Heart of the Blue Ridge Part 17

He devoured his food ravenously, washing it down with the coffee.

Finally, he brought slices of bread and bacon to Plutina, and laid them in her lap. He loosened her right hand and so permitted her to feed herself. It was her impulse to refuse the offering, but she resisted the folly, knowing the necessity of food, if she would have energy for the ordeal before her. So, she gulped down the bread and meat, and drank from the dipper full of coffee. Then, her bonds were tightened again, and the two renewed their march.

The going was harder here, up and down the rock-strewn slopes. Fatigue lay very heavy on Plutina, after the strains of the two days. Only her hate of the man at her side bolstered up pride, so that she compelled herself to keep moving by sheer force of will. It was already dusk, when, at last, they issued from the wood and went forward over the sh.o.r.e of the pool at Sandy Creek Falls.

"Wall, hyar we be!" Hodges cried loudly. There was satisfaction in his voice.

That satisfaction aroused Plutina from the apathy into which she had fallen, during the last half-mile of difficult scrambling, made more toilsome by the constraint of her bound wrists. Now, puzzlement provoked interest in her surroundings. She had expected that the outlaw would bear her away to the most convenient or the most inaccessible of the various secret retreats with which rumor credited him. But here was neither cave nor shack--only the level s.p.a.ce of sand, the mist-wreathed pool, the rushing volume of the falls, the bleak wall of the cliff which towered above them where they had halted at its base. She knew this place. There could be no cavern at hand.

Her eyes searched the s.p.a.ce of the inclosure wonderingly. Then, they went to the man, whom she found regarding her bewilderment with a smirk of gratification.

"Hyar we be, right on the door-step, so to say," he bellowed. "If ye kain't see the door-step yit, ye will mighty quick, unless thet pore feller ye shot has gone an' died a-waitin' fer you-all to come an'

nuss 'im.... Yep, he was a-watchin', all right," he added briskly.

"Hyar hit comes!"

Plutina's eyes followed her captor's and, far above, she made out something that dangled from the slight break in the cliff. It descended slowly and jerkily, with haphazard gyrations. As its end drew closer, she perceived that it was a rudely constructed rope-ladder, with wooden rungs. She watched it fascinated, shivering with new fears.

When the flimsy means of ascent hung at its full length, Hodges bade the girl climb. Unnerved as she already was, the ordeal of such a progress to the mysterious height above seemed too terrible. She refused mutely, shaking her head, and cowering away from the outlaw as far as the thong permitted. But the man had no pity for her timorousness.

"You-all kin jest nacherly crawl up thet-thar ladder," he announced, "or we'll sling ye on the end of a rope, an' h'ist ye. Thet'll tumble ye round an' b.u.mp ye agin the rocks quite some. But ye're the doctor.

If ye'll climb up, I'll leave yer han's loose, an' foller cluss behind ye, so ye kain't fall. Hit's sh.o.r.e wobbly, but hit's safe. Dan Hodges hain't aimin' to git his neck broke--ner to let the law break it fer him!" he added, in a lower tone to himself.

But Plutina caught the words. She made nothing of them at the time; afterward, she realized their significance, and thanked G.o.d for them.

In the end, the prisoner yielded to necessity and ventured to mount with reluctant slowness. She found, to her intense relief, that the strength was returning to her body. She no longer felt the pervasive la.s.situde. The physical improvement reacted on her mind to restore confidence in her powers. She realized that probably the only danger lay in her own faltering, and she resolved to overcome her natural dread, to bend all her energies to a safe performance of the task.

Despite her hatred of the man, she found unspeakable comfort in the sight of his great hairy hands clutching the ropes on either side of her at the height of her waist. But, as she mounted, the s.p.a.ce beneath grew fearsome to her, and she raised her eyes and held them steadily on the distance above, as she had learned to do in clambering with her lover.

Somehow, now, the thought of Zeke heartened Plutina. Swinging dizzily in the abyss, with the arms of her jailer about her, there flowed into her soul a new courage. It was without reason, an absurdity, a folly, but, oh, what a solace to her spirit! Under the stimulus of it, she ascended more rapidly. The pinched, ugly face of Garry Hawks, glowering down at her from the ledge, did not dismay her, even though the thought flashed on her brain that now this man whom she had wounded could hurl her to destruction by a touch. She had no fear of him; only pressed upward steadily. In another moment, her head pa.s.sed above the level of the ledge. She took the hand Garry Hawks held out and climbed upon the narrow support, where she shrank back against the cliff, after one glance into the gulf yawning at her feet. The level s.p.a.ce was a scant yard in width here, and lessened on the side away from the falls, until it ceased entirely. In the other direction, it ran, broadening a very little, to where a tiny cleft showed in the precipice. Plutina guessed that this marked the entrance to a cavern.

Despite the bravery of her changed mood, the eerie retreat daunted her by its desolate isolation. Then, Hodges climbed upon the ledge, and she heard his shout, coming faintly to her ears above the roar of the cascade which fell just beyond the cavern's mouth.

"Welcome, home, Honey!" he bawled, with his detested jocularity.

"They hain't n.o.body a-goin' to b.u.t.t in on our love-makin' up hyar."

t.i.ttering and leering, he seized the girl by the arm, and led her, unresisting, to the cranny that was the door of the cave. A glance over her shoulder showed Garry Hawks on his knee, hauling up the ladder. She knew that with its disappearance there would remain nought by which the searchers could guess whither she had vanished, or how.

Once again, courage went out of her. In its place was despair.

CHAPTER XX

The cave into which Plutina now entered was a small, uneven chamber, some three yards in width at its highest point. It extended back for a little way, but the roof sloped downward so sharply that only in the central s.p.a.ce could the girl stand upright, and even there Hodges had to stoop. On the far side was a hole in the rocky wall. It was hardly a yard in height, but the faint glow that marked it was proof that it reached to the daylight outside. At the best, it could serve as a pa.s.sage-way only to one creeping on hands and knees. So much Plutina perceived in the first curious survey of her prison. The inspection was rendered possible by the murky light of a tallow candle, fixed in its own grease to a fragment of stone near the center of the cavern.

As the outlaw released his hold on her arm, the girl sank down listlessly on a part of the wall that projected like a bench near the entrance. She leaned back against the cold stone, and her eyes closed.

She felt a terrifying weakness, against which she battled with what strength she could summon. She dared not swoon, and so leave herself wholly helpless within the power of this man. She was white and trembling, but by force of will she held herself from falling, though her muscles seemed fluid as milk, and blackness whirled before her eyes.

Nevertheless, Hodges was not minded to have a fainting woman on his hands. His prisoner's appearance alarmed him, and he hurried to a corner of the cave, whence he quickly returned with a cup half-full of whiskey. This he held to Plutina's lips. She accepted the service, for she could not lift a hand, so great was her weakness. She swallowed a part of the draught, and the strong liquor warmed and strengthened her. She was so far restored soon as to understand Hodges' closing sentence, for he had been mumbling at her.

"Ye hain't so d.a.m.ned skittish as ye was yistiddy," he jeered.

Plutina had no spirit to reply. She could only sit in abject la.s.situde, content to feel the glow of the stimulant creeping through her veins. For a time, her thoughts were stilled by the bodily torpor.

She welcomed the respite, glad to rest from the horror of her plight.

She heard the raucous voice of the outlaw booming in her ears, but she paid no heed. She saw Garry Hawks come into the cavern, waddling under the burden of the rope-ladder, which he carried clumsily by reason of the wound in his arm. She observed that the outlaw said something to his minion, putting his lips close to the fellow's ear, lest he be overheard. But she felt no curiosity as to the purport of this secret utterance, nor did she take interest when, immediately afterward, she beheld the wounded man get down on all fours and crawl out of sight through the hole in the opposite side of the cave.

Little by little, the prisoner's forces came back to her. Of a sudden, she aroused with a start, as though she had been asleep, albeit without any consciousness of having slept. She felt a new alertness now through all her members, and her brain was clear. Along with this well-being came again appreciation of the dreadfulness of her case.

She grew rigid under the shock of dire realization, tensing her muscles, without volition, as if to repel attack. Her eyes went fearfully to Hodges, who sprawled at ease on a heap of spruce boughs across the cavern from her. The man was puffing lazily at a corncob pipe. The rank, acrid smell of the tobacco-smoke came to her nostrils, strangely home-like in this weird prison cell, aloft within the crags.

She perceived, with infinite relief, that for the moment he appeared absorbed in his thoughts, disregardful of her presence. At least, she would have opportunity to fortify her spirit against the fear that beset her. She must ape bravery, even though she sickened with terror. Thus only could she hope to daunt the creature that threatened her. She had only moral strength with which to resist him. Physically, she would be as a child in his grasp, notwithstanding her quick, firm muscles. In a bodily contest, there could be but the single issue, her vanquishment. It would be hardly more than sport to him, the utmost of her frenzied strugglings. She saw the b.l.o.o.d.y marks of her fingers on his face, and remembered his stolid seeming of indifference to her fury. He had scorned her strength then. So, he would continue to scorn it--with reason, since it could by no means avail against him. No, she must have recourse to strength of will rather, to awe and intimidate him. She knew the folly of such means against the brutal desire of the man. But she clung to it as a meed of hope, because she had naught else to which to cling. Without a hope, even the falsest, she must have gone mad.

One thing seemed favoring for the time. The man was evidently sober.

Plutina wondered at that, for Hodges was not often sober, and excess of liquor was an accustomed part in all his pleasures. His abstinence now puzzled her, but it relieved her, too, since it promised some postponement of his worst advances. Thus encouraged, she set herself to review the situation in detail, in forlorn attempt to come on a way of escape. But a half-hour of effort left her distraught. She could devise nothing to suit her need. Only one thought remained for tragical comfort in her wretchedness: In her last extremity, she might cast herself from the cliff. Better a thousand times clean death than defilement.... Plutina remembered her grandfather's regret over her having spared the outlaw. Now, with her finger on the trigger, there would have been no faltering, only joy and thanksgiving.

The defenseless girl watched furtively. When, at last, Hodges stirred from his indolent sprawl, knocked the dottle from his pipe, and looked up at her, she shrank visibly. The blood rushed back to her heart in a flood, leaving her pallid, and she was trembling. Even in the feeble light from the guttering candle, Hodges could perceive her disturbance. It gratified him, and he laughed, in sinister glee over her emotion.

"I 'low ye're gittin' some tame since yistiddy," he exclaimed. He got to his feet slowly, whereat Plutina looked toward the entrance cleft, ready if the need came, to fly from him to the more merciful abyss.

But Hodges moved toward the back of the cave where he brought out a stone jug from its niche, and returned to the bed of boughs. Seated again, he filled the tin cup full of spirits, and drank it down. With the pipe recharged and burning, he continued to sit in silence, regarding the girl with an unswerving intentness that tortured her.

At short intervals, he replenished the cup and quaffed it thirstily.

He was rapidly compensating for his earlier abstinence. Plutina, studying him covertly, noted the beginnings of drunkenness and its various stages. There was gruesome fascination in her scrutiny; for she knew that her honor rested on the hazard of a sot's whim.

Suddenly, the girl knew that the peril was very close upon her. Hodges was staring at her from his reddened eyes with a rampant l.u.s.tfulness that was unmistakable. Again, she measured the distances, to make sure that the last desperate means of escape from his embraces lay open still. She meant, in the final crisis, to spring to the crevice, before he could approach within reach of her. There, with the verge of the cliff only a step away, she would make her plea, with death in the gulf as the alternative of failure, the ultimate safeguard of honor.

There could be no doubt concerning the imminence of the danger. The usually red face of the outlaw was mottled purple, congested by the stimuli of liquor and pa.s.sion. The thick under-lip hung slackly, quivering from time to time in the convulsive tremors of desire that ran over him. A high light fell on the man's neck, where the open shirt left it bare. Plutina's gaze was caught by the slight rise and fall of the flesh above the artery. The movement was made distinguishable across the cavern by the effects of light and shade.

The girl found herself mechanically counting the throbs. The rapidity of them amazed her. They witnessed the fever raging in his blood--the fever that clamored for a.s.suagement from her. The galloping pulse enthralled her with horror. It made visible the vile fires raging in him. So swift the rhythm grew that a hideous hope sprang up in the watcher--hope that an apoplexy might stretch the man dead at her feet.

Hodges reached for the jug, and poured from it into the cup, and drank. The girl perceived that, in the few seconds, his mood had changed utterly. The purple of his face was dingy with gray. He was trembling now. His eyes moved restlessly, as if fearful of something to issue from the darkness. Not once did they rest on her. She remembered the racing pulse in his throat, and looked for it. To her astonishment, it was no longer to be seen, though the light fell on the place as before. She knew then that the fever had died, and she marveled mightily. But she recognized more, for she was unharmed still. The changed mood of her enemy promised immunity, for a time at least.

Yet once again, the outlaw drank. Then, without a word to the prisoner, or so much as a look in her direction, he got down on his hands and knees, and crawled out of sight through the hole in the wall.

For what seemed to her ages, Plutina waited for his return, dreading a new, obscene mood. But the time dragged on, and there was no sign of his coming. The candle flared and smoked, went out. The girl huddled in the dark, listening now, for her eyes could not pierce the blackness. The roar of the waterfall filled her ears. The noise dismayed her, for it must inevitably cover all lesser sounds, even those close at hand. Any evil might leap on her without warning, out of the darkness. She felt her helplessness multiplied, intolerable, thus blinded and deafened. She longed to shriek, pitting shrill clamor against the ba.s.s thunders of the cascade. She began to fear lest madness seize her if she remained longer thus supinely crouching amid the terrors of this place. Obeying a sudden impulse, she got up, and gropingly, with shuffling, cautious steps, moved across the cavern.

When she reached the opposite wall, she got down on hands and knees, and crawled until her searching fingers found the emptiness of the hole through which the men had pa.s.sed. Then, she drew back a little, and sat with alert ears, sure that none could issue into the cavern now without her knowledge.

The relief afforded by the action soon waned. Terrors crowded on her again in the second period of waiting. In desperation, she determined to explore the hole itself. She tried to examine the project carefully and found nothing to stay her purpose. Joy leaped in her at the thought that a way of escape even might be ready to her hand. She believed it more likely, however, that the pa.s.sage led merely to another chamber in the cliff. If such should be the case, and either or both of the men were sleeping there, she could probably ascertain the fact readily without being herself discovered, since here the sound of the falls was m.u.f.fled. Forthwith, she crept slowly within the opening.

The progress was snail-like. The rough rock of the floor cut into her knees cruelly, but she disregarded the pain, and went forward. She tested each inch of the way by feeling over the stones with her hands, on either side and along the floor. The narrowness of the pa.s.sage, which was hardly more than its height, rendered thorough examination easy. She found no lateral openings, nor did the s.p.a.ce grow perceptibly larger. It suddenly occurred to her, after having advanced steadily, though very slowly, for five minutes, that she could not turn around. To return, she must back out. The idea appalled her, and she meditated retreat. Then, while she was yet undecided, the hand groping in front of her touched on stone above the floor level. A short investigation proved that here the pa.s.sage was barred. She could feel s.p.a.ce between the edges of the tunnel and the ma.s.s of stone that closed it. Since there was no other point of egress, both men must have pa.s.sed through. Afterward, the opening had been closed by rolling a heavy rock before it. She put her strength in pressure against the stone, without avail. It was too heavy for her muscles. She realized that by this simple means she was shut within her prison. It was almost with relief that she began to creep backward--to be astounded by the shortness of the way. It was scarcely a minute before she was in the chamber again. To guard against surprise in the darkness, she pushed the couch of boughs a little way along the wall, so that it projected across the mouth of the tunnel. This done, she seated herself on the branches, a.s.sured that no one could enter the cavern without giving her warning. Even should she sleep, the thrusting away of the boughs from the orifice must surely awaken her.

Nevertheless, Plutina did not expect the boon of sleep, though she longed for it with aching intensity. In spite of this temporary respite, she could see no way of escape from the outlaw's power, except by death. The vagaries of a drunken mood had saved her to-night: they could not save her for long. And, then, even while she mourned the hopelessness of her case, oblivion fell on her, and she slept the reposeful, dreamless slumber of utter exhaustion.

A violent shaking of the bed of boughs startled the prisoner back to consciousness. For the fraction of a second, her mind was chaos. Then remembrance came, and rending fear. But there was one comfort--day had dawned: she could see. There was no one with her in the chamber. The moving branches warned that the intruder was still in the tunnel.

There was time for her to gain the crevice, where she could forbid any approach, where if her command failed, she could throw herself from the cliff. She darted across the width of the room, and stood in the cleft, strained back against the rock, her eyes staring affrightedly toward the opposite wall. All her woman's terrors were crashing upon her now. She felt Death clawing at her over the brow of the ledge, fierce to drag her into the depths. One of the hands clutching at her bosom touched the fairy crystal, and she seized it despairingly, and clung to it, as if the secret spell of it might hold her back to life.

Abruptly, a broken cry of relief fluttered from her lips, for she saw the shock head of Garry Hawks thrust from the tunnel's mouth. Toward him, she felt no fear, only contempt. In the reaction, she trembled so that she could hardly stand, and for a few moments her eyes closed.

Only the rock against which she leaned saved her from crumbling to the floor. The weakness pa.s.sed very quickly, however, and she was again mistress of herself by the time Hawks had scrambled to his feet.

The fellow had little to say, answering surlily the questions put to him by Plutina. He plainly cherished animosity against the girl who had wounded him, which was natural enough. As plainly, he did not dare vent his spite too openly against the object of his chief's fondness.

He brought with him a bag containing bread and a liberal allowance of cooked slices of bacon, and a jug of water. His information was to the effect that Hodges would not return until nightfall. He left in the fashion of his coming, by the tunnel. Plutina immediately replaced the boughs, and, when she had eaten and drunk, again seated herself on the rough bed. From time to time, she went to the crevice, and stared out over the wild landscape longingly. But the height gave her a vertigo if she stepped forth upon the ledge. For that reason, she did not venture outside the crevice after a single attempt, which set her brain reeling. She remained instead well within the cleft, where she was unaffected by the height, while able to behold the vast reaches of sunlit s.p.a.ce before her. The area about the foot of the precipice was, however, cut off from her vision. So it came about that, though she went twice to the crevice and looked out during the intervals while the marshal, first with his men and afterward with her grandfather, was searching about the pool, she knew nothing concerning the nearness of aid. She could not see the men, and the din of the falls covered their voices.

Occasionally, the girl lapsed into a quietude that was half-stupor and half-sleep, the while she reclined on the boughs. These were blessed periods of rest for the over-strained nerves, and she strove to prolong them--always in vain. For the most part, she hurried about with febrile, aimless movements. She found herself wondering often if to-day were to be the last of her life. She could see no other issue.

The night would bring Hodges, and the crisis of her fate. She could not hope for a second escape through a drunken vagary. There would be only the leap from the ledge to-night. As she stood in the crevice, and looked out on the smiling sylvan glory of the scene, as the soft summer breeze caressed her cheeks, and the balsamic air filled her bosom with its gently penetrant vigors, she realized as never before the miracle of life, its goodness and sweet savors. She cried out against the hideous thing that was come upon her. The every fiber of her being flamed in revolt against the idea of death. Every atom of her clamored for life and love. And there were only shame and death for her choice. She took out the fairy crystal, and prayed to the sacred sign it bore, beholding it dimly though scalding tears. But faith flickered and went out. Her soul sickened.... For her, there was nothing else--just shame and death. No--only death.

Plutina would have tried escape by the rope-ladder, but she found its weight too much for her strength, so sorely over-tried by racking emotions. Even had she been able to carry the burden it would have availed nothing, for the dizziness attacked her whenever she drew near the verge. In her desperation, she even crept the length of the tunnel a second time, on the faint chance that the exit might now be less secure. She found the rock barrier immovable as before, though the rim of light showed that here was, in very truth, the way to freedom, and she pushed frantically at the obstacle until utterly exhausted.