The Bondman (Caine)/Book 3

←

Book 2

The Bondman
by Hall Caine

Book 3: The Book of Red Jason

Epilogue

→

3987880The Bondman — Book 3: The Book of Red JasonHall Caine

The

Book of Red Jason

Chapter XXIV.

What Befell Old Adam.

Now it would be a long task to follow closely all that befell dear old Adam Fairbrother, from the time when the ship wherein he sailed for Iceland weighed anchor in Ramsey Bay. Yet not to know what strange risks he ran, and how in the end he overcame all dangers, by God's grace and his own extreme labour, is not to know this story of how two good men with a good woman between them pursued each other over the earth with vows of vengeance, and came together at length in Heaven's good time and way. So not to weary the spirit with much speaking, yet to leave nothing unsaid that shall carry us onward to that great hour when Red Jason and Michael Sunlocks stood face to face, let us begin where Adam's peril began, and hasten forward to where it ended.

Fourteen days out of Ramsey, in latitude of sixty-four degrees, distant about five leagues north of the Faroes, hoping to make the western shores of Iceland, Adam with his shipmates was overtaken by foul weather, with high seas and strong wind opposing them stoutly from the north-west. Thus they were driven well into the latitude of sixty-six off the western coast of Iceland, and there, though the seas still ran as high as to the poop, they were much beset by extraordinary pieces of ice which appeared to come down from Greenland. Then the wind abated, and an unsearchable and noisome fog followed; so dense that not an acre of sea could be seen from the topmast, and so foul that the compasses would not work in it. After that, though they wrought night and day with poles and spikes, they were beaten among the ice as scarce any ship ever was before, and so Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/256 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/257 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/258 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/259 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/260 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/261 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/262 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/263 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/264 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/265 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/266 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/267 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/268 So Greeba, under some assumed name, unknown to the contingent of Danish officers fresh from Denmark, who had that day taken the places of the Icelandic guards, and recognisable in her true character by two men only in Krisuvik, Michael Sunlocks and Red Jason, if ever they should see her, took up her employment as hospital nurse to the sick prisoners of the sulphur-mines.

But having attained her end, or the first part of it, her heart was torn by many conflicting feelings. Would she meet with her husband? Would he come to be in her own charge? Oh, God forbid that it should ever come to pass. Yet, God grant it, too, for that might help him to a swifter release than her dear old father could compass. Would she see Red Jason? Would Michael Sunlocks ever see him? Oh! God forbid that also. And yet, and yet, God grant it, after all.

Such were her hopes and fears, when the hospital shed was finished, and she took her place within it. And now let us see how Heaven fulfilled them.

Chapter XXV.

The Sulphur-Mines.

Red Jason and Michael Sunlocks were together at last, within the narrow stockade of a penal settlement. These two, who had followed each other from land to land, the one on his errand of vengeance, the other on his mission of mercy, both now nourishing hatred and lust of blood, were thrown as prisoners into the sulphur-mines of Krisuvik. There they met, they spoke, they lived and worked side by side, yet neither knew the other for the man he had sought so long and never found. This is the strange and wondrous chance that has now to be recorded, and only to think of it, whether as accident or God's ordinance, makes the blood to tingle in every vein. Poor and petty are the passions of man, and God's hand is over all.

Chapter XXVI.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Red Jason and Michael Sunlocks, now lashed together, were driven back to their work like beasts of the field. They knew well what their punishment meant to them—that in every hour of life henceforward, in every act, through every thought, each man should drag a human carcass by his side. The barbarity of their doom was hideous; but strangely different were the ways they accepted it. Michael Sunlocks was aflame with indignation; Jason was crushed with shame. The upturned face of Sunlocks was pale, his flaxen hair was dishevelled, his bloodshot eyes were afire. But Jason's eyes, full of confusion, were bent on the ground, his tanned face trembled visibly, and his red hair, grown long as of old, fell over his drooping shoulders like a mantle of blood.

And as they trudged along, side by side, in the first hours of their unnatural partnership, Sunlocks struggled hard to keep his eyes from the man with whom he was condemned to live and die, lest the gorge of his very soul should rise at the sight of him. So he never once looked at Jason through many hours of that day. And Jason, on his part, labouring with the thought that it was he who by his rash act had brought both of them to this sore pass, never once lifted his eyes to the face of Sunlocks.

Yet each man knew the other's thought before ever a word had passed between them. Jason felt that Sunlocks already abhorred him, and Sunlocks knew that Jason was ashamed. This brought them after a time into sympathy of some sort, and Jason tried to speak and Sunlocks to listen.

"I did not mean to bring you to this," said Jason humbly. And Sunlocks, with head aside, answered as well as he could for the disgust that choked him, "You did it for the best."

"But you will hate me for it," said Jason.

And once again, with what composure he could command, Sunlocks answered, "How could I hate you for saving me from such brutal treatment?"

"Then you don't regret it?" said Jason pleadingly.

"It is for you, not me, to regret it," said Sunlocks.

"Me?" said Jason.

Through all the shameful hours, the sense of his own loss had never yet come to him. From first to last he had thought only of Sunlocks.

Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/282 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/283 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/284 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/285 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/286 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/287 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/288 awful light flashed in Jason's eyes, for he saw that they had resolved to drive two living men to their death.

"Now listen again," said Jason, "and mark my words. We will do as you command us, and work in this pit of hell. I will not die in it—that I know. But this man beside me is weak and ill, Heaven curse your inhumanity; and if anything happens to him, and I am alive to see it, as sure as there is strength left in my arms, and blood in my body, I will tear you limb from limb."

So saying, he plunged his spade into the ground beneath him, with an oath to drive it, and at the next instant there was a flash of blue flame, an avalanche of smoke, a hurricane of unearthly noises, a cry like that of a dying man, and then an awful silence. When the air had cleared, Jason stood uninjured, but Michael Sunlocks hung by his side inert and quiet, and blinded by a jet of steam.

What happened to Jason thereafter no tongue of man could tell. All the fire of his spirit and all the strength of all his days seemed to flow back upon him in that great moment. He parted the ropes that bound him as if they had been green withes that he snapped asunder. He took Sunlocks in his arms and lifted him up to his shoulder, and hung him across it, as if he had been a child that he placed there. He stepped out of the deadly pit, and strode along over the lava mountain as if he were the sole creature of the everlasting hills. His glance was terrific, his voice was the voice of a wounded beast. The guards dropped their muskets and fled before him like affrighted sheep.

Chapter XXVII.

Through the Chasm of all Men.

It was still early morning; a soft grey mist lay over the moorlands, but the sun that had never set in that northern land was rising through clouds of pink and white over the bald crown of a mountain to the north-east. And towards the rising sun Jason made his way, striding on with the red glow on his own tanned and blackened face, and its ghastly mockery of the hues of life on the pallid cheeks and whitened lips of Sunlocks. From his right ankle and right wrist hung the rings of his broken fetters, and from the left ankle and left wrist of Sunlocks trailed the ropes that had bound them both. Never a moment did he pause Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/290 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/291 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/292 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/293 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/294 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/295 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/296 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/297 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/298 Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/299 And Jason answered, with heat and flame of voice, "Because I hate and loathe him."

"Has he wronged you also?" said Sunlocks.

"Yes," said Jason, "and I have waited and watched five years to requite him."

"Have you never yet met with him?"

"Never! But I'll see him now. And if he denies me this justice I'll"——

"What?"

At that Jason paused and then said quickly, "No matter."

But Sunlocks understood him, and cried, "God forbid it."

Half-an-hour later Red Jason, still carrying Michael Sunlocks, was passing through the Great Rift, the Chasm of All Men, a grand, gloomy, diabolical fissure, opening into the valley of Thingvellir. It was morning of the day following that of his escape from the sulphur-mines of Krisuvik. The air was clear, the sun was bright, and a dull sound, such as the sea makes when far away, came up from the plain below. It was a deep multitudinous hum of many voices. Jason heard it, and his heavy face lightened with the vividness of a grim joy.

Chapter XXVIII.

The Mount of Laws.

I.

But scarcely had he spoken when he recognised the man he had met, and the man recognised him. The one was Jason, and the other Jorgen Jorgensen.

Jorgen Jorgensen thought his hour had come for putting his hand to his weapon, he remembered that he had not reloaded it since he shot at Jason, and so he flung it away. But the old tiger was not to be subdued. "Come," he said, "let us have done. What is it to be?"

And at first a cry of savage triumph came up out of the depths of Jason's heart, for he believed that with his own hands he was now to slay this man. "I am stronger than he is," thought Jason, "but my right arm is useless, and that makes us equals."

But at the next instant something smote him, and he stepped back and said, "That is the way to Reykjavík—over the stream and through the first chasm on the left."

At this Jorgen Jorgensen seemed to catch his breath, for he tried to speak and could not.

"No," said Jason. "It may be weakness, it may be folly, it may be madness, but you were my mother's father, God pity her and forgive you, and not even at the price of my brother's life will I have your blood on my hands. Go."

Jorgen Jorgensen touched his horse and rode on, with his grey, dishonoured head deep in his breast. And, evil man as he was, surely his cold heart was smitten with shame.

Chapter XXIX.

The Gospel of Love.

Chapter XXX.

The Gospel of Renunciation.

I.

What had happened in the great world during the two years in which Michael Sunlocks had been out of it is very simple and easily told. Old Adam Fairbrother had failed at London as he had failed at Copenhagen, and all the good that had come of his efforts had ended in evil. It was then that accident helped him in his despair. The relations of England and Denmark had long been doubtful, for France seemed to be stepping between them. Napoleon was getting together a combination of powers against England, and in order to coerce Denmark into using her navy—a small but efficient one—on the side of the alliance, he threatened to send a force overland. He counted without the resources of Nelson, who with no more ado than setting sail, got across to Copenhagen, took possession of every ship of war that lay in Danish waters, and brought them home to England in a troop.

When Adam heard of this he saw his opportunity in a moment, and hurrying away to Nelson at Spithead he asked if among the Danish ships that had been captured there was a sloop of war that had lain near two years off the island of Grimsey. Nelson answered No, but that if there was such a vessel still at liberty he was not of a mind to leave it to harass him. So Adam told why the sloop was there, and Nelson, waiting for no further instructions, despatched an English man-of-war, with Adam aboard of her, to do for the last of the Danish fleet what had been done for the body of it, and at the same time to recover the English prisoner whom she had been sent to watch.

"Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day."

On the island rock of old Grimsey, close to the margin of the Arctic seas, there is a pyramid of lava blocks, now honeycombed and moss-covered, over Jason's rest. And to this day the place of it is called "The place of Red Jason."

End of the Book of Red Jason.

Layout 2