At the Mercy of Tiberius Part 13

"This is no ordinary fainting fit."

He attempted to roll up one of her sleeves, but seeing this was impracticable, would have unfastened her dress, had not Judge Dent arrested his hand.

"No, doctor; cut out the sleeve if necessary, but don't touch her otherwise."

"Let me a.s.sist you; I can easily bare the arm."

As he spoke, Mr. Dunbar knelt beside the bench, and with a small, sharp pen-knife ripped the seam from elbow to shoulder, from elbow to wrist, swiftly and deftly folding back the sleeve, and exposing the perfect moulding of the snowy arm.

"Just hold the hand, Dunbar, so as to keep it steady."

Clasping closely the hand, which the physician laid in his palm the attorney noted the exquisite symmetry of the slender fingers and oval nails. He bent forward and watched the frozen face. When the heavily lashed lids quivered and lifted, and she looked vacantly at the grave compa.s.sionate countenances leaning over her, a certain tightening of the hold upon her fingers, drew her attention. Her gaze fastened on the lawyer's blue eyes as if by a subtle malign fascination. The veil that shrouded consciousness was rent, not fully raised; and as in some dream the solemn eyes appeared to search his. A strange s.h.i.+vering thrill shot along his nerves, and his quiet, well regulated heart so long the docile obedient motor, fettered va.s.sal of his will, bounded, strained hard on the steel cable that held it in thrall.

"You feel better now?" asked the physician, who was stanching the flow of blood.

Still her gaze seemed to penetrate the inmost recesses of the lawyer's nature, calling into sudden revolt dormant elements that amazed and defied him.

A shadowy smile curved her pale lips.

"At the mercy of Tiberius. At the mercy of Tiberius."

Those present looked inquiringly at each other.

"Her mind wanders a little. Sheriff, give her some of that brandy. She is as weak as a baby."

Judge Dent raised her head, and the officer held the tumbler to her mouth; while the former said gently:

"My poor girl, drink a little, it will strengthen you."

With a gesture of loathing, she rejected it; and as she attempted to raise herself, all the dire extremity of her peril rushed back upon her mind, like a black overwhelming tide from the sea of the past.

"Lie still, until I have bandaged your arm. Here, Dunbar, you acquitted yourself so dexterously with your knife, just lend a hand. Hold the arm until I secure the bandage."

To find herself surrounded by men, helpless in the grasp of strangers, with no womanly touch or glance to sustain her, served to intensify her misery; and wrenching herself free, she struggled into a sitting posture, then staggered to her feet. The heavy coil of hair loosened when they bore her from the court-room, now released itself from restraining pins, and fell in burnished waves to her knees, clothing her with a glory, such as the world's great masters in art reserve for the beatified. Had all the blood that fed her heart been drained, she would not have appeared more deadly pale, and in her wide eyes was the desperate look of a doomed animal, that feels the hot fangs of the hounds, and the cold steel of the hunters.

"Be persuaded for your own sake, to swallow some stimulant, of which you are sadly in need. You will require all your strength, and, as a physician, I insist upon your taking my prescription."

"If I might have some water. Just a little water."

Some one brought a brown stone pitcher, and she drank long and thirstily; then looked for a moment at the faces of those who crowded about her.

"What will be done now?"

Every eye fell to the floor, and after a painful silence Judge Dent said very gently:

"For the present, the Magistrate will retain you in custody, until the action of the Grand Jury. Should they fail to indict you, then you will at once be released."

"I am to go to prison? I am to be thrust among convicts, vile criminals! I--? My father's Beryl? O, righteous G.o.d! Where is Thy justice? O, Christ! Is Thy mercy a mockery?"

She stood, with her chin resting on her clenched hands, and twice a long violent shudder shook her from head to foot.

"I hope your imprisonment will be only temporary. The Grand Jury will be in session next week. Meantime diligent search may discover the persons whose conversation you overheard at the station; and if you be innocent, we are all your friends, and the law, which now seems so stern, will prove your strongest protector and vindicator."

Judge Dent stood close beside her, as he essayed these words of comfort, and saw that she caught her breath as though in mortal agony.

Her face writhed, and she shut her eyes, unable to contemplate some hideous apparition. He suspected that she was fighting desperately an impulse that suggested succor; and he was sure she had strangled it, when her hands fell nerveless at her side, and she raised her bowed head. If the finger of paralysis had pa.s.sed over her features, they would not have appeared more hopelessly fixed. Mechanically she twisted and coiled her hair, and took the hat and shawl which the officer held out to her.

"If I can a.s.sist you in any way, you have only to send for me."

She looked at Judge Dent intently, for an instant, then shook her head.

"No one can help me now."

She tied her veil over her face, and silently followed the deputy sheriff to a carriage, that stood near the pavement.

When he would have a.s.sisted her, she haughtily repelled him.

"I will follow you, because I must; but do not put your hands on me."

CHAPTER VII.

In ante bellum days, when States' Rights was a sacred faith, a revered and precious palladium, State pride blossomed under Southern skies, and State coffers overflowed with the abundance wherewith G.o.d blessed the land. During that period, when it became necessary to select a site for a new Penitentiary, the salubrity and central location of X---had so strongly commended it, that the s.p.a.cious structure was erected within its limits, and regarded as an architectural triumph of which the State might justly boast. Soon after this had been completed, the old county jail, situated on the border of the town, was burned one windy March night; then the red rain of war deluged the land, and when the ghastly sun of "Reconstruction" smiled upon the grave of States' Rights, Munic.i.p.al money disappeared in subterranean channels. Thus it came to pa.s.s, that with the exception of a small "lockup" attached to Police Headquarters, X--had failed to rebuild its jail, and domiciled its dangerous transgressors in the great stone prison; paying therefor to the State an annual amount per capita.

Built of gray granite which darkened with time and weather stains, its ma.s.sive walls, machicolated roof, and tall arched clock-tower lifted their leaden outlines against the sky, and cast a brooding shadow over the town, lying below; a grim perpetual menace to all who subsequently found themselves locked in its reformatory arms. Separated from the bustling mart and busy traffic, by the winding river that divided the little city into North and South X--, it crested an eminence on the north; and the single lower story flanking the main edifice east and west, resembled the trailing wings of some vast bird of prey, an exaggerated simulacrum of a monstrous gray condor perched on a "coigne of vantage," waiting to swoop upon its victims. Encircled by a tall brick wall, which was surmounted by iron spikes sharp as bayonets, that defied escalade, the grounds extended to the verge of the swift stream in front, and stretched back to the border of a heavily timbered tract of pine land, a bit of primeval forest left to stare at the encroaching armies of Philistinism.

Within the precincts of the yard, the tender conservatism of our great-hearted mother Nature, gently toned the savage stony features; and even under the chill frown of iron barred windows, golden suns.h.i.+ne bravely smiled, soft gra.s.ses wove their emerald velvet tapestries starred and flushed with dainty satin petals, which late Autumn roses showered in munificent contribution, to the work of pitying love.

In a comfortably furnished room situated in the second story of the main building, sat a woman apparently thirty-five years old, who was singing to a baby lying face downward on her lap, while with one hand she rocked the wicker cradle beside her, where a boy of four years was tossing. Her hazel eyes were full of kindly light, the whole face eloquent with that patient, limitless tenderness, which is the magic chrism of maternity, wherewith Lucina and Cuba abundantly anoint Motherhood. The blessed and infallible nepenthe for all childhood's ills and aches, mother touch, mother songs, soon held soothing sway; and when the woman laid the sleeping babe on her own bed, and covered her with a shawl, she saw her husband leaning against the partly open door.

"Come here, Susie. The kids are snug and safe for the present, and I want you."

"For shame, Ned! To call our darlings such a beastly name. Kids, indeed! My sweetest, loveliest lambs!"

"There! Hear yourself! If I can see any choice of respectability between kids and lambs, may I turn to a thoroughbred Southdown, and take the blue ribbon at the next Fair. Beasts of the field, all of them. The always-wide-awake-contrariness of womankind is a curious and fearful thing. If I had called our beloved towheads, lambs, you would have sworn through blue ruin that they were the cutest, spryest pair of spotted kids, that ever skipped over a five-railed fence!"

"So much the worse for you, Ned Singleton, that you are such a hopeless heathen; you do not even know where the Elect are appointed to stand, at that great day when the sheep come up on the right hand of the Lord, and the goats go down to the left. If you read your Bible more, I should have less to teach you."

"Oh! but let me tell you, I thought of all that before I made up my mind to marry the daughter of a Presbyterian preacher. I knew your dear little blue-nose would keep the orthodox trail; and being one of the Elect you could not get the points of the celestial compa.s.s mixed.

Don't you forget, that it is part of the unspoken marriage contract, that the wife must not only keep her own soul white, but bleach her husband's also; and no matter what a reprobate a man may be, he always expects his better-half, by hook or by crook, to steer him into heaven."

He put his hands on his wife's shoulders, shook her, in token of mastery, and kissed her.

"What do you want of my 'always-wide-awake-contrariness'? I have half a mind not to help you out of your sc.r.a.pe; for of course you have mired somewhere. What is the matter now, Ned?"

"Yes--stuck hard and fast; so my dear little woman, don't you go back on your wedding-day promises, but just lend a helping hand. I don't know what is to be done with that poor young woman in No. 19. One of the under-wardens, Jarvis, sleeps this week right under her cell, and he tells me that all night long she tramps up and down, without cessation, like some caged animal. This is her third day in, and she has not touched a morsel; though at Judge Dent's request I ordered some extras given her. Jarvis said she was not sullen, but he thought it proper to report to me that she seemed to act very strangely; so I went up to see after her. When I opened the door she was walking up and down the floor, with her hands locked at the back of her head, and I declare, Susie, she looks five years older than when she came here.