THE COMING OF NIGHT
It was not yet full dusk, for the shadows were still
swinging out from the mountains and a ghost of colour
lingered in the west, but midnight lay in the open
eyes of Jerry Strann. There had been no struggle,
no outcry, no lifting of head or hand. One instant
his eyes were closed, and then, indeed, he looked
like death; the next instant the eyes open, he smiled,
the wind stirred in his bright hair. He had never
seemed so happily alive as in the moment of his death.
Fatty Matthews held the mirror close to the faintly
parted lips, examined it, and then drew slowly back
towards the door, his eyes steady upon Mac Strann.
“Mac,” he said, “it’s come.
I got just this to say: whatever you do, for
God’s sake stay inside the law!”
And he slipped through the door and was gone.
But Mac Strann did not raise his head or cast a glance
after the marshal. He sat turning the limp hand
of Jerry back and forth in his own, and his eyes wandered
vaguely through the window and down to the roofs of
the village.
Night thickened perceptibly every moment, yet still
while the eastern slope of every roof was jet black,
the western slopes were bright, and here and there
at the distance the light turned and waned on upper
windows. Sleep was coming over the world, and
eternal sleep had come for Jerry Strann.
It did not seem possible.
Some night at sea, when clouds hurtled before the
wind across the sky and when the waves leaped up mast-high;
when some good ship staggered with the storm, when
hundreds were shrieking and yelling in fear or defiance
of death; there would have been a death-scene for Jerry
Strann.
Or in the battle, when hundreds rush to the attack
with one man in front like the edge before the knife—there
would have been a death-scene for Jerry Strann.
Or while he rode singing, a bolt of lightning that
slew and obliterated at once—such would
have been a death for Jerry Strann.
It was not possible that he could die like this, with
a smile. There was something incompleted.
The fury of the death-struggle which had been omitted
must take place, and the full rage of wrath and destruction
must be vented. Can a bomb explode and make no
sound and do no injury?
Yet Jerry Strann was dead and all the world lived
on. Someone cantered his horse down the street
and called gayly to an acquaintance, and afterwards
the dust rose, invisible, and blew through the open
window and stung the nostrils of Mac Strann.
A child cried, faintly, in the distance, and then
was hushed by the voice of the mother, making a sound
like a cackling hen. This was all!
There should have been wailing and weeping and cursing
and praying, for handsome Jerry Strann was dead.
Or there might have been utter and dreadful silence
and waiting for the stroke of vengeance, for the brightest
eye was misted and the strongest hand was unnerved
and the voice that had made them tremble was gone.
