Two minutes he looked, then three, and neither moved nor spoke.
All at once, as the body swung out, out by the wooded point where rippled the strong current of the whirlpool, he saw another form — a white, dead face — and black hair that weltered wide upon the foam.
A little eddy sucked the outlaw under for a moment. When he reappeared, he was close beside the body of the girl who had so loved him that life and death and the dark gates themselves had not prevailed against that love.
A minute, the two seemed hesitant. Then the whirlpool took them — took them, together; and, hidden by the wooded point, they vanished from the old man’s peering eyes.
He stood there yet a little space, his lips curved by a strange and silent smile. Then, kneeling by the clothes, he kissed the rifle with deep reverence.
And with his old, old face hidden in both hands that trembled only now when all their work was done, he knelt there on the rock in the fresh October sunlight of the coming day.
The End
STORY INFO
This classic tale originally appeared in All-Story Cavalier Weekly, Dec. 12, 1914. This edition copyright © 2010 by Wildside Press LLC.
Even in Death Page 3
