CHAPTER XVIII

FACING THE END

Below the hill on one side flickered the moving torches of the hostiles. On the other side, where the cliff fell sheer away, lay the red-dyed snows with misty shapes moving through the frosty valley.

A wind of sighs swept across the white wastes. Short, sharp barkings rose from the shadowy depth of the ravine. Then the silence of desolation . . . then the moaning night-wind . . . then the shivering cry of the wolf-pack scouring on nightly hunt.

For a moment neither Godefroy nor I spoke. Then the sinews, cutting deep, wakened consciousness.

"Are they gone?" asked Godefroy hoarsely.

"Yes," said I, glancing to the valley.

"Can't you break through the thongs and get a hand free?"

"My back is to the tree. We'll have to face it, Godefroy--don't break down, man! We must face it!"

"Face what?" he shuddered out. "Is anything there? Face what?" he half screamed.

"The end!"

He strained at the thongs till he had strength to strain no more. Then he broke out in a volley of maledictions at Jack Battle and me for interfering with the massacre, to which I could answer never a word; for the motives that merit greatest applause when they succeed, win bitterest curses when they fail.

The northern lights swung low. Once those lights seemed censers of flame to an invisible God. Now they shot across the steel sky like fiery serpents, and the rustling of their fire was as the hiss when a fang strikes. A shooting star blazed into light against the blue, then dropped into the eternal darkness.

"Godefroy," I asked, "how long will this last?"

"Till the wolves come," said he huskily.

"A man must die some time," I called back; but my voice belied the bravery of the words, for something gray loomed from the ravine and stood stealthily motionless in the dusk behind the trader. Involuntarily a quick "Hist!" went from my lips.

"What's that?" shouted Godefroy. "Is anything there?"

"I am cold," said I.

And on top of that lie I prayed--prayed with wide-staring eyes on the thing whose head had turned towards us--prayed as I have never prayed before or since!

"Are you sure there's nothing?" cried the trader. "Look on both sides! I'm sure I feel something!"

Another crouching form emerged from the gloom--then another and another--silent and still as spectres. With a sidling motion they prowled nearer, sniffing the air, shifting watchful look from Godefroy to me, from me to Godefroy. A green eye gleamed nearer through the mist. Then I knew.

The wolves had come.

Godefroy screamed out that he heard something, and again bade me look on both sides of the hill.

"Keep quiet till I see," said I; but I never took my gaze from the green eyes of a great brute to the fore of the gathering pack.

"But I feel them--but I hear them!" shouted Godefroy, in an agony of terror.

What gain to keep up pretence longer? Still holding the beast back with no other power than the power of the man's eye over the brute, I called out the truth to the trader.

"Don't move! Don't speak! Don't cry out! Perhaps we can stare them back till daylight comes!"

Godefroy held quiet as death. Some subtle power of the man over the brute puzzled the leader of the pack. He shook his great head with angry snarls and slunk from side to side to evade the human eye, every hair of his fur bristling. Then he threw up his jaws and uttered a long howl, answered by the far cry of the coming pack. Sniffing the ground, he began circling--closing in--closing in----

Then there was a shout--a groan, a struggle--a rip as of teeth--from Godefroy's place!

Then with naught but a blazing of comets dropping into an everlasting dark, with naught but a ship of fire billowing away to the flame of the northern lights, with naught but the rush of a sea, blinding, deafening, bearing me to the engulfment of the eternal--I lost knowledge of this life!