The Silver Horde Part 47

There was the slightest hint of constraint in the girl's voice as she stared out at the slowly gathering twilight, murmuring:

"I--I hardly know. Rich! That has always been my dream, and yet--"

"The wonderful feature about dreams," he took advantage of her pause to say, "is that they come true."

"Not all of them--not the real, wonderful dreams," she returned.

"Oh yes! My dream is coming true, and so is yours."

"I have given up hoping for that," she said, without turning.

"But you shouldn't give up. Remember that all the great things ever accomplished were only dreams at first, and the greater the accomplishments, the more impossible they seemed to begin with."

Something in the girl's att.i.tude and in her silence made him feel that his words rang hollow and commonplace. While they had talked, an unaccustomed excitement had been mounting in his brain, and it held him now in a kind of delicious embarra.s.sment. It was as if both had been suddenly enfolded in a new and mysterious understanding, without the need of speech. He did not tell himself that Cherry loved him; but he roused to a fresh perception of her beauty, and felt himself privileged in her nearness. At the same time he was seized with the old, half-resentful curiosity to learn her history. What wealth of romance lay shadowed in her eyes, what tragic story was concealed by her consistent silence, he could only guess; for she was a woman who spoke rarely of herself and lived wholly in the present. Her very reticence inspired confidence, and Boyd felt sure that here was a girl to whom one might confess the inmost secrets of a wretched soul and rest secure in the knowledge that his confession would be inviolate as if locked in the heart of mountains. He knew her for a steadfast friend, and he t'elt that she was beautiful, not only in face and form, but in all those little indescribable mannerisms which stamp the individual. And this girl was here alone with him, so close that by stretching out his arms he might enfold her. She allowed him to come and go at will; her intimacy with him was almost like that of an unspoiled boy--yet different, so different that he thrilled at the thought, and the blood pounded up into his throat.

It may have been the unusual ardor of his gaze that warmed her cheeks and brought her eyes back from the world outside. At any rate, she turned, flashing him a startled glance that caused his pulse to leap anew. Her eyes widened and a flush spread slowly upward to her hair, then her lids drooped, as if weighted by unwonted shyness, and rising silently, she went past him to the piano. Never before had she surprised that look in his eyes, and at the realization a wave of confusion surged over her. She strove to calm herself through her music, which shielded while it gave expression to her mood, and neither spoke as the evening shadows crept in upon them. But the girl's exaltation was short-lived; the thought came that Boyd's feeling was but transitory; he was not the sort to burn lasting incense before more than one shrine. Nevertheless, at this moment he was hers, and in the joy of that certainty she let the moments slip.

He stopped her at last, and they talked in the half-light, floating along together half dreamily, as if upon the bosom of some great current that bore them into strange regions which they dreaded yet longed to explore.

They heard a child crying somewhere in the rear of the house, and Chakawana's voice soothing, then in a moment the Indian girl appeared in the doorway saying something about going out with Constantine. Cherry acquiesced half consciously, impatient of the intrusion.

For a long time they talked, so completely in concord that for the most part their voices were low and their sentences so incomplete that they would have sounded incoherent and foolish to other ears. They were roused finally by the appreciation that it had grown very late and a storm was brewing. Boyd rose, and going to the door, saw that the sky was deeply overcast, rendering the night as dark as in a far lower lat.i.tude.

"I've overstayed my welcome," he ventured, and smiled at her answering laugh.

With a trace of solicitude, she said:

"Wait! I'll get you a rain-coat," but he reached out a detaining hand. In the darkness it encountered the bare flesh of her arm.

"Please don't! You'd have to strike a light to find it, and I don't want a light now."

He was standing on the steps, with her slightly above him, and so close that he heard her sharp-drawn breath.

"It _has_ been a pleasant evening," she said, inanely.

"I saw you for the first time to-night, Cherry. I think I have begun to know you."

Again she felt her heart leap. Reaching out to say good-bye, his hand slipped down over her arm, like a caress, until her palm lay in his.

With trembling, gentle hands she pushed him from her; but even when the sound of his footsteps had died away, she stood with eyes straining into the gloom, in her breast a gladness so stifling that she raised her hands to still its tumult.

Emerson, with the glow still upon him, felt a deep contentment which he did not trouble to a.n.a.lyze. It has been said that two opposite impulses may exist side by side in a man's mind, like two hostile armies which have camped close together in the night, unrevealed to each other until the morning. To Emerson the dawn had not yet come. He had no thought of disloyalty to Mildred, but, after his fashion, took the feeling of the moment unreflectively. His mood was averse to thought, and, moreover, the darkness forced him to give instant attention to his path. While the waters of the bay out to his right showed a ghostly gray, objects beneath the bluff where he walked were cloaked in impenetrable shadow. The air was damp with the breath of coming rain, and at rare intervals he caught a glimpse of the torn edges of clouds hurrying ahead of a wind that was yet unfelt.

When the black bulk of Marsh's cannery loomed ahead of him, he left the gravel beach and turned up among the buildings, seeking to retrace his former course. He noticed that once he had left the noisy shingle, his feet made no sound in the soft moss. Thus it was that, as he turned the corner of the first building, he nearly ran against a man who was standing motionless against the wall. The fellow seemed as startled at the encounter as Emerson, and with a sharp exclamation leaped away and vanished into the gloom. Boyd lost no time in gaining the plank runway that led to the dock, and finding an angle in the building, backed into it and waited, half-suspecting that he had stumbled into a trap. He reflected that both the hour and the circ.u.mstances were unpropitious; for in case he should meet with foul play, Marsh might plausibly claim that he had been mistaken for a marauder. He determined, therefore, to proceed with the greatest caution. From his momentary glimpse of the man as he made off, he knew that he was tall and active--just the sort of person to prove dangerous in an encounter. But if his suspicions were correct there must be others close by, and Boyd wondered why he had heard no signal. After a breathless wait of a moment or two, he stole cautiously out, and, selecting the darkest shadows, slipped from one to another till he was caught by the sound of voices issuing from the yawning entrance of the main building on his right. The next moment his tension relaxed; one of the speakers was a woman. Evidently his alarm had been needless, for these people, whoever they were, made no effort to conceal their presence. On the contrary, the woman had raised her tone to a louder pitch, although her words were still undistinguishable.

Greatly relieved, Boyd was about to go on, when a sharp cry, like a signal, came in the woman's voice, a cry which turned to a genuine wail of distress. The listener heard a man's voice cursing in answer, and then the sound of a scuffle, followed at length by a choking cry, that brought him bounding into the building. He ran forward, recklessly, but before he had covered half the distance he collided violently with a piece of machinery and went sprawling to the floor. A glance upward revealed the dim outlines of a "topper," and showed him farther down the building, silhouetted briefly against the lesser darkness of the windows, two struggling figures. As he regained his footing, something rushed past him--man or animal he could not tell which, for its feet made no more sound upon the floor than those of a wolf-dog. Then, as he bolted forward, he heard a man cry out, and found himself in the midst of turmoil. His hands encountered a human body, and he seized it, only to be hurled aside as if with a giant's strength. Again he clinched with a man's form, and bore it to the floor, cursing at the darkness and reaching for its throat. His antagonist raised his voice in wild clamor, while Boyd braced himself for another a.s.sault from those huge hands he had met a moment before. But it did not come. Instead, he heard a cry from the woman, an answer in a deeper voice, and then swift, pattering footsteps growing fainter. Meanwhile the man with whom he was locked was fighting desperately, with hands and feet and teeth, shouting hoa.r.s.ely. Other footsteps sounded now, this time approaching, then at the door a lantern flared. A watchman came running down between the lines of machinery, followed by other figures half revealed.

Boyd had pinned his antagonist against the cold sides of a retort at last, and with fingers clutched about his throat was beating his head violently against the iron, when by the lantern's gleam he caught one glimpse of the fat, purple face in front of him, and loosed his hold with a startled exclamation. Released from the grip that had nearly made an end of him, Willis Marsh staggered to his feet, then lurched forward as if about to fall from weakness. His eyes were staring, his blackened tongue protruded, while his head, battered and bleeding, lolled grotesquely from side to side as if in hideous merriment. His clothes were torn and soiled from the litter underfoot, and he presented a frightful picture of distress. But it was not this that caused Emerson the greatest astonishment. The man was wounded, badly wounded, as he saw by the red stream which gushed down over his breast. Boyd cast his eyes about for the other partic.i.p.ants in the encounter, but they were nowhere visible; only an open door in the shadows close by hinted at the mode of their disappearance.

There was a brief, noisy interval, during which Emerson was too astounded to attempt an answer to the questions hurled broadcast by the new-comers; then Marsh levelled a trembling finger at him and cried, hysterically:

"There he is, men. He tried to murder me. I--I'm hurt. I'll have him arrested."

The seriousness of the accusation struck the young man on the instant; he turned upon the group.

"I didn't do that. I heard a fight going on and ran in here--"

"He's a liar," the wounded man interrupted, shrilly. "He stabbed me! See?"

He tried to strip the shirt from his wounds, then fell to chattering and shaking. "Oh, G.o.d! I'm hurt." He staggered to a packing-case and sank upon it weakly fumbling at his sodden shoulder.

"I didn't do that," repeated Boyd. "I don't know who stabbed him. I didn't."

"Then who did?" some one demanded.

"What are you doing in here? You'd a killed him in a minute," said the man with the lantern.

"We'll fix you for this," a third voice threatened.

"Listen," Boyd said, in a tone to make them pause. "There has been a mistake here. I was pa.s.sing the building when I heard a woman scream, and I rushed in to prevent Marsh from choking her to death."

"A woman!" chorused the group.

"That's what I said."

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know. I didn't see her at all. I grappled with the first person I ran into. She must have gone out as you came in." Boyd indicated the side door, which was still ajar.

"It's a lie," screamed Marsh.

"It's the truth," stoutly maintained Emerson, "and there was a man with her, too. Who was she, Marsh? Who was the man?"

"She--she--I don't know."

"Don't lie."

"I'm hurt," reiterated the stricken man, feebly. Then, seeing the bewilderment in the faces about him, he burst out anew: "Don't stand there like a lot of fools. Why don't you get him?"

"If I stabbed him I must have had a knife," Emerson said, again checking the forward movement. "You may search me if you like. See?" He opened his coat and displayed his belt.

"He's got a six-shooter," some one said.

"Yes, and I may use it," said Emerson, quietly.

"Maybe he dropped the knife," said the watchman, and began to search about the floor, followed by the others.

"It may have been the woman herself who stabbed Mr. Marsh," offered Emerson. "He was strangling her when I arrived."