The Trail of 98 (30 page)

Then, suddenly, I was seized, torn away from her by men in black, who roughly
choked her screams. I was dragged off, thrown into a foul cell, left many days.
Then, one night, I was dragged forth and brought before a grim tribunal in a
hall of gloom and horror. They pronounced my doomDeath. The chief Inquisitor
raised his mask, and in those gloating features I recognisedLocasto.

Again it seemed as if I were still further back in history, in some city
under the Roman rule. I was returning from the Temple with my bride. How fair
and fresh and beautiful she was, garlanded with flowers and radiantly happy.
Again it was Berna.

Suddenly there are shouts, the beating of drums, the clash of cymbals. The
great Governor of the
Province is coming. He passes with his retinue. Suddenly he
catches sight of her whom I have but newly wed. He stops. He asks who is the
maid. They tell him. He looks at me with haughty contempt. He gives a sign. His
servants seize her and drag her screaming away. I try to follow, to kill him. I,
too, am seized, overpowered. They bind me, put out my eyes. The Roman sees them
do it. He laughs as the red-hot iron kisses my eye-balls. He mocks me, telling
me what a dainty feast awaits him in my bride. Again I see Locasto.

Then came another phase of my delirium, in which I struggled to get to her.
She was waiting for me, wanting me, breaking her heart at my delay. O, Berna, my
soul, my life, since the beginning of things we were fated. 'Tis no flesh love,
but something deeper, something that has its source at the very core of being.
It is not for your sweet face, your gentle spirit, my own, that you are dearer
to me than all else: it is becauseyou are you. If all the world were to turn
against you, flout you, stone you, then would I rush to your side, shield you,
die with you. If you were attainted with leprosy, I would enter the lazar-house
for your sake.

"O Berna, I must see you, I must, I must. Let me go to her ... now ... dear!
She's calling me. She's in trouble. Oh, for the love of God, let me go ... let
me go, I say.... Curse you, I will. She's in trouble. You can't hold me. I'm
stronger than you all when she calls.... Let me ... let
me.... Oh, oh, oh ... you're hurting
me so. I'm weak, yes, weak as a baby.... Berna, my child, my poor little girl, I
can do nothing. There's a mountain weighing me down. There's a slab of gold on
my chest. They're burning me up. My veins are on fire. I can't come.... I can't,
dear.... I'm tired...."

Then the fever, the ravings, the wild threshing of my pillow, all passed
away, and I was left limp, weak, helpless, resigned to my fate.

I was on the sunny slope of convalescence. The Prodigal had remained with me
as long as I was in danger, but now that I had turned the corner, he had gone
back to the creeks, so that I was left with only my thoughts for company. As I
turned and twisted on my narrow cot it seemed as if the time would never pass.
All I wanted was to get better fast, and to get out again. Then, I thought, I
would marry Berna and go "outside." I was sick of the country, of
everything.

I was lying thinking over these things, when I became aware that the man in
the cot to the right was trying to attract my attention. He had been brought in
that very morning, said to have been kicked by a horse. One of his ribs was
broken, and his face badly smashed. He was in great pain, but quite conscious,
and he was making stealthy motions to me.

"Say, mate," he said, "I piped you off soon's I set me lamps on you. Don't
youse know me?"

I looked at the bandaged face wonderingly.

"Don't you spot de
man dat near let youse down de shaft?"

Then, with a great start, I saw it was the Worm.

"'Taint no horse done me up," he said in a hoarse whisper; "'twas a man. You
know de man, de worst devil in all Alaska, Black Jack. Bad luck to him! He
knocked me down and give me de leather. But I'm goin' to get even some day. I'm
just laying for him. I wouldn't be in his shoes for de richest claim in de
Klondike."

The man's eyes glittered vengefully between the white bandages.

"'Twas all on account of de little girl he done it. You know de girl I mean.
Black Jack's dead stuck on her, an' de furder she stands him off de more set he
is to get her. Youse don't know dat man. He's never had de cold mit yet."

"Tell me what's the matter, for Heaven's sake."

"Well, when youse didn't come, de little girl she got worried. I used to be
doin' chores round de restaurant, an' she asks me to take a note up to you. So I
said I would. But I got on a drunk dat day, an' for a week after I didn't draw a
sober breath. When I gets around again I told her I'd seen you an' given you de
note an' you was comin' in right away."

"Heaven forgive you for that."

"Yep, dat's what I
say now. But it's all too late. Well, a week went on an' you never showed up,
an' meantime Locasto was pesterin' her cruel. She got mighty peaked like, pale
as a ghost, an' I could see she cried most all her nights. Den she gives me
anudder note. She gives me a hundred dollars to take dat note to you. I said she
could lay on me dis time. I was de hurry-up kid, an' I starts off. But Black
Jack must have cottoned on, for he meets me back of de town an' taxes me wid
takin' a message. Den he sets on me like a wild beast an' does me up good and
proper. But I'll fix him yet."

"Where are the notes?" I cried.

"In de pocket of me coat. Tell de nurse to fetch in me clothes, an' I'll give
dem to youse."

The nurse brought the clothes, but the little man was too sore to move.

"Feel in de inside pocket."

There were the notes, folded very small, and written in pencil. There was a
strange faintness at my heart, and my fingers trembled as I opened them. Fear,
fear was clutching me, compressing me in an agonising grip.

Here was the first.

Blankly, dully, almost mechanically, I read the second.

It was unsigned.

Heavens! I must go to her at once. I was well enough. I was all right again.
Why would they not let me go to her? I would crawl on my hands and knees if need
be. I was strong, so strong now.

Ha! there were the Worm's clothes. It was after midnight. The nurse had just
finished her rounds. All was quiet in the ward.

Dizzily I rose and slipped into the frayed and greasy garments. There were
the hospital slippers. I must wear them. Never mind a hat.

I was out in the street. I shuffled along, and people stared at me, but no
one delayed me. I was at the restaurant now. She wasn't there. Ah! the cabin on
the hill.

I was weaker than I had thought. Once or twice in a half-fainting condition I
stopped and steadied myself by holding a sapling tree. Then the awful intuition
of her danger possessed me, and gave me fresh strength. Many times I stumbled,
cutting myself on the sharp boulders. Once I lay for a long time,
half-unconscious, wondering if I would ever be able to rise. I reeled like a
drunken man. The way seemed endless, yet stumbling, staggering on, there was the
cabin at last.

A light was burning
in the front room. Some one was at home at all events. Only a few steps more,
yet once again I fell. I remember striking my face against a sharp rock. Then,
on my hands and knees, I crawled to the door.

I raised myself and hammered with clenched fists. There was silence within,
then an agitated movement. I knocked again. Was the door ever going to be
opened? At last it swung inward, with a suddenness that precipitated me inside
the room.

The Madam was standing over me where I had fallen. At sight of me she
screamed. Surprise, fear, rage, struggled for mastery on her face. "It's him,"
she cried, "
him
." Peering over her shoulder, with ashy, horrified face, I
saw her trembling husband.

"Berna," I gasped hoarsely. "Where is she? I want Berna. What are you doing
to her, you devils? Give her to me. She's mine, my promised bride. Let me go to
her, I say."

The woman barred the way.

All at once I realised that the air was heavy with a strange odour, the odour
of
chloroform
. Frenzied with fear, I rushed forward.

Then the Amazon roused herself. With a cry of rage she struck me. Savagely
both of them came for me. I struggled, I fought; but, weak as I was, they
carried me before them and threw me from the door. I heard the lock shoot; I was
outside; I was impotent. Yet behind those log walls.... Oh, it
was horrible! horrible! Could such
things be in God's world? And I could do nothing.

I was strong once more. I ran round to the back of the cabin. She was in
there, I knew. I rushed at the window and threw myself against it. The storm
frame had not been taken off. Crash! I burst through both sheets of glass. I was
cruelly cut, bleeding in a dozen places, yet I was half into the room. There, in
the dirty, drab light, I saw a face, the fiendish, rage-distorted face of my
dream. It was Locasto.

He turned at the crash. With a curse he came at me. Then, as I hung half in,
half out of the window, he clutched me by the throat. Using all his strength, he
raised me further into the room, then he hurled me ruthlessly out onto the rocks
outside.

I rose, reeling, covered with blood, blind, sick, speechless. Weakly I
staggered to the window. My strength was leaving me. "O God, sustain me! Help me
to save her."

Then I felt the world go blank. I swayed; I clutched at the walls; I
fell.

There I lay in a ghastly, unconscious heap.

I had lost!

"No, no, I'm all right. Really I am. Please leave me alone. You want me to
laugh? Ha! Ha! There! Is that all right now?"

"No, it isn't all right. It's very far from all right, my boy; and this is
where you and your little uncle here are going to have a real heart to heart
talk."

It was in the big cabin on Gold Hill, and the Prodigal was addressing me. He
went on:

"Now, look here, kid, when it comes to expressing my feelings I'm in the
kindergarten class; when it comes to handing out the high-toned dope I drop my
cue every time; but when I'm needed to do the solid pardner stunt then you don't
need to holler for meI'm there. Well, I'm giving you a straight line of talk.
Ever since the start I've taken a strong notion to you. You've always been
ace-high with me, and there never will come the day when you can't eat on my
meal-ticket. We tackled the Trail of Trouble together. You were always wanting
to lift the heavy end of the log, and when the God of Cussedness was doing his
best to rasp a man down to his yellow streak, you showed up white all through.
Say, kid, we've been in tight places together; we've been stacked up against
hard times together:
and now I'll be gol-darned if I'm going to stand by and see
you go downhill, while the devil oils the bearings."

"Oh, I'm all right," I protested.

"Yes, you're all right," he echoed grimly. "In an impersonation of an
'all-right' man it's the hook for yours. I've seen 'all-right' men like you
hitting the hurry trail for the boneyard before now. You're 'all right'! Why,
for the last two hours you've been sitting with that 'just-break-the-news-to
mother' expression of yours, and paying no more heed to my cheerful brand of
conversation than if I had been a measly four-flusher. You don't eat more than a
sick sparrow, and often you don't bat an eye all night. You're looking worse
than the devil in a gale of wind. You've lost your grip, my boy. You don't care
whether school keeps or not. In fact, if it wasn't for your folks, you'd as lief
take a short cut across the Great Divide."

"You're going it a little strong, old man."

"Oh no, I'm not. You know you're sick of everything. Feel as if life's a sort
of penitentiary, and you've just got to do time. You don't expect to get any
more fun out of it. Look at me. Every day's my sunshine day. If the sky's blue I
like it; if it's grey I like it just as well. I never worry. What's the use?
Yesterday's a dead one; to-morrow's always to-morrow. All we've got's the 'now,'
and it's up to us to live it for all we're worth. You can use up more human
steam to the square inch in worrying than you can to the square yard in hard
work. Eliminate worry and
you've got the only system."

"It's all very well for you to preach," I said, "you forget I've been a
pretty sick man."

"That's no nursemaid's dream. You almost cashed in. Typhoid's a serious
proposition at the best; but when you take a crazy streak on top of it, make a
midnight getaway from the sick-ward and land up on the Slide looking as if you'd
been run through a threshing machine, well, you're sure letting death get a
short option on you. And you gave up. You didn't want to fight. You shirked, but
your youth and constitution fought for you. They healed your wounds, they
soothed your ravings, they cooled your fever. They were a great team, and they
pulled you through. Seems as if they'd pulled you through a knot-hole, but they
were on to their job. And you weren't one bit gratefulseemed to think they had
no business to butt in."