The Knave of Diamonds Part 29

"They may make all the difference," Anne said. "Really, I ought not."

They stood on a gentle slope that led downwards to the path she must take.

"Just ski down into the valley from here then," urged Nap. "It's quicker than walking. I won't hold you this time. You won't fall."

The suggestion was reasonable, and the fascination of the sport had taken firm hold of her. Anne smiled and yielded. She set her feet together and let herself go.

Almost at the same instant a sound that was like the bellow of an infuriated bull reached her from above.

She tried to turn, but the skis were already slipping over the snow. To preserve her balance she was forced to go, and for seconds that seemed like hours she slid down the hillside, her heart thumping in her throat; her nerves straining and twitching to check that maddening progress. For she knew that sound. She had heard it before, had shrunk secretly many a time before its coa.r.s.e brutality. It was the yell of a man in headlong, furious wrath, an animal yell, unreasoning, hideously b.e.s.t.i.a.l; and she feared, feared horribly, what that yell might portend.

She reached the valley, and managed to swerve round without falling. But for an instant she could not, she dared not, raise her eyes. Clear on the frosty air came sounds that made her blood turn cold. She felt as if her heart would suffocate her. A brief blindness blotted out all things.

Then with an agonised effort she forced back her weakness, she forced herself to look. Yes, the thing she had feared so horribly was being enacted like a ghastly nightmare above her.

There on the slope was her husband, a gigantic figure outlined against the snow. He had not stopped to parley. Those mad fits of pa.s.sion always deprived him, at the outset, of the few reasoning powers that yet remained to him. Without question or explanation of any kind he had flung himself upon the man he deemed his enemy, and Anne now beheld him, gripping him by the neck as a terrier grips a rat, and flogging him with the loaded crop he always carried to the hunt.

Nap was writhing to and fro like an eel, striving, she saw, to overthrow his adversary. But the gigantic strength of madness was too great for his lithe activity. By sheer weight he was borne down.

With an anguished cry Anne started to intervene. But two steps with the skis flung her headlong upon the snow, and while she grovelled there, struggling vainly to rise, she heard the awful blows above her like pistol-shots through the stillness. Once she heard a curse, and once a demonical laugh, and once, thrilling her through and through, spurring her to wilder efforts, a dreadful sound that was like the cry of a stricken animal.

She gained her feet at last, and again started on her upward way. Nap had been forced to his knees, but he was still fighting fiercely, as a rat will fight to the last. She cried to him wildly that she was coming, was coming, made three paces, only to trip and fall again.

Then she knew that, so handicapped, she could never reach them, and with shaking, fumbling fingers she set herself to unfasten the straps that bound the skis. It took her a long, long time--all the longer for her fevered haste. And still that awful, flail-like sound went on and on, though all sound of voices had wholly ceased.

Free at last, she stumbled to her feet, and tore madly up the hill. She saw as she went that Nap was not struggling any longer. He was hanging like a wet rag from the merciless grip that upheld him, and though his limp body seemed to shudder at every crashing blow, he made no voluntary movement of any sort.

As she drew near, her husband suddenly swung round as though aware of her, and dropped him. He fell in a huddled heap upon the snow, and lay, twisted, motionless as a dead thing.

Sir Giles, his eyes suffused and terrible, turned upon his wife.

"There lies your gallant lover!" he snarled at her. "I think I've cured him of his fancy for you."

Her eyes met his. For a single instant, hatred, unveiled, pa.s.sionate, shone out at him like sudden, darting lightning. For a single instant she dared him with the courage born of hatred. It was a challenge so distinct and personal, so fierce, that he, satiated for the moment with revenge, drew back instinctively before it, as an animal shrinks from the flame.

She uttered not a word. She did not after that one scorching glance deign to do battle with him. Without a gesture she dismissed him, kneeling beside his vanquished foe as though he were already gone.

And--perhaps it was the utter intrepidity of her bearing that deprived him of the power to carry his brutality any further just then--perhaps the ferocity that he had never before encountered in those grey eyes cowed him somewhat in spite of the madness that still sang in his veins--whatever the motive power it was too potent to resist--Sir Giles turned and tramped heavily away.

Anne did not watch him go. It was nothing to her at the moment whether he went or stayed. She knelt beside the huddled, unconscious figure and tried to straighten the crumpled limbs. The sweater had been literally torn from his back, and the shirt beneath it was in blood-stained tatters. His face was covered with blood. Sir Giles had not been particular as to where the whip had fallen. Great purple welts crossed and re-crossed each other on the livid features. The bleeding lips were drawn back in a devilish grimace. He looked as though he had been terribly mauled by some animal.

Anne gripped a handful of snow, hardly knowing what she did, and tried to stanch the blood that ran from an open cut on his temple. She was not trembling any longer. The emergency had steadied her. But the agony of those moments was worse than any she had ever known.

Minutes pa.s.sed. She was beginning to despair. An icy dread was at her heart. He lay so lifeless, so terribly inert. She had attempted to lift him, but the dead weight was too much for her. She could only rest his head against her, and wipe away the blood that trickled persistently from that dreadful, sneering mouth. Would he ever speak again, she asked herself? Were the fiery eyes fast shut for ever? Was he dead--he whose vitality had always held her like a charm? Had her friendship done this for him, that friendship he had valued so highly?

She stooped lower over him. The anguish of the thought was more than she could bear.

"O G.o.d," she prayed suddenly and pa.s.sionately, "don't let him die! Don't let him die!"

And in that moment Nap's eyes opened wide and fixed themselves upon her.

He did not attempt to move or speak, but the snarling look went wholly out of his face. The thin lips met and closed over the battered mouth. He lay regarding her intently, as if he were examining some curious thing he had never seen before.

And before that gaze Anne's eyes wavered and sank. She felt she could never meet his look again.

"Are you better?" she whispered. "Can I--will you let me--help you?"

"No," he said. "Just--leave me!" He spoke quite quietly, but the very sound of his voice sent a perfect storm of emotion through her.

"I can't!" she said almost fiercely. "I won't! Let me help you! Let me do what I can!"

He stirred a little, and his brow contracted, but he never took his eyes from her face.

"Don't be--upset," he said with an effort. "I'm not going--to die!"

"Tell me what to do," she urged piteously. "Can I lift you a little higher?"

"For Heaven's sake--no!" he said, and swallowed a shudder. "My collar-bone's broken."

He was silent for a s.p.a.ce, but still his dusky eyes watched her perpetually.

At last, "Let me hold your hand," he said.

She put it into his, and he held it tightly. The blood was running down his face again, and she wiped it softly away.

"Thank you," he said.

Those two words, spoken almost under his breath, had a curious effect upon her. She felt as if something had suddenly entered and pierced her heart. Before she knew it, a sharp sob escaped her, and then all in a moment she broke down.

"Oh, Nap, Nap," she sobbed, "I wish I had died before this could happen!"

She felt his hand tighten as she crouched there beside him in her anguish, and presently she knew that he had somehow managed to raise himself to a sitting posture.

Through her agony his voice came to her. It was pitched very low, yet she heard it.

"Don't cry--for pity's sake! I shall get over it. I shall live--to get back--my own."

Torn by emotion as she was, something in the last words, spoken in that curious undertone, struck her with a subtle force. With a desperate effort she controlled herself. She knew that he was still watching her with that strange intensity that she could not bring herself to meet. His right hand still held hers with quivering tenacity; the other trailed uselessly on the snow.

"Let me help you," she urged again.

He was silent; she feared he was going to refuse. And then she saw that his head had begun to droop forward, and realised that he was on the verge of another collapse. Instinctively she slipped her arm about his shoulders, supporting him. He was shuddering all over. She drew his head to rest against her.

A long time pa.s.sed thus, she kneeling motionless, holding him, while he panted against her breast, struggling with dogged persistence to master the weakness that threatened to overpower him. It was terrible to see him so, he the arrogant, the fierce, the overbearing, thus humbled to the earth before her. She felt the agony of his crushed pride, and yearned with an intensity that was pa.s.sionate to alleviate it. But there seemed nothing for her to do. She could only kneel and look on in bitter impotence while he fought his battle.

In the end he lifted his face. "It's the collarbone that hurts so infernally. Could you push something under my left arm to hold it up?

Your m.u.f.f would do. Mind my wrist--that's broken too. Ah!" She heard the breath whistle sharply between his lips as with the utmost care she complied with these instructions, but almost instantly he went on: "Don't be afraid of touching me--unless I'm too monstrous to touch. But I don't believe I can walk."

"I will help you," she said. "I am very strong."