Some mesmerism in those yellow, dying eyes! Shaking with disgust, Red
Roane bent above that foul fen watcher, put down his hand to pick up
that stricken skin, over whose eyes thin eye-membrane already lowered
in death.
“Don’t touch it, Red! Wait till the sun goes down.”
_Hark! The rattle!_ Those opaque eyes shuttered back. Those yellow
glances, though in mortal pain, were still furious and glistening.
Those horny tail-bells clattered. Fangs in that shattered, insensate
head yawned, closing in Red Roane’s arm above the wrist.
I see him. Sweat upon his broad brown forehead; his laughing eyes
astounded; his thick strong body shivering; wind stirring up his dark
red hair. Behind him the brown-green marshes, grasses rippling, a stir
going through their depths. His cheeks had never been so red.
Before I could move, he unlocked those jaws and hollow fangs, gripped
hard in his arm with mortal rigor. He shivered now from the knees. His
face went white.
“Cut!” he whispered. “I’ll sit down.”
With hunting knife I slashed his arm, deep driving four crossed
cuts. He laughed, and tried to shout. Howling would have been more
pleasant. I sucked those wounds, out of which slow blood was spouting
from an artery. We panted now, both of us. He leaned heavily on my
shoulder--he, the strong. I bound his arm, my own fingers so numb I
fumbled at the work. Sweat on Red Roane’s face was cold, and cold his
wrists.
My arms clung about him. He swayed, almost toppling, clutching at grass
stems with fading laughter. I picked up his marching stock and beat
that golden, gory thing within the mire. Beat it till clay-white flesh,
and bone and skin were one with the mucky mire of the swamp. But still
its heart ebbed with deep purple pulsing. A smashing blow, and that,
too, died.
“It’s over!” Grimly I flung the bloody stave into the swaying grass.
“Yes, Jerry,” whispered Red Roane, “it’s nearly over.”
I could not believe it. Red Roane, the strong man, the shouter, the
singer, the gay-hearted lover! Is death then, so much stronger than
life?
“A woman, Jerry,” he whispered, “in Havana--Dolores! She dances--”
“For God’s sake, Red, wake up!”
“Dances at the--”
“Red! _Red Roane!_ I’m here, boy!”
Out from the way, whence we had come, faintly I heard a cry. Who wept
thus for the soul departing, sang _paean_ for the dead? Was it wind
over the stagnant grasses? Frail in the solitude, rose that wail again.
The whimper of new-born life! In the squatter’s hut the child had found
its soul!
“Dolores!” whispered Red Roane. Beneath that brazen sky he whispered
the name of love. “Dolores!”
Past a hundred miles of swamp, past a hundred miles of sea, did
Dolores, the dancer, hear him calling her?
“Dolores!”