The road here bordered a stretch of waste land; Silas gazed over it, his face was drawn and hard.
Then he suddenly blazed out.
Laying the whip over the horses and turning them so sharply that the phaeton was all but upset he put them over the waste land; another touch of the whip and they bolted.
Beyond the waste land lay a rice field and between field and waste land stood a fence; there was doubtless a ditch on the other side of the fence.
"You"ll kill us!" cried Phyl.
"Good--so," replied Silas, "horses and all."
She had half risen from her seat, she sat down again holding tight to the side rail and staring ahead. Death and destruction lay waiting behind that fence, leaping every moment nearer. She did not care in the least.
She could see that Silas, despite his words, was making every effort to rein in, the impetus to drive to h.e.l.l and smash everything up had pa.s.sed; she watched his hands grow white all along the tendon ridges with the strain. The whole thing was extraordinary and curious but unfearful, a storm of wind seemed blowing in her face. Then like a switched out light all things vanished.
CHAPTER IV
Twenty yards from the fence the off side wheel had gone.
The phaeton, flinging its occupants out, tilted, struck the earth at the trace coupling just as a man might strike it with his shoulder, dragged for five yards or so, breaking dash board and mud guard and brought the off side horse down as though it had been poleaxed.
Silas, with the luck that always fell to him in accidents, was not even stunned. Phyl was lying like a dead creature just where she had been flung amongst some bent gra.s.s.
He rushed to her. She was not dead, her pulse told that, nor did she seem injured in any way. He left her, ran to the horses, undid the traces and got the fallen horse on its feet, then he stripped them of their harness and turned them loose.
Having done this he returned to the girl. Phyl was just regaining consciousness; as he reached her she half sat up leaning on her right arm.
"Where are the horses?" said she. They were her first thought.
"I"ve let them loose--there they are."
She turned her head in the direction towards which he pointed. The horses, free of their harness, had already found a gra.s.s patch and were beginning to graze. The broken phaeton lay in the sunshine and the cushions flung to right and left showed as blue squares amidst the green of the gra.s.s; a light wind from the west was stirring the gra.s.s tops and a bird was singing somewhere its thin piping note, the only sound from all that expanse of radiant blue sky and green forsaken country.
"How do you feel now?" asked Silas.
"All right," said Phyl.
"We"d better get somewhere," he went on; "there are some cabins beyond that rice field, I can see their tops. There"s sure to be some one there and we can send for help."
Phyl struggled to her feet, refusing a.s.sistance.
"Let us go there," said she. She turned to look at the horses.
"They"ll be all right," said Silas; "there"s lots of gra.s.s and there"s a pond over there--they"d live here a month without harm."
He led the way to the fence, helped her over, and then, without a word they began to plod across the rice field.
When they reached the cabins they found them deserted, almost in ruins.
They faced a great tract of tree-grown ground. In the old plantation days this place would have been populous, for to the right there were ruins of other cabins stretching along and bordering an old gra.s.s road that bent westward to lose itself amongst the trees, but now there was nothing but desolation and the wind that stirred the mossy beards of the live oaks and the rank green foliage of weeds and sunflowers. An old disused well faced the cabins.
Phyl gave a little shudder as she looked around her. Her mind, still slightly confused by the accident and beaten upon by troubles, could find nothing with which to reply to the facts of the situation--alone here with Silas Grangerson, lost, both of them, what explanation could she make, even to herself, of the position?
In the nearest cabin to the right some rough dry gra.s.s had been stored as if for the bedding of an animal. It was too coa.r.s.e for fodder. Silas made her sit down on it to rest. Then he stood before her in the doorway.
For the first time in his life he seemed disturbed in mind.
"I"ll have to go and get help," said he, "and find out where we are. It"s my fault. I"m sorry, but there"s no use in going over that. You aren"t fit to walk. I"ll go and leave you here. You won"t be afraid to stay by yourself?"
"No," said Phyl.
"You needn"t be a bit, there"s no danger here."
"I am thirsty," said she.
"Wait."
He went to the well head. The windla.s.s and chain were there rusty but practicable and a bucket lay amongst the gra.s.s. It was in good repair and had evidently been used recently. He lowered it and brought up some water.
The water was clear diamond bright, and cold as ice. Having satisfied himself that it was drinkable he brought the bucket to Phyl and tilted it slightly whilst she drank. Then he put it by the door.
"Now I"ll go," said he, "and I shan"t be long. Sure you won"t be afraid?"
"No," she replied.
"You"re not angry with me?"
"No, I"m not angry."
He bent down, took her hand and kissed it. She did not draw it away or show any sign of resentment; it was cold like the hand of a dead person.
He glanced back as he turned to go. She saw him stand at the doorway for a moment looking down along the gra.s.s road, his figure cut against the blaze of light outside, then the doorway was empty.
She was never to see him again.
Outside in the sunlight Silas hesitated for a moment as though he was about to turn back, then he went on, striking along the gra.s.s road and between the trees.
Although he had never been over the ground before, he guessed it to be a part of the old Beauregard plantation and the distance from Grangerville to be not more than eight miles as the crow flies. By the road, reckoning from where the accident had occurred, it would be fifteen. But the lie of the place or the distance from Grangersons mattered little to Silas. His mind was going through a process difficult to describe.
Silas had never cared for anything, not even for himself. Danger or safety did not enter into his calculations. Religion was for him the name of a thing he did not understand. He had no finer feelings except in relationship to things strong, swift and brilliant, he had no tenderness for the weakness of others, even the weakness of women.
He had seized on Phyl as a Burgomaster gull might seize on a puffin chick, he had picked her up on the road to carry her off regardless of everything but his own desire for her--a desire so strong that he would have dashed her and himself to pieces rather than that another should possess her.
Well, as he watched her seated on the straw in that ruined cabin, subdued, without energy, and entirely at his mercy, a will that was not his will rose in opposition to him. Some part of himself that had remained in utter darkness till now woke to life. It was perhaps the something that despite all his strange qualities made him likeable, the something that instinct guessed to be there.