Читать книгу The Winds of Chance - Rex Beach - Страница 11

The count went on monotonously, for the fellow with the whip swung slowly, putting his whole strength behind every blow. When it had climbed to eight the prisoner's body was dripping with blood, his trousers-band was sodden with it. When it had reached ten he hung suspended by his wrists and only a fierce involuntary muscular reaction answered the caress of the nine lashes.

Forty stripes had been voted as the penalty, but 'Poleon Doret vaulted to the platform, seized the upraised whip, and tore it from the executioner's hand. He turned upon the crowd a countenance white with fury and disgust.

"Enough!" he shouted. "By Gar! You keel him next! If you mus' w'ip somebody, w'ip me; dis feller is mos' dead." He strode to the post and with a slash of his hunting-knife cut McCaskey down. This action was greeted by an angry yell of protest; there was a rush toward the platform, but 'Poleon was joined by the leader of the posse, who scrambled through the press and ranged himself in opposition to the audience. The old man was likewise satiated with this torture; his face was wet with sweat; beneath his drooping gray mustache his teeth were set.

"Back up, you hyenas!" he cried, shrilly. "The show's over. The man took his medicine and he took it like a man. He's had enough."

"Gimme the whip. I'll finish the job," some one shouted.

The former speaker bent forward abristle with defiance.

"You try it!" he spat out. "You touch that whip, and by God, I'll kill you!" He lent point to this threat by drawing and cocking his six-shooter. "If you men ain't had enough blood for one day, I'll let a little more for you." His words ended in a torrent of profanity. "Climb aboard!" he shrilled. "Who's got the guts to try?"

Doret spoke to him shortly, "Dese men ain't goin' mak' no trouble, m'sieu'." With that he turned his back and, heedless of the clamor, began to minister to the bleeding man. He had provided himself with a bottle of lotion, doubtless some antiseptic snatched from the canvas drugstore down the street, and with this he wet a handkerchief; then he washed McCaskey's lacerated back. A member of the committee joined him in this work of mercy; soon others came to their assistance, and gradually the crowd began breaking up. Some one handed the sufferer a drink of whisky, which revived him considerably, and by the time he was ready to receive his upper garments he was to some extent master of himself.

Joe McCaskey accepted these attentions without a word of thanks, without a sign of gratitude. He appeared to be numbed, paralyzed, by the nervous shock he had undergone, and yet he was not paralyzed, for his eyes were intensely alive. They were wild, baleful; his roving glance was like poison to the men it fell upon.

"You're due to leave camp," he was told, "and you're going to take the first boat from Dyea. Is there anything you want to say, anything you want to do, before you go?"

"I—want something to—eat," Joe answered, hoarsely. "I'm hungry." These were the first words he had uttered; they met with astonishment; nevertheless he was led to the nearest restaurant. Surrounded by a silent, curious group, he crouched over the board counter and wolfed a ravenous meal. When he had finished he rose, turned, and stared questioningly at the circle of hostile faces; his eyes still glittered with that basilisk glare of hatred and defiance. There was something huge, disconcerting, about the man. Not once had he appealed for mercy, not once had he complained, not once had he asked about his brother; he showed neither curiosity nor concern over Jim's fate, and now he betrayed the utmost indifference to his own. He merely shifted that venomous stare from one face to another as if indelibly to photograph each and every one of them upon his mind.

But the citizens of Sheep Camp were not done with him yet. His hands were again bound, this time behind him; a blanket roll was roped upon his shoulders, upon his breast was hung a staring placard which read:

"I am a thief! Spit on me and send me along."

Thus decorated, he met his crowning indignity. Extending from the steps of the restaurant far down the street twin rows of men had formed, and this gauntlet Joe McCaskey was forced to run. He bore this ordeal as he had borne the other. Men jeered at him, they flung handfuls of wet moss and mud at him, they spat upon him, some even struck him, bound as he was.

Sickened at the sight, Pierce Phillips witnessed the final chapter of this tragedy into which the winds of chance had blown him. For one instant only did his eyes meet those of his former tentmate, but during that brief glance the latter made plain his undying hatred. McCaskey's gaze intensified, his upper lip drew back in a grimace similar to that which he had lifted to the sky when agony ran through his veins like fire; he seemed to concentrate the last ounce of his soul's energy in the sending of some wordless message. Hellish fury, a threat too baneful, too ominous, for expression dwelt in that stare; then a splatter of mire struck him in the face and blotted it out.

When the last jeer had died away, when the figure of Joe McCaskey had disappeared into the misty twilight, Phillips drew a deep breath. What a day this had been, what a tumult he had lived through, what an experience he had undergone! This was an adventure! He had lived, he had made an enemy. Life had come his way, and the consciousness of that fact caused him to tingle. This would be something to talk about; what would the folks back home say to this? And the Countess—that wonderful woman of ice and fire! That superwoman who could sway the minds of men, whose wit was quicker than light. Well, she had saved him, saved his good name, if not his neck, and his life was hers. Who was she? What mission brought her here? What hurry crowded on her heels? What idle chance had flung them into each other's arms? Or was it idle chance? Was there such a thing as chance, after all? Were not men's random fortunes all laid out in conformity with some obscure purpose to form a part of some intricate design? Dust he was, dust blown upon the breath of the North, as were these other human atoms which had been borne thither from the farthest quarters of the earth; but when that dust had settled would it not arrange itself into patterns mapped out at the hour of birth or long before? Somehow he believed that such would be the case.

As for the Countess, his way was hers, her way was his; he could not bear to think of losing her. She was big, she was great, she drew him by the spell of some strange magic.

The peppery old man who, with Doret's help, had defied the miners' meeting approached him to inquire:

"Say, why didn't old Tom come back with you from Linderman?"

"Old Tom?"

"Sure! Old Tom Linton. We're pardners. I'm Jerry Quirk."

"He was tired out."

"Tired!" Mr. Quirk snorted derisively. "What tired him? He can't tote enough grub to satisfy his own hunger. Me, I'm double-trippin'—relayin' our stuff to the Summit and breakin' my back at it. I can't make him understand we'd ought to keep the outfit together; he's got it scattered like a mad woman's hair. But old Tom's in the sere and yellow leaf: he's onnery, like all old men. I try to humor him, but—here's a limit." The speaker looked Pierce over shrewdly. "You said you was packin' for wages. Well, old Tom ain't any help to me. You look strong. Mebbe I could hire you."

Phillips shook his head. "I don't want work just now," said he. "I'm going to Dyea in the morning."

Jim McCaskey was buried where he had fallen, and there beside the trail, so that all who passed might read and ponder, the men of Sheep Camp raised a board with this inscription:

"Here lies the body of a thief."