Carmen Ariza Part 188

"Lord! Lord! Monsignor, but you are slow! Come to the point quickly!

We must go to press within an hour!" wailed Haynerd, shaking the churchman's arm in his excitement.

"But, what more?" cried Lafelle. "I saw the portrait in the Royal Gallery, years ago, in Madrid. It impressed me. I could not forget the sad, sweet face. I saw it again in the stained-gla.s.s window in the Ames yacht. I became suspicious. I inquired when I returned to Spain.

There was much whispering, much shaking of heads, but little information. But this I know: the queen, the great Isabella, had a lover, a wonderful tenor, Marfori, Marquis de Loja. And one day a babe was taken quietly to a little cottage in the Granada hills. Rumor said that it was an Infanta, and that the tenor was its father. Who knew?

One man, perhaps: old Rafael de Rincon. But Rome suddenly recalled him from Isabella's court, and after that he was very quiet."

"But, Ames?" persisted Haynerd.

Lafelle shrugged his shoulders. "Mr. Ames," he said, "traveled much in Europe. He went often to Spain. He bought a vineyard in Granada--the one from which he still procures his wine. And there--who knows?--he met the Infanta. But probably neither he nor she guessed her royal birth."

"Well! Good Lord! Then--?"

"Well, they eloped--who knows? Whether married or not, I can not say.

But it is evident she went with him to Colombia, where, perhaps, he was seeking a concession from Congress in Bogota. So far, so good.

Then came the news of his father's sudden death. He hastened out of the country. Possibly he bade her wait for his return. But a prospective mother is often excitable. She waited a day, a week--who knows how long? And then she set out to follow him. Alas! she was wild to do such a thing. And it cost her life. She died at the little riverine town of Badillo, after her babe, Carmen, was born. Is it not plausible?"

"G.o.d above!" cried Haynerd. "And the girl's wonderful voice?"

"A heritage from her grandfather, the tenor, Marfori," Lafelle suggested.

"But--the portraits--what is the name under that of Ames? Guillermo?

That is not his!"

"Yes, for Guillermo in Spanish is William. Doubtless Ames told her his name was Will, contracted from Wilton, the name he went by in his youth. And the nearest the Spanish could come to it was Guillermo.

Diego's name was Guillermo Diego Polo. And after he had seen that name in the locket he used it as a further means of strengthening his claim upon the girl."

"Then--she is--a--princess!"

"Yes, doubtless, if my reasoning is correct. Not an Inca princess, but a princess of the reigning house of Spain."

Haynerd could hold himself no longer, but rushed madly from the room and tore across town to the office of the Express.

Then came the white-enameled ambulance, das.h.i.+ng and careening to the doors of the building where Ames lay so quiet. Gently, silently, the great body was lifted and borne below. And then the chattering, gesticulating mob poured from the court room, from the halls and corridors, and out into the chill sunlight of the streets, where they formed anew into little groups, and went over again the dramatic events but a few minutes past.

Then, too, emerged Carmen, heavily veiled from the curious, vulgar gaze of the rabble, and entered the waiting limousine, with the Beaubien and Hitt. Miss Wall and the gasping Jude followed in another.

The judge had bidden the girl go on her own recognizance. The arrest at Avon; the matter of bail; all had merged into the excitement of the hour and been forgotten. Ketchim went out on Ca.s.s's arm. The judge had ordered the clerk to enter an adjournment.

All that afternoon and far into the night a gaping, wondering concourse braved the cold and stood about the walk that led up to the little Beaubien cottage. Within, the curtains were drawn, and Sidney, Jude, and Miss Wall answered the calls that came incessantly over the telephone and to the doors. Sidney had not been in the court room, for Haynerd had left him at the editor's desk in his own absence. But with the return of Haynerd the lad had hurried into a taxicab and commanded the chauffeur to drive madly to the Beaubien home. And once through the door, he clasped the beautiful girl in his arms and strained her to his breast.

"My sister!" he cried. "My own, my very own little sister! We only pretended before, didn't we? But now--now, oh, G.o.d above! you really are my sister!"

The scarce comprehending girl drew his head down and kissed him.

"Sidney," she murmured, "the ways of G.o.d are past finding out!"

Aye, for again, as of old, He had chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; He had chosen the weak to confound the mighty; and the base things, and the things despised, had He used to bring to naught the things that are. And why? That no flesh might glory in His terrible presence!

"Carmen!" cried the excited boy. "Think what this means to our book!"

The girl smiled up at him; then turned away. "My father!" she murmured. "He--my father!" she kept repeating, groping her way about the room as if in a haze. "He! It can't be! It can't!"

The still dazed Beaubien drew the girl into her arms. "My little princess!" she whispered. "Oh! But who would have dreamed it! Yet I called you that from the very first. But--oh, Carmen! And he--that man--your father!"

"Don't! Mother, don't! It--it isn't proved. It--"

Then the Beaubien's heart almost stopped. What if it were true? What, then, would this sudden turn in the girl's life mean to the lone woman who clung to her so?

"No, mother dearest," whispered Carmen, looking up through her tears.

"For even if it should be true, I will not leave you. He--he--"

She stopped; and would speak of him no more.

But neither of them knew as yet that in that marvelous Fifth Avenue palace, behind those drawn curtains and guarded bronze doors, at which an eager crowd stood staring, Ames, the superman, lay dying, his left side, from the shoulder down, paralyzed.

In the holy quiet of the first hours of morning, the mist rose, and the fallen man roused slowly out of his deep stupor. And then through the dim-lit halls of the great mansion rang a piercing cry. For when he awoke, the curtain stood raised upon his life; and the sight of its ghastly content struck wild terror to his naked soul.

He had dreamed as he lay there, dreamed while the mist was rising. He thought he had been toiling with feverish energy through those black hours, building a wall about the things that were his. And into the design of the huge structure he had fitted the trophies of his conquest. Gannette toiled with him, straining, sweating, groaning.

Together they reared that monstrous wall; and as they labored, the man plotted the death of his companion when the work should be done, lest he ask for pay. And into the corners of the wall they fitted little skulls. These were the children of Avon who had never played. And over the great stones which they heaved into place they sketched red dollar-marks; and their paint was human blood. A soft wind swept over the rising structure, and it bore a gentle voice: "I am Love." But the toilers looked up and cursed. "Let us alone!" they cried. "Love is weakness!" And over the rim of the wall looked fair faces. "We are Truth, we are Life!" But the men frothed with fury, and hurled skulls at the faces, and bade them begone! A youth and a tender girl looked down at the sweating toilers. "We ask help; we are young, and times are so hard!" But the great man pointed to himself. "Look at me!" he cried. "I need no help! Begone!" And then the darkness settled down, for the wall was now so high that it shut out the sun. And the great man howled with laughter; the wall was done. So he turned and smote his companion unto death, and dipped his hands in the warm blood of the quivering corpse.

But the darkness was heavy. The man grew lonely. And then he sought to mount the wall. But his hands slipped on the human blood of the red, slimy dollar-marks, and he fell cras.h.i.+ng back among his tinkling treasures. He rose, and tried again. The naked, splitting skulls leered at him. The toothless jaws clattered, and the eyeless sockets glowed eerily. The man raised his voice. He begged that a rope be lowered. He would go out once more into the sunlit world. But the chill wind brought him only despairing moans.

Then he rushed madly to the wall, and smote it with his bare hands. It mocked him with the strength which he had given it. He turned and tore his hair and flesh. He gnashed his teeth until they broke into bits.

He cursed; he raved; he pleaded; he offered all his great treasure for freedom. But the skulls grinned their horrid mockery at him; and the blood on the stones dripped upon his burning head. And above it all he heard the low plotting of those without who were awaiting his death, that they might throw down the wall and take away his treasure.

And then his fear became frenzy; his love of gold turned to horror; his reason fled; and he dashed himself wildly against the prison which he had reared, until he fell, bleeding and broken. And as he fell, he heard the shrill cackle of demons that danced their h.e.l.lish steps on the top of the wall. Then the Furies flew down and bound him tight.

"Ah, my G.o.d, What might I not have made of Thy fair world Had I but loved Thy highest creature here? It was my duty to have loved the highest; It surely was my profit had I known."

He awoke from his terror, dripping. He feebly lifted his head. Then he sought to raise his arms, to move. He was alive! And then the scream tore from his dry throat. His great body was half dead!

The attendants flew to his couch. The physicians bent over him and sought to soothe his mental agony. The man's torture was fearful to behold; his weakness, pitiable. He sank again into somnolence. But the sleep was one of unbroken horror; and those in the room stopped in the course of their duties; and their faces blanched; and they held their hands to their ears, when his awful moans echoed through the curtained room.

Through his dreams raced the endless panorama of his crowded life. Now he was wading through muddy slums where stood the wretched houses which he rented for immoral purposes. He was madly searching for something. What could it be? Ah, yes, his girl! Some one had said she was there. Who was it? Aye, who but himself? But he found her not. And he wept bitterly.

And then he hurried to Avon; and there he dug into those fresh graves--dug, dug, dug, throwing the dirt up in great heaps behind him.

And into the face of each corpse as he dragged it out of its damp bed he peered eagerly. But with awful moans he threw them from him in turn, for she was not there.

Then he fled down, down, far into the burning South; and there he roamed the trackless wastes, calling her name. And the wild beasts and the hissing serpents looked out at him from the thick bush, looked with great, red eyes, and then fled from him with loathing. And, suddenly, he came upon another mound near the banks of a great river.

And over it stood a rude cross; and on the cross he read the dim, penciled word, _Dolores_. Ah, G.o.d! how he cried out for the oblivion that was not his. But the ghastly mound froze his blood, and he rushed from it in terror, and fell, whirling over and over, down, down into eternal blackness filled with dying men's groans!

The awful day drew to a close. The exhausted attendants stood about the bed with bated breath. The physicians had called Doctor Morton in consultation, for the latter was a brain specialist. And while they sat gazing at the crazed, stricken giant, hopelessly struggling to lift the inert ma.s.s of his dead body, Reverend Darius Borwell entered.

He bowed silently to them all; then went to the bedside and took the patient's hand. A moment later he turned to the physicians and nurses.

"Let us ask G.o.d's help for Mr. Ames," he said gravely.