Wyndham Smith

by S. Fowler Wright

  “I have come,” Pilwin-C6P commenced, looking at Vinetta as he spoke, though the words might be meant for both, “to warn you in friendly words, while there is still time to avoid the horror to which you go.”

  “As to that,” Wyndham replied, with deliberation, feeling that every passing second was gain to him, both to fill his lungs, and for the number of those who might obstruct his purpose to reduce themselves, “we thank you, being content to believe that your purpose is friendly to us, but we have made our choice, and ask no more than to be left alone to bring it to the best end that we can.”

  “I am not greatly concerned for you,” Pilwin replied, with no friendliness in his voice. “You have made deliberate choice, knowing what you do, which had the council’s assent. But you have persuaded Vinetta to attempt that which will bring her to a most dreadful death, which there is still time to avoid, if she will go the way which wisdom points, and which her honour requires.”

  Hearing this, Wyndham was moved both to anger and fear on behalf of the woman he had come so nearly to save, for he resented the implication that he had persuaded her to dishonour herself, and knew Pilwin-C6P well enough to judge that he would not have said what he did without confident belief in the warning his words conveyed. He replied, “As to her honour, I should say it would be hard to find, if she should join you in the most craven act that the earth has known. And will you tell me what your laws will be worth by tomorrow’s dawn? It will be for the living to make their own. But I am more concerned to know what you may mean when you talk of Vinetta being near to a dreadful death, which we must know how to avoid. Having said so much, I will ask you to tell me that.”

  “That is more than I have permission to do.”

  “Permission from whom? The council could have resolved nothing without our knowledge and there can be no other permission you need to have.”

  Pilwin did not argue this. He replied, “It would make no difference if I did, for it is a death impossible to avoid, and too late to change.”

  “I prefer to judge that for myself. Having said so much, you must say more.”

  “What I say is that Vinetta must go the way of her kind, or a time will soon come when she will curse you for persuading her to a worse end.”

  “You have done, I suppose, some devilish thing, and I will know what it is though I pull the tongue from your mouth.”

  Pilwin-C6P did not actually think of being personally assaulted. The man who confronted him was Colpeck-4XP, whom he had known from childhood, and the idea of a violent scuffle developing between them seemed—as it should have been a week earlier—too grotesque for a waking dream. But he did not like the look in his antagonist’s eyes, and instinct, stronger than reason or experience, caused him to take a backward step even as this threat was spoken, and that step was the signal for Wyndham’s leap.

  It was not a fight. It was rather an all-in wrestling match of great energy and supreme incompetence. The two bodies, superbly gymnasium-trained, were yet utterly without practice in any contests or trials of skill with those of their own kind, which had been prohibited by law, as involving the element of competition and the necessary consequence that some would be defeated, as others won.

  The course of events would have been by a different route to the same end, had Wyndham remembered his Roman sword, but he was not seeking to kill. He aimed to force confession from reluctant lips, and he obeyed blind, primitive instinct when he leaped at his opponent’s throat, as his barbarous ego would be likely to do.

  Instinct, equally atavistic, prompted Pilwin’s resistance, but strength of purpose, and impulses of anger and fear, were on Wyndham’s side, as was the fact that his body, for several days, had been releasing itself from the tyranny of the deadening drug. For the first moments, the advantage was his.

  He brought Pilwin to the ground. He caught him by the hair, striking his face. “Will you speak now?”

  Pilwin felt no pain from the blows he took. He might not yet be experiencing the full effects of the final draught which he and his companions had just taken, but his daily dosage gave him sufficient immunity against superficial pains. His answer was to clutch at a foot which was driven sharply into his ribs. He pulled Wyndham down. The two men rolled on the floor.

  Pilwin tried to rise, and Wyndham to beat him back. Their single garments were torn away. Pilwin was left nearly naked: purple shreds of cloth trailed grotesquely from the sword-belt which Wyndham wore. The sword itself had slipped from a sheath where it had only loosely lain, and fallen upon the ground.

  Vinetta watched the struggle without offering assistance. She did not stand back either from timidity or reluctance to interfere, or because she thought it a man’s part to fight in a woman’s cause. The etiquette of the event did not enter her mind. She was, in fact, more completely freed, even than Wyndham, from any sense of loyalty to her kind, or their customs, or dying laws. Her loyalty was to him alone, her thought was single that she fought for her life against desperate odds, and if it should be lost in the end, it would be through no foolish scruple of hers. But she thought shrewdly that if she should make any motion to interfere, others might do the same, and the odds would be no better for that. Only, when she saw Wyndham’s leg move on the floor perilously near to the bare blade, she stepped forward and picked it up.

  She hated Pilwin-C6P, as she had reason to do; there was only Munzo-D7D whom she hated more. She would have been glad to see Wyndham break him in some fatal way, but she understood that they must aim at a smaller thing. They must make him tell, if they could, that which it was vital for her to know.

  So, having confidence in her companion, she looked on for the first minute, quietly content; but the next waked her to an unwelcome sight. She was cool-witted enough to see that Wyndham was not having the best of the bout. The fact was that his experiences of the last seven hours, the swallowing of that foul water, the vomiting, the enervating endurance of the scent-laden atmosphere of the hot-house, had rendered him less fit than his opponent for a prolonged struggle, of which he became aware as the first impulse of anger spent itself on one whom it had battered, but who did not yield.

  Less drugged than Pilwin in another way, he felt the pain of the hurts he took, though it may be doubted whether there were disadvantage in that. He became aware that, in spite of his utmost effort, Pilwin would be likely to break away, and with this realization his purpose changed. He remembered that Munzo-D7D was looking on. Doubtless he also knew of the trap which had been set for Vinetta’s life. Let him see an example of what befell one who refused to speak!

  He looked up at Vinetta; their eyes met, and she understood that he asked her aid. There came to his mind what the curator of the museum had told him of how the Roman soldier was taught to thrust upward under his convex shield. With a supreme effort, he dragged Pilwin down. He got his knee sideways across his throat. “In his belly,” he gasped. “Push it up.” Would she never do it? Every second it seemed impossible that he could retain his grip of the writhing man. He was breaking loose. He was down again. Wyndham knew it to be the last supreme effort that he could make. Frantic hands grappled and strained and tore.

  Vinetta was not aware of any slowness in what she did. She was instant to catch the meaning of the glance, and the gasped words. Coolly watching her chance, as her feet moved slightly at the side of the writhing man, she pushed in the short broad blade with so firm a thrust that there was little but the hilt that remained in view.

  Pilwin felt no pain. He did not know the nature of his own hurt. But he gave a terrible choking cry. His body moved convulsively, and Wyndham felt its muscles relax. Breathing hard, he relaxed himself from an effort such as is only possible when the issue is life or death. He heard Vinetta’s voice asking, in a controlled excitement, “Is it enough? Shall I pull it out?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Munzo-D7D watched the scuffling men, and was not greatly concerned. It was a ridiculous, ignominious exhibition, but it had been Pilwin’s own
idea that he should interfere with advice which it was not necessary to give, and which had evidently been ill received. If he got hurt—or perhaps damaged would be the better word, the question of acute pain being remote—it could hardly be a matter of great concern to others who were now assembled with him to pass the portals of death. Still less would Munzo’s mind be disturbed if the barbarian should limp away with a laming wound. And as to Vinetta, her fate was already settled.

  It had always been a weakness with Pilwin-C6P that he would find reasons for doing things rather than for letting them remain. It had been the proverbial fault of all who had borne the Pilwin name for six generations past. Let him kick or be kicked, it did not occur to Munzo-D7D to lift a finger, or suggest that other fingers should be lifted for him. Rather, if he showed any concern, it was to hold back those who looked on at so strange a sight, that they should not further impair the dignity of this culminating moment of human fate.

  Such, at least, was his attitude while the two men struggled upon the ground. The nature of Vinetta’s interposition was not clearly seen, nor its significance understood, until Wyndham rose breathlessly from a foe who was making no more than convulsive writhings amid a pool of blood which spread from the hilt of a weapon driven so deeply that its blunt-shaped point was out two inches beside his spine.

  “Yes,” Wyndham said, “pull it out. We do not know how quickly we may want it again.” For the moment, he could scarcely see steadily, he could scarcely stand, so great had the effort been which had held his foe for that fatal thrust.

  Vinetta pulled out the sword, which she found, surprisingly hard. Doing it, she was deluged with blood, which shot upward to spray the leaves of the path-side plants.

  Wyndham took it from her hands. His sight was steadying now. “You did well,” he said. “In another moment I must have let go.”

  “But how you held him!” she replied. “It was long enough.” Admiration was in her eyes.

  She looked down on a dying foe, and her glance changed to a pitiless contempt of one who showed symmetry of muscular form with which few Greek statues could have compared. So, for that matter, did the man at her side. She would have said that she had good reason to hate. Those who had killed her mother, who would have destroyed her also had they been as sure of her identity as she now was in her own mind—what loyalty did she owe them? Had she ever owed? They went the way they chose, and she might have said that they chose well. And one lay thus who had practiced against her life in a way which might still bring her to bitter death. Could she have less than satisfaction in that?

  Their eyes turned from the dying man to the little crowd who watched them through the open archway. Even those who had been occupied with their last meal had risen to regard this final episode in the history of their race, after they had supposed that the last word had been said, and the curtain begun to fall.

  Wyndham saw Munzo-D7D in the centre of those who were most advanced. He said, “There he is.” Ignoring the others, he advanced upon him, the bloody sword in his hand. Munzo’s indifference had already changed to apprehensive doubt, as he had seen the state to which Pilwin’s twitching body had been reduced. There were many barbarians of Wyndham’s own twentieth century to whom it would have been an unpleasant sight, though they were used to scenes of violence and death, to crushing each other on bloody roads, and to hanging the disembowelled carcasses of other animals very similar to themselves along the side of their public streets. But to these people it was an exhibition revolting almost beyond endurance to see, and intolerable to imagine as an ignominy which their own bodies might be about to suffer.

  Munzo-D7D had no inclination to await a conversation which might end with him sprawling in the same way, with his own entrails protruding in that ghastly manner. The thought of resistance, single or in combination with his fellows, did not enter his mind. He thought only of how he might reach the furnace which would give him release in the decent, dignified manner his civilization required without encountering that advancing sword.

  The problem might have appeared difficult to some, Wyndham being between him and the only corridor of approach, but he had the best brains of his time, and it was a question of mathematics which he had no difficulty in solving in a simple manner. He turned, and, as he did so, said to those around him, “Do not fear. It is I whom he seeks.” Then he retreated quickly through the outer door.

  Wyndham saw his movement, and followed, as he had been expected to do. The group of those between them, reassured by Munzo’s words, did not imitate his flight. They served slightly to hinder Wyndham’s pursuit, though not much, drawing quickly to right and left, as Munzo had foreseen that they would. He wanted sufficient start, but yet to ensure that Wyndham would follow at no great distance.

  So he did. Vinetta, close behind, would have stopped him if she could, but she called words which he did not hear. Her mind held singly to the one point. Munzo-D7D must be kept alive, that he might be made to talk. Let him be kept outside the furnace while the rest should go to their deaths, and they would have him safely enough. Besides that, she feared to be distant from Wyndham’s side. The threat was not to both. It was single to her. Her only hope was in him. So, as she could not stay him, she went the same way.

  Munzo, seeing he was pursued, began to run at his best pace. He knew that Wyndham could run faster than he, but the distance in his mind was not great, and he thought that he had sufficient start.

  So it proved. He ran with the speed of a desperate man. He was resentfully aware that he occupied his last hour in an absurd way, but he sacrificed his dignity in a small matter, that he might save it in a larger.

  Wyndham’s recent occupation had not been the best possible preparation for such a pursuit, but he was younger, and he also was in the mood from which exceptional effort is born. For the length of the building he followed Munzo, who could be clearly seen on the white, moonlit pavement, content to know that he was gaining at every stride. But when Munzo turned under the furnace wall, and returned along its further side, Wyndham increased his effort, seeing how he had been fooled, and guessing the purpose in Munzo’s mind.

  When Munzo got back to the door he had left, Wyndham was not more than three or four yards behind. Munzo burst through the group of those who stood uncertainly there. He called, “Follow me to the way of a clean death.”

  These words, and the sight of Wyndham’s approaching sword, had the effect on which Munzo relied. The little crowd closed behind, following his flight towards the inner chambers, and impeding Wyndham’s pursuit.

  Wyndham’s voice was furious on their rear. “Fools, let me pass! It is not you that I seek.” Words failing to clear his way, he tried what the sword would do. One man fell with a cleft head, having no need to run farther to find his death. But the others scrambled on the faster for that, as he might have guessed that they would. They passed through the hothouse corridor, a jostling, screaming crew, frantic in flight, with Wyndham’s sword jabbing, upon their rear.

  Spreading out in the hot antechamber of death, they left the way to Munzo open at last, but it was too late to be of any avail. Fortunate in his sensitiveness to pain, Wyndham became aware that every step towards the furnace encountered a fiercer heat. He stopped, and as he did so became aware of Vinetta’s hand on his arm pulling him back.

  “You cannot help me now,” she said; “but that is no reason that you should die.”

  They saw Munzo, his robe flaring around his shoulders, still running on to the furnace as swiftly as his tired legs could be made to move, while his lungs were scorched by the heated air. He had had the wit to perceive that, if he did not urge his steps with his dying will, he might not reach the furnace at all, and he was still anxious to end in a seemly manner.

  Some of those who followed were less wise or less resolved in what they did. They fell round the furnace threshold, roasting and smoking there.

  Wyndham, looking at the end of the race to which he had so strangely come, was moved to a gust o
f laughter that the roaring furnace could not consume.

  Homeric laughter, peal on peal, shook the heated air of the antechamber, and might be thought no unfitting requiem of the race of men, or introduction of their craven souls to the Ultimate Reality they had gone to face.

  But Vinetta did not laugh. She said, with an excusable note of bitterness in her voice, “Well, I hope you know how you can save me now!”

  Munzo-D7D might have retorted to that mocking hilarity with the proverb that he laughs longest who laughs last, but that he was no longer in condition to make retort on any earthly occasion; and, besides, it was a proverb he had not known.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Wyndham looked at the hand that was still on his arm, and that had drawn him back none too soon, for he was aware that his whole body was scorched and dry. He placed his own hand upon hers. “We have come through more,” he said, “than we thought we should. We shall find a way.”

  She was not without courage, as has been seen. She took what comfort she could from confident words.

  They went back, with linked arms and hands, at a slower pace than they had come.

  In the hothouse corridor, where they spent too much time before, they found that, when they thought that they were left alone in an empty world, they had assumed more than was true.

  A black-browed woman, Swartz-02A, had been thrown aside in the rush, and was now rising, on unsteady feet, dazed from a head-wound, the cause of which was shown by the broken side of one of the pots. Blood ran from her short-cropped hair, and dropped from a damaged ear.

  Wyndham looked at her doubtfully. Were there to be three, rather than two? It was a thought that he did not like, though he could see advantages, more than one.

  Vinetta looked, and her doubt was of another kind. She saw a woman against whom she had nursed for years a hate that she must not show, for the records said that Swartz-02A had been active, not merely to vote—as all had—but to argue for her mother’s death. “Why,” she thought, “should Pilwin’s belly be slit, and hers whole?” Well, there had been a present reason for that.