Chapter 36

When that day began to wane Susannah was still sitting in the empty curtained room. No plan which offered even a fair hope of escape had occurred to her mind. Although in pictures of adventure her imagination had been fertile, throwing out suggestions unbidden, her judgment would have none of them. No one disturbed her. She was left in isolation, a prey to dismal thoughts.

She saw the happy crowds dispersing in the Square from evening recreation. There was nothing to hinder her from joining them. Sometimes her sense of imprisonment seemed only a morbid dream, for on all sides of the fair white city there was open ingress and egress for the faithful and the stranger. It was hard to believe that at wharfs and on the high roads fanatics watched for her, and yet after Smith's reluctant avowal she dare not doubt it.

She saw evening fade over the broad semi-circle of the river, over the multitude of cheerful homes that sloped to its edge. When darkness came she found herself more than ever pressed and tormented by the grim shapes of fear and remorse and despair. She had terrible reason to fear, and felt as never before that she had brought this horrid situation upon herself by joining and rejoining the prophet's following. She had no hope now that Smith would relent.

Beyond the city, eastward toward the sun-rising, lay the home of Ephraim's friendship, whither in the morning she had thought to bend her steps. She saw it through the glad glamour of her recent knowledge that he had not neglected her letters. All her desires fled to this thought of his friendship, like birds flying home. All her fancies clustered round it, like climbing flowers that caress and kiss the object they enfold when some rude wind disturbs. Whenever she withdrew her mind from its contemplation, the circumstances on which she looked were the more revolting.

Ever since Smith left she had been more or less under the impression that an unseen person there in that very room had contended with him. Again and again she had swept it aside as an infectious madness that she was catching from the fanatics about her, but it had recurred; and now as, not caring to light her lamps, she sat alone in the darkness by the very table against which Smith had writhed and wailed, she felt pressed upon by a spiritual life external to her own.

Within her soul from some unknown depth the word arose distinctly as if spoken, "Pray. You cannot save yourself. Pray."

"I am going mad." Susannah whispered the words audibly. It was a comfort to her even to hear her own voice. But when her whisper was past she again listened involuntarily.

The words within her rose again. "Even so. Pray. If you are going mad, you have the more need."

Susannah had come to class all search for definite and material answer to prayer as one of the superstitions of false religion. In this category stood also the hearing of voices and obedience to monitions from the unseen. Now she reproached herself because she could not immediately silence this fancy of disturbed nerves.

Long sad thoughts of all her reasons against prayer, strongest among them the futility of her husband's prayers, passed through her mind with their train of haunting memories, but in the cessation from argument which these pictures of the past produced, the words arose again dearly within her soul, like airdrops rising from the depths of a well and expanding into momentary iridescence on the surface, "Pray for help. If you have no faith in God's arm, you have the more need to seek it."

Stung by the fear that she was losing her mind, she rose as she would have faced a human antagonist.

"God's arm!" she said aloud, "my husband prayed such prayers, but I will ask nothing till I see his request fulfilled."

She spoke the quick words with an almost reckless sense of experiment. Her thought was that before she could honestly think of such prayer she must see some fruit of Angel's petitions for this man Smith and for her own safety.

"Save Smith from further degradation," she said, her breath coming sharply. "Save me now, if that sort of prayer is right. Do this in answer to my husband's prayers. Remember his prayers."

She had begun recklessly, supposing that she was contending only with her own sick fancy; she was astonished that a few swift moments had involved her in an increasing sense of personal contact, and she became awed by the strength of the encounter.

"My husband prayed for my safety," she repeated with softened attitude; then, as if seeking for the protection which had died with him, she repeated again and again, "Remember his prayers."

She left the challenge at last apparently to die where she had breathed it in the dark cold air of her lonely room. The tension of her mind relaxed.

She sat down again, not knowing whether anything had occurred, but a crisis in the morbid working of her strained nerves had in some way relieved her.

She was curiously unable to go back to her former agonised anxieties. Natural fatigue, even sleepiness, came over her, but not her fears, even though she wooed them.

"Ah, well," she said within herself, "it is quite true that it is useless to consider when I can give myself no help."

The habits of the Saints were early. When she heard silence fall upon the great house she went into her sleeping-room and lay down upon the bed. Sleep came quickly.

With the early dawn she opened her eyes. In the first moments of half-awaked consciousness she was aware that one thought lay alone in the empty horizon of her mind, like a trace left by a dream that had passed, as a wisp of cloud may be left in an empty sky.

This thought was that she would at once go down to the river bank upon the southwest of the town.

When other thoughts awoke and crowded within her ken this thought appeared foolish, and still more so the strong influence it had left upon her will, for in the momentum of this influence she had risen without debating the point.

She was not aware that she had moved in her sleep or dreamed. She was greatly refreshed and again unreasonably light-hearted. She opened her shutters and saw that the dawn was calm and fair. As yet the sleeping town had scarcely stirred.

"It is better to go out than to stay in," she said to herself as she remembered that this hour would be her one chance of taking air and exercise unobserved. She heard the main door of the house open and, looking over the banister, saw a slattern with bucket and mop passing into some back passage. She went lightly down and out into the fresh frosty air.

What had that dream been concerning the river bank on the south-western side? She could not recall it, nor had she ever explored the streets of white wooden villas and cottages that lay upon that side. She went thither now. There was no reason why she should not go, no reason to go elsewhere. It was a pleasant walk. When she had passed the last house, the bank sloped in open uncared-for grass where cows were grazing. Only here and there she had seen a house-door open, and as yet in this place no one was abroad except a boy who was playing idly in a boat, which was drawn half up on the muddy bank.

The broad river, milk-white under a dappled sky, stretched south and west. The other side was dim and blue in the faint vapour of the relaxing frost. The air was sweet and still. The sunbeams, imprisoned in eastern vapour, shone through the white veil with soft glow that cast no shadow but comforted the earth with hope.

Susannah had a further thought in her mind now, but she felt no haste or impatience of excitement.

The boy was of an active, restless disposition or he would hardly have been out so early. Lithe and idle, he sat see-sawing in the floating end of the boat, uncertain how to amuse himself. He returned Susannah's greeting with a lively flow of talk.

"You don't know how to row," said Susannah.

She showed no eagerness, for she felt none. The hope she had just formed was most uncertain, for it appeared not at all likely that she could escape in this way without being molested.

"I bet I can row," said the boy, "as well as any man in town."

"That isn't saying much," said Susannah. "The men about here have very few boats, and they are most of them afraid to go on anything smaller than the steamer."

"I could row t'other side and back," bragged the boy. "I could row t'other side and back three times in the day."

"You couldn't."

"I couldn't! What will you bet?"

"I suppose your father wouldn't allow you to go, anyway."

He was a fresh-faced, mischievous, eager young rascal, and he found Susannah's manner pleasant and provoking.

"Will you lay five dollars on it?" he cried. "Pap is away down to Quincy. If you'll lay five dollars on it I'll do it."

"But I won't."

The gambling spirit of the young pioneer was aroused.

"What will you lay on it, then?"

"I don't believe you could row once to the other side."

He bragged loudly and with much exaggeration of what he had done and what he could do, and began pushing off the boat to show her his speed.

The boat was a rude craft, unpainted, flat-bottomed, but light enough, and not badly formed for speed. Susannah stepped into it without much hope, scarcely caring what she did, but still provoking the young boatman to attempt the crossing.

"I shan't give you any money," she said, "but you can row me a bit if you like till I see how fast you can go. You don't understand the currents, I am sure."

"Currents!" said the boy, "I guess I understand all there is to know about them."

Talking thus in light banter, they actually proceeded out onto the bosom of the milky flood without hearing any cry from the shore or seeing any one who took note of their departure. The pellucid and comforting light of the blinded sun grew warmer; the hum of industry in the town behind rose cheerfully upon the quiet air, and as the calling of the April bluebird in the fields grew more faint, the splash of the oars and the whirr of the gray water-fowl began to be accompanied by a low distant sound as of a watermill.

"It's the excursion steamer," said the boy. "We'll get in her waves and you'll be scared. Ladies is always scared of waves."

She asked if the steam-boat would stop at the Nauvoo wharf, but he explained, with the knowledge that boys are apt to have of such details, that this steamer was coming from Fort Madison, and would keep to the Missouri side, that he had heard that there were some State officials on board her, escorting the Governor of Kentucky, who was prospecting for a Land Company.

They saw the white hulk of the steam-boat looming upon the water to the north. Her side paddle-wheels churned the flood. A strong purpose took possession of Susannah; she knew what she was going to do.

She said to the boy, "No one could stop a steamer when she once starts until she gets to her next port."

"I bet the engineman could stop her just as easy as that." The boy backed water with his oars suddenly.

"But no one on the river could make him stop and get aboard."

"Yes, they could. My pap stopped one once. We was living down near Cairo, but not near a wharf."

"How did he do it?" she asked, and her interest was intense.

"Why, you just put up your hands like a trumpet and yell through them as loud as you can, and you go on waving and hollering. My pap said the best plan was to call out 'Runaway nigger! Large reward!' They'd be sure to stop then to know all about it, and when they'd once stopped they don't mind your clambering up, if you can pay the fare."

Susannah felt herself wholly unequal to the loud task described.

"They would never stop for you," she, said. "You are only a boy, and they would know 'twas only mischief."

His reply was as before. He would lay five dollars on it that he could stop the boat.

She incited him to do this thing also. What faculty of caution the boy possessed was not as yet developed; he left the care for consequences to the sedate lady in the stern, and forgetting his quest of the Missouri shore, lay in the path of the steam-boat and howled unmusically, and marred the peace of the placid morning by shouting concerning a runaway slave and a fabulous reward that was offered for him taken alive or dead.

It is probable that what he said never rightly reached the ears of the men on the deck, but that they regarded the lady as a possible passenger; the engine was stopped.

"We'd better cut now as fast as we can," said the boy, somewhat frightened. He seized his oars excitedly. "Or shall I tell them a big yarn about the nigger?"

They were but slightly to one side. The prow of the steam-boat, which drew but little water, had already passed below them. A small crowd on the vessel's deck leaned over the paddle-box. Standing up in the boat, Susannah searched the faces of the men looking down. They all looked at her.

She singled out the captain by some sign in his dress, and pleaded urgent necessity for travelling with him.

"Look here," said the boy, looking up at her from beneath, "I call that a low-down, mean sort of thing to do. Why didn't you tell me square? I'd have brought you if you wanted do come."

She pleaded with the boy too. "It was better for you not to know my secrets. If they ask you in the city you can say that you didn't know."

A dozen hands were held out to help her to climb the ladder on the shelving paddle-box. "Keep off," they cried to the boy, and he swung away from the churning wheel.

Susannah stood upon the deck pale and trembling. The magnitude of the step came upon her, and she was beset by natural timidity and the painfulness of her dependence. The men who stood around her with the right to question were not of a low class. The captain, brawny and respectable, spoke for the group. Behind him was a short but dignified gray-haired gentleman whom she took to be the present or former Governor of the State of Kentucky, of whom the boy had spoken. With him were several men who appeared to have some fair title to gentility. Other passengers pressed in an outer circle.

She would fain have explained herself more privately, but she could not endure to accept the privileges of the boat without explaining first that she was not able to pay for them. "Gentlemen, I have no money. I am entirely unprotected. I have escaped in fear of my life from Nauvoo."

She spoke instinctively, only desiring to set herself right, but when the words were said she knew that she had helped to heap opprobrium on the sect in whose cause so short a time ago she would have died. The passengers were Missourians, as was the captain. Among them went a whisper of chivalrous pity for her and of execration for the prophet and his followers.

"Madam," said the captain, "any lady as is escaping from those devils has the freedom of this boat, and no ticket required, as long as I'm in command. Isn't that so?" he asked of the crowd.

The murmur broke into an open chorus of enthusiastic speech.

Wild and deep as was her panting anger against Smith's oppression, Susannah shrank. The thought of profiting by this spirit of partisan hatred scorched her heart.

The Kentucky Governor, a dapper man, who had been regarding her with a temperate and critical eye, now, urged by her obvious distressed timidity, came forward.

"How did you get among the Mormons, may I ask?"

"My husband," faltered Susannah, "but he is dead."

It would appear that her words tallied with some conclusion he had been drawing concerning her, for without further parley Susannah found herself being led in a formal manner down the companion-way. The brief report which she had given of herself had preceded her through the boat. She heard the passengers whom she left on the deck making sentimental remarks. Two coloured girls who were washing dishes in a pantry came to its door and gasped with emotion as they stared at her. In the saloon the coloured waiters gaped.

At the farther end of the saloon a stout and magnificent lady in silk and diamonds was seated before innumerable viands which were spread in circles around her plate. She stopped eating while her husband presented Susannah. She alone of all upon the boat seemed to be overburdened by no surge of sentiment or curiosity. She was a most comfortable person.

Seated in safety beside her, Susannah could indulge the pent-up indignation of her outraged spirit in silent musings upon Smith's degradation and, the certain downfall of all righteousness under the new tyranny. And yet--and yet--the shock of the last few days, forcibly as it vibrated through all her nature, could not eradicate the sympathy of years--the memories of Hiram and Kirtland, Haun's Mill and the desperate winter's march. Justice, her old friend, now her inquisitor, said sternly, "It was in these scenes in which some lost life and some reason that these men lost their moral standards." But her heart cried, "Now that _I_ am insulted, I cannot forgive."

The words of the Governor's wife, cheerful, continuous, and not without diverting sparkle, were an unspeakable rest to Susannah, weary above all things of herself. Whether because of a strong undercurrent of tactful kindness, or in mere garrulity, the good lady's talk for some time flowed on concerning all things small, and nothing great, like the lapping of the river against the vessel's bows.

But at last her companion's situation grew upon her; she enlarged more than once upon her surprise at Susannah's advent, and her feelings of extreme relief that she was safely there.

"What a mercy!" she sighed comfortably. "Such awful people! Why, I hear that when any child among them is weak or deformed they just murder it."

Like one who is enraged with his own kin but cannot hear them falsely accused, Susannah contradicted this statement.

"It is perfectly true," the Governor's wife declared. "I have heard it several times. How long have you been at Nauvoo?"

"Three weeks."

"And in that time they offered to kill you! Well, I assure you if you had been a sickly child they wouldn't have let you live three days. And they say that that monster they call the prophet has at least a dozen wives."

"Oh, no."

"Ten or eleven, at any rate."

"He has only one, and he has always been very kind to her."

"How they have imposed upon you! Where have you been living that you have not heard more of their iniquitous doings than that?"

Susannah was faint and ill with the conflict within her own breast when the dapper Kentucky Governor, on business intent, came to them from a group of the smoking men.

"James," cried his wife, with an edge of sharpness in her low voice, "this lady doesn't even know a tithe of the enormities that are practised in Nauvoo."

He shook his head, and said that it was a compliment to Susannah's heart and mind that the tenth part had been sufficient to alarm.

His manner was stiff and formal, but his disposition seemed very kind.

He asked Susannah if the Mormons had retained all her property, and what destination she now proposed for herself; and then with great delicacy informed her that there was a proposition among the passengers to make a collection, to defray the expenses of her whole journey.

Susannah's cheek paled again.

"How could I return it if it came from so many?" she asked. Her white hands were clasping and unclasping themselves. Must it indeed be by means of such humiliation that she saved herself from Angel's Church?

The Governor determined upon further generosity. "If you would prefer, take it from me as a loan," he said.

She gave him Ephraim's address. It was so long since she had spoken her cousin's name to any one that tears came when she felt herself bound to explain that she was not certain that he was alive.

"He is probably alive. Ill news travels fast."

She blessed the dapper gentleman for this unfounded opinion, for the kindness that prompted it, more than for all else that he had done.

His advice was that Susannah should continue upon that boat with them as far south as Cairo, in order to take advantage of the steam-boats now plying on the Ohio River, so that the expense and weariness of the land journey would be diminished to the small space between the uppermost point on the Ohio and the western entrance of the Erie Canal. There were several men upon the boat, he said, who could commend her to the care of every captain on the Ohio.

Susannah felt too weak and weary to say more in defence of the morals of Nauvoo. She could not struggle against the fact that her claim to the generosity of which she stood in such helpless need was recognised and satisfied by the hatred of these Gentiles.

When in the succeeding days she had time to meditate, while she spent many a long hour on the decks of river-boats watching the shimmering lights and shades that pass upon open river surfaces, the perplexing and contrasting aspects of her situation played in like manner upon her heart.

She had suffered so much, such long and deadly ill, as a member of this almost innocent sect, suffered bravely in protest against the vile injustice of the persecution, and now that she was escaping from miseries inflicted by this same sect, she was wrapped in the kindly reverse side of the persecuting spirit, and carried home in it, with all the deference that would be accorded to a lost child. She was too tired and helpless now to defy the good thus given. Did all her former suffering go for nothing as a protest against the wrong?

With more curious feelings, more involved sentiments, she regarded the history of her more inward life. With what strong protest against the obvious evils attendant upon unreasoning faith had she resisted through many years the infectious influences of belief in an interfering spiritual world. Now she had defied Smith with a faith in the ideal marriage unsupported by any conscious reason, and when she had looked to the interference of Providence, not even in meekness, but in desperate challenge, she had strong impression of being encompassed by invisible power and protection. In vain she said to herself that the simple and unlooked-for method of her escape was one of those coincidences which only appear to support faith, that her deliverance had been of no unearthly sort, but brought about by means doubtfully righteous--consent to trick the boy and to say little on hearing the Mormons falsely accused. When she had told herself this, the impression that underneath her folly a guiding hand had impelled and saved her, in spite of her small marring of the work, remained. Even while her bosom was swelling with shame at hearing her husband's sect derided, and eating the bread of that derision, and still greater shame at knowing that condemnation was merited, she would find herself resting in the assurance that beyond and beneath all this confusion of pain there was for her and for all men an eternal and beneficent purpose.