The Day of the Beast by Zane Grey

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The longer Lane dwelt on this matter of his love for Mel the deeper he
found it, the more inexplicable and alluring. And when at last it
stood out appallingly, master of him, so beautiful and strange and
bitter, he realized that between him and Mel was an insurmountable and
indestructible barrier.

Then came storm and strife of soul. Night and day the conflict went
on. Outwardly he did not show much sign of his trouble, though he
often caught Mel's dark eyes upon him, sadly conjecturing. He worked
in the garden; he fished the creek, and rowed miles on the river; he
wandered in the woods. And the only change that seemed to rise out of
his tumult was increasing love for this girl with whom his fate had
been linked.

So once more Lane became a sufferer, burdened by pangs, a wanderer
along the naked and lonely shore of grief. His passion and his ideal
were at odds. Unless he changed his nature, his reverence for
womanhood, he could never realize the happiness that might become his.
All that he had sacrificed had indeed been in vain. But he had been
true to himself. His pity for Mel was supreme. It was only by the most
desperate self-control that he could resist taking her in his arms,
confessing his love, swearing with lying lips he had forgotten the
wrong done her and asking her to face the future as his loving wife.
The thought was maddening. It needed no pity for Mel to strengthen it.
He needed love. He needed to fulfill his life.

But Lane did not yield, though he knew that if he continued to live
with Mel, in time the sweetness and enchantment of her would be too
great for him. This he confessed.

More and more he had to fight his jealousy and the treacherous
imagination that would create for him scenes of torment. He cursed
himself as base and ignoble. Yet the truth was always there. If Mel
had only loved the father of her child--if she had only loved blindly
and passionately as a woman--it would have been different. But her
sacrifice had not been one of love. It had been one of war. It had the
nobility of woman's sacrifice to the race. But as an individual she
had perished.

CHAPTER XXIII

Summer waned. The long hot days dragged by. The fading rushes along
the river drooped wearily over their dry beds. The yellowing leaves of
the trees hung dejected; they were mute petitioners for cool breezes
and rain. The grasshoppers chirped monotonously, the locusts screeched
shrilly, both being products of the long hot summer, and survivors of
the heat, inclined to voice their exultation far into the fall season.

September yielded them full sway, and burned away day by day, week by
week, dusty and scorching, without even a promise of rain. October,
however, dawned, misty and dark; the clouds crept up reluctantly at
first and then, as if to make amends for neglect, trooped black and
threatening toward the zenith. Storm followed storm, and at evening,
after the violent crashing thunder and vivid lightning and driving
torrents of rain had ceased, a soft, steady downpour persisted all
night and all the next day.

The drought was broken. A rainy fall season was prophesied. The old
danger of the river rising in flood was feared.

After the sear and lifeless color of the fields and forests, what a
welcome relief to Daren Lane were the freshened green, the dawning
red, the tinging gold! The forest on the hill was soft and warm, and
but for the gleams of autumn, would have showed some of the
tenderness of spring. Down in the lowlands a sea of color waved under
a blue, smoky, melancholy haze.

Lane climbed high that Sunday afternoon and penetrated deep into the
woods.

There was rest here. The forest was rich, warm with the scent of pine,
of arbor vitae. There was the haunting promise of more brilliant hues.
Thoughts swept through Lane's mind. The great striving world was out
of sight. Here in the gold-flecked shade, under the murmuring pines
and pattering poplars, there was a world full of joy, wise in its
teaching, significant of the glory that was fading but which would
come again.

Lane loved the low hills, the deep, colorful woods in autumn. There he
lost himself. He learned. Silence and solitude taught him. From there
he had vision of the horde of men righting down the false impossible
trails of the world. He felt the sweetness, the frailty, the
dependence, the glory and the doom of women battling with life. He
realized the hopeless traits of human nature. Like dead scales his
egotism dropped from him. He divined the weaving of chances, the
unknown and unnamed, the pondering fates in store. The dominance of
pain over all--the wraith of the past--the importunity of a future
never to be gained--the insistence of nature, ever-pressing closer its
ruthless claims--all these which became intelligible to Lane, could
not keep life from looming sweet, hopeful, wonderful, worthy man's
best fight.

And sometimes the old haunting voices whispered to him out of the
river shadows--deeper, different, strangely more unintelligible than
ever before, calling more to his soul.

Next morning Lane got up at the usual hour and went outdoors, but
returned almost immediately.

"The river is rising fast. Listen. Hear that roar. There's a regular
old Niagara just below."

"I imagined that roar was the wind."

"The water has come up three feet since daylight. I guess I'll go down
now and pull in some driftwood."

"Oh, Daren! Don't be so adventurous. When the river is high there's a
dangerous rapid below."

"You're right about that. But I won't take any risks. I can easily
manage the boat, and I'll be careful."

The following three days it rained incessantly. Outside, on the gravel
walks, there was a ceaseless drip, drip, drip.

Friday evening the rain ceased, the murky clouds cleared away and for
a few moments a rainbow mingled its changing hues with the ruddy glow
of the setting sun. The next day dawned bright and dear.

Lane was indeed grateful for a change. Mel had been unaccountably
depressed during those gloomy days. And it worried him that this
morning she did not appear her usual self.

"Mel, are you well?" he asked.

"Yes, I am perfectly well," she replied. "I couldn't sleep much last
night on account of that roar."

"Don't wonder. This flood will be the greatest ever known in
Middleville."

"Yes, and that makes more suffering for the poor."

"There are already many homeless. It's fortunate our cottage is
situated on this high bank. Just look! I declare, jostling logs and
whirling drifts! There's a pen of some kind with an object upon it."

"It's a pig. Oh! poor piggy!" said Mel, compassionately.

A hundred yards out in the rushing yellow current a small house or
shed drifted swiftly down stream. Upon it stood a pig. The animal
seemed to be stolidly contemplating the turbid flood as if unaware of
its danger.

Here the river was half a mile wide, and full of trees, stumps,
fences, bridges, sheds--all kinds of drifts. Just below the cottage
the river narrowed between two rocky cliffs and roared madly over
reefs and rocks which at a low stage of water furnished a playground
for children. But now that space was terrible to look upon and the
dull roar, with a hollow boom at intervals, was dreadful to hear.

"Daren--I--I've kept something from you," said Mel, nervously. "I
should have told you yesterday."

"What?" interrupted Lane, sharply.

"It's this. It's about poor Blair.... He--he's dead!"

Lane stared at her white face as if it were that of a ghost.

"Blair! You should have told me. I must go to see him."

It was not a long ride from the terminus of the car line to where the
Maynards lived, yet measured by Lane's growing distress of mind it
seemed a never-ending journey.

He breathed a deep breath of relief when he got off the car, and when
the Maynard homestead loomed up dark and silent, he hung back
slightly. A maid admitted Lane, and informed him that Mr. Maynard was
ill and Mrs. Maynard would not see any one. Margaret was not at home.
The maid led Lane across the hall into the drawing-room and left him
alone.

In the middle of the room stood a long black cloth-covered box. Lane
stepped forward. Upon the dark background, in striking contrast, lay a
white, stern face, marble-like in its stone-cold rigidity. Blair, his
comrade!

The moment Lane saw the face, his strange fear and old gloomy
bitterness returned. Something shot through him which trembled in his
soul. To him the story of Blair's sacrifice was there to read in his
quiet face, and with it was an expression he had never seen, a faint
wonder of relief, which suggested peace.

How strange to look upon Blair and find him no longer responsive!
Something splendid, loyal, generous, loving had passed away. Gone was
the vital spark that had quickened and glowed to noble thoughts; gone
was the strength that had been weakness; gone the quick, nervous,
high-strung spirit; gone the love that had no recompense. The drawn
face told of physical suffering. Hard Blair had found the world,
bitter the reward of the soldier, wretched the unholy worship of
money and luxury, vain and hollow mockery the home of his boyhood.

Lane went down the path and out of the gate. He had faint perceptions
of the dark trees along the road. He came to a little pine grove. It
was very quiet. There was a hum of insects, and the familiar, sad,
ever-present swishing of the wind through the trees. He listened to
its soft moan, and it eased the intensity of his feelings. This
emotion was new to him. Death, however, had touched him more than
once. Well he remembered his stunned faculties, the unintelligible
mystery, the awe and the grief consequent on the death of his first
soldier comrade in France. But this was different; it was a strange
disturbance of his heart. Oppression began to weight him down, and a
nameless fear.

He had to cross the river on his way home to the cottage. In the
middle of the bridge he halted to watch the sliding flood go over the
dam, to see the yellow turgid threshing of waves below. The mystic
voices that had always assailed his ears were now roaring. They had a
message for him. It was death. Had he not just looked upon the tragic
face of his comrade? Out over the tumbling waters Lane's strained gaze
swept, up and down, to and fro, while the agony in his heart reached
its height. The tumult of the flood resembled his soul. He spent an
hour there, then turned slowly homeward.

He stopped at the cottage gate. It was now almost dark. The evening
star, lonely and radiant, peeped over the black hill. With some
strange working at his heart, with some strange presence felt, Lane
gazed at the brilliant star. How often had he watched it! Out there in
the gloom somewhere, perhaps near at hand, had lurked the grim enemy
waiting for Blair, that now might be waiting for him. He trembled. The
old morbidness knocked at his heart. He shivered again and fought
against something intangible. The old conviction thrust itself upon
him. He had been marked by fate, life, war, death! He knew it; he had
only forgotten.

"Daren! Daren!"

Mel's voice broke the spell. Lane made a savage gesture, as if he were
in the act of striking. Thought of Mel recalled the stingingly sweet
and bitter fact of his love, and of life that called so imperiously.

CHAPTER XXIV

"If Amanda would only marry me!" sighed Colonel A Pepper, as he
stacked the few dishes on the cupboard shelf and surveyed his untidy
little kitchen with disparaging eyes.

The once-contented Colonel was being consumed by two great
fires--remorse and love. For more years than he could remember he had
been a victim of a deplorable habit. Then two soft eyes shone into his
life, and in their light he saw things differently, and he tried to
redeem himself.

Even good fortune, in the shape of some half-forgotten meadow property
suddenly becoming valuable, had not revived his once genial spirits.
Remorse was with him because Miss Hill refused to marry him till he
overcame the habit which had earned him undesirable fame.

So day by day poor Colonel Pepper grew sicker of his lonely rooms, his
lonely life, and of himself.

"If Amanda only would," he murmured for the thousandth time, and
taking his hat he went out. The sunshine was bright, but did not give
him the old pleasure. He walked and walked, taking no interest in
anything. Presently he found himself on the outskirts of Middleville
within sound of the muffled roar of the flooded river, and he wandered
in its direction. At sight of the old wooden bridge he remembered he
had read that it was expected to give way to the pressure of the
rushing water. On the levee, which protected the low-lying country
above the city, were crowds of people watching the river.

"Ye've no rivers loike thot in Garminy," observed a half-drunken
Irishman. He and several more of his kind evidently were teasing a
little German.

Colonel Pepper had not stood there long before he heard a number of
witticisms from these red-faced men.

After the manner of his kind the German had stolidly swallowed the
remarks about his big head, and its shock of stubby hair, and his
checked buff trousers; but at reference to his native country his
little blue eyes snapped, and he made a remark that this river was
extremely like one in Germany.

At this the characteristic contrary spirit of the Irishman burst
forth.

"Dutchy, I'd loike ye to know ye're exaggeratin'," he said. "Garminy
ain't big enough for a river the loike o' this. An' I'll leave it to
me intilligint-lookin' fri'nd here."

Colonel Pepper, thus appealed to, blushed, looked embarrassed,
coughed, and then replied that he thought Germany was quite large
enough for such a river.

"Did ye study gographie?" questioned the Irishman with fine scorn.

Colonel Pepper retired within himself.

The unsteady and excitable fellow had been crowded to the rear by his
comrades, who evidently wished to lessen, in some degree, the
possibilities of a fight.

"Phwat's in thim rivers ye're spoutin' about?" asked one.

"Vater, ov course."

"Me wooden-shoed fri'nd, ye mane beer--beer."

"You insolt me, you red-headed----"

"Was that Dutchman addressin' of me?" demanded the half-drunken
Irishman, trying to push by his friends.

"It'd be a foiner river if it wasn't yaller," said a peacemaker,
holding his comrade.

In the slight scuffle which ensued one of the men unintentionally
jostled the German. His pipe fell to the ground. He bent to recover
it.

Through Colonel Pepper's whole being shot the lightning of his strange
impulse, a tingling tremor ran over him; a thousand giants lifted and
swung his arm. He fought to check it, but in vain. With his blood
bursting, with his strength expending itself in one irresistible
effort, with his soul expanding in fiendish, unholy glee he brought
his powerful hand down upon the bending German.

There was a great shout of laughter.

The German fell forward at length and knocked a man off the levee
wall. Then the laughter changed to excited shouts.

The wall was steep but not perfectly perpendicular. Several men made
frantic grabs at the sliding figure; they failed, however, to catch
it. Then the man turned over and rolled into the river with a great
splash. Cries of horror followed his disappearance in the muddy water,
and when, an instant later, his head bobbed up yells filled the air.

No one had time to help him. He tried ineffectually to reach the
levee; then the current whirled him away. The crowd caught a glimpse
of a white despairing face, which rose on the crest of a muddy wave,
and then was lost.

In the excitement of the moment the Colonel hurried from the spot.
Horror possessed him; he felt no less than a murderer. Again he walked
and walked. Retribution had overtaken him. The accursed habit that had
disgraced him for twenty years had wrought its punishment. Plunged
into despair he plodded along the streets, till at length, out of his
stupefaction, came the question--what would Amanda say?

With that an overwhelming truth awakened him. He was free. He might
have killed a man, but he certainly had killed his habit. He felt the
thing dead within him. Wildly he gazed around to see where he was, and
thought it a deed of fate that he had unconsciously traveled toward
the home of his love. For there before his eyes was Amanda's cottage
with the red geranium in her window. He ran to the window and tapped
mysteriously and peered within. Then he ran to the door and knocked.
It opened with a vigorous swing.

"Mr. Pepper, what do you mean--tapping on my window in such
clandestine manner, and in broad daylight, too?" demanded Miss Hill
with a stern voice none of her scholars had ever heard.

"Amanda, dear, I am a murderer!" cried Pepper, in tones of
unmistakable joy. "I am a murderer, but I'll never do _it_ again."

"Laws!" exclaimed Miss Hill

He pushed her aside and closed the door, and got possession of her
hands, all the time pouring out incoherent speech, in which only _it_
was distinguishable.

"Man alive! Are you crazy?" asked Miss Hill, getting away from him
into a corner. But it happened to be a corner with a couch, and when
her trembling legs touched it she sat down.

"Never, never again will I do it!" cried the Colonel, with a grand
gesture.

"Can you talk sense?" faltered the schoolmistress.

Colonel Pepper flung himself down beside her, and with many breathless
stops and repetitions and eloquent glances and applications of his
bandana to his heated face, he finally got his tragic story told.

"Is that all?" inquired Miss Hill, with a touch of sarcasm. "Why,
you're not a murderer, even if the man drowns, which isn't at all
likely. You've only fallen again."

"Fallen. But I never fell so terribly. This was the worst."

"Stuff! Where's the chivalry you tried to make me think you were full
of? Didn't you humiliate me, a poor helpless woman? Wasn't that worse?
Didn't you humiliate me before a crowd of people in a candy-store?
Could anything be more monstrous? You did _it_, you remember?"

"Amanda! Never! Never!" gasped the Colonel.

"You did, and I let you think I believed your lies."

"Amanda! I'll never do it again, never to any one, so long as I live.
It's dead, same as the card tricks. Forgive me, Amanda, and marry me.
I'm so fond of you, and I'm so lonely, and those meadow lots of mine,
they'll make me rich. Amanda, would you marry me? Would you love an
old duffer like me? Would you like a nice little home, and an
occasional silk dress, and no more teaching, and some one to love
you--always? Would you, Amanda, would you?"

"Yes, I would," replied Amanda.

CHAPTER XXV

Lane was returning from a restless wandering in the woods. As he
neared the flooded river he thought he heard a shout for help. He
hurried down to the bank, and looked around him, but saw no living
thing. Then he was brought up sharply by a cry, the unmistakable
scream of a human being in distress. It seemed to come from behind a
boathouse. Running as far round the building as the water would permit
he peered up and down the river in both directions.

At first he saw only the half-submerged float, the sunken hull of a
launch, the fast-running river, and across the wide expanse of muddy
water the outline of the levee. Suddenly he spied out in the river a
piece of driftwood to which a man was clinging.

"Help! Help!" came faintly over the water.

Lane glanced quickly about him. Several boats were pulled up on the
shore, one of which evidently had been used by a boatman collecting
driftwood that morning, for it contained oars and a long pike-pole.
The boat was long, wide of beam, and flat of bottom, with a sharp bow
and a blunt stern, a craft such as experienced rivermen used for heavy
work. Without a moment's hesitation Lane shoved it into the water and
sprang aboard.

Meanwhile, short though the time had been, the log with its human
freight had disappeared beyond the open space in the willows.

Although Lane pulled a powerful stroke, when he got out of the slack
water into the current, so swift was it that the boat sheered abruptly
and went down stream with a sweep. Marking the piece of driftwood and
aided by the swiftly running stream Lane soon overhauled it.

The log which the man appeared to be clutching was a square piece of
timber, probably a beam of a bridge, for it was long and full of
spikes. When near enough Lane saw that the fellow was not holding on
but was helpless and fast on the spikes. His head and arms were above
water.

Lane steered the boat alongside and shouted to the man. As he made no
outcry or movement, Lane, after shipping the oars, reached over and
grasped his collar. Steadying himself, so as not to overturn the boat,
Lane pulled him half-way over the gunwale, and then with a second
effort, he dragged him into the boat.

The man evidently had fainted after his last outcry. His body slipped
off the seat and flopped to the bottom of the boat where it lay with
the white face fully exposed to the glare of the sun. A broad scar,
now doubly sinister in the pallid face, disfigured the brow.

Lane recoiled from the well-remembered features of Richard Swann.

"God Almighty!" he cried. And his caustic laughter rolled out over the
whirling waters. The boat, now disengaged from the driftwood, floated
swiftly down the river.

Lane stared in bewilderment at Swann's pale features. His amazement at
being brought so strangely face to face with this man made him deaf
to the increasing roar of the waters and blind to the greater momentum
of the boat.

A heavy thump, a grating sound and splintering of wood, followed by a
lurch of the boat and a splashing of cold water in his face brought
Lane back to a realization of the situation.

He looked up from the white face of the unconscious man. The boat had
turned round. He saw a huge stone that poked its ugly nose above the
water. He turned his face down stream. A sea of irregular waves,
twisting currents, dark, dangerous rocks and patches of swirling foam
met his gaze.

When Lane stood up, with a boatman's instinct, to see the water far
ahead, the spectacle thrilled him. A yellow flood, in changeful yet
consistent action, rolled and whirled down the wide incline between
the stony banks, and lost itself a mile below in a smoky veil of mist.
Visions of past scenes whipped in and out his mind, and he saw an
ocean careening and frothing under a golden moon; a tide sweeping
down, curdled with sand, a grim stream of silt, rushing on with the
sullen sweep of doom and the wildfire of the prairie, leaping,
cavorting, reaching out, turning and shooting, irresistibly borne
under the lash of the wind. He saw in the current a live thing freeing
itself in terror.

A roar, like the blending of a thousand storms among the pines, filled
his ears and muffled his sense of hearing and appalled him. He sat
down with his cheeks blanching, his skin tightening, his heart
sinking, for in that roar he heard death. Escape was impossible. The
end he had always expected was now at hand. But he was not to meet it
alone. The man who had ruined his sister and so many others must go to
render his accounting, and in this justice of fate Lane felt a
wretched gratification.

The boat glanced with a hard grind on a rock and shot down a long
yellow incline; a great curling wave whirled back on Lane; a heavy
shock sent him flying from his seat; a gurgling demoniacal roar
deafened his ears and a cold eager flood engulfed him. He was drawn
under, as the whirlpool sucks a feather; he was tossed up, as the wind
throws a straw. The boat bobbed upright near him. He grasped the
gunwale and held on.

It bounced on the buffeting waves and rode the long swells like a
cork; it careened on the brink of falls and glided over them; it
thumped on hidden stones and floating logs; it sped by black-nosed
rocks; it drifted through fogs of yellow mist; it ran on piles of
driftwood; it trembled with the shock of beating waves and twisted
with the swirling current.

Still Lane held on with a vise-like clutch.

Suddenly he seemed to feel some mighty propelling force under him; he
rose high with the stern of the boat. Then the bow pitched down into a
yawning hole. A long instant he and the boat slid down a glancing
fall--then thunderous roar--furious contending wrestle--cold, yellow,
flying spray--icy, immersing, enveloping blackness!

A giant tore his hands from the boat. He whirled round and round as he
sank. A languid softness stole over him. He saw the smile of his
mother, the schoolmate of his boyhood, the old attic where he played
on rainy days, and the spotted cows in the pasture and the running
brook. He saw himself a tall young man, favorite of all, winning his
way in life that was bright.

Then terrible blows of his heart hammered at his ribs, throbs of
mighty pain burst his brain; great constrictions of his throat choked
him. He began fighting the encompassing waters with frenzied strength.
Up and up he fought his way to see at last the light, to gasp at the
air. But the flood sucked at him, a weight pulled at his feet. As he
went down again something hard struck him. With the last instinctive
desperate love of life in his action he flung out his hand and grasped
the saving thing. It was the boat. He hooked his elbow over the
gunwale. Then darkness filmed over his eyes and he seemed to feel
himself whirling round and round, round and round. A long time,
seemingly, he whirled, while the darkness before his eyes gave way to
smoky light, his dead ears awoke to confused blur of sound. But the
weight on his numb legs did not lessen.

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