The Darrow Enigma by Melvin L. Severy (best fiction novels of all time TXT) 📖

think, and I did think,

if the pulse of an overwhelming pain, perpetually recurring like the

beat of a loaded wheel, can be called thought. Although there is

no insanity in our family nearer than a great-uncle, I marvel that

I retained my wits under this terrible blow. I seriously

contemplated suicide, and probably should have taken my life had not

my mental condition gradually undergone a change. I was no longer

conscious of suffering, nor of a desire to end my life. I was

simply indifferent. It was all one to me whether I lived or died.

The power of loving or caring for anything or anybody had entirely

left me, and when I would reflect how utterly indifferent I was even

to my own father and mother, I would regard myself as an unnatural

monster. I tried to conceal my lack of affection by a greater

attention to their wishes, and it was in this way that I yielded,

without remonstrance, to those same views regarding my marriage,

to which, but a little while before, I had made such strenuous

objections as to quite enrage my father. I was an only child, and

(as often happens in such cases) my father never could be brought

to realise that I had many years since attained my majority. It

had been his wish, ever since my boyhood, that I should marry your

mother, and he made use, when I was nearly forty, of the selfsame

insistent and coercive methods with which he had sought to subdue my

will when I was but twenty, and at last he attained his end. I had

learned from friends in Bombay that not only had Rama Ragobah

recovered from the blows I had given him, but that, shortly after my

encounter with him, he had married Lona, she whom I had loved, God

only knows how madly! It was all one to me now whether I was

married or single, living or dead. So it was all arranged. I

myself told the lady that, so far as I then understood my feelings,

I had no affection for any person on earth; but it seemed only to

pique her, and I think she determined then and there to make herself

an exception to this universal rule. This is how I came to marry

your mother. There was not the slightest community of thought,

sentiment, or interest between us. The things I liked did not

interest her; what she liked bored me; yet she was pre-eminently a

sensible woman, and when she learned the real state of affairs was

the first to suggest a separation, which was effected. We parted

with the kindliest feelings, and, as you know, remained fast friends

up to her

death.

 

It was nearly a year after the affair on Malabar Hill before I had

the heart to return with your mother to Bombay. I had thought all

emotion forever dead within me, but, ah! how little do we understand

ourselves. Twelve months had not passed, and already I was conscious

of a vague ache - a feeling that something, I scarcely knew what, had

gone wrong, so terribly wrong! I told myself that I was now married,

and had a duty both to my wife and society, and I tried hard to

ignore the ache, on the one hand, and not to permit myself to define

and analyse it on the other. But a man does not have to understand

anatomy in order to break his heart, and so my longing defined itself

even by itself. The old fire, built on a virgin hearth, was far

from out. Society had heaped a mouthful of conventional ashes upon

it, but they had served only to preserve it. From the fiat of the

human heart there is no court of appeal.

 

One night, to my utter amazement, I received a letter from Lona which

you will find filed away among my other valuable documents.

 

It was addressed in her own quaint little hand, and I trembled

violently as I opened the envelope. It was but a brief note, and

ran as follows:

 

“I am dying, and have much to explain before I go. Be generous,

and do not think too harshly of me. Suspend your judgment until

I have spoken. You must come by stealth, or you will not be

permitted to see me. Follow my directions carefully and you will

have no trouble in reaching me. Go at once to the cave on Malabar

Hill, whistle thrice, and one will appear who will conduct you

safely to me. Follow him, and whatever happens, make no noise.

Do not delay - I can last but little longer.

“LONA.”

 

I did not even pause to re-read the letter, or to ask why it was

necessary to follow such singular directions in order to be led to

her. I simply knew she had written to me; that she was dying; that

she wanted me; that was all, but it was enough. Dazed, filled with

a strange mixture of dread and yearning, I hurried to the cave. It

was already night when I reached it - just such a moonlit night as

that on which, nearly a year before, Lona and I had planned our

elopement; and now that heart, which then had beaten so wildly

against mine, was slowly throbbing itself into eternal silence,

- and I - I had been more than dead ever since.

 

I looked about on all sides, but no human being was visible. I

whistled thrice, but no sound came in response. Again I whistled,

with the same result. Where was my guide? Perhaps he was in the

cave and had not heard me. I entered it to see, but had barely

passed the narrow portal when a voice said close behind me: “Did

you whistle, Sahib?” The suddenness, the strangeness of this

uncanny appearance, so close to me that I felt the breath of the

words upon my neck, sent a chill over me. I shall never forget that

feeling! Many times since then have I dreamt of a hand that struck

me from out the darkness, while the same unspeakable dread froze up

my life, until, by repetition, it has sunk deep into my soul with

the weight of a positive conviction. I know, as I now write, that

this will be my end, and his will be the hand that strikes. The

fibre of our lives is twisted in a certain way, and each has its own

fixed mode of unravelling, - this will be mine.

 

When I had recovered from the first momentary shock I turned and

looked behind me. There, close upon me, with his huge form blocking

the narrow entrance, stood Rama Ragobah, my rival, his face hideous

with malignant triumph! I was trapped, and that, too, by a man whom

my hatred, could it have worked its will, would have plunged into the

uttermost hell of torment. I felt sure my hour had come, but my

assassin should not have the satisfaction of thinking I feared him.

I did not permit myself to betray the slightest concern as to my

position - indeed, after the shock of the first surprise, I did not

care so very much what fate awaited me. Why should I? Had I not

seriously thought of taking my own life? Was it not clear now that

Lona, whose own handwriting had decoyed me, had most basely

betrayed me into her husband’s hands? If I had wished to end my

own life before, surely now, death, at the hands of another, was no

very terrible thing. Could I have dragged that other down with me,

I would have rejoiced at the prospect!

 

Ragobah broke the silence. “You have left your stick this time, I

see,” he said, as he unsheathed the long knife I had once before

escaped, and ostentatiously felt its edge as if he were about to

shave with it.

 

“You were in haste, Sahib, when you left me last time, or I should

not now have the pleasure of this interview. Be assured I shall do

my work more thoroughly this time. Behind you there is a hole

partly filled with water. If you drop a stone into this well, it

is several seconds before you hear the splash, and there is a saying

hereabouts that it is bottomless. I am curious to know if this be

true, and I am going to send you to see. Of course, if the story is

well founded, I shall not expect you to come back. That would be

unreasonable, Sahib.”

 

All this was said with a refined sarcasm which maddened me, and, as

he concluded, he began to edge stealthily toward me. So strong is

the instinct of self-preservation within us that I doubt not a

would-be suicide, caught in the act of hanging himself, would

struggle madly for his life were someone else to forcibly adjust the

noose about his neck. At all events, I found myself unwilling, at

the last moment, to have someone else launch me into eternity and,

as I wished to gain time to think what I should do to escape, I

said to him:

 

“Why do you bear me such malice? Can you not see that any injury I

may have done you was purely in self-defence? You sought the quarrel,

and I took the only means at hand to protect myself. I did not, as

you know, seek to kill you, a thing I could easily have done, but

was content merely to make good my escape. I -”

 

“Bah!” he said, interrupting me savagely. “That has nothing to do

with it. Had you only pounded my head you might live, but you have

pounded my heart! It is for that I hate you, and for that you die!”

 

“What have I done?” I asked.

 

“What have you done?” he roared, furious with rage. “I will tell

you. You have by magic possessed the mind of my wife. Your name,

your cursed name is ever upon her lips! My entreaties, my

supplications are answered by nothing else. Even in her sleep she

starts up and calls for you. You have cast a spell upon her. Day

by day she droops and withers like a lotus-flower whose root is

severed; yet ever and always, is your cursed name upon her lips,

goading me to madness, until at last I have registered a sacred oath

to kill you, and remove the accursed spell you have thrown upon her.”

 

Had he advanced upon me at this moment he would have found me as

helpless as a child, so overcome was I by the sudden joy which seized

upon me, and seemed to turn my melancholy inside out. Those words of

hatred had been as a torch illumining the gloom of my despair, for

they had shown me that my existence was not altogether barren and

unproductive. The life which has known the heaven of true love

cannot be called a failure. There is no wall so high, no distance

so great, no separation so complete as to defy the ineffable commerce

of two loving hearts! Lona, then, was still mine, despite all

obstacles. What a change this knowledge made! In an instant life

became an inexpressible benefaction, for it permitted me to realise

I was beloved, - and death was dowered with a new horror - the fear

that I should cease to know it.

 

I was roughly aroused from my reflections by Rama Ragobah.

 

“Come, Sahib,” he said, as his thick lips curled sneeringly, “suppose

you try your spells upon me? You will never have a better chance

than now to show your power,” and again he made a slight movement

toward me with the gleaming knife. The moon, low down upon the

horizon, sent a broad