He fought with himself to hold that picture of her, to utter some word, make some movement. But the power to see and to live died out of him. He sank back with a queer sound in his throat. He did not hear the answering cry from the girl as she flung herself, with a quick little prayer for help, on her knees in the soft, white sand beside him. He felt no movement when she raised his head in her arm and with her bare hand brushed back his sand-littered hair, revealing where the bullet had struck him. He did not know when she ran back to the river.
His first sensation was of a cool and comforting something trickling10 over his burning temples and his face. It was water. Subconsciously12 he knew that, and in the same way he began to think. But it was hard to pull his thoughts together. They persisted in hopping13 about, like a lot of sand-fleas in a dance, and just as he got hold of one and reached for another, the first would slip away from him. He began to get the best of them after a time, and he had an uncontrollable desire to say something. But his eyes and his lips were sealed tight, and to open them, a little army of gnomes14 came out of the darkness in the back of his head, each of them armed with a lever, and began prying15 with all their might. After that came the beginning of light and a flash of consciousness.
The girl was working over him. He could feel her and hear her movement. Water was trickling over his face. Then he heard a voice, close over him, saying something in a sobbing16 monotone which he could not understand.
"Thank LE BON DIEU, you live, m'sieu," he heard the voice say, as if coming from a long distance away. "You live, you live—"
He wanted to curse the gnomes for deserting him, for as soon as they were gone with their levers, his eyes and his lips shut tight again, or at least he thought they did. But he began to sense things in a curious sort of way. Some one was dragging him. He could feel the grind of sand under his body. There were intervals20 when the dragging operation paused. And then, after a long time, he seemed to hear more than one voice. There were two—sometimes a murmur21 of them. And odd visions came to him. He seemed to see the girl with shining black hair and dark eyes, and then swiftly she would change into a girl with hair like blazing gold. This was a different girl. She was not like Pretty Eyes, as his twisted mind called the other. This second vision that he saw was like a radiant bit of the sun, her hair all aflame with the fire of it and her face a different sort of face. He was always glad when she went away and Pretty Eyes came back.
To David Carrigan this interesting experience in his life might have covered an hour, a day, or a month. Or a year for that matter, for he seemed to have had an indefinite association with Pretty Eyes. He had known her for a long time and very intimately, it seemed. Yet he had no memory of the long fight in the hot sun, or of the river, or of the singing warblers, or of the inquisitive22 sandpiper that had marked out the line which his enemy's last bullet had traveled. He had entered into a new world in which everything was vague and unreal except that vision of dark hair, dark eyes, and pale, beautiful face. Several times he saw it with marvelous clearness, and each time he drifted away into darkness again with the sound of a voice growing fainter and fainter in his ears.
Then came a time of utter chaos23 and soundless gloom. He was in a pit, where even his subconscious11 self was almost dead under a crushing oppression. At last a star began to glimmer24 in this pit, a star pale and indistinct and a vast distance away. But it crept steadily25 up through the eternity26 of darkness, and the nearer it came, the less there was of the blackness of night. From a star it grew into a sun, and with the sun came dawn. In that dawn he heard the singing of a bird, and the bird was just over his head. When Carrigan opened his eyes, and understanding came to him, he found himself under the silver birch that belonged to the wood warbler.
For a space he did not ask himself how he had come there. He was looking at the river and the white strip of sand. Out there were the rock and his dunnage pack. Also his rifle. Instinctively27 his eyes turned to the balsam ambush28 farther down. That, too, was in a blaze of sunlight now. But where he lay, or sat, or stood—he was not sure what he was doing at that moment—it was shady and deliciously cool. The green of the cedar29 and spruce and balsam was close about him, inset with the silver and gold of the thickly-leaved birch. He discovered that he was bolstered30 up partly against the trunk of this birch and partly against a spruce sapling. Between these two, where his head rested, was a pile of soft moss31 freshly torn from the earth. And within reach of him was his own kit32 pail filled with water.
He moved himself cautiously and raised a hand to his head. His fingers came in contact with a bandage.
For a minute or two after that he sat without moving while his amazed senses seized upon the significance of it all. In the first place he was alive. But even this fact of living was less remarkable33 than the other things that had happened. He remembered the final moments of the unequal duel34. His enemy had got him. And that enemy was a woman! Moreover, after she had blown away a part of his head and had him helpless in the sand, she had—in place of finishing him there—dragged him to this cool nook and tied up his wound. It was hard for him to believe, but the pail of water, the moss behind his shoulders, the bandage, and certain visions that were reforming themselves in his brain convinced him. A woman had shot him. She had worked like the very devil to kill him. And afterward35 she had saved him! He grinned. It was final proof that his mind hadn't been playing tricks on him. No one but a woman would have been quite so unreasonable36. A man would have completed the job.
He began to look for her up and down the white strip of sand. And in looking he saw the gray and silver flash of the hard-working sandpiper. He chuckled37, for he was exceedingly comfortable, and also exhilaratingly happy to know that the thing was over and he was not dead. If the sandpiper had been a man, he would have called him up to shake hands with him. For if it hadn't been for the bird getting squarely in front of him and giving him away, there might have been a more horrible end to it all. He shuddered38 as he thought of the mighty effort he had made to fire a shot into the heart of the balsam ambush—and perhaps into the heart of a woman!
He reached for the pail and drank deeply of the water in it. He felt no pain. His dizziness was gone. His mind had grown suddenly clear and alert. The warmth of the water told him almost instantly that it had been taken from the river some time ago. He observed the change in sun and shadows. With the instinct of a man trained to note details, he pulled out his watch. It was almost six o'clock. More than three hours had passed since the sandpiper had got in front of his gun. He did not attempt to rise to his feet, but scanned with slower and more careful scrutiny39 the edge of the forest and the river. He had been mystified while cringing40 for his life behind the rock, but he was infinitely41 more so now. Greater desire he had never had than this which thrilled him in these present minutes of his readjustment—desire to look upon the woman again. And then, all at once, there came back to him a mental flash of the other. He remembered, as if something was coming back to him out of a dream, how the whimsical twistings of his sick brain had made him see two faces instead of one. Yet he knew that the first picture of his mysterious assailant, the picture painted in his brain when he had tried to raise his pistol, was the right one. He had seen her dark eyes aglow42; he had seen the sunlit sheen of her black hair rippling43 in the wind; he had seen the white pallor in her face, the slimness of her as she stood over him in horror—he remembered even the clutch of her white hand at her throat. A moment before she had tried to kill him. And then he had looked up and had seen her like that! It must have been some unaccountable trick in his brain that had flooded her hair with golden fire at times.
His eyes followed a furrow44 in the white sand which led from where he sat bolstered against the tree down to his pack and the rock. It was the trail made by his body when she had dragged him up to the shelter and coolness of the timber. One of his laws of physical care was to keep himself trained down to a hundred and sixty, but he wondered how she had dragged up even so much as that of dead weight. It had taken a great deal of effort. He could see distinctly three different places in the sand where she had stopped to rest.
Carrigan had earned a reputation as the expert analyst45 of "N" Division. In delicate matters it was seldom that McVane did not take him into consultation46. He possessed47 an almost uncanny grip on the working processes of a criminal mind, and the first rule he had set down for himself was to regard the acts of omission48 rather than the one outstanding act of commission. But when he proved to himself that the chief actor in a drama possessed a normal rather than a criminal mind, he found himself in the position of checkmate. It was a thrilling game. And he was frankly49 puzzled now, until—one after another—he added up the sum total of what had been omitted in this instance of his own personal adventure. Hidden in her ambush, the woman who had shot him had been in both purpose and act an assassin. Her determination had been to kill him. She had disregarded the white flag with which he had pleaded for mercy. Her marksmanship was of fiendish cleverness. Up to her last shot she had been, to all intent and purpose, a murderess.
The change had come when she looked down upon him, bleeding and helpless, in the sand. Undoubtedly50 she had thought he was dying. But why, when she saw his eyes open a little later, had she cried out her gratitude51 to God? What had worked the sudden transformation52 in her? Why had she labored53 to save the life she had so atrociously coveted54 a minute before?
If his assailant had been a man, Carrigan would have found an answer. For he was not robbed, and therefore robbery was not a motif55. "A case of mistaken identity," he would have told himself. "An error in visual judgment56."
But the fact that in his analysis he was dealing57 with a woman made his answer only partly satisfying. He could not disassociate himself from her eyes—their beauty, their horror, the way they had looked at him. It was as if a sudden revulsion had come over her; as if, looking down upon her bleeding handiwork, the woman's soul in her had revolted, and with that revulsion had come repentance—repentance and pity.
"That," thought Carrigan, "would be just like a woman—and especially a woman with eyes like hers."
This left him but two conclusions to choose from. Either there had been a mistake, and the woman had shown both horror and desire to amend58 when she discovered it, or a too tender-hearted agent of Black Roger Audemard had waylaid59 him in the heart of the white strip of sand.
The sun was another hour lower in the sky when Carrigan assured himself in a series of cautious experiments that he was not in a condition to stand upon his feet. In his pack were a number of things he wanted—his blankets, for instance, a steel mirror, and the thermometer in his medical kit. He was beginning to feel a bit anxious about himself. There were sharp pains back of his eyes. His face was hot, and he was developing an unhealthy appetite for water. It was fever and he knew what fever meant in this sort of thing, when one was alone. He had given up hope of the woman's return. It was not reasonable to expect her to come back after her furious attempt to kill him. She had bandaged him, bolstered him up, placed water beside him, and had then left him to work out the rest of his salvation60 alone. But why the deuce hadn't she brought up his pack?
On his hands and knees he began to work himself toward it slowly. He found that the movement caused him pain, and that with this pain, if he persisted in movement, there was a synchronous61 rise of nausea62. The two seemed to work in a sort of unity63. But his medicine case was important now, and his blankets, and his rifle if he hoped to signal help that might chance to pass on the river. A foot at a time, a yard at a time, he made his way down into the sand. His fingers dug into the footprints of the mysterious gun-woman. He approved of their size. They were small and narrow, scarcely longer than the palm and fingers of his hand—and they were made by shoes instead of moccasins.
It seemed an interminable time to him before he reached his pack. When he got there, a pendulum64 seemed swinging back and forth65 inside his head, beating against his skull66. He lay down with his pack for a pillow, intending to rest for a spell. But the minutes added themselves one on top of another. The sun slipped behind clouds banking67 in the west. It grew cooler, while within him he was consumed by a burning thirst. He could hear the ripple68 of running water, the laughter of it among pebbles69 a few yards away. And the river itself became even more desirable than his medicine case, or his blankets, or his rifle. The song of it, inviting70 and tempting71 him, blotted72 thought of the other things out of his mind. And he continued his journey, the swing of the pendulum in his head becoming harder, but the sound of the river growing nearer. At last he came to the wet sand, and fell on his face, and drank.
After this he had no great desire to go back. He rolled himself over, so that his face was turned up to the sky. Under him the wet sand was soft, and it was comfortingly cool. The fire in his head died out. He could hear new sounds in the edge of the forest evening sounds. Only weak little twitters came from the wood warblers, driven to silence by thickening gloom in the densely73 canopied74 balsams and cedars75, and frightened by the first low hoots76 of the owls77. There was a crash not far distant, probably a porcupine78 waddling79 through brush on his way for a drink; or perhaps it was a thirsty deer, or a bear coming out in the hope of finding a dead fish. Carrigan loved that sort of sound, even when a pendulum was beating back and forth in his head. It was like medicine to him, and he lay with wide-open eyes, his ears picking up one after another the voices that marked the change from day to night. He heard the cry of a loon80, its softer, chuckling81 note of honeymoon82 days. From across the river came a cry that was half howl, half bark. Carrigan knew that it was coyote, and not wolf, a coyote whose breed had wandered hundreds of miles north of the prairie country.
The gloom gathered in, and yet it was not darkness as the darkness of night is known a thousand miles south. It was the dusky twilight83 of day where the sun rises at three o'clock in the morning and still throws its ruddy light in the western sky at nine o'clock at night; where the poplar buds unfold themselves into leaf before one's very eyes; where strawberries are green in the morning and red in the afternoon; where, a little later, one could read newspaper print until midnight by the glow of the sun—and between the rising and the setting of that sun there would be from eighteen to twenty hours of day. It was evening time in the wonderland of the north, a wonderland hard and frozen and ridden by pain and death in winter, but a paradise upon earth in this month of June.
The beauty of it filled Carrigan's soul, even as he lay on his back in the damp sand. Far south of him steam and steel were coming, and the world would soon know that it was easy to grow wheat at the Arctic Circle, that cucumbers grew to half the size of a man's arm, that flowers smothered84 the land and berries turned it scarlet85 and black. He had dreaded86 these days—days of what he called "the great discovery"—the time when a crowded civilization would at last understand how the fruits of the earth leaped up to the call of twenty hours of sun each day, even though that earth itself was eternally frozen if one went down under its surface four feet with a pick and shovel87.
Tonight the gloom came earlier because of the clouds in the west. It was very still. Even the breeze had ceased to come from up the river. And as Carrigan listened, exulting88 in the thought that the coolness of the wet sand was drawing the fever from him, he heard another sound. At first he thought it was the splashing of a fish. But after that it came again, and still again, and he knew that it was the steady and rhythmic89 dip of paddles.
A thrill shot through him, and he raised himself to his elbow. Dusk covered the river, and he could not see. But he heard low voices as the paddles dipped. And after a little he knew that one of these was the voice of a woman.
His heart gave a big jump. "She is coming back," he whispered to himself. "She is coming back!"
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1
tableau
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| n.画面，活人画（舞台上活人扮的静态画面） | |
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2
tottered
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| v.走得或动得不稳( totter的过去式和过去分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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3
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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4
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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5
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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6
poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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7
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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8
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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9
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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10
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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11
subconscious
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| n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的) | |
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12
subconsciously
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| ad.下意识地，潜意识地 | |
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13
hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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14
gnomes
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| n.矮子( gnome的名词复数 )；侏儒；（尤指金融市场上搞投机的）银行家；守护神 | |
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15
prying
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| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
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16
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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18
mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
elation
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| n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意 | |
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20
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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21
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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22
inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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ambush
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| n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵；v.埋伏；伏击 | |
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29
cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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30
bolstered
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| v.支持( bolster的过去式和过去分词 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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32
kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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36
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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37
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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39
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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40
cringing
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| adj.谄媚，奉承 | |
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41
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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42
aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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43
rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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44
furrow
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| n.沟；垄沟；轨迹；车辙；皱纹 | |
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45
analyst
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| n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家 | |
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46
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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47
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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48
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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49
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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50
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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51
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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52
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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53
labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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54
coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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55
motif
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| n.(图案的)基本花纹，(衣服的)花边；主题 | |
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56
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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57
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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58
amend
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| vt.修改，修订，改进；n.[pl.]赔罪，赔偿 | |
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59
waylaid
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| v.拦截，拦路( waylay的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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61
synchronous
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| adj.同步的 | |
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62
nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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63
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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64
pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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65
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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67
banking
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| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
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68
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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69
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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70
inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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72
blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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canopied
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| adj. 遮有天篷的 | |
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75
cedars
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| 雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
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76
hoots
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| 咄，啐 | |
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owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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78
porcupine
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| n.豪猪， 箭猪 | |
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79
waddling
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| v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的现在分词 ) | |
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80
loon
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| n.狂人 | |
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81
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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82
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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83
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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84
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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85
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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86
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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87
shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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88
exulting
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| vi. 欢欣鼓舞，狂喜 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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