THE HOUR OF DEATH
A red, unwinking eye staring at him fixedly from out of impenetrable
gloom--an ogreish, gleaming thing that brought life back into him with a
thrill of horror--was Howland's first vision of returning consciousness.
It was dead in front of him, on a level with his face--a ball of yellow
fire that seemed to burn into his very soul. He tried to cry out, but no
sound fell from his lips; he strove to move, to fight himself away, but
there was no power of movement in his limbs. The eye grew larger. He saw
that it was so bright it cast a halo, and the halo widened before his
own staring eyes until the dense gloom about it seemed to be melting
away. Then he knew. It was a lantern in front of him, not more than ten
feet away. Consciousness flooded him, and he made another effort to cry
out, to free his arms from an invisible clutch that held him powerless.
At first he thought this was the clutch of human hands; then as the
lantern-light revealed more clearly the things about him and the
outlines of his own figure, he saw that it was a rope, and he knew that
he was unable to cry out because of something tight and suffocating
about his mouth.
The truth came to him swiftly. He had come up to the coyote on a sledge.
Some one had struck him. He remembered that men had half-dragged him
over the rocks, and these men had bound and gagged him, and left him
here, with the lantern staring him in the face. But where was he? He
shifted his eyes, straining to penetrate the gloom. Ahead of him, just
beyond the light, there was a black wall; he could not move his head,
but he saw where that same wall closed in on the left. He turned his
gaze upward, and it ended with that same imprisoning barrier of rock.
Then he looked down, and the cry of horror that rose in his throat died
in a muffled groan. The light fell dimly on a sack--two of
them--three--a tightly packed wall of them.
He knew now what had happened. He was imprisoned in the coyote, and the
sacks about him were filled with powder. He was sitting on something
hard--a box--fifty pounds of dynamite! The cold sweat stood out in beads
on his face, glistening in the lantern-glow. From between his feet a
thin, white, ghostly line ran out until it lost itself in the blackness
under the lantern. It was the fuse, leading to the box of dynamite on
which he was sitting!
Madly he struggled at the thongs that bound him until he sank exhausted
against the row of powder sacks at his back. Like words of fire
the last warning of Meleese burned in his brain--"You must go,
to-morrow--to-morrow--or they will kill you!" And this was the way in
which he was to die! There flamed before his eyes the terrible spectacle
which he had witnessed a few hours before--the holocaust of fire and
smoke and thunder that had disrupted a mountain, a chaos of writhing,
twisting fury, and in that moment his heart seemed to cease its beating.
He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. Was it possible that there
lived men so fiendish as to condemn him to this sort of death? Why had
not his enemies killed him out among the rocks? That would have been
easier--quicker--less troublesome. Why did they wish to torture him?
What terrible thing had he done? Was he mad--mad--and this all a
terrible nightmare, a raving find unreal contortion of things in his
brain? In this hour of death question after question raced through his
head, and he answered no one of them. He sat still for a time, scarcely
breathing. There was no sound, save the beating of his own heart. Then
there came another, almost unheard at first, faint, thrilling,
maddening.
Tick--tick--tick!
It was the beating of his watch. A spasm of horror seized him.
What time was it? The coyote was to be fired at nine o'clock. It was
four when he left his cabin. How long had he been unconscious? Was it
time now--now? Was MacDonald's finger already reaching out to that
little white button which would send him into eternity?
He struggled again, gnashing furiously at the thing which covered his
mouth, tearing the flesh of his wrists as he twisted at the ropes which
bound him, choking himself with his efforts to loosen the thong about
his neck. Exhausted again, he sank back, panting, half dead. As he lay
with closed eyes a little of his reason asserted itself. After all, was
he such a coward as to go mad?
Tick--tick--tick!
His watch was beating at a furious rate. Was something wrong with it?
Was it going too fast? He tried to count the seconds, but they raced
away from him. When he looked again his gaze fell on the little yellow
tongue of flame in the lantern globe. It was not the steady, unwinking
eye of a few minutes before. There was a sputtering weakness about it
now, and as he watched the light grew fainter and fainter. The flame was
going out. A few minutes more and he would be in darkness. At first the
significance of it did not come to him; then he straightened himself
with a jerk that tightened the thong about his neck until it choked him.
Hours must have passed since the lantern had been placed on that rock,
else the oil would not be burned out of it now!
For the first time Howland realized that it was becoming more and more
difficult for him to get breath. The thing about his neck was
tightening, slowly, inexorably, like a hot band of steel, and suddenly,
because of this tightening, he found that he had recovered his voice.
"This damned rawhide--is pinching--my Adam's apple--"
Whatever had been about his mouth had slipped down and his words sounded
hollow and choking in the rock-bound chamber. He tried to raise his
voice in a shout, though he knew how futile his loudest shrieks would
be. The effort choked him more. His suffering was becoming excruciating.
Sharp pains darted like red-hot needles through his limbs, his back
tortured him, and his head ached as though a knife had cleft the base of
his skull. The strength of his limbs was leaving him. He no longer felt
any sensation in his cramped feet. He measured the paralysis creeping up
his legs inch by inch, driving the sharp pains before it--and then a
groan of horror rose to his lips.
The light had gone out!
As if that dying of the little yellow flame were the signal for his
death, there came to his ears a sharp hissing sound, a spark leaped up
into the blackness before his eyes, and a slow, creeping glow came
toward him over the rock at his feet.
The hour--the minute--the second had come, and MacDonald had pressed the
little white button that was to send him into eternity! He did not cry
out now. He knew that the end was very near, and in its nearness he
found new strength. Once he had seen a man walk to his death on the
scaffold, and as the condemned had spoken his last farewell, with the
noose about his neck, he had marveled at the clearness of his voice, at
the fearlessness of this creature in his last moment on earth.
Now he understood. Inch by inch the fuse burned toward him--a fifth of
the distance, a quarter--now a third. At last it reached a half--was
almost under his feet. Two minutes more of life. He put his whole
strength once again in an attempt to free his hands. This time his
attempt was cool, steady, masterful---with death one hundred seconds
away. His heart gave a sudden bursting leap into his throat when he felt
something give. Another effort--and in the powder-choked vault there
rang out a thrilling cry of triumph. His hands were free! He reached
forward to the fuse, and this time a moaning, wordless sob fell from
him, faint, terrifying, with all the horror that might fill a human
soul in its inarticulate note. He could not reach the fuse because of
the thong about his neck!
He felt for his knife. He had left it in his room. Sixty seconds
more--forty--thirty! He could see the fiery end of the fuse almost at
his feet. Suddenly his groping fingers came in contact with the cold
steel of his pocket revolver and with a last hope he snatched it forth,
stretching down his pistol arm until the muzzle of the weapon was within
a dozen inches of the deadly spark. At his first shot the spark leaped,
but did not go out. After the second there was no longer the fiery,
creeping thing on the floor, and, crushing his head back against the
sacks, Howland sat for many minutes as if death had in reality come to
him in the moment of his deliverance. After a time, with tedious
slowness, he worked a hand into his trousers' pocket, where he carried a
pen-knife. It took him a long time to saw through the rawhide thong
about his neck. After that he cut the rope that bound his ankles.
He made an effort to rise, but no sooner had he gained his feet than his
paralyzed limbs gave way under him and he dropped in a heap on the
floor. Very slowly the blood began finding its way through his choked
veins again, and with the change there came over him a feeling of
infinite restfulness. He stretched himself out, with his face turned to
the black wall above, realizing only that he was saved, that he had
outwitted his mysterious enemies again, and that he was comfortable. He
made no effort to think--to scheme out his further deliverance. He was
with the powder and the dynamite, and the powder and the dynamite could
not be exploded until human hands came to attach a new fuse. MacDonald
would attend to that very soon, so he went off into a doze that was
almost sleep. In his half-consciousness there came to him but one
sound--that dreadful ticking of his watch. He seemed to have listened
to it for hours when there arose another sound--the ticking of
another watch.
He sat up, startled, wondering, and then he laughed happily as he heard
the sound more distinctly. It was the beating of picks on the rock
outside. Already MacDonald's men were at work clearing the mouth of the
coyote. In half an hour he would be out in the big, breathing
world again.
The thought brought him to his feet. The numbness was gone from his
limbs and he could walk about. His first move was to strike a match and
look at his watch.
"Half-past ten!"
He spoke the words aloud, thinking of Meleese. In an hour and a half he
was to meet her on the trail. Would he be released in time to keep the
tryst? How should he explain his imprisonment in the coyote so that he
could leave MacDonald without further loss of time? As the sound of the
picks came nearer his brain began working faster. If he could only evade
explanations until morning--and then reveal the whole dastardly
business to MacDonald! There would be time then for those explanations,
for the running down of his murderous assailants, and in the while he
would be able to keep his appointment with Meleese.
He was not long in finding a way in which this scheme could be worked,
and gathering up the severed ropes and rawhide he concealed them between
two of the powder sacks so that those who entered the coyote would
discover no signs of his terrible imprisonment. Close to the mouth of
the tunnel there was a black rent in the wall of rock, made by a
bursting charge of dynamite, in which he could conceal himself. When the
men were busy examining the broken fuse he would step out and join them.
It would look as though he had crawled through the tunnel after them.
Half an hour later a mass of rock rolled down close to his feet, and a
few moments after he saw a shadowy human form crawling through the hole
it had left. A second followed, and then a third;--and the first voice
he heard was that of MacDonald.
"Give us the lantern, Bucky," he called back, and a gleam of light shot
into the black chamber. The men walked cautiously toward the fuse, and
Howland saw the little superintendent fall on his knees.
"What in hell!" he heard him exclaim, and then there was a silence. As
quietly as a cat Howland worked himself to the entrance and made a
clatter among the rocks. It was he who responded to the voice.
"What's up, MacDonald?"
He coolly joined the little group. MacDonald looked up, and when he saw
the new chief bending over him his eyes stared in unbounded wonder.
"Howland!" he gasped.
It was all he said, but in that one word and in the strange excitement
in the superintendent's face Howland read that which made him turn
quickly to the men, giving them his first command as general-in-chief of
the road that was going to the bay.
"Get out of the coyote, boys," he said. "We won't do anything more until
morning."
To MacDonald, as the men went out ahead of them, he added in a low
voice:
"Guard the entrance to this tunnel with half a dozen of your best men
to-night, MacDonald. I know things which will lead me to investigate
this to-morrow. I'm going to leave you as soon as I get outside. Spread
the report that it was simply a bad fuse. Understand?"
He crawled out ahead of the superintendent, and before MacDonald had
emerged from the coyote he had already lost himself in the starlit gloom
of the night and was hastening to his tryst with the beautiful girl,
who, he believed, would reveal to him at least a part of one of the
strangest and most diabolical plots that had ever originated in the
brain of man.