The Eye of Dread

CHAPTER XX

ALONE ON THE MOUNTAIN

For the first two days of Harry King’s absence Madam Manovska relapsed into a more profound melancholy, and the care of her mother took up Amalia’s time and thoughts so completely as to give her little for indulging her own anxiety for Harry’s safety. Strangely, she felt no fear for themselves, although they were thus alone on the mountain top. She had a sense of security there which she had never felt in the years since she had been taken from the convent to share her parents’ wanderings. She made an earnest effort to divert and arouse her mother and succeeded until Madam Manovska talked much and volubly in Polish, and revealed more of the thoughts that possessed her in the long hours of brooding than she had ever told Amalia before. It seemed that she confidently expected the return of the men with her husband, and that the message she had sent by Larry Kildene would surely bring him. The thought excited her greatly, and Amalia found it necessary to keep continual watch lest she wander off down the trail in the direction they had taken, and be lost.

For a time Amalia tried to prevent Madam Manovska from dwelling on the past, until she became convinced that to do so was not well, since it only induced the fits of brooding. She then decided to encourage her mother to speak freely of her memories, rather than to keep them locked in her own mind. It was in one of these intervals of talkativeness that Amalia learned the cause of that strange cry that had so pierced her heart and startled her on the trail.

They had gone out for a walk, as the only means of inducing her mother to sleep was to let her walk in the clear air until so weary as to bring her to the point of exhaustion. This time they went farther than Amalia really intended, and had left the paths immediately about the cabin, and climbed higher up the mountain. Here there was no trail and the way was rough indeed, but Madam Manovska was in one of her most wayward moods and insisted on going higher and farther.

Her strength was remarkable, but it seemed to be strength of will rather than of body, for all at once she sank down, unable to go forward or to return. Amalia led her to the shade of a great gnarled tree, a species of fir, and made her lie down on a bed of stiff, coarse moss, and there she pillowed her mother’s head on her lap. Whether it was something in the situation in which she found herself or not, her mother began to tell her of a time about which she had hitherto kept silent. It was of the long march through heat and cold, over the wildest ways of the earth to Siberia, at her husband’s side.

She told how she had persisted in going with him, even at the cost of dressing in the garb of the exiles from the prisons and pretending to be one of the condemned. Only one of the officers knew her secret, who for reasons of humanity–or for some other feeling–kept silence. She carried her child in her arms, a boy, five months old, and was allowed to walk at her husband’s side instead of following on with the other women. She told how they carried a few things on their backs, and how one and another of the men would take the little one at intervals to help her, and how long the marches were when the summer was on the wane and they wished to make as much distance as possible before they were delayed by storms and snow.

Then she told how the storms came at last, and how her baby fell ill, and cried and cried–all the time–and how they walked in deep snow, until one and another fell by the way and never walked farther. She told how some of the weaker ones were finally left behind, because they could get on faster without them, but that the place where they were left was a terrible one under a cruel man, and that her child would surely have died there before the winter was over, and that when she persisted in keeping on with her husband, they beat her, but at last consented on condition that she would leave her baby boy. Then how she appealed to the officer who knew well who she was and that she was not one of the condemned, but had followed her husband for love, and to intercede for him when he would have been ill-treated; and that the man had allowed her to have her way, but later had demanded as his reward for yielding to her, that she no longer belong to her husband, but to him.

Looking off at the far ranges of mountains with steady gaze, she told of the mountains they had crossed, and the rushing, terrible rivers; and how, one day, the officer who had been kind only that he might be more cruel, had determined to force her to obedience, and how he grew very angry–so angry that when they had come to a trail that was well-nigh impassable, winding around the side of a mountain, where was a fearful rushing river far below them, and her baby cried in her arms for cold and hunger, how he had snatched the child from her and hurled it over the precipice into the swift water, and how she had shrieked and struck him and was crazed and remembered no more for days, except to call continually on God to send down curses on that officer’s head. She told how after that they were held at a certain station for a long time, but that she was allowed to stay by her husband only because the officer feared the terrible curses she had asked of God to descend on that man, that he dared no more touch her.

Then Amalia understood many things better than ever before, and grew if possible more tender of her mother. She thought how all during that awful time she had been safe and sheltered in the convent, and her life guarded; and moreover, she understood why her father had always treated her mother as if she were higher than the angels and with the courtesy and gentleness of a knight errant. He had bowed to her slightest wish, and no wonder her mother thought that when he received her request to return to her, and give up his hope, he would surely come to her.

More than ever Amalia feared the days to come if she could in no way convince her mother that it was not expedient for her father to return yet. To say again that he was dead she dared not, even if she could persuade Madam Manovska to believe it; for it seemed to her in that event that her mother would give up all interest in life, and die of a broken heart. But from the first she had not accepted the thought of her husband’s death, and held stubbornly to the belief that he had joined Harry King to find help. He had, indeed, wandered away from them a few hours after the young man’s departure and had been unable to find his way back, and, until Larry Kildene came to them, they had comforted themselves that the two men were together.

Much more Madam Manovska told her daughter that day, before she slept; and Amalia questioned her more closely than she had ever done concerning her father’s faith. Thereafter she sat for a long time on the bank of coarse moss and pondered, with her mother’s head pillowed on her lap. The sun reached the hour of noon, and still the mother slept and the daughter would not waken her.

She took from the small velvet bag she always carried with her, a crisp cake of corn meal and ate to satisfy her sharp hunger, for the keen air and the long climb gave her the appetite belonging to the vigorous health which was hers. They had climbed that part of the mountain directly behind the cabin, and from the secluded spot where they sat she could look down on it and on the paths leading to it; thankful and happy that at last they were where all was so safe, no fear of intrusion entered her mind. Even her first anxiety about the Indians she had dismissed.

Now, as her eyes wandered absently over the far distance and dropped to the nearer hills, and on down to the cabin and the patch of cultivated ground, what was her horror to see three figures stealing with swift, gliding tread toward the fodder shed from above, where was no trail, only such rough and wild hillside as that by which she and her mother had climbed. The men seemed to be carrying something slung between them on a pole. With long, gliding steps they walked in single file as she had seen the Indians walk on the plains.

She drew in her breath sharply and clasped her hands in supplication. Had those men seen them? Devoutly she prayed that they might not look up toward the heights where she and her mother sat. As they continued to descend she lost sight of them among the pines and the undergrowth which was more vigorous near the fall, and then they appeared again and went into the cabin. She thought they must have been in the fodder shed when she lost sight of them, and now she waited breathlessly to see them emerge from the cabin. For an hour she sat thus, straining her eyes lest she miss seeing them when they came forth, and fearing lest her mother waken. Then she saw smoke issuing from the cabin chimney, and her heart stopped its beating. What! Were they preparing to stay there? How could her mother endure the cold of the mountain all night?

Then she began to consider how she might protect her mother after the sun had gone from the cold that would envelop them. Reasoning that as long as the Indians stayed in the cabin they could not be seen by them, she looked about for some projecting ledge under which they might creep for the night. Gently she lifted her mother’s head and placed it on her own folded shawl, and, with an eye ever on the cabin below, she crept further up the side of the mountain until she found a place where a huge rock, warmed by the sun, projected far out, and left a hollow beneath, into which they might creep. Frantically she tore off twigs of the scrubby pines around them, and made a fragrant bed of pine needles and moss on which to rest. Then she woke her mother.

Sane and practical on all subjects but the one, Madam Manovska roused herself to meet this new difficulty with the old courage, and climbed with Amalia’s help to their wild resting place without a word of complaint. There she sat looking out over the magnificent scene before her with her great brooding eyes, and ate the coarse corn cake Amalia put in her hands.

She talked, always in Polish or in French, of the men “rouge,” and said she did not wonder they came to so good a place to rest, and that she would give thanks to the great God that she and her daughter were on the mountain when they arrived. She reminded Amalia that if she had consented to return when her daughter wished, they would now have been in the cabin with those terrible men, and said that she had been inspired of God to stay long on the mountain. Contentedly, then, she munched her cake, and remarked that water would give comfort in the eating of it, but she smiled and made the best of the dry food. Then she prayed that her husband might be detained until the men were gone.

Amalia gave her mother the water that was left in the bottle she had brought with her, and lamented that she had saved so little for her. “It was so bad, not to save more for my mamma,” she cried, giving the bottle with its lowered contents into her mother’s hand. “I go to watch, mamma mine. Soon will I return.”

Amalia went back to her point of vantage, where she could see all about the cabin and shed. Still the smoke poured from the chimney, and there was no sign of red men without. It was a mountain sheep they had carried, slung between them, and now they dressed and cooked a portion of it, and were gorging themselves comfortably before the fire, with many grunts of satisfaction at the finding of the formidable owner of the premises absent. They were on their way to Laramie to trade and sell game, and it was their intention to leave a portion of their mutton with Larry Kildene; for never did they dare venture near him without bringing a propitiatory offering.

The sun had set and the cold mists were blowing across from the fall and closing around the cabin like a veil of amethystine dye, when Amalia saw them moving about the cabin door as if preparing to depart. Her heart rose, and she signaled her mother, but no. They went indoors again, and she saw them no more. In truth they had disputed long as to whether it was best to leave before the big man’s return, or to remain in their comfortable quarters and start early, before day. It was the conference that drew them out, and they had made ready to start at a moment’s notice if he should return in the night. But as the darkness crept on and Larry Kildene did not appear they stretched themselves before the fire and slept, and the two women on the mountain, hungry and cold, crept under the mother’s cloak and lay long into the night, shivering and listening, couched on the pine twigs Amalia had spread under the ledge of rock. At last, clasped in each other’s arms, they slept, in spite of fear and cold, for very weariness.

Amalia woke next morning to the low murmuring of a voice. It was her mother, kneeling in the pine needles, praying at her side. She waited until the prayer was ended, then she rose and went out from the sheltered hollow where they lay. “I will look a little, mamma. Wait for me.”

She gazed down on the cabin, but all was still. The amethystine veil had not lifted, and no smoke came from the chimney. She crept back to her mother’s side, and they sat close for warmth, and waited. When the sun rose and the clouds melted away, all the earth smiled up at them, and their fears seemed to melt away with the clouds. Still they did not venture out where they thought they might be spied from below, and time passed while they watched earnestly for the sight of moving figures, and still no smoke appeared from the cabin.

Higher and higher the sun climbed in the sky, yet they could not bring themselves to return. Hunger pressed them, and Amalia begged her mother to let her go a little nearer to listen, but she would not. So they discussed together in their own tongue and neither would allow the other to venture below, and still no smoke issued from the chimney.

At last Amalia started and pressed her hand to her heart. What did she see far along on the trail toward the desert? Surely, a man with two animals, climbing toward the turn. Her eyes danced for gladness as she turned a flushed face toward her mother.

“Look, mamma! Far on,–no–there! It is–mamma mine–it is ’Arry King!” The mere sight of him made her break out in English. “It is that I must go to him and tell him of the Indian in the cabin before he arrive. If he come on them there, and they kill him! Oh, let me go quickly.” At the thought of him, and the danger he might meet, all her fears of the men “rouge” returned upon her, and she was gone, passing with incredible swiftness over the rough way, to try to intercept him before he could reach the cabin.

But she need not have feared, for the Indians were long gone. Before daybreak they had passed Harry where he rested in the deep dusk of the morning, without knowing he was near. With swift, silent steps they had passed down the trail, taking as much of Larry Kildene’s corn as they could carry, and leaving the bloody pelt of the sheep and a very meager share of the mutton in exchange. Hungry and footsore, yet eager and glad to have come home successfully, Harry King walked forward, leading his good yellow horse, his eyes fixed on the cabin, and wondering not a little; for he, too, saw that no smoke was issuing from the chimney.

He hastened, and all Amalia’s swiftness could not bring her to him before he reached his goal. He saw first the bloody pelt hanging beside the door, and his heart stood still. Those two women never could have done that! Where were they? He dropped the leading strap, leaving the weary horses where they stood, and ran forward to enter the cabin and see the evidence of Indians all about. There were the clean-picked bones of their feast and the dirt from their feet on Amalia’s carefully kept floor. The disorder smote him, and he ran out again in the sun. Looking this way and that, he called and listened and called again. Why did no answer reach him? Poor Amalia! In her haste she had turned her foot and now, fainting with pain, and with fear for him, she could not find her voice to reply.

He thought he heard a low cry. Was it she? He ran again, and now he saw her, high above him, a dark heap on the ground. Quickly he was by her side, and, kneeling, he gathered her in his arms. He forgot all but that she was living and that he held her, and he kissed her white face and her lips, and said all the tender things in his heart. He did not know what he was saying. He only knew that he could feel her heart beat, and that she was opening her eyes, and that with quivering arms she clasped his neck, and that her tears wet his cheek, and that, over and over, her lips were repeating his name.

“’Arry–’Arry King! You are come back. Ah, ’Arry King, my heart cry with the great gladness they have not killed you.”

All in the same instant he bethought himself that he must not caress her thus. Yet filled with a gladness he could not fathom he still clung to her and still murmured the words he meant never to speak to her. One thing he could do. One thing sweet and right to do. He could carry her to the cabin. How could she reach it else? His heart leaped that he had at least that right.

“No, ’Arry King. You have walk the long, hard way, and are very weary.” But still he carried her.

“Put me down, ’Arry King.” Then he obeyed her, and set her gently down. “I am too great a burden. See, thus? If you help me a little–it is that I may hop–It is better, is not?”