Now, in the hands of hirelings, without a friend to
put one flower on his breast or close his dim eyes, the man lay waiting for
an undertaker; and while Joe Noy glared at him, unconsciously gripping the
weapon he had brought, it seemed as though the dead smiled under the red
flicker of the lamp--as though he smiled and prepared to come back into
life to answer this supreme accuser.
As by an educated mind Joe Noy's estimate and assurance of the eternal
tortures of hell cannot be adequately grasped in its full force, so now it
is hard to set forth with a power sufficiently luminous and terrific the
effect of this discovery upon him. He, the weapon of the Almighty, found
his work finished and the fruits of his labors snatched from his hand. His
enemy had escaped, and the fact that he was dead only made the case harder.
Had Barron hastened from him and avoided his revolver, he could have
suffered it, knowing that the end lay in the future at the determination of
God; but now the end appeared before him accomplished; and it had been
attained without his assistance. His labor was lost and his longed-for,
prayed-for achievement rendered impossible. He stood and scanned the small,
marble-white face, then drew a box of matches from his pocket, lighted one
and looked closer. Worn by disease to mere skin and skull, there was
nothing left to suggest the dead man's wasted powers; and generation of
their own destroyers was the only task now left for his brains.
Pages:
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465