The Man of Last Resort/The Governor's Machine/Chapter 2
II
THE Governor walked gravely down the long platform at El Paso, looking up at the windows of the Pullmans, wondering, rather indistinctly, how he should be able to recognize the irridescent princess of his romantic youth. A negro porter touched him on the arm and inquired if he was Governor Randal. The Executive replied that he was, whereupon the negro with much profound obeisance announced that Miss Lanmar was waiting in the drawing-room of the opposite Pullman.
The Governor sprang up the steps of the coach. As he entered, a young woman, wearing a dark travelling dress, came forward to meet him. She was of medium height, with heavy brown hair, fine eyes, arched brows, and quite a faultless nose. But the great charm of the woman was her splendid bearing, and her instinctive culture.
Just how this meeting began Alfred Randal could never afterwards quite recall. He could remember in vivid details the first picture of this superb woman as she arose to greet him, but then, just then, the love of his youth that had seemed to sleep under an anæsthetic for so many years, suddenly woke into glorious life, and gushed into his heart and overran his senses with its marvellous vitality. What transpired thereafter was provokingly indistinct. He remembered being presented to the aunt, Mrs. Beaufort, and her astonishment, and her incredulous query as to whether he lived in this “terrible country” to which he had replied that he could not be said to live, but that it was his part to exist in this rather primitive land. He remembered that the three sat together in the drawing-room of the coach and talked of his return to New York, of his ultimate success, and his assured future. He remembered also that for the time he had forgotten the grave difficulty in the way of such a future and his stern decision made but a few minutes before. He remembered also that through it all he had been very foolish and very confident and idiotically happy, and how at the parting he had kissed Miss Lanmar's hand and blushed like a school-girl, and then jumped down from the moving train at the peril of his life.
The Governor stood upon the platform and watched the great train as it thundered away in the distance. The interview which had just ended, although a thing apparently unreal, had swept him out from under the influence of an illusion that had served to make his life in the great Southwest bearable, even happy. From this time forth it could never be what it had been. The man felt like one who, having been so long a captive in a dungeon that he was half content, and his memories of the world had become vague and unreal, is suddenly and without warning lifted into the sunshine of the great glorious world and held there until his heart is filled to drunkenness with the beauty of it all, and then, ruthlessly and on the instant, is thrust back into the rayless gloom of his dungeon.
Randal stood for a time looking at the rows of dim lights scattered about the station like dismal fireflies. Then he crossed to the freight train upon which he was to return and climbed up into the cab with the driver.
“What time shall we get in?” he asked.
“By the top of the night, Governor, if we have luck,” answered the driver, pulling open the throttle.
The engine snorted and pounded along in the dark like some huge beast. The Governor sat in the cab window and looked out. The night air was sweet and cool, his face was hot. Two hours before he had decided what he should do, and dismissed the matter; but new and powerful elements had arisen and ordered him to rehear and decide anew.
Ambercrombie Hergan had lost and wasted the money of the State. There was now a deficit in his accounts of some fifty thousand dollars. There was no way by which this loss could be met unless Randal should pay it, and to do this would take everything he had on earth. It would mean the sacrifice of his mining stock, which, if held, promised great returns. It would be ruin, utter ruin, to make good the loss; yet the gambler, although a gambler, was his friend, and two hours before he had not hesitated at all.
Motives, mighty, selfish motives, which until this hour he had beaten back, now leaped up clamoring to be heard, howling for time against his decision, time to show the right of their cause, the wisdom of it, the ultimate justice of it. Something asked him roughly what right had he to jeopardize the future of this woman who loved him. What right had he to deceive, to sacrifice her? Who was Hergan that he should be considered against this woman? Who, but a reckless and improvident adventurer? It was not his own happiness urged the something; that would be a matter of little moment. It was the happiness of another, and that other was true, innocent of wrong, superlatively just. What contrast could be drawn between the woman and this gambler? Duty? What duty could he owe to the irresponsible Hergan that could approach in the slightest part the measure of the duty which he owed to the woman who had trusted him for so many years, and waited, and loved him?
Yet against all this, certain pictures came up from the past,—vivid, proclaiming a mighty truth, a truth which the man knew and acknowledged in his heart, the truth that if these positions were reversed, Hergan, gambler though he was, would not hesitate for a moment. Had he hesitated that morning in the Rio Grande when Randal's horse had fallen and was being swept down with the current, carrying his master under him, tangled in the stirrup strap? Had he hesitated when it became necessary deliberately to steal and burn the bogus ballots in Garfield County, when to do so seemed little less than deliberate suicide? Had he hesitated that terrible day on the Rio Sonora, when there was no time for warning, but time only to spring forward and take the knife in his shoulder? Had this man ever hesitated when the welfare of Randal was at stake? Would he not gladly, and without comment, give up his life to-morrow if the Governor should ask it of him?
The Governor passed his hand across his forehead and closed his eyes. When he opened them he had decided, and against this second decision there should be now no appeal and no rehearing.