Suddenly the sick man"s voice quavered out--
"It"s not him they want--it"s Bill! They"re after Bill, out there!
That was Bill trying to get in. . . . Why didn"t yer open? It was Bill, I tell yer!"
At the first word the Snipe had wheeled right-about-face, and stood now, pointing, and shaking like a man with ague.
"Matey . . . for the love of G.o.d . . ."
"I won"t hush. There"s something wrong here to-night. I can"t sleep.
It"s Bill, I tell yer. See his poor hammock up there shaking. . . ."
c.o.o.ney tumbled out with an oath and a thud. "Hush it, you white-livered swine! Hush it, or by--" His hand went behind him to his knife-sheath.
"Dan c.o.o.ney"--the Gaffer closed his book and leaned out--"go back to your bed."
"I won"t, Sir. Not unless--"
"Go back."
"Flesh and blood--"
"Go back." And for the third time that night c.o.o.ney went back.
The Gaffer leaned a little farther over the ledge, and addressed the sick man.
"George, I went to Bill"s grave not six hours agone. The snow on it wasn"t even disturbed. Neither beast nor man, but only G.o.d, can break up the hard earth he lies under. I tell you that, and you may lay to it. Now go to sleep."
Long Ede crouched on the frozen ridge of the hut, with his feet in the sleeping-bag, his knees drawn up, and the two guns laid across them.
The creature, whatever its name, that had tried the door, was nowhere to be seen; but he decided to wait a few minutes on the chance of a shot; that is, until the cold should drive him below. For the moment the clear tingling air was doing him good. The truth was Long Ede had begun to be afraid of himself, and the way his mind had been running for the last forty-eight hours upon green fields and visions of spring.
As he put it to himself, something inside his head was melting.
Biblical texts chattered within him like running brooks, and as they fleeted he could almost smell the blown meadow-scent. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes . . . for our vines have tender grapes . . .
A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon . . . Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south . . . blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out . . ." He was light-headed, and he knew it. He must hold out. They were all going mad; were, in fact, three parts crazed already, all except the Gaffer.
And the Gaffer relied on him as his right-hand man. One glimpse of the returning sun--one glimpse only--might save them yet.
He gazed out over the frozen hills, and northward across the ice-pack.
A few streaks of pale violet--the ghost of the Aurora--fronted the moon.
He could see for miles. Bear or fox, no living creature was in sight.
But who could tell what might be hiding behind any one of a thousand hummocks? He listened. He heard the slow grinding of the ice-pack off the beach: only that. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes. . ."
This would never do. He must climb down and walk briskly, or return to the hut. Maybe there was a bear, after all, behind one of the hummocks, and a shot, or the chance of one, would scatter his head clear of these tom-fooling notions. He would have a search round.
What was that, moving . . . on a hummock, not five hundred yards away?
He leaned forward to gaze.
Nothing now: but he had seen something. He lowered himself to the eaves by the north corner, and from the eaves to the drift piled there.
The drift was frozen solid, but for a treacherous crust of fresh snow.
His foot slipped upon this, and down he slid of a heap.
Luckily he had been careful to sling the guns tightly at his back.
He picked himself up, and unstrapping one, took a step into the bright moon-light to examine the nipples; took two steps: and stood stock-still.
There, before him, on the frozen coat of snow, was a footprint.
No: two, three, four--many footprints: prints of a naked human foot: right foot, left foot, both naked, and blood in each print--a little smear.
It had come, then. He was mad for certain. He saw them: he put his fingers in them; touched the frozen blood. The snow before the door was trodden thick with them--some going, some returning.
"The latch . . . lifted . . ." Suddenly he recalled the figure he had seen moving upon the hummock, and with a groan he set his face northward and gave chase. Oh, he was mad for certain! He ran like a madman-- floundering, slipping, plunging in his clumsy moccasins. "Take us the foxes, the little foxes . . . My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him . . . I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem . . . I charge you . . . I charge you . . ."
He ran thus for three hundred yards maybe, and then stopped as suddenly as he had started.
His mates--they must not see these footprints, or they would go mad too: mad as he. No, he must cover them up, all within sight of the hut.
And to-morrow he would come alone, and cover those farther afield.
Slowly he retraced his steps. The footprints--those which pointed towards the hut and those which pointed away from it--lay close together; and he knelt before each, breaking fresh snow over the hollows and carefully hiding the blood. And now a great happiness filled his heart; interrupted once or twice as he worked by a feeling that someone was following and watching him. Once he turned northwards and gazed, making a telescope of his hands. He saw nothing, and fell again to his long task.
Within the hut the sick man cried softly to himself. Faed, the Snipe, and c.o.o.ney slept uneasily, and muttered in their dreams. The Gaffer lay awake, thinking. After Bill, George Lashman; and after George? . . .
Who next? And who would be the last--the unburied one? The men were weakening fast; their wits and courage coming down at the end with a rush. Faed and Long Ede were the only two to be depended on for a day.
The Gaffer liked Long Ede, who was a religious man. Indeed he had a growing suspicion that Long Ede, in spite of some amiable laxities of belief, was numbered among the Elect: or might be, if interceded for.
The Gaffer began to intercede for him silently; but experience had taught him that such "wrestlings," to be effective, must be noisy, and he dropped off to sleep with a sense of failure . . .
The Snipe stretched himself, yawned, and awoke. It was seven in the morning: time to prepare a cup of tea. He tossed an armful of logs on the fire, and the noise awoke the Gaffer, who at once inquired for Long Ede. He had not returned. "Go you up to the roof. The lad must be frozen." The Snipe climbed the ladder, pushed open the trap, and came back, reporting that Long Ede was nowhere to be seen. The old man slipped a jumper over his suits of clothing--already three deep--reached for a gun, and moved to the door. "Take a cup of something warm to fortify," the Snipe advised. "The kettle won"t be five minutes boiling." But the Gaffer pushed up the heavy bolts and dragged the door open.
"What in the! . . .Here, bear a hand, lads!"
Long Ede lay p.r.o.ne before the threshold, his out-stretched hands almost touching it, his moccasins already covered out of sight by the powdery snow which ran and trickled incessantly--trickled between his long, dishevelled locks, and over the back of his gloves, and ran in a thin stream past the Gaffer"s feet.
They carried him in and laid him on a heap of skins by the fire.
They forced rum between his clenched teeth and beat his hands and feet, and kneaded and rubbed him. A sigh fluttered on his lips: something between a sigh and a smile, half seen, half heard. His eyes opened, and his comrades saw that it was really a smile.
"Wot cheer, mate?" It was the Snipe who asked.
"I--I seen . . ." The voice broke off, but he was smiling still.
What had he seen? Not the sun, surely! By the Gaffer"s reckoning the sun would not be due for a week or two yet: how many weeks he could not say precisely, and sometimes he was glad enough that he did not know.
They forced him to drink a couple of spoonfuls of rum, and wrapped him up warmly. Each man contributed some of his own bedding. Then the Gaffer called to morning prayers, and the three sound men dropped on their knees with him. Now, whether by reason of their joy at Long Ede"s recovery, or because the old man was in splendid voice, they felt their hearts uplifted that morning with a cheerfulness they had not known for months. Long Ede lay and listened dreamily while the pa.s.sion of the Gaffer"s thanksgiving shook the hut. His gaze wandered over their bowed forms--"The Gaffer, David Faed, Dan c.o.o.ney, the Snipe, and--and George Lashman in his bunk, of course--and me." But, then, _who was the seventh?_ He began to count. "There"s myself--Lashman, in his bunk-- David Faed, the Gaffer, the Snipe, Dan c.o.o.ney . . . One, two, three, four--well, but that made _seven_. Then who was the seventh? Was it George who had crawled out of bed and was kneeling there? Decidedly there were five kneeling. No: there was George, plain enough, in his berth, and not able to move. Then who was the stranger? Wrong again: there was no stranger. He knew all these men--they were his mates.
Was it--Bill? No, Bill was dead and buried: none of these was Bill, or like Bill. Try again--One, two, three, four, five--and us two sick men, seven. The Gaffer, David Faed, Dan c.o.o.ney--have I counted Dan twice?
No, that"s Dan, yonder to the right, and only one of him. Five men kneeling, and two on their backs: that makes seven every time. Dear G.o.d--suppose--"
The Gaffer ceased, and in the act of rising from his knees, caught sight of Long Ede"s face. While the others fetched their breakfast-cans, he stepped over, and bent and whispered--
"Tell me. Ye"ve seen what?"
"Seen?" Long Ede echoed.
"Ay, seen what? Speak low--was it the sun?"
"The s--" But this time the echo died on his lips, and his face grew full of awe uncomprehending. It frightened the Gaffer.