The Flaming Jewel Part 44

With his startled ears full of the alarming and unknown sound, he ran through the woods under gigantic pines which spread a soft green twilight around him.

He was tired, or thought he was, but the alarming sounds were filling his ears now; the entire forest seemed full of them, echoing in all directions, coming in upon him from everywhere, so that he knew not in which direction to run.

But he could not stop. Demoralised, he darted this way and that; terror winged his feet; the air vibrated above and around him with the dreadful, unearthly sounds.

The next instant he fell headlong over a ledge, struck water, felt himself whirled around in the icy, rushing current, rolled over, tumbled through rapids, blinded, deafened, choked, swept helplessly in a vast green wall of water toward something that thundered in his brain an instant, then dashed it into roaring chaos.

Half a mile down the turbulent outlet of Star Pond,--where a great sheet of green water pours thirty feet into the tossing foam below,--and spinning, dipping, diving, bobbing up like a lost log after the drive, the body of Senor Sanchez danced all alone in the wilderness, spilling from soggy pockets diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, into crystal caves where only the shadows of slim trout stirred.

Very far away to the eastward Quintana stood listening, clutching Sard by one sleeve to silence him.

Presently he said: "My frien', somebody is hunting with houn's in this fores'.

"Maybe they are not hunting _us_.... _Maybe._... But, for me, I shall seek running water. Go you your own way! Houp! Vamose!"

He turned westward; but he had taken scarcely a dozen strides when Sard came panting after him:

"Don't leave me!" gasped the terrified diamond broker. "I don't know where to go----"

Quintana faced him abruptly--with a terrifying smile and glimmer of white teeth--and shoved a pistol into the fold of fat beneath Sard's double chin.

"You hear those dogs? Yes? Ver' well; I also. Run, now. I say to you run ver' d.a.m.n quick. He! Houp! Allez vous en! Beat eet!"

He struck Sard a stinging blow on his fleshy ear with the pistol barrel, and Sard gave a m.u.f.fled shriek which was more like the squeak of a frightened animal.

"My G.o.d, Quintana----" he sobbed. Then Quintana's eyes blazed murder: and Sard turned and ran lumbering through the thicket like a stampeded ox, crashing on amid withered brake, white birch scrub and brier, not knowing whither he was headed, crazed with terror.

Quintana watched his flight for a moment, then, pistol swinging, he ran in the opposite direction, eastward, speeding lithely as a cat down a long, wooded slope which promised running water at the foot.

Sard could not run very far. He could scarcely stand when he pulled up and clung to the trunk of a tree.

More dead than alive he embraced the tree, gulping horribly for air, every fat-incrusted organ labouring, his senses swimming.

As he sagged there, gripping his support on shaking knees, by degrees his senses began to return.

He could hear the dogs, now, vaguely as in a nightmare. But after a little while he began to believe that their hysterical yelping was really growing more distant.

Then this man whose every breath was an outrage on G.o.d, prayed.

He prayed that the hounds would follow Quintana, come up with him, drag him down, worry him, tear him to shreds of flesh and clothing.

He listened and prayed alternately. After a while he no longer prayed but concentrated on his ears.

Surely, surely, the diabolical sound was growing less distinct.... It was changing direction too. But whether in Quintana's direction or not Sard could not tell. He was no woodsman. He was completely turned around.

He looked upward through a dense yellow foliage, but all was grey in the sky--very grey and still;--and there seemed to be no traces of the sun that had been shining.

He looked fearfully around: trees, trees, and more trees. No break, no glimmer, nothing to guide him, teach him. He could see, perhaps, fifty feet; no further.

In panic he started to move on. That is what fright invariably does to those ignorant of the forest. Terror starts them moving.

Sobbing, frightened almost witless, he had been floundering forward for over an hour, and had made circle after circle without knowing, when, by chance, he set foot in a perfectly plain trail.

Emotion overpowered him. He was too overcome to stir for a while. At length, however, he tottered off down the trail, oblivious as to what direction he was taking, animated only by a sort of madness--horror of trees--an insane necessity to see open ground, get into it, and lie down on it.

And now, directly ahead, he saw clear grey sky low through the trees.

The wood's edge!

He began to run.

As he emerged from the edge of the woods, waist-deep in brush and weeds, wide before his blood-shot eyes spread Star Pond.

Even in his half-stupefied brain there was memory enough left for recognition.

He remembered the lake. His gaze travelled to the westward; and he saw Clinch's Dump standing below, stark, silent, the doors swinging open in the wind.

When terror had subsided in a measure and some of his trembling strength returned, he got up out of the clump of rag-weeds where he had lain down, and earnestly nosed the unpainted house, listening with all his ears.

There was not a sound save the soughing of autumn winds and the delicate rattle of falling leaves in the woods behind him.

He needed food and rest. He gazed earnestly at the house. Nothing stirred there save the open doors swinging idly in every vagrant wind.

He ventured down a little way--near enough to see the black cinders of the burned barn, and close enough to hear the lake waters slapping the sandy sh.o.r.e.

If he dared----

And after a long while he ventured to waddle nearer, slinking through brush and frosted weed, creeping behind boulders, edging always closer and closer to that silent house where nothing moved except the wind-blown door.

And now, at last, he set a furtive foot upon the threshold, stood listening, tip-toed in, peered here and there, sidled to the dining-room, peered in.

When, at length, Emanuel Sard discovered that Clinch's Dump was tenantless, he made straight for the pantry. Here was cheese, crackers, an apple pie, half a dozen bottles of home-brewed beer.

He loaded his arms with all they could carry, stole through the dance-hall out to the veranda, which overlooked the lake.

Here, hidden in the doorway, he could watch the road from Ghost Lake and survey the hillside down which an intruder must come from the forest.

And here Sard slaked his raging thirst and satiated the gnawing appet.i.te of the obese, than which there is no crueller torment to an inert liver and distended paunch.