CHAPTER XII.

"SHOW ME THE WAY."

A single lamp stood on a table, near a bed which was surmounted by a canopy of silken curtains. The room was spacious and elegant; chairs, carpet, the marble mantle, elaborately carved, and the ceiling adorned with an elaborate painting,--all served to show that the merchant prince slept in a "place of state." Every detail of that richly-furnished apartment, said "Gold!" as plainly as though a voice was speaking it all the while.

His lean form, attired in every-day apparel, was stretched upon the bed, and through the aperture in the curtains, the lamp-light fell upon one side of his face. He appeared to be sleeping. His arms lay listlessly by his side, and his head was thrown back upon the pillow. His breathing was audible in the most distant corner of the chamber.

"Gulian," said Tarleton, who seemed to recover his usual strength and spirit, as soon as he entered the room, "Where are you, my dear?"

The slight form of the private secretary advanced from among the curtains at the foot of the bed. His face, almost feminine in its expression, appeared in the light, with tears glistening on the cheeks. It was a beautiful face, illumined by large, clear eyes, and framed in the wavy hair, which flowed in rich masses to his shoulders. At sight of the elegant Colonel, the blue eyes of the boy shone with a look of terror. He started back, folding his hands over the frock coat, which enveloped his boyish shape.

"Ah, my God,--you here!" was his exclamation, "when will you cease to persecute me?"

The Colonel smiled, patted his elegant whiskers, and drawing nearer to the boy, who seemed to _cringe_ away from his touch, he said in his blandest tone,--

"Persecute you! Well, that is clever!--Talk of gratitude again in this world! I took you when you were a miserable foundling, a wretched little baby, without father, mother, or name. I placed you in the quiet of a country town, where you received an elegant education. I gave you a name,--a fancy name, I admit--the name which you now wear--and when I visited you, once or twice a year, you called me by the name of father. How I gained money to support you these nineteen or twenty years, and to adorn that fine intellect of yours, with a finished education,--why, you don't know, and I scarcely can tell, myself. But after these years of protection and support, I appeared at your home in the country, and asked a simple favor at your hands. Ay, child, the man you delighted to call father asked in return for all that he had done for you, a favor--only one favor--and that of the simplest character. Where was your gratitude? You refused me; you fled from your home in the country, and I lost sight of you until to-night, when I find my lost lamb, in the employment of the rich merchant. His private secretary, forsooth!"

"Hush," exclaimed Gulian, with a deprecatory gesture, "You will wake Mr. Somers. He has had one convulsion already, and it may prove fatal. I have sent for a doctor,--oh, why does he not come?"

"You shall not avoid me in that way, my young friend," said Tarleton. He laid his hand on the arm of the boy, and bent his face so near to him that the latter felt the Colonel's breath upon his forehead. "The money which I bestowed upon your education, I obtained by what the world calls _felony_. For you--for you--" his voice sunk to a deeper tone, and his eyes flashed with anger; "for you I spent some years in that delightful retreat, which is known to vulgar ears by the word,--PENITENTIARY!"

"God help me," cried the boy, affrighted by the expression which stamped the Colonel's face.

"_Penitentiary_ or _jail_, call it what you will, I spent some years there for your sake. And do you wish to evade me now when, I tell you that I reared you but for one object, and that object dearer to me than life? You ran away from my guardianship; you attempt to conceal yourself from me; you attempt to foil the hope for which I have suffered the tortures of the damned these twenty years? Come, my boy, you'll think better of it."

The smile of the Colonel was altogether fiendish. The boy sank on his knees, and raised to the Colonel's gaze that beautiful face stamped with terror, and bathed in tears.

"Oh, pardon me--forgive me!" he cried, "Do not kill me--"

"Kill you! Pshaw!"

"Let me live an obscure life, away from your observation; let me be humble, poor and unknown; as you value the hope of salvation, do not--I beseech you on my knees--do not ask me to comply with your request!"

"If you don't get up, I may be tempted to strike you," was the brutal remark of the Colonel. "Pitiful wretch! Hark ye," he bent his head,--"the robber who this night murdered Evelyn Somers, gained admittance to this house by means of a night-key. He had an _accomplice_ in the house, who supplied him with the key. That accomplice, (let us suppose a case) was yourself--"

"Me!" cried the boy, in utter horror.

"I can _obtain_ evidence of the fact," continued the Colonel, and paused. "You had better think twice before you enter the lists with me and attempt to thwart my will."

The boy, thus kneeling, did not reply, but buried his face in his hands, and his flowing hair hid those hands with its luxurious waves. He shook in every nerve with agony. He sobbed aloud.

"Will you be quiet?" the Colonel seized him roughly by the shoulder, "or shall I throttle you?"

"Yes, kill me, _fiend_, kill me, oh! kill me with one blow:" the boy raised his face, and pronounced these words, his eyes flashing with hatred, as he uttered the word "_fiend_." There was something startling in the look of mortal hatred which had so suddenly fixed itself upon that beautiful face. Even the Colonel was startled.

"Nay, nay, my child," he said in a soothing tone, "get up, get up, that's a dear child--I meant no harm--"

At this moment the conversation was interrupted by a hollow voice.

"You must pay, sir. That's my way.--You must pay or you must go."

The business-like nature, the every-day character of these words, was in painful contrast with the hollow accent which accompanied their utterance. At the sound the boy sprang to his feet, and the Colonel started as though a pistol had exploded at his ear.

The merchant prince had risen into a sitting posture. His thin features, low, broad forehead, wide mouth, with thin lips and pointed chin, were thrown strongly into view by the white cravat which encircled his throat. Those features were bathed in moisture. The small eyes, at other times half concealed by heavy lids, were now expanded in a singular stare,--a stare which made the blood of the Colonel grow cold in his veins.

"God bless us! What's the matter with you, good Mr. Somers?" he ejaculated.

But the rich man did not heed him.

"I wouldn't give a snap for your Reading Railroad--bad stock--bad stock--it must burst. It _will_ burst, I say. Pay, pay, pay, or go! That's the only way to do business. D'ye suppose I'm an ass? The note _can't_ lie over. If you don't meet it, it shall be protested."

As he uttered these incoherent words, his expanding eyes still fixed, he inserted his tremulous hand in his waist-coat pocket, and took from thence a GOLDEN EAGLE, which he brought near his eyes, gazing at it long and eagerly.

"He's delirious," ejaculated Tarleton, "why don't you go for a doctor?"

"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Gulian, rushing to the door, "why doesn't the doctor come?--"

But at the door he was confronted by the buxom housekeeper, who whispered, "Our doctor is out of town, but one of the servants has found another one: he's writing down-stairs."

"Quick! Quick! Bring him at once;" and Gulian, in his flight, pushed the housekeeper out of the room.

Mr. Somers still remained in a sitting posture, his eye fixed upon the golden eagle.

"Tell Jenks to foreclose," he muttered, "I've nothing to do with the man's wife and children. It isn't in the way of business. The mortgage isn't paid, and we must sell--sell--sell,--sell," he repeated until his voice died away in a murmur.

The doctor entered the room. "Where is our patient?" he said, as he advanced to the bedside. He was a man somewhat advanced in years, with bent figure and stooping shoulders. He was clad in an old-fashioned surtout, with nine or ten heavy capes hanging about his shoulders; and, as if to protect him from the cold, a bright-red kerchief was tied about his neck and the lower part of his face. He wore a black fur hat, with an ample brim, which effectually shaded his features.

The Colonel started at the sight of this singular figure. "Our friend of the blue capes, as I'm alive!" he muttered half aloud.

The doctor advanced to the bedside.--"You will excuse me for retaining my hat and this kerchief about my neck," he said in his mild voice, "I am suffering from a severe cold." He then directed his attention to the sick man, while Gulian and Tarleton watched his movements, with evident interest.

The doctor did not touch the merchant; he stood by the bedside, gazing upon him silently.

"What's the matter with our friend?" whispered Tarleton.

The doctor did not answer. He remained motionless by the bedside, surveying the quivering features and fixed eyes of the afflicted man.

"This person," exclaimed the doctor, after a long pause, "is not suffering from a physical complaint. His mind is afflicted. From the talk of the servants in the hall, I learned that he has this night lost his only son, by the hands of a murderer. The shock has been too great for him. My young friend," he addressed Gulian, who stood at his back, "it were as well to send for a clergyman."

Gulian hurried to the door, and whispered to the housekeeper. Returning to the bedside, he found the doctor seated in a chair, with a watch in his hand, in full view of the delirious man. The Colonel, grasping the bed-curtain, stood behind him, in an attitude of profound thought, yet with a faint smile upon his lips.

As for the merchant prince, seated bolt upright in the bed, he clutched the golden eagle, (which seemed to have _magnetized_ his gaze), and babbled in his delirium--

"_You_ an heir of Trinity Church?" he said, with a mocking smile upon his thin lips, "_you_ one of the descendants of Anreke Jans Bogardus? Pooh! Pooh! The Church is firm,--_firm_. She defies you. Aaron Burr tried that game, he! he! and found it best to quit,--to quit--to quit. What Trinity Church has got, she will hold,--hold--hold. She buys,--she sells--she sells--she buys--a great business man is Trinity Church! And with your two hundred beggarly heirs of Anreke Jans Bogardus, you will go to law about her title. Pooh!"

"He is going fast," whispered the Doctor, "his mind is killing him. Where are his relatives?"

His relatives! Sad, sad word! His wife had been dead many years, and her relatives were at a distance; perchance in a foreign land. His _nearest_ relative was a corpse, up-stairs, with a pistol wound through his heart.

Evelyn Somers, Sen., was one of the richest men in New York, and yet there was not a single relative to stand by his dying-bed. The death-sweat on his fevered brow, the whiteness of death on his quivering lips, the fire of the grave in his expanding eyes, Evelyn Somers, the merchant prince, had neither wife nor child nor relative to stand by him in his last hour. The poor boy who wept by the bed-side was, perchance, his only friend.

"Cornelius Berman, the artist, (who died, I believe, some years ago,) was his only relative in New York: his only son out of view." This was the answer of Colonel Tarleton, to the question of the Doctor.

And the dying man, still sitting bolt upright, one hand on his knee, and the other grasping the golden coin, still babbled in his delirium in the hollow tone of death. He talked of everything. He bought and sold, received rent and distressed tenants, paid notes and protested them, made imaginary sums by the sale of stocks, and achieved imaginary triumphs by the purchase of profitable tracts of land,--it was a frightful scene.

The Doctor shuddered, and as he looked at his watch, muttered a word of prayer.

The Colonel turned his face away, but was forced by an involuntary impulse, to turn again and gaze upon that livid countenance.

The boy Gulian--in the shadows of the room--sunk on his knees and uttered a prayer, broken by sobs.

At length the dying man seemed to recover a portion of his consciousness. Turning his gaze from the golden coin which he still clutched in his fingers, he said in a voice which, in some measure, resembled his every-day tone,--

"Send for a minister, a minister, quick! I am very weak."

The words had scarcely passed his lips, when a soft voice exclaimed, "I am here, my dear friend Somers, I trust that this is not serious. A sad, sad affliction, you have encountered to-night. But you must cheer up, you must, indeed."

The minister had entered the room unperceived, and now stood by the bed-side.

"Herman Barnhurst!" ejaculated Colonel Tarleton.

The tall, slender figure of the clergyman, dressed in deep black, was disclosed to the gaze of the dying man, who gazed intently at his _blonde_ face, effeminate in its excessive fairness, and then exclaimed, reaching his hand,--

"Come, I am going. I want you to show me the way!"

"Really, my dear friend," began Barnhurst, passing his hand over his hair, which, straight and brown and of silken softness, fell smoothly behind his ears, "you must bear up. This is not so serious as you imagine."

"I tell you I am going. I have often heard you preach,--once or twice in Trinity--I rather liked you--and now I want you to show me the way! Do you see there?" he extended his trembling hand, "there's the way I'm going. It's all dark. You're a minister of my church too; I want you to _show me the way_?"

There was a terrible emphasis in the accent,--a terrible entreaty in the look of the dying man.

The Rev. Herman Barnhurst sank back in a chair, much affected.

"Has he made his will?" he whispered to the Doctor, "so much property and no heirs: he could do so much good with it. Had not you better send for a lawyer?"

The Doctor regarded, for a moment, the fair complexion, curved nose, warm, full lips, and rounded chin of the young minister; and then answered, in a low voice,

"You are a minister. It is your duty not altogether to preach eloquent sermons, and show a pair of delicate hands from the summit of a marble pulpit. It is your duty to administer comfort by the dying-bed, where humbug is stripped of its mark, and death is 'the only reality'. Do your duty, sir. Save this man's soul."

"Yes, save my soul," cried Somers, who heard the last words of the Doctor, "I don't want the offices of the church; I don't want prayers. I want comfort, comfort; _now_." He paused, and then reaching forth his hand, said in a low voice, half broken by a burst of horrible laughter, "There's the way I've got to travel. Now tell me, minister, do you really believe that there is anything there? When we die, we die, don't we? Sleep and rot, rot and sleep, don't we?"

Herman, who was an Atheist at heart, though he had never confessed the truth even to himself--Herman, who was a minister for the sake of a large salary, fine carriage, and splendid house--Herman, who was, in fact, an intellectual voluptuary, devoting life and soul to the gratification of one appetite, which had, with him, become a monomania--Herman, now, for the first moment in his life, was conscious of a something _beyond_ the grave; conscious that this religion of Christ, the Master, which he used as a trade, was something more than a trade; was a fact, a reality, at once a hope and a judgment.

And the Rev. Herman Barnhurst felt one throe of remorse, and shuddered. Vailing his fair face in his delicate hands, he gave himself up to one moment of terrible reflection.

"He is failing fast," whispered the Doctor; "you had better say a word of hope to him."

"Yes, the camel is going through the eye of the needle," cried Somers, with a burst of shrill laughter. "Minister, did you ever see a camel go through the eye of a needle? Oh! you fellows preach such soft and velvety sermons to us,--but you never say a word about the camel--never a word about the camel. You see us buy and sell,--you see us hard landlords, careful business men,--you see us making money day after day, and year after year, at the cost of human life and human blood,--and you never say a word about the camel. Never! never! Why we _keep_ such fellows as you, for our use: for every thousand that we make in _trade_, we give you a good discount, in the way of salary, and so as we go along, we keep a _debit_ and _credit_ account with what you call Providence. Now rub out my sins, will you? I've paid you for it, I believe!"

"Poor friend! He is delirious!" ejaculated Herman Barnhurst.

The boy Gulian, (unperceived by the doctor,) brought a golden-clasped Bible, and laid it on the minister's knees. Then looking with a shudder at the livid face of the merchant prince, he shrank back into the shadows, first whispering to the minister--"Read to him from this book."

Somers, with his glassy eye, caught a glimpse of the book, as in its splendid binding, it rested on the minister's knees--

"Pooh! pooh! you needn't read. Because if _that_ book is true, why then I've made a bad _investment_ of my life. I never deceived myself. I always looked upon this thing you call religion as a branch of trade--a cloak--a trap. But now I want you to tell me one thing, (and I've paid enough money to have a decent answer): Do you really believe that there is _anything_ after this life? Speak, minister! Don't we go to sleep and rot,--and isn't that all?"

Herman did not answer.

But the voice of the boy Gulian, who was kneeling in the shadows of the death-chamber, broke through the stillness--

"There is something beyond the grave. There is a God! There is a heaven and a hell. There is a hope for the repentant, and there is a judgment for the impenitent." There was something almost supernatural in the tones of the boy's voice, breaking so slowly and distinctly upon the profound stillness.

The spectators started at the sound; and as for the dying man, he picked at his clothing and at the coverlet with his long fingers, now chilling fast with the cold of death--and muttered incoherent sounds, without sense or meaning of any kind.

"His face has a horrible look!" ejaculated the Colonel; who was half hidden among the curtains of the bed.

"He is going fast," said the Doctor, looking at his watch. "In five minutes all will be over,--"

"And you said, I believe, that he had not made his will?"

It was Herman who spoke. The sensation of remorse had been succeeded by his accustomed tone of feeling. His face was impressed with the profound selfishness which impelled his words. "He had better make his will. Without heirs, he can leave his fortune to the church,--"

"For shame! for shame!" cried the Doctor.

"A little too greedy, my good friend," the Colonel, at his back, remarked. "Allow me to remark, that your conduct manifests too much of the Levite, and too little of the gentleman."

Herman bit his lip, and was silent

After this, there was no word spoken for a long time.

The spectators watched in silence the struggles of the dying man.

How he died!--I shudder but to write it; and would not write it, were I not convinced that _atheism in the church_ is the grand cause of one half of the crimes and evils that afflict the world.

The death-bed of the ATHEIST church-member, with the ATHEIST minister sitting by the bed, was a horrible scene.

I see that picture, now:--

A vast room, furnished with all the incidents of wealth, lofty ceiling, walls adorned with pictures, and carpet that was woven in human blood. A single lamp on the table near the bed, breaks the gloom. The curtains of that bed are of satin, the pillow is of down, the coverlet is spotless as the snow; and there a long slender frame, and a face with the seal of sixty years of life upon it, attract the gaze of silent spectators.

The doctor--his face shaded by the wide rim of his hat, sits by the bed, watch in hand.

Behind him appears the handsome face of Colonel Tarleton--the man of the world, whose form is shrouded in the curtains.

A little apart, kneels the boy, Gulian, whose beautiful face is stamped with awe and bathed in tears.

And near the head of the bed, seated on a chair, which touches the pillow upon which rests the head of the dying--behold the tall form and aquiline face of the minister, who listens to the moans of death, and subdues his conscience into an expression of calm serenity.

The dying man is seized with a spasm, which throws his limbs into horrible contortions. He writhes, and struggles, with hands and feet, as though wrestling with a murderer: he utters horrible cries. At length, raising himself in a sitting posture, he projects his livid face into the light; he reaches forth his arm, and grasps the minister by the wrist,--the minister utters an involuntary cry of pain,--for that grasp is like the pressure of an iron vice.

"Not a word about the camel,--hey, minister?"

That was the last word of Evelyn Somers, Sen., the merchant prince.

There, projecting from the bed-curtains his livid face,--there, with features distorted and eyes rolling, the last glance upon the evidences of wealth, which filled the chamber,--there, even as he clasped the minister by the wrist, he gasped his last breath, and was a dead man.

It was with an effort that Herman Barnhurst disengaged his wrist from the gripe of the dead man's hand. As he tore the hand away, a golden eagle fell from it, and sparkled in the light, as it fell. The rich man couldn't take it with him, to the place where he was going,--not even one piece of gold.

The Rev. Herman Barnhurst rose and left the room without once looking back.

The doctor, also, rose and straightened the dead man's limbs, and closed his eyes. This done, he drew his broad-brimmed hat over his brow, and left the room without a word--yes, he spoke four words, as he left the place: "One out of seven!" he said.

The Colonel emerged from the curtains; he was ashy pale, and he tottered as he walked. This time his agitation was not a sham. Once he looked back upon the dead man's face, and then directed his steps to the door.

"Remember, Gulian," he whispered as he passed the kneeling boy: "to-morrow I will see you."

Gulian, still on his knees in the center of the apartment, prayed God to be merciful to the dead,--to the dead son, whose corpse lay in the room above, and to the dead father, whose body was stretched before his eyes.

Tarleton paused for a moment on the threshold, with his hand upon the knob of the door--

"If Cornelius Berman were alive, he would inherit this immense estate!" muttered the Colonel. "As it is, here is a palace with two dead bodies in it, and no heir to inherit the wealth of the corpse which only half an hour ago was the owner of half a million dollars. But it is no time to meditate. There's work for me at THE TEMPLE."

Turning from that stately mansion, in which father and son lay dead, we will follow the steps of Rev. Herman Barnhurst.