Part 9 (1/2)
He urged his pace, yet did not quite overtake her. The girl kept always just a little bit ahead of his best efforts.... And soon they left the trees behind and pa.s.sed on to the enormous slopes of the sea of snow that rolled in mountainous terror and beauty to the stars. The wonder of the white world caught him away. Under the steady moonlight it was more than haunting. It was a living, white, bewildering power that deliciously confused the senses and laid a spell of wild perplexity upon the heart. It was a personality that cloaked, and yet revealed, itself through all this sheeted whiteness of snow. It rose, went with him, fled before, and followed after. Slowly it dropped lithe, gleaming arms about his neck, gathering him in....
Certainly some soft persuasion coaxed his very soul, urging him ever forwards, upwards, on towards the higher icy slopes. Judgment and reason left their throne, it seemed, completely, as in the madness of intoxication. The girl, slim and seductive, kept always just ahead, so that he never quite came up with her. He saw the white enchantment of her face and figure, something that streamed about her neck flying like a wreath of snow in the wind, and heard the alluring accents of her whispering voice that called from time to time: ”A little farther on, a little higher.... Then we'll run home together!”
Sometimes he saw her hand stretched out to find his own, but each time, just as he came up with her, he saw her still in front, the hand and arm withdrawn. They took a gentle angle of ascent. The toil seemed nothing.
In this crystal, wine-like air fatigue vanished. The sis.h.i.+ng of the ski through the powdery surface of the snow was the only sound that broke the stillness; this, with his breathing and the rustle of her skirts, was all he heard. Cold moons.h.i.+ne, snow, and silence held the world. The sky was black, and the peaks beyond cut into it like frosted wedges of iron and steel. Far below the valley slept, the village long since hidden out of sight. He felt that he could never tire.... The sound of the church clock rose from time to time faintly through the air--more and more distant.
”Give me your hand. It's time now to turn back.”
”Just one more slope,” she laughed. ”That ridge above us. Then we'll make for home.” And her low voice mingled pleasantly with the purring of their ski. His own seemed harsh and ugly by comparison.
”But I have never come so high before. It's glorious! This world of silent snow and moonlight--and _you_. You're a child of the snow, I swear. Let me come up--closer--to see your face--and touch your little hand.”
Her laughter answered him.
”Come on! A little higher. Here we're quite alone together.”
”It's magnificent,” he cried. ”But why did you hide away so long? I've looked and searched for you in vain ever since we skated--” he was going to say ”ten days ago,” but the accurate memory of time had gone from him; he was not sure whether it was days or years or minutes. His thoughts of earth were scattered and confused.
”You looked for me in the wrong places,” he heard her murmur just above him. ”You looked in places where I never go. Hotels and houses kill me.
I avoid them.” She laughed--a fine, shrill, windy little laugh.
”I loathe them too--”
He stopped. The girl had suddenly come quite close. A breath of ice pa.s.sed through his very soul. She had touched him.
”But this awful cold!” he cried out, sharply, ”this freezing cold that takes me. The wind is rising; it's a wind of ice. Come, let us turn ...!”
But when he plunged forward to hold her, or at least to look, the girl was gone again. And something in the way she stood there a few feet beyond, and stared down into his eyes so steadfastly in silence, made him s.h.i.+ver. The moonlight was behind her, but in some odd way he could not focus sight upon her face, although so close. The gleam of eyes he caught, but all the rest seemed white and snowy as though he looked beyond her--out into s.p.a.ce....
The sound of the church bell came up faintly from the valley far below, and he counted the strokes--five. A sudden, curious weakness seized him as he listened. Deep within it was, deadly yet somehow sweet, and hard to resist. He felt like sinking down upon the snow and lying there....
They had been climbing for five hours.... It was, of course, the warning of complete exhaustion.
With a great effort he fought and overcame it. It pa.s.sed away as suddenly as it came.
”We'll turn,” he said with a decision he hardly felt. ”It will be dawn before we reach the village again. Come at once. It's time for home.”
The sense of exhilaration had utterly left him. An emotion that was akin to fear swept coldly through him. But her whispering answer turned it instantly to terror--a terror that gripped him horribly and turned him weak and unresisting.
”Our home is--_here_!” A burst of wild, high laughter, loud and shrill, accompanied the words. It was like a whistling wind. The wind _had_ risen, and clouds obscured the moon. ”A little higher--where we cannot hear the wicked bells,” she cried, and for the first time seized him deliberately by the hand. She moved, was suddenly close against his face. Again she touched him.
And Hibbert tried to turn away in escape, and so trying, found for the first time that the power of the snow--that other power which does not exhilarate but deadens effort--was upon him. The suffocating weakness that it brings to exhausted men, luring them to the sleep of death in her clinging soft embrace, lulling the will and conquering all desire for life--this was awfully upon him. His feet were heavy and entangled.
He could not turn or move.