Then I threw him--quite easily, for his limbs were going limp in the extremity of his horror. He lay gasping and foaming, his eyes turning back in his head, while I bound his arms to his sides with my belt. I found some cords in the tent, and tied his legs together. He moaned miserably for a little, and then was silent.
I think I must have sat by him for three hours. The world was very still, and the moon set, and the only light was the flickering lamp.
Once or twice I heard a rustle by the tent door. Some Indian guard was on the watch, but I knew that no Indian dared to cross the forbidden circle.
I had no thoughts, being oppressed with a great stupor of weariness. I may have dozed a little, but the pain of my legs kept me from slumbering.
Once or twice I looked at him, and I noticed that the madness had gone out of his face, and that he was sleeping peacefully. I wiped the froth from his lips, and his forehead was cool to my touch.
By and by, as I held the lamp close, I observed that his eyes were open. It was now time for the gamble I had resolved on. I remembered that morning in the Tolbooth, and how the madness had pa.s.sed, leaving him a simple soul. I unstrapped the belt, and cut the cords about his legs.
"Do you feel better now, Mr. Gib?" I asked, as if it were the most ordinary question in the world.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Was it a dwam?" he inquired. "I get them whiles."
"It was a dwam, but I think it has pa.s.sed."
He still rubbed his eyes, and peered about him, like a big collie dog that has lost its master.
"Who is it that speirs?" he said. "I ken the voice, but I havena heard it this long time."
"One who is well acquaint with Borrowstoneness and the links of Forth,"
said I.
I spoke in the accent of his own country-side, and it must have woke some dim chord in his memory, I made haste to strike while the iron was hot.
"There was a woman at Cramond..." I began.
He got to his feet and looked me in the face. "Ay, there was," he said, with an odd note in his voice. "What about her?" I could see that his hand was shaking.
"I think her name was Alison Steel."
"What ken ye of Alison Steel?" he asked fiercely. "Quick, man, what word have ye frae Alison?"
"You sent me with a letter to her. D"you not mind your last days in Edinburgh, before they shipped you to the Plantations?"
"It comes back to me," he cried. "Ay, it comes back. To think I should live to hear of Alison! What did she say?"
"Just this. That John Gib was a decent man if he would resist the devil of pride. She charged me to tell you that you would never be out of her prayers, and that she would live to be proud of you. "John will never shame his kin," quoth she."
"Said she so?" he said musingly. "She was aye a kind body. We were to be married at Martinmas, I mind, if the Lord hadna called me."
"You"ve need of her prayers," I said, "and of the prayers of every Christian soul on earth. I came here yestereen to find you mouthing blasphemies, and howling like a mad tyke amid a parcel of heathen. And they tell me you"re to lead your savages on Virginia, and give that smiling land to fire and sword. Think you Alison Steel would not be black ashamed if she heard the horrid tale?"
""Twas the Lord"s commands," he said gloomily, but there was no conviction in his words.
I changed my tone. "Do you dare to speak such blasphemy?" I cried. "The Lord"s commands! The devil"s commands! The devil of your own sinful pride! You are like the false prophets that made Israel to sin. What brings you, a white man, at the head of murderous savages?"
"Israel would not hearken, so I turned to the Gentiles," said he.
"And what are you going to make of your Gentiles? Do you think you"ve put much Christianity into the heart of the gentry that were watching your antics last night?"
"They have glimmerings of grace," he said.
"Glimmerings of moonshine! They are bent on murder, and so are you, and you call that the Lord"s commands. You would sacrifice your own folk to the heathen hordes. G.o.d forgive you, John Gib, for you are no Christian, and no Scot, and no man."
"Virginia is an idolatrous land," said he; but he could not look up at me.
"And are your Indians not idolaters? Are you no idolater, with your burnt offerings and heathen gibberish? You worship a Baal and a Moloch worse than any Midianite, for you adore the devils of your own rotten heart."
The big man, with all the madness out of him, put his towsy head in his hands, and a sob shook his great shoulders.
"Listen to me, John Gib. I am come from your own country-side to save you from a h.e.l.lish wickedness, I know the length and breadth of Virginia, and the land is full of Scots, men of the Covenant you have forsworn, who are living an honest life on their bits of farms, and worshipping the G.o.d you have forsaken. There are women there like Alison Steel, and there are men there like yourself before you hearkened to the devil. Will you bring death to your own folk, with whom you once shared the hope of salvation? By the land we both have left, and the kindly souls we both have known, and the prayers you said at your mother"s knee, and the love of Christ who died for us, I adjure you to flee this great sin. For it is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and that knows no forgiveness."
The man was fairly broken down. "What must I do?" he cried. "I"m all in a creel. I"m but a pipe for the Lord to sound through."
"Take not that Name in vain, for the sounding is from your own corrupt heart. Mind what Alison Steel said about the devil of pride, for it was that sin by which the angels fell."
"But I"ve His plain commands," he wailed. "He hath bidden me cast down idolatry, and bring the Gentiles to His kingdom."
"Did He say anything about Virginia? There"s plenty idolatry elsewhere in America to keep you busy for a lifetime, and you can lead your Gentiles elsewhere than against your own kin. Turn your face westward, John Gib. I, too, can dream dreams and see visions, and it is borne in on me that your road is plain before you. Lead this great people away from the little shielings of Virginia, over the hills and over the great mountains and the plains beyond, and on and on till you come to an abiding city. You will find idolaters enough to dispute your road, and you can guide your flock as the Lord directs you. Then you will be clear of the murderer"s guilt who would stain his hands in kindly blood."
He lifted his great head, and the marks of the sacrifice were still on his brow.
"D"ye think that would be the Lord"s will?" he asked innocently.
"I declare it unto you," said I. "I have been sent by G.o.d to save your soul. I give you your marching orders, for though you are half a madman you are whiles a man. There"s the soul of a leader in you, and I would keep you from the shame of leading men to h.e.l.l. To-morrow morn you will tell these folk that the Lord has revealed to you a better way, and by noon you will be across the Shenandoah. D"you hear my word?"
"Ay," he said. "We will march in the morning."
"Can you lead them where you will?"
His back stiffened, and the spirit of a general looked out of his eyes.
"They will follow where I bid. There"s no a man of them dare cheep at what I tell them."
"My work is done," I said. "I go to whence I came. And some day I shall go to Cramond and tell Alison that John Gib is no disgrace to his kin."
"Would you put up a prayer?" he said timidly. "I would be the better of one."
Then for the first and last time in my life I spoke aloud to my Maker in another"s presence, and it was surely the strangest pet.i.tion ever offered.
"Lord," I prayed, "Thou seest Thy creature, John Gib, who by the perverseness of his heart has come to the edge of grievous sin. Take the cloud from his spirit, arrange his disordered wits, and lead him to a wiser life. Keep him in mind of his own land, and of her who prays for him. Guide him over hills and rivers to an enlarged country, and make his arm strong against his enemies, so be they are not of his own kin. And if ever he should hearken again to the devil, do Thou blast his body with Thy fires, so that his soul may be saved."
"Amen," said he, and I went out of the tent to find the grey dawn beginning to steal up the sky.
Shalah was waiting at the entrance, far inside the white stones. "Twas the first time I had ever seen him in a state approaching fear.