The Top of the World Part 72

He was sitting crouched on a low trestle-bed at the further end of the hut with his head in his hands. Burke turned to the girl who stood palpitating, pressed against him, still seeking with all her strength to oppose his advance.

Her wide eyes met his. They were filled with a desperate fear.

"He is ill," she said.

The roar of the rising water filled the place. The ground under their feet seemed to be shaking.

Burke looked down at the woman he held, and a deadly sensation arose and possessed him. For the moment he felt sick with an overpowering longing. The temptation to take her just as she was and go was almost more than human endurance could bear. He had undergone so much for her sake. He had suffered so fiery a torture. The evil impulse gripped and tore him like a living thing.

And then--was it the purity of those eyes upraised to his?--he was conscious of a change within him. It was as if a quieting touch had been laid upon him. He knew--quite suddenly he knew--what he would do. The temptation and the anguish went out together like an extinguished fire. He was his own master.

He bent to her and spoke, his words clear above the tumult: "Help me to save him! There is just a chance!"

He saw the swift change in her eyes. She bent with a sharp movement, and before he could stop her he felt her lips upon his hand. They thrilled him with a strange exaltation. The memory of that kiss would go with him to the very Gate of Death.

Then he had reached Guy, was bending over him, raising him with urgent hands. He saw the boy's face for a moment, ashen in the flickering candlelight, and he knew that the task before him was one which it would take his utmost strength to accomplish. But he exerted it and dragged him to his feet, half-supporting, half-carrying, him towards the open door, Sylvia helping on the other side. The thought went through him that this was the last act that they would perform in partnership. And somehow he knew that she would remember it later in the same way.

They reached the threshold. Guy was stumbling blindly. He seemed to be dazed, scarcely conscious of his surroundings. The turmoil of the water was terrific through the ceaseless rush of the rain.

With heads bent to the storm they forced their way out into the tumult.

They found Diamond tramping and snorting with fright at the back of the hut, but to Burke's brief command and Sylvia's touch he stood still.

"Get up!" Burke said to the girl.

But she started and drew back. "Oh no--no!" she cried back to him.

"I will go on foot."

He said no more, merely turned and hoisted Guy upwards. He landed in the saddle, instinctively gripping with his knees while Burke on one side, Sylvia on the other, set his feet in the stirrups.

Then still in that utter silence Burke went back to Sylvia. He had lifted her before she was aware, and for one breathless moment he held her. Then she also was up on the horse's back. He thrust her hands away from him, pushing them into Guy's belt with a mastery that would brook no resistance.

"Wake up!" he yelled to Guy, and smote him on the thigh as he dragged the bridle free.

Then, slipping and sliding on the yielding ground, he pulled the horse round, gave the rein, into Guy's clutching hand, and struck the animal smartly on the flank. Diamond squealed and sprang forward bearing his double burden, and in a moment he was off, making for the higher ground and the track that led to the farm, terrified yet blindly following the instinct that does not err.

The sound of the scrambling, struggling hoofs was lost in the strife of waters, the swaying figures disappeared in the gloom, and the man who was left behind turned grimly and went back into the empty hut.

The candle still cast a flickering light over table and bed. He stood with his back to the raging night and stared at the unsteady flame. It was screened from extinction in the draught by a standing photograph-frame. The picture this contained was turned away from him. After a moment it caught his attention. He moved round the table. Though Death were swooping towards him, swift and certain, on the wings of the rising current, he was drawn as a needle to the magnet. Like a dying man, he reached for the last draught that should slake his thirst and give him peace in dying.

He leaned upon the table, that creaked and shook beneath his weight. He stretched forth his arms on each side of the candle, and drew the portrait close to the flame. Sylvia's face laughed at him through the shifting, uncertain light. She was standing on a wind-blown open s.p.a.ce. Her lips were parted. He thought he heard her voice, calling him. And the love in her eyes--the love that shone through the laughter! It held him like a spell--even though it was not for him.

He gazed earnestly upon this thing that had been another man's treasure long before he had even seen her, and as he gazed, he forgot all beside. By that supreme sacrifice of self, he had wiped out all but his exceeding love for her. The spirit had triumphed over the flesh. Love the Immortal to which Death is but a small thing had lifted him up above the world. . . .

What was it that suddenly pierced him as he leaned there? No sound above that mighty tumult could possibly have reached him. No movement beyond that single flickering flame could have caught his vision. No touch was laid upon him. Yet suddenly he jerked upright with every nerve a-quiver--and beheld her!

She stood in the doorway, gasping for breath, clinging to the woodwork for support, with Death behind her, but no fear of Death in her eyes. They held instead a glory which he had never seen before.

He stood and gazed upon her, unbelieving, afraid to move. His lips formed her name. And, as one who springs from tempest into safe shelter, Sylvia sprang to him. Her arms were all about him before he knew that she was not a dream.

He clasped her then with such a rush of wonder and joy as nearly deprived him of the power to think. And in that moment their lips met in a kiss that was close and sacred, uniting each to each beyond all severance--a soul communion.

Burke was trembling as she had never known him tremble before.

"Why--have you come back?" he said, as speech returned.

She answered him swiftly and pa.s.sionately, clinging faster with the words: "Because--G.o.d knows--I would rather die with you--than--than live without you! I love you so! Oh, don't you understand?"

Yes, he understood, though all else were beyond his comprehension.

Never again would he question that amazing truth that had burst upon him here at the very Gate of Death, changing the whole world.

He looked down upon her as he held her, the light from the candle shining through her hair, her vivid face uplifted to his, her eyes wide and glowing, seeing him alone. No, he needed no words to tell him that.

And then suddenly the roar without increased a hundredfold. A shrieking wind tore past, and in a moment the flickering light went out. They stood in darkness.

Her arms clasped his neck more closely. He felt the coming agony in her hold. She spoke again, her lips against his own. "Through the grave--and Gate of Death--" she said.

That aroused him. A strength that was t.i.tanic entered into him.

Why should they wait here for Death? At least they would make a fight for it, however small their chance. He suddenly realized that mortal life had become desirable again--a thing worth fighting for--a precious gift.

He bent, as he had bent on that first night at the farm--how long ago!--and gathered her up into his arms.

A rush of water swirled about his knees as he made for the dim opening. The bank had gone. Yet the rise in the ground would give them a few seconds. He counted upon the chance. Out into the open he stumbled.

The water was up to his waist here. He floundered on the yielding ground.

"Don't carry me!" she said. "I can wade too. Let me hold your hand!"

But he would not let her go out of his arms. His strength in that moment was as the strength of ten. He knew that unless the flood actually overwhelmed him, it would not fail.

So, slipping, struggling, fighting, he forced his way, and, like Diamond, he was guided by an instinct that could not err. Thirty seconds after they left it, the hut on the sand was swept away by the hungry waters, but those thirty seconds had been their salvation. They had reached the point where the ground began to rise towards the _kopje_, and though the water still washed around them the force of it was decreasing at every step,

As they reached the foot of the _kopje_ itself, a stream of moonlight suddenly rushed down through the racing clouds, revealing the whole great waste of water like a picture flung upon a screen.

Burke's breath came thick and laboured; yet he spoke. "We are saved!" he said.

"Put me down now!" she urged. "Please put me down!"

But still he would not, till he had climbed above the seething flood, and could set her feet upon firm ground. And even then he clasped her still, as if he feared to let her go.

They stood in silence, holding fast to one another while the moonlight flickered in and out, and Burke's heart gradually steadied again after the terrific struggle. The rain had almost ceased. Only the sound of the flood below and the gurgle of a hundred rivulets around filled the night.

Sylvia's arm pressed upon Burke's neck. "Shall we go--right to the top?" she said.

"The top of what?" He turned and looked into her eyes as she stood above him.

She bent to him swiftly, throbbing, human, alive. She held his face between her hands, looking straight back for a s.p.a.ce. Then with a little quivering laugh, she bent lower and kissed him.

"I think you're right, partner," she said. "We don't need to go--any farther than this. We've--got there."

He caught her to him with a mastery that was dearer to her in that moment than any tenderness, swaying her to his will. "Yes--we've got there!" he said, and kissed her again with lips that trembled even while they compelled. "But oh, my soul--what a journey!"