"There is only one way, then," he continued. "You must go at once from
here into the woods behind there, and not see him at all. Then at ten
o'clock you will come to the Saints' Repose, if you choose, to know how
the game has ended."
She was trembling, moaning, no longer. A set look had come into her
face; her eyes were steady and hard. She quietly replied: "Yes, I shall
be there."
He came to her, took her hand, and drew from her finger the wedding-ring
which last night Shon McGann had placed there. She submitted passively.
Then, with an upward wave of his fingers, he spoke in a mocking
lightness, but without any of the malice which had first appeared in his
tones, words from an old French song:
"I say no more, my lady
Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine!
I say no more, my lady,
As nought more can be said."
He opened the door, motioned to the Indian woman, and, in a few moments,
the broken-hearted Lucy Rives and her companion were hidden in the pines;
and Pretty Pierre also disappeared into the shadow of the woods as Shon
McGann appeared on the crest of the hill.
The Irishman walked slowly to the door, and pausing, said to himself:
"I couldn't run the big risk, me darlin', without seein' you again, God
help me! There's danger ahead which little I'd care for if it wasn't for
you."
Then he stepped inside the house--the place was silent; he called, but no
one answered; he threw open the doors of the rooms, but they were empty;
he went outside and called again, but no reply came, except the flutter
of a night-hawk's wings and the cry of a whippoorwill. He went back into
the house and sat down with his head between his hands. So, for a
moment, and then he raised his head, and said with a sad smile: "Faith,
Shon, me boy, this takes the life out of you! the empty house where she
ought to be, and the smile of her so swate, and the hand of her that
falls on y'r shoulder like a dove on the blessed altar-gone, and lavin'
a chill on y'r heart like a touch of the dead. Sure, nivir a wan of me
saw any that could stand wid her for goodness, barrin' the angel that
kissed me good-bye with one foot in the stirrup an' the troopers behind
me, now twelve years gone, in ould Donegal, and that I'll niver see
again, she lyin' where the hate of the world will vex the heart of her no
more, and the masses gone up for her soul. Twice, twice in y'r life,
Shon McGann, has the cup of God's joy been at y'r lips, and is it both
times that it's to spill?--Pretty Pierre shoots straight and sudden, and
maybe it's aisy to see the end of it; but as the just God is above us,
I'll give him the lie in his throat betimes for the word he said agin me
darlin'. What's the avil thing that he has to say? What's the divil's
proof he would bring? And where is she now? Where are you, Lucy? I
know the proof I've got in me heart that the wreck of the world couldn't
shake, while that light, born of Heaven, swims up to your eyes whin you
look at me!"
He rose to his feet again and walked to and fro; he went once more to the
doors; he looked here and there through the growing dusk, but to no
purpose. She had said that she would not go to her shop this night; but
if not, then where could she have gone and Ikni, too? He felt there was
more awry in his life than he cared to put into thought or speech. He
picked up the sewing she had dropped and looked at it as one would regard
a relic of the dead; he lifted her handkerchief, kissed it, and put it in
his breast. He took a revolver from his pocket and examined it closely,
looked round the room as though to fasten it in his memory, and then
passed out, closing the door behind him. He walked down the hillside and
went to her shop in the one street of the town, but she was not there,
nor had the lad in charge seen her.
Meanwhile, Pretty Pierre had made his way to the Saints' Repose, and was
sitting among the miners indolently smoking. In vain he was asked to
play cards. His one reply was, "No, pardon, no! I play one game only
to-night, the biggest game ever played in Pipi Valley." In vain, also,
was he asked to drink. He refused the hospitality, defying the danger
that such lack of good-fellowship might bring forth. He hummed in
patches to himself the words of a song that the 'brules' were wont to
sing when they hunted the buffalo:
"'Voila!' it is the sport to ride--
Ah, ah the brave hunter!
To thrust the arrow in his hide,
To send the bullet through his side
'Ici,' the buffalo, 'joli!'
Ah, ah the buffalo!"
He nodded here and there as men entered; but he did not stir from his
seat. He smoked incessantly, and his eyes faced the door of the bar-room
that entered upon the street. There was no doubt in the minds of any
present that the promised excitement would occur. Shon McGann was as
fearless as he was gay. And Pipi Valley remembered the day in which he
had twice risked his life to save two women from a burning building--Lady
Jane and another. And Lady Jane this evening was agitated, and once or
twice furtively looked at something under the bar-counter; in fact, a
close observer would have noticed anger or anxiety in the eyes of the
daughter of Dick Waldron, the keeper of the Saints' Repose. Pierre would
certainly have seen it had he been looking that way. An unusual
influence was working upon the frequenters of the busy tavern. Planned,
premeditated excitement was out of their line. Unexpectedness was the
salt of their existence. This thing had an air of system not in accord
with the suddenness of the Pipi mind. The half-breed was the only one
entirely at his ease; he was languid and nonchalant; the long lashes of
his half-shut eyelids gave his face a pensive look. At last King Kinkley
walked over to him and said: "There's an almighty mysteriousness about
this event which isn't joyful, Pretty Pierre. We want to see the muss
cleared up, of course; we want Shon McGann to act like a high-toned
citizen, and there's a general prejudice in favour of things bein' on the
flat of your palm, as it were. Now this thing hangs fire, and there's a
lack of animation about it, isn't there?"
To this, Pretty Pierre replied: "What can I do? This is not like other
things; one had to wait; great things take time. To shoot is easy; but
to shoot is not all, as you shall see if you have a little patience.
Ah, my friend, where there is a woman, things are different. I throw a
glass in your face, we shoot, someone dies, and there it is quite plain
of reason; you play a card which was dealt just now, I call you--
something, and the swiftest finger does the trick; but in such as this,
one must wait for the sport."
It was at this point that Shon McGann entered, looked round, nodded to
all, and then came forward to the table where Pretty Pierre sat. As the
other took out his watch, Shon said firmly but quietly: "Pierre, I gave
you the lie to-day concerning me wife, and I'm here, as I said I'd be,
to stand by the word I passed then."
Pierre waved his fingers lightly towards the other, and slowly rose.
Then he said in sharp tones: "Yes, Shon McGann, you gave me the lie.
There is but one thing for that in Pipi Valley. You choked me; I would
not take that from a saint of heaven; but there was another thing to do
first. Well, I have done it; I said I would bring proofs--I have them."
He paused, and now there might have been seen a shining moisture on his
forehead, and his words came menacingly from between his teeth, while the
room became breathlessly still, save that in the silence a sleeping dog
sighed heavily: "Shon McGann," he added, "you are living with my wife."
Twenty men drew in a sharp breath of excitement, and Shon came a step
nearer the other, and said in a strange voice: "I--am--living--with--
your--wife?"
"As I say, with my wife, Lucy Rives. Francois Rives was my name ten
years ago. We quarrelled. I left her, and I never saw her again until
to-night. You went to see her two hours ago. You did not find her.
Why? She was gone because her husband, Pierre, told her to go. You want
a proof? You shall have it. Here is the wedding-ring you gave her last
night."
He handed it over, and Shon saw inside it his own name and hers.
"My God!" he said. "Did she know? Tell me she didn't know, Pierre?"
"No, she did not know. I have truth to speak to night. I was jealous,
mad, and foolish, and I left her. My boat was found upset. They
believed I was drowned. 'Bien,' she waited until yesterday, and then
she took you--but she was my wife; she is my wife--and so you see!"
The Irishman was deadly pale.
"It's an avil heart y' had in y' then, Pretty Pierre, and it's an avil
day that brought this thing to pass, and there's only wan way to the end
of it."
"So, that is true. There is only one way," was the reply; "but what
shall that way be? Someone must go: there must be no mistake. I have
to propose. Here on this table we lay a revolver. We will give up these
which we have in our pockets. Then we will play a game of euchre, and
the winner of the game shall have the revolver. We will play for a life.
That is fair, eh--that is fair?" he said to those around.
King Kinkley, speaking for the rest, replied: "That's about fair. It
gives both a chance, and leaves only two when it's over. While the woman
lives, one of you is naturally in the way. Pierre left her in a way that
isn't handsome; but a wife's a wife, and though Shon was all in the glum
about the thing, and though the woman isn't to be blamed either, there's
one too many of you, and there's got to be a vacation for somebody.
Isn't that so?"
The rest nodded assent. They had been so engaged that they did not see
a woman enter the bar from behind, and crouch down beside Lady Jane,
a woman whom the latter touched affectionately on the shoulder and
whispered to once or twice, while she watched the preparations for the
game.
The two men sat down, Shon facing the bar and Pierre with his back to it.
The game began, neither man showing a sign of nervousness, though Shon
was very pale. The game was to finish for ten points. Men crowded about
the tables silent but keenly excited; cigars were chewed instead of
smoked, and liquor was left undrunk. At the first deal Pierre made a
march, securing two. At the next Shon made a point, and at the next also
a march. The half-breed was playing a straight game. He could have
stacked the cards, but he did not do so; deft as he was he might have
cheated even the vigilant eyes about him, but it was not so; he played as
squarely as a novice. At the third, at the fourth, deal he made a march;
at the fifth, sixth, and seventh deals, Shon made a march, a point, and a
march. Both now had eight points. At the next deal both got a point,
and both stood at nine!
Now came the crucial play.
During the progress of the game nothing had been heard save the sound of
a knuckle on the table, the flip flip of the pasteboard, or the rasp of a
heel on the floor. There was a set smile on Shon's face--a forgotten
smile, for the rest of the face was stern and tragic. Pierre smoked
cigarettes, pausing, while his opponent was shuffling and dealing, to
light them.
Behind the bar as the game proceeded the woman who knelt beside Lady Jane
listened to every sound. Her eyes grew more agonised as the numbers,
whispered to her by her companion, climbed to the fatal ten.
The last deal was Shon's; there was that much to his advantage. As he
slowly dealt, the woman--Lucy Rives--rose to her feet behind Lady Jane.
So absorbed were all that none saw her. Her eyes passed from Pierre to
Shon, and stayed.
When the cards were dealt, with but one point for either to gain, and so
win and save his life, there was a slight pause before the two took them
up. They did not look at one another; but each glanced at the revolver,
then at the men nearest them, and lastly, for an instant, at the cards
themselves, with their pasteboard faces of life and death turned
downward. As the players picked them up at last and spread them out fan-
like, Lady Jane slipped something into the hand of Lucy Rives.
Those who stood behind Shon McGann stared with anxious astonishment at
his hand; it contained only nine and ten spots. It was easy to see the
direction of the sympathy of Pipi Valley. The Irishman's face turned a
slight shade paler, but he did not tremble or appear disturbed.
Pierre played his biggest card and took the point. He coolly counted
one, and said, "Game. I win." The crowd drew back. Both rose to their
feet. In the painful silence the half-breed's hand was gently laid on
the revolver. He lifted it, and paused slightly, his eyes fixed to the
steady look in those of Shon McGann. He raised the revolver again, till
it was level with Shon's forehead, till it was even with his hair! Then
there was a shot, and someone fell--not Shon, but Pierre, saying, as they
caught him, "Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! From behind!"
Instantly there was another shot, and someone crashed against the bottles
in the bar. The other factor in the game, the wife, had shot at Pierre,
and then sent a bullet through her own lungs.
Shon stood for a moment as if he was turned to stone, and then his head
dropped in his arms upon the table. He had seen both shots fired, but
could not speak in time.
Pierre was severely but not dangerously wounded in the neck.
But the woman--? They brought her out from behind the counter. She
still breathed; but on her eyes was the film of coming death. She turned
to where Shon sat. Her lips framed his name, but no voice came forth.
Someone touched him on the shoulder. He looked up and caught her last
glance. He came and stooped beside her; but she had died with that one
glance from him, bringing a faint smile to her lips. And the smile
stayed when the life of her had fled--fled through the cloud over her
eyes, from the tide-beat of her pulse. It swept out from the smoke and
reeking air into the open world, and beyond, into those untried paths
where all must walk alone, and in what bitterness, known only to the
Master of the World who sees these piteous things, and orders in what
fashion distorted lives shall be made straight and wholesome in the
Places of Readjustment.
Shon stood silent above the dead body.
One by one the miners went out quietly. Presently Pierre nodded towards
the door, and King Kinkley and another lifted him and carried him towards
it. Before they passed into the street he made them turn him so that he
could see Shon. He waved his hand towards her that had been his wife,
and said: "She should have shot but once and straight, Shon McGann, and
then!--Eh, 'bien!'"
The door closed, and Shon McGann was left alone with the dead.