DARKNESS
Thus the weak hand, which was to have dealt the death blow, gave life to
the traitor and liberty to the betrayer. For a secret tendril of love
still clung and quivered about the dead heart. This might not be killed
entirely, nor stamped out by a mere effort of the will, though for long
it lay quiescent, in the mood of eternal silence. The presence, the
sight of the once loved, aroused that latent force into hot overwhelming
life, banished all recollection of duty, cast into oblivion memory of
the sacred oath, the curse of her shattered life.
She became woman again--that was the difference.
Once he had deserted her, and the heart flickered out in a wild grief.
The one thought then was for vengeance. She lived for it; cried for it
to the Spirit; her soul was fed with the longing, while the waiting for
it maintained the body in strength. Then it came, the life lay in her
hand, she was bidden to crush it and satisfy all longing.
But instead she courted a felon's death in a wild effort to assist him
in escaping. To save him she gladly offered to sacrifice life and
honour, though both of these things were valueless, and dead fruit in
her mouth.
For when she saw the figure she had loved, feeling returned in a mad
torrent. Still she hated him for the vile treachery; she despised him
for the lack of manly courage: but she could not lay a destroying hand
upon the body she had worshipped. For she had loved him with a passion
of which even he himself could know nothing. She made, at the dedication
of Self, no empty lip promise; she offered no meaningless service of the
tongue; but she offered the soul and life happiness.
In her false strength, all through the weary months of the northern
winter, when she rocked the babe upon her knee, she had played the part.
It was then her strong determination to do justice to her people, to
obey her gods, to avenge her dishonoured self. Yet what was the result
of this mighty striving after an imagined duty? When the moment arrived
for the act which should for ever quench desire, when she heard the
steps of the approaching soldiers, when she knew they would seize him
she had loved, hang the one she had fondly caressed, then came the flood
of reaction. The old sharp pain crept back to the body. Again she was
woman, weak, foolish woman, with no thought but to protect, and, save
the man--what mattered it whether he were worthy of the sacrifice?--who
had first lit that sacred fire within her breast. She was fool, traitor,
coward. That is what the disappointed men called her. Perhaps they were
right.
Yet unwittingly she had leaned towards the teaching of the white man's
God--the doctrine she had so heartily rejected. The power of love had of
itself taught the heathen mind to act according to highest admonitions.
Was there then something better and greater in that strange, misty
faith. Could it be that the white God had pointed to the Religion of
Love?
Presently, as Sinclair waited anxiously for the return of the pursuers,
loud shouting uprose from the direction of the palisade. After his
reply, noisy footsteps careered along, and a minute later three figures
put in an appearance--Captain Robinson, behind his cigar; McAuliffe,
with a long-necked bottle protruding from his pocket; Dave, with his
short pipe and smug self-satisfaction. This trio had followed the former
band at a safe interval, and were now burning to learn how things had
gone.
They were somewhat taken aback to find Sinclair standing moodily in the
yellow blot of lamp light, with a young woman sobbing hysterically in a
chair, and Menotah lying without motion along the floor. The unexpected
sight checked their exuberance.
'Goldam!' exclaimed the Factor. 'Say, Billy, what sort of a picnic is
this, anyway?'
'He's gone,' replied the hunter, sourly.
'Not Lamont!' the others cried in unison.
Sinclair nodded. Then he pointed to the corpselike figure. 'She's
tricked us all.'
Dave, who had completely forgotten events of the night preceding, became
greatly concerned when he discovered the identity of the lifeless
figure.
'You've gone to work and fixed her!' he shouted. 'Who did it? By holy
heaven, Billy, if you had a hand in it, I'll fix you right now.'
'Quit it, Dave,' said the Captain. 'There's another gal here.'
'Damn 'em,' shouted Dave, wildly, 'I'll teach 'em to fix my poor gal!
I'm going to start work with Billy here.'
He produced a great revolver from his hip pocket, but before he could
bring it down to his elbow the others held him.
'Don't be a gol-darned fool, Dave,' said the Captain. 'Billy's our
pard.'
Dave struggled and swore. 'My gal's dead.'
'She's right enough,' growled Sinclair; 'only fainted.'
Dave was himself again. 'Gimme your bottle, Alf. I'm going to give my
gal a drink.'
The Factor gave him the bottle, then asked Sinclair to detail events.
'Tell us how the flush was bob-tailed, Billy.'
The hunter obeyed, and startled his listeners by the account of
Menotah's courage.
'Well, well,' said the Captain, when he had finished. 'So he's got right
away.'
'They're after him,' said Sinclair hopefully. 'He didn't get much of a
start, and they're armed.'
McAuliffe had a word to say. 'Pshaw! as if he couldn't get away from
those bullet stoppers,' he cried disdainfully. 'Tell you, Lamont's a
match for that crowd. Might as well try and catch a badger on open
prairie as him. The badger jumps into a hole and pulls it in after him.
Lamont's the same.'
In the meantime, Dave was half choking Menotah with the fiery spirit.
'When whisky fails, order the coffin,' he proclaimed, as she began to
cough.
Sinclair listened at the window. The night was very dark and pleasantly
cool by then. Rain was falling heavily. 'They should be back soon.'
'It's not far to the river, and he'll swim that,' said the Captain.
'Then he'll be all right,' added the Factor. 'The bullet stoppers won't
follow. First place, they can't swim; if they could, they'd be too
darned scared of getting wet.'
The hunter turned to Dave. 'If you want to save her, you'd better get
her away before they come back.'
'I'll chaw them up if they try to start fooling,' said Dave.
'You can't do it. They'd hang her quick enough for this night's
business.'
Dave rubbed his coarse hand along the girl's smooth neck. 'They don't
get her from Dave Spencer. We'll walk our chalks when we hear the bullet
stoppers coming.'
Menotah stirred slightly, while a faint groan burst from her lips.
Slowly she was returning from the bliss of insensibility to the awful
dreariness of life. Then the Factor bethought himself of offering
assistance to Marie.
So he snatched the bottle from the unwilling Dave, came over and touched
her awkwardly on the shoulder. Not for years had he spoken with a
'civilised' woman.
'No darned use in crying, far as I can see.'
Marie dropped her handkerchief a little, but made no reply.
'I reckon tears are sort of unsatisfactory.'
Still no answer.
McAuliffe grew desperate. 'Never mind Lamont. He's not worth troubling
over, anyway. See here! this is first-class whisky. Have a good pull at
it. It'll make you feel fine and comfortable.'
He rubbed his coat sleeve over the neck, then pushed it close to her
mouth.
Then she raised an angry flushed face. 'Leave me alone!' she cried.
'You'll have a drink?' said the Factor, blankly. 'It's fine whisky; I'm
not fooling.'
'I don't want it,' she said, with a passionate movement.
This rendered McAuliffe speechless. The person who refused a drink of
good whisky was, in his estimation, something worse than a criminal.
'If you want to do something for me,' continued Marie, 'you can take her
out of the house. She has no business here.'
'Reckon none of us have,' the Factor managed to exclaim. Then he
comforted himself secretly by means of the rejected bottle.
Here Sinclair buttoned up his coat and announced his intention of going
down to the river. Menotah had sufficiently recovered to walk, so Dave,
with a stubborn determination not to have her captured, proposed they
should return to the hotel and learn final results the next day.
The others agreed. 'How about you, though?' asked Sinclair.
Marie saw she had been addressed. 'I shall stay here,' she said
fiercely. 'I want to learn whether the soldiers have caught that
traitor. To-morrow I can go home.'
'She's provided for,' muttered the Factor. 'Come on, Captain. Dave's got
his gal.'
They went down the slippery wooden steps, while silence fell again over
the frame house where human passion had raged so fiercely that night.
* * * * *
Three men, heated with running, wet to the skin by the heavy rain, came
to the shelving bank of the Red River. About three minutes earlier
another runner had reached that spot. Without hesitation, he had
ploughed a rapid course through the mud reach and sought the deeper
water. The former had arrived in time to see the latter swimming towards
the opposite shore, putting all the force he could muster into the arm
strokes.
They stopped at the edge of the mud, with the knowledge that the
adventurer had beaten them.
Lightning still played softly across the heavens. The officer pulled his
revolver, then fired shot after shot into the deceptive red glow,
glimmering over the waters round the indistinct and distant swimmer.
With the shot that emptied the chamber they saw the fugitive drag
himself to land by aid of the long willows which swept the stream. For a
moment he paused at the foot of the tree-spread bank, to coolly wave his
hand in their direction by way of farewell. The next minute he was
swallowed up by the dark, pathless line of bush.
'No good following him there,' muttered one of the men resignedly.
The officer swore softly to himself. 'Follow! I should say not. He's as
good a bushman as any _nitchi_!
Sullenly they began to retrace their steps, the officer wondering how he
could summon courage to face his superiors; but before they had gone far
they came across the hunter, tramping stolidly along the rapidly miring
trail.
'Where is he?' cried the latter eagerly, as he recognised them.
The officer was sulkily silent, but one of the men answered for him.
'Safe in the bush.'
The hunter's face fell, for he had allowed himself to hope a capture
might be made in the mud flats.
'Well, well,' he muttered savagely, as he joined the small band and
tramped dismally back with them, 'the White Chief has escaped. That's
the devil's business.'
Lamont did not penetrate very far into the dripping bush. He knew there
could be no search before daybreak, and by that time he would be in a
place of absolute safety. So he rested for some time beneath a bluff of
black poplar, the while he planned his future course of action.
There were plenty of friendly half-breeds in the immediate vicinity. In
one of these huts or dug-outs he could safely hide for a day or so, with
his former disguise resumed. For he could make up and act the part of
the native Indian to the life. Then he would steal or borrow a
_shaganappi_ pony and ride some night to the States, only forty miles
distant in a bee-line across prairie. After, he would escape from that
continent at his leisure.
'There's a rising in Brazil,' he muttered thoughtfully. 'That will be a
good place for me to try my hand in next. A new rifle, and then for the
strongest side. Besides, there are fine women among the Creoles.'
He laughed quietly to himself in the glory of this unexpected freedom
and new life, then gathered up a handful of the clammy red clay which
had earlier given the great river its name. He squeezed forth the
moisture, then rubbed the soft slime across his features.
Next he scraped some powder from the roots of the black poplar and
applied this also in carefully arranged markings. The change was
startling. It would have required a very keen eye to have penetrated
that disguise. Then he made his cautious way into the bush, destroying
his trail as he went. There were no bloodhounds in Garry, very few
Indians or breeds would lend assistance to track the White Chief Even
so, none of them were better bushmen than himself. He was entirely safe
from pursuit.
Once he thought of Menotah, but then he only laughed at the weak
foolishness of a loving woman; he thought, indeed, more of Marie, but
then he frowned with a longing to get her again within his power.
So he passed on until he came to a place of shelter.
Shortly before autumn, he made safe landing at Rio Janeiro.