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The Danger Trail, a novel by James Oliver Curwood |
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Chapter 15. In The Bedroom Chamber |
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_ CHAPTER XV. IN THE BEDROOM CHAMBER Flattening himself closely against the black logs of the wall Howland paused on the platform at the top of the stair. His groping hand touched the jam of a door and he held his breath when his fingers incautiously rattled the steel of a latch. In another moment he passed on, three paces---four--along the platform, at last sinking on his knees in the snow, close under the window, his eyes searched the lighted room an inch at a time. He saw a section of wall at first, dimly illuminated; then a small table near the window covered with books and magazines, and beside it a reclining chair buried thick under a great white bear robe. On the table, but beyond his vision, was the lamp. He drew himself a few inches more through the snow, leaning still farther ahead, until he saw the foot of a white bed. A little more and he stopped, his white face close to the window-pane. On the bed, facing him, sat Meleese. Her chin was buried in the cup of her hands, and he noticed that she was in a dressing-gown and that her beautiful hair was loosed and flowing in glistening waves about her, as though she had just brushed it for the night. A movement, a slight shifting of her eyes, and she would have seen him. He was filled with an almost mastering impulse to press his face closer, to tap on the window, to draw her eyes to him, but even as his hand rose to do the bidding of that impulse something restrained him. Slowly the girl lifted her head, and he was thrilled to find that another impulse drew him back until his ghostly face was a part of the elusive snow-gloom. He watched her as she turned from him and threw back the glory of her hair until it half hid her in a mass of copper and gold; from his distance he still gazed at her, choking and undecided, while she gathered it in three heavy strands and plaited it into a shining braid. For an instant his eyes wandered. Beyond her presence the room was empty. He saw a door, and observed that it opened into another room, which in turn could be entered through the platform door behind him. With his old exactness for detail he leaped to definite conclusion. These were Meleese's apartments at the post, separated from all others--and Meleese was preparing to retire for the night. If the outer door was not locked, and he entered, what danger could there be of interruption? It was late. The post was asleep. He had seen no light but that in the window through which he was staring. The thought was scarcely born before he was at the platform door. The latch clicked gently under his fingers; cautiously he pushed the door inward and thrust in his head and shoulders. The air inside was cold and frosty. He reached out an arm to the right and his hand encountered the rough-hewn surface of a wall; he advanced a step and reached out to the left. There, too, his hand touched a wall. He was in a narrow: corridor. Ahead of him there shone a thin ray of light from under the door that opened into Meleese's room. Nerving himself for the last move, he went boldly to the door, knocked lightly to give some warning of his presence, and entered. Meleese was gone. He closed the door behind him, scarce believing his eyes. Then at the far end of the room he saw a curtain, undulating slightly as if from the movement of a person on the other side of it. "Meleese!" he called softly. White and dripping with snow, his face bloodless in the tense excitement of the moment, he stood with his arms half reaching out when the curtain was thrust aside and the girl stood before him. At first she did not recognize him in his ghostly storm-covered disguise. But before the startled cry that was on her lips found utterance the fear that had blanched her face gave place to a swift sweeping flood of color. For a space there was no word between them as they stood separated by the breadth of the room, Howland with his arms held out to her in pleading silence, Meleese with her hands clutched to her bosom, her throat atremble with strange sobbing notes that made no more sound than the fluttering of a bird's wing. And Howland, as he came across the room to her, found no words to say--none of the things that he had meant to whisper to her, but drew her to him and crushed her close to his breast, knowing that in this moment nothing could tell her more eloquently than the throbbing of his own heart, the passionate pressure of his face to her face, of his great love which seemed to stir into life the very silence that encompassed them. It was a silence broken after a moment by a short choking cry, the quick-breathing terror of a face turned suddenly up to him robbed of its flush and quivering with a fear that still found no voice in words. He felt the girl's arms straining against him for freedom; her eyes were filled with a staring, questioning horror, as though his presence had grown into a thing of which she was afraid. The change was tonic to him. This was what he had expected---the first terror at his presence, the struggle against his will, and there surged back over him the forces he had reserved for this moment. He opened his arms and Meleese slipped from them, her hands clutched again in the clinging drapery of her bosom. "I have come for you, Meleese," he said as calmly as though his arrival had been expected. "Jean is my prisoner. I forced him to drive me to the old cabin up on the mountain, and he is waiting there with the dogs. We will start back to-night--_now_." Suddenly he sprang to her again, his voice breaking in a low pleading cry. "My God, don't you see now how I love you?" he went on, taking her white face between his two hands. "Don't you understand, Meleese? Jean and I have fought--he is bound hand and foot up there in the cabin--and I am waiting for you--for you--" He pressed her face against him, her lips so close that he could feel their quavering breath. "I have come to fight for you--if you won't go," he whispered tensely. "I don't know why your people have tried to kill me, I don't know why they want to kill me, and it makes no difference to me now. I want you. I've wanted you since that first glimpse of your face through the window, since the fight on the trail--every minute, every hour, and I won't give you up as long as I'm alive. If you won't go with me--if you won't go now--to-night--" He held her closer, his voice trembling in her hair. "If you won't go--I'm going to stay with you!" There was a thrillingly decisive note in his last words, a note that carried with it more than all he had said before, and as Meleese partly drew away from him again she gave a sharp cry of protest. "No--no--no--" she panted, her hands clutching at his arm. "You must go back now--now--" She pushed him toward the door, and as he backed a step, looking down into her face, he saw the choking tremble of her white throat, heard again the fluttering terror in her breath. "They will kill you if they find you here," she urged. "They think you are dead--that you fell through the ice and were drowned. If you don't believe me, if you don't believe that I can never go with you, tell Jean--" Her words seemed to choke her as she struggled to finish. "Tell Jean what?" he questioned softly. "Will you go--then?" she cried with sobbing eagerness, as if he already understood her. "Will you go back if Jean tells you everything--everything about me--about--" "No," he interrupted. "If you only knew--then you would go back, and never see me again. You would understand--" "I will never understand," He interrupted again. "I say that it is you who do not understand, Meleese! I don't care what Jean would tell me. Nothing that has ever happened can make me not want you. Don't you understand? Nothing, I say--nothing that has happened--that can ever happen--unless--" For a moment he stopped, looking straight into her eyes. "Nothing--nothing in the world, Meleese," he repeated almost in a whisper, "unless you did not tell me the truth back on the trail at Wekusko when you said that it was not a sin to love you." "And if I tell you--if I confess that it is a sin, that I lied back there--then will you go?" she demanded quickly. Her eyes flamed on him with a strange light. "No," he said calmly. "I would not believe you." "But it is the truth. I lied--lied terribly to you. I have sinned even more terribly, and--and you must go. Don't you understand me now? If some one should come--and find you here--" "There would be a fight," he said grimly. "I have come prepared to fight." He waited a moment, and in the silence the brown head in front of him dropped slowly and he saw a tremor pass through the slender form, as if it had been torn by an instant's pain. The pallor had gone from Howland's face. The mute surrender in the bowed head, the soft sobbing notes that he heard now in the girl's breath, the confession that he read in her voiceless grief set his heart leaping, and again he drew her close into his arms and turned her face up to his own. There was no resistance now, no words, no pleading for him to go; but in her eyes he saw the prayerful entreaty with which she had come to him on the Wekusko trail, and in the quivering red mouth the same torture and love and half-surrender that had burned themselves into his soul there. Love, triumph, undying faith shone in his eyes, and he crushed her face closer until the lovely mouth lay pouted like a crimson rose for him to kiss. "You--you told me something that wasn't true--once--back there," he whispered, "and you promised that you wouldn't do it again. You haven't sinned--in the way that I mean, and in the way that you want me to believe." His arms tightened still more about her, and his voice was suddenly filled with a tense quick eagerness. "Why don't you tell me everything?" he asked. "You believe that if I knew certain things I would never want to see you again, that I would go back into the South. You have told me that. Then--if you want me to go--why don't you reveal these things to me? If you can't do that, go with me to-night. We will go anywhere--to the ends of the earth--" He stopped at the look that had come into her face. Her eyes were turned to the window. He saw them filled with a strange terror, and involuntarily his own followed them to where the storm was beating softly against the window-pane. Close to the lighted glass was pressed a man's face. He caught a flashing glimpse of a pair of eyes staring in at them, of a thick, wild beard whitened by the snow. He knew the face. When life seemed slipping out of his throat he had looked up into it that night of the ambush on the Great North Trail. There was the same hatred, the same demoniac fierceness in it now. With a quick movement Howland sprang away from the girl and leveled his revolver to where the face had been. Over the shining barrel he saw only the taunting emptiness of the storm. Scarcely had the face disappeared when there came the loud shout of a man, the hoarse calling of a name, and then of another, and after that the quick, furious opening of the outer door. Howland whirled, his weapon pointing to the only entrance. The girl was ahead of him and with a warning cry he swung the muzzle of his gun upward. In a moment she had pushed the bolt that locked the room from the inside, and had leaped back to him, her face white, her breath breaking in fear. She spoke no word, but with a moan of terror caught him by the arm and pulled him past the light and beyond the thick curtain that had hidden her when he had entered the room a few minutes before. They were in a second room, palely lighted by a mass of coals gleaming through the open door of a box stove, and with a second window looking out into the thick night. Fiercely she dragged him to this window, her fingers biting deep into the flesh of his arm. "You must go--through this!" she cried chokingly. "Quick! O, my God, won't you hurry? Won't you go?" Howland had stopped. From the blackness of the corridor there came the beat of heavy fists on the door and the rage of a thundering voice demanding admittance. From out in the night it was answered by the sharp barking of a dog and the shout of a second voice. "Why should I go?" he asked. "I told you a few moments ago that I had come prepared to fight, Meleese. I shall stay--and fight!" "Please--please go!" she sobbed, striving to pull him nearer to the window. "You can get away in the storm. The snow will cover your trail. If you stay they will kill you--kill you--" "I prefer to fight and be killed rather than to run away without you," he interrupted. "If you will go--" She crushed herself against his breast. "I can't go--now--this way--" she urged. "But I will come to you. I promise that--I will come to you." For an instant her hands clasped his face. "Will you go--if I promise you that?" "You swear that you will follow me--that you will come down to the Wekusko? My God, are you telling me the truth, Meleese?" "Yes, yes, I will come to you--if you go now." She broke from him and he heard her fumbling at the window. "I will come--I will come--but not to Wekusko. They will follow you there. Go back to Prince Albert--to the hotel where I looked at you through the window. I will come there--sometime--as soon as I can--" A blast of cold air swept into his face. He had thrust his revolver into its holster and now again for an instant he held Meleese close in his arms. "You will be my wife?" he whispered. He felt her throbbing against him. Suddenly her arms tightened around his neck. "Yes, if you want me then--if you want me after you know what I am. Now, go--please, please go!" He pulled himself through the window, hanging for a last moment to the ledge. "If you fail to come--within a month--I shall return," he said. Her hands were at his face again. Once more, as on the trail at Le Pas, he felt the sweet pressure of her lips. "I will come," she whispered. Her hands thrust him back and he was forced to drop to the snow below. Scarcely had his feet touched when there sounded the fierce yelp of a dog close to him, and as he darted away into the smother of the storm the brute followed at his heels, barking excitedly in the manner of the mongrel curs that had found their way up from the South. Between the dog's alarm and the loud outcry of men there was barely time in which to draw a breath. From the stair platform came a rapid fusillade of rifle shots that sang through the air above Howland's head, and mingled with the fire was a hoarse voice urging on the cur that followed within a leap of his heels. The presence of the dog filled the engineer with a fear that he had not anticipated. Not for an instant did the brute give slack to his tongue as they raced through the night, and Howland knew now that the storm and the darkness were of little avail in his race for life. There was but one chance, and he determined to take it. Gradually he slackened his pace, drawing and cocking his revolver; then he turned suddenly to confront the yelping Nemesis behind him. Three times he fired in quick succession at a moving blot in the snow-gloom, and there went up from that blot a wailing cry that he knew was caused by the deep bite of lead. Again he plunged on, a muffled shout of defiance on his lips. Never had the fire of battle raged in his veins as now. Back in the window, listening in terror, praying for him, was Meleese. The knowledge that she was there, that at last he had won her and was fighting for her, stirred him with a joy that was next to madness. Nothing could stop him now. He loaded his revolver as he ran, slackening his pace as he covered greater distance, for he knew that in the storm his trail could be followed scarcely faster than a walk. He gave no thought to Jean Croisset, bound hand and foot in the little cabin on the mountain. Even as he had clung to the window for that last moment it had occurred to him that it would be folly to return to the Frenchman. Meleese had promised to come to him, and he believed her, and for that reason Jean was no longer of use to him. Alone he would lose himself in that wilderness, alone work his way into the South, trusting to his revolver for food, and to his compass and the matches in his pocket for life. There would be no sledge-trail for his enemies to follow, no treachery to fear. It would take a thousand men to find him after the night's storm had covered up his retreat, and if one should find him they two would be alone to fight it out. For a moment he stopped to listen and stare futilely into the blackness behind him. When he turned to go on his heart stood still. A shadow had loomed out of the night half a dozen paces ahead of him, and before he could raise his revolver the shadow was lightened by a sharp flash of fire. Howland staggered back, his fingers loosening their grip on his pistol, and as he crumpled down into the snow he heard over him the hoarse voice that had urged on the dog. After that there was a space of silence, of black chaos in which he neither reasoned nor lived, and when there came to him faintly the sound of other voices. Finally all of them were lost in one--a moaning, sobbing voice that was calling his name again and again, a voice that seemed to reach to him from out of an infinity of distance, and that he knew was the voice of Meleese. He strove to speak, to lift his arms, but his tongue was as lead, his arms as though fettered with steel bands. The voice died away. He lived through a cycle of speechless, painless night into which finally a gleam of dawn returned. He felt as if years were passing in his efforts to move, to lift himself out of chaos. But at last he won. His eyes opened, he raised himself. His first sensation was that he was no longer in the snow and that the storm was not beating into his face. Instead there encompassed him a damp dungeon-like chill. Everywhere there was blackness--everywhere except in one spot, where a little yellow eye of fire watched him and blinked at him. At first he thought that the eye must be miles and miles away. But it came quickly nearer--and still nearer--until at last he knew that it was a candle burning with the silence of a death taper a yard or two beyond his feet. _ |
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