Part 16 (2/2)
”Push into sh.o.r.e,” the girl urged. ”The home sh.o.r.e--if you can. Then I'll go and find him and try to quiet him. He'll kill you if you don't.”
A short pause followed the girl's words. The man smiled coldly into her eyes.
”He'll kill me, will he?” he repeated.
The response to the simple question was simply unmitigated terror, swift and deadly, surging through the girl's frame. It caught and twisted her throat muscles like a cruel hand; and her childish eyes widened and darkened under his contemptuous gaze.
”What do you mean?” she asked breathlessly. ”What--are you going to do?”
”He won't kill me,” Ben went on. ”I may kill him--and I will if I can--but he won't kill me. See--we're going faster all the time.”
It was true. Strokes of the paddle were no longer necessary to propel the craft at the breakneck pace. It sped like an arrow--straight toward the perilous cataracts below.
The girl watched him with transcending horror, and slowly the truth went home. The supplies in the boat, her father's desperate attempt to rescue her, even at the risk of her own life and the cost of Ben's, this white, exultant face before her, more terrible than that of the wolf between, the cold reptile eyes so full of some unhallowed emotion,--at last she saw their meaning and relation. Was it _death_--was _that_ what this mad man in the stern had for her? She remembered what she had told him the day before, her description of the cataracts that lay below. She struggled to shake off the trance that her terror had cast about her.
”Turn into the sh.o.r.e,” she told him, half-whispering. There was no pleading in her tone: the hard eyes before her told her only too plainly how futile her pleas would be. ”You still have time to steer into sh.o.r.e.
I'll jump overboard if you don't.”
He shook his head. ”Don't jump overboard, Beatrice,” he answered, some of the harshness gone from his tones. ”It isn't my purpose to kill you--and to jump over into this stream only means to die--'for any one except the most powerful swimmer. You'd be carried down in an instant.”
The girl knew he spoke the truth. Only death dwelt in those cold and rus.h.i.+ng waters. ”What do you mean to do?” she asked.
Her tone was more quiet now, and he waited an instant before he answered. The canoe glided faster--ever faster down the stream. Somewhat afraid, but still trusting in the imperial mind of his master, the wolf raised his head to watch the racing sh.o.r.e line.
”It's just a little debt I owe your father--and his gang,” Ben explained. ”I'll tell you some time, in the days to come. It was a debt of blood--”
The girl's dark eyes charged with red fire. ”And you, a coward, take your payment on a woman. Turn the canoe into the bank.”
”The payment won't be taken from you,” he explained soberly. ”You'll be safe enough--even the fate that Neilson fears for you won't happen. I hate him too much to take _that_ payment from you. I'd die before I'd touch the flesh of his flesh to mine! Do you understand that?”
His fury had blazed up, for the instant, and she saw the deadly zeal of a fanatic in his gray eyes. A hatred beyond all naming, a bitterness and a rage such as she had never dreamed could blast a human heart was written in his brown, rugged face. Her woman's intuition gave her added vision, and she glimpsed something of the fire that smoldered and seared behind his eyes. They were of one blood, this man in the stern and the wolf on the duffle.
”Then why--”
”You're safe with me--the daughter of Jeff Neilson can't ever be anything but safe with me--as far as the thing you fear is concerned.
Don't be afraid for that. I'm simply paying an honest debt, and you're the unfortunate agent. Don't you know the things he's fearing now are more torment to him than anything I could do to his flesh? If we should be killed in these rapids that are coming, it will be fair enough too; he'll know what it is to lose the dearest thing on earth he has. For you and me it will only be a minute that won't greatly matter. For him it will be weeks--months! But that's only a part of it. I hope to bring you through. The main thing is--that sooner or later they'll come for you--into a country where I'll have every advantage. Where there won't be any escape or chance for them. Where I can watch the trails, and shatter them--every one--as slow or as fast as I like. Where they'll have to hunt for me, week on week and month on month, their fears eating into them. That's my game, Beatrice. There will be discomfort for you--and some danger--but I'll make it as light as I can. And in another moment--”
”You've still got time to turn back,” the girl answered him, seemingly without feeling. ”Glide into sh.o.r.e, and we'll try to catch an overhanging limb. It's my last warning.”
It was true that a few seconds remained in which they might, with heroic effort, save themselves. But these were pa.s.sing: already they could see the gleaming whitecaps of the cataract below.
The roar of the wild waters was in their ears. Ahead they could see great rocks, emerging like fangs above the water, sharp-edged and wet with spray. The boat was shuddering; the water seemed to covet them, and a great force, like the hand of a river G.o.d, reached at them from beneath as if to crush them in a merciless grasp. A hundred yards farther the smooth, swift water fell into a seething, roaring cataract--such a manifestation of the mighty powers of nature as checks the breath and awes the heart--a death stream in which seemingly the canoe would be shattered to pieces in an instant.
Ben shook his head. The girl's white hand flashed to her side, then rose sure and steady, holding her pistol. ”Turn quick, or I'll fire,” she said.
He felt that, if such action were in her power, she told the truth. No mercy dwelt in her clear gaze. His eye fell to the box of cartridges, now fallen safely among the duffle. Presently he smiled into her eyes.
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