Dr. Sevier Part 39

"Oh, 'fraid to spend it. On'y got few dimes. Broke ag'in."

Richling stopped still with astonishment, brickbat in hand. The Italian met his gaze with an illuminated smile. "Yes," he said, "took all I had with me to bayou La Fourche. Coming back, slept with some men in boat.

One git up in night-time and steal everything. Then was a big fight.

Think that what fight was about--about dividing the money. Don't know sure. One man git killed. Rest run into the swamp and prairie. Officer arrest me for witness. Couldn't trust me to stay in the city."

"Do you think the one who was killed was the thief?"

"Don't know sure," said the Italian, with the same sweet face, and falling to again with his brickbat,--"hope so!"

"Strange place to confine a witness!" said Richling, holding his hand to his bruised side and slowly straightening his back.

"Oh, yes, good place," replied the other, scrubbing away; "git him, in short time, so he swear to anything."

It was far on in the afternoon before the wary Ristofalo ventured to offer all he had in his pocket to a hanger-on of the prison office, to go first to Richling's house, and then to an acquaintance of his own, with messages looking to the procuring of their release. The messenger chose to go first to Ristofalo's friend, and afterward to Mrs. Riley's.

It was growing dark when he reached the latter place. Mary was out in the city somewhere, wandering about, aimless and distracted, in search of Richling. The messenger left word with Mrs. Riley. Richling had all along hoped that that good friend, doubtless acquainted with the most approved methods of finding a missing man, would direct Mary to the police station at the earliest practicable hour. But time had shown that she had not done so. No, indeed! Mrs. Riley counted herself too benevolently shrewd for that. While she had made Mary's suspense of the night less frightful than it might have been, by surmises that Mr. Richling had found some form of night-work,--watching some pile of freight or some unfinished building,--she had come, secretly, to a different conviction, predicated on her own married experiences; and if Mr. Richling had, in a moment of gloom, tipped the bowl a little too high, as her dear lost husband, the best man that ever walked, had often done, and had been locked up at night to be let out in the morning, why, give him a chance! Let him invent his own little fault-hiding romance and come home with it. Mary was frantic. She could not be kept in; but Mrs. Riley, by prolonged effort, convinced her it was best not to call upon Dr. Sevier until she could be sure some disaster had actually occurred, and sent her among the fruiterers and oystermen in vain search for Raphael Ristofalo. Thus it was that the Doctor's morning messenger to the Richlings, bearing word that if any one were sick he would call without delay, was met by Mrs. Riley only, and by the rea.s.suring statement that both of them were out. The later messenger, from the two men in prison, brought back word of Mary's absence from the house, of her physical welfare, and Mrs. Riley's promise that Mary should visit the prison at the earliest hour possible. This would not be till the next morning.

While Mrs. Riley was sending this message, Mary, a great distance away, was emerging from the darkening and silent streets of the river front and moving with timid haste across the broad levee toward the edge of the water at the steam-boat landing. In this season of depleted streams and idle waiting, only an occasional boat lifted its lofty, black, double funnels against the sky here and there, leaving wide stretches of unoccupied wharf-front between. Mary hurried on, clear out to the great wharf's edge, and looked forth upon the broad, softly moving harbor. The low waters spread out and away, to and around the opposite point, in wide surfaces of gla.s.sy purples and wrinkled bronze. Beauty, that joy forever, is sometimes a terror. Was the end of her search somewhere underneath that fearful glory? She clasped her hands, bent down with dry, staring eyes, then turned again and fled homeward. She swerved once toward Dr. Sevier's quarters, but soon decided to see first if there were any tidings with Mrs. Riley, and so resumed her course. Night overtook her in streets where every footstep before or behind her made her tremble; but at length she crossed the threshold of Mrs. Riley's little parlor. Mrs. Riley was standing in the door, and retreated a step or two backward as Mary entered with a look of wild inquiry.

"Not come?" cried the wife.

"Mrs. Richlin'," said the widow, hurriedly, "yer husband's alive and found."

Mary seized her frantically by the shoulders, crying with high-pitched voice:--

"Where is he?--where is he?"

"Ya can't see um till marning, Mrs. Richlin'."

"Where is he?" cried Mary, louder than before.

"Me dear," said Mrs. Riley, "ye kin easy git him out in the marning."

"Mrs. Riley," said Mary, holding her with her eye, "is my husband in prison?--O Lord G.o.d! O G.o.d! my G.o.d!"

Mrs. Riley wept. She clasped the moaning, sobbing wife to her bosom, and with streaming eyes said:--

"Mrs. Richlin', me dear, Mrs. Richlin', me dear, what wad I give to have my husband this night where your husband is!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

RELEASE.--NARCISSE.

As some children were playing in the street before the Parish Prison next morning, they suddenly started and scampered toward the prison's black entrance. A physician's carriage had driven briskly up to it, ground its wheels against the curb-stone, and halted. If any fresh crumbs of horror were about to be dropped, the children must be there to feast on them. Dr. Sevier stepped out, gave Mary his hand and then his arm, and went in with her. A question or two in the prison office, a reference to the rolls, and a turnkey led the way through a dark gallery lighted with dimly burning gas. The stench was suffocating. They stopped at the inner gate.

"Why didn't you bring him to us?" asked the Doctor, scowling resentfully at the facetious drawings and legends on the walls, where the dampness glistened in the sickly light.

The keeper made a low reply as he shot the bolts.

"What?" quickly asked Mary.

"He's not well," said Dr. Sevier.

The gate swung open. They stepped into the yard and across it. The prisoners paused in a game of ball. Others, who were playing cards, merely glanced up and went on. The jailer pointed with his bunch of keys to a cell before him. Mary glided away from the Doctor and darted in.

There was a cry and a wail.

The Doctor followed quickly. Ristofalo pa.s.sed out as he entered.

Richling lay on a rough gray blanket spread on the pavement with the Italian's jacket under his head. Mary had thrown herself down beside him upon her knees, and their arms were around each other's neck.

"Let me see, Mrs. Richling," said the physician, touching her on the shoulder. She drew back. Richling lifted a hand in welcome. The Doctor pressed it.

"Mrs. Richling," he said, as they faced each other, he on one knee, she on both. He gave her a few laconic directions for the sick man's better comfort. "You must stay here, madam," he said at length; "this man Ristofalo will be ample protection for you; and I will go at once and get your husband's discharge." He went out.

In the office he asked for a seat at a desk. As he finished using it he turned to the keeper and asked, with severe face:--

"What do you do with sick prisoners here, anyway?"

The keeper smiled.

"Why, if they gits right sick, the hospital wagon comes and takes 'em to the Charity Hospital."

"Umhum!" replied the Doctor, unpleasantly,--"in the same wagon they use for a case of scarlet fever or small-pox, eh?"

The keeper, with a little resentment in his laugh, stated that he would be eternally lost if he knew.

"_I_ know," remarked the Doctor. "But when a man is only a little sick,--according to your judgment,--like that one in there now, he is treated here, eh?"

The keeper swelled with a little official pride. His tone was boastful.

"We has a complete disp.e.n.i.sary in the prison," he said.

"Yes? Who's your druggist?" Dr. Sevier was in his worst inquisitorial mood.

"One of the prisoners," said the keeper.

The Doctor looked at him steadily. The man, in the blackness of his ignorance, was visibly proud of this bit of economy and convenience.

"How long has he held this position?" asked the physician.

"Oh, a right smart while. He was sentenced for murder, but he's waiting for a new trial."

"And he has full charge of all the drugs?" asked the Doctor, with a cheerful smile.

"Yes, sir." The keeper was flattered.

"Poisons and all, I suppose, eh?" pursued the Doctor.