Part 18 (1/2)

”I can see the white comb of the reef beyond it, my dear.”

”And no one--is coming?”

”There are men making for the sh.o.r.e, and the fires are burning, but no one is--coming this way.... He would come by the road, perhaps.”

”Oh no, by the river. Pierre has not found him. Can you see the Eddy?”

”Yes. It is all quiet there; nothing but the logs tossing round it.”

”We used to sit there--he and I--by the big cedar tree. Everything was so cool and sweet. There was only the sound of the force-pump and the swallowing of the Eddy. They say that a woman was drowned there, and that you can see her face in the water, if you happen there at sunrise, weeping and smiling also: a picture in the water.... Do you think it true, father?”

”Life is so strange, and who knows what is not life, my child?”

”When baby was dying I held it over the water beneath that window, where the suns.h.i.+ne falls in the evening; and it looked down once before its spirit pa.s.sed like a breath over my face. Maybe, its look will stay, for him to see when he comes. It was just below where you stand.... Father, can you see its face?” ”No, Judith; nothing but the water and the suns.h.i.+ne.”

”Dear, carry me to the window.”

When this was done she suddenly leaned forward with s.h.i.+ning eyes and anxious fingers. ”My baby! My baby!” she said.

She looked up the river, but her eyes were fading, she could not see far. ”It is all a grey light,” she said, ”I cannot see well.” Yet she smiled. ”Lay me down again, father,” she whispered.

After a little she sank into a slumber. All at once she started up. ”The river, the beautiful river!” she cried out gently. Then, at the last, ”Oh, my dear, my dear!”

And so she came out of the valley into the high hills. Later he was left alone with his dead. The young doctor and others had come and gone. He would watch till morning. He sat long beside her, numb to the world. At last he started, for he heard a low clear call behind the House. He went out quickly to the little platform, and saw through the dusk a man drawing himself up. It was Brydon. He caught the old man's shoulders convulsively. ”How is she?” he asked. ”Come in, my son,” was the low reply. The old man saw a grief greater than his own. He led the husband to the room where the wife lay beautiful and still. ”She is better, as you see,” he said bravely.

The hours went, and the two sat near the body, one on either side. They knew not what was going on in the world.

As they mourned, Pierre and the young doctor sat silent in that cottage on the hillside. They were roused at last. There came up to Pierre's keen ears the sound of the river.

”Let us go out,” he said; ”the river is flooding. You can hear the logs.”

They came out and watched. The river went swis.h.i.+ng, swilling past, and the dull boom of the logs as they struck the piers of the bridge or some building on the sh.o.r.e came rolling to them.

”The dams and booms have burst!” Pierre said. He pointed to the camps far up the river. By the light of the camp-fires there appeared a wide weltering flood of logs and debris. Pierre's eyes s.h.i.+fted to the Bridge House. In one room was a light. He stepped out and down, and the other followed. They had almost reached the sh.o.r.e, when Pierre cried out sharply: ”What's that?”

He pointed to an indistinct ma.s.s bearing down upon the Bridge House. It was a big shed that had been carried away, and, jammed between timbers, had not broken up. There was no time for warning. It came on swiftly, heavily. There was a strange, horrible, grinding sound, and then they saw the light of that one room move on, waving a little to and fro-on to the rapids, the cohorts of logs crowding hard after.

Where the light was two men had started to their feet when the crash came. They felt the House move. ”Run-save yourself!” cried the old man quietly. ”We are lost!”

The floor rocked.

”Go,” he said again. ”I will stay with her.”

”She is mine,” Brydon said; and he took her in his arms. ”I will not go.”

They could hear the rapids below. The old man steadied himself in the deep water on the floor, and caught out yearningly at the cold hands.

”Come close, come close,” said Brydon. ”Closer; put your arms round her.”

The old man did so. They were locked in each other's arms--dead and living.