The Forester's Daughter Part 24

Up to this moment the girl had felt no fear of herself; but now she resorted to other weapons. s.n.a.t.c.hing her pistol from its holster, she leveled it at his forehead. "Stop!" she said; and something in her voice froze him into calm. He was not a fiend; he was not a deliberate a.s.sa.s.sin; he was only a jealous, despairing, insane lover, and as he looked into the face he knew so well, and realized that nothing but hate and deadly resolution lit the eyes he had so often kissed, his heart gave way, and, dropping his head, he said: "Kill me if you want to. I've nothing left to live for."

There was something unreal, appalling in this sudden reversion to weakness, and Berrie could not credit his remorse. "Give me your gun,"

she said.

He surrendered it to her and she threw it aside; then turned to Wayland, who was lying white and still with face upturned to the sky. With a moan of anguish she bent above him and called upon his name. He did not stir, and when she lifted his head to her lap his hair, streaming with blood, stained her dress. She kissed him and called again to him, then turned with accusing frenzy to Belden: "You've killed him! Do you hear? You've killed him!"

The agony, the fury of hate in her voice reached the heart of the conquered man. He raised his head and stared at her with mingled fear and remorse. And so across that limp body these two souls, so lately lovers, looked into each other's eyes as though nothing but words of hate and loathing had ever pa.s.sed between them. The girl saw in him only a savage, vengeful, bloodthirsty beast; the man confronted in her an accusing angel.

"I didn't mean to kill him," he muttered.

"Yes, you did! You meant it. You crushed his life out with your big hands--and now I'm going to kill you for it!"

A fierce calm had come upon her. Some far-off ancestral deep of pa.s.sion called for blood revenge. She lifted the weapon with steady hand and pointed it at his heart.

His fear pa.s.sed as his wrath had pa.s.sed. His head drooped, his glance wavered. "Shoot!" he commanded, sullenly. "I'd sooner die than live--now."

His words, his tone, brought back to her a vision of the man he had seemed when she first met and admired him. Her hand fell, the woman in her rea.s.serted itself. A wave of weakness, of indecision, of pa.s.sionate grief overwhelmed her. "Oh, Cliff!" she moaned. "Why did you do it? He was so gentle and sweet."

He did not answer. His glance wandered to his horse, serenely cropping the gra.s.s in utter disregard of this tumultuous human drama; but the wind, less insensate than the brute, swept through the grove of dwarfed, distorted pines with a desolate, sympathetic moan which filled the man's heart with a new and exalted sorrow. "You're right," he said. "I was crazy. I deserve killing."

But Berrie was now too deep in her own desolation to care what he said or did. She kissed the cold lips of the still youth, murmuring pa.s.sionately: "I don't care to live without you--I shall go with you!"

Belden's hand was on her wrist before she could raise her weapon. "Don't, for G.o.d's sake, don't do that! He may not be dead."

She responded but dully to the suggestion. "No, no. He's gone. His breath is gone."

"Maybe not. Let me see."

Again she bent to the quiet face on which the sunlight fell with mocking splendor. It seemed all a dream till she felt once more the stain of his blood upon her hands. It was all so incredibly sudden. Only just now he was exulting over the warmth and beauty of the day--and now--

How beautiful he was. He seemed asleep. The conies crying from their runways suddenly took on poignant pathos. They appeared to be grieving with her; but the eagles spoke of revenge.

A sharp cry, a note of joy sprang from her lips. "He _is_ alive! I saw his eyelids quiver--quick! Bring some water."

The man leaped to his feet, and, running down to the pool, filled his sombrero with icy water. He was as eager now to save his rival as he had been mad to destroy him. "Let me help," he pleaded. But she would not permit him to touch the body.

Again, while splashing the water upon his face, the girl called upon her love to return. "He hears me!" she exulted to her enemy. "He is breathing now. He is opening his eyes."

The wounded man did, indeed, open his eyes, but his look was a blank, uncomprehending stare, which plunged her back into despair. "He don't know me!" she said, with piteous accent. She now perceived the source of the blood upon her arm. It came from a wound in the boy's head which had been dashed upon a stone.

The sight of this wound brought back the blaze of accusing anger to her eyes. "See what you did!" she said, with cold malignity. Then by sudden shift she bent to the sweet face in her arms and kissed it pa.s.sionately.

"Open your eyes, darling. You must not die! I won't let you die! Can't you hear me? Don't you know where you are?"

He opened his eyes once more, quietly, and looked up into her face with a faint, drowsy smile. He could not yet locate himself in s.p.a.ce and time, but he knew her and was comforted. He wondered why he should be looking up into a sunny sky. He heard the wind and the sound of a horse cropping gra.s.s, and the voice of the girl penetratingly sweet as that of a young mother calling her baby back to life, and slowly his benumbed brain began to resolve the mystery.

Belden, forgotten, ignored as completely as the conies, sat with choking throat and smarting eyes. For him the world was only dust and ashes--a ruin which his own barbaric spirit had brought upon itself.

Slowly the youth's eyes took on expression. "Are we still on the hill?"

he asked.

"Yes, dearest," she a.s.sured him. Then to Belden, "He knows where he is!"

Wayland again struggled with reality. "What has happened to me?"

"You fell and hurt your head."

He turned slightly and observed the other man looking down at her with dark and tragic glance. "h.e.l.lo, Belden," he said, feebly. "How came you here?" Then noting Berrie's look, he added: "I remember. He tried to kill me." He again searched his antagonist's face. "Why didn't you finish the job?"

The girl tried to turn his thought aside. "It's all right now, darling.

He won't make any more trouble. Don't mind him. I don't care for anybody now you are coming back to me."

Wayland wonderingly regarded the face of the girl. "And you--are you hurt?"

"No, I'm not hurt. I am perfectly happy now." She turned to Belden with quick, authoritative command. "Unsaddle the horses and set up the tent.

We won't be able to leave here to-night."

He rose with instant obedience, glad of a chance to serve her, and soon had the tent pegged to its place and the bedding unrolled. Together they lifted the wounded youth and laid him upon his blankets beneath the low canvas roof which seemed heavenly helpful to Berea.

"There!" she said, caressingly. "Now you are safe, no matter whether it rains or not."

He smiled. "It seems I'm to have my way after all. I hope I shall be able to see the sun rise. I've sort of lost my interest in the sunset."

"Now, Cliff," she said, as soon as the camp was in order and a fire started, "I reckon you'd better ride on. I haven't any further use for you."

"Don't say that, Berrie," he pleaded. "I can't leave you here alone with a sick man. Let me stay and help."

She looked at him for a long time before she replied. "I shall never be able to look at you again without hating you," she said. "I shall always remember you as you looked when you were killing that boy. So you'd better ride on and keep a-riding. I'm going to forget all this just as soon as I can, and it don't help me any to have you around. I never want to see you or hear your name again."

"You don't mean that, Berrie!"

"Yes, I do," she a.s.serted, bitterly. "I mean just that. So saddle up and pull out. All I ask of you is to say nothing about what has happened here. You'd better leave the state. If Wayland should get worse it might go hard with you."

He accepted his banishment. "All right. If you feel that way I'll ride.

But I'd like to do something for you before I go. I'll pile up some wood--"

"No. I'll take care of that." And without another word of farewell she turned away and re-entered the tent.

Mounting his horse with painful slowness, as though suddenly grown old, the reprieved a.s.sa.s.sin rode away up the mountain, his head low, his eyes upon the ground.

XII

BERRIE'S VIGIL

The situation in which Berea now found herself would have disheartened most women of mature age, but she remained not only composed, she was filled with an irrational delight. The nurse that is in every woman was aroused in her, and she looked forward with joy to a night of vigil, confident that Wayland was not seriously injured and that he would soon be able to ride. She had no fear of the forest or of the night. Nature held no menace now that her tent was set and her fire alight.