THE TOCSIN
It was only a little way back along the street from the Sanctuary to the corner on the Bowery where as Jimmie Dale he had left her, where as Larry the Bat now he was going to meet her again; it would take only a moment or so, even at Larry the Bat's habitual, characteristic, slouching, gait--but it seemed that was all too slow, that he must throw discretion to the winds and run the distance.His blood was tingling; there was elation upon him, coupled with an almost childlike dread that she might be gone.
"The Tocsin! The Tocsin!" he kept saying to himself.
Yes; she was still there, still whiningly imploring those who passed to buy her miserable pencils--and then, with a quick-flung whisper to him to follow as he slouched up close to her, she had started slowly down the street.
"The Tocsin! The Tocsin! The Tocsin!"--his brain seemed to be ringing with the words, ringing with them in a note clear as a silver bell.The Tocsin--at last! The woman who so strangely, so wonderfully, so mysteriously had entered into his life, and possessed it, and filled it with a love and yearning that had come to mold and sway and actuate his very existence--the woman for whom he had fought; for whom he had risked, and gladly risked, his wealth, his name, his honour--everything; the woman for whose sake he, the Gray Seal, was sought and hounded as the most notorious criminal of the age; she whose cleverness, whose resourcefulness, whose amazing intimacy with the hidden things of the underworld had seemed, indeed, to border on the supernatural; she, the Tocsin--the woman whose face he had never seen before! The woman whose face he had never seen before--and who now was that wretched hag that hobbled along the street before him, begging, whining, and importuning the passers-by to purchase of her pitiful wares!
He laughed a little--buoyantly.He had never pictured a first meeting such as this! A hag? Yes! And one as disreputable in appearance as he himself, as Larry the Bat, was disreputable! But he had seen her eyes! Inimitable as was her disguise, she could not hide her eyes, or hide the pledge they held of the beauty of form and feature beneath the tattered rags and the touch of a master in the make-up that brought haggard want and age into the face--and dimly he began to divine the source, the means by which she had acquired the information that for years had enabled her to plan their coups, that had enabled him to execute them under the guise of crime, that for years had seemed beyond all human reach.
Where was she going? Where was she taking him? But what did it matter! The years of waiting were at an end--the years of mystery in a few moments now would be mystery no more!
Ah! She had turned from the Bowery, and was heading east.He shuffled on after her, guardedly, a half block behind.It was well that Jimmie Dale had disappeared, that he was Larry the Bat again--the neighbourhood was growing more and more one that Jimmie Dale could not long linger in without attracting attention; while, on the other hand, it was the natural environment of such as Larry the Bat and such as she, who was leading him now to the supreme moment of his life.Yes, it was that--the fulfillment of the years! The thought of it alone filled his mind, his soul; it brushed aside, it blotted out for the time being the danger, the peril, the deadly menace that hung over them both.It was only that she, the Tocsin, was here--only that at last they would be together.
On she went, traversing street after street, the direction always trending toward the river--until finally she halted before what appeared to be, as nearly as he could make out in the almost total darkness of the ill-lighted street, a small and tumble-down, self-contained dwelling that bordered on what seemed to be an unfenced store yard of some description.He drew his breath in sharply.She had halted--waiting for him to come up with her.She was waiting for him--WAITING for him! It seemed as though he drank of some strange, exhilarating elixir--he reached her side eagerly--and then--and then--her hand had caught his, and she was leading him into the house, into a black passage where he could see nothing, into a room equally black over whose threshold he stumbled, and her voice in a low, conscious way, with a little tremour, a half sob in it that thrilled him with its promise, was in his ears:
"We are safe here, Jimmie, for a little while--but, oh, Jimmie, what have I done! What have I done to bring you into this--only--only--Iwas so sure, so sure, Jimmie, that there was nothing more to fear!"The blood was beating in hammer blows at his temples.It seemed all unreal, untrue that this moment could be his, that it was not a dream--a dream which was presently to be snatched from him in a bitter awakening.And then he laughed out wildly, passionately.
No--it was true, it was real! Her breath was on his cheek, it was a living, pulsing hand that was still in his--and then soul and mind and body seemed engulfed and lost in a mad ecstasy--and she was in his arms, crushed to him, and he was raining kisses upon her face.
"I love you! I love you!" he was crying hoarsely; and over and over again: "I love you! I love you!"She did not struggle.The warm, rich lips were yielding to his; he could feel the throb, the life in the young, lithe form against his own.She was his--his! The years, the past, all were swept away--and she was his at last--his for always.And there came a mighty sense of kingship upon him, as though all the world were at his feet, and virility, and a great, glad strength above all other men's, and a song was in his soul, a song triumphant--for she was his!
"You!" he cried out--and strained her to him."You!" he cried again--and kissed her lips and her eyelids and her lips again.