Part 23 (1/2)
Swan sat silent. He saw the dark perspiring bodies of the Indians who were laying ties, and his lifelong ambition to be a great engineer suddenly presented itself to him in the old strong unemotional way.
”For science is a cruel mistress. She exacts her yearly tribute of flesh and blood like the dragons of ancient pagan mythology.”
This had been said by an eminent scientist who had addressed his graduating cla.s.s. Swan had heard it then and remembered it now. He clearly remembered that hot June morning ten years ago. Some young maple leaves had made a lovely pattern on the blue northern sky outside the uncurtained windows of the lecture-hall. He remembered that he had looked through the window and vowed that he would never give up.
He organized two bands of men, one to work by moonlight and one by sunlight; but it was necessary for him to overlook them both, day and night, so it happened that there were just two hours in the twenty-four when he could find any rest. This was when the daily tropical storm broke, late in the afternoon, and all the workmen scampered for shelter. Swan crawled into a shanty the men had put up to hold their tools, and wrapping himself in a blanket, slept until the storm was over. That is to say, for three or four times he slept, but gradually he found it impossible to get any rest, and n.o.body knew the agonies he endured fighting off the fever, which he felt had marked him for its own. He never looked forward longer than twelve hours, thinking always that the next day would decide his fate, and the next day never did. ”If I can keep it off till to-morrow, I guess it won't come back,” he repeated, mechanically, standing in the moonlight and dosing himself and bossing the men. But in the morning there was never any abatement in those deadly symptoms which told him that the period of incubation would soon be over; and it almost seemed to him as if his cruel mistress was saving him in some miraculous way to complete her work, for it was not until the evening of the ninth day, when the railroad was finished and the last man paid off, that his temperature rose to fever-heat, his pulse quickened, and his tongue became congested, and this demon of the tropical swamp claimed him for its own.
Early on the morning of the 25th, a Pacific mail-steamer touched at the little port of Zacatula, and a man was put off who came down from San Francisco to do business for the company in the event of the railroad not being completed. He was greatly astonished when Pilchard showed him that the last day's work had been done.
”Then,” said the agent, mopping his perspiring bald head, ”we may say that you've carried out the contract to the letter, to the very minute. You say you only paid off the men last night?”
”Yes,” answered Pilchard, with his engaging smile, and casting a possessive glance down the front of his white trousers. ”And it was an awful rush to get the job done.” But in spite of Pilchard's sleek figure and social smile, he looked pale that morning. The hot sunlight that bathed the end of the dock met no responsive glow in his cheeks.
The agent hung his handkerchief over the top of a post to dry it, and looked more closely at his companion. ”Anything the matter?” he asked, kindly. ”You certainly haven't lost anything on the job?”
”No--no.” Pilchard brought out that ever-ready smile that was so delightful. ”But it's about time to go home. This is a terrible climate. We've lost every white man that came down, eleven all told, except myself and--and--one other, who's dying over in that shed now.
Maybe--maybe--he's dead--” Pilchard jerked with his thumb towards a shanty just where the docks joined the land....
In this rude shanty, knocked together by the workmen to hold their tools, on a heap of sacks and blankets, Swan lay as he had dropped the night before. Pilchard had found him there, and the full moon coming in at the wide opening had revealed a fearful sight--Swan in the throes of terrific fever, his face scarlet, his eyes ferrety and congested, and his swollen tongue lolling between his lips. When he saw Pilchard he asked in a strange voice for water. Pilchard brought him some and felt his forehead. It seemed on fire.
”Pilchard,” began Swan, in a deliberate voice, as if he were trying to fight off the delirium, ”the swamp got into me, after all. I've taken the fever.”
Pilchard, appalled by the terrible sight before him, and the things it suggested, which he could not help but see, leaned against the rude wall, and for once his self-possession deserted him. ”Swan,” he faltered, ”Swan--for G.o.d's sake--”
”Hush,” Swan interposed, in that same deliberate voice. ”Don't lose your head. I'm keeping mine. Am I talking sense?”
”Yes, yes, Swan. Perfectly correctly.”
”Then I'll tell you what to do.” Swan spoke more and more slowly as the fire mounted to his brain and besieged it. ”There's every symptom of fever. You can't deny that.”
”Symptoms, Swan? I don't see any. You're worn out, poor fellow. That's all.”
”Then what's this?” Swan opened his mouth and showed his scarlet tongue. ”And this?” He tore open the breast of his s.h.i.+rt and showed the congested condition of his skin. ”But I'll fight death as I fought the fever! I'm not going to die. There's too much for me to do in the world! I'll be a great engineer. I'll make her proud. I vowed it when we looked out over the waves and I wanted to take her in my arms. See here!” and suddenly seizing a pickaxe from the ground beside him, he swung it around his head and sent it whizzing past Pilchard's ear, out through the opening of the shanty. ”I've got my muscle and I've got my brain and I'll keep my life. I deserve to live. I deserve it as payment for putting the job through. I'll keep my wife here, too, here in the engine-room, with the pines behind us, and I can look after the men then. Who's that leaning against the wall? Pilchard? Poor fool!
Why did you boast you were the only man who had ever loved a woman?”
”Me boast! Heaven forbid,” faltered Pilchard.
”Then,” shouted Swan, suddenly sitting up and striking out with both arms, ”take these things away. All these little black things that are pouring over me. It's a regular shower. It must be a whole city. No!
No! They're sparks! They're fire! They burn! They burn! Take the wheels away from me! They're grinding me like corn--oh, Lord! it's heavy, it's heavy! There, there! It crushes me! Now, now it's over.
This is--death--” And he sank back, oppressed by a sudden, and overwhelming load of oblivion.
Swan grew worse toward morning, and though the disease had only attacked him at sunset the night before, so rapid and terrible were its onslaughts that by the time the sun rose a complete physical collapse had occurred. His pulse had fallen below normal, and his skin a.s.sumed a strange yellow hue, the color of a lemon, and in these signs and the constant hiccough which convulsed the death-stricken frame Pilchard guessed properly what the termination must be. The end would come easily. Swan had ceased to suffer.
When light crept gray and silent into the shanty, Pilchard stood and looked at Swan's prostrate form. No sound came to them but the gentle lapping of the waves. Sober as a dove Day hovered in the sky, and that solemn change which is Death was somewhere near, hiding and waiting; and Pilchard and Death and the breaking Day were for one second alone.