The Courage of Captain Plum - James Oliver Curwood (the best novels to read .TXT) 📗

beside him.
"Where did she go?" he asked.
It was a boyish face into which his pleading eyes gazed, a face white with the strain of battle, reddened a little on one cheek with a smear of blood, and there was a startled, frightened look in it that did not come of the strife that had passed.
"Who? What are you talking about?"
"The woman," whispered Nathaniel. "The woman--Marion--who kissed--me--"
The young fellow's hand gripped his arm in a sudden fierce clutch.
"You've been dreaming!" he exclaimed in a threatening voice. "Shut up!" He spoke the words loudly. Then quickly dropping his voice to a whisper he added, "For God's sake don't betray her! They saw her with us--everybody knows that it was the king's wife with you!"
The king's wife! Nathaniel was too weak to analyze the words beyond the fact that they carried the dread truth of his fears deep into his soul. Who would have come to him but Marion? Who else would have kissed him? It was her voice that had whispered in his ear--the thrill of her hand that had passed over his face. And this man had said that she was the wife of the king! He heard the voices of other men near him but did not understand what they were saying. He knew that after a moment there was a man on each side of him holding him by the arms, and mechanically he moved his legs, knowing that they wanted him to walk. They did not guess how weak he was--how he struggled to keep from becoming too great a weight on their hands. Once or twice they stopped in their agonizing climb up the hill. On its top the cool sea air swept into Nathaniel's face and it was like water to a parched throat.
After a time--it seemed a day of terrible work and pain to him--they came to the streets of the town, and in a half conscious sort of way he cursed at the rabble trailing at their heels. They passed close to the temple, dirt and blood and a burning torment shutting the vision of it from his eyes, and beyond this there was another crowd. An aisle opened for them, as it had opened for others ahead of them. In front of the jail they stopped. Nathaniel's head hung heavily upon his breast and he made no effort to raise it. All ambition and desire had left him, all desire but one, and that was to drop upon the ground and lie there for endless, restful years. What consciousness was left in him was ebbing swiftly; he saw black, fathomless night about him and the earth seemed slipping from under his feet.
A voice dragged him back into life--a voice that boomed in his ears like rolling thunder and set every fiber in him quivering with emotion. He drew himself erect with the involuntary strength of one mastering the last spasm of death and as they dragged him through the door he saw there within an arm's reach of him the great, living face of Strang, gloating at him as if from out of a mist--red eyed, white fanged, filled with the vengefulness of a beast.
The great voice rumbled in his ears again.
"Take that man to the dungeon!"


CHAPTER X
WINNSOME'S VERDICT OF DEATH
The voice--the condemning words--followed Nathaniel as he staggered on between his two guards; it haunted him still as the cold chill of the rotting dungeon walls struck in his face; it remained with him as he stood swaying alone in the thick gloom--the voice rumbling in his ears, the words beating against his brain until the shock of them sickened him, until he stretched out his arms and there fell from him such a cry as had never tortured his lips before.
Strang was alive! He had left the spark of life in him, and the woman who loved him had fanned it back into full flame.
Strang was alive! And Marion--Marion was his wife!
The voice of the king taunted him from the black chaos that hid the dungeon walls. The words struck at him, filling his head with shooting pain, and he tottered back and sank to the ground to get away from them. They followed, and that vengeful leer of the king was behind them, urging them on, until they beat his face into the sticky earth, and smothered him into what he thought was death.
There came rest after that, a long silent rest. When Nathaniel slowly climbed up out of the ebon shadows again the first consciousness that came to him was that the word-demons had stopped their beating against his brain and that he no longer heard the voice of the king. His relief was so great that he breathed a restful sigh. Something touched him then. Great God! were they coming back? Were they still there--waiting--waiting--
It was a wonderfully familiar voice that spoke to him.
"Hello there, Nat! Want a drink?"
He gulped eagerly at the cool liquid that touched his lips.
"Neil," he whispered.
"It's me, Nat. They chucked me in with you. Hell's hole, isn't it?"
Nathaniel sat up, Neil's strong arm at his back. There was a light in the room now and he could see his companion's face, smiling at him encouragingly. The sight of it was like an elixir to him. He drank again and new life coursed through him.
"Yes--hell of a hole!" he repeated drowsily. "Sorry for you--Neil--" and he seemed to sleep again.
Neil laughed as he wiped his companion's face with a wet cloth.
"I'm used to it, Nat. Been here before," he said. "Can you get up? There's a bench over here--not long enough to stretch you out on or I would have made you a bed of it, but it's better than this mud to sit on."
He put his arms about Nathaniel and helped him to his feet. For a few moments the wounded man stood without moving.
"I'm not very bad, I guess," he said, taking a slow step. "Where is the seat, Neil? I'm going to walk to it. What sort of a bump have I got on the head?"
"Nothing much," assured Neil. "Suspicious, though," he grinned cheerfully. "Looks as though you were running and somebody came up and tapped you from behind!"
Nathaniel's strength returned to him quickly. The pain had gone from his head and his eyes no longer hurt him. In the dim candle-light he could distinguish the four walls of the dungeon, glistening with the water and mold that reeked from between their rotting logs. The floor was of wet, sticky earth which clung to his boots, and the air that he breathed filled his nostrils and throat with the uncomfortable thickness of a night fog at sea. Through it the candle burned in a misty halo. Near the candle, which stood on a shelf-like table against one of the walls, was a big dish which caught Nathaniel's eyes.
"What's that?" he asked pointing toward it.
"Grub," replied Neil. "Hungry?"
He went to the table and got the plate of food. There were chunks of boiled meat, unbuttered bread, and cold potatoes. For several minutes they ate in silence. Now that Nathaniel was himself again Neil could no longer keep up his forced spirits. Both realized that they had played their game and that it had ended in defeat. And each believed that it was in his individual power to alleviate to some extent the other's misery. To Neil what was ahead of them held no mystery. A few hours more and then--death. It was only the form in which it would come that troubled him, that made him think. Usually the victims of this dungeon cell were shot. Sometimes they were hanged. But why tell Nathaniel? So he ate his meat and bread without words, waiting for the other to speak, as the other waited for him. And Nathaniel, on his part, kept to himself the secret of Marion's fate. After they had done with the meat and the bread and the cold potatoes he pulled out his beloved pipe and filled it with the last scraps of his tobacco, and as the fumes of it clouded round his head, soothing him in its old friendship, he told of his fight with Strang and his killing of Arbor Croche.
"I'm glad for Winnsome's sake," said Neil, after a moment. "Oh, if you'd only killed Strang!"
Nathaniel thought of what Marion had said to him in the forest.
"Neil," he said quietly, "do you know that Winnsome loves you--not as the little girl whom you toted about on your shoulders--but as a woman? Do you know that?" In the other's silence he added, "When I last saw Marion she sent this message to you--'Tell Neil that he must go, for Winnsome's sake. Tell him that her fate is shortly to be as cruel as mine--tell him that Winnsome loves him and that she will escape and come to him on the mainland.'" Like words of fire they had burned themselves in his brain and as Nathaniel repeated them he thought of that other broken heart that had sobbed out its anguish to him in the castle chamber. "Neil, a man can die easier when he knows that a woman loves him!"
He had risen to his feet and was walking back and forth through the thick gloom.
"I'm glad!" Neil's voice came to him softly, as though he scarcely dared to speak the words aloud. After a moment he added, "Have you got a pencil, Nat? I would like to leave a little note for Winnsome."
Nathaniel found both pencil and paper in one of his pockets and Neil dropped upon his knees in the mud beside the table. Ten minutes later he turned to Nathaniel and a great change had come into his face.
"She always seemed like such a little child to me that I never dared--to--tell her," he faltered. "I've done it in this."
"How will you get the note to her?"
"I know the jailer. Perhaps when he comes to bring us our dinner I can persuade him to send it to her."
Nathaniel thrust his hands into his pockets. His fingers dug into Obadiah's gold.
"Would this help?" he asked.
He brought out a shimmering handful of it and counted the pieces upon the table.
"Two hundred dollars--if he will deliver that note," he said.
Neil stared at him in amazement.
"If he won't take it for that--I've got more. I'll go a thousand!"
Neil stood silent, wondering if his companion was mad. Nathaniel saw the look in his face and his own flushed with sudden excitement.
"Don't you understand?" he cried. "That note means Heaven or hell for Winnsome--it means life--her whole future! And you know what this cell means for us," he said more calmly. "It means that we're at the end of our rope, that the game is up, that neither of us will ever see Marion or Winnsome again. That note is the last word in life from us--from you. It's a dying prayer. Tell Winnsome your love, tell her that it is your last wish that she go out into the big, free world--away from this hell-hole, away from Strang, away from the Mormons, and live as other women live! And commanded by your love--she will go!"
"I've told her that!" breathed Neil.
"I knew you would!"
Nathaniel threw another handful of gold on the table.
"Five hundred!" he exclaimed. "It's cheap enough for a woman's soul!"
He motioned for Neil to put the money in his pocket. The pain was coming back into his head, he grew dizzy, and hastened to the bench. Neil came and sat beside him.
"So you think it's the end?" he asked. He was glad that his companion had guessed the truth.
"Don't you?"