Part 23 (2/2)

And Pilchard was overwhelmed with terror. Some spectre had seized him, and he could not shake it off. He looked once more at the dying man, at his closed eyes and his still body, momentarily convulsed by the final signs of life, like a great piece of machinery when the steam power is gradually running down. Then he turned and broke away, to take a bath and to take a drink and then go to meet the steamer from San Francisco....

”Eleven? You don't say. Fever, I suppose?”

”Yes. We tackled three swamps on our way down from Mexico.”

”That so? Well, it's worth some sacrifice. It's a good job. I wouldn't 'a' undertaken it myself.”

”I wouldn't do it again.”

They walked down the dock....

Swan opened his eyes and looked through the wide opening of the shanty out to where the blazing sun struck the hot water of the little harbor. He hardly remembered where he was. Oh yes! He must get up and go down-town. In a minute, when he was fully awake. And he closed his eyes again and heard the accustomed whir of machinery, and knew that he was in the engine-room. One of the workmen needed to be spoken to; he was the filthiest of the lot, and Swan was the only man who could control him. Suddenly Swan opened his eyes again and saw that this same workman had entered the shanty and was standing beside him. He instantly recognized the man's greasy black s.h.i.+rt.

”For science is a cruel mistress,” the man said. ”She exacts her yearly tribute of flesh and blood.”

But, singularly enough, these words meant something entirely different. Swan looked curiously at the workman and saw that he too was really somebody else. The man smiled and, leaning over, gently raised him up, and for the first time in his life Swan felt himself encircled by a woman's arms, and he tasted a strange, delicious joy awakening deep within him that knowledge of reciprocal love which slumbers in the heart of every man.

”And you did it all for me,” she said.

”Did what?” he asked her.

”Built the road?”

”Yes,” he whispered, closing his eyes again, filled with this new strange joy.

”And now we'll go home together to the North, where the maple leaves make a lovely pattern against the blue sky.”

He knew nothing for a minute, and then she spoke again:

”Well, it's a good job. I'll see that you get pushed along. The company 'll have plenty more work; big pay, too. This business has made your name. You're a wonderful fellow! You say you worked night as well as day?”

”For eight days, yes.”

It was Pilchard's voice. He was talking to another man. They were leaning heavily against the rough wall of Swan's shanty. A horrible sensation came over the sick man, that sensation experienced by men who emerge from some unnatural mental condition, who are recalled by one sentence, often by one word, which acts like a key and opens again to their terrified vision the horrible realities of actual life. Swan raised his arms to bring that woman's face close to his, but he could not find it. He opened his eyes, and tears of weakness watered his cheeks. He was alone in the hovel knocked together by the men to hold their tools, and the work for which he had given his life was being claimed outside by another man....

The agent leaned against the side of the shanty, gazing reflectively at his steamer, which was anch.o.r.ed half a mile from sh.o.r.e. ”I'm going clear round to New York. You'd better get aboard and come with me,” he proposed to Pilchard, to whom he had taken a fancy. ”Good Lord!” he suddenly shouted, leaping forward. ”Is this the shed where you said a workman was dying of fever? Let's get out quick or we'll take the infection.”

But Pilchard, pale as death, put up a warning hand. ”Yes, let's clear out--let's get to sea before I go crazy! But--but--don't speak so loud. _He may hear_!”

He had heard every word. His faculties, numb with death, sprang instantly into life. He leaped to his feet and left the shanty, momentarily endowed with his full strength, and facing the two men, spoke three times: ”My work! My work! My work!” His eyes were on Pilchard all the time, and that look pierced like a sword; it penetrated to the very foundations of his being....

Pilchard caught the body as it fell and lowered it to the ground, and then looked at the agent with a scared face to see how much he knew.

The agent had leaped still farther away, and now was crouching, livid with fear, before this man whose last words had been words of delirium. No, he knew nothing. Pilchard alone knew the extent of his own deceit, which dead lips could never disclose. He alone knew of that half-formed idea he had not dared to mature, which had come to him a year ago when he looked at Swan's resolute face in the engine-room; and he alone in all the world could ever know of the terror which had possessed him at daybreak in the shanty when he had turned in a panic and run away--from what? ...

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