—a night of splendid moonlight—found the millionaire gripped and throttled by an anguish so intolerable as to pass all powers of description.
Racked by pain in every joint, bone, and nerve, twisted and torn, sweating, groaning, transfixed with barblike darts of torture, he staggered back and forth through the two dark rooms of his bungalow.
He had all shades pulled down, to hide his torment from the hateful eyes of Jaccard and Zanelli. A single lamp burned on the table, turned very low. The stifling heat made the place an oven. A normal man could hardly have caught his breath there. As for Wingate, he was breathing only in panting gulps.
His heart was acting very badly. Bump, thump, bump, it would go—and then an awful vacancy, a skip. He thought everything was over; but no—again the thumping started.
Gripping his breast, doubled half over, he limped back and forth. His shadow, black and huge, grotesquely mocking him, wavered along the walls. In a sort of hallucination, the shadow seemed a devil, his own evil genius, trailing him, waiting to seize and slay him.
He stopped, shook impotent fists at the shadow, cursed it, and then again took up that limping hobble. Groans of mortal agony companioned his convulsive shuffling. A grim battle, that—a battle to the very death!
At last, able to walk no more, he dropped on his bed and lay there, twitching. His bony fingers clenched, his body twisted with dolorous cramps, he fought for very life. Now he moaned, now he swore, now he mouthed his wife's name and his boy's. Even his curses, on that rack of torment for their sake, were prayers.
Two hours he lay thus, while the ocean murmured on the island beaches, and while the moon moved majestically toward mid heaven. What was the beauty of that Southern night to him? What was any beauty, anywhere? Demons of ugliness, nightmare fiends of torture, had their grip upon him.
“Oh, God, if I could only die!” he gritted. As a corollary to that wish, realization came: “If I were dead, they'd be far better off!”
Disjointed thoughts of his heavy insurance policies passed through his mind. Thank goodness, they were paid up. There could be no cavil or question. The fact of his death must sooner or later be established, and then—
Then perhaps Jaccard and Zanelli might find the gallows beckoning, or the electric chair. Then, surely, Constance and Hugh would never want for anything.
“God! Why can't I die?”
But no, life still struggled in him. The man's naturally splendid constitution still battled for him. Not yet had his desperation reached the stage of suicide. All he could do was to live and suffer; to writhe in deadly pangs, but still to live on and on and on.
Of a sudden, after still another hour of this steadily increasing torture there in the stifling gloom, Wingate struggled up. He sat huddled on the edge of the bed, drooping and haggard, a creature fearful to look upon.
For a while he held his aching head—devils seemed to be driving wedges into it—between both quivering hands. Then, as if his last rag of will power had torn away, he staggered to his feet with a blistering oath. All limits of endurance past, he stumbled toward the door. He reached it, hauled it open, and shuffled out on the porch.
Never had a more lovely night rested like a benediction upon a tired world. Slow surfs boomed along the beaches. In the palmettos, the night breeze seemed whispering secrets that no man should ever understand. The moon, a white round glory in the deepest of purple skies, irradiated the gleaming sands. The silver light slashed shadows like sticks of India ink across the porch floor, over the dunes, the clearing.
A few of the bolder stars dared to show their tiny candles, despite the moon. Somewhere, in thickets unseen, fluted the notes of a Southern whippoorwill—double notes, not triple like those of the North, but still reminding Wingate of nights long gone. Once there had been a night, at Sebago, almost like this!
The prisoner groaned, supporting himself against the side of the bungalow, swaying there.
He stood for a minute, still undecided. Then, unable to bear the inhuman anguish, he crept toward the screen door, opened it, and lagged down the steps. Hardly able to crawl, none the less he managed to force his way along.
Yes, he remembered—the Spanish bayonet, and then the palmetto! He dragged himself toward the palmetto, trembling with eagerness, his face writhen and evil in the moonlight.
Driven on by demons more cruel than any ever imagined by Dante, he reached the palmetto, fell on his bony knees there, and began his search for the precious tablet.