Staggering, I clutched the window ledge for support. The uneven light from a guttering candle secured in an empty bottle disclosed what I had (God help me!) expected to see. They—one, two, three, four, five of them—they were there, the same and yet how infinitely horrible! Lifelessly, yet with terrible relentlessness, they played at their everlasting cards. Their dank hair hung in wisps over sunken eyes. The leathery skin of their faces sagged loosely over fleshless skulls. Their clothes hung in tatters, slimed with earth and mud.
And their hands! Fascinated, in terror, I watched those lean, blackened claws deal the mildewed and ragged cards. Their nails, long and broken, scratched over the rough table as they clutched at the chips. They were intent on their game, unaware of my presence. But even as I gratefully assured myself of this their eyes were on me. There was no hate, no fury, no fiendish glee in their expression, rather a blankness, a patient waiting. They had ceased to play. All the waiting in the universe concentrated about me. There was a vacant place beside the dealer. When I could resist no longer, I went within.
The dawn lay pallid on the hills when I flung away from the cabin. There was no sound or motion from the sixth tree as I shrank from its reaching fingers. When clear of it, I ran—ran in the madness of terror to the hotel, locked my door and fell sobbing in wrath and exhaustion on the bed.
I had lost! There was no depth to the agony of my soul. We had played for no obvious stakes, but only too well I knew the prize for which we fought. There would be two more nights of play with two more chances to win. I arose, bathed my scorching brow, and all day I sat figuring, figuring. As a man of science I had often scoffed at the thing called luck, for any game of cards must be reducible to some science or system. Night found me triumphant. Scarcely could I wait for the darkness that I might hasten to their humiliation.
And that night I won! I won, I say! They were waiting for me as before. The cards were dealt, and then I proved that all things are explained by science. A man so learned can hold the world in his hand, immune from the uncertainties of chance and accident!
MY triumph grew as the dawn approached. I grew reckless. I chuckled. I laughed. I taunted them in their ghastly dead faces. They sat immobile, playing, playing. Their silence infuriated me. I tried to sting them to retort, but my words found answer only in the angry mutterings of the echo from the hollow room. When, as before, the candle choked and expired like a dying man and their wasted forms faded into the shadows of the cabin, I hurled the cards after them and went stumbling and laughing into the morning, drunk with my triumph. As I passed beneath the cursed tree it dared to trail clinging, warmthless fingers across my cheek. I jerked away in loathing and derision. I still can feel the iciness of its touch.
They have asked me, these curious ignorant fools here, where I spend the nights. They talk and whisper about me in little groups that grow silent and disperse when I approach. Well, tonight is the last night, and then I shall be free and far away. If I had not been a man of science and evolved a system, then I might have known defeat; and these gaping fools might have something to fill their empty brains and furnish them with silly chatter. They would find my mutilated body, clawed as though by a mountain lion flung into a shallow grave—beneath the sixth tree.
But I shall not lose! When this night curdles into dawn I shall stuff their own dirty cards down their withered throats and crowd them back into their filthy graves, stamping the dirt upon them until it fills their mouths and blinds their staring eyes. And the tree? I shall leave it to wring its bony hands forever in impotent chagrin.
But why am I lingering here? It is time for the game to begin and—they are waiting.
The Unnatural Son
WE hope for the honor of human nature, that such events as the following do not often occur.
Among the indictments for theft, was one in which a person was a complainant against his own father, who, to appearance, was upward of seventy years of age. The party resided at Salisbury. The son testified that his father, during the absence of the former, broke open his house, and took, carried away, and concealed, sundry articles; that he procured a warrant, and went with an officer and found a part of the goods concealed in defendant's garret, etc. The officer, who is sheriff of the county, testified in substance the same as the complainant, in respect to the concealment of the goods; but on a cross-examination, said, that the door of the house was open, and no impediment was made to the search. On the part of the defendant, another son testified that the goods taken belonged to the father, and had been lent a number of years previous; that the father had divided his real property equally between himself and the complainant, taking a life-lease; that he had lent the articles in question to enable the son to prosecute his business; that differences had taken place, and the old man had requested these articles to be restored, but they were refused; that his father had gone to the house and taken them in open day, its being the only way in which they could be secured. When this witness was examined, the court enquired of the counsel for government, if he expected to impeach his testimony? It was answered, that it was not expected to impeach his character but do away his evidence; by proving that the son had purchased and paid for the articles. Its not appearing that any more than, a trespass would be proved, even if the old man did own the property, a nolle prosequi was entered, and the action was dismissed.
The indictment charged the old man with stealing to the amount of something like one hundred dollars. Had he been convicted, he must have been sentenced to hard labor in the state prison for a number of years. How unnatural, that a son, who, it appeared, had property gratuitously bestowed on him by his father, should seek for an occasion, in the presence of the public to swear to facts, a conviction for which must have consigned that father already on the brink of the grave to servitude and a dungeon!
