CHAPTER XI.
Guinea and Chyd, old Lim and his wife went to church the next day, leaving Alf and me alone. Alf held himself in reasonable restraint until the old people were gone, and then he broke out so violently that I really feared for his reason. And it was mainly my fault for I read him a passionate poem, the outcry of a maddened soul, and he swore that it had been written for him, that it was his, and I caught his spirit and fancied that he might have written it, for I believed then, as I believe now, that great things do not come from a quiet heart, that quiet hearts may criticise, but that they do not create, that genius is a condition, an agony, a tortured John Bunyan.
I went to the spring to get a bucket of fresh water, and when I returned Alf was nowhere to be found. I went out and shouted his name, but no answer came back. I went out into the woods, walked up and down the road, but could see nothing of him. The shadows fell short and the old people and Guinea and Chyd returned from church, and the noon-tide meal was spread, but Alf came not. But save with me there was no anxiety, as he was wont to poke about alone they said. Evening, bed-time came. Chyd went home, and I went up to my room. I heard the old man locking the smoke-house door—heard his wife singing a hymn, heard Guinea's faint foot-steps as she returned from the gate, whither she went to bid her lover good-night, and her little feet fell not upon the path, but upon my heart. I went to bed, leaving the lamp burning low, and was almost asleep when I heard Alf on the stairs. He ran into the room with both hands pressed against his head. I sprang up. He ran to me and dropped upon his knees at the bed-side, dropped and clutched the covering and buried his face in it. I put my arm about him, knelt beside him, heard his smothered muttering, and put my face against his. "Bill!" he gasped in a shivering whisper, "Bill, I have killed him!"
"Merciful God!" I cried, springing back. He reached round, as if to draw me down beside him. "Hush, don't let them hear down stairs. Come here, Bill."
I lifted him to his feet, turned him round so that I could see his face. It was horror-stricken. "I have killed Dan Stuart."
He stood with both hands on my shoulders looking into my eyes.
"Wait a minute and I'll tell you. It wasn't altogether my fault. He ought to be dead. He tried to kill me. I left here without any thought of seeing him; didn't want to see him. I went away over yonder into the woods. I heard you calling me. Later in the day I came out near the wagon-maker's shop, and several fellows were sitting there, and I stopped to answer a question somebody asked me, and pretty soon here came Stuart. He grinned at me, but this didn't make me want to kill him. Do they hear me down stairs?"
"Go on, for God's sake!" I urged. "Why did you kill him? Didn't you know——"
"I knew everything, Bill. But I didn't want to kill him. I turned away, and walked up the road, and he came along after me on his horse. And when we were some distance away he made a slighting remark about Millie. I wheeled around and he snatched out a pistol and pointed it at me. I hadn't a thing, and there he was on a horse and with a pistol pointed at me. There was not a stone, nothing within reach. I was cool, I had sense, and I told him that he might have his fun, but that I would see him again. And when he had cursed me and abused me as much as he liked he rode away, leaving me standing there. I ran over to Parker's and told him that I wanted a pistol to shoot a dog with, and he gave it to me. Then I went back to the road and waited. He had gone over to the General's, I thought, and I knew that he would come back that way. I would make him swallow his words—I knew that he didn't mean what he said about Millie—knew that he simply wanted to stir me up and have an excuse to kill me. So I waited in the road not far from Doc Etheredge's, waited a long time and at last I heard some one coming on a horse. I didn't hide; I stood in the middle of the road. A man came up, but it wasn't him; it was Etheredge. He spoke to me, asked me good-naturedly why I was standing there, and I told him that I was waiting for a dog that I wanted to kill. He turned into his gate, a short distance off, and I stood there. After a while I heard another horse, and I knew his gait—single-foot. It was Stuart. He was singing and he didn't appear to see me until he was almost on me. His horse shied. 'Who is that?' he asked, and I told him. 'And you are going to take back what you said,' I remarked as quietly as I could, 'or I'm going to kill you right here.' He didn't say a word—he snatched at his pistol and then I fired, and he fell forward on his horse's neck. The horse jumped and I sprang forward and caught the body and eased it to the ground—stretched it in the road and left it. But I went up to Etheredge's house and hallooed, and when he answered I told him that the dog had come and that his name was Dan Stuart, and that he would find him lying in the road. I heard him shout something, but I didn't wait for him to come out, but went into the woods and came on home. And now I've got to go."