to the river. He had, therefore, traveled with the mule as fast as he could to that place on the road. But no one had come over the river there. He could tell that, because one, coming up out of the water, would have made wet tracks on the dry moss of the bank, and the dry carpet of the road.

Now, extremely puzzled, he had hidden the mule in the forest, and set out to see if the escaping persons had crossed the road farther on. He had traveled for several miles, but had found no wet track on the dry road. Then he had crossed the river and followed up on the opposite bank. He had hunted that face of the mountain before the pursuing mob. Finally ascending the bank of the river, he had come by chance on the Marchesa's skirt. This had given him a clew to the direction taken by the party, and following it he had finally located, by the trodden moss, the place where the river had been crossed. He had waded the river there, hoping to follow the wet tracks, but the rain had now begun to descend, and he could not tell what direction they had taken. He had returned for the mule, and followed the road to the summit of the mountain. Here he again tied the mule in the woods and began that long, tireless searching, backward and forward along the whole face of the mountain.

Finally, in despair, he returned to the mule, and as he put it, "left the thing to Jezebel an' God Almighty." And the mule, doubtless remembering, in the uncomfortable rain, the shelter of the abandoned cabin, had gone along the backbone of the mountain into the clearing. And so he had found them.

But to the circuit rider it was God's work; the angel of the Lord in the night, in the impenetrable mist, walking by the beast's bridle. He was depressed and penitent. He had been one of little faith, one of that perverse and headstrong generation; afraid, like the Assyrian, to trust God. And so, in spite of him, they had been found.

The man was so evidently distressed that the Marchesa Soderrelli hastened to reassure him. She told him how the Duke of Dorset had gone twice to a window to kill him. She thought the deep religious nature of the man would see here a providential intervention—the hand of Yahveh thrust out for the preservation of His servant. But in this she was mistaken. He had been in the presence, not of God's mercy, but of His anger. The hand had been reached out, not to preserve, but to dash him into pieces. He believed in the austere God of the ancient Scriptures, who visited the wavering servant with punishments immediate and ruthless; the arrow drawn at a venture and the edge of the sword.