The Doomsman by Van Tassel Sutphen (books to get back into reading .txt) ๐
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- Author: Van Tassel Sutphen
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Yet now and then the standard of rebellion had been raised; here and there might be found a Dutchman as stiff-necked as the fate that he defied. His father and his father's father had lived here upon the Lesser river, and nothing short of a cataclysm of nature should avail to budge him. The commissioners might cut up his cabbage-patch into building sites and reduce his garden to the limits of a city block, but they could not touch his beloved Arcadia House, with its white-porticoed piazza that gave upon the swirl and toss of the riverโa delectable spot on a hot June morning. Let them lower their accursed streets to their thrice-accursed grade; it would but leave him high and dry in his green-embowered island, secure of contamination to his fruit trees from unspeakable gas and sewer pipes. A ten-foot brick wall, with its top set with broken bottles, would defend his quinces and apricots from the incursion of the street Arabs, and wind and sky were as free as ever. Yes, he would hold his own against these van[Pg 154]dals of commercialism, while one brick of Arcadia House remained upon another. So, let us fancy, quoth Mynheer van Duyne away back in anno Domini 1803, and when he died in 1850 or thereabouts, the estate, having but a moderate value as city property goes, was allowed to remain in statu quo; the heirs had ground-rents enough and to spare without it, and Arcadia House might be considered a proper memorial of the ancient state and dignity of the Van Duynes. But this is getting to be pure conjecture; let us return to Constans and the facts as he saw them.
The main house stood close to the river, there being but a strip of lawn between the piazza and the top of the sea-wall. On the left, as Constans faced, an enclosed vestibule led to a secondary structure, which probably contained the domestic offices and servants' quarters. Still farther on, and under the same continuous albeit slightly lower roof-line, were the stables and cattle barns, the wood and other storehouses forming the extreme left wing. In its day, Arcadia House had been an eminently respectable and comfortable dwelling, and even now it presented a tolerably good appearance; certainly it might be called habitable. Constans, straining his eyes, for the afternoon was advancing, thought he saw smoke ascending from one of the chimneys, and this incited him to an actual invasion of the premises.
He chose the southwestern corner of the block as being farthest removed from the range of the house windows. A lucky throw made the grapples fast, and it took but an instant to run up the rungs. There was no one in sight, so Constans, shifting the ladder to the inner side, made the descent quite at his ease,[Pg 155] and found himself in a little plantation of spruce-trees.
The evergreens grew so thickly together that he had some difficulty in forcing his way through them. Breaking free at last, he stepped out into the open, and stood vis-ร -vis with a girl who had been advancing, as it were, to meet him. Constans knew instantly that this could be none other than Mad Scarlett's daughter, and there, indeed, were the proofsโthe red-gold hair and the tawny eyes, just as Elena had described them in her message and Ulick in his endless lover's rhapsodies.
She stood mute and wide-eyed before him, the color in her cheeks coming and going like a flickering candle. Constans naturally concluded that his appearance had frightened her. He retreated a step or two; he tried to think of something to say that would reassure her. Perhaps he might use Ulick's name by way of introduction. He ended by blurting out:
"Don't be afraid; I will go whenever you say."
Her lips formed rather than uttered the warning, "Sh!" She listened intently for a moment or two, but there was only the distant dripping of water to be heard, the air being extraordinarily still and windless.
"Come!" she panted, and, clutching at her skirts, led the way to a thatched pavilion some eighty yards distant, a storehouse, perhaps, or a building once used as a farm office. Constans tried to question, to protest, but for the moment his will was as flax in the flame of her resolution; he yielded and ran obediently at her side.
Arrived at the little house, the girl pushed him bodily through the doorway and entered herself, turn[Pg 156]ing quickly to slip into place the oaken bar that secured the door from the inside. Constans swelled with indignation at this singular treatment. He was a man grown, not a truant child to be led away by the ear for punishment. Yet she would not abate one jot of her first advantage, and his anger melted under the quiet serenity of her gaze; in spite of himself he let her have the first word.
"Did you think I was afraid for myself?" she asked, with a slow smile that made Constans's cheeks burn. "You see, I remembered that Fangs and Blazer are generally out by this time, a full hour before dark."
"Fangs and Blazer?"
"The dogs, I mean. They will track a man even over this half-melted snow, and old Kurt has trained them to short work with trespassers. You did not know that?"
"No," answered Constans, simply. "But then it would not have made any difference."
"You mean that you are not afraid?"
He had to be honest. "I'm not sure about that, but still I should have come."
The girl's eyes swept him approvingly.
"Of course," she said, well pleased, for a woman delights in placing her own valuation upon the courage of which a man speaks diffidently.
"I am Esmay," she announced, and paused a little doubtfully.
"I know," assented Constans.
"Then you do remember? Even the bracelet with the carbuncles, and how you would not make up because I was a girl and knew no better?"
"It was a very foolish affair from beginning to[Pg 157] end," said Constans, loftily, intent upon disguising his embarrassment.
"Of course I knew you at once," she went on, meditatively. "You were so awkward in your ridiculous priest robes that morning in the temple of the Shining One. How Nanna and I did laugh!"
Constans winced a trifle at this, but he could not think of anything to say. She laughed again at the remembranceโprovokingly. Then she turned on him suddenly. "Why have you come to Arcadia House?" she asked.
Constans hesitated, tried to avoid the real issue, and of course put himself in the wrong.
"It was on Ulick's account. I had promised himโโ"
"Oh!" The look was doubly eloquent of the disappointment inherent in the exclamation, and Constans thrilled under it. What delicious flattery in this unexpected frankness! He made a step forward, but Esmay in her turn drew back, her eyes hardened, and he stopped, abashed.
It had been a sudden remembrance of her childish threatโ"a woman ... and some day you will know what that means"โthat had tempted her to the rashness which she had so quickly regretted. For she had forgotten that a proposition is generally provided with a corollary. If she had become a woman he no less had grown to manhood, and that one forward step had forced her to recognize the fact. She was silent, feeling a little afraid and wondering at herself. Constans, in more evident discomfiture, blundered on, obsessed by a vague sense of loyalty to his friend.
"Ulick is awayโon the expedition to the south[Pg 158]land. He was anxious that you should be found, and I promised to do my best. He will be glad to know."
"When is he coming back?" demanded Esmay, with an entire absence of enthusiasm.
"This month, certainly; indeed, it may be any day now."
"You must promise me that you will not tell him where I am or even that you have seen me."
"Butโbutโโ"
"Remember now that you have promised."
Constans felt himself called upon to speak with some severity to this unreasonable young person.
"You are giving a great deal of trouble to your friends," he said, reprovingly.
"My friends!" she echoed, mockingly.
"There was your mother and her message to your uncle Hugolin in Croye."
"Yes, I know," she broke in. "Then it was receivedโthe messageโโ?" She stopped, unable to go on; an indefinable emotion possessed her.
"My uncle has sent you to fetch me," she whispered. "You are his messenger."
Constans had to answer her honestly, and was sorry.
"No," he said, bluntly. "Messer Hugolin could not see his way to anything."
Her pride came to her aid. "Oh, it does not matter," she said, and so indifferently that Constans was deceived.
"But you cannot stay here," he insistedโ"here among the Doomsmen."
"They are my father's people, and you have just told me that my uncle Hugolin does not want me."[Pg 159]
"And what does Quinton Edge desire of you?" he asked.
"I do not know," she answered, returning his gaze fearlessly, whereof Constans was glad, although he could not have told her why.
"Yet you are a prisoner?"
"It seems so, and my sister Nanna as well. But we have nothing of which to complain, and doubtless our master will acquaint us with his pleasure in good time."
"It is always that way," said Constans, bitterly. "His will against mine at every turn; a rock upon which I beat with naked hands."
"He is a strong man," answered Esmay, thoughtfully, "but I think I know where his power lies. It is simply that neither his friends nor his enemies are aware of how they stand with him."
But Constans did not even notice that she was speaking; the remembrance of his unfulfilled purpose seized and racked him. He had hated this man, Quinton Edge, from that first moment in which their eyes had clashedโever and always. At first instinctively; then with reason enough and to spare; and yet this small world still held them both. How long were his hands to be tied? Once and again his enemy had stood before him and had gone his way insolently triumphant. He might be now in the house yonder, and Constans looked at it eagerly. A master passion, primitive and crude, possessed him.
The girl divined the hostile nature of the power which held him, and instinctively she put forth her own strength against it.
"Listen!" she said, and plucked him by the sleeve. Constans looked at her.[Pg 160]
"I am going to trust you," she went on, quickly. "The time may come when I can no longer remain in safety at Arcadia House. When it does I will let you know by displaying a white signal in the western window of the cupola. Then you will come?"
"I will come," he answered, albeit a little slowly and heavily as one who seeks to find himself.
Esmay opened the door and looked out. It was almost dark, and after listening a moment she seemed satisfied.
"You have a ladder? Very well, you need not be afraid of the dogs, for when you see the signal I will arrange that they are kept in leash. And now you had better go; they are surely unchained by this time, and any moment may bring them ranging about. Good-bye, and remember your promise."
They walked along together until they came to the plantation of spruce-trees. Constans could see that his ladder was still in place on the wall; his path of retreat was open. He put out his hand, and her slim, cool palm rested for a moment in his. She nodded, smiled, and left him, going directly towards the house.
Moved by an inexplicable impulse, Constans followed for a short distance, keeping under the shelter of the trees. Then suddenly to him, straining his eyes through the dusk, there appeared a second figure, that of a woman, clothed wholly in white, hovering close upon the retreating steps of the girl.
Constans felt his knees loosen under him, the ancient superstitions being still strong in his blood for all of his studies and new-found philosophy.
"It is her sister Nanna," he muttered to himself, and knew that he lied in saying it. The old wives'[Pg 161] tales, at which he had shuddered in boyhood, came crowding back upon himโgrisly legends of vampire shapes and of the phantoms, invariably feminine in form, who were said to inhabit ruined places. A panic terror seized him as he watched the apparition gliding so swiftly and noiselessly upon the unconscious girl. Yet he continued to run forward, stumbling and slipping on the treacherous foothold of melting snow.
Esmay had reached a side door of the
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