look, and laughed in savage scorn and triumph. He saw in a flash
why, for within a time measurable by seconds she would have
escaped him utterly. As the land lay, a slope of ice sunk on the
one hand; on the other hand a steep rose, shouldering forwards;
between the two was space for a foot to be planted, but none for a
body to stand; yet a juniper bough, thrusting out, gave a handhold
secure enough for one with a resolute grasp to swing past the
perilous place, and pass on safe.
Though the first seconds of the last moment were going, she dared
to flash back a wicked look, and laugh at the pursuer who was
impotent to grasp.
[Illustration: The Finish]
The crisis struck convulsive life into his last supreme effort;
his will surged up indomitable, his speed proved matchless yet. He
leapt with a rush, passed her before her laugh had time to go out,
and turned short, barring the way, and braced to withstand her.
She came hurling desperate, with a feint to the right hand, and
then launched herself upon him with a spring like a wild beast
when it leaps to kill. And he, with one strong arm and a hand that
could not hold, with one strong hand and an arm that could not
guide and sustain, he caught and held her even so. And they fell
together. And because he felt his whole arm slipping, and his
whole hand loosing, to slack the dreadful agony of the wrenched
bone above, he caught and held with his teeth the tunic at her
knee, as she struggled up and wrung off his hands to overleap him
victorious.
Like lightning she snatched her axe, and struck him on the neck,
deep--once, twice--his life-blood gushed out, staining her feet.
The stars touched midnight.
The death scream he heard was not his, for his set teeth had
hardly yet relaxed when it rang out; and the dreadful cry began
with a woman's shriek, and changed and ended as the yell of a
beast. And before the final blank overtook his dying eyes, he saw
that She gave place to It; he saw more, that Life gave place to
Death--causelessly, incomprehensibly.
For he did not presume that no holy water could be more holy, more
potent to destroy an evil thing than the life-blood of a pure
heart poured out for another in free willing devotion.
His own true hidden reality that he had desired to know grew
palpable, recognisable. It seemed to him just this: a great glad
abounding hope that he had saved his brother; too expansive to be
contained by the limited form of a sole man, it yearned for a new
embodiment infinite as the stars.
What did it matter to that true reality that the man's brain
shrank, shrank, till it was nothing; that the man's body could not
retain the huge pain of his heart, and heaved it out through the
red exit riven at the neck; that the black noise came again
hurtling from behind, reinforced by that dissolved shape, and
blotted out for ever the man's sight, hearing, sense.
* * * * *
In the early grey of day Sweyn chanced upon the footprints of a
man--of a runner, as he saw by the shifted snow; and the direction
they had taken aroused curiosity, since a little farther their
line must be crossed by the edge of a sheer height. He turned to
trace them. And so doing, the length of the stride struck his
attention--a stride long as his own if he ran. He knew he was
following Christian.
In his anger he had hardened himself to be indifferent to the
night-long absence of his brother; but now, seeing where the
footsteps went, he was seized with compunction and dread. He had
failed to give thought and care to his poor frantic twin, who
might--was it possible?--have rushed to a frantic death.
His heart stood still when he came to the place where the leap had
been taken. A piled edge of snow had fallen too, and nothing but
snow lay below when he peered. Along the upper edge he ran for a
furlong, till he came to a dip where he could slip and climb down,
and then back again on the lower level to the pile of fallen snow.
There he saw that the vigorous running had started afresh.
He stood pondering; vexed that any man should have taken that leap
where he had not ventured to follow; vexed that he had been
beguiled to such painful emotions; guessing vainly at Christian's
object in this mad freak. He began sauntering along, half
unconsciously following his brother's track; and so in a while he
came to the place where the footprints were doubled.
Small prints were these others, small as a woman's, though the
pace from one to another was longer than that which the skirts of
women allow.
Did not White Fell tread so?
A dreadful guess appalled him, so dreadful that he recoiled from
belief. Yet his face grew ashy white, and he gasped to fetch back
motion to his checked heart. Unbelievable? Closer attention showed
how the smaller footfall had altered for greater speed, striking
into the snow with a deeper onset and a lighter pressure on the
heels. Unbelievable? Could any woman but White Fell run so? Could
any man but Christian run so? The guess became a certainty. He was
following where alone in the dark night White Fell had fled from
Christian pursuing.
Such villainy set heart and brain on fire with rage and
indignation: such villainy in his own brother, till lately
love-worthy, praiseworthy, though a fool for meekness. He would
kill Christian; had he lives many as the footprints he had trodden,
vengeance should demand them all. In a tempest of murderous hate
he followed on in haste, for the track was plain enough, starting
with such a burst of speed as could not be maintained, but brought
him back soon to a plod for the spent, sobbing breath to be
regulated. He cursed Christian aloud and called White Fell's name
on high in a frenzied expense of passion. His grief itself was a
rage, being such an intolerable anguish of pity and shame at the
thought of his love, White Fell, who had parted from his kiss free
and radiant, to be hounded straightway by his brother mad with
jealousy, fleeing for more than life while her lover was housed at
his ease. If he had but known, he raved, in impotent rebellion at
the cruelty of events, if he had but known that his strength and
love might have availed in her defence; now the only service to
her that he could render was to kill Christian.
As a woman he knew she was matchless in speed, matchless in
strength; but Christian was matchless in speed among men, nor
easily to be matched in strength. Brave and swift and strong
though she were, what chance had she against a man of his strength
and inches, frantic, too, and intent on horrid revenge against his
brother, his successful rival?
Mile after mile he followed with a bursting heart; more piteous,
more tragic, seemed the case at this evidence of White Fell's
splendid supremacy, holding her own so long against Christian's
famous speed. So long, so long that his love and admiration grew
more and more boundless, and his grief and indignation therewith
also. Whenever the track lay clear he ran, with such reckless
prodigality of strength, that it soon was spent, and he dragged on
heavily, till, sometimes on the ice of a mere, sometimes on a
wind-swept place, all signs were lost; but, so undeviating had
been their line that a course straight on, and then short questing
to either hand, recovered them again.
Hour after hour had gone by through more than half that winter
day, before ever he came to the place where the trampled snow
showed that a scurry of feet had come--and gone! Wolves' feet--and
gone most amazingly! Only a little beyond he came to the lopped
point of Christian's bear-spear; farther on he would see where the
remnant of the useless shaft had been dropped. The snow here was
dashed with blood, and the footsteps of the two had fallen closer
together. Some hoarse sound of exultation came from him that might
have been a laugh had breath sufficed. "O White Fell, my poor,
brave love! Well struck!" he groaned, torn by his pity and great
admiration, as he guessed surely how she had turned and dealt a
blow.
The sight of the blood inflamed him as it might a beast that
ravens. He grew mad with a desire to have Christian by the throat
once again, not to loose this time till he had crushed out his
life, or beat out his life, or stabbed out his life; or all these,
and torn him piecemeal likewise: and ah! then, not till then,
bleed his heart with weeping, like a child, like a girl, over the
piteous fate of his poor lost love.
On--on--on--through the aching time, toiling and straining in the
track of those two superb runners, aware of the marvel of their
endurance, but unaware of the marvel of their speed, that, in the
three hours before midnight had overpassed all that vast distance
that he could only traverse from twilight to twilight. For clear
daylight was passing when he came to the edge of an old marl-pit,
and saw how the two who had gone before had stamped and trampled
together in desperate peril on the verge. And here fresh blood
stains spoke to him of a valiant defence against his infamous
brother; and he followed where the blood had dripped till the cold
had staunched its flow, taking a savage gratification from this
evidence that Christian had been gashed deeply, maddening afresh
with desire to do likewise more excellently, and so slake his
murderous hate. And he began to know that through all his despair
he had entertained a germ of hope, that grew apace, rained upon by
his brother's blood.
He strove on as best he might, wrung now by an access of hope, now
of despair, in agony to reach the end, however terrible, sick with
the aching of the toiled miles that deferred it.
And the light went lingering out of the sky, giving place to
uncertain stars.
He came to the finish.
Two bodies lay in a narrow place. Christian's was one, but the
other beyond not White Fell's. There where the footsteps ended lay
a great white wolf.
At the sight Sweyn's strength was blasted; body and soul he was
struck down grovelling.
The stars had grown sure and intense before he stirred from where
he had dropped prone. Very feebly he crawled to his dead brother,
and laid his hands upon him, and crouched so, afraid to look or
stir farther.
Cold, stiff, hours dead. Yet the dead body was his only shelter
and stay in that most dreadful hour. His soul, stripped bare of
all sceptic comfort, cowered, shivering, naked, abject; and the
living clung to the dead out of piteous need for grace from the
soul that had passed away.
He rose to his knees, lifting the body. Christian had fallen face
forward in the snow, with his arms flung up and wide, and so had
the frost made him rigid: strange, ghastly, unyielding to Sweyn's
lifting, so that he laid him down again and crouched above, with
his arms fast round him, and a low heart-wrung groan.
[Illustration: Sweyn's Finding]
When at last he found force to raise his brother's body and gather
it in his arms, tight clasped to his breast, he tried to face the
Thing that lay beyond. The sight set his limbs in a palsy with
horror and dread. His senses had failed and fainted in utter
cowardice, but for the strength that came from holding dead
Christian in his arms, enabling him to compel his eyes to endure
the sight, and take into the brain the complete aspect of the
Thing. No wound, only blood stains on the feet. The great grim
jaws had a savage grin, though dead-stiff. And his kiss: he could
bear it no longer, and turned away, nor ever looked again.
And the dead man in his arms, knowing the full horror, had
followed and faced it for his sake; had suffered agony and death
for his sake; in the neck was the deep death gash, one arm and
both hands were dark with frozen blood, for his sake! Dead he knew
him, as in life he had not known him, to give the right meed of
love and worship. Because the outward man lacked perfection and
strength equal to his, he had taken the love and worship of that
great pure heart as his due; he, so unworthy in the inner reality,
so mean, so despicable, callous, and contemptuous towards the
brother who had laid down his life to save him. He longed for
utter annihilation, that so he might lose the agony of knowing
himself so unworthy such perfect love. The frozen calm of death on
the face appalled him. He dared not touch it with lips that had
cursed so lately, with lips fouled by kiss of the horror that had
been death.
He struggled to his feet, still clasping Christian. The dead man
stood upright within his arm, frozen rigid. The eyes were not
quite closed; the head had stiffened, bowed slightly to one side;
the arms stayed straight and wide. It was the figure of one
crucified, the blood-stained hands also conforming.
So living and dead went back along the track that one had passed
in the deepest passion of love, and one in the deepest passion of
hate. All that night Sweyn toiled through the snow, bearing the
weight of dead Christian, treading back along the steps he before
had trodden, when he was wronging with vilest thoughts, and
cursing with murderous hatred, the brother who all the while lay
dead for his sake.
Cold, silence, darkness encompassed the strong man bowed with the
dolorous burden; and yet he knew surely that that night he entered
hell, and trod hell-fire along the homeward road, and endured
through it only because Christian was with him. And he knew surely
that to him Christian had been as Christ, and had suffered and
died to save him from his sins.
[Illustration]