<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></SPAN>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
<h3>DEATH EDDY</h3>
<p>It was a gray day, chill and ominous. As the three most interested in the
event came together on the road facing the point from which Hazen had
decided to make his desperate plunge, the dreariness of the scene was
reflected in the troubled eye of the lawyer and that of the still more
profoundly affected Ransom. Only Hazen gazed unmoved. Perhaps because
the spot was no new one to him, perhaps because an unsympathetic sky,
a stretch of rock, the swirl of churning waters without any of the
lightness and color which glancing sunlight gives, meant for him but one
thing—the thing upon which he had fixed his mind, his soul.</p>
<p>The rocky formation into which the stream ran at this point as into a
pocket, revealed itself in the bald outlines of the point which, curving
half-way upon itself, held in its cold embrace the unseen vortex. One
tree, and one only, disturbed the sky line. Stark and twisted into an
unusual shape from the steady blowing of the prevalent east winds, it
imprinted itself at once upon the eye and unconsciously upon the
imagination. To some it was the keeper of that hell-gate; the contorted
sentinel of bygone woes and long-buried horrors, if not the gnomish
genius of others yet to come. To-day it was the sign-post to a strange
deed—the courting of an uncanny death that one of the many secrets
hidden in that hole of miseries might be unlocked.</p>
<p>Under this tree a small group of strong and determined men was already
collected; not as spectators but helpers in the adventurous attempt about
to be undertaken by their old friend and playmate. The spectators had
been barred from the point and stood lined up in the road overlooking the
eddy. They were numerous and very eager. Hazen's brows drew together in
his first exhibition of feeling, as he saw women and even children in the
crowd, and caught the expression of morbid anticipation with which they
all turned as he stepped with his two associates over the rope which had
been stretched across the base of the out-curving head line.</p>
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<h4>"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast
of death, but they will be disappointed."</h4>
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<p>"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast of death, but
they will be disappointed." He was almost bitter. "I shall survive this
plunge. I have no wish for my death to be the holiday for a hundred
gloating eyes, I am not handsome enough. When I die, it will be quietly,
with some hand near, kind enough to cover my poor face with a napkin."</p>
<p>Harper and Ransom both remembered this remark a little while later.</p>
<p>"Mr. Hazen?" It was Harper who spoke. They had passed a little thicket
of brush and were drawing near the group under the tree. "Have you duly
considered what you are about to do? I have talked with several men of
judgment and experience about this attempt, and they all say it can have
but one termination."</p>
<p>"I know. That is because they know little or nothing of the life I have
led since I left this town. There is not a man amongst them so slight and
seemingly frail of figure as myself, but none of them, not one, has been
so often up to the very gates of death and escaped, as I have. My
schooling has been long and severe, perhaps in preparation for this day.
I have been through fire; I have been through water. The swirling of my
own native stream does not appall me. I rather welcome it; it is but
another experience."</p>
<p>"But for money?" broke in Ransom. "You acknowledge it is for no other
purpose. Will it pay? I own that in my eyes no amount of money could pay
a man for so superhuman a risk as this. Take a few thousands from me—I
had rather give them to you than see you leap into that water opening
beneath us like a hungry maw."</p>
<p>Hazen stood silent, his eye glistening, his hand almost outstretched.
Harper thought he would yield; the offer must have struck him as generous
and very tempting—a good excuse for a hot-headed man to withdraw from a
very doubtful adventure. But he did not know Hazen. This latter advanced
his hand and squeezed Ransom's warmly, but his answer, when he was ready
to give one, conveyed no intention of a change of mind.</p>
<p>"Will your thousands amount to a clean million?" he smiled. "That is the
amount, I believe, bequeathed by your wife to Mr. Auchincloss. Nothing
less will suffice. Yet I thank you, Ransom."</p>
<p>The latter bowed and fell a little behind the others. The struggle in his
mind had been severe; it was severe yet; he did not know but that it was
his duty to stop this Hazen from his intended action by force. He was not
sure but that the onus of this whole desperate undertaking would yet fall
upon him. Certainly it would fall upon his conscience if the end was
fatal. He had had proof of that in the long night of wakeful misery he
had just passed; a night in which he had faced the furies; in which this
inexorable question had forced itself upon him despite every effort on
his part to evade it.</p>
<p>Why had he, a humane man, consented to this attempt on the part of the
devoted Hazen? That his mind might be free to mourn his beautiful young
bride whose fatal and mysterious secret he was still as far from knowing
as in the hour he turned to welcome her to their first home and found her
fled from his arms and heart? Or had this suspense, this feeling of
standing now, as never before, at the opening door of fate, a deeper
significance, a more active meaning? Was this meditated test a crucial
one, because it opened to him the only possible releasement of soul and
conscience to the undivided care of one who had no other refuge in life
save that offered by his devotion? The horror of this self-probing was
still upon him as he followed Hazen's slight and virile figure across the
rocks, but it fled as he felt the spray of the tossing waters dash its
chilling reminder in his face.</p>
<p>The event was upon him and he must add to his former actions that of
a complete and determined opposition to the risk proposed or possibly
forfeit his peace of mind forever. Quickening his pace, he reached Hazen
and the lawyer just as the men awaiting them had advanced on their side.
Instantly he knew it was too late. There was neither time nor opportunity
for any weak protests on his part now. Older men were speaking; men who
knew the river, the danger, and the man, but even they said nothing to
him in way of dissuasion. They only pointed out what especial points of
suction were to be avoided, and showed him the chain they had brought for
his waist and how he was to pull upon it the very instant he felt his
senses or his strength leaving him.</p>
<p>He answered as a courageous man might, and making ready by taking off his
coat and shoes he gave himself into their hands for the proper fastening
on of the chain. Then, while the murmur of expectation rose from the
crowd on the river bank, he stepped back to Mr. Ransom and whispered
hurriedly in his ear:</p>
<p>"You have a good heart, a better heart than I ever gave you credit for.
Promise that in case I never come out of those waters alive, that you
will put no obstacle in the way of Mr. Auchincloss inheriting his fortune
in good time. He's a man worthy of all the assistance which money can
bring. <i>You</i> do not need her wealth; Anitra—well, she will be cared for,
but Auchincloss—promise—brother."</p>
<p>Ransom half drew back in his amazement. Then started forward again. This
man whom he had always distrusted, whom he had looked upon as Georgian's
possible enemy, certainly his own, was looking into his eyes with a gaze
of trust, almost of affection. The money was not for himself; he showed
it by the noble, almost grand look with which he waited for his answer;
a look that carried conviction despite Ransom's prejudice and great
dislike.</p>
<p>"You will give me that much additional nerve for the task lying before
me?" he added. And Ransom could only bow his head. The man's mastery was
limitless; it had reached and moved even him.</p>
<p>Another moment and a gasp went up from fifty or more throats. Hazen had
taken the chain in his hand, walked to the edge of the rock and slipped
into the quietest water he saw there.</p>
<p>"Strike left!" called out a voice. And he struck left. The eddy seized
him and they could see his head moving slowly about in the great circle
which gradually grew smaller and smaller till he suddenly disappeared. A
groan muffled with horror went up from the shore. But the man who held
the chain lifted up his hand, and silence—more pregnant of anticipation
than any sound—held that whole crowd rigid. The man played out the
chain; Harper stared at the seething, tumbling water, but Ransom looked
another way. The torture in his soul was taking shape, the shape of a
ghost rising from those tossing waters. Suddenly the pent-in breath of
fifty breasts found its way again to the lips.</p>
<p>The men who held the chain were pulling it in with violent reaches. It
dragged more slowly, stuck, loosened itself, and finally brought into
sight a face white as the foam it rose amongst.</p>
<p>"Dead! Drowned!" the whisper went around.</p>
<p>But when Hazen was dragged ashore and Ransom had thrown himself at his
feet, he saw that he yet lived, and lived triumphantly. Ransom could not
have told more; it was for others to see and point out the smile that
sweetened the wan lips, and the passion with which he held against his
breast some sodden and shapeless object which he had rescued from those
awful depths, and which, when spread out and clean of sand, betrayed
itself as that peculiar article of woman's clothing, a small side bag.</p>
<p>"I remember that bag," said Harper. "I saw it, or one exactly like it, in
Mrs. Ransom's hand when she got into the coach the day we all rode up
from the ferry. What will he have to say about it? and could he have seen
the body from which it has evidently been torn?"</p>
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