XXVIII
Talkingin an undertone, not to be heard through the log walls, Bess and Ned made their hasty plans for deliverance. They gave no sign of the excitement under which they worked. Seemingly they were unshaken by the fact that life or death was the issue of the next hour,—the realization that the absolute crisis was upon them at last. Bess did not recall, in word or look, the trying experience just passed through. Like Ned she was wholly self-disciplined, her mind moving cool and sure. Never had their wilderness training stood them in better stead.
Here, in the cabin they occupied, the assault must be made. The reason was simply that their plan was defeated at the outset if they attempted to master Doomsdorf in the squaw’s presence. For all her seeming impassiveness, she would be like a panther in her lord’s defense: Bess had had full evidence of that fact the first day in the cabin. And it was easier to decoy Doomsdorf here than to attempt to entice the squaw away from her own house.
The fact that their two enemies must be handled singly required the united efforts of not only Ned and Bess, but Lenore. Two must wait here, as in ambush, and the third must make some pretext to entice Doomsdorf from his cabin. This, the easiest part of the work, could fall to Lenore. Both Ned and Bess realized that in their own hands must lie the success or failure of the actual assault.
The plan, on perfection, was really very simple. As soon as Lenore came, she would be sent back to the cabin to bring Doomsdorf. She would need no further excuse than that Bess had asked to see him: Ned’s knowledge of the brute’s psychology told him that. The scene just past would be fresh in his mind, and it would be wholly characteristic of his measureless arrogance that he would at once assume that Bess had come to terms. He would read in the request a vindication of his own philosophy, the triumph of his own ruthless methods; and it would be balm to his tainted soul to come and hear her beg forgiveness. Likely he would anticipate complete surrender.
Neither of the two conspirators could do this part of the work so well as Lenore. For Bess to summon Doomsdorf herself was of course out of the question; he might easily demand to hear her surrender on the spot. If Ned went, inviting Doomsdorf to a secret conference with Bess, he would invite suspicion if he reëntered the newer cabin with him; his obvious course would be to remain outside and leave the two together. Besides, Lenore was the natural emissary: a woman herself and thus more likely chosen for woman’s delicate missions, she was also closer to Doomsdorf than any other of the three, the one most likely to act as a confidential agent. Doomsdorf would certainly comply with Bess’s request to meet him in her cabin. The fact of the squaw’s presence would be sufficient explanation to him why she would not care to confer with him in his own.
Ned would be waiting in the newer cabin when Lenore and Doomsdorf returned. He would immediately excuse himself and pass out the door, at the same instant that Bess extended a chair for Doomsdorf. And the instant that he was seated Bess would dash a handful of the blinding snuff into his eyes.
Ned’s axe leaned just without the cabin door. Doomsdorf would notice it as he went in: otherwise his suspicions might be aroused. And in his first instant of agony and blindness, Ned would seize the weapon, dash back through the door, and make the assault.
The plan was more than a mere fighting chance. It would take Doomsdorf off his guard. Ned had full trust in Bess’s ability to do her part of the work; as to his own, he would strike the life from their brute master with less compassion than he would slay a wolf. He could find no break, no weak link in the project.
They had scarcely perfected the plan before Lenore appeared, on the way to her cot. Just an instant she halted, her face and golden head a glory in the soft light, as she regarded their glittering eyes.
Their eyes alone, luridly bright, told the story. Perhaps Ned was slightly pale; nothing that could not be explained by the inroads made upon him in the critical hour just passed. Perhaps Bess was faintly flushed at the cheek bones. But those cold, shining eyes held her and appalled her. “What is it?” she demanded.
Ned moved toward her, reaching for her hands. For a breath he gazed into her lovely face. “Bess wants you to go—and tell Doomsdorf—to come here,” he told her. His voice was wholly steady, every word clearly enunciated; if anything, he spoke somewhat more softly and evenly than usual. “Just tell him that she wants to see him.”
She took her eyes from his, glancing about with unmistakable apprehension.
“Why?” she demanded. “He doesn’t like to be disturbed.”
“Hewillbe disturbed, before we’re done,” Ned told her grimly. “Just say that—that she wants to see him. He’ll come—he’ll merely think it has to do with some business we’ve just been talking over. Go at once, Lenore—before he goes to bed. That’s your part—to bring him here. You can leave him at the door if you like—you can even stay at the other cabin while he comes.”
Her searching eyes suddenly turned in fascinated horror to Bess. Standing near the open door, so that the room might not be filled with the dust of the snuff and thus convey a warning to Doomsdorf, she was emptying the contents of the snuff-box into her handkerchief. Her eyes gleamed under her brows, and her hands were wholly steady. Lenore shivered a little, her hands pressing Ned’s.
“What does it mean——?”
“Liberty!That’swhat it means, if the plan goes through.” For the first time Ned’s voice revealed suppressed emotion. Liberty! He spoke the word as a devout man speaks of God. “It’s the only chance—now or never,” he went on with perfect coldness. “You’ve got to hold up and do your share—I know you can. If we succeed—and we’ve got every chance—it’s freedom, escape from this island and Doomsdorf. If we fail, it’s likely death—but death couldn’t be any worse than this. So we’ve nothing to lose—and everything to gain.”
Was it not true? Have not the greatest of all peoples always known that it is better to die than to live as slaves? It was the very slogan of the ages—the great inspiration without which human beings are not fit to live. Overswept by their ardor Lenore turned back through the door.
Her instructions were simple. The easiest task of the three was hers. Bess took one of the crude chairs, her handkerchief—clutched as if she had been weeping—in her lap. Ned sat down in one of the other chairs, intending to arise and excuse himself the instant Doomsdorf appeared. His muscles burned under his skin.
It was only about fifty yards to the cabin. If Doomsdorf came at all, it would be in the space of a few seconds. Lenore started out bravely: her part of the task would be over in a moment. Just a few steps in the glare of the Northern Lights, just a few listless words to Doomsdorf, and liberty might easily be her reward. All the triumphs she had once known might be hers again; luxury instead of hardship, flattery instead of scorn—freedom instead of slavery. But what if the plan failed? Ned had spoken bluntly, but beyond all shadow of doubt he had told the truth.Deathwould be the answer to all failure. Destruction for all three.
The door of the cabin closed behind her, and Lenore was alone with the night. The night was rather temperate, for these latitudes, yet her first sensation was one of cold. It seemed to be creeping into her spirit, laying its blasting hand upon her heart. The stars appalled her, the Northern Lights were unutterably dreadful. She tried to walk faster, but instead she found herself walking more slowly.
The wind stirred through the little spruce, whispering, whimpering, trying to reach her ear with messages to which she dared not listen, chilling her to the core, appalling her with its hushed, half-articulate song of woe and death. There was nothing but Death on these snowy hills. It walked them alone. It was Death that looked into her eyes now, so close she could feel its icy hand on hers, its hollow visage leering close to her own. Life might be hateful, its persecutions never done, but Death was darkness, oblivion, a mystery and a terror beyond the reach of thought.
So faint that it seemed some secret voice within her own being, the long-drawn singsong cry of a starving wolf trembled down to her from a distant ridge. Here was another who knew about Death. He knew the woe and the travail that is life, utter subservience to the raw forces of the North; and yet he dared not die. This was the basic instinct. Compared to it freedom was a feeble urge that was soon forgotten. This whole wintry world was peopled with living creatures who hated life and yet who dared not leave it. The forces of the North were near and commanding to-night: they were showing her up, stripping her of her delusions, laying bare the secret places of her heart and soul, testing her as she had never been tested before.
Could she too take the fighting chance? Could she too rise above this awful first fear: master it, scorn it, go her brave way in the face of it?
But before ever she found her answer, she found herself at the cabin door. It seemed to her that she had crossed the intervening distance on the wings of the wind. In as short a time more Doomsdorf could reach the newer cabin,—and the issue would be decided. Either they would be free, or under the immutable sentence of death; not just Bess and Ned, but herself too. She would pay the price with the rest. The wind would sweep over the island and never hear her voice mingling with its own. For her, the world would cease to be. The fire was warm and kindly in the hearth, but she was renouncing it, for she knew not what of cold and terror. Not just Ned and Bess would pay the price, but she too. Listless, terrified almost to the verge of collapse, she turned the knob and opened the door. Doomsdorf had not yet gone to his blankets; otherwise the great bolt of iron would be in place. He was still sitting before the great, glowing stove, dreaming his savage dreams. The girl halted before him, leaning against a chair.
At first her tongue could hardly shape the words. Her throat filled, her heart faltered in her breast. “Bess—asked to see you,” she told him at last. “She says for you to come—to her cabin.”
The man regarded her with quickening interest, yet without the slightest trace of suspicion. It seemed almost incredible that he did not see the withering terror behind those blanched cheeks and starting eyes and immediately guess its cause: only his own colossal arrogance saved the plot at the outset. He was simply so triumphant by what seemed to be Bess’s surrender, so drunk with his success in handling a problem that at first had seemed so difficult, that the idea of conspiracy could not even occur to him. He hardly saw the girl before him; if he had noticed her at first, she was forgotten at once in his exultation. Even the lifeless tone in which she spoke made no impression upon him: he only heard her words.
He got up at once. Lenore stared at him as if in a nightmare. She had hoped in her deepest heart that he would refuse to come, that the great test of her soul could be avoided, but already he was starting out the door. She had done her part; she could wait here, if she liked, till the thing was settled. In a few seconds more she would know her fate.
Yet she couldn’t stay here and wait. To Doomsdorf’s surprise, she followed him through the door, into the glare of the Northern Lights. She did not know what impulse moved her; she was only aware of the growing cold of terror. Not only Ned and Bess would pay the price if the plan failed. She must pay too. The thought haunted her, every step, every wild beat of her heart.
All her life her philosophy had been of Self. And now, that Self was once more in the forefront of her consciousness, she found her wild excitement passed away, her brain working clear and sure. The night itself terrified her no more. She was beyond such imaginative fears as that: remembrance ofSelf, herowndanger and destiny, was making a woman of her again. Only a fool forgotSelffor a dream. Only a madman risked dear life for an ideal. Once more she was down to realities: she was steadied and calmed, able to balance one thing with another. And now she had at her command a superlative craft, even a degree of cunning.
She must not forget that lately her position had been one of comparative comfort. She was a slave, fawning upon a brute in human form, but the cold had mostly spared her; and she knew nothing of the terrible hardships that had been the share of Ned and Bess. Yet she was taking equal risks with them. It is better to live and hate life than to die; it is better to be a living slave than a dead freeman. Besides, lately she had been awarded even greater comforts, won by fawning upon her master. Her privileges would be taken swiftly from her if the plan failed. She would not be able to persuade Doomsdorf that she was guiltless of the plot; she had been the agent in decoying him to the cabin, and likely enough, since her work took her among the various cabin stores, he would attribute to her the finding and smuggling out of the tin of snuff. If the plot failed, Doomsdorf would punish her part with death,—or else with pain and hardship hardly less than death. If Bess failed to reach his eyes with the blinding snuff, if Ned’s axe missed its mark,she as well as they would be utterly lost.
Doomsdorf was walking swiftly; already he was halfway from the door. The desperate fight for freedom was almost at hand. But what was freedom compared to the fear and darkness that is death?
The ideal sustained her no more. It brought no fire to her frozen heart. It was an empty word, nothing that could thrill and move one of her kind and creed. Its meaning flickered out for her, and terror, infinite and irresistible, seized her like a storm.
There were no depths of ignominy beyond her now. She cried out shrilly and incoherently, then stumbling through the snow, caught Doomsdorf’s arm. “No, no,” she cried, fawning with lips and hands. “Don’t go in there—they’re going to try to kill you. I didn’t have anything to do with it—I swear I didn’t—and don’t make me suffer when I’ve saved you——”
He shook her roughly, until the torrent of her words had ceased, and she was silenced beneath his lurid gaze.
“You say—they’ve got a trap laid for me?” he demanded.
Her hands clasped before him. “Yes, but I say I’m not guilty——”
He pushed her contemptuously from him, and she fell in the snow. Then, with a half-animal snarl that revealed all too plainly his murderous rage, he drew his pistol from his holster and started on.
XXIX
Watchingthrough the crack in the door Ned saw the girl’s act; and her treason was immediately evident to him. Whatever darkness engrossed him at the sight of the ignoble girl, begging for her little life even at the cost of her lover’s, showed not at all in his white, set face. Whatever unspeakable despair came upon him at this ruin of his ideals, this destruction of all his hopes, it was evidenced neither in his actions nor in the clear, cool quality of his thought.
No other crisis had ever found him better disciplined. His mind seemed to circumscribe the whole, dread situation in an instant. He turned, met Bess’s straightforward gaze, saw her half-smile of complete understanding. As she leaped toward him, he snatched up their two hooded outer coats, and his arm half encircling her, he guided her through the door.
Whether or not she realized what had occurred he did not know, but there was no time to tell her now. Nor were explanations necessary; trusting him to the last she would follow where he led. “We’ll have to run for it,” he whispered simply. “Fast as you can.”
Ned had taken in the situation, made his decision, seized the parkas, and guided Bess through the door all in one breath: the drama of Lenore’s tragic dishonor was still in progress in the glare of the Northern Lights. Doomsdorf, standing back to them, did not see the two slip out the door, snatch up their snowshoes and fly. Otherwise his pistol would have been quick to halt them. Almost at once they were concealed, except for their strange flickering shadows in the snow, behind the first fringe of stunted spruce.
Ned led her straight toward the ice-bound sea. He realized at once that their least shadow of hope lay in fast flight that might take them to some inhabited island before Doomsdorf could overtake them; never in giving him a chase across his own tundras. Even this chance was tragically small, but it was all they had. To stay, to linger but a moment, meant death from Doomsdorf’s pistol—or perhaps from some more ingenious engine that his half-mad cunning might devise.
Only the miles of empty ice stretched before them, covered deep with snow and unworldly in the glimmer of the Northern Lights that still flickered wanly in the sky; yet no other path was open. They halted a single instant in the shelter of the thickets, slipped on their snowshoes, then mushed as fast as they could on to the beach. In scarcely a moment they were venturing out on the ice-bound wastes.
Doomsdorf encountered their tracks as he reached the cabin door, and guessing their intent, raced for the higher ground just above the cabin. Butwhen he caught sight of the fugitives, they were already out of effective pistol range. He fired impotently until the hammer clicked down against an empty breach, and then, still senseless with fury, darted down to the cabin for his rifle.
But he halted before he reached the door. After all, there was no particular hurry. He knew how many miles of ice—some of it almost impassable—lay between his island and Tzar Island, far to the east. It was not the journey for a man and woman, traveling without supplies. There was no need of sending his singing lead after them. Cold and hunger, if he gave them play, would stop them soon enough.
He had, however, other plans. He turned through the cabin door, spoke to the sullen squaw, then began to make preparations for a journey. He took a cold-proof wolf-hide robe, wrapped in it a great sack of pemmican, and made it into a convenient pack for his back. Then he reloaded his pistol, took the rifle down from the wall, and started forth down the trail that Ned and Bess had made.
It was likely true that the cold, though not particularly intense to-night, would master them before ever they could reach Tzar Island. They had no food, and inner fuel is simply a matter of life and death while traveling Arctic ice. They had no guns to procure a fox, or any other living creatures that they might encounter on the ice fields. But yet Doomsdorf was not content. Death of cold was hardly less merciful than that of a bullet. Just destruction would not satisfy the fury in his heart; the strange, dark lust that raced through his veins like poison demanded a more direct vengeance. Particularly he did not want Bess to die on the ice. He would simply follow them, overtake them, and bring them back; then some really diverting thing would likely occur to him.
It would be easy to do. There was no man in the North who could compete with him in a fair race. The two had less than a mile start of him, and to overtake them was but a matter of hours. On the other hand long days of travel, one after another past all endurance, would be necessary before they could ever hope to cross the ice ranges to reach the settlements on Tzar Island.
To Bess first came the realization of the utter hopelessness of their flight. She could not blind herself to this fact. Nor did she try to hide from herself the truth: in these last, bitter months she had found that the way of wisdom was to look truth in the face, struggling against it to the limit of her strength, but yielding herself neither to vain hope nor untoward despair. The reason why the flight was hopeless was because she herself could not stand the pace. She did not have the beginning of Ned’s strength. Soon he would have to hold back so that she could follow with greater ease, and that meant their remorseless hunter would catch up. The venture had got down simply to a trial of speed between Doomsdorf, whose mighty strength gave him every advantage, and Ned, who braved the ice with neither blankets nor food supplies. Her presence, slowing down Ned’s speed, increased the odds against him beyond the last frontier of hope.
Tired though she was from the day’s toil, she moved freshly and easily at first. Ned broke trail, she mushed a few feet behind. She had no sensation of cold; hardened to steel, her muscles moved like the sliding parts of a wonderful machine. The ice was wonderfully smooth as yet, almost like the first, thin, bay ice frozen to the depth of safety. But already the killing pace had begun to tell. She couldn’t keep it up forever without food and rest. And the brute behind her was tireless, remorseless as death itself.
The Northern Lights died at last in the sky, and the two hastened on in the wan light of a little moon that was already falling toward the west. And now she was made aware that the night was bitter cold. It was getting to her, in spite of her furs. But as yet she gave no sign of distress to Ned. A great bravery had come into her heart, and already she could see the dawn—the first aurora of ineffable beauty—of her far-off and glorious purpose. She would not let herself stop to rest. She would not ask Ned to slacken his pace. She was tired to the point of anguish already; soon she would know the last stages of fatigue; but even then she would not give sign. Out of her love for him a new strength was born—that sublime and unnamable strength of women that is nearest to divinity of anything upon this lowly earth—and she knew that it would hold her up beyond the last limits of physical exhaustion. She would not give way to unconsciousness, thus causing Ned to stop and wait beside her till she died. None of these things would she do. Her spirit soared with the wings of her resolve. Instead, her plan was simply to hasten on—to keep up the pace—until she toppled forward lifeless on the ice. She would master herself until death mastered her. Then Ned, halting but an instant to learn the truth, could speed on alone. Thus he would have no cause to wait for her.
He travels the fastest who travels alone. Out of his chivalry he would never leave her so long as a spark of life remained in her body: her course was simply to stand the pace until the last spark went out. She could fight away unconsciousness. She knew she could; as her physical strength ebbed, she felt this new, wondrous power sweeping through her.
He travels the fastest who travels alone. Without her, his mighty strength of body and spirit might carry him to safety. It was a long chance at best, over the ice mountains; but this man who mushed before her was not of ordinary mold. The terrible training camp through which he had passed had made of him a man of steel, giving him the lungs of a wolf and a lion’s heart, and it was conceivable that, after unimagined hardship, he might make Tzar Island. There he could get together a party to rescue Lenore, and though his love for the ignoble girl was dead, his destiny would come out right after all. It was all she dared pray for now,—that he might find life and safety. But he was beaten at the start if he had to wait for her.
On and on through the night they sped, over that wonderfully smooth ice, never daring to halt: strange, wandering figures in the moonlit snow. But Bess was not to carry her brave intent through to the end. She had not counted on Ned’s power of observation. He suddenly halted, turned and looked into her face.
It was wan and dim in the pale light; and yet something about its deepening lines quickened his interest. She saw him start; and with a single syllable of an oath, reached his hand under her hood to the track of the artery at her throat. He needed to listen but an instant to the fevered pulse to know the truth.
“We’re going too fast,” he told her shortly.
“No—no!” Her tone was desperate, and his eyes narrowed with suspicion. Wrenching back her self-control she tried to speak casually. “I can keep up easily,” she told him. “I don’t feel it yet—I’ll tell you when I do. We can’t ever make it if we slow up.”
He shook his head, wholly unconvinced. “I don’t know what’s got into you, Bess. You can’t fool me. I know I feel it, good and plenty, and you’re just running yourself to death. Doomsdorf himself can’t do any more than kill us——”
“But he can——”
“We’re going to hit an easier pace. Believe me, he’s not running his heart out. He’s planning on endurance, rather than speed. I was a fool not to think about you until it began to get me.”
It was true that the killing pace had been using up the vital nervous forces of both their bodies. Ned was suffering scarcely not at all as yet, but he had caught the first danger signals. Bess was already approaching the danger point of fatigue. When Ned started on again he took a quick but fairly easy walking pace.
Yet Bess’s only impulse was to give way to tears. If their first gait had been too fast, this was far too slow. While it was the absolute maximum that she could endure—indeed she could not stand it without regular rests that would ultimately put them in Doomsdorf’s hands—it was considerably below Ned’s limit. He could not make it through at such a pace as this. Because of her, he was destroying his own chance for life and freedom.
They mushed on in silence, not even glancing back to keep track of Doomsdorf. And it came about, in the last hours of the night, that the rest both of them so direly needed was forced upon them by the powers of nature. The moon set; and generally smooth though the ice was, they could not go on by starlight. There was nothing to do but rest till dawn.
“Lie down on the ice,” Ned advised, “and don’t worry about waking up.” His voice moved her and thrilled her in the darkness. “I’ll set myself to wake up at the first ray; that’s one thing I can always do.” She let her tired body slip down on the snow, relying only on her warm fur garments to protect her from it. Ned quickly settled beside her. “And you’d better lie as close to me as you can.”
He was prompted only by the expedience of cold. Yet as she drew near, pressing her body against his, it was as if some dream that she had dared not admit, even to herself, had come true. Nothing could harm her now. The east wind could mock at her in vain, the starry darkness had no terror for her. The warmth of his body sped through her, dear beyond all naming; and such a ghost as but rarely walks those empty ice fields came and enfolded her with loving arms.
It was the Ghost of Happiness. Of course it was not real happiness,—only its shadow, only its dim image built of the unsubstantial stuff of dreams, yet it was an ineffable glory to her aching heart. It was just an apparition that was born of her own vain hopes, yet it was kindly, yielding one hour of unspeakable loveliness in this night of woe and terror. Lying breast to breast, she could pretend that he was hers, to-night. Of course real happiness could not come to her; the heart that beat so steadily close to hers was never hers; yet for this little hour she was one with him, and the ghost seemed very, very near. She could forget the weary wastes of ice, the cold northern stars, their ruthless enemy ever drawing nearer.
Instinctively Ned’s arms went about her, pressing her close; and tremulous with this ghost of happiness, the high-born strength of woman’s love surged through her again, more compelling than ever before. Once more her purpose flamed, wan and dim at first, then slowly brightening until its ineffable beauty filled her eyes with tears. Once more she saw a course of action whereby Ned might have a fighting chance for life. Her first plan, denied her because of Ned’s refusal to lead faster than she could follow, had embodied her own unhappy death from the simple burning up of her life forces from over-exertion; but this that occurred to her now was not so merciful. It might easily preclude a fate that was ten times worse than death. Yet she was only glad that she had thought of it. She suddenly lifted her face, trying to pierce the pressing gloom and behold Ned’s.
“I want you to promise me something, Ned,” she told him quietly.
He answered her clearly, from full wakefulness. “What is it?”
“I want you to promise—that if you see there’s no hope for me—that you’ll go on—without me. Suppose Doomsdorf almost overtook us—and you saw that he could seize me—but you could escape—I want you to promise that you won’t wait.”
“To run off and desert you——”
“Listen, Ned. Use your good sense. Say I was in a place where I couldn’t get away, and you could. Suppose we became separated somehow on the ice, and he should be overtaking me, but you’d have a good chance to go to safety. Oh, you would go on, wouldn’t you?” Her tone was one of infinite pleading. “Would there be any use of your returning—and getting killed yourself—when you couldn’t possibly save me? Don’t you see the thing to do would be to keep on—with the hope of coming out at last—and then getting up an expedition to rescue me? Promise me you won’t destroy what little hope we have by doing such a foolish thing as that——”
Wondering, mystified by her earnestness, half inclined to believe that she was at the verge of delirium from cold and exertion, his arms tightened about her and he gave her his promise so that she might rest. “Of course I’ll do the wise thing,” he told her. “The only thing!”
Her strong little arms responded to the embrace, and slowly, joyously she drew his face toward hers. “Then kiss me, Ned,” she told him, soberly yet happily, as a child might beg a kiss at bedtime. Her love for him welled in her heart. “I want you to kiss me good night.”
Slowly, with all the tenderness of his noble manhood, he pressed his lips to hers. “Good night, Bess,” he told her simply. For an instant, night and cold and danger were forgotten. “Good night, little girl.”
Their lips met again, but now they did not fall away so that he could speak. There was no need for words. His arm about her held her lips to his, and thus they lay, forgetting the wastes of ice about them, for the moment secure from the cruel forces that had hounded them so long. The wind swept by unheard. The fine snow drifted before it, as if it meant to cover them and never yield them up again. The dimmer stars faded and vanished into the recesses of the sky.
The cold’s scourge was impotent now. The hour was like some dream of childhood: calm, wondrous, ineffably sweet. The ghost of happiness seemed no longer just a shadow. For the moment Bess’s fancy believed it real.
Sleep drifted over Ned. Still with her lips on his, Bess listened till his slow, quiet breathing told her that he was no longer conscious. She waited an instant more, her arms trembling as she pressed him close as she could.
“I love you, Ned,” she whispered. “Whatever I do—it’s all for love of you.”
Then, very softly so as not to waken him, she slipped out of his embrace and got to her feet. She started away straight north,—at right angles to the direction that they had gone before.
XXX
Ned’sinstincts had been trained like the rest of him, and they watched over him while he slept. They aroused him from sleep as soon as it was light enough to pick his way over the rough ice that lay in front, yet as if in realization of his physical need of rest, not an instant sooner. He sprang up to find the dawn, gray over the ice-bound sea.
But the miracle of the morning, even the possibility that Doomsdorf had made time while he slept and was now almost upon him did not hold his thought an instant. His mind could not reach beyond the tragic fact that he was alone. Bess was gone, vanished like a spirit that had never been in the gray dawn.
The moment was one of cruel but wonderful revelation to Ned. It was as if some unspeakable blessing had come to one who was blind, but before ever sight came to him, it was snatched away. As sleep had fallen over him, he had suddenly been close to the most profound discovery, the greatest truth yet of his earthly life; but now only its image remained. Bess had been in his arms, her lips against his, but now his arms were empty and his lips were cold.
She had gone. Her tracks led straight north through the snow. The most glorious hour life had ever given him had faded like a dream. Whence lay this glory, the source of his wonder as well as the crushing despair that now was upon him he might have seen in one more glance; in one moment’s scrutiny of his soul he might have laid bare a heart’s secret that had eluded him for all these past weary weeks. But there was no time for such now. Bess had gone, and he must follow her. This was the one truth left in an incredible heaven and earth.
Her last words swept through his memory. They gave him the key: his deductions followed swift and sure by the process of remorseless logic. In a single moment he knew the dreadful truth: Bess had not gone on in the expectation of Ned overtaking her, thus saving a few moments of his precious time. She had not gone east at all. She knew the stars as well as he did: she would have never, except by some secret purpose, turned north instead of east. He saw the truth all too plain.
“Say we became separated somehow on the ice,” she had told him before he slept, “and he should be overtaking me but you’d have a chance to go on to safety!” To quiet her, he had given her his promise to go on and leave her to her fate; and now she hadpurposely separatedherself from him. She had gone to decoy Doomsdorf from his trail.
She had chosen the direction that would give Doomsdorf the longest chase and take him farthest from Ned’s trail. He couldn’t follow them both. The morning light would show him that his two fugitives had separated; and she had reasoned soundly in thinking that their enemy would pursue her, rather than Ned. His lust for her was too commanding for him to take any other course. While he pursued her, Ned would have every chance to hurry on eastward to the safety of Tzar Island.
Had he not promised that if he found he could not aid her, he would go on alone? Realizing that she was holding him back, had she not put herself where it would be impossible for him to give her further aid. It would only mean capture and death, certain as the brightening dawn, for him to follow and attempt to come between her and Doomsdorf. On the other hand, this was his chance: while their savage foe ran north in pursuit of Bess, Ned himself could put a distance between them that could hardly be overtaken. There was nothing to gain by following her—her capture at Doomsdorf’s hands was an ultimate certainty—only his own life to lose.
She had reasoned true. Together their flight was hopeless. Alone, he had a chance. By leading Doomsdorf from his trail she had increased mightily that chance. The affair was all one sided. Yet, not knowing why, he took the side of folly.
Never for a moment did he even consider going on and leaving her to her fate. He could not aid her, and yet in one moment more he had launched forth on her trail, faster than he had ever mushed before. He had no inward battle, no sense of sacrifice. There was not even a temptation to take the way of safety. In these last months he had been lifted far beyond the reach of any such feeble voice as that.
He sped as fast as he could along the dim trail she had made. The dawn, icy-breathed, soon out-distanced him, permitting him to see Bess’s fleeing form before he had scarcely begun to overtake her. She was just a dark shadow at first against the stretching fields of white; but he never lost sight of her after that. With the brightening dawn he saw her ever more distinctly.
And in the middle distance, west of both of them, he saw the huge, dark form of Doomsdorf bearing down upon her.
She had guessed right as to Doomsdorf. Catching sight of her, he had left their double trail to overtake her. Hoping and believing that Ned had taken his chance of safety and was fleeing eastward, she was leading his enemy ever farther and farther north, away from him.
He was a strong man, this Cornet who had fought the North, but the bitter, scalding tears shot into his eyes at the sight of that strange, hopeless drama on the ice. But not one of them was in self-pity. They were all for the slight figure of the girl, trying still to save him, running so hopelessly from the brute who was even now upon her. To Ned, the scene had lost its quality of horror. It was only unspeakably tragic there behind the rising curtains of the dawn.
She was trying to dodge him now, cutting back and forth as a mouse might try to dodge the talons of a cat,—still trying to save a few little seconds for Ned. She wasn’t aware yet that her trial was all in vain. In an attempt to hold Doomsdorf off as long as possible, she had not paused one instant to assure herself that Ned had gone on east. He had given her his word; likely she trusted him implicitly. The man’s heart seemed to swell, ready to break, in pity for her.
A moment later he saw her slip on the ice, and in dread silence, Doomsdorf’s arms went about her. Neither of them had apparently observed Ned. They only became aware of him as his great shout, half in rage, half in defiance, reached them across the ice.
It was really an instinctive cry. Partly the impulse behind it was to warn Doomsdorf of his presence, hoping thus to call his attention from Bess and thus save the girl immediate insult at his hands. And kneeling upon the girl’s form, like a great bear upon its living prey, Doomsdorf looked up and saw him.
Even at the distance that separated them the startled movement of his head revealed his unutterable amazement. Doubtless he thought that Ned was miles to the east by now. The amazement gave way to boundless triumph as Ned walked calmly toward him. Then while he held the girl prone on the ice with his great knee, Doomsdorf’s rifle made blue lightning in the air.
Ned’s response was to throw his arms immediately into the air in token of complete surrender. He was thinking coolly, his faculties in perfect control; and he knew he must not attempt resistance now. Only death lay that way; at that range Doomsdorf could shatter him lifeless to the ice with one shot from the heavy rifle. It wasn’t enough just to die, thus taking a quick road out of Doomsdorf’s power. Such a course would not aid Bess. And to Bess he owed his duty—to aid Bess, in every way he could, was his last dream.
At first he had had to play the cruel game for the sake of Lenore. That obligation was past now; but it had never, at its greatest, moved him with one-half the ardor as this he bore to Bess. He must not go this route to freedom, or any other, until Bess could go with him. He must not leave her in Doomsdorf’s power.
That much was sure. Self-inflicted death did not come into the Russian’s calculations—he was too close to the beasts for that—so he would not be on guard. Whatever befell, this gate was always open. Ned would play the game through to the end, at her side.
Doomsdorf watched him approach in silence. The triumphant gloating that Ned expected did not come to pass; evidently their brute master was in too savage a mood even for this. “Wait where you are,” he ordered simply, “or I’ll blow your head off. I’ll be ready for you in a minute.”
He bent, and with one motion jerked Bess to her feet. Then in silence, still guarding them with his rifle, he pointed them their way,—back to his cabin on the island.
It was a long and bitter march across that desolate ice. Except for a share of his pemmican that Doomsdorf distributed, for expedience rather than through any impulse of mercy, Bess could have hardly lasted out. They walked almost in silence, Ned in front, then Bess, their captor bringing up the rear; a strange death march over those frozen seas.
This was the end. The fight was done; there was no thought or dream but that the last, fighting chance was lost. Ned knew he was going to his death: any other possibility was utterly beyond hope. The only wonder he had left was what form his death would take. There was no shadow of mercy on the evil face of his captor.
Bess knew that her portion was also death, simply because the white, pure flame that was her life could not abide in the body that was prey to Doomsdorf. Death itself would cheat those terrible, ravishing hands: this was as certain a conviction as any she had ever known in all the brief dream of her life. Whether it would be brought about by her own hand, by the merciful, caressing touch of her lover’s knife, or whether simply by outraged nature, snatching her out of Doomsdorf’s power, she neither knew nor cared.
The file trudged on. Ned led the way unguided. The hours passed. The dim shadow of the shore crags strengthened. And another twilight was laying its first shadows on the snow as they stepped upon the snowy beach.
It was at this point that Bess suddenly experienced an inexplicable quickening of her pulse, an untraced but breathless excitement that was wholly apart from the fact that she was nearing the cabin of her destiny. The air itself seemed curiously hushed, electric, as if a great storm were gathering; the moment was poignant with a breathless suspense. She could not have told why. Warning of impending, great events had been transmitted to her through some unguessed under-consciousness; some way, somehow, she knew that it had reached her from the mind of the man who walked in front. Fiery thoughts were leaping through Ned’s brain, and some way they had passed their flame to her.
A moment later Ned turned to her, ostensibly to help her up the steep slope of the beach. She saw with amazement that his face was stark white and that his eyes glowed like live coals. Yet no message was conveyed to Doomsdorf, tramping behind. It was only her own closeness to him, her love that brought her soul to his, that told her of some far-reaching and terrific crisis that was at hand at last.
“Walk exactly in my steps!” he whispered under his breath. It was only the faintest wisp of sound, no louder than his own breathing; yet Bess caught every word. She did not have to be told that there was infinite urgency behind the command. Her nerves seemed to leap and twitch; yet outwardly there was no visible sign that a message had been passed between them.
Now Ned was leading up toward the shore crags, into a little pass between the rocks that was the natural egress from the beach on to the hills behind. He walked easily, one step after another in regular cadence: only his glowing eyes could have told that this instant had, by light of circumstances beyond Bess’s ken, become the most crucial in his life. And it was a strange and ironic thing that the knowledge he relied on now, the facility that might turn defeat into victory, was not some finesse gained in his years of civilized living, no cultural growth from some great university far to the south, but merely one of the basic tricks of a humble trade.
Doomsdorf had told him, once, that a good trapper must learn to mark his sets. Any square yard of territory must be so identified, in the mind’s eye, that the trapper can return, days later, walk straight to it and know its every detail. Ned Cornet had learned his trade. He was a trapper; and he knew this snowy pass as an artist knows his canvas. He stepped boldly through.
Bess walked just behind, stepping exactly in his tracks. Her heart raced. It was not merely because the full truth was hidden from her that she walked straight and unafraid. She would always follow bravely where Ned led. Now both of them had passed through the little, narrow gap between lofty, snow-swept crags. Doomsdorf trudged just behind.
Then something sharp and calamitous as a lightning bolt seemed to strike the pass. There was a loud ring and clang of metal, the sharp crack of a snowshoe frame broken to kindling, and then, obliterating both, a wild bellow of human agony like that of a mighty grizzly wounded to the death. Ned and Bess had passed in safety, but Doomsdorf had stepped squarely into the great bear trap that Ned had set the evening before.
The cruel jaws snapped with a clang of iron and the crunch of flesh. The shock, more than any human frame could endure, hurled Doomsdorf to his knees; yet so mighty was his physical stamina that he was able to retain his grip on his rifle. And the instant that he went down Ned turned, leaping with savage fury to strike out his hated life before he could rise again.
He was upon him before Doomsdorf could raise his rifle. As he sprang he drew his knife from its sheath, and it cut a white path through the gathering dusk. And now their arms went about each other in a final struggle for mastery.
Caught though he was in the trap, Doomsdorf was not beaten yet. He met that attack with incredible power. His great hairy hand caught Ned’s arm as it descended, and though he could not hold it, he forced him to drop the blade. With the other he reached for his enemy’s throat.
This was the final conflict; yet of such might were these contestants, so terrible the fury of their onslaughts, that both knew at once that the fight was one of seconds. These two mighty men gave all they had. The fingers clutched and closed at Ned’s throat. The right hand of the latter, from which the blade had fallen, tugged at the pistol butt at Doomsdorf’s holster.
Bess leaped in, like a she-wolf in defense of her cubs, but one great sweep of Doomsdorf’s arm hurled her unconscious in the snow. There were to be no outside forces influencing this battle. The trap at Doomsdorf’s foot was Ned’s only advantage; and he had decoyed his enemy into it by his own cunning. It was man to man at last: a cruel war settled for good and all.
It could endure but an instant more. Already those iron fingers were crushing out Ned’s life. So closely matched were the two foes, so terrible their strength, that their bodies scarcely moved at all; each held the other in an iron embrace, Ned tugging with his left hand at the fingers that clutched his throat, Doomsdorf trying to prevent his foe from drawing the pistol that he wore at his belt and turning it against him.
It was the last war; and now it had become merely a question of which would break first. They lay together in the snow, utterly silent, motionless, for all human eyes could see, their faces white with agony, every muscle exerting its full, terrific pressure. Ever Doomsdorf’s fingers closed more tightly at Ned’s throat; ever Ned’s right hand drew slowly at the pistol at Doomsdorf’s belt.
Neither the gun nor the strangling fingers would be needed in a moment more. The strain itself would soon shatter and destroy their mortal hearts. The night seemed to be falling before Ned’s eyes; his familiar, snowy world was dark with the nearing shadow of death. But the pistol was free of the holster now, and he was trying to turn it in his hand.
It took all the strength of his remaining consciousness to exert a last, vital ounce of pressure. Then there was a curious low sound, muffled and dull as sounds heard in a dream. And dreams passed over him, like waves over water, as he relaxed at last, breathing in great sobs, in the reddened drifts.
Bess, emerging into consciousness, crawled slowly toward him. He felt the blessing of her nearing presence even in his half-sleep. But Doomsdorf, their late master, lay curiously inert, his foot still held by the cruel jaws of iron. A great beast-of-prey had fallen in the trap; and the killer-gun had sped a bullet, ranging upward and shattering his wild heart.
All this was just a page in Hell Island’s history. She had had one dynasty a thousand-thousand years before ever Doomsdorf made his first track in her spotless snows; and all that had been done and endured was not more than a ripple in the tides that beat upon her shores. With a new spring she came into her own again. Spring brought theIntrepid, sputtering through the new passages between the floes; and the old island kings returned to rule before ever the masts of the little craft had faded and vanished in the haze.
TheIntrepidhad taken cargo other than the usual bales of furs. The sounds of human voices were no more to be heard in the silences, and the wolf was no longer startled, fear and wonder at his heart, by the sight of a tall living form on the game trails. The traps were moss-covered and lost, and the wind might rage the night through at the cabin window, and no one would hear and no one would be afraid.
The savage powers of the wild held undisputed sway once more, not again to be set at naught by these self-knowing mortals with a law unto themselves. Henceforth all law was that of the wild, never to be questioned or disobeyed.
It may have been that sometimes, on winter nights, the wolf pack would meet a strange, great shadow on the snow fields: but if so, it was only the one-time master of the island, uneasy in his cold bed; and it was nothing they need fear or to turn them from the trail. It was just a shadow that hurried by, a wan figure buffeted by the wind, in the eerie flare of the Northern Lights. And even this would pass in time. He would be content to sleep, and let the snow drift deeper over his head.
Even the squaw had gone on theIntrepidto join her people in a distant tribe. But there is no need to follow her, or the three that had taken ship with her. On the headlong journey south to spread the word of their rescue, of their halting at the first port to send word and to learn that the occupants of the second lifeboat had been rescued from Tzar Island months before, of Godfrey Cornet’s glory at the sight of his son’s face and the knowledge of the choice he had made, of the light and shadow of their life trails in the cities of men, there is nothing that need be further scrutinized. To Hell Island they were forgotten. The windy snow fields knew them no more.
Yet for all they were bitterly cruel, the wilds had been kind too. They had shown the gold from the dross. They had revealed to Ned the way of happiness,—and it led him straight into Bess’s arms. There he could rest at the end of his day’s toil, there he found not only love and life, but the sustenance of his spirit, the soul of strength by which he might stand erect and face the light.
Thus they had found a safe harbor where the Arctic wind might never chill them; a hearth where such terror as dwelt in the dark outside could not come in.
THE END
Transcriber’s Note:
A few obvious punctuation errors have been corrected without note.
A cover has been created for this ebook and is placed in the public domain.
[End ofThe Isle of Retributionby Edison Marshall]