5
Kells strode there, a black, silent shadow, plodding with bent head, asif all about and above him were demons and furies.
Joan's perceptions of him, of the night, of the inanimate andimponderable black walls, and of herself, were exquisitely andabnormally keen. She saw him there, bowed under his burden, gloomy andwroth and sick with himself because the man in him despised the coward.Men of his stamp were seldom or never cowards. Their lives did not breedcowardice or baseness. Joan knew the burning in her breast--that thingwhich inflamed and swept through her like a wind of fire--was hate. Yether heart held a grain of pity for him. She measured his forbearance,his struggle, against the monstrous cruelty and passion engendered bya wild life among wild men at a wild time. And, considering hisopportunities of the long hours and lonely miles, she was grateful, anddid not in the least underestimate what it cost him, how different fromBill or Halloway he had been. But all this was nothing, and her thinkingof it useless, unless he conquered himself. She only waited, holding onto that steel-like control of her nerves, motionless and silent.
She leaned back against her saddle, a blanket covering her, withwide-open eyes, and despite the presence of that stalking figure and thefact of her mind being locked round one terrible and inevitable thought,she saw the changing beautiful glow of the fire-logs and the cold,pitiless stars and the mustering shadows under the walls. She heard,too, the low rising sigh of the wind in the balsam and the silverytinkle of the brook, and sounds only imagined or nameless. Yet a sternand insupportable silence weighed her down. This dark canon seemedat the ends of the earth. She felt encompassed by illimitable andstupendous upflung mountains, insulated in a vast, dark, silent tomb.
Kells suddenly came to her, treading noiselessly, and he leaned overher. His visage was a dark blur, but the posture of him was that of awolf about to spring. Lower he leaned--slowly--and yet lower. Joansaw the heavy gun swing away from his leg; she saw it black and clearagainst the blaze; a cold, blue light glinted from its handle. And thenKells was near enough for her to see his face and his eyes that were butshadows of flames. She gazed up at him steadily, open-eyed, with no fearor shrinking. His breathing was quick and loud. He looked down at herfor an endless moment, then, straightening his bent form, he resumed hiswalk to and fro.
After that for Joan time might have consisted of moments or hours, eachof which was marked by Kells looming over her. He appeared to approachher from all sides; he round her wide-eyed, sleepless; his shadowyglance gloated over her lithe, slender shape; and then he strode awayinto the gloom. Sometimes she could no longer hear his steps and thenshe was quiveringly alert, listening, fearful that he might creep uponher like a panther. At times he kept the camp-fire blazing brightly; atothers he let it die down. And these dark intervals were frightfulfor her. The night seemed treacherous, in league with her foe. It wasendless. She prayed for dawn--yet with a blank hopelessness for whatthe day might bring. Could she hold out through more interminable hours?Would she not break from sheer strain? There were moments when shewavered and shook like a leaf in the wind, when the beating of her heartwas audible, when a child could have seen her distress. There wereother moments when all was ugly, unreal, impossible like things in anightmare. But when Kells was near or approached to look at her, likea cat returned to watch a captive mouse, she was again strong, waiting,with ever a strange and cold sense of the nearness of that swinging gun.Late in the night she missed him, for how long she had no idea. She hadless trust in his absence than his presence. The nearer he came to herthe stronger she grew and the clearer of purpose. At last the black voidof canon lost its blackness and turned to gray. Dawn was at hand. Thehorrible endless night, in which she had aged from girl to woman, hadpassed. Joan had never closed her eyes a single instant.
When day broke she got up. The long hours in which she had restedmotionlessly had left her muscles cramped and dead. She began to walkoff the feeling. Kells had just stirred from his blanket under thebalsam-tree. His face was dark, haggard, lined. She saw him go down tothe brook and plunge his hands into the water and bathe his face with akind of fury. Then he went up to the smoldering fire. There was a gloom,a somberness, a hardness about him that had not been noticeable the daybefore.
Joan found the water cold as ice, soothing to the burn beneath her skin.She walked away then, aware that Kells did not appear to care, and wentup to where the brook brawled from under the cliff. This was a hundredpaces from camp, though in plain sight. Joan looked round for herhorse, but he was not to be seen. She decided to slip away the firstopportunity that offered, and on foot or horseback, any way, to get outof Kells's clutches if she had to wander, lost in the mountains, tillshe starved. Possibly the day might be endurable, but another nightwould drive her crazy. She sat on a ledge, planning and brooding, tillshe was startled by a call from Kells. Then slowly she retraced hersteps.
"Don't you want to eat?" he asked.
"I'm not hungry," she replied.
"Well, eat anyhow--if it chokes you," he ordered.
Joan seated herself while he placed food and drink before her. She didnot look at him and did not feel his gaze upon her. Far asunder as theyhad been yesterday the distance between them to-day was incalculablygreater. She ate as much as she could swallow and pushed the restaway. Leaving the camp-fire, she began walking again, here and there,aimlessly, scarcely seeing what she looked at. There was a shadow overher, an impending portent of catastrophe, a moment standing dark andsharp out of the age-long hour. She leaned against the balsam and thenshe rested in the stone seat, and then she had to walk again. It mighthave been long, that time; she never knew how long or short. There camea strange flagging, sinking of her spirit, accompanied by vibrating,restless, uncontrollable muscular activity. Her nerves were on the vergeof collapse.
It was then that a call from Kells, clear and ringing, thrilled all theweakness from her in a flash, and left her limp and cold. She saw himcoming. His face looked amiable again, bright against what seemed avague and veiled background. Like a mountaineer he strode. And shelooked into his strange, gray glance to see unmasked the ruthless power,the leaping devil, the ungovernable passion she had sensed in him.
He grasped her arm and with a single pull swung her to him. "YOU'VE gotto pay that ransom!"
He handled her as if he thought she resisted, but she was unresisting.She hung her head to hide her eyes. Then he placed an arm round hershoulders and half led, half dragged her toward the cabin.