Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (411 page)

The young man looked upon her aghast.  Then a generous current poured along his veins.  ‘That is all one,’ he said.  ‘If you be all you say, you have the greater need of me.’

‘Is it possible,’ she exclaimed, ‘that I have schemed in vain?  And will nothing drive you from this house of death?’

‘Of death?’ he echoed.

‘Death!’ she cried: ‘death!  In that box that you have dragged about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at the trigger’s mercy, the destroying energies of dynamite.’

‘My God!’ cried Harry.

‘Ah!’ she continued wildly, ‘will you flee now?  At any moment you may hear the click that sounds the ruin of this building.  I was sure M’Guire was wrong; this morning, before day, I flew to Zero; he confirmed my fears; I beheld you, my beloved Harry, fall a victim to my own contrivances.  I knew then I loved you — Harry, will you go now?  Will you not spare me this unwilling crime?’

Harry remained speechless, his eyes fixed upon the box: at last he turned to her.

‘Is it,’ he asked hoarsely, ‘an infernal machine?’

Her lips formed the word ‘Yes,’ which her voice refused to utter.

With fearful curiosity, he drew near and bent above the box; in that still chamber, the ticking was distinctly audible; and at the measured sound, the blood flowed back upon his heart.

‘For whom?’ he asked.

‘What matters it,’ she cried, seizing him by the arm.  ‘If you may still be saved, what matter questions?’

‘God in heaven!’ cried Harry.  ‘And the Children’s Hospital!  At whatever cost, this damned contrivance must be stopped!’

‘It cannot,’ she gasped.  ‘The power of man cannot avert the blow.  But you, Harry — you, my beloved — you may still — ’

And then from the box that lay so quietly in the corner, a sudden catch was audible, like the catch of a clock before it strikes the hour.  For one second the two stared at each other with lifted brows and stony eyes.  Then Harry, throwing one arm over his face, with the other clutched the girl to his breast and staggered against the wall.

A dull and startling thud resounded through the room; their eyes blinked against the coming horror; and still clinging together like drowning people, they fell to the floor.  Then followed a prolonged and strident hissing as from the indignant pit; an offensive stench seized them by the throat; the room was filled with dense and choking fumes.

Presently these began a little to disperse: and when at length they drew themselves, all limp and shaken, to a sitting posture, the first object that greeted their vision was the box reposing uninjured in its corner, but still leaking little wreaths of vapour round the lid.

‘Oh, poor Zero!’ cried the girl, with a strange sobbing laugh.  ‘Alas, poor Zero!  This will break his heart!’

THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION
(
Concluded
)

Somerset ran straight upstairs; the door of the drawing-room, contrary to all custom, was unlocked; and bursting in, the young man found Zero seated on a sofa in an attitude of singular dejection.  Close beside him stood an untasted grog, the mark of strong preoccupation.  The room besides was in confusion: boxes had been tumbled to and fro; the floor was strewn with keys and other implements; and in the midst of this disorder lay a lady’s glove.

‘I have come,’ cried Somerset, ‘to make an end of this.  Either you will instantly abandon all your schemes, or (cost what it may) I will denounce you to the police.’

‘Ah!’ replied Zero, slowly shaking his head.  ‘You are too late, dear fellow!  I am already at the end of all my hopes, and fallen to be a laughing-stock and mockery.  My reading,’ he added, with a gentle despondency of manner, ‘has not been much among romances; yet I recall from one a phrase that depicts my present state with critical exactitude; and you behold me sitting here “like a burst drum.”‘

‘What has befallen you?’ cried Somerset.

‘My last batch,’ returned the plotter wearily, ‘like all the others, is a hollow mockery and a fraud.  In vain do I combine the elements; in vain adjust the springs; and I have now arrived at such a pitch of disconsideration that (except yourself, dear fellow) I do not know a soul that I can face.  My subordinates themselves have turned upon me.  What language have I heard to-day, what illiberality of sentiment, what pungency of expression!  She came once; I could have pardoned that, for she was moved; but she returned, returned to announce to me this crushing blow; and, Somerset, she was very inhumane.  Yes, dear fellow, I have drunk a bitter cup; the speech of females is remarkable for . . . well, well!  Denounce me, if you will; you but denounce the dead.  I am extinct.  It is strange how, at this supreme crisis of my life, I should be haunted by quotations from works of an inexact and even fanciful description; but here,’ he added, ‘is another: “Othello’s occupation’s gone.”  Yes, dear Somerset, it is gone; I am no more a dynamiter; and how, I ask you, after having tasted of these joys, am I to condescend to a less glorious life?’

‘I cannot describe how you relieve me,’ returned Somerset, sitting down on one of several boxes that had been drawn out into the middle of the floor.  ‘I had conceived a sort of maudlin toleration for your character; I have a great distaste, besides, for anything in the nature of a duty; and upon both grounds, your news delights me.  But I seem to perceive,’ he added, ‘a certain sound of ticking in this box.’

‘Yes,’ replied Zero, with the same slow weariness of manner, ‘I have set several of them going.’

‘My God!’ cried Somerset, bounding to his feet.

‘Machines?’

‘Machines!’ returned the plotter bitterly.  ‘Machines indeed!  I blush to be their author.  Alas!’ he said, burying his face in his hands, ‘that I should live to say it!’

‘Madman!’ cried Somerset, shaking him by the arm.  ‘What am I to understand?  Have you, indeed, set these diabolical contrivances in motion? and do we stay here to be blown up?’

‘“Hoist with his own petard?”‘ returned the plotter musingly.  ‘One more quotation: strange!  But indeed my brain is struck with numbness.  Yes, dear boy, I have, as you say, put my contrivance in motion.  The one on which you are sitting, I have timed for half an hour.  Yon other — ’

‘Half an hour! — ’ echoed Somerset, dancing with trepidation.  ‘Merciful Heavens, in half an hour?’

‘Dear fellow, why so much excitement?’ inquired Zero.  ‘My dynamite is not more dangerous than toffy; had I an only child, I would give it him to play with.  You see this brick?’ he continued, lifting a cake of the infernal compound from the laboratory-table.  ‘At a touch it should explode, and that with such unconquerable energy as should bestrew the square with ruins.  Well now, behold!  I dash it on the floor.’

Somerset sprang forward, and with the strength of the very ecstasy of terror, wrested the brick from his possession.  ‘Heavens!’ he cried, wiping his brow; and then with more care than ever mother handled her first-born withal, gingerly transported the explosive to the far end of the apartment: the plotter, his arms once more fallen to his side, dispiritedly watching him.

‘It was entirely harmless,’ he sighed.  ‘They describe it as burning like tobacco.’

‘In the name of fortune,’ cried Somerset, ‘what have I done to you, or what have you done to yourself, that you should persist in this insane behaviour?  If not for your own sake, then for mine, let us depart from this doomed house, where I profess I have not the heart to leave you; and then, if you will take my advice, and if your determination be sincere, you will instantly quit this city, where no further occupation can detain you.’

‘Such, dear fellow, was my own design,’ replied the plotter.  ‘I have, as you observe, no further business here; and once I have packed a little bag, I shall ask you to share a frugal meal, to go with me as far as to the station, and see the last of a broken-hearted man.  And yet,’ he added, looking on the boxes with a lingering regret, ‘I should have liked to make quite certain.  I cannot but suspect my underlings of some mismanagement; it may be fond, but yet I cherish that idea: it may be the weakness of a man of science, but yet,’ he cried, rising into some energy, ‘I will never, I cannot if I try, believe that my poor dynamite has had fair usage!’

‘Five minutes!’ said Somerset, glancing with horror at the timepiece.  ‘If you do not instantly buckle to your bag, I leave you.’

‘A few necessaries,’ returned Zero, ‘only a few necessaries, dear Somerset, and you behold me ready.’

He passed into the bedroom, and after an interval which seemed to draw out into eternity for his unfortunate companion, he returned, bearing in his hand an open Gladstone bag.  His movements were still horribly deliberate, and his eyes lingered gloatingly on his dear boxes, as he moved to and fro about the drawing-room, gathering a few small trifles.  Last of all, he lifted one of the squares of dynamite.

‘Put that down!’ cried Somerset.  ‘If what you say be true, you have no call to load yourself with that ungodly contraband.’

‘Merely a curiosity, dear boy,’ he said persuasively, and slipped the brick into his bag; ‘merely a memento of the past — ah, happy past, bright past!  You will not take a touch of spirits? no?  I find you very abstemious.  Well,’ he added, ‘if you have really no curiosity to await the event — ’

‘I!’ cried Somerset.  ‘My blood boils to get away.’

‘Well, then,’ said Zero, ‘I am ready; I would I could say, willing; but thus to leave the scene of my sublime endeavours — ’

Without further parley, Somerset seized him by the arm, and dragged him downstairs; the hall-door shut with a clang on the deserted mansion; and still towing his laggardly companion, the young man sped across the square in the Oxford Street direction.  They had not yet passed the corner of the garden, when they were arrested by a dull thud of an extraordinary amplitude of sound, accompanied and followed by a shattering
fracas
.  Somerset turned in time to see the mansion rend in twain, vomit forth flames and smoke, and instantly collapse into its cellars.  At the same moment, he was thrown violently to the ground.  His first glance was towards Zero.  The plotter had but reeled against the garden rail; he stood there, the Gladstone bag clasped tight upon his heart, his whole face radiant with relief and gratitude; and the young man heard him murmur to himself: ‘
Nunc dimittis
,
nunc dimittis
!’

The consternation of the populace was indescribable; the whole of Golden Square was alive with men, women, and children, running wildly to and fro, and like rabbits in a warren, dashing in and out of the house doors.  And under favour of this confusion, Somerset dragged away the lingering plotter.

‘It was grand,’ he continued to murmur: ‘it was indescribably grand.  Ah, green Erin, green Erin, what a day of glory! and oh, my calumniated dynamite, how triumphantly hast thou prevailed!’

Suddenly a shade crossed his face; and pausing in the middle of the footway, he consulted the dial of his watch.

‘Good God!’ he cried, ‘how mortifying! seven minutes too early!  The dynamite surpassed my hopes; but the clockwork, fickle clockwork, has once more betrayed me.  Alas, can there be no success unmixed with failure? and must even this red-letter day be chequered by a shadow?’

‘Incomparable ass!’ said Somerset, ‘what have you done?  Blown up the house of an unoffending old lady, and the whole earthly property of the only person who is fool enough to befriend you!’

‘You do not understand these matters,’ replied Zero, with an air of great dignity.  ‘This will shake England to the heart.  Gladstone, the truculent old man, will quail before the pointing finger of revenge.  And now that my dynamite is proved effective — ’

‘Heavens, you remind me!’ ejaculated Somerset.  ‘That brick in your bag must be instantly disposed of.  But how?  If we could throw it in the river — ’

‘A torpedo,’ cried Zero, brightening, ‘a torpedo in the Thames!  Superb, dear fellow!  I recognise in you the marks of an accomplished anarch.’

‘True!’ returned Somerset.  ‘It cannot so be done; and there is no help but you must carry it away with you.  Come on, then, and let me at once consign you to a train.’

‘Nay, nay, dear boy,’ protested Zero.  ‘There is now no call for me to leave.  My character is now reinstated; my fame brightens; this is the best thing I have done yet; and I see from here the ovations that await the author of the Golden Square Atrocity.’

‘My young friend,’ returned the other, ‘I give you your choice.  I will either see you safe on board a train or safe in gaol.’

‘Somerset, this is unlike you!’ said the chymist.  ‘You surprise me, Somerset.’

‘I shall considerably more surprise you at the next police office,’ returned Somerset, with something bordering on rage.  ‘For on one point my mind is settled: either I see you packed off to America, brick and all, or else you dine in prison.’

‘You have perhaps neglected one point,’ returned the unoffended Zero: ‘for, speaking as a philosopher, I fail to see what means you can employ to force me.  The will, my dear fellow — ’

‘Now, see here,’ interrupted Somerset.  ‘You are ignorant of anything but science, which I can never regard as being truly knowledge; I, sir, have studied life; and allow me to inform you that I have but to raise my hand and voice — here in this street — and the mob — ’

‘Good God in heaven, Somerset,’ cried Zero, turning deadly white and stopping in his walk, ‘great God in heaven, what words are these?  Oh, not in jest, not even in jest, should they be used!  The brutal mob, the savage passions . . . Somerset, for God’s sake, a public-house!’

Somerset considered him with freshly awakened curiosity.  ‘This is very interesting,’ said he.  ‘You recoil from such a death?’

‘Who would not?’ asked the plotter.

‘And to be blown up by dynamite,’ inquired the young man, ‘doubtless strikes you as a form of euthanasia?’

‘Pardon me,’ returned Zero: ‘I own, and since I have braved it daily in my professional career, I own it even with pride: it is a death unusually distasteful to the mind of man.’