The night was dark, populated by terrors alive and ghastly. But he went through it as one unaware of its many dangers. Light-footed and fearless, he pa.s.sed through the midst of his enemies, marching with the sublime audacity of the dominant race, despising caution--yea, grinning triumphant in the very face of Death.
CHAPTER IV
DESOLATION
Out of a deep abyss of darkness in which she seemed to have wandered ceaselessly and comfortlessly for many days, Muriel Roscoe came haltingly back to the surface of things. She was very weak, so weak that to open her eyes was an exertion requiring all her resolution, and to keep them open during those first hours of returning life a physical impossibility. She knew that she was not alone, for gentle hands ministered to her, and she was constantly aware of some one who watched her tirelessly, with never-failing attention. But she felt not the smallest interest regarding this faithful companion, being too weary to care whether she lived or fell away for ever down those unending steeps up which some unseen influence seemed magnetically to draw her.
It was a stage of returning consciousness that seemed to last even longer than the period of her wandering, but this also began to pa.s.s at length. The light grew stronger all about her, the mists rolled slowly away from her clogged brain, leaving only a drowsing languor that was infinitely restful to her tired senses.
And then while she lay half-dreaming and wholly content, a remorseless hand began to bathe her face and head with ice-cold water. She awoke reluctantly, even resentfully.
"Don"t!" she entreated like a child. "I am so tired. Let me sleep."
"My poor dear, I know all about it," a motherly voice made answer.
"But it"s time for you to wake."
She did not grasp the words--only, very vaguely, their meaning; and this she made a determined, but quite fruitless, effort to defy. In the end, being roused in spite of herself, she opened her eyes and gazed upwards.
And all his life long Nick Ratcliffe remembered the reproach that those eyes held for him. It was as if he had laid violent hands upon a spirit that yearned towards freedom, and had dragged it back into the sordid captivity from which it had so nearly escaped.
But it was only for a moment that she looked at him so. The reproach faded swiftly from the dark eyes and he saw a startled horror dawn behind it.
Suddenly she raised herself with a faint cry. "Where am I?" she gasped. "What--what have you done with me?"
She stared around her wildly, with unreasoning, nightmare terror. She was lying on a bed of fern in a narrow, dark ravine. The place was full of shadow, though far overhead she saw the light of day. At one end, only a few yards from her, a stream rushed and gurgled among great boulders, and its insistent murmur filled the air. Behind her rose a great wall of grey rock, clothed here and there with some dark growth. Its rugged face was dented with hollows that looked like the homes of wild animals. There was a constant trickle of water on all sides, an eerie whispering, remote but incessant. As she sat there in growing panic, a great bat-like creature, immense and shadowy, swooped soundlessly by her.
She shrank back with another cry, and found Nick Ratcliffe"s arm thrust protectingly about her.
"It"s all right," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You"re not frightened at flying-foxes, are you?"
Recalled to the fact of his presence, she turned sharply, and flung his arm away as though it had been a snake. "Don"t touch me!" she gasped, pa.s.sionate loathing in voice and gesture.
"Sorry," said Nick imperturbably. "I meant well."
He began to busy himself with a small bundle that lay upon the ground, whistling softly between his teeth, and for a few seconds Muriel sat and watched him. He was dressed in a flowing native garment, that covered him from head to foot. Out of the heavy enveloping folds his smooth, yellow face looked forth, sinister and terrible to her fevered vision. He looked like some evil bird, she thought to herself.
Glancing down, she saw that she was likewise attired, save that her head was bare. The hair hung wet on her forehead, and the water dripped down her face. She put up her hand half-mechanically to wipe the drops away. Her fear was mounting rapidly higher.
She knew now what had happened. He had drugged her forcibly--she shivered at the remembrance--and had borne her away to this dreadful place during her unconsciousness. Her father was left behind in the fort. He had sanctioned her removal. He had given her, a helpless captive, into this man"s keeping.
But no! Her whole soul rose up in sudden fierce denial of this. He had never done this thing. He had never given his consent to an act so cowardly and so brutal. He was incapable of parting with her thus. He could never have permitted so base a trick, so cruel, so outrageous, a deed of treachery.
Strength came suddenly to her--the strength of frenzy. She leaped to her feet. She would escape. She would go back to him through all the hordes of the enemy. She would face anything--anything in the world--rather than remain at the mercy of this man.
But--he had not been looking at her, and he did not look at her,--his arm shot out as she moved, and his hand fastened claw-like upon her dress.
"Sorry," he said again, in the same practical tone. "But you"ll have something to eat before you go."
She stooped and strove wildly, frantically, to shake off the detaining hand. But it held her like a vice, with awful skeleton fingers that she could not, dared not, touch.
"Let me go!" she cried impotently. "How dare you? How dare you?"
Still he did not raise his head. He was on his knees, and he would not even trouble himself to rise.
"I can"t help myself," he told her coolly. "It"s not my fault. It"s yours."
She made a final, violent effort to wrest herself free. And then--it was as if all power were suddenly taken from her--her strained nerves gave way completely, and she dropped down upon the ground again in a quivering agony of helplessness.
Nick"s hand fell away from her. "You shouldn"t," he said gently. "It"s no good, you know."
He returned to his former occupation while she sat with her face hidden, in a stupor of fear, afraid to move lest he should touch her again.
"Now," said Nick, after a brief pause, "let me have the pleasure of seeing you break your fast. There is some of that excellent boiled rice of yours here. You will feel better when you have had some."
She trembled at the sound of his voice. Could he make her eat also against her will, she wondered?
"Come!" said Nick again, in a tone of soft wheedling that he might have employed to a fractious child. "It"ll do you good, you know, Muriel. Won"t you try? Just a mouthful--to please me!"
Reluctantly she uncovered her face, and looked at him. He was kneeling in front of her, the _chuddah_ pushed back from his face, humbly offering her an oatmeal biscuit with a small heap of rice piled upon it.
She drew back shuddering. "I couldn"t eat anything--possibly," she said, and even her voice seemed to shrink. "You can. You take it. I would rather die."
Nick did not withdraw his hand. "Take it, Muriel," he said quietly.
"It is going to do you good."
She flashed him a desperate glance in which anger, fear, abhorrence, were strongly mingled. He advanced the biscuit a little nearer. There was a queer look on his yellow face, almost a bullying look.
"Take it," he said again.
And against her will, almost without conscious movement, she obeyed him. The untempting morsel pa.s.sed from his hand to hers, and under the compulsion of his insistence she began to eat.
She felt as if every mouthful would choke her, but she persevered, urged by the dread certainty that he would somehow have his way.
Not until the last fragment was gone did she feel his vigilance relax, but he ate nothing himself though there remained several biscuits and a very little of the rice.
"You are feeling better?" he asked her then.
A curious suspicion that he was waiting to tell her something made her answer almost feverishly in the affirmative. It amounted to a premonition of evil tidings, and instinctively her thoughts flew to her father.
"What is it?" she questioned nervously. "You have something to say."
Nick"s face was turned from her. He seemed to be gazing across the ravine.
"Yes," he said, after a moment.