The Gilded Chair: A Novel

by Melville Davisson Post

It must be remembered that this man's God was the God of the Tishbite, who numbered his followers by the companies who drew the sword.

The two men returned at once to the spring, and the little party again set out through the mountains. The plan of travel was now changed. The circuit rider took a trail down the mountain in a direct line to the coast, and he hurried; the trail was at places rough and steep; the injured woman with difficulty kept her place on the pack saddle. They reached the low-lying foot hills, crossed the long broken hollow, dense with thickets, and ascended the next mountain, going due west. The old man traveled as fast as he could; he urged the mule, speaking to it as one might to a careless, lagging child, "Come along, Jezebel; mind where you're walkin'"; and when the mule stumbled, a gentle, scolding note came into his voice, "Pshaw! Jezebel, air your eyes in the back of your head?"

But in spite of the direct route and every effort of the old man they traveled slowly. The sun had gone down when they began the ascent of the second mountain. They stopped for a few minutes, and ate what remained of the food, then they pushed on, climbing toward the summit.

Meanwhile, night descended. A deep-blue twilight emerged from the hollows, the remote valleys, the hidden nooks and corners of the wilderness, crept in among the brown trunks of the fir trees, and climbed to the ridges. Then, imperceptibly, as though pigment flowed in, the twilight deepened, the stars came out, and it was night.

They crossed the summit of the second mountain, descended for perhaps three hundred yards, then turned due north and came out abruptly into the great road. The moon was beginning to come up, its hidden disk preceded by a golden haze that feebly lighted the world. The road lay outlined in shadow, running in a long sweep around a shoulder of the mountain on its way to the sea. The four persons continued down this road to the coast. The mountaineer leading the mule, on which the Marchesa Soderrelli rode, and the two others following behind them.

Caroline Childers, walking beside the Duke of Dorset, lagged as though worn out with fatigue. The space between the four persons widened and drew out into a considerable distance. Presently, when the mule turned the shoulder of the mountain, the girl stopped. At the same time, as upon some signal, the moon arose, pouring its silver light into the wilderness over the green tops of the fir trees and down into the road, etching delicate fantastic shadows on the bed of brown fir needles, filtering in among the vines massed on the wall, and turning the dark earth as by some magic into a soft, shimmering, illumined fairy world. The whole wilderness of tree tops rising to the sky was bathed in light. A mist, silvered at its edges, lay on the sea, hiding it, as under an opaque film.

When the girl spoke, her voice hurried as with an explanation.

"You did not understand the Marchesa Soderrelli. She merely wanted us to go on; to save ourselves."

"And you," said the man, "was that your reason, too?"

The girl hesitated. Then she answered, adding one sentence out of sequence to another. "She could not go on. I thought... I mean, you could get away alone—but not with us. You had done enough. It was not fair... any more. You had a right to your chance... to... your life."