FullReads

Duggin, the big man, turned likewise at the word and came part way swiftly; then stopped, his face very pale. Another step he took, with another pause, and with great drops of perspiration gathering on his face, and on the backs of his hands. Yet another start, and he came very near; so near that he gazed into the blue of Ichabod’s eyes. They seemed to him now devil’s eyes, and he halted, looking at them, fingering the weapon in his hand, his courage oozing at every pore.

Out of those eyes and that long, thin face stared death; not hot, sudden death, but nihility, cool, deliberate, that waited for one! The big beads on his forehead gathered in drops and ran down his cheeks. He tried to move on, but his legs only trembled beneath him. The hopeless, unreasoning terror of the frightened animal, the raw recruit, the superstitious negro, was upon him. The last fragment of self-respect, of bravado even, was in tatters. No object on earth, no fear of hereafter, could have made him face death in that way, with those eyes looking into his.

The weapon shook from Duggin’s hand to the floor,–with a sound like the first clatter of gravel on a coffin lid; and in abasement absolute he dropped his head; his hands nerveless, his jaw trembling.

“I beg your pardon–and your wife’s,” he faltered.

“It was all a lie? You were drunk?” Ichabod crossed the line, standing over him.

A rustle and a great snort of contempt went around the room; but Duggin still felt those terrible eyes upon him.

“I was very drunk. It was all a lie.”

Without another word Ichabod turned away, and almost immediately the other men followed, the door closing behind them. Only the bar-keeper stood impassive, watching.

That instant the red heat of the liquor returned to the big man’s brain and he picked up the revolver. Muttering, he staggered over to the bar.

“D–n him–the hide-faced–” he cursed. “Gimme a drink, Barney. Whiskey, straight.”

“Not a drop.”

“What?”

“Never another drop in my place so long as I live.”

“Barney, damn you!”

“Get out! You coward!”

“But, Barney–“

“Not another word. Go.”

Again Duggin was sober as he stumbled out into the evening.

* * * * *

Ichabod moved slowly up the street, months aged in those last few minutes. Reaction was inevitable, and with it the future instead of the present, stared him in the face. He had crowded the lie down the man’s throat, but well he knew it had been useless. The story was true, and it would spread; no power of his could prevent. He could not deceive himself, even. That name! Again the white anger born of memory, flooded him. Curses on the name and on the man who had spoken it! Why must the fellow have turned coward at the last moment? Had they but touched feet over the line–

Suddenly Ichabod stopped, his hands pressed to his head. Camilla, home–alone! And he had forgotten! He hurried back to the waiting Swede, an anathema that was not directed at another, hot on his lips.

“All ready, Ole,” he announced, clambering to the seat.

The boy handed up the lines lingeringly.

“Here, sir.” Then uncontrollable, long-repressed curiosity broke the bounds of deference. “You–heard him, sir?”

“Yes.”

Ole edged toward his own wagon.

“It wasn’t so?”

“Duggin swore it was a lie.”

“He–“

“He swore it was false, I say.”

They drove out into the prairie and the night; the stars looking down, smiling, as in the morning which was so long ago, the man had smiled,–looking upward.

“Tiny, tiny mortal,” they twinkled, each to the other. “So small and hot, and rebellious. Tiny, tiny, mortal!”

But the man covered his face with his hands, shutting them out.

CHAPTER VI–BY A CANDLE’S FLAME

Asa Arnold sat in the small upstairs room at the hotel of Hans Becher. It was the same room that Ichabod and Camilla had occupied when they first arrived; but he did not know that. Even had he known, however, it would have made slight difference; nothing could have kept them more constantly in his mind than they were at this time. He had not slept any the night before; a fact which would have spoken loudly to one who knew him well; and this morning he was very tired. He lounged low in the oak chair, his feet on the bed, the usual big cigar in his mouth.