As soon as Dora reached her seat in the tonneau she had settled back against the cushions and closed her eyes, as if to say: “Let it come if it’s going to!”
As for Sanétomo, he sat as always with his arms folded, looking straight ahead with stoical eyes, except now and then when he would turn them aside to follow the line of a distant purple peak or one nearer crowned with white.
They crawled along thus for two hours, occasionally speeding up a little as they entered a pass between two cliffs with the walls rising almost perpendicularly above their heads on either side; but for the most part barely going forward as they cautiously followed the narrow road, often no more than a path, coiling around the side of a mountain like a huge snake.
But at least they made better time than they had in the morning, when Brillon had been forced to reconnoiter on foot every mile or so to avoid getting caught in a cul de sac; and five o’clock found them within ten miles of Steamboat Lake, with the worst passed.
They began to liven up a little; Brillon chatted with Sanétomo, and Dora had opened her eyes to follow the wonderful changing colors of the sun on the snowcapped hills to the right. Then a great cliff obstructed her view, and she turned to the other side and looked into the valley far below; not ten feet from the wheels of the car a precipice yawned, its bank so straight that she could see only the jagged edge, with here and there a spot of green where a scrub oak clung stubbornly to the granite with its scanty foot of soil.
But ten feet was enough and to spare — many times that afternoon they had had a margin of only two or three — and the accident that befell them was directly and entirely the fault of Brillon himself.
The contributing cause was his desire for a smoke; and presumably it was overconfidence that induced him to reach in his own pockets for cigarette case and matches instead of getting Sanétomo to do it, as he had done before.
So it happened.
Even after the wheel struck a rock and turned he could have kept the road if he had only retained his presence of mind. But his nerves were already shaken by the trying journey, and his frantic pull at the steering wheel was in the wrong direction.
There was a startled oath, a flying leap, a cry of fright from the tonneau, and the next instant the car had flopped over and was rolling down the precipice.
No one could possibly have told afterward just how it happened, Dora least of all. She tried to jump, but was on the left side of the car and thus could not reach the road. She shut her eyes as the thing went over.
Then she felt blows all over her body and a fearful din in her ears, as something seemed to be pressing her mercilessly against the hard rock. Then she felt herself released, pawing at the air frantically, wildly, and her hands closed on something small and round that seemed to hold. She clung on desperately.
She opened her eyes and saw that she was hanging to a limb of a small scrub oak, suspended on the bank of the precipice. A frightful clatter came from below; it was the automobile rolling to destruction. She felt the branch bending dangerously with her weight.
She called in terror and agony:
“Harry! Harry! Harry!”
Immediately a frenzied voice came from above:
“Dora! Thank God!”
She looked up and saw her husband’s face peering over the edge of the precipice, ten feet away.
“Hold on, hold on!” he was shouting. “I’ll make a rope of something Just a minute, dearest! For God’s sake hold on!”
“Yes—” she shouted back, then stopped. She became suddenly aware of a form on her right, not five feet away.
It was Sanétomo, clinging to the same branch as herself!
She looked at the little yellow man dangling there beside her, and, while her arms were aching with the strain and her ears rang with her husband’s shouts of encouragement from above, an irresistible desire to laugh seized her. He looked so funny hanging there! There they were, like two vaudeville acrobats on a trapeze!
Suddenly Sanétomo’s eyes met hers. She felt the branch giving way as it bent under their weight. An ominous snap sounded. She felt herself going down, slowly down. Another snap!
“My God!” she cried in horror.
She heard Sanétomo’s calm voice:
“It break. We too heavy.”
She looked into his eyes as if fascinated. And as she looked there appeared in them a sudden flame of passion that seemed to leap out and scorch her.
It was all in an instant; it must have been, for the branch was cracking and snapping now under their hands. It was all in an instant, but the impression of those glowing eyes was imprinted on her brain forever.
Then Sanétomo’s voice came clearly:
“For the master — seppuku! Sayonara!” (“Suicide! Good-by!”)
Dora met a gleam of wild joy from his eyes; she saw his hands loosen their grasp, and his body dropped like a shot from her sight. She heard noises on the rocks below, and she grew so faint and sick at the sound that she nearly lost her own grip and followed Sanétomo in his fall to death.
But by that fall she was saved. The branch, relieved of half its load, held firm; it even sprang up a little. And two minutes later she was dragged to safety by a line made from strips of cloth from her husband’s coat.
It was eight o’clock when they reached Steamboat Lake after a walk of nearly ten miles, tired, bruised, and sore.
The following morning Brillon took some men from the village and went to look for Sanétomo’s body. And when they found the mangled and shapeless heap at the foot of the precipice, the master gave his faithful servant the tribute of a few tears before they covered the little grave on the mountainside.
But he never learned how and why the little yellow man had saved the life of the one dearest to him: Dora Brillon never told. In the flame of Sanétomo’s eyes, in the greatness of his sacrifice, her dislike for him was burned up, and from its ashes rose an admiration that would not sully the memory of a hero.
For is he not a hero who at the cost of his own life gives back to one he loves the life of another — whom he hates?
Justice Ends at Home
Chapter One
The Plea
The courtroom of New York County General Sessions, Part VI, was unusually busy that April morning. The calling of the calendar occupied all of an hour, delayed as it was by arguments on postponements and various motions, with now and then a sound of raised voices as opposing attorneys entered into a wrangle that colored their logic with emotion.
Judge Fraser Manton cut off most of these disputes in the middle with a terse, final ruling on the point at issue. He seemed to have been made for the bench of justice. Rather youngish-looking for a judge of New York General Sessions, with bright, dark eyes and clear skin, he possessed nevertheless that air of natural authority and wisdom that sits so gracefully on some fortunate men.
Perched high above the others in the great leather chair on the dais, black-gowned and black-collared, his was easily the most handsome face in the room. He was liked and admired by lawyers for his cool, swift decisions and imperturbable impartiality; and he was even more popular off the bench than on, for he was a wealthy bachelor and somewhat of a good fellow. He was a prominent clubman, and came from a family of high social position.
The first business after the calling of the calendar was a batch of indictments sent over from the Grand Jury.
Three gunmen, accused of holding up a jewelry store on Sixth Avenue, entered a plea of not guilty; they were represented by a large, jovial individual who was known to be high in the councils of Tammany. Then the attorney of a little black-haired Italian who was alleged — as the newspapers say — to have planted a bomb in his neighbor’s hallway, asked permission to withhold his plea for twenty-four hours, which was granted. Two others followed — a druggist charged with illegal sales of heroin, and a weak-faced youth, whose employer had missed a thousand dollars from his safe. The clerk called out the next case, and a seedy-looking man was led to the bar by a sheriff’s deputy, while Arthur Thornton, assistant district attorney, arose from his seat at a nearby table.