The Man Thou Gavest Part 14

Every nerve was alert now. "This is pure madness. Great heavens! what am I going to do with you?"

The seriousness of the situation overpowered him.

"Sh!" The warning was caused by the restlessness of the dogs outside.

Their quick ears were sensing danger or--the coming of their master!

Either possibility was equally alarming.

"Oh! you do not understand," Nella-Rose was pleading by his knee. "If they-all see you, they will have you killed that minute. Burke is the only one in their minds--they don't even know that you live; they're too full of Burke, and if they see me--why--they'd kill you anyway."

"But what can I do with you?" That thought alone swayed Truedale.

Then Nella-Rose got upon her feet and stood close to him.

"I'm yours! I gave myself to you. You--you wanted me. Are you sorry?"

The simple pride and dignity went straight to Truedale's heart.

"It's because I want you so, little girl, that I must save you."

Somehow Nella-Rose seemed to have lost her fear of the oncoming raiders; she spoke deliberately, and above a whisper:

"Save me?--from what?"

There were no words to convey to her his meaning. Truedale felt almost ashamed to hold it in his own mind. They so inevitably belonged to each other; why should they question?

"I--I shall not go away--again!"

"My darling, you must."

"Where?"

The word brought him to his senses--where, indeed? With the dark woods full of armed men ready to fire at any moving thing in human shape, he could not let her go! That conclusion reached, and all anchors cut, the danger and need of the hour claimed him.

"Yes; you are mine!" he whispered, gathering her to him. "What does anything matter but our safety to-night? To-morrow; well, to-morrow--"

"Sh!"

No ear but one trained to the secrets of the still places could have detected a sound.

"They are coming! Yes, not the many--it is Jed! Come! While you slept I carried a right many things to the rhododendron slick back of the house!

See, push over the chair--leave the door open like you'd gone away before the storm."

Quickly and silently Nella-Rose suited action to word. Truedale watched her like one bewitched. "Now!" She took him by the hand and the next minute they were out on the wet, sodden leaves; the next they were crouching close under the bushes where even the heavy rain had not penetrated. Half-consciously Truedale recognized some of his property near by--his clothing, two or three books, and--yes--it was his ma.n.u.script! The white roll was safe! How she must have worked while he slept.

Once only did she speak until danger was past. Nestling close in his arms, her head upon his shoulder, she breathed:

"If they-all shoot, we'll die together!"

The unreality of the thing gradually wore upon Truedale's tense nerves.

If anything was going to happen he wanted it to happen! In another half-hour he meant to put an end to the farce and move his belongings back to the cabin and take Nella-Rose home. It was a nightmare--nothing less!

"Sh!" and then the waiting was over. Two dark figures, guns ready, stole from the woods behind White's cabin. Where were the dogs? Why did they not speak out?--but the dogs were trained to be as silent as the men.

They were all part and parcel of the secret lawlessness of the hills. In the dim light Truedale watched the shadowy forms enter Jim's unlocked cabin and presently issue forth, evidently convinced that the prey was not there--had not been there! Then as stealthy as Indians they made their way to the other cabin--Truedale's late shelter. They kept to the bushes and the edge of the woods--they were like creeping animals until they reached the shack; then, standing erect and close, they went in the doorway. So near was the hiding place of Truedale and his companion that they could hear the oaths of the hunters as they became aware that their quarry had escaped.

"He's been here, all right!" It was Jed Martin who spoke.

"I reckon he's caught on," Peter Greyson drawled, "he's makin' for Jim White. White ain't more'n fifteen miles back; we can cut him off, Jed, 'fore he reaches safety--the skunk!"

Then the two emerged from the cabin and strode boldly away.

"The others!" whispered Truedale--"will they come?"

"Wait!"

There was a stir--a trampling--but apparently the newcomers did not see Martin and Greyson. There was a crackling of underbrush by feet no longer feeling need of caution, then another s.p.a.ce of silence before safety was made sure for the two in the bushes.

At last Truedale dared to speak.

"Nella-Rose!" He looked down at the face upon his breast. She was asleep--deeply, exhaustedly asleep!

Truedale shifted his position. He was cramped and aching; still the even breathing did not break. He laid her down gently and put a heavy coat about her--one that earlier she had carried from the cabin in her effort to save him. He went to the house and grimly set to work. First he lighted a fire; then he righted the chairs and brought about some order from the chaos. He was no longer afraid of any man on G.o.d's earth; even Jim White was relegated to the non-essentials. Truedale was merely a primitive creature caring for his own! There was no turning back now--no waiting upon conventions. When he had made ready he was going out to bring his own to her home!

The sullen, soggy night, with its bursts of fury and periods of calm, had settled down, apparently, to a drenching, businesslike rain. The natives knew how to estimate such weather. By daylight the streams would be raging rivers on whose currents trees and animals would be carried ruthlessly to the lowlands. Roads would be obliterated and human beings would seek shelter wherever they could find it.

But Truedale was spared the worry this knowledge might have brought him.

He concentrated now upon the present and grimly accepted conditions as they were. All power or inclination for struggle was past; the inheritance of weakness which old William Truedale had feared and with which Conning himself had so contended in his barren youth, a.s.serted itself and prepared to take unquestioningly what the present offered.

At that moment Truedale believed himself arbiter of his own fate and Nella-Rose's. Conditions had forced him to this position and he was ready to a.s.sume responsibility. There was no alternative; he must accept things as they were and make them secure later on. For himself the details of convention did not matter. He had always despised them.

In his youthful spiritual anarchy he had flouted them openly; they made no claim upon his attention now, except where Nella-Rose was concerned.

Appearances were against him and her, but none but fools would allow that to daunt them. He, Truedale, felt that no law of man was needed to hold him to the course he had chosen, back on the day when he determined to forsake the past and fling his fortunes in with the new. Never in his life was Conning Truedale more sincere or, he believed, more wise, than he was at that moment. And just then Nella-Rose appeared coming down the rain-drenched path like a little ghost in the grim, gray dawn. She still wore the heavy coat he had put about her, and her eyes were dreamy and vague.

Truedale strode toward her and took her in his arms.

"My darling," he whispered, "are you able to come with me now--at once--to the minister? It must be now, sweetheart--now!"

She looked at him like a child trying to understand his mood.

"Oh!" she said presently, "I 'most forgot. The minister has gone to a burying back in the hills; he'll be gone a right long time. Bill Trim, who carries all the news, told me to-day."

"Where is he, Nella-Rose?" Something seemed tightening around Truedale's heart.

"Us-all don't know; he left it written on his door."

"Where is there another minister, Nella-Rose?"

"There is no other."

"This is absurd--of course there is another. We must start at once and find him."