The Indian Drum Part 41

It was not merely a confessional which Father Perron had taken from the lips of the dying man on Number 25; it was an accusation of crime against another man as well; and the confession and accusation both had been made, not only to gain forgiveness from G.o.d, but to right terrible wrongs. If the confession left some things unexplained, it did not lack confirmation; the priest had learned enough to be certain that it was no hallucination of madness. He had been charged definitely to repeat what had been told him to the persons he was now going to meet; so he watched expectantly as the _Ste. Marie_ made its landing. A train of freight cars was upon the ferry, but a single pa.s.senger coach was among them, and the switching engine brought this off first. A tall, handsome man whom Father Perron thought must be the Mr. Sherrill with whom he had communicated appeared upon the car platform; the young man from Number 25 followed him, and the two helped down a young and beautiful girl.

They recognized the priest by his dress and came toward him at once.

"Mr. Sherrill?" Father Perron inquired.

Sherrill a.s.sented, taking the priest's hand and introducing his daughter.

"I am glad to see you safe, Mr. Stafford." The priest had turned to Alan. "We have thanks to offer up for that, you and I!"

"I am his son, then! I thought that must be so."

Alan trembled at the priest's sign of confirmation. There was no shock of surprise in this; he had suspected ever since August, when Captain Stafford's watch and the wedding ring had so strangely come to Constance, that he might be Stafford's son. His inquiries had brought him, at that time, to St. Ignace, as Father Perron's had brought him now; but he had not been able to establish proof of any connection between himself and the baby son of Captain Stafford who had been born in that town.

He looked at Constance, as they followed the priest to the motor which was waiting to take them to the house of old Father Benitot, whose guest Father Perron was; she was very quiet. What would that grave statement which Father Perron was to make to them mean to him--to Alan?

Would further knowledge about that father whom he had not known, but whose blood was his and whose name he now must bear, bring pride or shame to him?

A bell was tolling somewhere, as they followed the priest into Father Benitot's small, bare room which had been prepared for their interview.

Father Perron went to a desk and took therefrom some notes which he had made. He did not seem, as he looked through these notes, to be refres.h.i.+ng his memory; rather he seemed to be seeking something which the notes did not supply; for he put them back and reclosed the desk.

"What I have," he said, speaking more particularly to Sherrill, "is the terrible, not fully coherent statement of a dying man. It has given me names--also it has given me facts. But isolated. It does not give what came before or what came after; therefore, it does not make plain.

I hope that, as Benjamin Corvet's partner, you can furnish what I lack."

"What is it you want to know?" Sherrill asked.

"What were the relations between Benjamin Corvet and Captain Stafford?"

Sherrill thought a moment.

"Corvet," he replied, "was a very able man; he had insight and mental grasp--and he had the fault which sometimes goes with those, a hesitancy of action. Stafford was an able man too, considerably younger than Corvet. We, s.h.i.+p owners of the lakes, have not the world to trade in, Father Perron, as they have upon the sea; if you observe our great s.h.i.+pping lines you will find that they have, it would seem, apportioned among themselves the traffic of the lakes; each line has its own connections and its own ports. But this did not come through agreement, but through conflict; the strong have survived and made a division of the traffic; the weak have died. Twenty years ago, when this conflict of competing interests was at its height, Corvet was the head of one line, Stafford was head of another, and the two lines had very much the same connections and competed for the same cargoes."

"I begin to see!" Father Perron exclaimed. "Please go on."

"In the early nineties both lines still were young; Stafford had, I believe, two s.h.i.+ps; Corvet had three."

"So few? Yes; it grows plainer!"

"In 1894, Stafford managed a stroke which, if fate had not intervened, must have a.s.sured the ultimate extinction of Corvet's line or its absorption into Stafford's. Stafford gained as his partner Franklin Ramsdell, a wealthy man whom he had convinced that the lake traffic offered chances of great profit; and this connection supplied him with the capital whose lack had been hampering him, as it was still hampering Corvet. The new firm--Stafford and Ramsdell--projected the construction, with Ramsdell's money, of a number of great steel freighters. The first of these--the _Miwaka_, a test s.h.i.+p whose experience was to guide them in the construction of the rest--was launched in the fall of 1895, and was lost on its maiden trip with both Stafford and Ramsdell aboard. The Stafford and Ramsdell interests could not survive the death of both owners and disappeared from the lakes. Is this what you wanted to know?"

The priest nodded. Alan leaned tensely forward, watching; what he had heard seemed to have increased and deepened the priest's feeling over what he had to tell and to have aided his comprehension of it.

"His name was Caleb Stafford," Father Perron began. "(This is what Benjamin Corvet told to me, when he was dying under the wreckage on the ferry.) 'He was as fair and able a man as the lakes ever knew. I had my will of most men in the lake trade in those days; but I could not have my will of him. With all the lakes to trade in, he had to pick out for his that traffic which I already had chosen for my own. But I fought him fair, Father--I fought him fair, and I would have continued to do that to the end.

"'I was at Manistee, Father, in the end of the season--December fifth of 1895. The ice had begun to form very early that year and was already bad; there was cold and a high gale. I had laid up one of my s.h.i.+ps at Manistee, and I was crossing that night upon a tug to Manitowoc, where another was to be laid up. I had still a third one lading upon the northern peninsula at Manistique for a last trip which, if it could be made, would mean a good profit from a season which so far, because of Stafford's compet.i.tion, had been only fair. After leaving Manistee, it grew still more cold, and I was afraid the ice would close in on her and keep her where she was, so I determined to go north that night and see that she got out. None knew, Father, except those aboard the tug, that I had made that change.

"'At midnight, Father, to westward of the Foxes, we heard the four blasts of a steamer in distress--the four long blasts which have sounded in my soul ever since! We turned toward where we saw the steamer's lights; we went nearer and, Father, it was his great, new s.h.i.+p--the _Miwaka_! We had heard two days before that she had pa.s.sed the Soo; we had not known more than that of where she was. She had broken her new shaft, Father, and was intact except for that, but helpless in the rising sea...'"

The priest broke off. "The _Miwaka_! I did not understand all that that had meant to him until just now--the new s.h.i.+p of the rival line, whose building meant for him failure and defeat!

"There is no higher duty than the rescue of those in peril at sea.

He--Benjamin Corvet, who told me this--swore to me that, at the beginning none upon the tug had any thought except to give aid. A small line was drifted down to the tug and to this a hawser was attached which they hauled aboard. There happened then the first of those events which led those upon the tug into doing a great wrong.

He--Benjamin Corvet--had taken charge of the wheel of the tug; three men were handling the hawser in ice and was.h.i.+ng water at the stern.

The whistle accidentally blew, which those on the _Miwaka_ understood to mean that the hawser had been secured, so they drew in the slack; the hawser, tightened unexpectedly by the pitching of the sea, caught and crushed the captain and deckhand of the tug and threw them into the sea.

"Because they were short-handed now upon the tug, and also because consultation was necessary over what was to be done, the young owner of the _Miwaka_, Captain Stafford, came down the hawser onto the tug after the line had been put straight. He came to the wheelhouse, where Benjamin Corvet was, and they consulted. Then Benjamin Corvet learned that the other owner was aboard the new s.h.i.+p as well--Ramsdell--the man whose money you have just told me had built this and was soon to build other s.h.i.+ps. I did not understand before why learning that affected him so much.

"'Stafford wanted us' (this is what Benjamin Corvet said) 'to tow him up the lake; I would not do that, but I agreed to tow him to Manistique. The night was dark, Father--no snow, but frightful wind which had been increasing until it now sent the waves was.h.i.+ng clear across the tug. We had gone north an hour when, low upon the water to my right, I saw a light, and there came to me the whistling of a buoy which told me that we were pa.s.sing nearer than I would have wished, even in daytime, to windward of Boulder Reef. There are, Father, no people on that reef; its sides of ragged rock go straight down forty fathoms into the lake.

"'I looked at the man with me in the wheelhouse--at Stafford--and hated him! I put my head out at the wheelhouse door and looked back at the lights at the new, great steamer, following safe and straight at the end of its towline. I thought of my two men upon the tug who had been crushed by clumsiness of those on board that s.h.i.+p; and how my own s.h.i.+ps had had a name for never losing a man and that name would be lost now because of the carelessness of Stafford's men! And the sound of the shoal brought the evil thought to me. Suppose I had not happened across his s.h.i.+p; would it have gone upon some reef like this and been lost? I thought that if now the hawser should break, I would be rid of that s.h.i.+p and perhaps of the owner who was on board as well. We could not pick up the tow line again so close to the reef. The steamer would drift down upon the rocks--'"

Father Perron hesitated an instant. "I bear witness," he said solemnly, "that Benjamin Corvet a.s.sured me--his priest--that it was only a thought; the evil act which it suggested was something which he would not do or even think of doing. But he spoke something of what was in his mind to Stafford, for he said:

"'I must look like a fool to you to keep on towing your s.h.i.+p!'

"They stared, he told me, into one another's eyes, and Stafford grew uneasy.

"'We'd have been all right,' he answered, 'until we had got help, if you'd left us where we were!' He too listened to the sound of the buoy and of the water das.h.i.+ng on the shoal. 'You are taking us too close,'

he said--'too close!' He went aft then to look at the tow line."

Father Perron's voice ceased; what he had to tell now made his face whiten as he arranged it in his memory. Alan leaned forward a little and then, with an effort, sat straight. Constance turned and gazed at him; but he dared not look at her. He felt her hand warm upon his; it rested there a moment and moved away.

"There was a third man in the wheelhouse when these things were spoken," Father Perron said, "the mate of the s.h.i.+p which had been laid up at Manistee."

"Henry Spearman," Sherrill supplied.

"That is the name. Benjamin Corvet told me of that man that he was young, determined, brutal, and set upon getting position and wealth for himself by any means. He watched Corvet and Stafford while they were speaking, and he too listened to the shoal until Stafford had come back; then he went aft.

"'I looked at him, Father,' Benjamin Corvet said to me, 'and I let him go--not knowing. He came back and looked at me once more, and went again to the stern; Stafford had been watching him as well as I, and he sprang away from me now and scrambled after him. The tug leaped suddenly; there was no longer any tow holding it back, for the hawser had parted; and I knew, Father, the reason was that Spearman had cut it!

"'I rang for the engine to be slowed, and I left the wheel and went aft; some struggle was going on at the stern of the tug; a flash came from there and the cracking of a shot. Suddenly all was light about me as, aware of the breaking of the hawser and alarmed by the shot, the searchlight of the _Miwaka_ turned upon the tug. The cut end of the hawser was still upon the tug, and Spearman had been trying to clear this when Stafford attacked him; they fought, and Stafford struck Spearman down. He turned and cried out against me--accusing me of having ordered Spearman to cut the line. He held up the cut end toward Ramsdell on the _Miwaka_ and cried out to him and showed by pointing that it had been cut. Blood was running from the hand with which he pointed, for he had been shot by Spearman; and now again and a second and a third time, from where he lay upon the deck, Spearman fired. The second of those shots killed the engineer who had rushed out where I was on the deck; the third shot went through Stafford's head. The _Miwaka_ was drifting down upon the reef; her whistle sounded again and again the four long blasts. The fireman, who had followed the engineer up from below, fawned on me! I was safe for all of him, he said; I could trust Luke--Luke would not tell! He too thought I had ordered the doing of that thing!

"'From the _Miwaka_, Ramsdell yelled curses at me, threatening me for what he thought that I had done! I looked at Spearman as he got up from the deck, and I read the thought that had been in him; he had believed that he could cut the hawser in the dark, none seeing, and that our word that it had been broken would have as much strength as any accusation Stafford could make. He had known that to share a secret such as that with me would "make" him on the lakes; for the loss of the _Miwaka_ would cripple Stafford and Ramsdell and strengthen me; and he could make me share with him whatever success I made. But Stafford had surprised him at the hawser and had seen.

"'I moved to denounce him, Father, as I realized this; I moved--but stopped. He had made himself safe against accusation by me!

None--none ever would believe that he had done this except by my order, if he should claim that; and he made plain that he was going to claim that. He called me a fool and defied me. Luke--even my own man, the only one left on the tug with us--believed it! And there was murder in it now, with Stafford dying there upon the deck and with the certainty that all those on the _Miwaka_ could not be saved. I felt the noose as if it had been already tied about my neck! And I had done no wrong, Father! I had only thought wrong!

"'So long as one lived among those on the _Miwaka_ who had seen what was done, I knew I would be hanged; yet I would have saved them if I could. But, in my comprehension of what this meant, I only stared at Stafford where he lay and then at Spearman, and I let him get control of the tug. The tug, whose wheel I had lashed, heading her into the waves, had been moving slowly. Spearman pushed me aside and went to the wheelhouse; he sent Luke to the engines, and from that moment Luke was his. He turned the tug about to where we still saw the lights of the _Miwaka_. The steamer had struck upon the reef; she hung there for a time; and Spearman--he had the wheel and Luke, at his orders, was at the engine--held the tug off and we beat slowly to and fro until the _Miwaka_ slipped off and sank. Some had gone down with her, no doubt; but two boats had got off, carrying lights. They saw the tug approaching and cried out and stretched their hands to us; but Spearman stopped the tug. They rowed towards us then, but when they got near, Spearman moved the tug away from them, and then again stopped. They cried out again and rowed toward us; again he moved the tug away, and then they understood and stopped rowing and cried curses at us. One boat soon drifted far away; we knew of its capsizing by the extinguis.h.i.+ng of its light. The other capsized near to where we were.

Those in it who had no lifebelts and could not swim, sank first. Some could swim and, for a while they fought the waves.'"

Alan, as he listened, ceased consciously to separate the priest's voice from the sensations running through him. His father was Stafford, dying at Corvet's feet while Corvet watched the death of the crew of the _Miwaka_; Alan himself, a child, was floating with a lifebelt among those struggling in the water whom Spearman and Corvet were watching die. Memory; was it that which now had come to him? No; rather it was a realization of all the truths which the priest's words were bringing together and arranging rightly for him.

He, a child, saved by Corvet from the water because he could not bear witness, seemed to be on that tug, sea-swept and clad in ice, crouching beside the form of his father while Corvet stood aghast--Corvet, still hearing the long blasts of distress from the steamer which was gone, still hearing the screams of the men who were drowned. Then, when all were gone who could tell, Spearman turned the tug to Manitowoc.... Now again the priest's voice became audible to Alan.

Alan's father died in the morning. All day they stayed out in the storm, avoiding vessels. They dared not throw Stafford's body overboard or that of the engineer, because, if found, the bullet holes would have aroused inquiry. When night came again, they had taken the two ash.o.r.e at some wild spot and buried them; to make identification harder, they had taken the things that they had with them and buried them somewhere else. The child--Alan--Corvet had smuggled ash.o.r.e and sent away; he had told Spearman later that the child had died.

"Peace--rest!" Father Perron said in a deep voice. "Peace to the dead!"

But for the living there had been no peace. Spearman had forced Corvet to make him his partner; Corvet had tried to take up his life again, but had not been able. His wife, aware that something was wrong with him, had learned enough so that she had left him. Luke had come and come and come again for blackmail, and Corvet had paid him. Corvet grew rich; those connected with him prospered; but with Corvet lived always the ghosts of those he had watched die with the _Miwaka_--of those who would have prospered with Stafford except for what had been done. Corvet had secretly sought and followed the fate of the kin of those people who had been murdered to benefit him; he found some of their families destroyed; he found almost all poor and struggling. And though Corvet paid Luke to keep the crime from disclosure, yet Corvet swore to himself to confess it all and make such rest.i.tution as he could. But each time that the day he had appointed with himself arrived, he put it off and off and paid Luke again and again. Spearman knew of his intention and sometimes kept him from it. But Corvet had made one close friend; and when that friend's daughter, for whom Corvet cared now most of all in the world, had been about to marry Spearman, Corvet defied the cost to himself, and he gained strength to oppose Spearman. So he had written to Stafford's son to come; he had prepared for confession and rest.i.tution; but, after he had done this and while he waited, something had seemed to break in his brain; too long preyed upon by terrible memories, and the ghosts of those who had gone, and by the echo of their voices crying to him from the water, Corvet had wandered away; he had come back, under the name of one of those whom he had wronged, to the lake life from which he had sprung. Only now and then, for a few hours, he had intervals when he remembered all; in one of these he had dug up the watch and the ring and other things which he had taken from Captain Stafford's pockets and written to himself directions of what to do with them, when his mind again failed.

And for Spearman, strong against all that a.s.sailed Corvet, there had been always the terror of the Indian Drum--the Drum which had beat short for the _Miwaka_, the Drum which had known that one was saved!