Chapter 10

SNOW BLINDNESS

More madly now than ever I felt that fierce temptation. There she lay, the one woman who had ever seriously come into my life, sleeping so near to me that I could bend down and rest my hand on the inert form over which the snow drifted so steadily.

I brushed it away. I brooded over her. Why had I ever brought her on that journey? Would that I had kept her, with all her love and gentleness, for my delight.

If I had taken her to Jamaica, where I had planned to go, instead of engaging that mock-heroic odyssey--there, among palm trees, in an eternal spring, there would have been no need that she should remember.

I looked down on her. Again the snow covered her.

It fell so inexorably. It was like Leroux. It was as tireless as he, and as implacable as he. I brushed it away with frantic haste, and still it drifted into the doorless hut.

A dreadful fear held me in its grip: what if she never awoke? Some people died thus in the snow. I raised the sleigh robe, and saw that the fur coat stirred softly as she breathed.

How gently she slept--as gently as she lived. How could her own have abandoned her in her need?

At last, out of the wild passions that fought within me, decision was born. I would go on, because she had bidden me. And I would be ready for Leroux, and let him act as he saw fit. I loaded my pistols. I could do no more than fight for Jacqueline, and with God be the issue.

And with that determination I grew calm. And I sat over the fire and let my imagination stray toward some future when our troubles would be in the past and we should be together.

"Paul!"

I must have been half asleep, for I came back to myself with a start and sprang to my feet. Jacqueline had risen upon her knees; she flung her arms out wildly, and suddenly she caught her breath and screamed, and stood up, and ran uncertainly toward me, with hands that groped for me.

She found me; I caught her, and she pushed me from her and shuddered and stared at me in that uncertain doubt that follows dreams.

"I am here, Jacqueline," I said. "With you--always, till you send me away. Remember that even in dreams, Jacqueline."

She knew me now, and she was recoiling from me, out through the hut door, into the blinding snow. I sprang after her.

"Jacqueline! It is I--Paul! It is Paul! Jacqueline!"

She was running from me and screaming in the snow. I heard her moccasins breaking through the thin ice crust. And, mad with terror, I rushed after her.

"Jacqueline! It is Paul!" I cried.

And as I emerged from the hut's shelter a red-hot glare from the east seemed to sear and kill my vision. It was the rising sun. I had thought it night, and it was already day. And I could see nothing through my swollen eyelids except the white light of the shining snow. The wind howled round me, and though the sun shone, the snowflakes stung my face like hail.

I did not know under the influence of what dread dream she was. But I ran wildly to and fro, calling her, and now and again I heard the sound of her little moccasins as she plunged through the knee-high snow.

Sometimes I seemed to be so near that I could almost touch her hand, and once I heard her panting breath behind me; but I never caught her. And never once did she answer me.

"What is it? What is it?" I pleaded madly. "Jacqueline, don't you know me? Don't you remember me?"

The sound of the moccasins far away, and then the whine of the wind again. I did not know where the huts were now. I could see nothing but a yellow glare. And fear of Leroux came on me and turned my heart to water. I stood still, listening, like a hunted stag. There came no sound.

It was horrible, in that wild waste, alone. I tried to gather my scattered senses together.

Eastward, I know, the river lay, and that blinding brightness came from the east. Southward a little distance, was the hill that we had last ascended on the evening before. I could discern the merest outlines of the land, but I fancied that I could see that it sloped upward toward the south.

I set off in the direction of the hill, and soon I found myself climbing. The elevation hid the sun, and this enabled me to glimpse my surroundings dimly, as through a heavy veil.

I called once more, and then I was scrambling up the hill, stumbling and falling on the ice-coated boulders. My coat was open, and the wind cut like a knife-edge, but I did not notice it. Perhaps from the hill-top I should see her.

"Jacqueline! Jacqueline!" I screamed frantically.

No answer came. I had gained the summit now, and round me I saw the shadowy outlines of the snow-covered rocks, but five or six feet from me a deep, impenetrable grey wall obscured everything. I tried to peer down into the valley, and saw nothing but the same fog there. Once more I called.

A dog barked suddenly, not far away, and through the mist I heard the slide of sleigh-runners on snow; and then I knew.

I scrambled down, slipping, and gashing my hands upon the rocks and ice. At the foot of the hill I saw two straight and narrow lines on the soft snow. They were the tracks of sleigh-runners.

I followed them, sobbing, and catching my breath, and screaming:

"Jacqueline! Jacqueline!"

Then I heard Simon's voice, and with the sound of it my dream came back with prophetic clearness.

"_Bonjour,_ M. Hewlett!" he called mockingly. "This way! This way!"

I turned and rushed blindly in the direction of the cry. I had left my snow-shoes behind me in the hut, and at each step my feet broke through the crusted snow, so that I floundered and fell like a drunken man to choruses of taunts and laughter.

It was a horrible blindman's bluff, for they had surrounded me, yelling from every quarter.

"This way, _monsieur_! This way!" piped a thin, voice which I knew to be Philippe Lacroix.

A snowball struck me on the chin, and they began pelting me and laughing. I was like a baited bear. I was beside myself with rage and helpless fury. The icy balls hit my face a dozen times; one struck me behind the ear and hurled me down half stunned.

I was up again and rushing at my unseen tormentors. I heard the barking of the dogs far away, and I ran in the direction of the sound, sobbing with rage. I pulled my pistols from my pockets and spun round, firing in every direction through that wall of grey, yielding mist that gave me place but never gave me vision.

The clouds had obscured the sky and the snow was falling again. My hands were bare and numb, except where the cold steel of the pistol triggers seared my fingers like molten metal.

They had formed a wider circle round me, and pistol range is longer than snowball range, so that they struck me no more. I heard the shouts and mockery still, but never Jacqueline's voice.

"Here, M. Hewlett, here!" piped Philippe Lacroix once more.

Again I turned and rushed at him, firing shot after shot. I heard his snow-shoes plodding across the crust, and yells from the others indicated that Philippe's adventure had been a risky one.

Then Simon called again and I turned, like a foolish, baited beast, and fired at him.

A dog barked once more, very far away, and at last I understood their scheme.

Doubtless Simon had reached the huts at dawn and had discovered us there. He must have been in waiting, but when he saw Jacqueline run from me he changed his plans and sent the sleigh after her. Then, realizing from my actions that I was snow-blind, he had remained behind with some of his followers to enjoy the sport of baiting me, and incidentally to drive me out of the way while the sleigh went on.

And now there was complete silence. He had accomplished his purpose. He had gained all that he had to gain. Fortune had fought upon his side, as always.

But Jacqueline----

She had tried to escape me. She could not have been playing a part--she was too transcendentally sincere. Something must have occurred--some dream which had momentarily crazed her; and she had confounded me with her persecutors.

I could not think evil of her. I flung myself down in the snow and gave way to abject misery.

But hope is not readily overthrown. For her sake I resolved to pull myself together. I did not now know whether Leroux was in front or behind me, or upon either hand.

I stood deep in the snow, a pistol in each hand, waiting. When he called again I should make my last effort.

But he called me no more. Once I heard the dog yelp, far up the valley, and then there was only the soughing of the wind and the sting of the driving sleet flakes. And the grey mist had closed in all about me. I was alone in that storm-swept wilderness and there was no sun to guide me.

I saw a shadow at my feet, and stooping down, perceived that accident had brought me back to the sleigh tracks. From the direction in which the dog had howled, I judged that my course lay straight ahead as I was standing. I started off wearily. At least it was better to walk than to perish in the snow.

But before many minutes had passed the realization of my loss stung me into madness again, and I began to run. And, as I ran, I shouted, and, shouting, I fired.

I plunged along--half delirious, I believe, for I began to hear voices on every side of me and to imagine I saw Simon standing, just out of reach, a shadow upon the mist, taunting me. I followed him at an undeviating distance, firing, reloading, and firing again. I was no longer conscious of my progress. The fingers that pressed the triggers of my pistols had no sensation in them, and in my imagination were parts of a monstrous mechanism which I directed. My legs, too, felt like stilts that somebody had strapped to my body, and, instead of cold, a warm glow seemed to suffuse me.

And while my helpless body stumbled along its route my mind was back in New York. This was my apartment on Tenth Street, and Jacqueline sat behind the curtains. I had dreamed of a long journey through a snow-bound wilderness, but I had awakened and we were to start for Jamaica by that day's boat. How dear she was! She raised her eyes, full of trusting love, to mine, and I knew that there would never be any parting until death.

We sat beneath the palms, beside a sea that plunged against our little island, and the air was fragrant with the scent of orange-blossoms, carried upon the wind from the distant mainland. We were so happy there--there was no need to think or to remember. I slept against her shoulder.

Somebody was shaking me.

"Get up!" he bellowed in my ear. "Get up! Do you want to die in the snow?"

I closed my eyes and sank back into a lethargy of sleep.