Her eyes still fixed him…. The hand holding the revolver trembled more violently. Slowly the mouth of the weapon sank to lips—to chin—to breast…. It hovered there a moment, just over the heart—the finger twitched a little—twitched but did not pull. It was a finger governed by a vanished will in a shrivelled brain.
Then, suddenly, the revolver leaped—the finger pulled. With a shrill screech of hopeless, hideous imprecation, a shriek that died still-born, the bullet pierced flesh and bone and brain; and that which had been a man that should have been a boy, lurched drunkenly and lay a crumpled nothing upon the deck. There was blood upon the deck—beside the hem of the crimson gown, near to the crimson heel of her shoe. And the gown was caught beneath the body of the boy that was.
She looked down upon him. The smile not even yet had left her lips. With a lithe movement, infinitely graceful, she drew away, disengaging the hem of her crimson garment…. A crimson petal from the great cluster in her arms fell upon it, to lie upon the hollow whiteness of the upturned cheek…. And that was all.
A man—a man that should have been a boy—was gone…. Hurrying, horror- ridden passengers found him there, alone. The doctor came, and stewards, and the captain. They lifted him, and bore him away. Of those who live in the froth of things—the froth that is often the scum—there were several. One of these knew him.
"It's Young Parmalee," he informed them.
And that was all he knew; that, and possibly some other things that are little. But of the great things, he knew nothing. For of these great things, God has told us but little.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
A WARNING.
The storm that had come hissing across the Sound did not last long. Its very fierceness, it seemed, was its own undoing. Its frenzy soon passed. And anon the sun shone; the drooping flowers raised to it pitiful, bedraggled little faces; and from the fields, rose the burden of incense, moist, fragrant giving wet thanks of its coming and of its going.