THE WORLD'S GREAT SNARE. E. Phillips OppenheimЧитать онлайн книгу.
aspect. He might truthfully say, if ever his conscience should reproach him in the years to come, that he had done his best to rid himself of this girl’s presence. He had failed! It was fate! She had drifted to him again, a flotsam on the broad river of humanity, herself controlling the current which bore her into his arms. After all, he was but passive in the matter. Even had he desired it, escape would not be easy, and in his heart he was not at all sure that he did desire it. In San Francisco he had found life with this girl in curious antipathy to all his crude notions of what was seemly and honest. A strong and never conquered dislike to their mode of living chafed him from the first. He had not a particle of religion, nor any conscious love of morality. He went into his bondage perfectly untrammelled by any scruples other than instinctive ones. But in a week he was conscious of but one desire: to free himself from a connection which was utterly distasteful to him as speedily as possible; and it was in a measure the reaction from the enervating period of his brief liaison which had led him to throw in his lot with a handful of men bound for the gold region. In the shadow of the great mountains, face to face with Nature in all her primitive grandeur, he had become himself again. The hard physical toil had been a luxury to him. He had already learned to think kindly, almost with regret, of the girl who had so suddenly returned into his life. What a difference her presence seemed to make in the miserable little shanty! He was forced to admit it. His day’s reflections had all been favourable to her. Even had he desired it, escape now would not be easy.
Perhaps she guessed by his face and his tone, that he was relenting in his demeanour towards her. Womanlike, she took advantage of the opportunity. She glided across the room, and fell upon her knees before him.
“Don’t send me away, Bryan!” she begged. “Don’t! Don’t!”
She was sobbing hysterically at his feet, crouching there, her hair and dress disordered, with all the sinuous grace and elegance of some beautiful wild animal. Then he took her hand, and hesitated for the last time. Slowly he stooped down, and wound his arms around her, raising her towards him. With a little soft cry she twined her fingers around his neck, and buried her face upon his shoulder. Then he drew her lips to his and kissed her.
They were silent for a few moments, gazing out into the rich, soft darkness, which spread itself like a mantle below them. Down in the camp they could hear the mingled sounds of revelry at Cooper’s store, and the steady hammering of some new arrivals marking out their claim and setting up tents. It was early for the moon, and the fireflies like flashes of gold darted up and down the sides of the steep ravine, and hung like tiny stars over the valley below. Suddenly from the other side of the cleft a red flame leaped up hissing into the night. Myra started and looked breathlessly out into the darkness.
“It’s only Jim Hamilton—the chap who has the shanty opposite,” the Englishman explained. “He’s on the borders of a wood, you see, and he’s afraid of bears. He burns pine boughs there, every night he’s alone!”
Another tongue of flame leaped up, and now they could hear the crackling of the burning branches. Another and another followed. Myra leaned forward, holding her breath, and fascinated for a moment by the curious sight. Even the man whose arm was round her supple waist was interested. The whole air was full of that fitful yet brilliant light casting a vivid glow upon the undergrowth and down into the precipice hung with tiny fir-trees, and throwing back strange lurid shadows upon the red-trunked trees and the dense blackness of the wood. Mr. James Hamilton himself, who was alternately feeding and raking the fire he had kindled, bathed in the rich scarlet glow became almost a picturesque object. Suddenly, as though conscious of being observed, he stood upright and turned towards them, leaning on his shovel, and slightly shading his eyes with his hand.
A great tongue of red fire scattered a thousand sparks, and leaped up into the black night. For a moment every line and furrow in the man’s evil face stood revealed. The disclosure was startling, almost sinister. Even the Englishman, who had sat opposite to the man for months, shuddered and turned away. For a few seconds he forgot his companion. Then a stifled cry from his side, and an added weight upon his arms, reminded him of her with alarm. He caught her up in his arms and bore her to the bed. Her face was white and her eyes were closed. She had fainted.
And across the gorge, bathed in a stream of red fire, Mr. James Hamilton stood there like a carved figure, with a light more brilliant than the flaming pine boughs had ever cast, blazing in his eyes, and a fire more fierce than that which had made white ashes of the dry wood, burning in his evil heart. Then he dropped his hand and burst into a hoarse ringing laugh, a laugh which echoed up the gorge and down the valley, and came even to the ears of the men sitting in Dan Cooper’s store. One cursed the jackals, and another spoke of wolves. But the laugh was the laugh of Mr. James Hamilton.
V. A HATEFUL FIGURE FROM A HATEFUL PAST
It was morning. As yet the sun had gained no strength, and though the air above was clear and bright with the promise of a glorious day, a mantle of hazy white mists floated in the valley, and hung over the tree-tops. Mr. James Hamilton, after throwing a careful glance around, slipped out from his cabin, scrambled down the gorge and up the opposite side, and walked softly along the garden path which led to the shanty.
The Englishman had gone to the river—he had watched him go. Only his visitor was there. As he approached within a few yards of the shanty, Myra, who had just risen, came to the door to watch the sun strike the tops of the distant Sierras. Instead, she looked into the dark, evil face of Mr. James Hamilton.
She started back with a little low cry. The colour faded from her cheeks and the glad light from her eyes. A sudden faintness came over her. Sun and sky, wooded gorge and rolling plain, commenced to dance before her eyes. She felt herself growing sick and numbed with horror. Last night she had persuaded herself that it was a delusion. The shadows and the dim light had made her fanciful. But here in the clear morning’s sunshine, where every object possessed even an added vividness, there could be no possibility of any mistake. The man whom it had been the one fervent prayer of her life that she might never see again, was face to face with her alone in these mountain solitudes.
And he had not changed—not a whit. There was the same cold, ugly smile, the same fiendish appreciation of the loathing which he aroused in her. He took off his battered cap, and made her a mock obeisance.
“You—here!” she gasped. She felt that she must say something. The silence was intolerable. It was beginning to stifle her.
“You’ve hit it!” he remarked. “Did you think I was a ghost? Feel! I’m flesh and blood! Come and feel, I say!”
He held out his arms with a gesture of coarse invitation. She shrank away with a little cry which dropped into a moan—almost of physical pain.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t dare to touch me! What do you want?”
Mr. Hamilton appeared hurt. His manner and his tone implied that he had expected a different reception.
“What do I want? Come, I like that! You don’t mean to tell me that you’ve come to this God-forsaken hole of a place after some one else, eh? When I saw you last night, I thought at first of coming right over and claiming you. It’s me you came for, I reckon. Ain’t it, eh?”
Her eyes flashed fire upon him.
“Come after you!” she repeated, her bosom heaving with pent-up emotion. “Oh, my God! I would sooner walk into my grave. To look at you—and remember, is torture! What do you come here for? How dare you come into my sight!”
He laughed; a low, sneering laugh that had little of merriment in it.
“So it is the Englishman, is it? Now listen here, my sweetheart, and don’t ruffle your pretty feathers. If we were in San Francisco, or any place where there was a choice of society, you could take up with whom you liked and be d—d to you; but out here it’s different! You’re mine, and I mean to have you! Do you hear? This blasted hole has given me the blues. I’m lonely, d—d lonely, and