Part 44 (2/2)
The moonlight trickled clear and yellow through the branches now.
He could see her lips moving--moving--He knew that she was praying. Her eyes looked out at him dazed and unseeing; and in her right hand that was reached before her he saw the little, silver crucifix.
He did not dare speak to her. He was afraid. He sank back against the bushes and let her pa.s.s. The moonlight flooded the place with its haunting golden light. A strange feeling of relief came over him and with it a vast calm. And very quietly he followed her.
She went a bit further. And she came to that spot where he had killed the thing. He heard her shriek. The wild cry that had awakened him.
”The wolf--Gregory--the wolf!”
He caught her in his arms as she fainted. Then he looked down.
There at his feet lay the body of the Russian, Stephanof Andreyvitch.
_This will I prove. At some unknown time will I show that in this world a certain devilish influence worketh most evilly against the high Heavens and the good in man. I do confess the knowing of this to be true, and many times and oft have I convinced myself that this Satanic thing hath the power to become incarnate._
_In the morning I hang. G.o.d, the Father, Christ, the Son, come unto me in purgatory that I may fulfill my sacred oath and that the soul of her I love may find peace within the seven golden gates of Heaven._
BEFORE THE DAWN
He had gotten as far as the cross-roads. He could not go on. His feet ached; his eyes hurt with the incessant effort of trying to penetrate the obliterating dark. Where the three roads met he stopped.
Above him the black, unlighted skies. Before him mile upon mile of deep, shadow-stained plain. Somewhere beyond the plain, at the foot of the hills, lay Charvel. Jans was waiting for him at Charvel. His orders to meet Jans were urgent; but now he could not go further. Jans would have to wait until morning, when, by the light of day, he could again find the way which he had so completely lost in the night.
He sank down at the base of the crucifix. It loomed in a ghostly, gray ma.s.s against the muddy white of the wind-driven clouds. He pulled his coat collar up about his ears. His eyes were raised to where he thought to see the dimly defined Christ figure; but the pitch black gloom drenched opaquely over everything. There was something mysterious; something remote, about the cross. He imagined peasants kneeling before it in awed reverence, gabbling their prayers. The ignorance of such idolatry! Their prayers had not been proof against the enemies'
bullets; and still they prayed. Tired as he was, he laughed aloud.
”Why do you laugh?”
He started to his feet. The voice, quiet and deep, came from directly behind him. He had not conceived the possibility of any human thing lurking so dangerously near. He peered blindly through the obscuring dark.
”Who's there?” He questioned, his fingers involuntarily closing tautly about the b.u.t.t of the revolver at his belt.
”You, too, ask questions, eh?” The voice went on. ”I can almost make out the shape of you. Do you see me?”
It seemed to him then that by carefully tracing the sound of the voice he could dimly define the outline of a man's form lying close within the murked, smudging shadow of the crucifix.
”Yes, I think now I almost see you.” His tone was anything but a.s.sured.
”What are you doing here?”
”What is there to do but sleep?” The muttered words were half defiant.
”Name of a dog! it was your laughter that woke me. Why did you laugh?”
”If I weren't so tired, I might explain it to you.” He hesitated a second, playing for time. ”I was thinking--drawing up a mental picture of the ignorant peasant praying here before your back-rest.”
”My back-rest?” The man's voice was sleepily puzzled. ”It's this cross you mean, eh? Well, never mind, my fine fellow. It has comfort--And that's something to be grateful for.”
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