Part 10

Bess’s little mutiny was already quelled. Her blue eyes were black with terror.

XVI

Doomsdorf had seemingly achieved his purpose, and his prisoners lay crushed in his hands. A fear infinitely worse than that of toil or hardship had evidently killed the fighting spirit in Bess; Lenore had been broken by Doomsdorf’s first words. And now all the structure of Ned’s life had seemingly toppled about him.

The lesson that Doomsdorf taught had gone deep, not to be forgotten in any happier moment that life might have in store for him. There was no blowing into flame the ashes of his old philosophy. It was dead and cold in his breast; no matter what turn fate should take, his old conceit and self-sufficiency could never come again. He was down to earth at last. The game had been too big for him. The old Ned Cornet was dead, and only a broken, impotent, hopeless thing was left to dwell in his battered body.

He had found the training camp, but it was more bitter than ever his father had hinted that it could be. Indeed Godfrey Cornet, in those brooding prophecies at which his son had laughed, had been all too hopeful regarding it. He had said there was a way through and on, always there was a way through and on; but here the only out-trail was one of infinite shadow to an unknown destination. Death—_that_ was the way out. _That_ was the only way.

It was curious how easy it was to think of death. Formerly the word had invoked a sense of something infinitely distant, nothing that could seemingly touch him closely, a thought that never came clearly into focus in his brain. All at once it had showed itself as the most real of all realities. It might be his before another night, before the end of the present hour. It had come quick enough to Knutsen. The least resistance to Doomsdorf’s will would bring it on himself. Many things were lies, and the false was hard to tell from the true, but in this regard there was no chance for question. Doomsdorf would strike the life from him in an instant at the first hint of revolt.

It was wholly conceivable that such a thing could occur. Ned could endure grinding toil till he died; even such personal abuse as he had received an hour or so before might find him crushed and unresisting, but yet there remained certain offenses that could not be endured. Ned could not forget that both Lenore and Bess were wholly in Doomsdorf’s power. A brutal, savage man, it was all too easy to believe that the time would come soon when he would forget the half-promise he had given them. The smoky gaze that he had bent toward Bess meant, perhaps, that he was already forgetting it. In that case would there be anything for him but to fight and die? No matter how great a weakling he had been, the last mandate of his honor demanded that. And a bitterness ineffable descended upon him when he realized that even such bravery could not in the least help the two girls,—that his death would be as unavailing and impotent as his life.

How false he had been to himself and his birthright! He had been living in a fool’s paradise, and he had fallen from it into hell! Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage: for less return Ned had sold himself into slavery. He had been a member of a dominant race, the son of a mighty breed that wrested the soil from the wilderness and built strong cities on the desolate plains; but he had wasted his patrimony of strength and manhood. A parlor knight, he had leaned upon his father’s sword rather than learning to wield his own; and he had fallen vanquished the instant that he had left its flashing ring of steel.

For in this moment of unspeakable remorse, he found he could blame no one but himself for the disaster. Every year men traversed these desolate waters to buy furs from the Indians; he had been in a staunch boat, and with a little care, a little foresight, the journey could have been made in perfect safety. It was a man’s venture, surely; but he could have carried through if he had met it like a man instead of a weakling. He knew perfectly that it was his own recklessness and folly that set the cups of burning liquor before Captain Knutsen as he stood at his wheel. It was his own unpardonable conceit, his own self-sufficiency that made him start out to meet the North half prepared, daring to disturb its ancient silences with the sound of his wild revelry; and to live, in its grim desolation, the same trivial life he lived at home. He hadn’t even brought a pistol. Sensing his weakness and his unpreparedness, Doomsdorf hadn’t even done him the honor of searching him for one.

Knutsen’s death was on his own head: the life of utter wretchedness and hopelessness and insult that lay before Lenore and Bess was his own doing, too. It wouldn’t compensate to die in their defense, merely leaving them continued helpless prey to Doomsdorf. He saw now, with this new vision that had come to him, that his only possible course was to live and do what he could in atonement. He mustn’t think of himself any more. All his life he had thought of nothing but himself; self-love had been his curse to the end of the chapter,—and now he could not make himself believe but that it had been some way intertwined in his love for Lenore. He would have liked to give himself credit for that, at least—unselfish devotion, these past years, to Lenore—but even this stuck in his throat. But his love for her would be unbiased by self-love now. He would give all of himself now—holding nothing back.

In spite of his own despair, his own bitter hopelessness, he must do what he could to keep hope alive in Lenore and Bess. It was the only chance he had to pay, even in the most pitiful, slight degree for what he had done to them. He must always try to make their lot easier, doing their work when he could, maintaining an attitude of cheer, living the lie of hope when hope seemed dead in his breast.

Ned Cornet was awake at last. He knew himself, his generation, the full enormity of his own folly, the unredeemed falsehood of his old philosophy. Better still, he knew what lay before him, not only the remorselessness of his punishment but also his atonement: doing willingly and cheerfully the little he could to lighten the burdens of his innocent victims. He could have _that_ to live for, at least, doing the feeble little that he could. And that is why, when Doomsdorf looked at him again, he found him in some way straightened, his eyes more steadfast, his lips in a firmer, stronger line.

“Glad to see you’re bucking up,” he commented lightly.

Ned turned soberly. “I _am_ bucking up,” he answered. “I see now that you’ve gone into something you can’t get away with. Miss Gilbert was right; in the end you’ll find yourself laid out by the heels.”

It can be said for Ned, for the reality of his resolve, that his words seemed to ring with conviction, giving no sign of the utter despair that was in his heart. Of course he was speaking them for the ears of Lenore and Bess, in order to encourage them.

“You think so, eh?” Doomsdorf yawned and stretched his arms. “Just try something—that’s all. And since you’re feeling so good, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get to work. You can still put in a fairly good morning. And you”—he turned, with the catlike swiftness that marked so many of his movements, toward Bess—“what’s your name?”

“You just heard him say. Miss Gilbert——”

“You can forget you are a ‘Miss.’ You’re a squaw out here—and can do squaw’s work. What’s your first name?”

Bess, in her misery, looked at him with dread. “Bess Gilbert,” she answered quietly.

“Bess it will be. Lenore, I think you call the other—and Ned. Good thing to know first names, since we’ve got an uncertain number of years before us. Well, I suggest that all three of you go out and see what you can do about wood. You’ll have to cut some and split it. I’ve been lazy about laying in a winter store.”

Much to his amazement, Ned stood erect, pulled down his cap over his brown curls, and buttoned his coat. “I’ll see what we can do,” he answered straightforwardly. “I have, though, one thing to ask.”

“What is it——”

“That you let the two girls take it easy to-day—and get warmed through. If you sent them out now, weakened as they are, it might very easily mean pneumonia and death. It’s to your interest to keep them alive.”

“It’s to my interest, surely—but don’t rely on that to the extent of showing too much independence. The human body can stand a lot before it gives up the ghost. The human voice can do a lot of screaming. I know, because I’ve seen. I don’t mind running a little risk with human life to get my way, and I know several things, short of actual killing, that go toward enforcing obedience and quelling mutiny.”

Lenore, staring wildly at him, caught her breath in a sob. “You don’t mean——”

Doomsdorf did not look at her. He still smiled down at Ned. “You’ve never felt a knout, have you, on the naked back?” he asked sweetly. “I found out what they were like in Siberia, and with the hope of showing some one else, I took one out—in my boot. It’s half-killed many a man—but I only know one man that it’s completely killed. He was a guard—and I found out just how many blows it takes. You can stop a hundred—fifty—perhaps only ten before that number, and life still lingers.” The man yawned again. “But your request is granted—so far as Lenore is concerned. You can leave her here for me to entertain. Bess has spirit enough to talk—she has undoubtedly spirit enough to work.”

Ned, deeply appalled and unspeakably revolted, looked to Lenore for directions. Her glorious head was on her arms, and she shook it in utter misery. “I can’t go out there now,” she said. “I’ll just die if I do—I’m so cold still, so weakened. I wish I had died out there in the storm.”

Ned turned once more to Doomsdorf. “She’s telling the truth—I think she simply can’t stand to go,” he urged gravely. “But though she’s absolutely in your power, there are some things even a beast can’t do. You just the same as gave me your word——”

“There are things a beast can’t do, but I’m not a beast. There’s nothing I can’t do that I want to do. I make no promises—just the same, for this time, I don’t think you need be afraid. I don’t take everything that comes along in the way of a woman. I want a woman of thews!”

Bess dared not look at him, but she felt the insult of his searching gaze. She buttoned her coat tight, then stood waiting. An instant later Doomsdorf was holding the door open for her as she went to her toil.

XVII

There were a number of axes in the little work-room that comprised one end of the long cabin, and Doomsdorf flung three of them over his shoulder. “Right up through here,” he urged, pointing to the little hillside behind the cabin. “Of course I can’t let you cut fuel from these trees so close to the house. You, as city people, surely know something about house beautifying. You’ll have to carry the wood a little farther—but you won’t mind, when you know it’s for the sake of beauty.”

The snow was noticeably deeper in the two hours since they had come. It clung to Ned’s trouser legs almost to the knees, soaking through his thin walking shoes; and both he and Bess found it some degree of labor just to push through it. Doomsdorf halted them before one of the half-grown spruce.

“Here’s a good one,” he commented. “Just beyond is another. You can each take one—cut them down with your axes and then hack them into two-foot lengths for the stove. Better split each length into three pieces—the larger ones, anyway. If you have time, you can carry it down to the cabin.”

He swung his axes down from his shoulder. He seemed to be handling them with particular care, but several seconds elapsed before Ned realized that the moment had some slight element of drama. Heretofore he had been unable to observe that Doomsdorf was in the least on guard against his prisoners. He had seemingly taken no obvious precautions in his own defense. It was plain to see, however, that he did not intend to put axes into the hands of these two foes until he had one ready to swing himself.

He took the handle of the largest axe in his right hand; with his left he extended the other two implements, blades up, to Ned and Bess. “I suppose you know we’ve had no experience——” Ned began.

“It doesn’t matter. Just be careful the trees don’t fall on you. They sometimes do, you know, on amateur woodsmen. The rest is plain brute strength and awkwardness.” He handed them each, from his pocket, a piece of dried substance that looked like bark. “Here’s a piece of jerked caribou each—it ought to keep life in your bodies. And the sooner you get your wood cut and split, the sooner you see any more.”

Then he turned and left them to their toil.

Thus began a bitter hour for Ned. He found the mere work of biting through the thick trunk with his axe cost him his breath and strained his patience to the limit. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. He did not strike true; the blade made irregular white gashes in the bark; his blows seemed to lack power. The great, ragged wound deepened but slowly.

Finally it was half through the trunk, and yet the tree stood seemingly as sturdy as ever. Reckless from fatigue, he chopped on more fiercely than ever. And suddenly, with the grinding noise of breaking wood, the tree started to fall.

And at that instant Ned was face to face with the exigency of leaping for his life. The tree did not fall in the direction planned. An instant before, weary and aching and out of breath, Ned would have believed himself incapable of swift and powerful motion. As that young spruce shattered down toward him, like the club of a giant aimed to strike out his life, a supernatural power seemed to snatch him to one side. Without realization of effort, the needed muscles contracted with startling force, and he sprang like a distance jumper to safety.

But he didn’t jump too soon or too far. The branches of the tree lashed at him as it descended, hurling him headlong in the snow. And thereafter there were three things to cause him thought.

One of them was the attitude of Bess,—the girl to whom, in weeks past, he had shown hardly decent courtesy: the same girl whom in childish fury he had cursed the bitter, eventful night just gone. Above the roar of the falling tree he heard her quick, half-strangled gasp of horror.

The sound seemed to have the qualities that made toward a perfect after-image; because in the silence that followed, as he lay in the soft snow, and the crash of the fallen tree echoed into nothingness, it still lingered, every tone perfect and clear, in his mind’s ear. There was no denying its tone of ineffable dismay. Evidently Bess was of a forgiving disposition; in spite of his offense of the past night she had evidently no desire to see him crushed into jelly under that giant’s blow. Some way, it had never occurred to him that the girl would harbor a kind thought for him again. She had been right and he had been wrong; in an effort to serve him she had received only his curse, and her present desperate position, worse perhaps than either his own or Lenore’s, was due wholly to his own folly. She had not taken part in the orgy of the night before, so not the least echo of responsibility could be put on her. Yet she didn’t hate him. She had cried out in real agony when she thought he was about to die.

He thought upon this matter as he lay in the soft snow whence the descending branches of the tree had hurled him. He didn’t have many seconds to think about it. Further eccentricity on the part of Bess swiftly gave him additional cause for reflection. She had not only cried out, but she ran to him with the speed of a deer. She was by his side almost before he was aware of the scope of the accident.

The sobbing cry he had heard could very likely be attributed merely to that instinctive horror that a sensitive girl would feel at an impending tragedy, wholly apart from personal interest in the victim; but for a few seconds Ned was absolutely at a loss to explain that drawn, white, terrified face above him. In fear for him, Bess was almost at the point of absolute collapse herself. Nor could mere impersonal horror explain her flying leap to reach his side,—like a snowbird over the drifts. It meant more than mere forgiveness for the terrible pass to which he had brought her. In a few seconds of clear thinking he thought he saw the truth: that even after all that was past Bess still looked to him for her hope, that she regarded him still as her defense against Doomsdorf; and that his death would leave her absolutely bereft. He was a man, and she still dreamed that he might save her.

The result was a quick sense of shame of his own inadequacy. It is not good to know oneself a failure in the face of woman’s trust. Yet the effect of the little scene was largely good, for it served to strengthen Ned’s resolve to spare the girls in every way he could, and by his own feigned hope to keep them from despair. Above all, he found an increased admiration for Bess. Instead of a silly prude, a killjoy for the party, she had shown herself as a sportswoman to the last fiber. She had been a friend when she had every right to be an enemy; she had shown spirit and character when women of lesser metal would have been irremediably crushed. He was far away now from the old barriers of caste. There was no reason, on this barren, dreadful isle, why he shouldn’t accept all the friendship she would give him and give his own in return.

But this subject was only one of three that suddenly wakened him to increased mental activity. If he were amazed at Bess, he was no less amazed at himself. He had been tired out, hopeless, out of wind, hardly able to swing his arms, and yet he had managed to leap out of seeming certain death. The unmistakable inference was that the body in which his spirit had dwelt for thirty years had strength and possibilities of which hitherto he had been unaware. In the second of crisis he had shown a perfect coördination of brain and muscle, an accuracy of transmission of the brain-messages that were conducted along his nerves, and a certain sureness of instinct that he had never dreamed he possessed. It would have been very easy to have jumped the wrong way. Yet he had jumped the right way—the only possible way to avoid death—choosing infallibly the nearest point of safety and hurling himself directly toward it. Perhaps it would have been better to have stayed where he was, to have let the tree crush the life out of him and be done with Hell Isle for good, yet a power beyond himself had carried him out of danger. The point offered interesting possibilities. Could it be that he had had the makings of a man in him all these years and had never been aware of it? Could he dare hope that this side of him might be developed, in the hard years to come, so that he might be better able to endure the grinding toil and hardship? The thought wasn’t really _hope_—he didn’t believe that _hope_ would ever visit him again—it was only an instant’s rift, dim as twilight, in the gloom of his despair. The most he could ever hope to do was to fortify himself in order to take more and more of the girl’s hardship upon his shoulders.

Thirdly he gave some thought to the matter of felling trees. It was a more complex matter than he had at first supposed. Evidently he had gone about it in the wrong way. It would pay to have more respect for the woodsman’s science if he did not wish to come to an early end beneath a falling tree. He might not be so quick to dodge again.

Bess was staring wide-eyed into his face; and he smiled quietly in reassurance. “Not hurt at all,” he told her. Quickly he climbed to his feet. “See that you don’t do the same thing that I did.”

Delighted that he had not been hurt but a little aghast at what heart’s secret she might have revealed in running to his aid, she started to go back to her toil. But Ned had already reached some conclusions about tree-felling. He walked with her to her fallen axe, then inspected the deep cut she had already made in her tree.

“You’re doing the same thing I did, sure enough,” he observed. “The tree will fall your way and crush you. Let me think.”

A moment later he took his axe and put in a few more strokes in the same place. It was the danger point, he thought: a deeper cut might fell the tree prematurely. Presently he crossed to the opposite side, signaled Bess out of danger, and began to hack the tree again, making a cut somewhat above that started on the other side of the trunk. He chopped sturdily; and in a moment the tree started to fall, safely and in an opposite direction.

He uttered some small sound of triumph; but it was a real tragedy to have the tree fall against a near-by tree and lodge. Again he had failed to exercise proper foresight.

There was nothing to do but climb into the adjoining tree with his axe and laboriously cut the lodged tree away. In the meantime Bess went to work on the first tree felled, trimming it of its limbs so to cut it into lengths.

Ned joined her at the work, but long before the first tree was cut into fuel, both were at the edge of utter exhaustion. The point of fatigue he had reached that morning in rowing, when he had rested from the sheer inability to take another stroke, was already far past. There had been a point, some time back, when every muscle of his body had throbbed with a burning ache, when pain crept all over him like a slow fire, but that too was largely passed now. His brain was dulled; he felt baffled and estranged as if in a dream. It was more like a nightmare now,—his axe swinging eternally in his arms, the chips flying, one after another.

He seemed to move so slowly. Hours were passing, one after another, and still great lengths of the trees remained to cut and split. But they couldn’t stop and rest. They dared not return to the cabin till the work was done: the brute that was their master would be glad of an excuse to lay on the lash. They had been taught what mercy to expect from him. Here was one reality that their fatigue could not blunt: their cruel master waiting in the cabin. As the rest of their conscious world faded and dimmed he was ever more vivid, ever more real. The time soon came when he filled all the space in their thoughts.

For Ned life was suddenly immensely simplified. All the complexities of his old life had suddenly ceased to matter: indeed that had perished from his consciousness. The world was forgotten, he had no energy to waste in remembering how he had come hence, even who he was. From the supreme egoist, knowing no world but that of which his own ego was the orbit, to a faltering child hardly aware of his own identity: thus had Ned changed in a single night. The individual who had been Ned Cornet had almost ceased to be; and in his place was a helpless pawn of a cruel and remorseless fate.

He knew Fate now. Through the mists of this nightmare that was upon him he saw the Jester with his bells. And as he looked, the sharp, ironic face grew savage, brutal, half-covered with blond hair; the motley became a cap of silver fox. But this changed too, as his axe swung in the air. Once more the face was sharp, but still unutterably terrible to see; but it was livid now, as if sulphurous flames were playing upon it. And the foot—he saw the foot plain against the snow. It was unspeakable, filling him with cold horror all his length. It was some way cloven and ghastly.

The vision passed, broken and dissolved by the noise of the axe on the tough wood. He knew Fate now. He had seen him in all his forms. In his folly he had scorned him, taunted him by his insolence, had dared to dream that he was greater than Fate, immune from his persecution. If this torment ended now, he had paid the price. He had atoned for everything already if he did not lift the axe again. Yet only eternity lay ahead.