XIX

With the slow approach of the storm which was advancing over the

wilderness, Carrigan felt more poignantly the growing unrest that was

in him. He heard the last of St. Pierre's voice, and after that the

fires on the distant shore died out slowly, giving way to utter

blackness. Faintly there came to him the far-away rumbling of thunder.

The air grew heavy and thick, and there was no sound of night-bird over

the breast of the river, and out of the thick cedar and spruce and

balsam there came no cry or whisper of the nocturnal life waiting in

silence for the storm to break. In that stillness David put out the

lights in the cabin and sat close to the window in darkness.

He was more than sleepless. Every nerve in his body demanded action,

and his brain was fired by strange thoughts until their vividness

seemed to bring him face to face with a reality that set his blood

stirring with an irresistible thrill. He believed he had made a

discovery, that St. Pierre had betrayed himself. What he had visioned,

the conclusion he had arrived at, seemed inconceivable, yet what his

own eyes had seen and his ears had heard pointed to the truth of it

all. The least he could say was that St. Pierre's love for Marie-Anne

Boulain was a strange sort of love. His attitude toward her seemed more

like that of a man in the presence of a child of whom he was fond in a

fatherly sort of way. His affection, as he had expressed it, was

parental and careless. Not for an instant had there been in it a

betrayal of the lover, no suggestion of the husband who cared deeply or

who might be made jealous by another man.

Sitting in darkness thickening with the nearer approach of storm, David

recalled the stab of pain mingled with humiliation that had come into

the eyes of St. Pierre's wife when she had stood facing her husband. He

heard again, with a new understanding, the low note of pathos in her

voice as in song she had called upon the Mother of Christ to hear

her--and help her. He had not guessed at the tragedy of it then. Now he

knew, and he thought of her lying awake in the gloom beyond the

bulkhead, her eyes were with tears. And St. Pierre had gone back to his

raft, singing in the night! Where before there had been sympathy for

him, there rose a sincere revulsion. There had been a reason for St.

Pierre's masterly possession of himself, and it had not been, as he had

thought, because of his bigness of soul. It was because he had not

cared. He was a splendid hypocrite, playing his game well at the

beginning, but betraying the lie at the end. He did not love Marie-Anne

as he, Dave Carrigan, loved her. He had spoken of her as a child, and

he had treated her as a child, and was serenely dispassionate in the

face of a situation which would have roused the spirit in most men. And

suddenly, recalling that thrilling hour in the white strip of sand and

all that had happened since, it flashed upon David that St. Pierre was

using his wife as the vital moving force in a game of his own--that

under the masquerade of his apparent faith and bigness of character he

was sacrificing her to achieve a certain mysterious something it the

scheme of his own affairs.

Yet he could not forget the infinite faith Marie-Anne Boulain had

expressed in her husband. There had been no hypocrisy in her waiting

and her watching for him, or in her belief that he would straighten out

the tangles of the dilemma in which she had become involved. Nor had

there been make-believe in the manner she had left him that day in her

eagerness to go to St. Pierre. Adding these facts as he had added the

others, he fancied he saw the truth staring at him out of the darkness

of his cabin room. Marie-Anne loved her husband. And St. Pierre was

merely the possessor, careless and indifferent, almost brutally

dispassionate in his consideration of her.

A heavy crash of thunder brought Carrigan back to a realization of the

impending storm. He rose to his feet in the chaotic gloom, facing the

bulkhead beyond which he was certain St. Pierre's wife lay wide awake.

He tried to laugh. It was inexcusable, he told himself, to let his

thoughts become involved in the family affairs of St. Pierre and

Marie-Anne. That was not his business. Marie-Anne, in the final

analysis, did not appear to be especially abused, and her mind was not

a child's mind. Probably she would not thank him for his interest in

the matter. She would tell him, like any other woman with pride, that

it was none of his business and that he was presuming upon forbidden

ground.

He went to the window. There was scarcely a breath of air, and

unfastening the screen, he thrust out his head and shoulders into the

night. It was so black that he could not see the shadow of the water

almost within reach of his hands, but through the chaos of gloom that

lay between him and the opposite shore he made out a single point of

yellow light. He was positive the light was in the cabin on the raft.

And St. Pierre was probably in that cabin.

A huge drop of rain splashed on his hand, and behind him he heard

sweeping over the forest tops the quickening march of the deluge. There

was no crash of thunder or flash of lightning when it broke. Straight

down, in an inundation, it came out of a sky thick enough to slit with

a knife. Carrigan drew in his head and shoulders and sniffed the sweet

freshness of it. He tried again to make out the light on the raft, but

it was obliterated.

Mechanically he began taking off his clothes, and in a few moments he

stood again at the window, naked. Thunder and lightning had caught up

with the rain, and in the flashes of fire Carrigan's ghost-white face

stared in the direction of the raft. In his veins was at work an

insistent and impelling desire. Over there was St. Pierre, he was

undoubtedly in the cabin, and something might happen if he, Dave

Carrigan, took advantage of storm and gloom to go to the raft.

It was almost a presentiment that drew his bare head and shoulders out

through the window, and every hunting instinct in him urged him to the

adventure. The stygian darkness was torn again by a flash of fire. In

it he saw the river and the vivid silhouette of the distant shore. It

would not be a difficult swim, and it would be good training for

tomorrow.

Like a badger worming his way out of a hole a bit too small for him,

Carrigan drew himself through the window. A lightning flash caught him

at the edge of the bateau, and he slunk back quickly against the cabin,

with the thought that other eyes might be staring out into that same

darkness. In the pitch gloom that followed he lowered himself quietly

into the river, thrust himself under water, and struck out for the

opposite shore.

When he came to the surface again it was in the glare of another

lightning flash. He flung the water from his face, chose a point

several hundred yards above the raft, and with quick, powerful strokes

set out in its direction. For ten minutes he quartered the current

without raising his head. Then he paused, floating unresistingly with

the slow sweep of the river, and waited for another illumination. When

it came, he made out the tented raft scarcely a hundred yards away and

a little below him. In the next darkness he found the edge of it and

dragged himself up on the mass of timbers.

The thunder had been rolling steadily westward, and David crouched low,

hoping for one more flash to illumine the raft. It came at last from a

mass of inky cloud far to the west, so indistinct that it made only dim

shadows out of the tents and shelters, but it was sufficient to give

him direction. Before its faint glare died out, he saw the deeper

shadow of the cabin forward.

For many minutes he lay where he had dragged himself, without making a

movement in its direction. Nowhere about him could he see a sign of

light, nor could he hear any sound of life. St. Pierre's people were

evidently deep in slumber.

Carrigan had no very definite idea of the next step in his adventure.

He had swum from the bateau largely under impulse, with no preconceived

scheme of action, urged chiefly by the hope that he would find St.

Pierre in the cabin and that something might come of it. As for

knocking at the door and rousing the chief of the Boulains from

sleep--he had at the present moment no very good excuse for that. No

sooner had the thought and its objection come to him than a broad shaft

of light shot with startling suddenness athwart the blackness of the

raft, darkened in another instant by an obscuring shadow. Swift as the

light itself David's eyes turned to the source of the unexpected

illumination. The door of St. Pierre's cabin was wide open. The

interior was flooded with lampglow, and in the doorway stood St. Pierre

himself.

The chief of the Boulains seemed to be measuring the weather

possibilities of the night. His subdued voice reached David, chuckling

with satisfaction, as he spoke to some one who was behind him in the

cabin.

"Pitch and brimstone, but it's black!" he cried. "You could carve it

with a knife, and stand it on end, AMANTE. But it's going west. In a

few hours the stars will be out."

He drew back into the cabin, and the door closed. David held his breath

in amazement, staring at the blackness where a moment before the light

had been. Who was it St. Pierre had called sweetheart? AMANTE! He could

not have been mistaken. The word had come to him clearly, and there was

but one guess to make. Marie-Anne was not on the bateau. She had played

him for a fool, had completely hoodwinked him in her plot with St.

Pierre. They were cleverer than he had supposed, and in darkness she

had rejoined her husband on the raft! But why that senseless play of

falsehood? What could be their object in wanting him to believe she was

still aboard the bateau?

He stood up on his feet and mopped the warm rain from his face, while

the gloom hid the grim smile that came slowly to his lips. Close upon

the thrill of his astonishment he felt a new stir in his blood which

added impetus to his determination and his action. He was not disgusted

with himself, nor was he embittered by what he had thought of a moment

ago as the lying hypocrisy of his captors. To be beaten in his game of

man-hunting was sometimes to be expected, and Carrigan always gave

proper credit to the winners. It was also "good medicine" to know that

Marie-Anne, instead of being an unhappy and neglected wife, had blinded

him with an exquisitely clever simulation. Just why she had done it,

and why St. Pierre had played his masquerade, it was his duty now to

find out.

An hour ago he would have cut off a hand before spying upon St.

Pierre's wife or eavesdropping under her window. Now he felt no

uneasiness of conscience as he approached the cabin, for Marie-Anne

herself had destroyed all reason for any delicate discrimination on his

part.

The rain had almost stopped, and in one of the near tents he heard a

sleepy voice. But he had no fear of chance discovery. The night would

remain dark for a long time, and in his bare feet he made no sound the

sharpest ears of a dog ten feet away might have heard. Close to the

cabin door, yet in such a way that the sudden opening of it would not

reveal him, he paused and listened.

Distinctly he heard St. Pierre's voice, but not the words. A moment

later came the soft, joyous laughter of a woman, and for an instant a

hand seemed to grip David's heart, filling it with pain. There was no

unhappiness in that laughter. It seemed, instead, to tremble in an

exultation of gladness.

Suddenly St. Pierre came nearer the door, and his voice was more

distinct. "Chere-coeur, I tell you it is the greatest joke of my life,"

he heard him say. "We are safe. If it should come to the worst, we can

settle the matter in another way. I can not but sing and laugh, even in

the face of it all. And she, in that very innocence which amuses me so,

has no suspicion--"

He turned, and vainly David keyed his ears to catch the final words.

The voices in the cabin grew lower. Twice he heard the soft laughter of

the woman. St. Pierre's voice, when he spoke, was unintelligible.

The thought that his random adventure was bringing him to an important

discovery possessed Carrigan. St. Pierre, he believed, had been on the

very edge of disclosing something which he would have given a great

deal to know. Surely in this cabin there must be a window, and the

window would be open--

Quietly he felt his way through the darkness to the shore side of the

cabin. A narrow bar of light at least partly confirmed his judgment.

There was a window. But it was almost entirely curtained, and it was

closed. Had the curtain been drawn two inches lower, the thin stream of

light would have been shut entirely out from the night.

Under this window David crouched for several minutes, hoping that in

the calm which was succeeding the storm it might be opened. The voices

were still more indistinct inside. He scarcely heard St. Pierre, but

twice again he heard the low and musical laughter of the woman. She had

laughed differently with HIM--and the grim smile settled on his lips as

he looked up at the narrow slit of light over his head. He had an

overwhelming desire to look in. After all, it was a matter of

professional business--and his duty.

He was glad the curtain was drawn so low. From experiments of his own

he knew there was small chance of those inside seeing him through the

two-inch slit, and he raised himself boldly until his eyes were on a

level with the aperture.

Directly in the line of his vision was St. Pierre's wife. She was

seated, and her back was toward him, so he could not see her face. She

was partly disrobed, and her hair was streaming loose about her. Once,

he remembered, she had spoken of fiery lights that came into her hair

under certain illumination. He had seen them in the sun, but never as

they revealed themselves now in that cabin lamp glow. He scarcely

looked at St. Pierre, who was on his feet, looking down upon her--not

until St. Pierre reached out and crumpled the smothering mass of

glowing tresses in his big hands, and laughed. It was a laugh filled

with the unutterable joy of possession. The woman rose to her feet. Up

through her hair went her two white, bare arms, encircling St. Pierre's

neck. The giant drew her close. Her slim form seemed to melt in his,

and their lips met.

And then the woman threw back her head, laughing, so that her glory of

hair fell straight down, and she was out of reach of St. Pierre's lips.

They turned. Her face fronted the window, and out in the night Carrigan

stifled a cry that almost broke from his lips. For a flash he was

looking straight into her eyes. Her parted lips seemed smiling at him;

her white throat and bosom were bared to him. He dropped down, his

heart choking him as he stumbled through the darkness to the edge of

the raft. There, with the lap of the water at his feet, he paused. It

was hard for him to get Breath. He stared through the gloom in the

direction of the bateau. Marie-Anne Boulain, the woman he loved, was

there! In her little cabin, alone, on the bateau, was St. Pierre's

wife, her heart crushed.

And in this cabin on the raft, forgetful of her degradation and her

grief, was the vilest wretch he had ever known--St. Pierre Boulain. And

with him, giving herself into his arms, caressing him with her lips and

hair, was the sister of the man he had helped to hang--CARMIN FANCHET!