for mercy that should save his daughter's name? Or how harder than the
stone of the ledges, that the trickling water through slow-dragging
centuries has worn away, was the stony heart of the creature who denied
him? And only Victor Burleigh had power to picture the struggle that
must have followed in that cavern, and beyond the wall into the blind
black passages leading at last to the bluff above the river, where,
clinched in deadly combat, the two men, fighting still, fell headlong
into the Walnut floods.
Down at the shallows Professor Burgess and Dennie had found the waters
too deep to reach the Kickapoo Corral, so they strolled along the
bluff watching the river rippling merrily in the fall of the afternoon
sunshine. And brightly, too, the sunshine fell on Dennie Saxon's
rippling hair, recalling to Vincent Burgess' memory the woodland camp
fire and the old legend told in the October twilight and the flickering
flames lighting Dennie's face and the wavy folds of her sunny hair.
But even as he remembered, a cry up stream came faintly, once and no
more, while, grappling still, two forms were borne down by the swift
current to the bend above the whirlpool. Dennie and Vincent sprang to
the very edge of the bluff, powerless to save, as Tom Gresh and Bond
Saxon were swept around the curve below the Corral. Across the shallows
they struggled for a footing, but the undertow carried them on toward
the fatal pool.
A shriek from the bank came to Bond Saxon's ears, and he looked up and
saw the two reaching out vain hands to him.
"Your oath, Vincent; your oath!" he cried in agonizing tones.
Then Vincent Burgess put one arm about Dennie Saxon and drew her close
to him and lifted up his right hand high above him in token to the
drowning man of his promise, under heaven, to keep that oath forever.
A look of joy swept over the old face in the water, his struggling
ceased, and once more tribute was paid to the grim Chieftain of
Lagonda's Pool.--------
They said about town the next day that it was the peacefulest face
ever seen below a coffin lid. And, remembering only his many acts of
neighborly kindness, they forgave and forgot his weaknesses, while
to the few who knew his life-tragedy came the assuring hope that
the forgiving mercy of man is but a type of the boundless mercy of a
forgiving God.
CHAPTER XV. THE MASTERY
_And only the Master shall praise us, and only the
Master shall blame,
And no one
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