A WORD TO THE READER

Remembering the very excellent advice of my friend the Tinker as to the writing of a good "nov-el," I am perturbed, and not a little discouraged, upon looking over these pages, to find that I have, as yet, described no desperate hand-to-hand encounters, no hairbreadth escapes (unless a bullet through one's hat may be justly so regarded), and, above all--not one word of LOVE!

You, sir, who have expectantly borne with me thus far, may be tempted to close the book in a huff, and, hurling it from you, with a deep-voiced anathema, clap on your hat, and sally forth into the sunshine.

Or you, madam, breathing a sigh o'er hopes deferred, may take up needle, and silk, and turn you, once again, to that embroidery which has engaged your dainty fingers this twelvemonth and more, yet which, like Penelope's web, would seem no nearer completion.

Ah well, sir! exercise, especially walking, is highly beneficial to the liver, they tell me--and nothing, madam, believe me (unless it be playing the harp), can show off a pretty hand, or the delicate curves of a shapely wrist and arm to such advantage as that selfsame embroidery. But since needlework (like books and all sublunary things) is apt to grow monotonous, you may, perchance, for lack of better occupation, be driven to address yourself, once more, to this, my Narrative.

And since you, sir, no matter how far you walk, must, of necessity, return to your chair and chimney-corner, it is possible that, having dined adequately, and lighted your pipe (and being therefore in a more charitable and temperate frame of mind), you may lift my volume from the dusty corner where it has lain all this while, and (though probably with sundry grunts and snorts, indicative that the thing is done under protest, as it were) reopen these pages.

In the which hope, dear madam, and you, noble sir, I here commence this, my Second Book--which, as you see, is headed thus:

THE WOMAN

BOOK TWO

THE WOMAN

CHAPTER I

OF STORM, AND TEMPEST, AND OF THE COMING OF CHARMIAN

I was at sea in an open boat. Out of the pitch-black heaven there rushed a mighty wind, and the pitch-black seas above me rose high, and ever higher, flecked with hissing white; wherefore I cast me face downwards in my little boat, that I might not behold the horror of the waters; and above their ceaseless, surging thunder there rose a long-drawn cry:

"Charmian!"

I stood upon a desolate moor, and the pitiless rain lashed me, and the fierce wind buffeted me; and, out of the gloom where frowning earth and heaven met--there rose a long-drawn cry:

"Charmian."

I started up in bed, broad awake, and listening; yet the tumult was all about me still--the hiss and beat of rain, and the sound of a rushing, mighty wind--a wind that seemed to fill the earth--a wind that screamed about me, that howled above me, and filled the woods, near and far, with a deep booming, pierced, now and then, by the splintering crash of snapping bough or falling tree. And yet, somewhere in this frightful pandemonium of sound, blended in with it, yet not of it, it seemed to me that the cry still faintly echoed:

"Charmian."

So appalling was all this to my newly-awakened senses, that I remained, for a time, staring into the darkness as one dazed.

Presently, however, I rose, and, donning some clothes, mended the fire which still smouldered upon the hearth, and, having filled and lighted my pipe, sat down to listen to the awful voices of the storm.

What brain could conceive--what pen describe that elemental chorus, like the mighty voice of persecuted Humanity, past and present, crying the woes and ills, the sorrows and torments, endured of all the ages? To-night, surely, the souls of the unnumbered dead rode within the storm, and this was the voice of their lamentation.

From the red mire of battlefields are they come, from the flame and ravishment of fair cities, from dim and reeking dungeons, from the rack, the stake, and the gibbet, to pierce the heavens once more with the voice of their agony.

Since the world was made, how many have lived and suffered, and died, unlettered and unsung--snatched by a tyrant's whim from life to death, in the glory of the sun, in the gloom of night, in blood and flame, and torment? Indeed, their name is "Legion."

But there is a great and awful Book, whose leaves are countless, yet every leaf of which is smirched with blood and fouled with nameless sins, a record, howsoever brief and inadequate, of human suffering, wherein as "through a glass, darkly," we may behold horrors unimagined; where Murder stalks, and rampant Lust; where Treachery creeps with curving back, smiling mouth, and sudden, deadly hand; where Tyranny, fierce-eyed, and iron-lipped, grinds the nations beneath a bloody heel. Truly, man hath no enemy like man. And Christ is there, and Socrates, and Savonarola--and there, too, is a cross of agony, a bowl of hemlock, and a consuming fire.

Oh, noble martyrs! by whose blood and agony the world is become a purer and better place for us, and those who shall come after us --Oh glorious, innumerable host! thy poor, maimed bodies were dust ages since, but thy souls live on in paradise, and thy memory abides, and shall abide in the earth, forever.

Ye purblind, ye pessimists, existing with no hope of a resurrection, bethink you of these matters; go, open the great and awful Book, and read and behold these things for yourselves --for what student of history is there but must be persuaded of man's immortality--that, though this poor flesh be mangled, torn asunder, burned to ashes, yet the soul, rising beyond the tyrant's reach, soars triumphant above death and this sorry world, to the refuge of "the everlasting arms;" for God is a just God!

Now, in a while, becoming conscious that my pipe was smoked out and cold, I reached up my hand to my tobacco-box upon the mantelshelf. Yet I did not reach it down, for, even as my fingers closed upon it, above the wailing of the storm, above the hiss and patter of driven rain, there rose a long-drawn cry:

"Charmian!"

So, remembering the voice I had seemed to hear calling in my dream, I sat there with my hand stretched up to my tobacco-box, and my face screwed round to the casement behind me, that, as I watched, shook and rattled beneath each wind-gust, as if some hand strove to pluck it open.

How long I remained thus, with my hand stretched up to my tobacco-box, and my eyes upon this window, I am unable to say, but, all at once, the door of the cottage burst open with a crash, and immediately the quiet room was full of rioting wind and tempest; such a wind as stopped my breath, and sent up a swirl of smoke and sparks from the fire. And, borne upon this wind, like some spirit of the storm, was a woman with flying draperies and long, streaming hair, who turned, and, with knee and shoulder, forced to the door, and so leaned there, panting.

Tall she was, and nobly shaped, for her wet gown clung, disclosing the sinuous lines of her waist and the bold, full curves of hip and thigh. Her dress, too, had been wrenched and torn at the neck, and, through the shadow of her fallen hair, I caught the ivory gleam of her shoulder, and the heave and tumult of her bosom.

Here I reached down my tobacco-box and mechanically began to fill my pipe, watching her the while.

Suddenly she started, and seemed to listen. Then, with a swift, stealthy movement, she slipped from before the door, and I noticed that she hid one hand behind her.

"Charmian!"

The woman crouched back against the wall, with her eyes towards the door, and always her right hand was hidden in the folds of her petticoat. So we remained, she watching the door, and I, her.

"Charmian!"

The voice was very near now, and, almost immediately after, there came a loud "view hallo," and a heavy fist pounded upon the door.

"Oh, Charmian, you're there--yes, yes--inside--I know you are. I swore you should never escape me, and you sha'n't--by God!" A hand fumbled upon the latch, the door swung open, and a man entered. As he did so I leapt forward, and caught the woman's wrist. There was a blinding flash, a loud report, and a bullet buried itself somewhere in the rafters overhead. With a strange, repressed cry, she turned upon me so fiercely that I fell back before her.

The newcomer, meantime, had closed the door, latching it very carefully, and now, standing before it, folded his arms, staring at her with bent head. He was a very tall man, with a rain-sodden, bell-crowned hat crushed low upon his brows, and wrapped in a long, many-caged overcoat, the skirts of which were woefully mired and torn. All at once he laughed, very softly and musically.

"So, you would have killed me, would you, Charmian--shot me--like a dog?" His tone was soft as his laugh and equally musical, and yet neither was good to hear. "So you thought you had lost me, did you, when you gave me the slip, a while ago? Lose me?

Escape me? Why, I tell you, I would search for you day and night--hunt the world over until I found you, Charmian--until I found you," said he, nodding his head and speaking almost in a whisper. "I would, by God!"

The woman neither moved nor uttered a word, only her breath came thick and fast, and her eyes gleamed in the shadow of her hair.

They stood facing each other, like two adversaries, each measuring the other's strength, without appearing to be conscious of my presence; indeed, the man had not so much as looked toward me even when I had struck up the pistol.

Now, with every minute I was becoming more curious to see this man's face, hidden as it was in the shadow of his dripping hat brim. Yet the fire had burned low.

"You always were a spitfire, weren't you, Charmian?" he went on in the same gentle voice; "hot, and fierce, and proud--the flame beneath the ice--I knew that, and loved you the better for it; and so I determined to win you, Charmian--to win you whether you would or no. And--you are so strong--so tall, and glorious, and strong, Charmian!"