Mark Twain's Medieval Romance (40 page)
Thirty minutes had passed.
Forty.
Forty-five.
I remember that when I looked at my watch and saw there were less than fifteen minutes to go I wondered if I could last out even that short time. The chill had sunk so deep into me that I ached with it. I was shocked when I saw that Hugh’s face was dripping with sweat, and that beads of it gathered and ran off while I watched.
It was while I was looking at him in fascination that it happened. The sound broke through the walls of the cell like a wail of agony heard from far away, and shivered over us as if it were spelling out the words.
“Doctor!”
it cried.
“The air”
It was Raymond’s voice, but the thickness of the wail blocking it off turned it into a high, thin sound. What was clearest in it was the note of pure terror, the plea growing out of that terror.
“Air!”
it screamed, the word bubbling and dissolving into a long-drawn sound which made no sense at all.
And then it was silent.
We leaped for the door together, but Hugh was there first, his back against it, barring the way. In his upraised hand was the hammer which had clinched Raymond’s collar.
“Keep back!” he cried. “Don’t come any nearer, I warn you!”
The fury in him, brought home by the menace of the weapon, stopped us in our tracks.
“Hugh,” the doctor pleaded, “I know what you’re thinking, but you can forget that now. The bet’s off, and I’m opening the door on my own responsibility. You have my word for that.”
“Do I? But do you remember the terms of the bet, doctor? This door must be opened within an hour—
and it doesn’t matter what means are used!
Do you understand now? He’s fooling both of you. He’s faking a death scene, so that you’ll push open the door and win his bet for him. But it’s my bet, not yours, and I have the last word on it!”
I saw from the way he talked, despite the shaking tension in his voice, that he was in perfect command of himself, and it made everything seem that much worse.
“How do you know he’s faking?” I demanded. “The man said he had a heart condition. He said there was always a time in a spot like this when he had to fight panic and could feel the strain of it. What right do you have to gamble with his life?”
“Damn it, don’t you see he never mentioned any heart condition until he smelled a bet in the wind? Don’t you see he set his trap that way, just as he locked the door behind him when he came into dinner! But this time nobody will spring it for him—nobody!”
“Listen to me,” the doctor said, and his voice cracked like a whip. “Do you concede that there’s one slim possibility of that man being dead in there, or dying?”
“Yes, it is possible—anything is possible.”
“I’m not trying to split hairs with you! I’m telling you that if that man is in trouble every second counts, and you’re stealing that time from him. And if that’s the case, by God, I’ll sit in the witness chair at your trial and swear you murdered him! Is that what you want?”
Hugh’s head sank forward on his chest, but his hand still tightly gripped the hammer. I could hear the breath drawing heavily in his throat, and when he raised his head, his face was gray and haggard. The torment of indecision was written in every pale sweating line of it.
And then I suddenly understood what Raymond had meant that day when he told Hugh about the revelation he might find in the face of a perfect dilemma. It was the revelation of what a man may learn about himself when he is forced to look into his own depths, and Hugh had found it at last.
In that shadowy cellar, while the relentless seconds thundered louder and louder in our ears, we waited to see what he would do.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Collection copyright © 2006 by Otto Penzler
Originally published as
Uncertain Endings
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