Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1893 — The Master of Ballantrae [ARTICLE]

The Master of Ballantrae

By Robert Louis Stevenson.

CHAPTER XXXl— Continued. A narrow plateau, overlooked by the White mountains and encompassed near at hand by woods, lay bare to the strong radiance of the moon. Rough goods, such as make the wealth of foresters, were lying here and there upon the ground in meaningless disarray. About the midst a tent stood, silvered with frost; the door open, gaping on the black interior. At one end of this small stage lay What seemed the tattered remnants of a man. Without doubt we had arrived upon the scene of Harris's encampment; there were the goods scattered in the panic of flight; it was in yon tent the master breathed his last, and the frozen carrion that lay before us was the body of the drunken shoemaker. It was always moving to come upon the theater of any-tragic incident; to come upon it after so many days and to find it (in the seclusion of a desert) still unchanged must have impressed the minebof themost cawless. And yet it was not that which struck u§ into pillars of stone, but the sight (which yet we had been half expecting) of Secundra ankle deep in the grave of his late master. He had cast the main part of his raiment by, yet his frail arm and shoulders glistened in the moonlight with a copious sweat; his blows resounded on the grave as thick sobs, and behind him, strangely deformed and ink black upon the frosty ground, the creature’s shadow repeated and parodied his swift gesticulations. Some night birds arose from the boughs upon our coming and then settled back; but Secundra, absorbed in his toil, heard or heeded not at all. I heard Mountain whisper to Sir William, “Good God, its the grave! He’s digging him up!” It was what we had all guessed, and yet to hear it put in language thrilled me. Sir William started. “You damned sacrilegious hound!” he cried. “What's this?” Secundra leaped in the air, a breathless cry escaped him, the tool

flew from his grasp and he stood one instant staring at the speaker. The next, swift as an arrow, he sped for the woods upon the further side; and the next again, throwing up his hands with a violent gesture of resolution, he had begun already to retrace his steps. “Well, then, you come, you help—” he was saying. But now my lord had stepped to the side of Sir William; the moon shone fair upon his face, and the words were still upon Seeundra’s lips when he beheld and recognized his master’s enemy. “Him!” he screamed, clasping his hands and shrinking on himself. “Come, come,” said Sir William, “there is none here to do you harm, if you are innocent; if you be guilty, your escape is quite cut off. Speak, what do you here among the graves of the dead and the remains of the unburied?” - • “You no murderer?" inquired Seeundra. “You true man? You see me safe?” “I will see you safe if you be innocent,” returned Sir William. “I have said the thing and I see not why you should doubt it.”

“There all murderers,” cried Secundra, “that is why! He killmurderer,” pointing to Mountain; “there two hire murderers” —pointing to my lord and myseif —“all gallows murderers! Ah, I see you all swing in a rope. Now Igo save the sahib; he see you swing in a rope. The sahib,” he continued, pointing to the grave, “henot dead. He bury, he not dead.” My lord uttered a little noise and moved nearer to the grave and stood and stared in it. “Buried and not dead?” exclaimed Sir William. “What kind of rant is this?”.. . “See, sahib!” said Secundra. “The sahib and I alone with murderers; try all ways to escape, none good. Then try this way; good way in a warm climate, good way in India; here in this damn cold place, who can tell? I tell you pretty good hurry; you help, you light fire, help rub.” “What is the creature talking of?” cried Sir William. “My head goes round.” “I tell you I bury him alive,” said Secundra. “I teach him swallow his tongue. Now dig him Up pretty good hurry, and he not much worse. You light a fire.”

Sir William turned to the nearest of his men. “Light a fire,” said he. “My lot seems to be cast with the insane.” “You good man,” said Secundra. “Now I go dig the sahib up.” He returned as he spoke to the grave and resumed his former toil. My lord stood rooted, and I at my lord’s side, fearing I knew not what. The frost was not very deep, and presently the Indian threw aside his tool and began to scoop the dirt by handfuls. Then he disengaged a corner of a buffalo robe; and then I saw hair catch among his fingers; yet a moment more and the moon shone on something white. For awhile Secundra crouched upon his knees, scraping with delicate fingers, breathing with puffed lips; and when he moved aside I beheld the face of. the master wholly disengaged. It was deadly white, the even-closed, the ears and nostrils plugged, the cheeks fallen, the nose sharp as if in death, but for all he had lain so long under the sod, corruption had not approached him, and (what strangely affected us all) his lips and chin were mantled with a sWarthy beard. “My God!” cried Mountain, “be was as smooth as a baby when we laid him there.” _/

“They say hair grows upon th* dead," observed Sir William, but his voice was thick and weak. Secundra paid no attention to our remarks, digging swift as a terrier in the loose earth; every moment, the form of the master, swathed in his buffalo robe, grew more distinct in the bottom of that shallow trough; the moon shining strong, and the shadows of the standers-by, as they drew forward and back, falling and flitting over his emergent countenance. The sight held us with a horror not before experienced. I dared not look my lord in the face, but for as long as it lasted I never observed him to draw breath; and a little in the background one of the men (I know not whom) burst into a kind of sobbing. 1 Now;” said Secundra, “you help me lift him out. ” Of the flight of time I have no idea; it may have been three hours, and it may have been five, that the Indian labored to reanimate his master’s body. One thing only I know, that it was still night and the moon was not yet set, although it had sunk low and now barred the plateau with long shadows, when Secundra uttered a little cry of satisfaction, and, leaning swiftly forth, I thought I could myself detect a change upon the iey .countenance of the unburied. The next moment I beheld his eyelids flutter; the next they rose entirely, and the week old corpse looked me for a moment in the face.

So much display of life I can myself swear to. I have heard from others that he visibly strove to speak, that his teeth showed in his beard, and that his brow was contorted as with an agony of pain and effort. And this may have been; I know not, I was otherwise engaged. For, at that first disclosure of the dead man’s eyes, my Lord Durrisdeer fell to the ground, and when I raised him up he was a corpse. Day came, and still Secundra could not be persuaded to desist from his unavailing efforts. Sir William, leaving a small party under my command, proceeded on his embassy with the first light; and still the Indian rubbed the. limbs and breathed in the mouth of the dead body. You would think such labors might have vitalized a stone; but, except for that one moment (which was my lord’s death), the black spirit of the master held aloof from its discarded clay, and by about the hour cf noon even the faithful servant was at length convinced. He took it with unshaken quietude. “Too cold” said he; “good way in India, no good here.” And, asking for some food, which he ravenously devoured as soon as it was set before him, he drew near to the tire and took his place at my elbow. In the same spot, as soon as he had eaten, he stretched himself out and fell into a profound slumber, from which I must arouse him, some hours afterward, to take his part as one ofc the mourners at the double funeral. It was the same throughout; he seemed to have outlived at once and with the same effort, his grief for his master and his terror of myself and Mountain. One of the men left with me was skilled in stone-cutting, and before Sir William returned to pick us up I had chiseled on a bowlder this inscription, with a copy of which I may fitly bring my narrative to a close: J. D., neir to a Scottish title, A master-of the arts and graces, Admired in Europe, Asia, America, In war and peace, In the tents of savage hunters and the Citadels of kings. After so much Acquired, accomplished and Endured, lies here =~-~ Forgotten. ILD., His brother, After a life of unmerited distress, Bravely supported, Died almost in the same hour. And sleeps in the same grave With his fraternal enemy. The piety of his wife and one old Servant raised this stone To both. THE END.