The Lash Part 22

CHAPTER XXIII

WANDERl.u.s.t

O'Byrn reeled to and fro, in fierce combat with Shaughnessy. Again and again, while his breath came in gasps and his temples throbbed with his efforts, he had nearly gained the advantage, but the boss as often slipped from his hold with an ugly sneer, eluding him. And now occurred a grisly thing, for before his horrified eyes his enemy's body suddenly lengthened and changed into a monstrous, writhing serpent, wriggling sinuously toward him. He strove to scream, but could not, and the creature coiled itself in triumph near him. Upreared above its horrid neck was the swaying head, the ghastly face of Shaughnessy, who leered with his black serpent's eyes and darted a forked tongue. Now the creature crawled sluggishly toward him--coiled its horrid folds about him--and he could not move. The last coil tightened above his neck, while he gazed upward, strangling, into dead, unwinking, awful eyes, the eyes of Shaughnessy. Now he was borne backward; the creature was shattering his head upon the floor. Thud!--thud!--thud!

O'Byrn fairly shot out of bed, groaning as the impact of his feet upon the floor sent a diabolical thrust of pain through his aching head. He pressed his temples convulsively and closed his eyes, blinded by the glare of sunlight through the window. Why, what was that? Somebody was pounding insistently at his door. It was this which had awakened him.

"What is it?" he called.

His landlady answered him. "There's a telegram for you, Mr. O'Byrn. A young fellow just brought it in from the Courier office. He said they'd sent him right over here with it."

"Thanks," he mumbled indifferently. "Just shove it under the door, will you?"

A small yellow envelope was thrust beneath the portal, the woman's footsteps receded down the stairs. Inside his room stood O'Byrn with his splitting head between shaking hands, his bloodshot eyes closing in sheer physical misery. The meagre form in the flamboyant pajamas winced perceptibly as stabs of cruel pain continued to pierce Micky's temples.

The freckled face went gray as the overwrought stomach writhed in sickening nausea.

It was with a long, shuddering sigh that he turned at last to his ablutions. He dressed mechanically, his memory groping through the mists of the preceding night, mists that reeked with misery, with shameful groveling, with manhood profaned.

Ah, G.o.d! he had fallen again, again! Numbly he glanced at the mirror.

The gla.s.s reflected heavy, unnatural eyes in which despair brooded like a cloud, a haggard face from which the freckles stared strangely forth from unaccustomed pallor. Slowly, painfully, his mind wrestled with the problem of the night before, a night unreal, peopled with phantoms that gibbered and peered from enshrouding blackness.

Dominated by another's master will, had he indeed emerged through shadows to victory, or was the episode in the Courier office merely a grateful, fleeting dream to accentuate the misery of waking? O'Byrn looked at his watch, it marked the hour of two. He had slept long, it seemed. How had he reached home, had he been in the Courier office at all the previous night?

However, what mattered it? What mattered anything in the shadow of this appalling thing which mastered him, which dogged him in times of fancied security, only to spring upon him unaware and rend him, leaving him sorely wounded again to painfully traverse for a season the path of duty? What mattered anything to one whose stumbling steps laid hold on h.e.l.l?

Seizing hat and coat O'Byrn started for the door. His downcast gaze fell upon the yellow envelope. Absently he stooped and dropped the message, unopened, into his coat pocket. The landlady met him at the foot of the stairs and inquired kindly if he would eat something. He replied only with a gesture of utter repugnance. She looked after him as he went out, shaking her head sadly.

O'Byrn stumbled blindly out upon the street, blurred eyes blinking in dazzling suns.h.i.+ne of an ideal Indian summer afternoon. The warm, fragrant air was incense to the nostrils, the sky was of a heavenly blue. Micky closed miserable eyes to the glories of the day. The villainous old feelings, so well remembered, racked him cruelly. The odd depression which always followed his indulgence was bad enough, but now--

A dumb terror seized him. He hurried up the quiet street toward a busier thoroughfare, his ears strained for the cries of newsboys, even as the spirit within him grew sick for fear of disappointment.

In another moment his shoulders squared, his red head lifted with a.s.surance in part renewed. For he could now see a thronged street; from afar he could fairly snuff the air of unwonted excitement. Now he beheld newsboys running here and there with early editions of the evening papers, their wares disappearing fast as April snows. The burden of their shrill cries was the exposure of the gang, with "follow-up"

details upon the Courier's story. O'Byrn drew a long breath of relief.

Well, he should now be communicating with the office. He looked longingly toward a saloon. Throat and mouth were parched dry as desert sands. Resolutely turning away, he entered a drug store instead, purchased a bromide and then stepped into a telephone booth.

Securing Harkins' ear at the Courier office, he told the city editor that he felt pretty "shaky," and inquired if he were needed there.

Harkins replied that it was expected he would rest for a couple of days and added some warm congratulatory words. O'Byrn thanked him, and with a bitter smile, hung up the receiver.

Stepping into a tobacco store he purchased some cigars, and as he handed the salesman a coin he remembered that he had not drawn his salary, due the day before. Walking to the Courier's business office he secured his money, accepting, with an odd indifference, the congratulations of some fellow employes there upon his brilliant coup.

Next, although at the moment he could not have told just why, he stopped at the bank where, through the influence of a warm dream near his heart, he had been of late depositing a portion of his wages each week, and called for his money. Placing the little bundle of bills carefully in his pocket book, he left the building and sauntered slowly down the crowded street.

Everything told of a triumph which it seemed should have had the little Irishman walking upon air. Everything pointed to as impressive a climax as he could have wished. Everywhere were knots of excited men, with strident voices and brandished fists. The clubs and hotels were teeming with the story, the curbs proclaimed it. Newsboys were reaping harvests and the news stands could hardly supply the hungry demand.

Public opinion, at first stunned by the sensational exposure of a system of wholesale corruption well nigh unbelievable, was gathering force like a mighty, overwhelming wave, which was to sweep down in vengeance upon the trembling, illicit crew, now leaderless. This, however, was not yet known, nor was it destined to become so until the evening. There would be another rich morsel for the Courier in the early morning, though none knew it now.

Shaughnessy had been wont to live in seclusion that was undisturbed save when he was minded to summon one or another of his crew. His lodgings occupied the upper floor of a small, two-story building, with unpretentious stores below, and few ascended the stairs that had not business with Shaughnessy and been called thither. Also, the boss had invariably taken his meals outside and so managed in all respects that once in his retreat, when he so willed, he was in unbroken seclusion.

So it transpired that Shaughnessy, limp in the chair before the desk in his den, sat in grisly silence through the long night till the dawn which heralded his exposure; sat through the long day, with the sun's rays beating through the window upon his glazed, unwinking eyes; sat quietly, while men throughout the city cursed him for the masterly knave he had been, conferring together in plans of futile reprisal. So he sat, deaf, unheeding, beyond it all; while some men watched others whom they thought harbored him and others thought him gone.

And so he was--to a far country, where they could not follow him. Even now, as he sat waiting for them, there was a sardonic look about his grim, relaxed jaws which might tell them, when they were finally come--summoned through the veriest accident to get him--that they were welcome to what was left.

As...o...b..rn walked along the crowded street, he pa.s.sed some members of the gang, hurrying by with white faces and furtive eyes, cringing in the glare of publicity as if a lash bit deep into quivering flesh. Others he met who affected an exaggerated boldness which failed to hide their uneasiness. Some who knew O'Byrn shot glances at him that were white-hot with hate, one breathed a livid curse as they touched elbows.

To all the tumult, the strident clamor of indignation, the scurrying hither and yon of scared, branded rats of men, O'Byrn remained curiously indifferent. As during his dictation of the previous night, he proceeded as if in a maze, with the air of a sleep walker, gaze dead ahead; no triumph in the eyes, only infinite weariness.

For O'Byrn was confronted by the merciless logic of his fate, feeling the strangling grip of the enemy upon his soul. At times like these there was given him cruel realization at its full, the grim, prophetic knowledge that he must fight a losing battle to the end. Without knowing the source, he recognized the deadly taint of heredity in his blood. A hard road was his to travel, and--supremest sacrifice!--now he knew that in simple justice he must pursue it--alone. And the winds are bleak that howl about a solitary way.

So, on this beautiful autumn afternoon, walking in the midst of a public upheaval which he had produced, the cup of success held only bitter lees. Face to face with inevitable renunciation of his dearest hope, the present moment held no thrill. There was no rose, only the pallid gray; wan, cold ashes of endeavor. Through this d.a.m.ning thing he was doomed to walk alone in arid places, a soul cut off from Israel.

A voice hailed him, recalling him to pulsing actualities. It was that of Mead, his fellow-worker upon the staff of the Courier.

"h.e.l.lo!" remarked Mead, shaking O'Byrn's hand. "Great story! You've won that bet, all right."

"What bet?" returned Micky, listlessly.

"Why, that Santa Claus bet about Shaughnessy," rejoined the other, producing a ten dollar bill. "You know, in the lunch room that time; that he'd get his. Well, you're a wizard and here you are. It's a little early, but Boynton's grave is waitin'. Don't be bashful. I've made twice the stuff already with outside specials on your story. Thought I'd pay you right up, maybe you could use it."

"Thanks, Mead," replied Micky, wearily. "Why, yes, I can use it."

"They're holdin' a pow-wow at the office," pursued Mead. "Harkins, he's walkin' on air. Everyone's speculatin' on how much they'll boost your pay. Wish I'd get half of it. But I'm a dub. Say, Glenwood's out of town. They sent him off on something growin' out of your yarn."

"Sorry he's gone," replied Micky, moving on. "Give him my regards. So long, Mead."

"Ain't he the foolish frost?" wondered Mead, staring curiously after the Irishman. "Doesn't seem to give a d.a.m.n. Worryin' over his bat, likely.

Why, bat or no bat, if I'd turned out that story, I'd--but I couldn't.

Switch off!" He shook his head mournfully as he hurried up the street.

O'Byrn proceeded to the writing room of a hotel where he penned three notes, sealed and stamped the envelopes, and slipped them into his pocket. Returning to the street he walked to the corner, stared absently about for a moment and then boarded a street car, harbor bound.

A little later he sat upon the edge of the wharves, his feet dangling above the restless surface of the waters. The workaday bustle and confusion, the shrill cries of roustabouts mingling with the thumping din of manhandled freight, the clatter of trucks, the tramp of countless feet, the shrieks of whistles and hoa.r.s.e growl of gongs; all these were as if they had not been to a mind capable of such absorption that it could, did occasion demand, work undisturbed in the thunderous roar of a rolling mill.

So the lonely, meagre figure rested motionless in the midst of unrealized tumult, the sombre eyes gazed past the vessels thronging the waterway to some dim goal far beyond the humming ken of commerce, straight into the realm of dreams. The ears drank in only the murmur of lazy waters whispering about the piers in the wash of a falling tide, bearing the message of the sea.

The message of the sea! Softly low, like the love note of a mother, it whispered to the alien brooding spirit, whispered of spindrift whipped to showers of briny spray in the sweep of unleashed winds, whispered of illimitable, splendid unrest. Out beyond the land-locked haven of the s.h.i.+ps the great waves rolled league on league, in unfettered freedom, to annoint the feet of a far world.

Low in the west, the sun crimsoned the distant sky line and tinged with rose the gray of wan, far-flung billows. The balm of a soft breeze, instinct with the latent fragrance of the pa.s.sing year, breathed over the tossing waters of the harbor, lately rent by a strong wind, and lulled them to cradled peace. High overhead a flock of gulls wheeled with harsh cries, winging straight out to the sky line of gray and rose that hemmed the sweep of the restless sea.

Mechanically the man on the wharf rose to his feet, standing with hands in his coat pockets, watching the soaring gulls. Like the wind they flew, straight out to the rose and gray and beyond, white specks swallowed in the mists of distance. Even yet the eyes of the man's mind followed them, atoms that swooped triumphantly into the teeth of stinging winds; atoms fiercely clamorous, mad with the mere ecstasy of life, with wild, aimless wandering, the zest of battle with wind and wave.

O'Byrn drew a long, shuddering breath. It had gripped him again, this compelling ghost that could never be laid for long. In his eyes blazed the old, restless light, the wild will-o'-the-wisp which lures the born wanderer the wide world over in erratic flight till set o' sun. His tired brain, his sick heart, alike craved the old nepenthe of unrest.

Reborn of the whispered message of wide-flung tides, the sight of the screaming gulls, the old longing of his nature sought vent in a strident inward cry. Once more, bringing the sharp, exquisite pain he feared, yet loved, the lash came hurtling out of the unknown, driving him on to new scenes that all too soon were old, to dream houses built on crumbling sands. The strange light of his eyes grew brighter, the wine of quickened wanderl.u.s.t mounted in deepening glow upward to heart and brain.

O'Byrn became conscious of a small, square object in his pocket.