Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885

by Various

  III.

  THE FLAMING SWORD.

  The changes which passed over her face were half concealed by thetwilight. She was grieved, indignant, and frightened, but over all otherexpressions lurked the mischievous mirth of a bad child.

  "I meant to tell you about it," she said.

  "Hearken," said Adam, with a fierce stare. "I've stayed out on the lakeall day, and I'm quiet. At first I wasn't. But when he came by I gavehim nothing but a good word."

  "I wish you'd scolded him instead of me," said Eva, propping her backagainst the table and puckering her lips.

  "_He_ did naught," said Adam, "but what any man would do that got lave.It's you that gave him lave that are to blame."

  "Don't be so serious about a little thing," put forth Eva. "We justwalked over to the counterfeiters' hole, and coming back we pickedstrawberries, and he teased me like a girl, and caught hold of me andkissed me. We've been such good friends in camp. I think it's this easy,wild life made me do it."

  "She'll blame the very sky over her instead of taking blame toherself," ground out Adam from between his jaws. "I sat in me boatbelow and saw you arch your head and look at him ways that I remember.My God! why did you make this woman so false, and yet so sweet that amon canna help loving her in spite o' his teeth?"

  "Because I'd die if folks didn't love me," burst out Eva, with a sob."And if men can't help loving me, what do you blame me for?"

  "What right have you to breathe such a word when you're married to me?"

  "But I'm not used to being married yet," pleaded Eva. "And I forgot,this once."

  "It's once and for all," said Adam, "You'll never be to me what you werebefore. Is it the English-Canadian way to bring up women to kiss everycomer?"

  "I didn't kiss anybody but Louis Satanette," maintained Eva, "and Ididn't really _want_ to kiss _him_"

  "Never mind," said Adam. "Don't trouble your butterfly soul about it."And he turned away and walked toward the tent.

  "I'll not love you if you say such awful things to me," she flashedafter him.

  "Ye can't take the breeks off a Hielandman," he replied, facing about,"Ye never loved me. Not as I loved you. And it's no loss I've met, if Icould but think it."

  "Oh, Adam!" Now she ran forward and caught him around the waist. "Don'tbe so hard with me. I know I am very bad, but I didn't mean to be."

  Some faint perception of that coarse fibre within her was breaking withhorror through her face. She held to his hands after he had separatedher from his person and held her off.

  "All that you do still has its effect on me," said the man, gazingsternly at her. "I love ye; but I despise myself for loving ye. Thismorn I adored ye with reverence; this night you're as a bit o' thatearth."

  Eva let go his hands and sat down on the ground. As he made hispreparations in the tent he could not help seeing with compassion howabjectly her figure drooped. All its flexible proud lines, were suddenlygone. She was dazed by his treatment and by the light in which he puther trifling. She sat motionless until Adam came out with one of thecots in his arms.

  "I'm to sleep upon the hill in the pine woods to-night," said he. "Gointo the tent, and I'll fasten the flaps. You shan't be scared byanything."

  "Let me get in the boat and leave the island, if you can't breathe thesame air with me," said Eva. staggering up.

  "No, I can't breathe the same air with ye to-night, but ye'll go intothe tent," said Adam, with authority.

  "I'll not stay there," she rebelled. "I'll follow you. You don't knowwhat may be on this island."

  "There can be nothing worse than what I've seen," said Adam; "and that'sdone all the hairm it can do."

  "Oh, Adam, are we both crazy?" the small creature burst out, weeping asif her heart would break. "Don't go away and leave me so. I am not realbad in my heart, I know I am not; and if you would be a little patientwith me and help me, I shall get over my silly ways. There is somethingin me, you can depend upon, if I _did_ do that foolish thing. And mymother didn't live long enough to train me, Adam; remember that. Won'tyou please kiss me? My heart is breaking."

  He put down the cot and took her by the shoulders, trembling as he didso from head to foot:

  "My wife, I belaive what you say. I'd give all the days remaining to meif I could strain ye against my breast with the feeling I had this morn.But there comes that sight. I never shall see the hill again, I nevershall see a spot of this island again, without seeing your mouth kissinganother man. Go into the tent. God knows I'd die before hairm shouldcome to you. But not to-night can I stay beside you. Or kiss you."

  He carried her into the tent and put her on her bed. She had made allthe night-preparations herself, placing the pillows on both cots andturning back the sun-sweetened blankets.

  Adam left her sobbing, buttoned the tent-flaps outside, and placed abarricade of kettles and pans which could not be touched withoutdisturbing him on the hill. Then, taking up his own bed, he marched offthrough the ferns, edging his burden among dense boughs as he ascended.

  When he had made the joints of his couch creak with many uneasyturnings, had clinched at leaves, and started up to return to the tent,only to check himself in the act as often as he started, he lostconsciousness in uneasy dreams rather than fell asleep.

  He was smothering, and yet could not open his lips to gasp for a breathof air. Then he was drowning: he gulped in vast sheets of water upon hislungs. An alarm sounded from Eva's barricade. He heard the pans andkettles clanging and her own voice in screams which pierced him, yet hecould not move. A nightmare of heat enveloped him; the smotheringelement pouring upon his lungs was not water, but smoke; and he knew ifno effort of will could move his body to her rescue he must be perishinghimself.

  After these brief sensations his existence was as blank as the emptyvoid outside the worlds, until his ears began to throb like drums, andhe felt water, like the tears he had shed in the morning, running allover his face. Eva held him in her arms, and alternately kissed his headand drenched it from the lake.

  Moreover, he was in the boat, outside the bay, and their island glowedlike a furnace before his dazzled eyes.

  Those pine woods where he had gone to sleep were roaring up towardheaven in a column of fire. The tent was burning, all its interiorilluminated until every object showed its minutest lines. He thought hesaw some of Eva's dark hairs in an upturned hair-brush on thewash-stand.

  Fire ran along the cliff-edge and dropped hissing brands into the lake.Old moss logs and pine-trees dry as tinder sent out sickening heat. Thelight ran like a flash up the tree over their stove, and in an instantits crown was wavering with flames. The grass itself caught here andthere, and in whatever direction the eye turned, new fires asinstantaneously sprang out to meet it.

  Stumps blazed up like lighted altars, or like huge gas-jets suddenlyturned on. Adam saw one log lying endwise downhill, one side of whichwas crumbling into coals of fierce and tremulous heat, while from theother side still sprung unsinged a delicate tuft of ferns.

  The smoke was driving straight upward in a quivering current, and inLake Magog's depths another island seemed to be on fire.

  Sublime as the sight was, all these details impressed themselves on theman in an instant, and he turned his face directly up toward the woman.

  "Darling, your face looks blistered," said Adam.

  "It feels blistered," replied Eva. "I'll put some water on it, now thatyou've caught your breath again. I thought I could not get you out fromthose burning trees."

  "But you dragged me down the hill?"

  "Yes, and then dipped you in the lake and pushed off with you in theboat. I don't know how I did it. But here we are together."

  Adam bathed her face carefully himself, and held her tight in his arms.The unspeakable love of which he had dreamed, and the heat of theburning island, seemed welding them together without other sign than thefact.

  Not a word was sighed out for forgiveness on either side. They held eachother and floated back into the lake. Adam took an o
ar and occasionallypaddled, without wholly releasing his hold of Eva.

  "Don't you remember our fish's nest?" she whispered beside his neck. "Iwonder if the slim little silver thing is swimming around over thegravel hollow, frightened by all this glare? I hope those overhangingbushes won't catch fire and drop coals on her; for she's a sillything,--she might not want to dart out in deep water and lose herunhatched family."

  Adam smiled into his wife's eyes. He was quite singed, but did not knowit.

  "Ay, burn," he spoke out exultantly, apostrophizing the island. "Burn upour first home and all. It's worth it. We're the other side o' the worldof fire now. We've passed through it, and are afloat on the sea ofglass."

  M. H. CATHERWOOD.