Читать книгу Children of the Wind - M. P. Shiel - Страница 13

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Later in the night when the outspan lay asleep, Rolls, lying near Cobby, scribbled on a pocket-book leaf, under the beam of an electric torch: "Cobby, I reckon to come back, but no knowing. If not, know that this Macray is the enemy. Without me, and with him, I figure it up that your best course would be to throw over the whole fakement, and get back home. Good luck to you and me, Cobby.—R. K. R."

This he put into Cobby's tobacco-pouch, knowing that Cobby, who smoked only in the evening, would not see it till the next evening, when Rolls and Macray would be well away.

Macray, on his side, knew that Rolls would warn Cobby; but when at breakfast Cobby's manner toward him was as usual, he concluded that Rolls would only let Cobby know after the departure from camp, and he saw why. Rolls, then, would write it, and place the writing where Cobby would be sure to find it: and Macray spent an hour after breakfast in thinking where that would be; till, in opening his own pouch, he thought of Cobby's, of Cobby's smoking only in the evening....

He then watched till he saw Rolls away at the waggons, and, going promptly to Cobby, said: "Give me a pipeful of that Boer 'baccie."

In a minute he had Rolls' note out of Cobby's pouch, and presently was reading and destroying it.

Before noon, with elaborate secrecies, he had buried a packet—a cardboard-box in oilskin, of which he had a jealous care—at the roots of a particular tree; and soon afterwards he and Rolls started out together.

And that night they two were plodding northward afoot forty miles from the camp, two lorn forms lost in a vastness of broken and rolling country, pathless, manless, plodding in the misty twilight of the sickle of a moon quite new, now sinking, and about four miles before them the mighty fact of mountains towering, brooding in their citadel of obscurity, mystery and muteness.

The two horses had lately been left knee-haltered; and Rolls remarked: "We might safely have ridden on: not much light from that moon; and those outlook posts of savages are only efficient for spotting troops, not small bodies."

"Aha," Macray went.

Few had been their words, and no word so far of enmity, of quarrel. Two strangers travelling together by chance in a desert would speak as these spoke; but ever these moved shoulder to shoulder, one never an inch behind the other, as their horses had moved shoulder to shoulder—a long strain on the alertness of nerve and brain and eye and hand. Both wished to God that it was over.

As over open sward they walked, through belt of timber, toiling up hillside, moving by the lonesome pool and the bitter bittern brooding, sending atrot the troop of little duiker-bok, hearing the wild cat whine, there were long silences between them. Their throats dry at that tension, each hoped for, yet dreaded, the setting of the moon, with whose setting his life might set.

"Cobby's not a bad old sort," Macray suddenly remarked: "nobody would hurt Cobby, except in defence of Number One. What made him take on this job? Just the money in it?"

"Not much"—from Rolls: "that's what made me. Cobby's after seeing justice done."

"Aha."

Then again that silent plod of hide-shoes over grass and dust and rock; and presently Rolls: "We're climbing all along, even when it looks as if we weren't."

"Oh, aye"—from Macray.

"I know where we are now. One of their outpost vedettes will not be two miles from here."

"Aha."

Five minutes more, and they stood confronted with cliff-wall some thirty feet high, which seemed to stretch interminably to east and west, dropping here or there a waterfall; as to which Rolls remarked: "Yes, I remember this bit now; there are some passes going up—we'll try this way"—turning westward to the left; and over sickly sward they walked close before the cliff, until they came to an opening in its face.

The natural rock-path that ran up here being steep, strewn with stones, narrow as a man, here one of the two had to have his back to the other, and in a flash both understood that the moment of action had come: and the quicker lived.

"Hands up!" cried Rolls like thunderclap, in the same second that Macray, without a word, fired at him.

But Rolls had been by the hundredth of a second the more thunder-prompt, and Macray, when he fired, was two Macrays, one firing, the other throwing his hands up, conscious of a muzzle already at his breast, so that his bullet shot upward....

"Drop your revolver," ordered Rolls.

The revolver dropped: and Rolls, keeping eye and muzzle on the foe, stooped to pick it up; but his hand not chancing to encounter the gun, he glanced down to see it; and in the wink of that instant Macray was upon him, grabbing Rolls' revolver-wrist, tumbling Rolls over to the ground, dropping upon Rolls.

There they struggled together—a struggle that could not long continue for lack of wind, it was so cat-o'-mountain in the franticness of its activity, life the victor's prize. Twice while it lasted those solitudes heard reports of gun-fire—Rolls firing; but without hurt to the other, who had the advantage of being much the younger, of being considerably the bigger, of being uppermost to begin with: advantages over which that inveterate toughness of Rolls might not have prevailed, if Macray had not let go Rolls' left hand to snatch his sheath-knife, and finish it. In that same second Rolls had him overthrown, undone, and under....

His knee on Macray's arm, his grip at Macray's throat, Rolls glared close into his foe's face, grinning at him, his throat rasping as hoarse as Macray's rasped.

Then he sprang up, picked up the two revolvers, dropped his own into its holster, dropped Macray's and Macray's knife into his knapsack, took from the knapsack a skein of window-cord, cut off a bit, and said: "Get up."

Then, Macray up, he said: "Hands behind your back."

On which Macray, as he obeyed, chuckled, or attempted to chuckle, uttering: "Anything to oblige!"

Rolls then went to bind Macray, saying: "One movement, and you're a dead man."

"Wonder I'm not that already"—from Macray.

"Well, and whom do you owe your life to—for the time being?"

"To the best of all possible R. K. Rollses apparently," said the unconquerable Macray.

Rolls laughed. "Not much! Not likely! Bad shot! You would be in hell now all right, if it had been only me. But Cobby don't cotton to 'assassinations': and I want to go back able to shake his hand and make him a truthful report of what took place."

"Here's to old Cobby, then, and to whatever gods may be. Life's damned sweet; and I'd sooner be a crossing-sweeper at Charing Cross than a Lord Mayor in the realms below."

"Prize to-night, then, since you like life"—Rolls tied the last knot on the wrists—"as I do. To-morrow night that moon will be a bit fatter and higher at this hour, but one of us two won't be knowing about it. We'll fight it out in the morning light, look. Come on."

He moved now up the rock-path, and Macray followed, relieved and frivolous in a reaction from the long strain, anon making a remark meant to be jocular and mocking, though he did not fail, as bidden, to look at the moon with a new interest and wistfulness; and on they plodded over country that still increased in steepness, until the moon was down, soon after which another moon—at its full, this one—came into their view, this being the light of a fire shining in the circular doorway of a hut perched some seventy feet up in cliff-side bush—one of the outlook posts of Wo-Ngwanya.

This point being only eight or nine miles from the capital kraal beyond the mountains, Rolls meant, if again victorious the next day, to visit the kraal alone the next midnight, and investigate the possibilities, in order to report to Cobby, he having with him cord-ladder, air-gun, and every essential for "the rehearsal"; nor did the first step to this end—the slipping-in past the vedettes—present any difficulty: on such a night, in the absence of searchlights, a company of soldiers could have prowled into the pass unnoticed.

Here Macray crept foremost, with Rolls' muzzle at his back, lest he should deliberately rouse the outlook by any sound; and now the way was up and up the endless stair of that tower of mountain-rock, that looked a suitable boundary for a land, not of Wa-Ngwanya, but of titans and archangels, and now they were crawling north-west through some gross grove of wood, the dwelling-place of gloom, and now were moving north-east along dizzy cliff-brinks within theatres of crags, trackless grandeurs, with organ-voices of waters raving everywhere, and always a noisy north-wind thwarting them, so that toward midnight they halted exhausted on a ledge where the rock above rather overhung them, and had a bluff which a little protected them from the wind; and here Rolls, having produced from his knapsack biltong, biscuits, Johnny Walker, tied up Macray's legs, untied his hands behind, tied them before; and there, seated, they ate and drank together.

"Here we sleep," Rolls remarked between bottle and lip.

"Or pretend to," said Macray, feeding his mouth two-handed.

"I'll be sleeping all right," Rolls muttered.

"Maybe I can roll you down the precipice during the night—good idea: the rolling of Rolls. Or knock out your brains with one of those stones."

"No, you won't be doing much stirring," Rolls answered. "I respect you some, Macray: an unscrupulous brute, born without a God or a conscience; but you have brains."

Macray reflected on this, and then, deciding, said: "Yes, all that's true. You're a man who can see, Rolls."

Rolls was now trying to light a cigar within his hat, but, after several failures, muttered: "Oh, well, here's to bed," and lay close under the crag.

Macray, too, lay, and both looked up with that pang of a look that may be the last at clouds that scudded southward over the vault, and, sailing northward, all the swarm of the constellations, steadily sailing together, like a navy that steadily sails and sails.

But, though the winds were touched with chill up there, within some minutes Rolls was asleep but for an ear: only Macray lay wakeful. And see him at one time, tied as he was, drawing himself softly a little to peer over the edge of the ledge, and ponder upon what he saw.... Then he lay anew under the rock-shadow, wooing sleep; but had just succeeded in drowsing, when he was roused by a shout ... a shout of horror.

He started up, staring at Rolls, whom he saw staring also.

"Bad dreams?" Macray asked suddenly.

Rolls did not answer.

Macray chuckled: "Conscience, Rolls...."

Rolls dropped again upon the rock, terribly trembling. He had dreamed that he was careering headlong down the ravine—a dream so real, and so dismal in mood, that it was hours before he could sleep anew—in fits and starts.

Hence the dawn of morning came upon him rather shaken, rather out of sorts. But showing no sign of it, save a slight pallor, he sprang up—summoned Macray—muttering: "Come, let's have it over"—set free Macray's legs.

"Well, what's the rules of the game?" Macray asked, smiling—pale now, his eyelids twitching—but steadily smiling.

Rolls looked along the ledge—some sixty feet long, some four broad, rather concave in form, bluffing out at the north and south ends; and glancing over the edge in that grey of dawn, one saw only jags and crags and small trees, and no bottom but mists steaming; and on the opposite side of the ravine, fifteen feet to the east, a like scene of rock and tree.

"You will stand at that north end," Rolls said. "I at that south. You will hold one end of this cord low, and I'll slide your revolver down it to you. When I see it reach your hand, I fire."

"Bah!" broke bitterly from the other's lips: "and you talk of wanting fair-play to please Master Cobby! What's this but assassination? While I'm getting my revolver from the cord I drop dead—of course."

Rolls saw this—moved some steps away, reflecting, and came back saying: "Well, I'm game to meet you, if you have any better plan."

Macray had a twitching of the eyelids, as in all his instants of high-pitched egoism. He said: "You want fair-play. Well, you bind my revolver to my right wrist, muzzle-backward; and I bind yours to yours with the same knots and length of cord. Then you tie a long cord to the two bindings, and retire till the cord is taut, which will be the signal to start unbinding with tooth and nail, and the quickest wins. Not quite fair to me, since I have more gum than tooth: but I'm game ... you want fair-play...." His eyelids twitched.

"What's that—Mexican?"

"Yes; Mexican."

Rolls anew moved some paces away, weighing it with a wary eye, and came back, saying: "Well, maybe we'll make it that road: I'll figure it up; we'll have some breakfast."

"God, man, get it over!" cried out Macray, staring at him.

On which Rolls, suddenly pallid with passion, flashing fire from his eyes, said sharply: "Damn it, yes, get it over it is. No doubt I'm as smart a man as you at any game. Sit down."

And, as Macray sat with that pallid smile of his, Rolls in a flurry of action again tied his legs together, then searched him from hat to shoes, found a penknife and a flint-stone, tossed them away. He then drew out the magazines from both the Colt's, and proceeded to free Macray's wrists; then cut two equal lengths of cord, with one of which he bound one of the Colt's to Macray's right wrist, muzzle backward, tieing up the trigger, making the knots with all his strength; and now, presenting the other Colt's to Macray, permitted it to be similarly bound to his own wrist. Which done, he tied the ends of a cord nearly equal in length to the ledge's length to the two bindings.

"That fair now, Douglas Macray?" says he.

"All serene, Rolls," says Macray.

With a slash of his knife Rolls now freed the other's feet.

"I will go south, if you like," said Macray, rising upright.

"What's that for?" asked Rolls.

"It is lower, and I am the taller—not that it matters." His eyelids twitched.

"Makes no matter to me either road," said Rolls.

On which Macray stepped backward southward, as Rolls replaced one of the magazines in his own Colt's, and, stepping backward northward, tossed the other to Macray.

With their eyes fixed on each other, they increased the distance between them, until the cord was taut; then instantly bent to the untying.

Macray, however, made no actual attempt to untie, but, while pretending to untie, stepped two paces forward, and, bending sideways, picked up with his left hand a flint-stone, of which there were many scattered about the ledge.

Of this act of treachery Rolls, with one watchful eye aside, was conscious; but though flints can be rather sharp, he felt no keen fear that the edge of a flint, picked up haphazard, would chance to get through the several thicknesses of cord that entangled the triggers, before he could rend away and loose his own entanglements with tooth and nail—a task well in progress already.

But Macray had no intention of cutting his entanglements.... The instant the flint was in his fingers, a shout hopped out of his mouth, as he leapt from off the ledge, and a shout hopped out of Rolls' mouth, as he found himself tugged forward askew, and falling down the gulf.

Macray alighted upon another ledge which he had observed quite thirty feet below, a ledge twenty feet long and half as broad, where a dwarf mohnono-tree, with leaves of silver, sprang out of the cliff-side: to which tree he clung with an arm wrenched to dislocation by the arrest of Rolls' descent, clung during several seconds of frenzy, while with the flint in his left fingers he sawed to sever the cord that connected him with the dead; and still when the cord was cut he clung on dizzied, drunk, distraught, watching the history and incidents of the body's voyage during ten seconds which seemed as many minutes, saw it wheel and vault from point to point of rock, saw it hurled by the earth's reeling upon the opposite wall of the ravine, and disappear into the sea of mists.

Macray fell upon his face, and lay there trembling. "My God!" he said.

But within fifteen minutes he chuckled in his gullet: it lived, that dear ego of his, that Number One that he had a fancy for; and "damn you deep!" he muttered to the dead.

However, he was a prisoner there on the ledge, he and a chough's chicks; and it was only after hours of efforts and very perilous failures that, by ramming fragments of his tree into crannies of the crag, he managed to regain the ledge from which he had leapt.

There he ate and rested; then, taking Rolls' knapsack, plodded on northward for the capital of Wo-Ngwanya, to tell a tale there.