The Fanatics/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
A VAGUE QUEST
It is doubtful how long Mary would have sat staring out into the darkness had not the entrance of Nannie and her preparations for bed disturbed her revery. She also disrobed and was soon lying in bed, her eyes wide open and her thoughts busy with the events of the day. She did not want to talk and so made but brief replies to Nannie's proffers of conversation. Finally, from feigning sleep, she fell into a light doze from which she started crying, "The Black Rider! The Black Rider!"
The experiences of the last few hours had exhausted Nannie, and though it was yet early in the evening, she was sleeping soundly. Mary recovered herself, and finding that she was not observed, crept stealthily from the bed. She paused for awhile beside the window, and then dressed with feverish haste as if spurred by a definite purpose. When she was fully clothed she stepped quietly down the stairway, and past the sitting-room where some of the family were still up, and glided out of the house. Why she was doing so, she herself could not have told, but something was dragging or driving her on, on, towards the station. She had yet no fixed idea where she was going, but she felt in her pocket for money and it never occurred to her until she found the amount of her fare that from the beginning she had intended to go to Cincinnati, though that she did not yet know, the tendency towards a definite act being rather subconscious than apprehended. There was just time to catch the half-past ten train. She reached the station, bought her ticket and sank breathless and dazed into a seat.
There was a moment's delay, and then the train sped away into the darkness. The sum of all her impressions was that the Black Rider whose face was still concealed from her, flitted ever by the side of the coach and just at her window. The lights of the town faded from view and the river lay behind her a line of sinuous silver. The sky overhead was besprent with pale stars, but she saw only the cloaked and muffled man, riding, riding as one rides in a nightmare. The train whistled, wheezed and paused at stations, and then went panting on, and Mary, knowing as little, feeling hardly more than the dumb mechanism that carried her, went on upon a vague, unknown quest, for what, she could not have told.
Prompting her action there was apparently no cause or intelligence. Scarcely was there even volition. Some force, stronger and wiser than she, good or malignant, impelled her forward whether she would or no. She went on not because she would, but because she must.
The night became suddenly overcast, the sky darkened, the stars went out, and as the train flew on its way southward, a peal of thunder broke from the heavens, and sharp rain began pattering against the window. She crouched lower in her seat and stared ever out through the pane where she could see the mantled figure riding, riding. She could hear his horse's hoof-beats above the sound of the storm, and her eyes sought vainly his face, though she knew and could not be deceived in the form.
When the coach drew into Cincinnati, she alighted and still blind, dazed and apparently without direction, hastened out and took a car. The night was one of inky blackness, the rain was coming down in torrents, while intermittent flashes of lightning showed her the wet and shining streets and the roadways through which she was passing. At the call, Avondale, she left the car and went on blindly into the night.
Terror now seized her, terror of the unknown, of the darkness, of the mystery in her own wild act; but she could not stop nor turn back. Was she fleeing from or to something? Once in a moment of consciousness, she asked herself the question, but hurried on without answering or attempting to answer it. On, through the little suburban village and out upon a country road, a mile out; the last house had been passed, the last light had flickered out of her sight, and then drenched, exhausted, she paused under a huge oak and turned her eyes back over the way she had come. It was not weariness that made her stop, it was a sense of waiting, waiting for something, the thing for which she had come. It was perhaps a half hour that she had stood there, and then the sound of clattering hoofs struck her ear. She pressed closer to the tree. A company of cavalrymen were approaching. They came at a smart canter. Breathlessly, she awaited. They were near to her. They were passing, first close together, then with gaps between, then scatteringly. With her physical ear she heard the sound of their hoof-beats in the soft, slushy mud, but with her inner sense, she heard the sound of one horse on dry ground, and her eyes saw but one rider, still the black mantled figure of her dreams. She heard him, saw him coming nearer, nearer, then a flash of lurid lightning lit the whole scene, and starting forward from the tree, she cried, "Robert, Robert!"
As if but one man had heard her, as if her voice had been intended to reach but one, a figure shrouded in a dark cloak, whirled and rode from the straggly ranks up to the side of the road and dismounted. She stretched her arms out. Another flash of lightning showed the trooper the white face of the girl beside the tree, and with a cry he caught her to him as she fell forward.
"Mary, Mary," he cried, "can it be you? Are you flesh or spirit? My God, what does it mean?" But she was lying cold in his arms. The cavalry passed on, stragglers and all. He stood there helplessly holding her, one hand clutching his horse's bridle. The rain from the leaves dripped in her face, and she revived.
"Robert," she said faintly.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I—I—don't know. I dreamed of you and I came. Where am I?"
"On the road out of Cincinnati, about two miles from Avondale. Who came with you?"
"I came alone."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know. Something sent me to you."
"You are very weak," he said.
"I must go back now," she replied.
"Where will you go?"
"I don't know."
The power that had driven her out, that had guided her seemed suddenly to have left her helpless and without direction.
The men now were entirely passed, and without a word, he lifted her to his saddle and springing up behind her, turned his horse's head back towards the town.
"God knows what brought you here, darling," he whispered close to her ear, "but it was something stronger and wiser than us both. It has been a long, hard ride with me, and I was losing hold, but you have given me strength again. People have heard our horses and are aroused, but I will take you back where you will be safe. Another day," he bent over and kissed her brow, "when all of this is over, you shall tell me how and why you came to me, love of my heart."
She nestled closer to him and did not answer. There was nothing for her to say, she did not understand, he did not understand. He rode straight into the town. Dark forms were gathering upon the corners. Here and there a torch flared.
"I must leave you now, Mary," he said, "the power that brought you will care for you. I must join my company. God be with you."
He set her down and was wheeling away, when a torch beside him flared. A man cried, "Here's one of them!"
Van Doren struck spurs to his horse and the animal dashed away. A hue and cry arose. There was a volley of shots, and the night swallowed the Black Rider. A crowd surrounded Mary and led her speechless and confused to the nearest house. A few of the bolder spirits followed the rider on foot, until the sound of his horse's hoofs had died away into the distance.
The girl could not give any clear account of herself except that she had come from Dorbury and had wandered out of her way. Kind matrons put her to bed where she fell asleep like a child, though she would have rested less easily had she known that Robert was swaying, white-faced in his saddle, his arm shattered by a bullet.
All night long, men full of alarm, patroled the streets of the village fearing and expecting an attack, while women stayed up and brewed tea and talked of their night visitor. When Mary awoke in the morning, the events of the night before were like a dream to her, and though the women questioned her closely and eagerly she was able to give them little or nothing of the satisfaction for which they longed. It was all so strange, so unbelievable, that she did not dare tell them all that had really happened. There were some who said that she must be a spy, and there were threats of detaining her, but she made it clear where she lived, mentioning the names of people whom several of them knew, and so they put her down as some demented or half-witted creature who had lost her way and been rescued by the trooper in grey.
"Well, the hound will have one thing to his credit," said the husband of the woman at whose house she had slept.
Her head clear, the girl was anxious now to return to her home. The busy little matron, still suspecting her sanity, insisted on going with her as far as the train, where with many head-shakes and mysterious comments, she put Mary in charge of the conductor and went away trembling for the safety of her protégée.
The whole Woods household was in an uproar of excitement and Nannie was blaming herself keenly for negligence when Mary walked in.
"Oh, Mary, Mary," cried her friend at sight of her, "where have you been? You've given us such a fright. We've searched everywhere for you."
But Mary only smiled and kept her counsel. "I had to go away," she said.
"What time did you leave?" Mary smiled again. A little later a message came from Bradford Waters saying, "Have you found Mary yet?"
Nannie blushed. We thought you had gone home, and so we went there."
"I was not at home," was the only answer.
Whatever it may have meant, the girl herself was never able to explain it, but Mary saw no more visions and she was happier.
The puzzle was deep in Robert's mind as he rode away from the girl, leaving her to the mercies of the gaping townspeople. He had no doubt that they would treat her kindly and send her home in safety. But the thought that held him and made him forget even the pain in his arm that grew and grew was how she had come there. How had she known where to find him, when even the troopers themselves did not know whither they were tending? Who gave the simple, emotional girl the information that the governor of Ohio would have given so much to have? There was nothing in the range of Robert's experience to explain the phenomenon, so although he hugged the memory of her presence to his consciousness, he gave up speculation to wait for that later day when he had said she would tell him. His thoughts now had time to revert to his wound, and he found that his sleeve was soaked with blood that was fast stiffening in spite of the constant downpour. The absorption of his attention no longer kept his misery in subordination. He began to feel fainter and fainter, but clenched his teeth and laid his head upon the neck of his good mare. A mile more, and the sound of moving men came to his ears. Then he gained upon them faster and knew that they had halted for the night. His head was ringing like a chime of bells. His heart throbbed painfully and his tongue was parched. Heavier and heavier he lay upon the mare's neck, and when finally the animal halted in the hastily improvised camp, it was an inert body that had to be lifted from her back.
Already Mary was quietly sleeping in the friendly house and no dream or vision told her of the lover who was to ride no more with John Morgan, but unknown, was to be nursed back to life by a good-hearted farmer and his wife.