CHAPTER X
What a terrible and inexcusable madness had possessed him, Kentrealized the instant he rose from Mercer's prostrate body. Never hadhis brain flamed to that madness before. He believed at first that hehad killed Mercer. It was neither pity nor regret that brought him tohis senses. Mercer, a coward and a traitor, a sneak of the lowest type,had no excuse for living. It was the thought that he had lost hischance to reach the river that cleared his head as he swayed overMercer.
He heard running feet. He saw figures approaching swiftly through thestarlight. And he was too weak to fight or run. The little strength hehad saved up, and which he had planned to use so carefully in hisflight, was gone. His wound, weeks in bed, muscles unaccustomed to theterrific exertion he had made in these moments of his vengeance, lefthim now panting and swaying as the running footsteps came nearer.
His head swam. For a space he was sickeningly dizzy, and in the firstmoment of that dizziness, when every drop of blood in his body seemedrushing to his brain, his vision was twisted and his sense of directiongone. In his rage he had overexerted himself. He knew that somethinghad gone wrong inside him and that he was helpless. Even then hisimpulse was to stagger toward the inanimate Mercer and kick him, buthands caught him and held him. He heard an amazed voice, thenanother--and something hard and cold shut round his wrists like a pairof toothless jaws.
It was Constable Carter, Inspector Kedsty's right-hand man aboutbarracks, that he saw first; then old Sands, the caretaker atCardigan's place. Swiftly as he had turned sick, his brain grew clear,and his blood distributed itself evenly again through his body. He heldup his hands. Carter had slipped a pair of irons on him, and thestarlight glinted on the shining steel. Sands was bending over Mercer,and Carter was saying in a low voice:
"It's too bad, Kent. But I've got to do it. I saw you from the windowjust as Mercer screamed. Why did you stop for _him_?"
Mercer was getting up with the assistance of Sands. He turned a bloatedand unseeing face toward Kent and Carter. He was blubbering andmoaning, as though entreating for mercy in the fear that Kent had notfinished with him. Carter pulled Kent away.
"There's only one thing for me to do now," he said. "It isn't pleasant.But the law says I must take you to barracks."
In the sky Kent saw the stars clearly again, and his lungs weredrinking in the cool air as in the wonderful moments before hisencounter with Mercer.
He had lost. And it was Mercer who had made him lose. Carter felt thesudden tightening of his muscles as he walked with a hand on his arm.And Kent shut his teeth close and made no answer to what Carter hadsaid, except that Carter heard something which he thought was a sobchoked to death in the other's throat.
Carter, too, was a man bred of the red blood of the North, and he knewwhat was in Kent's heart. For only by the breadth of a hair had Kentfailed in his flight.
Pelly was on duty at barracks, and it was Pelly who locked him in oneof the three cells behind the detachment office. When he was gone, Kentsat down on the edge of his prison cot and for the first time let theagony of his despair escape in a gasping breath from between his lips.Half an hour ago the world had reached out its arms to him, and he hadgone forth to its welcome, only to have the grimmest tragedy of all hislife descend upon him like the sword of Damocles. For this was realtragedy. Here there was no hope. The tentacles of the law had him intheir grip, and he could no longer dream of escape.
Ghastly was the thought that it was he, James Kent, who had supervisedthe building of these cells! Acquainted with every trick and stratagemof the prisoner plotting for his freedom, he had left no weak point intheir structure. Again he clenched his hands, and in his soul he cursedMercer as he went to the little barred window that overlooked the riverfrom his cell. The river was near now. He could hear the murmur of it.He could see its movement, and that movement, played upon by the stars,seemed now a writhing sort of almost noiseless laughter taunting him inhis folly.
He went back to his cot, and in his despair buried his face in hishands. In the half-hour after that he did not raise his head. For thefirst time in his life he knew that he was beaten, so utterly beatenthat he no more had the desire to fight, and his soul was dark with thechaos of the things he had lost.
At last he opened his eyes to the blackness of his prison room, and hebeheld a marvelous thing. Across the gloom of the cell lay a shaft ofgolden fire. It was the light of the rising moon coming through hislittle, steel-barred window. To Kent it had crept into his cell like aliving thing. He watched it, fascinated. His eyes followed it to thefoot-square aperture, and there, red and glorious as it rose over theforests, the moon itself filled the world. For a space he saw nothingbut that moon crowding the frame of his window. And as he rose to hisfeet and stood where his face was flooded in the light of it, he feltstirring within him the ghosts of his old hopes. One by one they roseup and came to life. He held out his hands, as if to fill them with theliquid glow; his heart beat faster in that glory of the moonrise. Thetaunting murmur of the river changed once more into hopeful song, hisfingers closed tightly around the bars, and the fighting spirit rose inhim again. As that spirit surged stronger, beating down his despair,driving the chaos out of his brain, he watched the moon as it climbedhigher, changing from the red of the lower atmosphere to the yellowgold of the greater heights, marveling at the miracle of light andcolor that had never failed to stir him.
And then he laughed. If Pelly or Carter had heard him, they would havewondered if he was mad. It was madness of a sort--the madness ofrestored confidence, of an unlimited faith, of an optimism that wasbound to make dreams come true. Again he looked beyond the bars of hiscell. The world was still there; the river was there; all the thingsthat were worth fighting for were there. And he would fight. Just how,he did not try to tell himself now. And then he laughed again, softly,a bit grimly, for he saw the melancholy humour of the fact that he hadbuilt his own prison.
He sat down again on the edge of his cot, and the whimsical thoughtstruck him that all those he had brought to this same cell, and who hadpaid the first of their penance here, must be laughing at him now inthe spirit way. In his mental fancy a little army of faces troopedbefore him, faces dark and white, faces filled with hatred and despair,faces brave with the cheer of hope and faces pallid with the dread ofdeath. And of these ghosts of his man-hunting prowess it was AntonFournet's face that came out of the crowd and remained with him. For hehad brought Anton to this same cell--Anton, the big Frenchman, with hisblack hair, his black beard, and his great, rolling laugh that even inthe days when he was waiting for death had rattled the paper-weights onKedsty's desk.
Anton rose up like a god before Kent now. He had killed a man, and likea brave man he had not denied it. With a heart in his great body asgentle as a girl's, Anton had taken pride in the killing. In his prisondays he sang songs to glorify it. He had killed the white man fromChippewyan who had stolen his neighbor's wife! Not _his_ wife, but hisneighbor's! For Anton's creed was, "Do unto others as you would haveothers do unto you," and he had loved his neighbor with the greatforest love of man for man. His neighbor was weak, and Anton was strongwith the strength of a bull, so that when the hour came, it was Antonwho had measured out vengeance. When Kent brought Anton in, the gianthad laughed first at the littleness of his cell, then at theunsuspected strength of it, and after that he had laughed and sunggreat, roaring songs every day of the brief tenure of life that wasgiven him. When he died, it was with the smiling glory in his face ofone who had cheaply righted a great wrong.
Kent would never forget Anton Fournet. He had never ceased to grievethat it had been his misfortune to bring Anton in, and always, in closemoments, the thought of Anton, the stout-hearted, rallied him back tocourage. Never would he be the man that Anton Fournet had been, he toldhimself many times. Never would his heart be as great or as big, thoughthe Law had hanged Anton by the neck until the soul was choked out ofhis splendid body, for it was history that Anton Fournet had neverharmed man, woman, or child until he set o
ut to kill a human snake andthe Law placed its heel upon him and crushed him.
And tonight Anton Fournet came into the cell again and sat with Kent onthe cot where he had slept many nights, and the ghosts of his laughterand his song filled Kent's ears, and his great courage poured itselfout in the moonlit prison room so that at last, when Kent stretchedhimself on the cot to sleep, it was with the knowledge that the soul ofthe splendid dead had given him a strength which it was impossible tohave gained from the living. For Anton Fournet had died smiling,laughing, singing--and it was of Anton Fournet that he dreamed when hefell asleep. And in that dream came also the vision of a man calledDirty Fingers--and with it inspiration.