SNOW BLINDNESS
More madly now than ever I felt that fierce temptation. There she lay,
the one woman who had ever seriously come into my life, sleeping so
near to me that I could bend down and rest my hand on the inert form
over which the snow drifted so steadily.
I brushed it away. I brooded over her. Why had I ever brought her on
that journey? Would that I had kept her, with all her love and
gentleness, for my delight.
If I had taken her to Jamaica, where I had planned to go, instead of
engaging that mock-heroic odyssey--there, among palm trees, in an
eternal spring, there would have been no need that she should remember.
I looked down on her. Again the snow covered her.
It fell so inexorably. It was like Leroux. It was as tireless as he,
and as implacable as he. I brushed it away with frantic haste, and
still it drifted into the doorless hut.
A dreadful fear held me in its grip: what if she never awoke? Some
people died thus in the snow. I raised the sleigh robe, and saw that
the fur coat stirred softly as she breathed.
How gently she slept--as gently as she lived. How could her own have
abandoned her in her need?
At last, out of the wild passions that fought within me, decision was
born. I would go on, because she had bidden me. And I would be ready
for Leroux, and let him act as he saw fit. I loaded my pistols. I
could do no more than fight for Jacqueline, and with God be the issue.
And with that determination I grew calm. And I sat over the fire and
let my imagination stray toward some future when our troubles would be
in the past and we should be together.
"Paul!"
I must have been half asleep, for I came back to myself with a start
and sprang to my feet. Jacqueline had risen upon her knees; she flung
her arms out wildly, and suddenly she caught her breath and screamed,
and stood up, and ran uncertainly toward me, with hands that groped for
me.
She found me; I caught her, and she pushed me from her and shuddered
and stared at me in that uncertain doubt that follows dreams.
"I am here, Jacqueline," I said. "With you--always, till you send me
away. Remember that even in dreams, Jacqueline."
She knew me now, and she was recoiling from me, out through the hut
door, into the blinding snow. I sprang after her.
"Jacqueline! It is I--Paul! It is Paul! Jacqueline!"
She was running from me and screaming in the snow. I heard her
moccasins breaking through the thin ice crust. And, mad with terror, I
rushed after her.
"Jacqueline! It is Paul!" I cried.
And as I emerged from the hut's shelter a red-hot glare from the east
seemed to sear and kill my vision. It was the rising sun. I had
thought it night, and it was already day. And I could see nothing
through my swollen eyelids except the white light of the shining snow.
The wind howled round me, and though the sun shone, the snowflakes
stung my face like hail.
I did not know under the influence of what dread dream she was. But I
ran wildly to and fro, calling her, and now and again I heard the sound
of her little moccasins as she plunged through the knee-high snow.
Sometimes I seemed to be so near that I could almost touch her hand,
and once I heard her panting breath behind me; but I never caught her.
And never once did she answer me.
"What is it? What is it?" I pleaded madly. "Jacqueline, don't you
know me? Don't you remember me?"
The sound of the moccasins far away, and then the whine of the wind
again. I did not know where the huts were now. I could see nothing
but a yellow glare. And fear of Leroux came on me and turned my heart
to water. I stood still, listening, like a hunted stag. There came no
sound.
It was horrible, in that wild waste, alone. I tried to gather my
scattered senses together.
Eastward, I know, the river lay, and that blinding brightness came from
the east. Southward a little distance, was the hill that we had last
ascended on the evening before. I could discern the merest outlines of
the land, but I fancied that I could see that it sloped upward toward
the south.
I set off in the direction of the hill, and soon I found myself
climbing. The elevation hid the sun, and this enabled me to glimpse my
surroundings dimly, as through a heavy veil.
I called once more, and then I was scrambling up the hill, stumbling
and falling on the ice-coated boulders. My coat was open, and the wind
cut like a knife-edge, but I did not notice it. Perhaps from the
hill-top I should see her.
"Jacqueline! Jacqueline!" I screamed frantically.
No answer came. I had gained the summit now, and round me I saw the
shadowy outlines of the snow-covered rocks, but five or six feet from
me a deep, impenetrable grey wall obscured everything. I tried to peer
down into the valley, and saw nothing but the same fog there. Once
more I called.
A dog barked suddenly, not far away, and through the mist I heard the
slide of sleigh-runners on snow; and then I knew.
I scrambled down, slipping, and gashing my hands upon the rocks and
ice. At the foot of the hill I saw two straight and narrow lines on
the soft snow. They were the tracks of sleigh-runners.
I followed them, sobbing, and catching my breath, and screaming:
"Jacqueline! Jacqueline!"
Then I heard Simon's voice, and with the sound of it my dream came back
with prophetic clearness.
"_Bonjour,_ M. Hewlett!" he called mockingly. "This way! This way!"
I turned and rushed blindly in the direction of the cry. I had left my
snow-shoes behind me in the hut, and at each step my feet broke through
the crusted snow, so that I floundered and fell like a drunken man to
choruses of taunts and laughter.
It was a horrible blindman's bluff, for they had surrounded me, yelling
from every quarter.
"This way, _monsieur_! This way!" piped a thin, voice which I knew to
be Philippe Lacroix.
A snowball struck me on the chin, and they began pelting me and
laughing. I was like a baited bear. I was beside myself with rage and
helpless fury. The icy balls hit my face a dozen times; one struck me
behind the ear and hurled me down half stunned.
I was up again and rushing at my unseen tormentors. I heard the
barking of the dogs far away, and I ran in the direction of the sound,
sobbing with rage. I pulled my pistols from my pockets and spun round,
firing in every direction through that wall of grey, yielding mist that
gave me place but never gave me vision.
The clouds had obscured the sky and the snow was falling again. My
hands were bare and numb, except where the cold steel of the pistol
triggers seared my fingers like molten metal.
They had formed a wider circle round me, and pistol range is longer
than snowball range, so that they struck me no more. I heard the
shouts and mockery still, but never Jacqueline's voice.
"Here, M. Hewlett, here!" piped Philippe Lacroix once more.
Again I turned and rushed at him, firing shot after shot. I heard his
snow-shoes plodding across the crust, and yells from the others
indicated that Philippe's adventure had been a risky one.
Then Simon called again and I turned, like a foolish, baited beast, and
fired at him.
A dog barked once more, very far away, and at last I understood their
scheme.
Doubtless Simon had reached the huts at dawn and had discovered us
there. He must have been in waiting, but when he saw Jacqueline run
from me he changed his plans and sent the sleigh after her. Then,
realizing from my actions that I was snow-blind, he had remained behind
with some of his followers to enjoy the sport of baiting me, and
incidentally to drive me out of the way while the sleigh went on.
And now there was complete silence. He had accomplished his purpose.
He had gained all that he had to gain. Fortune had fought upon his
side, as always.
But Jacqueline----
She had tried to escape me. She could not have been playing a
part--she was too transcendentally sincere. Something must have
occurred--some dream which had momentarily crazed her; and she had
confounded me with her persecutors.
I could not think evil of her. I flung myself down in the snow and
gave way to abject misery.
But hope is not readily overthrown. For her sake I resolved to pull
myself together. I did not now know whether Leroux was in front or
behind me, or upon either hand.
I stood deep in the snow, a pistol in each hand, waiting. When he
called again I should make my last effort.
But he called me no more. Once I heard the dog yelp, far up the
valley, and then there was only the soughing of the wind and the sting
of the driving sleet flakes. And the grey mist had closed in all about
me. I was alone in that storm-swept wilderness and there was no sun to
guide me.
I saw a shadow at my feet, and stooping down, perceived that accident
had brought me back to the sleigh tracks. From the direction in which
the dog had howled, I judged that my course lay straight ahead as I was
standing. I started off wearily. At least it was better to walk than
to perish in the snow.
But before many minutes had passed the realization of my loss stung me
into madness again, and I began to run. And, as I ran, I shouted, and,
shouting, I fired.
I plunged along--half delirious, I believe, for I began to hear voices
on every side of me and to imagine I saw Simon standing, just out of
reach, a shadow upon the mist, taunting me. I followed him at an
undeviating distance, firing, reloading, and firing again. I was no
longer conscious of my progress. The fingers that pressed the triggers
of my pistols had no sensation in them, and in my imagination were
parts of a monstrous mechanism which I directed. My legs, too, felt
like stilts that somebody had strapped to my body, and, instead of
cold, a warm glow seemed to suffuse me.
And while my helpless body stumbled along its route my mind was back in
New York. This was my apartment on Tenth Street, and Jacqueline sat
behind the curtains. I had dreamed of a long journey through a
snow-bound wilderness, but I had awakened and we were to start for
Jamaica by that day's boat. How dear she was! She raised her eyes,
full of trusting love, to mine, and I knew that there would never be
any parting until death.
We sat beneath the palms, beside a sea that plunged against our little
island, and the air was fragrant with the scent of orange-blossoms,
carried upon the wind from the distant mainland. We were so happy
there--there was no need to think or to remember. I slept against her
shoulder.
Somebody was shaking me.
"Get up!" he bellowed in my ear. "Get up! Do you want to die in the
snow?"
I closed my eyes and sank back into a lethargy of sleep.