in the instant of realization, as i stood near, death-stricken, where i had stopped, i felt the whole room shake and tremble as the torrent leaped upon the wheel with a flinging shock, heard a clanking screech rise from the monster as it turned, slowly at first, but quickly gathering speed under the awful pressure; heard one last bubbling scream waver up from the depths and die within the narrow vault; then all sense was whelmed and numbed in the single booming crash of water.
already, indeed, the choked water, hurled high by the paddles, was gushing through the opening in cascades upon the floor. how long would the ancient rafters and beams and walls resist the terrible pressure?
i had no thought or desire to escape. what had taken me long to describe, all passed in a few seconds. but providence, that here included so many actors in the tragedy in one common ruin, had not writ my sentence, and my young suffering soul it spared to this dark world of memories.
insatiable yet, however, it claimed a last victim.
he came running back now, breathing hateful triumph in the lust of his wickedness—came to gloat over the work of his evil hands.
i heard him splash into the water that poured from the wheel—dance in it—laugh and scream out:
“tit for tat, and the devil pipes! caught in his own net! you, there, in the dark! do you hear? where are you? where?—my arms hunger for you!”
the paralysis of my senses left me.
“man or fiend?” i shrieked above the thunder of the water. “down on your knees! it is the end for both of us! down, and weep and pray—for i believe, before god, you have just murdered your son!”
there was a brief fearful pause; he seemed to be listening—then, without preface or warning, there came a sudden surging crash, deafening and appalling and i thought “is it upon us?”
still i stood unscathed, though a cracking volley of sounds, rending and shattering, succeeded the crash, and one wild, dreadful cry that pierced through all. then silence fell, broken only by the smooth, washing sweep of a great body of water through the channel below.
silence fell and lapped me in a merciful unconsciousness; for, with the relaxing of the mental pressure i went plump down upon the floor where i stood and lay in a long faint.
* * * * * *
when i came to myself a dim wash of daylight soaking through the blurred window had found my face as i lay prone upon the boards, and was crawling up to my eyes like a child to open them. an ineffable soft sense of peace kept still my exhausted limbs in the first waking moments, and only by degrees occurred to me the horror and tragedy of the previous night.
still i made no attempt to rise, hoping only in forlorn self-pity that death would come to me gently as i lay and take me by the hand, saying: “with the vexing problems of life you need nevermore trouble yourself.”
all around, save for the deep murmur of water, was deathly quiet, and i prayed that it might remain so; that nothing might ever recall me to weariful action again.
then a faint groan came to my ears and the misericordious spell was broken.
slowly and feebly i gathered myself together to rise. but a second moan dissipated the selfish shadow and stung me to some reluctant action.
leaning upon my hand i looked about me and could hardly believe the evidence of my senses when i saw the walls and rafters of the fateful room stretching about me unaltered and unscathed. the crash, that had seemed to involve all in one splintering ruin, had left, seemingly, no evidence of its nature whatsoever. only, for a considerable distance from the mouth of the cupboard, the floor was stained with a sop of water; and, not a dozen feet from me, huddled in the darkest of it, lay a heaped and sodden mass that stirred and sent forth another moan as i looked.
painfully, then, i got upon my feet and stole, with no sentiment but a weak curiosity, to the prostrate thing. it was as if i had died and my dissatisfied ghost postponed its departure, seeking the last explanation of things. thus, while my soul was sensitive to the least expression of the tragedy that absorbed it, in the human world outside it seemed no longer to feel an interest.
and here, under my eyes, was tumbled the latest grim victim of this house accursed—the engineer of much diabolical machinery mangled by the demon he had himself evoked. what a pitiful, collapsed ruin, that, for all its resourcefulness, could only moan and suffer!
only a thin thread of crimson ran from the corner of his mouth, and where it had made during the night a little pool on the floor under his head it looked like ink.
near him lay a great jagged block of wood green with slime. i crept to the cupboard opening and looked down.
the wheel was gone!
then i knew what had happened. the house had triumphed over the stubborn monster that had so long proved its curse. at the supreme moment the vast dam had yielded and saved the building. it had gone, leaving not a trace of wreckage but this—this, and the single torn fragment that had struck down the wretch who set it in motion—had gone, bearing away with it in one boiling ruin the crushed and twisted bodies of the last two victims of its insensate fury.
but one further sign was there of its mighty passing—a ragged rent a foot square driven through the very wall of the house within the vault.
and here a thin shaft of light came in and fell, like the focus of an awful eye, full upon the miniature where it lay nailed, face upward, upon the axle—fell, also, upon that empty niche in the brickwork where once had stood the treasure for which jason had given his life.
i turned to the shattered man, leaned over him, touched him. he gave a gasp of agony and opened his eyes. the white stare of horror was in them and the blood ran faster from his mouth.
“water!” he cried, with a dry, clacking sound in his throat.
i hurried from the room, although he called after me feebly not to leave him, drew a jugful from the tap in the kitchen and returned. i heard no sound in the house. a glimmer of flood came in through the gaping door to the yard. no immediate help was possible in the rising of that direful morning after the storm. i was alone with my many dead.
i put the jug to his lips and he sucked down a long, gluttonous draught. then he looked at me with eager inquiry breaking through his mortal torment.
“my chest is all broken in,” he said, straining out his voice in bitter anguish. “when i move the end will come. quick!—you said something—at the last moment—what was it?”
“that i believed it was your son you sent to his death down there.”
“i have no son. once—yes—but he died—was poisoned—or drowned.”
“oh! god forgive this man!” i cried, lifting my face in terror, and in that sick moment inspiration, i think, was given me.
“he never died. he was saved, to grow up a hopeless cripple, and that was he you murdered last night.”
he closed his eyes again, and i saw his ashen lips moving.
“oh, man,” i cried, “are you praying? take grace of repentance and humble your wicked soul at the last. i can’t believe you innocent of a share in the wretchedness of this wretched house. i am the only one left of it—broken and lost to hope, but i forgive you—do you understand?—i forgive you.”
“i never killed the boy,” he muttered in a low, suffering tone, and with his eyes still closed.
“will you tell me all you know about it? if you are guiltless, be merciful as you hope for mercy.”
“modred found the cameo—picked it up—he told me himself—in this very room—where—your father must have dropped it.”
i cried “yes” passionately, and implored him to go on.
“he—the old man—that night—accused me of stealing it. it was the first—i’d heard of it. presently—he fell asleep—in his chair. i thought i would—seize the opportunity to—look for it over the house—quietly. finding myself—outside—the boy’s room—i went in to see—how—he—was getting on. he was awake—and—there was the very thing—in his hand. i asked him how—he had come by it. he told me. i demanded it—of him—said—your father had—promised it me. nothing—availed—availed.”
he was gasping and panting to such a degree that i thought even now he would die, leaving the words i maddened for unspoken. brutally, in my torment, i urged him on.
“he—wouldn’t give it up. i rushed at him—he put it in his mouth—and—as i seized him, tried to swallow it—and choked. it had stuck at—the entrance to his gullet. in a few moments—in his state he was too—weak to expel it—he was dead. perhaps—i might have saved him—but the trinket—the beautiful trinket!”
my heart seemed scarcely to beat as i listened. at last i knew the truth—knew it wicked and inhuman; yet—thank god—less atrocious than i had dreaded.
“but afterward,” i whispered—“afterward?”
“there was a plan,” he moaned, and his speech came with difficulty, “inspired me. i dissuaded—your father—from encouraging—any inquiry. a post-mortem, i knew—would lay open the secret—and lose me—the cameo. he was buried—on my certificate. i got—the man—george white—under my thumb—fed him on fire—lent him money—made him—my tool. one dark—stormy—night—we opened the grave—the coffin. the devil—lent a hand. a new grave—had to be dug—a foot away. it was only—necessary—to—make a hori—horizontal opening—in the intervening soil. i had—my tools—and sliced open the dead boy’s throat—and found what i wanted. only the sexton knew. nothing—afterward—would persuade—the mad fool—that the boy—hadn’t been buried alive—and that—i—hadn’t murdered him. only his fear—of me—kept his mouth—shut. this is—the truth.”
he lay quite still, exhausted with his long, cruel effort. i touched him gently with my hand.
“as i hope for rest myself,” i said, “i forgive you, now that you have spoken, for all this long, hideous misery. the treasure you staked against your soul is passed in fire and water and lost forever. nothing remains to you here; and, for the future—oh, pray, man, pray, while there is time!”
my voice broke in a sob. he strove to lift himself, leaning upon his hand, and immediately his mouth was choked with blood.
“where’s he?” he cried, in a stifled voice—“down there?”
“that way he went. the waters have him now—him, and my brother jason, who was on the wheel also when you raised the hatch. god knows, their bodies may be miles away by this time.”
he looked up at me with an awful expression; then, without another word, dragged himself inch by inch along the floor to the pit mouth and, reaching it, looked down—and immediately a great sputtering cry burst from him:
“who put that there?—that? the miniature? i gave it to—who did it, i say? it’s a trick! my soul burns—it burns already! tear it off! my own portrait—minna!”
thus and in such manner i heard my mother’s name spoken for the first time; felt the awful foundering truth burst upon my heart. uttering it, the soul of this fearful man tore free with a last dying scream of agony, and he dropped upon his face over the threshold of the running vault.
one moment, fate-stricken, i heard in the silence the heavy drip of something going pattering down into the pit—the next, darkness overwhelmed and the world ceased for me.
did i ever see zyp again? i know that some one came to me, lying entranced in a long, sick dream, who bore her resemblance, at least, and who spoke gentle words to me and put cold, sweet drink to my lips. but, when i woke at last, she was not there—only a kind, soft woman, a ministering nurse, who moved without noise, and foresaw all my fretful wants.
if she came, she went and left no trace; and i know in my heart i am never to see her more.
and here, month by month, i sit alone in the old haunted, crazy place—alone with my memories and my ghosts and my ancient fruitless regrets.
dolly and my father—the doctor, and those other two, found far away, welded in a dead embrace, and crushed and dinted one into the other—the fair and the ugly, all, all gone, and i am alone.
i am not thirty, yet my hair is white and it is time i was gone.
and to hear death knock at my door this very night would be ecstasy.
