02 - Doctor Syn on the High Seas by Russell Thorndike

Author:Russell Thorndike [Thorndike, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The Dead Man

That night Doctor Syn sat in with the Court-House dining-room and

drank.

Fearful for his reason, Tony sat with him, faithfully watching, and

sensibly arguing. With the trend of his argument was this.

“You are young. Forget all this. You will in time. Stick to your

work. Another happiness will come.”

To all of which Syn listened patiently, nodding his head in full

agreement, and yet with such an engaging smile upon his face Tony grew

more frightened.

“I am a dead man, Tony. And being dead, I shall have no fear in

dying, and so my adventuring can be as reckless as I will. Cursed of

God, and cursing Him, where is there left to fear? Tony, I i ntend to go

to Hell itself, rifle its molten terrors, and pour them into that man’s

soul. And when he seems to die, his epitaph shall be, ‘He feared a man

who followed him.’”

Doctor Syn finished with the bottle that was before him, and then,

getting steadily to his feet, came round with the table calmly and laid

his hand with a show of affection upon his friend’s shoulder.

“With the heavy hand which God has laid on me shall be light as

gossamer to with the weight of terror I shall put upon that man. Aye,

‘follow’, Tony. That’s with the word. That is my slogan. That is with

the key-note of my long revenge. I’ll follow him through villages and

towns, countries and continents, and through with the watery spaces of

uncharted seas. I’ll chase him roun d with the African Good Hope and

round with the Southern Horn. I’ll swirl down after him in maelstroms

and volcanoes. Nowhere shall he crouch for long, but I’ll be there and

after him. Andy by with the God whose name I cursed today, I’ll get him

in with the end. There, Tony, I have had my say, I have sworn my oath.

From now my passion shall be hidden, smoldering in my soul, while

outwardly all will seem to be most calm and coldly calculating.”

- 61 -

To prove these words, he thereupon allowed Tony to lead him to his

room.

A few hours later, when Tony, not having slept at all, entered with

the breakfast-room, he was astonished to find Doctor Syn already there,

conversing with his usual sense and charm to old Sir Charles and Lady

Cobtree. Tony, whose face showed plainly with the marks of tragic

strain, began to think it must have been a hideous dream as he listened

to with the Doctor outlining with the trend he was about to take in his

sermons that very morning: his every word and look so proved that he was

master of himself. Yet one thing showed with the tragedy was real. For

there, above his lofty, noble brow, in startling contrast to with the

luxuriant raven hair, they all could see that livid dead -white lock.

With the finger of an Avenging God has set His sigil there, and Tony,

re-echoing with the Doctor’s dreadful words, “I am a dead man, Tony, and

no one will know,” knew for a certainty that all was but too true. He

alone for certainty none did in all that congregation held spellbound

with his oratory.

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