The Odds - Ethel May Dell (read full novel .TXT) 📗

frame beneath her, and marvelled. Again the magnetic force of the man possessed her, stilling all fear. She shut her eyes dizzily, but she was not afraid.
When she looked up again they were in the open. He had set her on her feet, and she stood on the rugged side of a mountain where no vestige of a path or any habitation showed in any direction. For the first time he had relinquished all hold upon her, and stood apart, almost as if he would turn and leave her.
The brief twilight was upon them. It was as if dark wings were folding them round. A small chill wind was wandering to and fro. She shivered involuntarily. It sounded like the whispering of an evil spirit. The fear she had kept at bay for so long laid clammy hands upon her.
Instinctively she turned to the man for protection. "How shall we get away?" she said.
He moved sharply, so sharply that for a single moment she thought that something had angered him. And then--all in one single blinding instant--she realized that which no words could utter. For he caught her swiftly to him, lifting her off her feet, and very suddenly he covered her face and neck and throat with hot, devouring kisses--kisses that electrified her--kisses that seemed to scorch and blister--yet to fill her with a pulsing rapture that was almost too great to endure.
She tried to hide her face from him, but she could not; to protest, but his lips stopped the words upon her own. She was powerless--and very deep down within her there leaped a wild thing that rejoiced--that exulted--in her powerlessness.
The fierce storm spent itself. There came a pause during which she lay palpitating against his breast while his cheek pressed hers in a stillness that was in a fashion more compelling than even those burning kisses had been.
He spoke to her at last, and his voice was deep and tender, throbbing with that which was beyond utterance.
"You love me, little new chum," he said.
There was no question in his words. She quivered, and made no answer. That headlong outburst of passion had overwhelmed her utterly. She was as drift upon the tide.
He drew a great heaving breath, and clasped her closer. His words fell hot upon her face. "You are mine! Why shouldn't I keep you? Fate has given you to me. I'd be a fool to let you go again."
But something--some inner impulse that had been stunned to impotence by his violence--stirred within her at his words and awoke. Yet it was scarcely of her own volition that she answered him. "I am--not--yours."
Very faintly the words came from her trembling lips, but the utterance of them gave her new strength. She moved at last in his hold. She turned her face away from him.
"What do you mean?" He spoke in a fierce whisper, but--she felt it instinctively--there was less of assurance in his hold. It was that that added to her strength, but she offered no active resistance, realizing wherein lay his weakness--and her own.
"I mean," she said, and though it still trembled beyond her control, her voice gathered confidence with the words, "that by taking me--by keeping me--you are taking--keeping--what is not your own."
"Love gives me the right," he asserted, swiftly--"your love--and mine."
But the clearer vision had come to her. She shook her head against his shoulder. "No--no! That is wrong. That is not--the greater love."
"What do you mean by--the greater love?" He was holding her still closely, but no longer with that fierce possession.
She answered him with a steadiness that surprised herself: "I mean the only love that is worth having--the love that lasts."
He caught up the words passionately. "And hasn't my love lasted? Have I ever thought of any other woman since the day I met you? Haven't I been fighting against odds ever since to be able to come to you an honest man--and worthy of your love?"
"Oh, I know--I know!" she said, and there was a sound of heartbreak in her voice. "But--the odds have been too heavy. I thought you had forgotten--long ago."
"Forgotten!" he said.
"Yes." With a sob she answered him. "Men do forget--nearly all of them. Fletcher Hill didn't. He kept on waiting, and--and--they said it wasn't fair--to spoil a man's life for a dream--that could never come true. So--I gave in at last. I am--promised to him."
"Against your will?" His arms tightened upon her again. "Tell me, little new chum! Was it against your will?"
"No! Oh, no!" She whispered the words through tears. "I gave in--willingly. I thought it was better than--an empty life."
"Ah!" The word fell like a groan. "And that's what you're going to condemn me to, is it?"
She turned in his arms, summoning her strength. "We've got to play the game," she said. "I've got to keep my word--whatever it costs. And you--you are going to keep yours."
"My word?" he questioned, swiftly.
"Yes." She lifted her head. "If--if you really care about being honest--if your love is worth--anything at all--that is the only way. You promised--you promised--to save him."
"Save him for you?" he said.
"Yes--save him for me." She did not know how she uttered the words, but somehow they were spoken.
They went into a silence that wrung her soul, and it cost her every atom of her strength not to recall them.
Bill Warden stood quite motionless for many pulsing seconds, then--very, very slowly--at length his hold began to slacken.
In the end he set her on her feet--and she was free. "All right, little new chum!" he said, and she heard a new note in his voice--a note that waked in her a wild impulse to spring back into his arms and cling to him--and cling to him. "I'll do it--for you--if it kills me--just to show you--little girl--just to show you--what my love for you is really worth."
He stood a moment, facing her; then his hands clenched and he turned away.
"Let's go down the hill!" he said. "I'll see you in safety first."


CHAPTER XI
WITHOUT CONDITIONS

In the midst of a darkness that could be felt Fletcher Hill stood, grimly motionless, waiting. He knew that strong-room, had likened it to a condemned cell every time he had entered it, and with bitter humour he told himself that he had put his own neck into the noose with a vengeance this time.
Not often--if ever--before had he made the fatal mistake of trusting one who was untrustworthy. He would not have dreamed of trusting Harley, for instance. But for some reason he had chosen to repose his confidence in Warden, and now it seemed that he was to pay the price of his rashness. It was that fact that galled him far more than the danger with which he was confronted. That he, Fletcher Hill--the Bloodhound--ever wary and keen of scent, should have failed to detect a _ruse_ so transparent--this inflicted a wound that his pride found it hard to sustain. Through his lack of caution he had forfeited his own freedom, if not his life, and exposed Dot to a risk from the thought of which even his iron nerve shrank. He told himself repeatedly, with almost fierce emphasis, that Dot would be safe, that Warden could not be such a hound as to fail her; but deep within him there lurked a doubt which he would have given all he had to be able to silence. The fact remained that through his negligence she had been left unprotected in an hour of great danger.
Within the narrow walls of his prison there was no sound save the occasional drip of water that oozed through the damp rock. He might have been penned in a vault, and the darkness that pressed upon him seemed to crush the senses, making difficult coherent thought. There was nothing to be done but to wait, and that waiting was the worst ordeal that Fletcher Hill had ever been called upon to face.
A long time passed--how long he had no means of gauging. He stood like a sentinel, weapon in hand, staring into the awful darkness, struggling against its oppression, fighting to keep his brain alert and ready for any emergency. He thought he was prepared for anything, but that time of waiting tried his endurance to the utmost, and when at length a sound other than that irregular drip of water came through the deathly stillness he started with a violence that sent a smile of self-contempt to his lips.
It was a wholly unexpected sound--just the ordinary tones of a man's voice speaking to him through the darkness where he had believed that there was nothing but a blank wall.
"Mr. Hill, where are you?" it said. "I have come to get you out."
Hill's hand tightened upon his revolver. He was not to be taken unawares a second time. He stood in absolute silence, waiting.
There was a brief pause, then again came the voice. "There's not much point in shooting me. You'll probably starve if you do. So watch out! I'm going to show a light."
Hill still stood without stirring a muscle. His back was to the door. He faced the direction of the voice.
Suddenly, like the glare from an explosion, a light flashed in his eyes, blinding him after the utter dark. He flinched from it in spite of himself, but the next moment he was his own master again, erect and stern, contemptuously unafraid.
"Don't shoot!" said Bill Warden, with a gleam of his teeth, "or maybe you'll shoot a friend!"
He was standing empty-handed save for the torch he carried, his great figure upright against the wall, facing Hill with speculation in his eyes.
Hill lowered his revolver. "I doubt it," he said, grimly.
"Ah! You don't know me yet, do you?" said Warden, a faintly jeering note in his voice.
"Yes," said Hill, deliberately. "I think I know you--pretty well--now."
"I wonder," said Warden.
He moved slowly forward, throwing the light before him as he did so. The place had been blasted out of the rock, and here and there the stone shone smooth as marble where the charge had gone. Rough shelves had been hewn in the walls, leaving divisions between, and on some of these were stored bags of the precious metal that had been ground out of the ore. There was no sign anywhere of any entrance save the iron-bound door behind Hill.
Straight in front of him Warden stopped. They stood face to face.
"Well?" Warden said. "What do you know of me?"
Hill's eyes were as steel. He stood stiff as a soldier on parade. He answered curtly, without a hint of emotion. "I know enough to get you arrested when this--farce--is over."
"Oh, you call this a farce, do you?" Bill Warden's words came slowly from lips that strangely smiled. "And when does--the fun begin?"
Hill's harsh face was thrown into strong relief by the flare of the torch. It was as flint confronting the other man. "Do you really imagine that I regard this sort of Forty Thieves business seriously?" he said.
"I imagine it is pretty serious so far as you are concerned," said Warden. "You're in about the tightest hole you've ever been in in your life. And it's up to me to get you out--or to leave you. Do you understand that?"
"Oh, quite," said Fletcher Hill, sardonically. "But--let me tell you at the outset--you won't find me specially easy to bargain with on that count--Mr. Buckskin Bill."
Bill Warden threw up his head with a gesture of open defiance. "I'm not doing any--bargaining," he said. "And as to arresting me--afterwards--you can do as you please. But now--just now--you are in my power, and you're going to play my game.