The Seventh Noon | Page 9

to go back to his room, he had in his pocket every cent he possessed in the world in crisp new bank notes. It amounted to twenty-eight hundred and forty-seven dollars. Not much to scatter over a long life,--not much as capital. Invested it might yield some seventy dollars a year. But as ready cash, it really stood for a fortune. It was the annual income at four per cent on over seventy thousand dollars, the monthly income on eight hundred and forty thousand dollars, the weekly income on over three million. For seven days then he could squander the revenue of a princely estate.
As a matter of fact his position was even more remarkable; he was as wealthy--so far as his own capacity for pleasure went--as though the possessor of thirty million. This because of his limitations; he was barred from travel; barred from the purchase of future holdings; barred from everything by this time restriction save what he could absorb within seven days through his five senses. Being an intelligent man of decent morals and no bad habits, he was also restrained from license and the gross extravagance accompanying it. But within his own world, there was not a desire which need remain unsatisfied.
Back again in his room he summoned his landlady.
"I am going away," he informed her briefly. "I sha'n't leave any address and I 'm going to take with me only the few things I can pack into a dress-suit case. I 'll give you the rest."
The woman--she had become rather fond of the quiet, gentle third story front--looked up sympathetically.
"Have you had bad news?"
"Bad news? No," he smiled. "Very good news. I 'm going to take a sort of vacation."
"Then perhaps you 'll come back."
"So, I 'm quite sure I shall never come back."
She watched him at his packing, still puzzled by his behavior. She noticed that he took nothing but a few trinkets, a handful of linen, and a book or two. He glanced at his watch.
"Madame," he announced, offering her his hand, "it is now eleven thirty. My vacation begins in half an hour. I must hurry. The remainder of these things I bequeath to you."
In twenty minutes he was at the Waldorf. He asked for and was allotted one of the best rooms in the house, for which he paid the suspicious clerk in advance. When at length he was left alone in his luxurious apartments, it was still a few minutes before twelve. He drew the vial from his pocket without fear, without hesitation. He placed his watch upon the table before him. Then he sat down and wrote out the following oath:
"I, Peter Donaldson, swear by all that I hold most sacred that I will offer my life freely and without question for the protection of any human being needing it during these next seven days in which I shall live."
He signed this in a bold scrawling hand. It was as simply and earnestly expressed as he knew how to make it.
He uncorked the vial and poured the liquid into a glass without a quaver of his hand. He mixed a little water with it and raised it to his lips. There he paused, for once again he seemed to see the big, calm eyes of the girl now staring at him as though in surprise. But this time he smiled, and with a little lift of the glass towards her swallowed the liquid at a gulp.
CHAPTER III
The Beginning of the End
Before the bitter taste of the syrup faded from his tongue, Donaldson's thoughts shifted from the Ultimate to the Now. He was too good a sportsman to question his judgment by worry when once committed to an enterprise. The world now lay before him as he had wished it--an enchanted land in which he could move with as great freedom as a prince in the magical kingdoms of Arabia. The Present became sharpened to poignancy. Even as he stood there musing over the marvel of the new world into which he had leaped--the old thin world of years condensed into one thick week--he realized that this very wondering had cost him five precious minutes. A dozen such periods made an hour, two dozen hours a day--one seventh of his living space. This thought so whetted his interest that he could have sat on here indefinitely, thrilled to the marrow by the mere pageant of life as it passed before his eyes on the street below. The slightest incident was now dramatic; the hurry of men and women on their way up-town and down-town, the swift movement of vehicles, the fluttering of birds in the sunshine, the unceasing, eager flux of life. It was through the eyes of youth he was looking--for is youth anything more than the ability to