It was a face that he had seen before--a hundred times he had gazed thus at it on the far Western trails.
He brought the little portrait close up to his eyes--but not close to his lips. No, he did not kiss the face of the woman who once had written to him: You must not kiss my picture, because I am in your power.
Meriwether Lewis had won his long fight! He had mastered the human emotions of his soul at last. The battle had been such that he sat here now, weak and spent. He sat looking at the face which had meant so much to him all these years.
There came into his mind some recollection of words that she had written to him once--something about the sound of water. He lifted his head and listened. Yes, there was a sound coming faintly through the night--the trickle of a little brook in the ravine below the window.
Always, he recalled, she had spoken of the sound of water, saying that that music would blot out memory--saying that water would wash out secrets, would wash out sins. What was it she had said? What was it she had written to him long ago? What did it mean--about the water?
The sound of the little brook came to his ears again in some shift of the wind. He rose and stumbled toward the window, carrying the candle in his hand. His haggard face was lighted by its flare as he stood there, leaning out, listening.
It was then that his doom came to him.
There came the sound of a shot; a second; and yet another.
The woman in the cabin near by heard them clearly enough. She rose and listened. There was no sound from the other cabins. The servants paid no attention to the shots, if they had heard them--and why should they not have heard them? No one called out, no one came running.
Frightened, the woman rose, and after a time stepped timidly across the covered space between the two rooms, toward the light which she saw shining faintly through the cracks of the door. She heard groans within.
A tall and ghastly figure met her as she approached the door. She saw his face, white and haggard and stained. From a wound in the forehead a broad band of something dark fell across his cheek. From his throat something dark was welling. He clutched a hand on his breast--and his fingers were dark.
He was bleeding from three wounds; but still he stood and spoke to her.
"In God's name, Madam," said he, "bring me water! I am killed!"