Cursed

Marsh nodded. The old man was undoubtedly a little cracked, but it could do no harm to humor him. Marsh quickly prepared an area of Hal’s arm, rubbing it with alcohol. He tossed away the pledget of cotton, pinched up the bloodless skin, and jabbed the needle home.

“All of it?” asked he, as he pushed down the ring.

“All!” answered Filhiol. “It’s a thundering dosage, but this is no time for half measures!”

The ring came wholly down. Marsh withdrew the needle, took more cotton and again rubbed the puncture. Then he felt Hal’s pulse, and very grimly shook his head.

“Laura,” said he, “I think you’d better go. Your father, when he left, told me to tell you he wanted you to go home.”

“I’m not afraid to see Hal die, if he’s got to die, any more than I’m afraid to have him live. He’s mine, either way.” Her eyes were wonderful. “I’m going to stay!”

“Well, as you wish.” Dr. Marsh turned back to his observation of the patient.

Filhiol stood beside him. Wan and haggard he was, with deep lines of exhaustion in his face. The old captain, seated now at the head of the berth, was leaning close, listening to each slow gasp. Now and again he passed a hand over his forehead, but always the sweat dampened it once more.

“Any change?” he whispered hoarsely.

“Not yet,” Marsh answered.

“It couldn’t take effect so soon, anyhow,” cut in Filhiol. “It’ll be ten minutes before it’s noticeable.”

Marsh curled a lip of scorn. What did this superannuated relic know? What, save folly, could be expected of him?

The seconds dragged to minutes, and still Marsh kept his hold on the boy’s wrist. A gust of wind puffed ashes out upon the hearth. Somewhere at the back of the house a loose blind slammed. The tumult of the surf shuddered the air.

“Oh, God! Can’t you tell yet?” whispered the captain. “Can’t you tell?”

“Shhh!” cautioned Filhiol. “Remember, you’re captain of this clipper. You’ve got to hold your nerve!”

The clock on the mantel gave a little preliminary click, then began striking. One by one it tolled out twelve musical notes, startlingly loud in that tense silence.

Marsh shifted his feet, pursed his lips and leaned a little forward. He drew out his watch.

“Humph!” he grunted.

“Better?” gulped Alpheus Briggs. “Better – or worse?”

“I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Marsh.

“What is it?”

“Dr. Filhiol, you’ve done it!”

“Is he – dead?” breathed Laura.

“Two more beats per minute already!” Marsh answered. “And greater amplitude. Captain Briggs, if nothing happens now, your boy will live!”

The old man tried to speak, but the words died on his white lips. His eyes closed, his head dropped forward as he sat there, and his arms fell limp. In his excess of joy, Captain Alpheus Briggs had fainted.

By early dawn the tempest, blowing itself clean away with all its wrack of cloud and rain, left a pure-washed sky of rose and blue over-arching the wild-tossing sea. The sun burned its way in gold and crimson up into a morning sprayed with spindrift from the surf-charges against the granite coast. All along the north shore that wave army charged; and the bell-buoy, wildly clanging, seemed to revel in furious exultation over the departed storm.

The early rays flashed out billions of jewels from drops of water trembling on the captain’s lawn. Through the eastward-looking portholes of the cabin, long spears of sunlight penetrated, paling the flames on the hearth. Those flames had been fed with wood surpassing strange – with all the captain’s barbarous collection of bows and arrows, blowpipes, spears and clubs, even to the brutal “Penang lawyer” itself.

Before the fire, in a big chair, Ezra slept in absolute exhaustion. Dr. Marsh was gone. By the berth Filhiol was still on guard with Laura and the captain. All three were spent with the terrible vigil, but happiness brooded over them, and none thought of rest or sleep.

In the berth, now with open eyes, lay Hal, his face white as the pillow. With the conquering of the paralysis, some slight power of motion had returned to him; but the extreme exhaustion of that heavy loss of blood still gripped him. His eyes, though, moved from face to face of the three watchers, and his blue lips were smiling.

A different look lay in those eyes than any that had ever been there, even in the boy’s moments of greatest good humor. No longer was there visible that latent expression of arrogance, of power, cruelty and pride that at any moment had been wont to leap like a trapped beast tearing its cage asunder. Hal’s look was now not merely weakness; it took hold on gentleness and on humanity; it was the look of one who, having always gloried in the right of might, had found it swiftly turn to the bursting bubble of illusion.

This Hal now lying bandaged and inert in the old captain’s berth was no longer the Hal of yesterday. That personality had died; another had replaced it. Something had departed from the boy’s face, never to return again. One would almost have said the eyes were those of madness that had become suddenly sane – eyes from which a curse had all at once been lifted, leaving them rational and calm.

Hal’s eyes drifted from the old doctor’s face to the captain’s, rested a moment on Laura, and then wandered to the fireplace. Surprise came, at sight of the bare bricks. The captain understood.

“They’re gone, Hal,” said he. “Burned up – they were all part and parcel of the old life; and now that that’s gone they can’t have any place here. I know you’ll understand.”

Hal made an effort. His lips formed the words soundlessly: “I understand.”

“He’ll do now,” said Filhiol. “I’m pretty far gone. I’ve got to get a little rest or you’ll have two sick men on your hands. If you need anything, call me, though. And don’t let him talk! That punctured lung of his has got to rest!”

He got up heavily, patted Hal’s hand that lay outside the spread, and hobbled toward the door.

The captain followed him, laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Doctor,” said he in a low tone, “if you knew what you’ve done for me – if you could only understand – ”

“None of that, sir!” interrupted the old man sternly. “A professional duty, sir, nothing more!”

“A million times more than that! You’ve opened up a new heaven and a new earth. You’ve given Hal back to me! I can see the change. It’s real! The old book’s closed. The new one’s opened. You’ve saved a thing infinitely more than life to me. You’ve saved my boy!”

Filhiol nodded.

“And you, too,” he murmured. “Yes, facts are facts. Still, it was all in the line of duty. We’re neither of us too old to stand up to duty, captain. I hope we’ll never be. Hal’s cured. There can’t be any manner of doubt about that. The curse of unbridled strength is lifted from him. He’s another man now. The powers of darkness have defeated themselves. And the new dawn is breaking.”

He paused a moment, looking intently into the old captain’s face, then turned again toward the door.

“I’m very tired now,” said he. “There’s nothing more I can do. Let me go, captain.”

Alpheus Briggs clasped his hand in silence. For a long minute the hands of the two old men gripped each other with eloquent force. Then Filhiol hobbled through the door and disappeared.

The captain turned back to Laura. There were tears in his eyes as he said:

“If there were more like Filhiol, what a different world this would be!”

“It is a different world to-day, anyhow, from what it was yesterday,” smiled Laura. She bent over Hal and smoothed back the heavy black hair from his white forehead. “A different world for all of us, Hal!”

His hand moved slightly, but could not go to hers. She took it, clasped it against her full, warm breast, and raised it to her mouth and kissed it. She felt a slight, almost imperceptible pressure of his fingers. Her smile grew deep with meaning, for in that instant visions of the future were revealed.

The sunlight, strengthening, moved slowly across the wall whence now the kris had been torn down. A ray touched the old captain’s white hair, englorifying it. He laid his hand on Laura’s hand and Hal’s; and in his eyes were tears, but now glad tears that washed away all bitter memories.