Part 6

There was a burst of murky, yellow flame fore and aft. Six flaming torches floated downward like snowflakes falling. The town cowered darkly to the rear of them. Beneath, to the right, the station showed as if lit up by some great conflagration. Above, everything seemed to have gone grotesquely black. Meriwell could hardly see across the car. Another searchlight leaped in to the air and crossed the first one. They stabbed about like the tentacles of an octopus. The anti-aircraft guns shot six white stars to port in rapid succession like revolver shots. Along the concrete platforms a brace of sharpshooters dropped to their knees and cuddled their pieces to their cheeks. The dirigible moved with easy dignity toward the station. Meriwell calculated a moment. The bombs in the fall would carry forward in the direction the dirigible was headed for. He would have to wait a moment. Weights, distance, heights, flashed through his head like the dots and dashes of a Morse code.

"Sections A and B, lanyards 3 and 4, fore and aft," he bellowed. "Heave on!"

The dirigible shivered and jumped like a restive horse as the gunners heaved on their switches and the weighted bombs dropped from their cages. A searchlight caught the great hawk for a moment and showed it gray and lustrous like a battleship at sea. The navigator swung his wheel about with a jerk. The dirigible turned like a hare. The propellers burst into a wild, spasmodic hum. They oscillated dangerously. Meriwell clung onto the side and looked over.

Eight great splotches of red flame burst suddenly on the ground, sideways, like water splashing. They showed red and angry like a man's wound. There were dark streaks among them--earth thrown up, men, metal, concrete. A puff of hot wind struck the car, and a vast unspeakable noise, a maddened, crashing roar, like the earth protesting at being attacked--a shuddering, horrible thing that drowned the feeble crackling of the guns and seemed to blot out life itself for a moment. The dirigible shivered like a feather in a gully of wind.

"Ease up," he called to the navigator. "A and B, lanyards 2 and 5, fore and aft," he roared again. Again the jump and curvet of the car; the red cup-like explosions, the terror of sound. A gun boomed southward, and something passed them with a high shriek. The searchlight caught them again and hung on with the tenacity of a bulldog. Something like a fly appeared in the west.

"Look out," the commander warned the lieutenant at the wheel. "Get ready to rise."

Meriwell looked downward again with his glasses. The naphtha planes were approaching the junction on their drop and were lighting up the scene with a lurid Satanic glow. The glasses nearly slipped from his hands. Beneath him was chaos. The glittering rails, the compact platforms, the lank sheds, the massed cars, the violet lights were no longer there. The terminal showed like a ploughed field--a wilderness of stone and earth, of twisted metal and shattered wood. Great chasms showed where the bombs had struck; little hillocks of thrown-up earth; great iron pillars broken in two like match-wood; huddled figures that had been soldiers on the platform; while from the massed cars and the long sheds great waves of red and blackish flame showed with foam tops of rolling brown smoke, rolling, licking, crackling, roaring, like a mediæval dream of hell.

"I don't need section C," he laughed. All the havoc had been wrought by the light bombs. There were still eight mammoth pears in their cages, unused. He could save those.

"Get the bridge now, Mr. Meriwell," the commander instructed, "and swing around to the forts."

"Empty ballast," roared the navigator.

There was a gurgle as the stop-cocks on the water-tanks of the keel were opened--a hollow rushing that should have ended in a splash. In the glaring light the water poured downward in two great streams fore and aft like silver cables falling. The dirigible rose as if drawn upward. Bombs burst like firecrackers. Beneath, the fire rustled like crushed paper and exploded now and then, in queer, hollow, inadequate sounds. The navigator swung over the river. Four thousand feet below, the bridge showed over the black ribbon of the Rhine like a plank over a rivulet. Meriwell watched it with the eye of a cat ready to spring on a mouse.

"Ready on section C," he warned, "lanyards 2 and 3, fore and aft."

They floated along hazily, like a stick along a river. The anti-aircraft guns broke into a passion of whipping reports. The searchlights cut into the air like thrusting bayonets.

"Heave on!" he yelled suddenly.

The dirigible lifted violently like a canoe struck by a great wave. There was a loud whirring in the air as the bombs dropped downward. Meriwell felt his heart jump to his mouth. He peered over the edge breathlessly, his hands gripping the rail with sudden fear. Mechanically he opened his mouth to protect his ear-drums from the report, and as he did a vast wave of orange flame, like discoloured sheet lightning, seemed to flick along the river. For a moment, soundless, the river rose in its bed as if struck by a mighty hand. The great stone bridge disappeared as if kicked away.

"My God!" said Meriwell hoarsely, "my God!"

Then suddenly noise struck him between the shoulder-blades, noise such as he could hardly believe possible--an infinitude of sound that rocked him like a crashing blow, a sound as of two planets meeting in mid-course, a gigantic forbidden thing, that only gods should make.

"The bridge is gone," said Meriwell stupidly.

A great hush swung over the town. The anti-aircraft guns stuttered and died. The futile rifle fire stopped. The thunder of the forts was cut off in mid-air. Only the blaze at the junction roared a little like a forced draft. Over the river all was black. The water had shut off the flare of the explosion. The searchlight struck the ballonet of the dirigible as a spear strikes a fish. There was the throb of propellers.

"Triplane to starboard," the navigator warned.

"Send him down, Mr. Meriwell," the commander ordered calmly. "Navigator, put the men by the engines ready to start on the word."

The triplane rose jerkily in the air like a toy at the end of a string. Its three shelf-like planes showed dimly and vaguely like a great kite. Meriwell felt sorry for it--it was a game, chivalrous thing, to rise in the air to give battle to the leviathan. He felt a great throb of sympathy and sorrow for it. It looked such a puny thing--but he mustn't let it get above him, or alongside him----

"Searchlight on starboard gun," he snapped.

A sergeant and corporal sprang to the Maxim. They clamped a thing like an automobile-lamp to the barrel. They snapped a switch, and a line of light shot out like a harpoon. It whipped about like a fencer's blade, parrying, thrusting, lifting, dropping. The corporal threw his leg over the saddle and caught the trigger.

"When you see her, fire!" Meriwell ordered.

She showed up for a moment, black and fragile, and motionless it seemed. The gun broke into an infuriated chatter. The cartridge-tape leaped like a hooked eel. Suddenly they saw the great kite twist like a wounded bird. It dropped in a wavering zigzag while two black pin-points dropped in plumb-lines.

"God help them!" Meriwell breathed.

The propellers of the dirigible plunged into their loud whir like the first peal of an organ. Meriwell staggered and lurched. The dirigible shot forward like a stone from a sling. The commander fell to pacing the car nervously. His fingers cracked like castanets. His beard twitched. He turned on the gunner.

"Never mind the forts," he shouted. "We've done enough. What have you left?"

"Sixteen small and four large bombs," Meriwell answered.

"Get ready," he warned. He turned to the navigator. "Back and over the town."

"Back and over the town?" the navigator queried stupidly. "Over the town?"

"Yes," the commander barked. His face seemed queerly white and strained. "Let them have all you've got, Mr. Meriwell."

"You don't mean--?" Meriwell nearly laughed in amazement. "Bombard the town?"

"Yes. Quick. Circle around and let go."

A great, tawny lake of flame poured over the acreage of cars in the junction. It lighted the town dully and they could see it hazily, through a smoke screen, as it were. The narrow Gothic buildings showed up as in a painting; the peaceful cathedral; the great, squat municipal hall; the queer dolls' houses--it all seemed like a theatrical spectacle. Southward the gunners still threw their white stars and the artillery of the forts stabbed red and blindly into the murky fog.

"Take the wheel," the navigator told the steersman. "Planes up eighteen and swing in a circle." He looked at the commander with grave, disquieted eyes.

Meriwell caught at the commander's sleeve.

"My God, sir! You can't do that!" he shouted in horror. "You can't fire on civilians."

"I can," said the old man doggedly. "I can and I will."

"You're mad, sir! You're mad!" he babbled.

A stray shot cut screaming past them. They rocked from the current. The crew moved about the car uneasily.

"Bring her around," the commander ordered. The navigator never moved.

A vast desire to throw himself on the old commander came on Meriwell, to bind him hand and foot. He must have gone crazy, he judged. That last terrific explosion had injured his brain. Then suddenly he remembered the house on Notting Hill, the white-haired lady who had died on the night raid, the screaming, distraught daughter, the gallant captain of Sherwood Foresters killed like a rat in a trap. He understood.

"I can't do it, sir," the navigator replied. Meriwell took a step toward him. His hands went out pleadingly.

"I know, sir. I understand. But we can't do it. I won't give the order and the men wouldn't pull the lanyards," his voice stumbled. "We're soldiers," he continued, "and we're fighting soldiers--not unarmed men, not sleeping children, not women."

There was a moment's silence. The wind blew about them as from a great blast-pipe. The reports of the air-guns ceased for a moment and began intermittently. The navigator turned his head away. Meriwell looked at the commander's white face.

"Soldiers!" he repeated. "Clean fighters. Soldiers and gentlemen. Officers and gentlemen, as your son was. And your wife was a soldier's wife and your daughter was a soldier's daughter."

He waved his hand toward the town.

"We've smashed the junction and smashed the bridge. No train will pass that way again and no ship will come up the Rhine. We've done our work--and not a building outside injured and not a civilian attacked. They'd be proud of that, your people, sir. You can't do this other thing, sir. It isn't the game. It isn't cricket."

He watched the commander's face keenly. He waited until he saw the bitter twist pass from the mouth and the frown go out of his eyes.

"They wouldn't want that," he urged. "They'd be ashamed, those people of yours." He waited a moment. "The old code, sir, an officer and a gentleman."

The commander's head drooped a little. The stiff poise of his grey beard softened. His shoulders lost their tenseness suddenly.

"I--I--" he wavered. He turned to the navigator. "Right about and back," he said weakly. He slipped into the rear among the shadows.

The navigator sprang to his compass.

"Nor'west by west," he ordered.

"Nor'west by west," the steersman repeated mechanically.

And as Meriwell leaned over the car he saw the town race flatly away from them, while the guns still chattered viciously, like disturbed magpies, and their charges burst high in the air into pretty, artificial stars.

V

THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER OF ASPINWALL*

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ

*Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company

I

On a time it happened that the lighthouse keeper in Aspinwall, not far from Panama, disappeared without a trace. Since he disappeared during a storm, it was supposed that the ill-fated man went to the very edge of the small, rocky island on which the lighthouse stood, and was swept out by a wave. This supposition seemed the more likely as his boat was not found next day in its rocky niche. The place of lighthouse keeper had become vacant. It was necessary to fill this place at the earliest moment possible, since the lighthouse had no small significance for the local movement as well as for vessels going from New York to Panama. Mosquito Bay abounds in sandbars and banks. Among these navigation, even in the daytime, is difficult; but at night, especially with the fogs which are so frequent on those waters warmed by the sun of the tropics, it is nearly impossible. The only guide at that time for the numerous vessels is the lighthouse.

The task of finding a new keeper fell to the United States consul living in Panama, and this task was no small one: first, because it was absolutely necessary to find the man within twelve hours; second, the man must be unusually conscientious,--it was not possible, of course, to take the first comer at random; finally, there was an utter lack of candidates. Life on a tower is uncommonly difficult, and by no means enticing to people of the South, who love idleness and the freedom of a vagrant life. That lighthouse keeper is almost a prisoner. He cannot leave his rocky island except on Sundays. A boat from Aspinwall brings him provisions and water once a day, and returns immediately; on the whole island, one acre in area, there is no inhabitant. The keeper lives in the lighthouse; he keeps it in order. During the day he gives signals by displaying flags of various colours to indicate changes of the barometer; in the evening he lights the lantern. This would be no great labour were it not that to reach the lantern at the summit of the tower he must pass over more than four hundred steep and very high steps; sometimes he must make this journey repeatedly during the day. In general, it is the life of monk, and indeed more than that,--the life of a hermit. It was not wonderful, therefore, that Mr. Isaac Falconbridge was in no small anxiety as to where he should find a permanent successor to the recent keeper; and it is easy to understand his joy when a successor announced himself most unexpectedly on that very day. He was a man already old, seventy years or more, but fresh, erect, with the movements and bearing of a soldier. His hair was perfectly white, his face as dark as that of a Creole; but, judging from his blue eyes, he did not belong to a people of the South. His face was somewhat downcast and sad, but honest. At the first glance he pleased Falconbridge. It remained only to examine him. Therefore the following conversation began:

"Where are you from?"

"I am a Pole."

"Where have you worked up to this time?"

"In one place and another."

"A lighthouse keeper should like to stay in one place."

"I need rest."

"Have you served? Have you testimonials of honourable government service?"

The old man drew from his bosom a piece of faded silk resembling a strip of an old flag, unwound it, and said:

"Here are the testimonials. I received this cross in 1830. This second one is Spanish from the Carlist War; the third is the French legion; the fourth I received in Hungary. Afterward I fought in the States against the South; there they do not give crosses."

Falconbridge took the paper and began to read.

"H'm! Skavinski? Is that your name? H'm! Two flags captured in a bayonet attack. You were a gallant soldier."

"I am able to be a conscientious lighthouse keeper."

"It is necessary to ascend the tower a number of times daily. Have you sound legs?"

"I crossed the plains on foot." (The immense steppes between the East and California are called "the plains.")

"Do you know sea service?"

"I served three years on a whaler."

"You have tried various occupations."

"The only one I have not known is quiet."

"Why is that?"

The old man shrugged his shoulders. "Such is my fate."

"Still you seem to me too old for a lighthouse keeper."

"Sir," exclaimed the candidate suddenly in a voice of emotion, "I am greatly wearied, knocked about. I have passed through much as you see. This place is one of those which I have wished for most ardently. I am old, I need rest. I need to say to myself, 'Here you will remain; this is your port.' Ah, sir, this depends now on you alone. Another time perhaps such a place will not offer itself. What luck that I was in Panama! I entreat you--as God is dear to me, I am like a ship which if it misses the harbour will be lost. If you wish to make an old man happy--I swear to you that I am honest, but--I have enough of wandering."

The blue eyes of the old man expressed such earnest entreaty that Falconbridge, who had a good, simple heart, was touched.

"Well," said he, "I'll take you. You are a lighthouse keeper."

The old man's face gleamed with inexpressible joy.

"I thank you."

"Can you go to the tower to-day?"

"I can."

"Then good-bye. Another word,--for any failure in service you will be dismissed."

"All right."

That same evening, when the sun had descended on the other side of the isthmus, and a day of sunshine was followed by a night without twilight, the new keeper was in his place evidently, for the lighthouse was casting its bright rays on the water as usual. The night was perfectly calm, silent, genuinely tropical, filled with a transparent haze, forming around the moon a great coloured rainbow with soft, unbroken edges; the sea was moving only because the tide raised it. Skavinski on the balcony seemed from below like a small black point. He tried to collect his thoughts and take in his new position; but his mind was too much under pressure to move with regularity. He felt somewhat as a hunted beast feels when at last it has found refuge from pursuit on some inaccessible rock or in a cave. There had come to him, finally, an hour of quiet; the feeling of safety filled his soul with a certain unspeakable bliss. Now on that rock he can simply laugh at his previous wanderings, his misfortunes, and failures. He was in truth like a ship whose masts, ropes, and sails had been broken and rent by a tempest, and cast from the clouds to the bottom of the sea,--a ship on which the tempest had hurled waves and spat foam, but which still wound its way to the harbour. The pictures of that storm passed quickly through his mind as he compared it with the calm future now beginning. A part of his wonderful adventures he had related to Falconbridge; he had not mentioned, however, thousands of other incidents. It had been his misfortune that as often as he pitched his tent and fixed his fireplace to settle down permanently, some wind tore out the stakes of his tent, whirled away the fire, and bore him on toward destruction. Looking now from the balcony of the tower at the illuminated waves, he remembered everything through which he had passed. He had campaigned in the four parts of the world, and in wandering had tried almost every occupation. Labour-loving and honest, more than once had he earned money, and had always lost it in spite of every prevision and the utmost caution. He had been a gold-miner in Australia, a diamond-digger in Africa, a rifleman in public service in the East Indies. He established a ranch in California,--the drought ruined him; he tried trading with wild tribes in the interior of Brazil,--his raft was wrecked on the Amazon; he himself alone, weaponless, and nearly naked, wandered in the forest for many weeks living on wild fruits, exposed every moment to death from the jaws of wild beasts. He established a forge in Helena, Arkansas, and that was burned in a great fire which consumed the whole town. Next he fell into the hands of the Indians in the Rocky Mountains, and only through a miracle was he saved by Canadian trappers. Then he served as a sailor on a vessel running between Bahia and Bordeaux, and as a harpooner on a whaling-ship; both vessels were wrecked. He had a cigar factory in Havana, and was robbed by his partner while he himself was lying sick with the vomito. At last he came to Aspinwall, and there was to be the end of his failures,--for what could reach him on that rocky island? Neither water nor fire nor men. But from men Skavinski had not suffered much; he had met good men oftener than bad ones.

But it seemed to him that all the four elements were persecuting him. Those who knew him said that he had no luck, and with that they explained everything. He himself became somewhat of a monomaniac. He believed that some mighty and vengeful hand was pursuing him everywhere, on all lands and waters. He did not like, however, to speak of this; only at times, when someone asked him whose hand that could be, he pointed mysteriously to the Polar Star, and said, "It comes from that place." In reality his failures were so continuous that they were wonderful, and might easily drive a nail into the head, especially of the man who had experienced them. But Skavinski had the patience of an Indian, and that great calm power of resistance which comes from the truth of heart. In his time he had received in Hungary a number of bayonet-thrusts because he would not grasp at a stirrup which was shown as means of salvation to him, and cry for quarter. In like manner he did not bend to misfortune. He crept up against the mountain as industriously as an ant. Pushed down a hundred times, he began his journey calmly for the hundred and first time. He was in his way a most peculiar original. This old soldier, tempered, God knows in how many fires, hardened in suffering, hammered and forged, had the heart of a child. In the time of the epidemic in Cuba, the vomito attacked him because he had given to the sick all his quinine, of which he had a considerable supply, and left not a grain to himself.