But with that utterance a strength surpa.s.sing that of sinew and muscle returned to her. She reached and knocked the cup from his hand; and its black contents, like dark blood, stained the sandy floor of the cavern.
Ben"s first thought was curiously not of his own narrow escape, but was rather in concern for Beatrice. Whether or not he had actually swallowed any of the liquor in the cup he did not know; nor did he give the matter a thought. He was aware of only the terror-stricken girl before him, her face deathly white and her eyes starting and wide. He leaped to his feet.
Fearing that she was about to faint he steadied her with his hand. The echo of her scream died in the cavern, the cup rolled on the floor and came to a standstill against the wall; but still she made no sound, only gazing as if entranced. But slowly, as he steadied her, the blessed tears stole into her eyes and rolled down her white cheeks; and once more breath surged into her lungs.
"Never mind, Beatrice," the man was saying, his deep, rough voice gentle as a woman"s. "Don"t cry--please don"t cry--just forget all about it.
Let"s go over to your hammock and rest awhile."
With a strong arm he guided her to her cot, and smiling kindly, pushed her down into it. "Just take it easy," he advised. "And forget all about it. You"ll be all right in a minute."
"But you don"t understand--you don"t know--what I tried to do--"
"No matter. Tell me after a while, if you want to. Don"t tell me at all if you"d rather not. I"m going back to my lunch." He laughed, trying to bring her to herself. "I wouldn"t miss that caribou steak for anything--even though I can"t have my tea. Just lay down a while, and rest."
His rugged face lighted as he smiled, kindly and tolerantly, and then he turned to go. But her solemn voice arrested him.
"Wait, Ben. I want you to know--now--so you won"t trust me again--or give me another chance. The cup--was poisoned."
But the friendly light did not yet wane in his eyes. "I didn"t think it was anything very good--the way you knocked it out of my hand. We"ll just pretend it was very bad tea--and let it go at that."
"No. It was nightshade--it might have killed you." She spoke in a flat, lifeless voice. "I didn"t want it to kill you--I just wanted to give you enough to put you to sleep--so I could take your rifle sh.e.l.ls and throw them away--but I was willing to let you drink it, even if it _did_ kill you."
The man looked at her, in infinite compa.s.sion, then came and sat beside her in the hammock. Rather quietly he took one of her hands and gazed at it, without seeing it, a long time. Then he pressed it to his lips.
For a breath he held it close to his cheek, his eyes lightless and far away, and she gazed at him in amazement.
"You"d kiss my hand--after what I did--?"
"After what you _didn"t_ do," he corrected. "Please, Beatrice--don"t blame yourself. Some way--I understand things better--than I used to.
Even if you had killed me--I don"t see why it wouldn"t have been your right. I"ve held you here by force. Yet you didn"t let me drink the stuff. You knocked it out of my hand."
And now, for the first time, an inordinate amazement came into his face.
He looked at her intently, yet with no unfriendliness, no pa.s.sion.
Rather it was with overwhelming wonder.
"_You knocked it out of my hands_!" he repeated, more loudly. "Oh, Beatrice--it"s my turn to beg forgiveness now! When I was at your mercy, and the cup at my lips--you spared me. Why did you do it, Beatrice?"
He gazed at her with growing ardor. She shook her head. She simply did not know the reason.
"It"s not your place to feel penitent," he told her, with infinite sincerity. "If you had let me take it, you"d have just served me right--you"d have just paid me back in my own coin. It was fair enough--to use every advantage you had. Good Lord, have you forgotten that I am holding you here by force? But instead--you saved me, when you might have killed me--and won the fight. All you"ve done is to show yourself the finer clay--that"s what you"ve done. G.o.d knows I suppose the woman is always finer clay than the man--yet it comes with a jolt, just the same. It"s not for you to be down-hearted--Heaven knows the strength you"ve shown is above any I ever had, or ever will have. You"ve shown how to feel mercy--I could never show anything but hate, and revenge. You"ve shown me a bigger and stronger code than mine. And there"s nothing--nothing I can say."
The tone changed once more to the personal and solicitous. "But it"s been a big strain on you--I can see that. I believe I"d lie here and rest awhile if I were you. I"ll eat my dinner--and the fire"s about out too. That"s the girl--Beatrice."
Gently he picked her up, seemingly with no physical effort and laid her in her hammock. "Then--you"ll forgive me?" she asked brokenly.
"Good Heavens, I wish there was something to forgive--so we"d be a little more even. But you"ve accomplished something, Beatrice--and I don"t know what it is yet--I only know you"ve changed me--and softened me--as I never dreamed any one in the world could. Now go to sleep."
He turned from her, but the food on the table no longer tempted him. For a full hour he stood before the ashes of the fire, deeply and inextricably bewildered with himself, with life, and with all these thoughts and hopes and regrets that thronged him. He was like ashes now himself; the fires of his life seemed burned out. The thought recalled him to the need of cutting fuel for the night"s fire.
He might be able to quiet the growing turmoil in his brain when the still shadows of the spruce closed around him. He seized his axe, then peered into the cave. Beatrice, worn out by the stress of the hour before and immensely comforted by Ben"s words, was already deeply asleep. His rifle leaned against the wall of the cavern, and he put it in the hollow of his arm. It was not that he feared Beatrice would attempt to procure it. The act was mostly habit, combined with the fact that their supply of meat was all but exhausted and he did not wish to miss any opportunity for big game.
The forest was particularly gloomy to-day. Its shadows lay deep. And this was not merely the result of his own darkened outlook: glancing up, he saw that clouds were gathering in the sky. They would need fuel in plenty to keep the fire bright to-night. Evidently rain was impending,--one of those cold, steady downpours that are disliked so cordially by the folk of the upper Selkirks.
He went a full two hundred yards before he found a tree to his liking.
It was a tough spruce of medium height and just at the edge of the stream. He laid his rifle down, leaning it against a fallen log; then began his work.
It was an awkward place to stand; but he gave no thought to it. His mind dwelt steadily on the events in the cavern of the hour before; the girl"s remorse in the instant that she had him at her mercy and the example it set for him. The blade bit into the wood with slow encroachments. Perhaps the expenditure of brute energy in swinging the axe would relieve his pent-up feelings.
He was not watching his work. His blows struck true from habit. Now the tree was half-severed: it was time to cut on the opposite side. Suddenly his axe crashed into yielding, rotten wood.
Instantly the powers of the wilderness took their long-awaited toll. Ben had been unwary, too absorbed by his swirling thoughts to mark the ambush of death that had been prepared for him. Ever to keep watch, ever to be on guard: such is the first law of the wild; and Ben had disregarded it. Half of the tree had been rotten, changing the direction of its fall and crashing it down before its time.
Ben leaped for his life, instinctively aiming for the shelter of the log against which he had inclined his rifle; but the blow came too soon. He was aware only of the rush of air as he leaped, an instant"s hovering at the crest of a depthless chasm, then the sense of a mighty, resistless blow hurling him into infinity.
Ben"s rifle, catching the full might of the blow, was broken like a match. Ben himself was crushed to earth as beneath a meteor, the branchy trunk shattering down upon his stalwart form like the jaws of a great trap. He uttered one short, half-strangled cry.
Then the darkness, shot with varied and multiple lights, dropped over him. The noise of the falling tree died away; the forest-dwellers returned to their varied activities. The rain clouds deepened and spread above his motionless form.
x.x.xIV
Beatrice"s dreams were troubled after Ben"s departure into the forest.
She tossed and murmured, secretly aware that all was not well with her.
Yet in the moments that she half-wakened she ascribed the vague warning to nervousness only, falling immediately to sleep again. Wakefulness came vividly to her only with the beginnings of twilight.
She opened her eyes; the cavern was deep with shadow. She lay resting a short time, adjusting her eyes to the soft light. In an instant all the dramatic events of the day were recalled to her: the tin cup that had held the poison still lay against the wall, and the liquor still stained the sandy floor, or was it only a patch of deeper shadow?
She wondered why Ben did not come into the cave. Was he embittered against her, after all; had he spoken as he did just from kindness, to save her remorse? She listened for the familiar sounds of his fuel cutting, or his other work about the camp. Wherever he was, he made no sound at all.
She sat up then, staring out through the cavern maw. For an instant she experienced a deep sense of bewilderment at the pressing gloom, so mysterious and unbroken over the face of the land. But soon she understood what was missing. The fire was out.
The fact went home to her with an inexplicable shock. She had become so accustomed to seeing the bright, cheerful blaze at the cavern mouth that its absence was like a little tragedy in itself. Always it had been the last vista of her closing eyes as she dropped off to sleep--the soft, warm glow of the coals--and the sight always comforted her. She could scarcely remember the morning that it wasn"t crackling cheerily when she wakened. Ben had always been so considerate of her in this regard--removing the chill of the cave with its radiating heat to make it comfortable for her to dress. Not even coals were left now--only ashes, gray as death.
She got up, then walked to the cavern maw. For a moment she stood peering into the gloom, one hand resting against the portals of stone.
The twilight was already deep. It was the supper hour and past; dark night was almost at hand. There could be no further doubt of Ben"s absence. He was not at the little creek getting water, nor did she hear the ring of his axe in the forest. She wondered if he had gone out on one of his scouting expeditions and had not yet returned. Of course this was the true explanation; she had no real cause to worry.
Likely enough he had little desire to return to the cavern now. She could picture him following at his tireless pace one of the winding woods trails, lost in contemplation, his vivid eyes clouded with thought.
She looked up for the sight of the familiar stars that might guide him home. They were all hidden to-night. Not a gleam of light softened the stark gloom of the spruce. As she watched the first drops of rain fell softly on the gra.s.s.
The drops came in ever-increasing frequency, cold as ice on her hand.
She heard them rustling in the spruce boughs; and far in the forest she discerned the first whine of the wakening wind. The sound of the rain was no longer soft. It swelled and grew, and all at once the wind caught it and swept it into her face. And now the whole forest moaned and soughed under the sweep of the wind.
There is no sound quite like the beat of a hard rain on dense forest. It has no startling discords, but rather a regular cadence as if the wood G.o.ds were playing melodies in the minor on giant instruments,--melodies remembered from the first, unhappy days of the earth and on instruments such as men have never seen. But this was never a melody to fill the heart with joy. It touches deep chords of sorrow in the most secret realms of the spirit. The rain song grew and fell as the gusts of the wind swept it, and the rock walls of the cliff swam in clouds of spray.
The storm could not help but bring Ben to camp, she thought. At least she did not fear that he would lose his way: he knew every trail and ridge for miles around the cave. Even such pressing, baleful darkness as this could not bewilder him. She went back to her cot to wait his coming.