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Put Yourself in His Place, a novel by Charles Reade |
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Chapter 44 |
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_ CHAPTER XLIV Little took a book, and tried to while away the time till Ransome's return; but he could not command his attention. The conversation about Grace had excited a topic which excluded every other. He opened his window, a French casement, and looked out upon the night. Then he observed that Grace, too, was keeping vigil; for a faint light shot from her window and sparkled on the branches of the plane-tree in her little front garden. "And that," thought Henry, sadly, "is all I can see of her. Close to her, yet far off--further than ever now." A deep sadness fell on him, sadness and doubt. Suppose he were to lay a trap for her to-morrow, and catch her at her own door! What good would it do? He put himself in her place. That process showed him at once she would come no more. He should destroy her little bit of patient, quiet happiness, the one daily sunbeam of her desolate life. By-and-by, feeling rather drowsy, he lay down in his clothes to wait for Ransome's return. He put out his light. From his bed he could see Grace's light kiss the plane-tree. He lay and fixed his eyes on it, and thought of all that had passed between them; and, by-and-by, love and grief made his eyes misty, and that pale light seemed to dance and flicker before him. About midnight, he was nearly dozing off, when his ear caught a muttering outside; he listened, and thought he heard some instrument grating below. He rose very softly, and crept to the window, and looked keenly through his casement. He saw nothing at first; but presently a dark object emerged from behind the plane-tree I have mentioned, and began to go slowly, but surely up it. Little feared it was a burglar about to attack that house which held his darling. He stepped softly to his rifle and loaded both barrels. It was a breech-loader. Then he crawled softly to the window, and peered out, rifle in hand. The man had climbed the tree, and was looking earnestly in at one of the windows in Grace's house. His attention was so fixed that he never saw the gleaming eye which now watched him. Presently the drifting clouds left the moon clear a minute, and Henry Little recognized the face of Frederick Coventry. He looked at him, and began to tremble. Why did he tremble? Because--after the first rush of surprise--rage, hate, and bloody thoughts crossed his mind. Here was his enemy, the barrier to his happiness, come, of his own accord, to court his death. Why not take him for a burglar, and shoot him dead? Such an act might be blamed, but it could not be punished severely. The temptation was so great, that the rifle shook in his hands, and a cold perspiration poured down his back. He prayed to God in agony to relieve him from this temptation; he felt that it was more than he could bear. He looked up. Coventry was drawing up a short iron ladder from below. He then got hold of it and fixed it on the sill of Grace's window. Little burst his own window open. "You villain!" he cried, and leveled his rifle at him. Coventry uttered a yell of dismay. Grace opened her window, and looked out, with a face full of terror. At sight of her, Coventry cried to her in abject terror, "Mercy! mercy! Don't let him shoot me!" Grace looked round, and saw Henry aiming at Coventry. She screamed, and Little lowered the rifle directly. Coventry crouched directly in the fork of the tree. Grace looked bewildered from one to the other; but it was to Henry she spoke, and asked him in trembling tones what it "all meant?" But, ere either could make a reply, a dire sound was heard of hissing thunder: so appalling that the three actors in this strange scene were all frozen and rooted where they stood. Then came a fierce galloping, and Ransome, with his black hair and beard flying, and his face like a ghost, reined up, and shouted wildly, "Dam burst! Coming down here! Fly for your lives! Fly!" He turned and galloped up the hill. Cole and his mate emerged, and followed him, howling; but before the other poor creatures, half paralyzed, could do any thing, the hissing thunder was upon them. What seemed a mountain of snow came rolling, and burst on them with terrific violence, whirling great trees and fragments of houses past with incredible velocity. At the first blow, the house that stood nearest to the flying lake was shattered and went to pieces soon after: all the houses quivered as the water rushed round them two stories high. Little never expected to live another minute; yet, in that awful moment, his love stood firm. He screamed to Grace, "The houses must go!--the tree!--the tree!--get to the tree!" But Grace, so weak at times, was more than mortal strong at that dread hour. "What! live with him," she cried, "when I can die with you!" She folded her arms, and her pale face was radiant, no hope, no fear. Now came a higher wave, and the water reached above the window-sills of the bedroom floor and swept away the ladder; yet, driven forward like a cannon-bullet, did not yet pour into the bed-rooms from the main stream; but by degrees the furious flood broke, melted, and swept away the intervening houses, and then hacked off the gable-end of Grace's house, as if Leviathan had bitten a piece out. Through that aperture the flood came straight in, leveled the partitions at a blow, rushed into the upper rooms with fearful roar, and then, rushing out again to rejoin the greater body of water, blew the front wall clean away, and swept Grace out into the raging current. The water pouring out of the house carried her, at first, toward the tree, and Little cried wildly to Coventry to save her. He awoke from his stupor of horror, and made an attempt to clutch her; but then the main force of the mighty water drove her away from him toward the house; her helpless body was whirled round and round three times, by the struggling eddies, and then hurried away like a feather by the overwhelming torrent. _ |
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