The Bondman: A New Saga

Thou shalt do no murder!

Jason started to his feet. Why was he there? What had he come to do? He must go. The place was stifling him. In another moment he was crushing his way out of the Cathedral. He felt like a man sentenced to death.

Being in the free air again he regained his self-control. "What madness! It is no murder," he thought. But he could not get back to his seat, and so he turned to where the crowd was thickest outside. That was down the line of the pathway to the wide west entrance. As he approached this point he saw that the people were in high commotion. He hurried up to them and inquired the cause. The bridal party had just passed through. At that moment the full swell of the organ came out through the open doors. The marriage service had begun.

After a while Jason had so far recovered his composure as to look about him. Deep as the year had sunk towards winter, the day was brilliant. The air was so bright that it seemed to ring. The sea in front of the town smiled under the sunlight; the broad stretch of lava behind it glistened, the glaciers in the distance sparkled, and the black jokulls far beyond showed their snowy domes against the blue sky. Oh, it was one of God's own mornings, when all His earth looks glad. And the Cathedral yard – for all it slept so full of dead men's bones – was that day a bright and busy place. Troops of happy girls were there in their jackets of gray, braided with gold or silver, and with belts of filigree; troops of young men, too, in their knee breeches, with bows of red ribbon, their dark-gray stockings and sealskin shoes; old men as well in their coats of homespun; and old women in their long blue cloaks; children in their plaited kirtles, and here and there a traveller with his leather wallet for his snuff and money. At the entrance gate there was a triumphal arch of ribbons and evergreens, and under its shadow there were six men with horns and guns, ready for a salute when the bride appeared; and in the street outside there was a stall laden with food and drink for all who should that day come and ask.

Only to Jason was the happy place a Gethsemane, and standing in the thick of the crowd, on a grave with a sunken roof, under the shadow of the Cathedral, he listened with a dull ear to the buzz of talk between two old gossips behind him. He noticed that they were women with prominent eyeballs, which produced a dreamy, serious, half-stupid, half-humorous look, like that of the dogs in the picture that sit in the judgment-seat.

"She's English," said one. "No, Irish. No, Manx – whatever that means. Anyway, she's foreign, and can't speak a word that anybody can understand. So Mother Helda says, and she's a worthy woman, you know, and cleans the floors at the Palace."

"But they say she's a sweet lady for all that," said the other; and just then a young student at their back pushed his laughing face between their shoulders and said,

"Who? Old Mother Helda?"

"Mother Helda be bothered. The lady. And her father has been wrecked in coming to her wedding, too! Poor old man, what a pity! The Governor sent my son Oscar with twenty of Loega's men to Stappen to look for me. That was a fortnight ago. I expect him back soon."

"They might have waited until he came. Why didn't they?"

"Oscar?" said the laughing face between them.

"The father, goose. Poor lady, how lonely she must feel! But then the old Bishop is so good to everybody."

"Well, he deserves a good wife."

"The old Bishop?" said the student, shaking his sides.

"The young Governor, I'm talking of; and don't be so quick in snapping folks up, Jon Arnason. He's the best Governor we ever had. And what a change from the last one. Why, he doesn't mind speaking to anyone. Just think, only yesterday he stopped me and said, 'Good morning;' he said, 'your son won't be long away now,' quite humble and homelike."

"Well, God bless him – and her too, foreign or not – and may they live long – "

"And have a good dozen," added the laughing voice behind them.

And then all three laughed together.

By this time the organ which had been silent for a little while, had burst forth afresh, and though its strains were loud and jubilant, yet to Jason they seemed to tell the story of his sorrow and all the trouble of his days. He tried not to listen, and to pass the moments in idly watching the swaying throng, whose heads beneath his own rose and fell like a broken sea. But his mind would be active, and the broad swell of the music floated into his soul and consumed it. "Can it be possible," he thought, "that I intend to smite him down when he comes through that doorway by her side? And yet I love her – and he is my brother."

Still the organ rang out over graveyard and people, and only by an effort of will could Jason hold back his tears. "Man! man!" he cried in his heart, "call it by its true name – not judgment, but murder. Yes, murder for jealous love, murder for love despised!"

A new and awful light had then illumined his gloomy mind, and his face betokened his sufferings, for, though no tears fell down his hard cheeks, his eyes were bloodshot. In complete self-forgetfulness he pressed forward, until his way was stopped by a little iron cross that stood at the head of a grave. "My mother's," he thought. "No, hers is next."

The organ broke into yet another strain at that moment – a proud, triumphant peal of song, which in the frenzy of Jason's mind seemed either to reach up to heaven's gate or to go down to the brink of hell. There was a movement among the people, a buzz of voices, a hush, and a whispered cry, "They are coming, they are coming!"

"God bless them," said one.

"Heaven protect them," said another.

And every blessing fell on Jason like a curse. "Murder let it be," he thought, and turned his eyes where other eyes were looking. Then passing under the broad arch, stepping out of the blue shadow into the white sunshine, all radiant in her grace and lovely sweetness, meek and tender, with tears in her soft brown eyes – it was she, it was she; it was Greeba – Greeba – Greeba.

Jason felt his strength exhausted. A strange dizziness seized him. He looked down to avoid the light. His eyes fell on the iron cross before him, and he read the name graven upon it. The name was his own.

Then everything seemed to whirl around him. He remembered no more, save a shuffling of feet, a dull hum over his head, like the noise of water in the ears of a drowning man, and a sense of being lifted and carried.

But another consciousness came to him, and it was very sweet, though uncertain. He was floating up – up – up to where the mountains were green, and the sea was tranquil, and the trees made music in the quiet air. And Greeba was there, and she was laying her cool hand on his hot forehead, and he was looking at the troubled heaving of her round bosom. "Aren't you very proud of yourself, Jason?" she was whispering softly, and then he was clasping the beautiful girl in his arms and kissing her, and she was springing away, blushing deeply, and he was holding down his head, and laughing in his heart.

"Lie still, love; lie you still," fell on his ear, and he opened his eyes. He was in his own room at the little cottage of the caretakers. The old woman was bending over him, and bathing his forehead with one hand, while with the other hand she was holding her apron to her eyes.

"He's coming round nicely, praise the Lord," she said, cheerily.

"I remember," said Jason, in a weak voice. "Did I faint?"

"Faint, love?" said the good soul, putting her deaf ear close to his lips. "Why, it's fever, love; brain fever."

"What time is it?" said Jason.

"Time, love? Lord help us, what does the boy want with the time? But it's just the way with all of them. Mid-evening, love."

"What day is it – Sunday?"

"Sunday, love? No, but Tuesday. It was on Sunday you fell senseless, poor boy."

"Where was that?"

"Where? Why, where but in the Cathedral yard, just at the very minute the weddiners were coming out at the door."

And hearing this Jason's face broke into a smile like sunshine, and he uttered a loud cry of relief. "Thank God. Oh, thank God."

But while an angel of hope seemed to bring him good tidings of a great peril averted, and even as a prayer gushed from his torn heart, he remembered the vision of his delirium, and knew that he was forever a bereaved and broken man. At that his face, which had been red as his hair, grew pale as ashes, and a low cunning came over him, and he wondered if he had betrayed himself in his unconsciousness.

"Have I been delirious?" he asked.

"Delirious, love? Oh, no, love, no; only distraught a little and cursing sometimes, the Saints preserve us," said the old landlady in her shrill treble.

Jason remembered that the old woman was deaf, and gathering that she alone had nursed him, and that no one else had seen him since his attack, except her deaf husband and a druggist from the High Street who had bled him, he smiled and was satisfied.

"Lord bless me, how he mends," said the hearty old woman, and she gave him the look of an affectionate dog.

"And now, good soul, I am hungry and must make up for all this fasting," said Jason.

"Ay, ay, and that you must, lad," said the old woman, and off she went to cook him something to eat.

But his talk of hunger had been no more than a device to get rid of her, for he knew that the kind creature would try to restrain him from rising. So when she was gone he stumbled to his feet, feeling very weak and dazed, and with infinite struggle and sweat tugged on his clothes – for they had been taken off – and staggered out into the streets.

It was night, and the clouds hung low as if snow might be coming, but the town seemed very light, as with bonfires round about it and rockets shot into the air, and very noisy, too, as with guns fired and music played, so that Jason's watery eyes felt dazzled, and his singing ears were stunned. But he walked on, hardly knowing which way he was going, and hearing only as sounds at sea the voices that called to him from the doors of the drinking-shops, until he came out at the bridge to the Thingvellir road. And there, in the sombre darkness, he was overtaken by the three Danes who had spoken to him before.

"So your courage failed you at the last moment – I watched you and saw how it was. Ah, don't be afraid, we are your friends, and you are one of us. Let us play at hide-and-seek no longer."

"They say he is going down the fiord in search of his wife's father. Take care he does not slip away. Old Jorgen is coming back. Good-night."

So saying, without once turning their faces towards Jason's face, they strode past him with an indifferent air. Then Jason became conscious that Government House was ablaze with lights, that some of its windows were half down, that sounds of music and dancing came from within, and that on the grass plat in front, which was lit by torches men and women in gay costumes were strolling to and fro, in pairs.

And turning from the bridge towards the house he saw a man go by on horseback in the direction of the sea, and remembered in a dull way that just there and at that hour he had seen Michael Sunlocks ride past him in the dusk.

What happened thereafter he never rightly knew, only that in a distempered dream he was standing with others outside the rails about Government House while the snow began to fall through the darkness, that he saw the dancers circling across the lighted windows and heard the music of the flutes and violins above the steady chime of the sea, that he knew this merry-making to be a festival of her marriage whom he loved with a love beyond that of his immortal soul, that the shame of his condition pained him, and the pain of it maddened him, the madness of it swept away his consciousness, and that when he came to himself he had forced his way into the house, thinking to meet his enemy face to face, and was in a room alone with Greeba, who was cowering before him with a white face of dismay.

"Jason," she was saying, "why are you here?"

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"Why have you followed me?" she cried.

"Why have you followed him?"

"What have you come for?"

"Is this what you have come for?"

"Jason," she cried again, "I wronged you, that is true, but you forgave me. I asked you to choose for me, and if you had said 'stay,' I should have stayed. But you released me, you know you did. You gave me up to him, and now he is my husband."

"But this man is Michael Sunlocks," said Jason.

"Didn't you know that before?" said Greeba. "Ah, then, I know what you have come for. You have recalled your forgiveness, and have come to punish me for deserting you. But spare me! Oh, spare me! Not for my own sake, but his; for I am his wife now and he loves me very dearly. No, no, not that, but only spare me, Jason," she cried, and crouched at his feet.

"I would not harm a hair of your head, Greeba," he said.

"Then what have you come for?" she said.

"This man is a son of Stephen Orry," he said.

"Then it is for him," she cried, and leaped to her feet. "Ah, now I understand. I have not forgotten the night in Port-y-Vullin."

"Does he know of that?" said Jason.

"No."

"Does he know I am here?"

"No."

"Does he know we have met?"

"No."

"Let me see him!"

"Why do you ask to see him?"

"Let me see him."

"But why?" she stammered. "Why see him? It is I who have wronged you."

"That's why I want to see him," said Jason.

She uttered a cry of terror and staggered back. There was an ominous silence, in which it passed through Greeba's mind that all that was happening then had happened before. She could hear Jason's labored breathing and the dull thud of the music through the walls.

"Jason," she cried, "What harm has he ever done you? I alone am guilty before you. If your vengeance must fall on anyone let it fall on me."

"Where is he?" said Jason.

"He is gone," said Greeba.

"Gone?"

"Yes, to find my poor father. The dear old man was wrecked in coming here, and my husband sent men to find him, but they blundered and came back empty-handed, and not a half an hour ago he went off himself."

"Was he riding?" said Jason; but without waiting for an answer he made towards the door.

"Wait! Where are you going?" cried Greeba.

Swift as lightning the thought had flashed though her mind, "What if he should follow him!"

Now the door to the room was a heavy, double-hung door of antique build, and at the next instant she had leaped to it and shot the heavy wooden bar that bolted it.

At that he laid one powerful hand on the bar itself, and wrenched it outward across the leverage of its iron loops, and it cracked and broke, and fell to the ground in splinters.

Then her strong excitement lent the brave girl strength, and her fear for her husband gave her courage, and crying, "Stop, for heaven's sake stop," she put her back to the door, tore up the sleeve of her dress, and thrust her bare right arm through the loops where the bar had been.

"Now," she cried, "you must break my arm after it."

"God forbid," said Jason, and he fell back for a moment at that sight. But, recovering himself, he said, "Greeba, I would not touch your beautiful arm to hurt it; no, not for all the wealth of the world. But I must go, so let me pass."

Still her terror was centred on the thought of Jason's vengeance.

"Jason," she cried, "he is my husband. Only think – my husband."

"Let me pass," said Jason.

"Jason," she cried again, "my husband is everything to me, and I am all in all to him."

"Let me pass," said Jason.

"You intend to follow him. You are seeking him to kill him."

"Let me pass."

"Deny it."

"Let me pass."

"Never," she cried. "Kill me if you will, but until you have done so you shall not pass this door. Kill me!"

"Not for my soul's salvation!" said Jason.

"Then give up your wicked purpose. Give it up, give it up."

"Only when he shall have given up his life."

"Then I warn you, I will show you no pity, for you have shown none to me."

At that she screamed for help, and presently the faint music ceased, and there was a noise of hurrying feet. Jason stood a moment listening; then he looked towards the window, and saw that it was of one frame, and had no sash that opened. At the next instant he had doubled his arms across his face and dashed through glass and bars.

A minute afterwards the room was full of men and women, and Jason was brought back into it, pale, sprinkled with snow and blood-stained.

"I charge that man with threatening the life of my husband," Greeba cried.

Then it seemed as if twenty strong hands laid hold of Jason at once. But no force was needed, for he stood quiet and silent, and looked like a man who had walked in his sleep, and been suddenly awakened by the sound of Greeba's voice. One glance he gave her of great suffering and proud defiance, and then, guarded on either hand, passed out of the place like a captured lion.

CHAPTER IX.

The Peace Oath

There was short shrift for Red Jason. He was tried by the court nearest the spot, and that was the criminal court over which the Bishop in his civil capacity presided, with nine of his neighbors on the bench beside him. From this court an appeal was possible to the Court of the Quarter, and again from the Quarter Court to the High Court of Althing; but appeal in this case there was none, for there was no defence. And because Icelandic law did not allow of the imprisonment of a criminal until after he had been sentenced, an inquest was called forthwith, lest Jason should escape or compass the crime he had attempted. So the Court of Inquiry sat the same night in the wooden shed that served both for Senate and House of Justice.

The snow was now falling heavily, and the hour was late, but the courthouse was thronged. It was a little place – a plain box, bare, featureless, and chill, with walls, roof and seats of wood, and floor of hard earth. Four short benches were raised, step above step, against the farthest side, and on the highest of these the Bishop sat, with three of his colleagues on each of the three rows beneath him. The prisoner stood on a broad stool to the right, and the witnesses on a like stool to the left. A wooden bar crossed the room about midway, and in the open space between that and the door the spectators were crowded together. The place was lighted by candles, and some were fixed to the walls, others were held by ushers on the end of long sticks, and a few were hung to the roof rafters by hemp ropes tied about their middle. The floor ran like a stream, and the atmosphere was full of the vapor of the snow that was melting on the people's clothes. Nothing could be ruder than the courthouse, but the Court that sat there observed a rule of procedure that was almost an idolatry of form.

The prisoner was called by the name of Jason, son of Stephen Orry, and having answered in a voice so hollow that it seemed to come out of the earth beneath him, he rose to his place. His attitude was dull and impassive, and he seemed hardly to see the restless crowd that murmured at sight of him. His tall figure stooped, there was a cloud on his strong brow, and a slow fire in his bloodshot eyes, and his red hair, long as a woman's, hung in disordered masses down his worn cheeks to his shoulders. The Bishop, a venerable prelate of great age, looked at him and thought, "That man's heart is dead within him."

The spokesman of the Court was a middle-aged man, who was short, had little piercing eyes, a square brush of iron-gray hair that stood erect across the top of his corded forehead, and a crisp, clear utterance, like the crackle of a horse's hoofs on the frost.

Jason was charged with an attempt to take the life of Michael Sunlocks, first President of the second Republic. He did not plead and had no defence, and the witnesses against him spoke only in answer to the leading questions of the judges.

The first of the witnesses was Greeba herself, and her evidence, given in English, was required to be interpreted. All her brave strength was now gone. She trembled visibly. Her eyes were down, her head was bent, her face was half-hidden by the hood of a cloak she wore, and her tones were barely audible. She had little to say. The prisoner had forced his way into Government House, and there, to her own face, had threatened to take the life of her husband. In plain words he had done so, and then made show of going in pursuit of her husband that he might carry out his design.

"Wait," said the Bishop, "your husband was not present?"

"No," said Greeba.

"There was, therefore, no direct violence?"

"None."

"And the whole sum of the prisoner's offence, so far as you know of it, lies in the use of the words that you have repeated?"

"Yes."

Then, turning to the spokesman of the Court, the old Bishop said —

"There has been no overt act. This is not an attempt, but a threat to take life. And this is not a crime by the law of this, or any other Christian country."

"Your pardon, my lord," said the little man, in his crisp tones. "I will show that the prisoner is guilty of the essential part of murder itself. Murder, my lord," he added, "is not merely to compass the destruction of a life, for there is homicide, by misadventure, there is justifiable homicide, and there are the rights, long recognized by Icelandic law, of the avengers of blood. Murder is to kill in secrecy and after long-harbored malice, and now my lord, I shall show that the prisoner has lain in wait to slay the President of the Republic."

At that Greeba stood down, and other witnesses followed her. Nearly everyone had been summoned with whom Jason had exchanged words since he landed eight days before. There was the lean student who had told him of the drill at the Latin school, the little tailor who had explained the work at the jail, the stuttering doorkeeper at the senate-house, and one of the masons at the fort. Much was made of the fainting in the Cathedral yard, on the Sunday morning, and out of the deaf landlady, the Cathedral caretaker, some startling disclosures seemed to be drawn.

"Still," said the old Bishop, "I see no overt act."

"Good gracious, my lord," said the little spokesman, "are we to wait until the knife itself has been reddened?"

"God forbid!" said the old Bishop.

Then came two witnesses to prove motive. The first of them was the tipsy comrade of former days, who had drawn Jason into the drinking-shop. He could say of his own knowledge that Jason was jealous of the new Governor. The two were brothers in a sort of way. So people said, and so Jason had told him. They had the same father, but different mothers. Jason's mother had been the daughter of the old Governor, who turned his back on her at her marriage. At her death he relented, and tried to find Jason, but could not, and then took up with Michael Sunlocks. People said that was the beginning of the new President's fortune. At all events Jason thought he had been supplanted, was very wroth, and swore he would be revenged.

The second of the two witnesses pointed to a very different motive. He was one of the three Danes who had twice spoken to Jason – the elderly man with the meek and quiet manner. Though himself loyal to the Icelandic Republic he had been much thrown among its enemies. Jason was one of them; he came here as a spy direct from Copenhagen, and his constant associates were Thomsen, an old, white-headed man living in the High Street, and Polvesen, a young and sallow man, who kept one of the stores facing the sea. With these two Jason had been heard by him to plan the assassination of the President.

At this evidence there was a deep murmur among the people, and it was seen that Greeba had risen again to her feet. Her heart burned and stormed within her. She tried to speak but could not. At the same moment Jason turned his bloodshot eyes in her direction, and then her limbs gave way under her, and she sank back with a moan. The Court misread her emotion, and she was removed. Jason's red eyes followed her constantly.

"This is a case for the Warning, not for punishment," said the Bishop. "It is plainly written in our old Law Book that if a man threaten to slay another man he shall be warned of the gravity of the crime he contemplates and of the penalty attaching to it."