My hands slipped from their hold, and I sank weakly to my knees. There was no trick, no hallucination. The light was gone—utterly, instantly, at my first knock. And there was no sound from within—only the roar of the storm, only blackness, only terror. My hand struck against the door knob. I grasped at it feverishly, and tried to open the door. It was locked. Then in a paroxysm of despair I beat madly with my hands once more upon the panels, and cried out again and again for help. There was no answer, no sign of life—and presently, a huddled heap, I lay inertly upon the threshold, with my face buried in my hands.
Suddenly my hands were jerked roughly apart, my head thrown back, and a lantern was thrust into my face. Startled, frightened, for there had been no sound and the door was still closed, I made a wild, futile effort to free myself from the vice-like grip upon my head. I tried to cry aloud, but my voice somehow choked in my throat. The dark form of a man was bending over me, and, back of the lantern's light that hurt and blinded me, I could feel the other's eyes boring into my face. My mind was groping feebly for some reason that would explain the sudden extinguishing of the light in the window, this sudden, unwarranted attack upon me here in this lonely spot on the forest's edge. I knew that the man must have come out of the back door to steal around upon me from the side of the house, but——
My head sank back again on the ground—the man had let go his hold. And now, with a guttural exclamation that mingled, it seemed to me, both amazement and pity, he called to some one within the house. A moment more and the door was opened by a woman. Then the man, handing her the lantern, stooped, caught me beneath the shoulders, and half dragged, half lifted me inside.
For the next few minutes I was only dimly conscious of what occurred. The door was closed, and I heard the sound of a heavy metal bolt being thrown into place. The man and the woman exchanged quick sentences, but the words confused me strangely, and I could not catch the drift of what was said. They hurried this way and that about the room—and then the man was holding brandy to my lips.
The stimulant seemed to course through my veins like molten fire, bringing me new life and strength, and I gulped greedily at the glass. With a smile, the man allowed me to empty it, and then, assisting me to my feet, deftly and rapidly began to remove my wet clothes. We were alone now—I could hear the woman moving about in another room—and I stared curiously, questioningly, at the short, stocky, dark-eyed, brown-bearded man in the rough, ill-fitting clothes, who was working over me.
Once or twice I essayed to speak, but the other silenced me with a kindly, if imperative, grunt, and a shake of the head; and finally, when I was thoroughly dried and invested with a change of clothing, he led me to a chair before the table in the centre of the room. Here, presently, the woman brought me a steaming bowl of meat stew, and I fell upon it ravenously.
I was still weak to the verge of helplessness, and unutterably weary; but thanks to the brandy, and now this hot, grateful food, the giddiness, the semi-delirium of mind was passing, and my brain began to clear. It had all been like some horrible nightmare, but now—I found myself scraping with my spoon at the bottom of an empty bowl. I pushed the bowl from me, and looked up. The man and the woman, the woman with a young child in her arms, were standing together in the far corner, talking in low tones. Both turned, meeting my eyes, and the man came quickly forward.
"I not speak ver' good English," he said deprecatingly. "You are better?"
"Better!" I repeated huskily. "I owe you my life."
"That is nothing—nothing," responded the other, with a sweep of his hands. "You are better? You are strong once more? That is the thing."
"Yes; thanks to you," I replied.
"Then," said the man abruptly, "I think you better much had go at once."
My heart sank suddenly within me, as I rose and clutched weakly at the table edge.
"Go—out there—into that—to-night?" I faltered. "I—I would not live till morning."
"It is ver' bad, that is true," said the man in a low tone; "but maybe it more safer than here—yes?"
Miserably, desperately, I looked around the room. It was a rough place, roughly furnished; an old shack that once might have been deserted, it seemed, for now it was scarcely habitable. It contained a narrow bed, a child's cot, a plain deal table, several chairs—nothing else. And then I looked at the woman. Her eyes were full of trouble, full of lurking fear, and there was a pinched, drawn look of dread and terror on her face which, even in my distracted state, I could see had robbed her of the comeliness and youth that under happier circumstances must assuredly have been hers; and I saw, too, in spite of her rough dress and uncouth surroundings, that there was an air of culture and refinement about her which belied her outward appearance.
My eyes went back to search the man's face. The man was regarding me steadily, and, it seemed, too, pityingly, if I read him aright. I passed my hand across my forehead—what strange matter lay behind all this? This woman, so patently far removed from what must have been her usual environment; this man, whose every gesture, every movement, even the inflection of whose voice bespoke one of education, of breeding, of walk in life so at variance with these surroundings! They were foreigners, of course, and that was why, I now realised, I had not understood what they had said when they had talked together; but it was strange, very strange! I was to go away again! But it seemed so incongruous, so strange, so very strange, that after such kindness they would drive me out into the night, and——
"I am sorry"—the man spoke again, gently—"ver' sorry, but it much best you go. For your sake, my friend. It not safe here."
"I don't know what you mean," I said helplessly. "Not safe here, you say? And yet, to go out there in the storm——"
"Yes," the man interposed gravely; "maybe you die. But maybe you have better chance that way."
"Oh, I don't know what you mean!" I cried out again. "Don't drive me out to-night! For God's sake, don't do that! I am too weak and sick! If it is safe here for a woman and a child, it is safe enough for me."
"Listen," said the man earnestly. "It not safe here for woman, not for child—not for me. Maybe we live too long here already. If storm go by, we pass on to-morrow. But maybe that too late. Maybe to-night we finish."
For a moment I could not answer—my brain seemed to be groping blindly in the dark, trying to comprehend, to grasp the literal meaning of the other's words, for there was no mistaking the man's deadly seriousness or his good faith.
"You mean," I said at last, "that you fear something—some danger that may come, that may fall to-night?"
"It is so," the man answered simply.
"What is it?" I asked. "Danger from where—from whom?"
The man shook his head.
"I tell no more," he said. "You know all I tell."
I flung out my arms impulsively, pleadingly to him.
"I don't care!" I blurted out. "I don't care what it is! If there's a risk, I'll take it! I'll take any risk rather than go out there into that again to-night! Let me stay! For God's sake, let me stay! Let me stay, won't you?"
The man hesitated an instant, and I could see that he was scrutinising me in a troubled, uncertain way; then, with a lift of his shoulders, he turned abruptly, and, walking over to the woman, began to talk rapidly to her.
Still clinging to the table, I watched them feverishly, my ears strained, not to catch their words, for I could not understand, of course, could not even recognise the language they were speaking, but to read the verdict in the intonation of their voices. A long time, an endless time it seemed to me, they talked, while my eyes held anxiously first on one face and then on the other; and then, as abruptly as he had gone, the man came back to the table.
"We not put you out," he announced quietly. "But already I have warn you it not safe—yes? You stay—then that blame on yourself."
"Yes!" I cried. "Yes, yes; and thank God for such as you!"
The man smiled, half grimly, half sympathetically.
"Come,
" he said—and, taking my arm, led me into a small room partitioned off at the back.
Here, the lantern, still burning, hung from a nail on the wall. There was a stove, a crude and battered affair, alight—and a cot with a mattress and blanket upon it.
"You lie there," directed the man, motioning toward the cot.
"But that is yours," I protested. "I don't want to do that. The floor, anywhere, will do for me, and I shall be grateful enough for it."
"You lie there," repeated the man, and pushed me in a kindly way to the cot. "Maybe I not sleep much to-night. I go out now, see about horse." He took down the lantern as he spoke, opened a door opposite the head of the cot that was evidently the back entrance to the shack, and went out.
For a moment I heard the man's steps squelching through the mud and water outside, then I lost them in the beat of the heavy rain upon the roof and the whistle and sweep of the wind eddying around the corners of the shack. I shuddered a little. What a wild, bitter night it was! I bowed my head in thankfulness, and my eyes grew moist. How good they were to me, these strangers, so full of some great trouble of their own.
I lay down upon the cot and drew the blanket over me. The woman's voice, crooning softly to the child, reached me as a sound from some far, indeterminate distance; I was vaguely conscious that the man entered the shack again—and then, in utter exhaustion, I slept.
I remember that I was beset with nightmares, each successive one more terrifying than its predecessor, and that, finally, one more horribly realistic than all the rest assailed me. It was so vivid that I shall never forget it. I lay at the bottom of a great gulch, and I was pinioned hand and foot and could not move. A sheer wall of rock rose up from the gulch on either hand, and, high above me on the nearer edge, demons of ugly and monstrous shapes were laughing and jeering at me, leaping about in diabolical glee as they poised a gigantic boulder preparatory to dropping it down upon me. I tore and struggled at my bonds like a maniac. There was a wild chorus of yells—and hurtling downward came the boulder. I watched it turning over and over in the air as it descended, watched it fascinated, with stilled heart, with lips grown too numb to utter a sound. It seemed to cover me now with its awful shadow. Another instant, and it would crush me, mangle me into a shapeless, lifeless mass. On it came, straight for me. There was scarcely breathing space between me and it now. Then with incredible swiftness it swerved, missed me by a hair's-breadth, crashed into the earth beside me with a thunderous roar, and——
I sat bolt upright on the cot, the sweat standing out in great beads upon my forehead—and the crash of a revolver shot died echoing away, and a piercing scream in a woman's voice was ringing in my ears.
I jumped from the cot—and stood like one stricken into stone, a chill at my heart that left me pulseless. The front room was dark, but the lantern in the back room was still burning, and in the opening in the partition between the two rooms (it could hardly be called a doorway), like a weird, fantastic shape, bulked the figure of the man who had befriended me, the child held tightly in the crook of his left arm, while he poured shot after shot from the revolver in his right hand into the blackness before him. Yells came responsively from outside, mingling with tinkling glass, as, from outside too, the bullets rained through the window.
The next instant the man laid the child on the floor behind the partition, and dashed into the darkness of the outer room. He came back in a moment, rushed to the cot, dropped to his knees, and pulled out a box a foot square from beneath it. This, as he regained his feet, he thrust into my hands, then snatched up the child into his own arms again, and reached for the latch of the back door.
"Come—we go—quick!" he gasped out.
"But the woman—she——" The words froze on my lips as, for the fraction of a second that seemed to span an eternity of time, the other's eyes met mine.
There was a look on the man's face such as I had never seen on the face of a human being before—the skin was a leaden white where it showed through the beard, and it was drawn and contorted out of shape by the out-thrust lower jaw; there was horror in the eyes, a pitiful, hopeless grief, and a fury insensate.
"Dead!" he whispered hoarsely. "They kill her by shot through window. Come quick now! Maybe too late already! Maybe they around at back now! Come quick! You follow—run!" He wrenched the door open and sprang outside.
Excitement, fear, horror—what was it gave me strength? I did not know. It was perhaps only nervous strength, but it was strength. For the moment, at least, my limbs were steady beneath me, and the box in my arms, if heavy, was a weight that I did not feel. Close behind the other I raced through the darkness—a few yards along the level—then down a short, steep declivity—and then we came to the water's edge beside a boat that was drawn up on the shore.
The man halted, snatched the box from me, dropped it on the ground, and pushed the child into my arms instead; then, turning the boat over—it had been bottom side up—he threw in the box, heaved the heavy craft (I say "heavy," for it seemed to take all his strength), down the shore, and ran the stern out into the water.
"Get in!" he panted wildly.
Shouts were coming now from the back of the house. Thank God for the noise of the storm!—the child was crying. Hurriedly, frantically, I clambered into the boat. The man, with feet braced on the shore, leaned forward to shove out the bow—and then a lightning flash suddenly disclosed a number of dark forms silhouetted against the bank not more than thirty or forty yards away. I screamed out to him in warning. There was a chorus of yells and the sharp crackle of revolver shots; then a broken cry; then a splash as, his hands slipping weakly from the bow as the boat shot out from the shore, the man pitched face downward into the water—and then darkness hid the scene from me.
Current and waves caught the boat, swirling it around and around, tossing it this way and that, threatening every instant to capsize it. My mind near to the verge of madness, I laid the child on the bottom of the boat, and, stumbling forward to the middle thwart, snatched up the oars. I shipped them after several futile attempts, and then worked desperately to get the boat's head around into the teeth of the wind. This I finally succeeded in doing, and the little craft rode more securely, but I could make no headway. The current, aided by both wind and waves, seemed to be running a veritable mill-race, and the little strength I had, all of it, only sufficed to keep the boat's head straight. It was a struggle that I realised well enough could not continue. I was growing miserably weak again.
Run before the storm? Yes, of course, I could do that. Why hadn't I done it in the first place? Well, there was the man who had been shot, and who had fallen into the water. I had tried to get back to him, hadn't I? But I couldn't get back. It was utterly beyond my strength. And now, probably, the man was dead.
My mind was in agony. Dead! What a night of terror! The woman was dead. There was just myself and the child left. The child! God help the little mite! It was alone now, dependent on me. On me! What ghastly irony!
And then I remember that I broke into discordant laughter, as an oar slipped from my grasp and the boat, flat-bottomed, swung off into the trough of the waves, shipped a little water, and spun around stern to the storm.
I snatched at the oar again as it thumped on its pin at the gunwale. Fate seemed to have decided the course of the boat, forcing me to give up my futile struggle. And now it was so much easier that the effort required of me was even within my meagre strength, for I had only to dip an oar occasionally, now on one side, now on the other—that was all.
The child was crying piteously. I reached forward and drew it awkwardly to me. The man had snatched it from its crib, blanket, bedclothes, and all, and now, as best I could, I wrapped the blanket closer around it, then placed the little bundle on the bottom of the boat again and braced it between my feet—I had to keep my hands free for the oars. The act seemed to rouse me, not only mentally, but to stir vitality in my feeble body—there was a little life, not mine alone, to fight for, to save.
The hours passed fearfully. I sat there crouched and numbed and wet, plying almost automatically my oars when occasion demanded. Now and again the lightning made a weird display of my surroundings—the dark, choppy waves; the boat; the child at my feet; and glimpses of black, irregular outlines, the shore, that each time seemed to show more indistinctly as though further away. Toward morning the storm passed and the wind went down, but the waves still appeared to run as high as ever.
Grey streaks of dawn tinged the east. Anxiously I looked around me. No wonder the waves still ran so high! I understood now. I must have started from a stream or river, which would account for the strength of the current that had primarily swept the boat along, but now I was well out almost in the centre of a large lake. The waves were running nearly straight down its length, and it was impossible to tell where I had come from, other than, vaguely, that the river or stream lay somewhere miles away astern.
My eyes dropped to the little bundle at my feet—and a new and sudden fear took possession of me. How still it was! A child so young, scarcely more than a baby! How could it be expected to live through such a night! I had done my best, all I could, but I had not been able to keep the little one dry, or give it food, or shelter it. I bent anxiously down over it—and, as suddenly as I had known fear, I knew relief. The child was sleeping.
For a long time I watched the child—and then, putting to rout in turn the relief I had experienced in finding it still alive, came an abysmal sense of helplessness. What was I to do? If I had money, or even my strength—but I had neither!
It had grown brighter now, and I turned in my seat, searching the shore line. Ahead of me, on a point of land that jutted well out into the lake, were a number of houses. My eyes completed the circuit, came back to the boat—and fell upon the box that I had carried from the shack. I had forgotten all about it, and I had not seen it before because it was in the bow of the boat and my back had, of course, been turned to it. I reached for it now, and picked it up.
The Red Ledger Page 21
