MASTERS AGAIN
In the hour preceding dawn, Roy gave over his fight against an
unaccustomed nervousness that had kept him awake, rose, took a
sponge bath, shaved, and dressed himself for the day. He stole from
the room, and quietly let himself out of the house, in confident
expectation that the outdoors charm of dawn would soothe the unrest
of his spirit. A slight noise arrested his attention as he went
toward the north end of the cottage. He was wearing tennis shoes,
of which the rubber soles made no sound on the ground, and he went
forward with caution, his curiosity aroused, for he was certain that
he caught a sibilant whisper. Already, there was a rosy grayness
stealing on the air, so that he could see, though dimly. As he came
to the corner of the house, he halted, and peered covertly forward.
He could distinguish a shadow that moved a little. As his eyes
grew accustomed to the twilight, he made out that there were two
forms there, one much the larger. Again, his ears detected a faint
whispering, too indistinct to be understood. Then, one softly spoken
phrase came clearly:
“Come away--they’ll hear us.” It was the voice of the engineer.
Roy’s muscles tensed for the leap forward. But he remembered the fact
that as yet there was nothing in the way of direct evidence against
Masters. He and his friends believed in the man’s guilt, but there
was no proof. Now something might be said that would serve to convict
the engineer of his crimes. Roy determined to listen, to learn what
he might. The two who had met thus mysteriously moved toward the
north-east, going swiftly toward the shore of the lake. At a safe
distance behind them, Roy followed.
The couple halted in an open place on the lake shore, where a cliff
dropped sheer to the water some thirty feet, as much more to the
bottom of the lake. Roy contrived to make a slow progress to a point
in the undergrowth above them, hardly a rod away, and here he was
able to understand every word spoken between them. And now, fire of
wrath, kindled by jealousy, burned fiercely in Roy’s bosom, for
there came to him the voice of the smaller of the two persons, and it
was the voice of a girl--the voice of May Thurston. Strangely, the
idea that she could be the one thus to meet the engineer by stealth
had not occurred to him hitherto, and the shock of the discovery came
near to robbing him of his self-control. Indeed he made a movement
to dart forth, but again his action was checked by the command of
reason, though through evil seconds he fought against obedience.
Then abruptly, his mood changed as he caught the significance of the
dialogue between the speakers:
“I knew it was you,” May was saying, in a voice vibrant with horror,
which she strove to repress. “I knew it was you that first time,
for I went up there, and found the rifle in the tree where you had
been when I met you in the morning. I supposed, of course, that you
understood how I knew, and so you wouldn’t dare to try again. And I
thought you had gone. Thank God, I couldn’t sleep tonight, and came
out in time to see you light that fuse--in time to put it out before
you could stop me. I shall tell them everything in the morning, the
first thing.”
There was a note of finality in her voice. It was evident that
whatever tenderness she had felt for this man had been overwhelmed
beneath the flood of her loathing for his crimes. Masters must have
understood perfectly the uselessness of all effort to persuade her
from her purpose, for he wasted not an instant in argument; instead,
he acted.
Before Roy could make a movement to interfere, the engineer had
leaped forward. His long, powerful fingers closed in a strangling
grasp on the soft, white throat of the girl, sank viciously into the
tender flesh. May’s eyes protruded, her arms straightened out in a
spasm of physical anguish, but no sound issued from the parted lips.
Almost in the same second, Masters shifted his grip with lightning
speed to her waist, lifted her easily, and swung her from the cliff
out into space. Then, he went crashing off into the wood, running
blindly, ere yet came the splash made by the girl’s falling body as
it entered the water.
Perhaps Masters did not hear the second splash, which followed after
the briefest interval. If he heard, and thought of it at all, he
probably deemed it caused by some rock his movement had set rolling
over the cliff. Assuredly, he never dreamed that there had been at
hand a man to plunge after his victim, to save her from the death to
which he had assigned her. In his intimacy with May, he had learned
that she could not swim. In that deep water, where the naked cliff
rising vertically offered no hand-hold, she, in her dazed condition,
could have no chance to escape alive out of the peril into which his
cruelty had cast her. Such was the engineer’s belief, and his feeling
was merely of satisfaction in thus having rid himself of the witness
who knew his blood-guiltiness.
Even as his body clove the air in the long dive to the water, Roy
was conscious of a pang of regret that he must suffer the enemy to
escape. Then, he was beneath the surface, groping vainly. As his head
shot clear again, his eyes glimpsed May’s head just disappearing near
at hand. In a moment, he had reached her, was in time to seize her
before she sank again. He was at home in the element, and, as the
girl was unconscious, and so offered no resistance by a struggle, his
task was all the easier. He quickly brought her to the shore, at a
point where there was a break in the cliff, and the ground sloped
sharply to the level above. He did not pause until he had carried her
in his arms to the top of the bank. There, he laid her face downward
on the ground, then lifted her by the waist, so that the lungs
might empty themselves of water. Afterward, he chafed her face and
hands, and soon, to his great relief, she showed signs of returning
consciousness. As she had been immersed for so brief a time, she
speedily made a complete recovery, save for the weakness consequent
to the shock of the whole experience. Indeed, her wretchedness was
rather from the violence of the engineer’s attack than from the
little water she had swallowed before her rescue by Roy.
It was after the first confused questioning on her part, and Roy’s
account of his presence on the scene, that she gave an explanation of
the events that had led to the attempt against her life. She, too,
had sought relief from wearisome wakefulness by wandering abroad in
the night. While she was close to the cottage, yet in the shadows
of the wood, she had heard a sound that attracted her attention,
and had watched carefully. There was a long silence before her
interest was rewarded, but at last, she made out a movement on the
north wall of the cottage itself, which was only a little way from
her. Observing closely, she perceived that the object was a man,
who was descending a ladder. It needed no more to fill her with
alarm, and with fear came suspicion, which was almost certainty,
as to the identity of the prowler. At first, however, she remained
quiescent, doubtful as to her right course of conduct, anxious,
if it were in any wise possible, to avoid alarming the household.
During her period of delay, the man disappeared with the ladder, but
he returned immediately, and forthwith she saw a match struck. It
was extinguished at once, but, as the flame died out, she beheld a
glowing spark, which remained against the wall. Even as she stared,
it seemed to mount upward very slowly. She believed, then, that the
desperate man had determined to set the cottage on fire, and a new
horror gripped her, so that the scream she attempted did not pass
her lips. In an instant, she had reached the cottage--she caught
the spark between her palms, and smothered the fire. Before she
had time to understand the situation, she was hurled backward, and
found herself in the arms of Masters, who was whispering fiercely
in her ear to be silent. Without giving him any heed at first, she
mechanically examined her smudged hands, and found that she held in
them the charred end of a cord. As she drew the length of this to
her, it came readily, and she was aware that it had broken from its
fastening under the impact of the man’s leap on her. She knew, also,
that this thing she was holding was a fuse. Her quick intelligence
grasped the truth that the treacherous engineer, who now embraced
her so roughly, had again sought to destroy his enemies. She was so
agitated by the realization, so distraught by the thought that she
was lying helpless within the criminal’s arms, while he held a hand
over her mouth to silence her shrieks, that she even welcomed the
suggestion overheard by Roy as to their moving to a greater distance
from the cottage. The remainder of the incident was already known to
her savior.
As she ended her story, May, overwrought, began crying softly. There
are times when the simplicity of direct physical contact avails
more than any magic of words to tell sympathy and love. It was so in
this instance. Wet and bedraggled as he was from his descent into
the lake, Roy drew into his arms the crouched form of the girl, and
held her closely, while from them the rivulets slid silently away
downward, to seek again the lake from which they had been ravished.
The girl was first startled, then soothed, then wondrously content.
The dawn came, stealing softly, and the light fell on them as a
blessing.