Short Stories for English Courses

V >> Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.) >> Short Stories for English Courses

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Now! He was on his feet with a spring, and his revolver pointed
steadily. This time there was no mistaking--something had rustled
in the bushes. There was but one thing for it to be--Indians.
Without realizing what he did, he spoke sharply.

"Who goes there?" he demanded, and out of the darkness a voice
answered quietly:

"A friend."

"A friend?" With a shock of relief the pistol dropped by his side,
and he stood tense, waiting. How might a friend be here, at
midnight in this desert! As the thought framed itself swiftly the
leaves parted, and his straining eyes saw the figure of a young
man standing before him.

"How came you here?" demanded Miles sternly. "Who are you!"

Even in the dimness he could see the radiant smile that answered
him. The calm voice spoke again: "You will understand that later.
I am here to help you."

As if a door had suddenly opened into that lighted room of which
he dreamed, Miles felt a sense of tranquillity, of happiness
stirring through him. Never in his life had he known such a sudden
utter confidence in any one, such a glow of eager friendliness as
this half-seen, mysterious stranger inspired. "It is because I was
lonelier than I knew," he said mentally. "It is because human
companionship gives courage to the most self-reliant of us;" and
somewhere in the words he was aware of a false note, but he did
not stop to place it.

The low, even voice of the stranger spoke again. "There are
Indians on your trail," he said. "A small band of Black Wolf's
scouts. But don't be troubled. They will not hurt you."

"You escaped from them?" demanded Miles eagerly, and again the
light of a swift smile shone into the night. "You came to save me
--how was it? Tell me, so that we can plan. It is very dark yet,
but hadn't we better ride? Where is your horse?"

He threw the earnest questions rapidly across the black night, and
the unhurried voice answered him. "No," it said, and the verdict
was not to be disputed. "You must stay here."

Who this man might be or how he came Miles could not tell, but
this much he knew, without reason for knowing it; it was some one
stronger than he, in whom he could trust. As the new-comer had
said, it would be time enough later to understand the rest.
Wondering a little at his own swift acceptance of an unknown
authority, wondering more at the peace which wrapped him as an
atmosphere at the sound of the stranger's voice, Miles made a
place for him by his side, and the two talked softly to the
plashing undertone of the stream.

Easily, naturally, Miles found himself telling how he had been
homesick, longing for his people. He told him of the big familiar
room, and of the old things that were in it, that he loved; of his
mother; of little Alice, and her baby adoration for the big
brother; of how they had always sung hymns together Sunday night;
he never for a moment doubted the stranger's interest and
sympathy--he knew that he cared to hear.

"There is a hymn," Miles said, "that we used to sing a lot--it was
my favorite; 'Miles's hymn,' the family called it. Before you came
to-night, while I lay there getting lonelier every minute, I
almost thought I heard them singing it. You may not have heard it,
but it has a grand swing. I always think"--he hesitated--"it
always seems to me as if the God of battles and the beauty of
holiness must both have filled the man's mind who wrote it." He
stopped, surprised at his own lack of reserve, at the freedom with
which, to this friend of an hour, he spoke his inmost heart.

"I know," the stranger said gently. There was silence for a
moment, and then the wonderful low tones, beautiful, clear, beyond
any voice Miles had ever heard, began again, and it was as if the
great sweet notes of an organ whispered the words:

"God shall charge His angel legions Watch and ward o'er thee to
keep; Though thou walk through hostile regions, Though in desert
wilds thou sleep."

"Great Heavens!" gasped Miles. "How could you know I meant that?
Why, this is marvellous--why, this"--he stared, speechless, at the
dim outlines of the face which he had never seen before to-night,
but which seemed to him already familiar and dear beyond all
reason. As he gazed the tall figure rose, lightly towering above
him. "Look!" he said, and Miles was on his feet. In the east,
beyond the long sweep of the prairie, was a faint blush against
the blackness; already threads of broken light, of pale darkness,
stirred through the pall of the air; the dawn was at hand.

"We must saddle," Miles said, "and be off. Where is your horse
picketed?" he demanded again.

But the strange young man stood still; and now his arm was
stretched pointing. "Look," he said again, and Miles followed the
direction with his eyes.

From the way he had come, in that fast-growing glow at the edge of
the sky, sharp against the mist of the little river, crept slowly
half a dozen pin points, and Miles, watching their tiny movement,
knew that they were ponies bearing Indian braves. He turned hotly
to his companion.

"It's your fault," he said. "If I'd had my way we'd have ridden
from here an hour ago. Now here we are caught like rats in a trap;
and who's to do my work and save Thornton's troop--who's to save
them--God!" The name was a prayer, not an oath.

"Yes," said the quiet voice at his side, "God,"--and for a second
there was a silence that was like an Amen.

Quickly, without a word, Miles turned and began to saddle. Then
suddenly, as he pulled at the girth, he stopped. "It's no use," he
said. "We can't get away except over the rise, and they'll see us
there;" he nodded at the hill which rose beyond the camping ground
three hundred yards away, and stretched in a long, level sweep
into other hills and the west. "Our chance is that they're not on
my trail after all--it's quite possible." There was a tranquil
unconcern about the figure near him; his own bright courage caught
the meaning of its relaxed lines with a bound of pleasure. "As you
say, it's best to stay here," he said, and as if thinking aloud--
"I believe you must always be right." Then he added, as if his
very soul would speak itself to this wonderful new friend: "We
can't be killed, unless the Lord wills it, and if he does it's
right. Death is only the step into life; I suppose when we know
that life, we will wonder how we could have cared for this one."

Through the gray light the stranger turned his face swiftly, bent
toward Miles, and smiled once again, and the boy thought suddenly
of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and how those who were looking
"saw his face as it had been the face of an angel."

Across the plain, out of the mist-wreaths, came rushing,
scurrying, the handful of Indian braves. Pale light streamed now
from the east, filtering over a hushed world. Miles faced across
the plain, stood close to the tall stranger whose shape, as the
dawn touched it, seemed to rise beyond the boy's slight figure
wonderfully large and high. There was a sense of unending power,
of alertness, of great, easy movement about him; one might have
looked at him, and looking away again, have said that wings were
folded about him. But Miles did not see him. His eyes were on the
fast nearing, galloping ponies, each with its load of filthy,
cruel savagery. This was his death coming; there was disgust, but
not dread in the thought for the boy. In a few minutes he should
be fighting hopelessly, fiercely against this froth of a lower
world; in a few minutes after that he should be lying here still--
for he meant to be killed; he had that planned. They should not
take him--a wave of sick repulsion at that thought shook him.
Nearer, nearer, right on his track came the riders pell-mell. He
could hear their weird, horrible cries; now he could see gleaming
through the dimness the huge head-dress of the foremost, the white
coronet of feathers, almost the stripes of paint on the fierce
face.

Suddenly a feeling that he knew well caught him, and he laughed.
It was the possession that had held in him in every action which
he had so far been in. It lifted his high-strung spirit into an
atmosphere where there was no dread and no disgust, only a keen
rapture in throwing every atom of soul and body into physical
intensity; it was as if he himself were a bright blade, dashing,
cutting, killing, a living sword rejoicing to destroy. With the
coolness that may go with such a frenzy he felt that his pistols
were loose; saw with satisfaction that he and his new ally were
placed on the slope to the best advantage, then turned swiftly,
eager now for the fight to come, toward the Indian band. As he
looked, suddenly in mid-career, pulling in their plunging ponies
with a jerk that threw them, snorting, on their haunches, the
warriors halted. Miles watched in amazement. The bunch of Indians,
not more than a hundred yards away, were staring, arrested,
startled, back of him to his right, where the lower ridge of
Massacre Mountain stretched far and level over the valley that
wound westward beneath it on the road to Fort Rain-and-Thunder. As
he gazed, the ponies had swept about and were galloping back as
they had come, across the plain.

Before he knew if it might be true, if he were not dreaming this
curious thing, the clear voice of his companion spoke in one word
again, like the single note of a deep bell. "Look!" he said, and
Miles swung about toward the ridge behind, following the pointing
finger.

In the gray dawn the hill-top was clad with the still strength of
an army. Regiment after regiment, silent, motionless, it stretched
back into silver mist, and the mist rolled beyond, above, about
it; and through it he saw, as through rifts in broken gauze, lines
interminable of soldiers, glitter of steel. Miles, looking, knew.

He never remembered how long he stood gazing, earth and time and
self forgotten, at a sight not meant for mortal eyes; but
suddenly, with a stab it came to him, that if the hosts of heaven
fought his battle it was that he might do his duty, might save
Captain Thornton and his men; he turned to speak to the young man
who had been with him. There was no one there. Over the bushes the
mountain breeze blew damp and cold; they rustled softly under its
touch; his horse stared at him mildly; away off at the foot-hills
he could see the diminishing dots of the fleeing Indian ponies; as
he wheeled again and looked, the hills that had been covered with
the glory of heavenly armies, lay hushed and empty. And his friend
was gone.

Clatter of steel, jingle of harness, an order ringing out far but
clear--Miles threw up his head sharply and listened. In a second
he was pulling at his horse's girth, slipping the bit swiftly into
its mouth--in a moment more he was off: and away to meet them, as
a body of cavalry swung out of the valley where the ridge had
hidden them.

"Captain Thornton's troop?" the officer repeated carelessly. "Why,
yes; they are here with us. We picked them up yesterday, headed
straight for Black Wolf's war-path. Mighty lucky we found them.
How about you--seen any Indians, have you?"

Miles answered slowly: "A party of eight were on my trail; they
were riding for Massacre Mountain, where I camped, about an hour--
about half an hour--awhile ago." He spoke vaguely, rather oddly,
the officer thought. "Something--stopped them about a hundred
yards from the mountain. They turned, and rode away."

"Ah," said the officer. "They saw us down the valley."

"I couldn't see you," said Miles.

The officer smiled. "You're not an Indian, Lieutenant. Besides,
they were out on the plain and had a farther view behind the
ridge." And Miles answered not a word.

General Miles Morgan, full of years and of honors, has never but
twice told the story of that night of forty years ago. But he
believes that when his time comes, and he goes to join the
majority, he will know again the presence which guarded him
through the blackness of it, and among the angel legions he looks
to find an angel, a messenger, who was his friend.

MARKHEIM

BY

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

In one of the old Greek tragedies, after the actors on the stage
have played their parts and the chorus in the orchestra below has
hinted mysteriously of crime and retribution, the doors of the
palace in the background suddenly fly apart. There stands the
criminal queen. She confesses her crime and explains the reason
for it. So sometimes a story opens the doors of a character's
heart and mind, and invites us to look within. Such a story is
called psychological. Sometimes there is action, not for action's
sake, but for its revelation of character. Sometimes nothing
happens. "This," says Bliss Perry, "may be precisely what most
interests us, because we are made to understand what it is that
inhibits action." In the story of this type we see the moods of
the character; we watch motives appear, encounter other motives,
and retreat or advance. In short, we are allowed to observe the
man's mental processes until we understand him.

The emotional value of this story may be stated in the words of C.
T. Winchester:

"We may lay it down as a rule that those emotions which are
intimately related to the conduct of life are of higher rank than
those which are not; and that, consequently, the emotions highest
of all are those related to the deciding forces of life, the
affections, and the conscience."

MARKHEIM

[Footnote: From "The Merry Men and Other Tales and Fables," by
Robert Louis Stevenson, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.]

"Yes," said the dealer, "our windfalls are of various kinds. Some
customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior
knowledge. Some are dishonest," and here he held up the candle, so
that the light fell strongly on his visitor, "and in that case,"
he continued, "I profit by my virtue."

Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his
eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and
darkness in the shop. At these pointed words, and before the near
presence of the flame, he blinked painfully and looked aside.

The dealer chuckled. "You come to me on Christmas Day," he
resumed, "when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my
shutters, and make a point of refusing business. Well, you will
have to pay for that; you will have to pay for my loss of time,
when I should be balancing my books; you will have to pay,
besides, for a kind of manner that I remark in you to-day very
strongly. I am the essence of discretion, and ask no awkward
questions; but when a customer cannot look me in the eye, he has
to pay for it." The dealer once more chuckled; and then, changing
to his usual business voice, though still with a note of irony,
"You can give, as usual, a clear account of how you came into the
possession of the object?" he continued. "Still your uncle's
cabinet? A remarkable collector, sir!"

And the little pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tip-
toe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his
head with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with
one of infinite pity, and a touch of horror.

"This time," said he, "you are in error. I have not come to sell,
but to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle's cabinet is
bare to the wainscot; even were it still intact, I have done well
on the Stock Exchange, and should more likely add to it than
otherwise, and my errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a
Christmas present for a lady," he continued, waxing more fluent as
he struck into the speech he had prepared; "and certainly I owe
you every excuse for thus disturbing you upon so small a matter.
But the thing was neglected yesterday; I must produce my little
compliment at dinner; and, as you very well know, a rich marriage
is not a thing to be neglected."

There followed a pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh
this statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the
curious lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a
near thoroughfare, filled up the interval of silence.

"Well, sir," said the dealer, "be it so. You are an old customer
after all; and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good
marriage, far be it from me to be an obstacle. Here is a nice
thing for a lady now," he went on, "this hand glass--fifteenth
century, warranted; comes from a good collection, too; but I
reserve the name, in the interests of my customer, who was just
like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole heir of a
remarkable collector."

The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had
stooped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so,
a shock had passed through Markheim, a start both of hand and
foot, a sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face. It
passed as swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain
trembling of the hand that now received the glass.

"A glass," he said hoarsely, and then paused, and repeated it more
clearly. "A glass? For Christmas? Surely not?"

"And why not?" cried the dealer. "Why not a glass?"

Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression. "You
ask me why not?" he said. "Why, look here--look in it--look at
yourself! Do you like to see it? No! nor I--nor any man."

The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly
confronted him with the mirror; but now, perceiving there was
nothing worse on hand, he chuckled. "Your future lady, sir, must
be pretty hard favored," said he.

"I ask you," said Markheim, "for a Christmas present, and you give
me this--this damned reminder of years, and sins, and follies--
this hand-conscience! Did you mean it? Had you a thought in your
mind? Tell me. It will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me
about yourself. I hazard a guess now, that you are in secret a
very charitable man?"

The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd,
Markheim did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his
face like an eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth.

"What are you driving at?" the dealer asked.

"Not charitable?" returned the other, gloomily. "Not charitable;
not pious; not scrupulous; unloving, unbeloved; a hand to get
money, a safe to keep it. Is that all? Dear God, man, is that
all?"

"I will tell you what it is," began the dealer, with some
sharpness, and then broke off again into a chuckle. "But I see
this is a love match of yours, and you have been drinking the
lady's health."

"Ah!" cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity. "Ah, have you been
in love! Tell me about that."

"I," cried the dealer. "I in love! I never had the time, nor have
I the time to-day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass?"

"Where is the hurry?" returned Markheim. "It is very pleasant to
stand here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would
not hurry away from any pleasure--no, not even from so mild a one
as this. We should rather cling, cling to what little we can get,
like a man at a cliff's edge. Every second is a cliff, if you
think upon it--a cliff a mile high--high enough, if we fall, to
dash us out of every feature of humanity. Hence it is best to talk
pleasantly. Let us talk of each other; why should we wear this
mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows, we might become friends?"

"I have just one word to say to you," said the dealer. "Either
make your purchase, or walk out of my shop."

"True, true," said Markheim. "Enough fooling. To business. Show me
something else."

The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon
the shelf, his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so.
Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his
greatcoat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs--at the same
time many different emotions were depicted together on his face--
terror, horror, and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion;
and through a haggard lift of his upper lip, his teeth looked out.

"This, perhaps, may suit," observed the dealer; and then, as he
began to re-arise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim.
The long, skewerlike dagger flashed and fell. The dealer struggled
like a hen, striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on
the floor in a heap.

Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and
slow as was becoming to their great age; others garrulous and
hurried. All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of
tickings. Then the passage of a lad's feet, heavily running on the
pavement, broke in upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim
into the consciousness of his surroundings. He looked about him
awfully. The candle stood on the counter, its flame solemnly
wagging in a draught; and by that inconsiderable movement, the
whole room was filled with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like
a sea: the tall shadows nodding, the gross blots of darkness
swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces of the
portraits and the china gods changing and wavering like images in
water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into that leaguer of
shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.

From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim's eyes returned to the
body of his victim, where it lay both humped and sprawling,
incredibly small and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor,
miserly clothes, in that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so
much sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it, and, lo! it was
nothing. And yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes and pool
of blood began to find eloquent voices. There it must lie; there
was none to work the cunning hinges or direct the miracle of
locomotion--there it must lie till it was found. Found! ay, and
then? Then would this dead flesh lift up a cry that would ring
over England, and fill the world with the echoes of pursuit. Ay,
dead or not, this was still the enemy. "Time was that when the
brains were out," he thought; and the first word struck into his
mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished--time, which had
closed for the victim, had become instant and momentous for the
slayer.

The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another,
with every variety of pace and voice--one deep as the bell from a
cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude
of a waltz--the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the
afternoon.

The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber
staggered him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with
the candle, beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the
soul by chance reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home
designs, some from Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated
and repeated, as it were an army of spies; his own eyes met and
detected him; and the sound of his own steps, lightly as they
fell, vexed the surrounding quiet. And still as he continued to
fill his pockets, his mind accused him, with a sickening
iteration, of the thousand faults of his design. He should have
chosen a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an alibi; he
should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious,
and only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he
should have been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should
have done all things otherwise; poignant regrets, weary, incessant
toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what
was now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable past.
Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the
scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote
chambers of his brain with riot; the hand of the constable would
fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a
hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the
prison, the gallows, and the black coffin.

Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a
besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumor
of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their
curiosity; and now, in all the neighboring houses, he divined them
sitting motionless: and with uplifted ear--solitary people,
condemned to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the
past, and now startlingly recalled from that tender exercise;
happy family parties, struck into silence round the table, the
mother still with raised finger: every degree and age and humor,
but all, by their own hearts, prying and hearkening and weaving
the rope that was to hang him. Sometimes it seemed to him he could
not move too softly; the clink of the tall Bohemian goblets rang
out loudly like a bell; and alarmed by the bigness of the ticking,
he was tempted to stop the clocks. And then, again, with a swift
transition of his terrors, the very silence of the place appeared
a source of peril, and a thing to strike and freeze the passer-by;
and he would step more boldly, and bustle aloud among the contents
of the shop, and imitate, with elaborate bravado, the movements of
a busy man at ease in his own house.

But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that, while one
portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled
on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a
strong hold on his credulity. The neighbor hearkening with white
face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible
surmise on the pavement--these could at worst suspect, they could
not know; through the brick walls and shuttered windows only
sounds could penetrate. But here, within the house, was he alone?
He knew he was; he had watched the servant set forth
sweethearting, in her poor best, "out for the day" written in
every ribbon and smile. Yes, he was alone, of course; and yet, in
the bulk of empty house above him, he could surely hear a stir of
delicate footing--he was surely conscious, inexplicably conscious
of some presence. Ay, surely; to every room and corner of the
house his imagination followed it; and now it was a faceless
thing, and yet had eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of
himself; and yet again behold the image of the dead dealer,
reinspired with cunning and hatred.

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