CHAPTER XIII

RUBRIC DROPS

Lem ate the cheese and crackers thrust upon him by the generous convict, more to a.s.suage the acute pangs of hunger that now a.s.sailed him than to indulge his palate, the while he pondered over the convict's story.

Suddenly the electric lights went out and left his cell in darkness save a glimmer across the corridor. The scores of obstreperous, profane tongues that had scathed the fetid atmosphere now subsided, and Lem sank on the side of his cot and gazed with empty eyes between the bars at the dim light across the stone hall, and the full force of his unlucky predicament rushed upon him again.

This gas jet, which burned all night, was some fifteen feet from the corridor floor, bringing it up to a level with the tier porch. The jet flung a faint, orange-hued ray obliquely toward Lem's cell door.

Although he was mentally worn out and weary of body, still he could not bring himself to lie down. Finally, he took the straw pillow from his cot, placed it on the cement floor close to the door, and sat down with his mind astray and his unseeing eyes fixed blankly upon the gas light.

At this instant, he was suddenly blinded, as "Creeping Jesus" flashed his lamp in his face, turned a cold stare on him, and glided on like a ghost. Lem clutched the bars and tried to look after the apparition that seemed to be borne along on air. While he was pressing against the door, a sudden medley of noises disrupted the quiet. As it came nearer, it gathered volume, and the somber stillness was quickened with the discord of voices, and the shuffling of padded feet, accompanied by the baser sc.r.a.pe of a heavier tread. Seemingly, this confusion stopped and centralized directly over his cell, but what tier it was on he could form no conjecture.

In a momentary lull came the rasping of a key; then the subtle roll of a cell door, followed instantly by a frightened voice that rang through the dead corridors with a jumble of protesting, begging utterances that rended the solemnity of the place.

"Oh, no, no! Not in there! Not there! I--I----"

"Shut up--you'll wake every dog in the place--get in."

"I won't go in there! I won't! I can't go in there!"

"Will you get in there? You get in there--you d.a.m.n fool!"

"Don't put me in there--don't--don't! I won't run away--how can I? I'll stay right here--but please don't put me in there."

"Take hold of him, Sam--throw him in--get hold of his leg."

"Wait--wait--wait--please listen just a minute--I'm not a criminal--don't put me in--my parents don't know where I am--let me stay out here--my father is rich--he will send for me--he will pay you--he will come for me--please don't put me in that place--I----"

"Say, Kid--you're the limit! For the last time--are you goin' to get in there? If you don't--we'll throw you in."

"I won't!--I can't!--I'll smother in there. I'll die there and my mother will never know--oh--oh--you're choking me--stop--you're chok--cho--ch----"

For a scant minute there came the panting hiss of labored breaths, heaved through clinched teeth; a combat of footsteps, mingled with the sound of ripping garments. Then came a dull thud overhead, a slight rumble, the click of a cell door, followed by an agonizing groan, ending with the pang of a sob that impinged cruelly upon the awesome, dead solitude.

While these hateful sounds still lingered hurtfully in Lem's ears, two feet and a pair of striped legs confronted him. He looked up from his position on the floor. It was Last Time.

"Ain't you asleep yet, Lutts?" he whispered, then went on, "Did you hear them slam that first-timer in? He's right over you in 520. G.o.d, but he hated to go in there--but he went in. He's no mongrel--he's a swell looker--only a kid--the poor devil. It's eleven o'clock--there's the bull lookin' now--night."

The convict stepped into his cell and slammed his door noisily as a signal to notify the guard, who stood waiting at the end of the tier, that he had closed the door tight. Then the big lever ground back into position, and Lem sat motionless with a horde of curious thoughts trailing across his benumbed brain. It seemed like an age that he sat there, throughout the pitiless hours like a distorted image; the deserted habitat of a soul with its tenant gone. He was only aroused momentarily when hour after hour "Creeping Jesus" hung at his door for an instant, like a great nocturnal humming-bird, then darted away like a winged phantom.

The boy had the comforting, though fatuous notion, that the nearer to the door he managed to get, the nearer to freedom was he. Under an apathetic spell his thoughts fled back to the hills. With quick, wistful breaths, each a cry from a stifling soul, and his hot forehead pressed against the iron, he crouched there on the floor by the cell door. His body was imprisoned between these grim, impa.s.sable walls; but his soul was yet uncaged. For in spirit he was once again back amidst the beauteous wild hills of the c.u.mberland with the feel of his rifle, hunting and hunted in turn, but with the pungent aroma of odoriferous blossoms in his nostrils; the purl of crystal waters in his ears; and the illimitable arch of opalescent sky over him, and the free fraternal rocks beneath his feet.

And in his vision, framed in blissful hours, his retrospection conjured a seraphic face--a luring, misty vision, with a bowed red spot for a mouth, and great black-fringed eyes--eyes tinted like robins' eggs--eyes that held an unworldly baby look; and curls--a riotous billow of satiny curls. Ah, even as he crouched here, he could see the little pale scar that crossed the part in her curls--his scar--his scar to kiss,--that little scarab-like mark that fascinated his lips.

The longer he stared at the rufus halo that encircled the gas light, the wider it expanded; and as it grew, its burning gamut embraced a multiplicity of changing scenes representing hours of his life. Like cinematographic pictures, it held a stirring pantomime boldly up to his intent gaze.

As he looked again, a beautiful nascent wraith slowly developed and occupied the nimbus of the buff light. Her meaning lips were slightly parted, her eyes saw him, and there was a specific message therein. He knew that if some sorceristic agency could put her down by him now in this black midnight hour, that she would put her hands in to him and would give her lips between these unbreakable iron bars. The price of her kiss to-night would be one look at his haggard, haunted face.

In fancy, he took her in his arms and fled, galloping across the clouds to the c.u.mberlands, racing with the shadows that traversed the valleys like eagle wings. Once again his eyes were gladdened with the vast colored panorama that crowded in one limitless circle around Eagle Crown. Now the cascade in h.e.l.lsfork was beating in his ears, the soothing rhyme of its endless monotone, a cadence he loved so well. And now the sun had followed a shower, and he was sitting with Belle-Ann under the big magnolia tree on the spot that was ever dry, and they were holding out their hands and catching the crystal raindrops that rolled off the leaves overhead.

Half consciously, he now thrust his hand out toward this scene his own imagery held before him. And even now the warm drops came down from overhead--dripping, dripping, dripping. He could feel them splash and burst now on the back of his outstretched hand, just as they did in the joysome days agone when the drops tickled their palms, and he could hear the music of the girl's dulcet laughter. Again he caught more of these drops.

Suddenly and rudely, Lem was jerked out of this beatific reverie by the fearful howls of some convict, night-mare ridden. These hideous screeches aroused Lem's senses, and he blinked and rubbed his hands. His hands were wet. Instinctively he looked up and discerned the crack in the tier porch overhead from whence these warm drops trickled down and splashed in front of his cell. Wherefore, a shock of suspicion jerked him out of his rambling thoughts. He leaned close and stared at the back of his hand, getting to his feet at the same time. It was smeared with red. Even in the semi-darkness, Lem knew that the stain on the back of his hand was blood.

In an under-tone he called repeatedly to Last Time in the adjoining cell, but the convict slept on and did not respond. Lem searched for something with which to knock on the wall to wake him. Failing in this, he backed up against the wall and hammered with the heel of his heavy boot. Presently, Last Time's voice awoke sleepily and from afar.

"What's the matter--is that you, '20?"

"Yes," returned Lem in a whisper. "Yo'-all come t' th' door."

"What's the matter, Lutts?"

"They's blood a comin' down overhaid."

"Blood!"

"Yes--hit's a drippin' down heah."

"You sure it's blood?"

"Yes," rea.s.sured Lem. "Hit's sho' blood--'cause I got some on my han'."

"Wait a minute."

Lem heard him rummaging around in his cell. The convict made a long, rigid roll out of a newspaper and thrusting this out and around at arm's length he said:

"Here, Lutts, get the end of this--stick it in the blood and hand it back."

Lem manipulated the paper. Reaching as far out as he could, he rubbed one end in the dark pool in front of his cell, and handed it back to the convict. Lem heard Last Time exclaim:

"The h.e.l.l--I thought that guy'd do something."

The next minute the convict was sc.r.a.ping a tin cup across the bars of his door, a performance that sent metallic echoes from end to end of the corridor. A guard responded with surprising alacrity.

"What's the rumpus here, Last Time?" he demanded.

"That cul up in 520's croaked himself--pipe the blood in front of next door."

The guard turned his reflector upon the pool, then hastily unlocked Last Time's cell.

"Come along," he ordered.

He then ran to the end of the tier, and pulled the lever to allow Last Time to open his door and follow. After that, Lem heard nothing overhead save subdued whispers, cautious steps, and guarded movements. He did not hear Last Time return to his cell.

When the first gray light of dawn filtered through the high arched windows of the cell-house, and drove the gas light pallid, it found Lem still awake. Without, the English sparrows set up their garrulous chirpings, and like a draught of some blessed elixir, a faint breath of early morning, dew-damp air was wafted through the outer bars into the sodden cells. The bell on the prison tower rang, and there was a great stirring of convicts, mingled with a mult.i.tude of harsh jail noises.