Part 35 (1/2)

But this gate to mercy was closed before they reached it. A sudden flaring of the fire revealed them--the gleam of the blade and Ben's stretching hand--and Ray left his log in a swift, catlike leap.

If Ben had possessed full use of both hands there still might have been time to send home the two crucial blows, or at least to dispatch Beatrice out of Ray's power to harm. But his injured arm impeded him, and his hand fumbled as he tried to seize the hilt. With a sharp oath Ray crushed the blade into the ground with his heel; then kicked viciously at the p.r.o.ne body of his enemy.

And at that first base blow his rage and blood-l.u.s.t that had been gathering was swiftly freed. It was all that was needed to set him at the work of torture. For an instant he stood almost motionless except for the spasmodic twitching--now almost continuous--at his lips and for the slow turning of his head as he looked about for a weapon with which he could more quickly satiate the murder-madness in his veins. The knife appealed to him not at all; but his eye fell on a long, heavy club of spruce that had been cut for fuel. He bent and his strong hands seized it.

As he swung it high the girl leaped between--with a last, frantic effort, wholly instinctive--to s.h.i.+eld Ben's body with her own. But it was only an instant's reprieve. Chan had followed Ben, and sharing Ray's fiendish mood, jerked her aside. Ben raised himself up as far as he could at a final impulse to thrust the girl out of harm's way.

Yet it was to be that Ray's murderous blow was never to go home. A mighty and terrible ally had come to Ben's aid. He came pouncing from the darkness, a gaunt and dreadful avenger whose code of death was as remorseless as Ray's own.

It was Fenris the wolf, and he had found his master at last. Missing him at the accustomed place in the cave, he had trailed him to the lake margin: a smell on the wind had led him the rest of the way. He was not one to announce his coming by an audible footfall in the thicket. Like a ghost he had glided almost to the edge of the firelight, lingering there--with a caution learned in these last wild weeks of running with his brethren--until he had made up his brute mind in regard to the strangers in the camp. But he had waited only until he saw Ray kick the helpless form before him,--that of the G.o.d that Fenris, for all the wild had claimed him, still wors.h.i.+pped in his inmost heart. With fiendish, maniacal fury he had sprung to avenge the blow.

And his three followers, trained by the pack laws to follow where he led, and keyed to the highest pitch by their leader's fury, leaped like gray demons of the Pit in his wake.

XLII

As a young tree breaks and goes down in the gale Ray Brent went down before the combined attack of the wolves. What desperate struggle he made only seemed to increase their fury and shatter him the faster.

Utterly futile were all his blows: his frantic, piercing screams of fear and agony raised to heaven, but were answered with no greater mercy than that he would have shown to Ben a moment before.

Seemingly in an instant he was on his back and the ravening pack were about him in a ring. In that lurid firelight their fangs gleamed like ivory as they flashed, here and there, over his body and throat, and their fierce eyes blazed with pale-blue fire,--the mark and sign of the blood madness of the beasts of prey.

Seemingly in a single instant the life had been torn from him, leaving only a strange, huddled, ghastly thing beside the dying fire. But the pack leaped from him at once. Fenris had caught sight of Chan's figure as he ran for the nearest tree and seemingly with one leap he was upon him. He sprang at him from the side; and his fangs gleamed once.

He had struck true, his fangs went home, and the life went out of Chan Heminway in a single, neighing scream. He pitched forward, shuddered once in the soft gra.s.s, and lay still. The pack surged around his body, struck at it once or twice, then stood growling as if waiting for their leader's command.

Before ever Ray fell, Ben had taken what measures of self-defense he could in case the pack, forgetting its master's master, might turn on himself and the girl. He had reached the knife hilt and severed the ropes about the girl's wrists. ”Stay behind me,” he cautioned. ”Don't move a muscle.”

He knew that any attempt to reach and climb a tree would attract the attention of the pack and send them ravening about her. Again he knew that her life as well as his own depended on his control of the pack leader. He saw Chan go down, seemingly in a single instant, and he braced himself against attack. ”Down, Fenris!” he shouted. ”Down--get down!”

The great wolf started at the voice, then stood beside the fallen, gazing at Ben with fierce, luminous eyes. ”Down, down, boy,” Ben cautioned, in a softer voice. ”There, old fellow--down--down.”

Then Fenris whined in answer, and Ben knew that he was no longer to be feared. The three lesser wolves seemed startled, standing in a nervous group, yet growling savagely and eyeing him across the dying fire. For a moment Fenris's fury had pa.s.sed to them, but now that his rage was dead, all they had left was an inborn fear of such a breed as this,--these tall forms that died so easily in their fangs. Fenris trotted slowly toward Ben, but with the true instincts of the wild his followers knew that this was no affair of fangs and death. He came in love, in a remembered comrades.h.i.+p, just as often he had led them to the mouth of the cavern, and they did not understand. They slowly backed away into the shadows, fading like ghosts.

Ben's arms, in unspeakable grat.i.tude, went about the shoulders of the wolf. Beatrice, sobbing uncontrollably yet swept with that infinite thankfulness of the redeemed, crept to his side. Fenris whined and s.h.i.+vered in the arms of his G.o.d.

Quietude came at last to that camp beside the lake, in the far, hidden heart of Back There. Once more the blood moved with sweet, normal tranquillity in the veins, the thrill and stir died in the air, and the moonlight was beautiful on the spruce.