The Top of the World - Ethel May Dell (read novels website txt) 📗

brain. She saw him as he was--a man in desperate need of help.
She flung her repugnance from her, though it dung to her, dragging upon her as she moved like a tangible thing. She closed the door and went slowly back into the room, mastering her horror, fighting it at every step. She readied the struggling, convulsed figure, laid her hands upon it,--and her repulsion was gone.
"Sit down!" she said. "Sit down and let me help you!"
Blindly he surrendered to her guiding. She led him to the bed, and he sank upon it. She opened his shirt at the throat. She brought him water.
He could not drink at first, but after repeated effort he succeeded in swallowing a little. Then at length in a hoarse whisper, scarcely intelligible, he asked for the remedy which he always carried.
She felt in his pockets and found it, all ready for use. The lightning had begun to die down, and the light within the room was dim. She turned the lamp higher, moving it so that its ray fell upon Guy. And in that moment she saw Death in his face. . . .
She felt as if a quiet and very steady Hand had been laid upon her, checking all agitation. Calmly she bent over the bared arm he thrust forth to her. Unflinchingly she ran the needle into the white flesh, noting with a detached sort of pity his emaciation.
He put his other arm about her like a frightened, dinging child. "Stay with me! Don't leave me!" he muttered.
"All right," she made gentle answer. "Don't be afraid!"
He leaned against her, shuddering violently, his dark head bowed, his spasmodic breathing painful to hear. She waited beside him for the relief that seemed so slow in coming. Kieff's remedy did not act so quickly now.
Gradually at last the distress began to lessen. She felt the tension of his crouched body relax, the anguished breathing become less laboured. He still clung to her, and her hand was on his head though she did not remember putting it there. The dull echoes of the thunder reverberated far away among the distant hills. The night was passing.
Out of a deep silence there came Guy's voice. "I want--" he said restlessly--"I want----"
She bent over him. Her arm went round his shoulders. Somehow she felt as if the furnace of suffering through which he had come had purged away all that was evil. His weakness cried aloud to her; the rest was forgotten.
He turned his face up to her; and though the stamp of his agony was still upon it, the eyes were pure and free from all taint of passion.
"What do you want?" she asked him softly.
"I've been--horrible to you, Sylvia," he said, speaking rather jerkily. "Sometimes I get a devil inside me--and I don't know what I'm doing. I believe it's Kieff. I never knew what hell meant till I met him. He taught me practically everything I know in that line. He was like an awful rotting disease. He ruined everyone he came near. Everything he touched went bad." He paused a moment. Then, with a sudden boyishness, "There, it's done with, darling," he said. "Will you forget it all--and let me start afresh? I've had such damnable luck always."
His eyes pleaded with her, yet they held confidence also. He knew that she would not refuse.
And because of that which the lamplight had revealed to her, Sylvia bent after a moment and kissed him on the forehead. She knew as she did it that the devil, that had menaced her had been driven forth.
So for a space they remained in a union of the spirit that was curiously unlike anything that had ever before existed between them. Then Guy's arm began to slip away from her. There came from him a deep sigh.
She bent low over him, looking into his face. His eyes were closed, but his lips moved, murmuring words which she guessed rather than heard.
"Let me rest--just for a little! I shall be all right--afterwards."
She laid him back very gently upon the pillow, and lifted his feet on to the bed. He thanked her almost inaudibly, and relaxed every muscle like a tired child. She turned the lamp from him and moved away.
She dressed in the dimness. Guy did not stir again. He lay shrouded in the peace of utter repose. She had watched those deep slumbers too often to fear any sudden awakening.
A few minutes later she went to the door, and softly opened it.
The sullen clouds were lifting; the night had gone. Very far away a faint orange light spread like the reflected glow from a mighty furnace somewhere behind those hills of mystery. The _veldt_ lay wide and dumb like a vast and soundless sea.
She stood awed, as one who had risen out of the depths and scarcely yet believed in any deliverance. But the horror had passed from her like an evil dream. She stood in the first light of the dawning and waited in a great stillness for the coming of the day.


CHAPTER IX
THE MEETING

Joe, the Kaffir boy, bestirred himself to the sound of Mary Ann's shrill rating. The hour was still early, but the big _baas_ was in a hurry and wanted his boots. Joe hastened to polish them to the tune of Mary Ann's repeated assurance that he would be wanting his whip next, while Fair Rosamond laid the table with a nervous speed that caused her to trip against every chair she passed. When Burke made his appearance, the whole bungalow was as seething with excitement as if it had been peopled by a horde of Kaffirs instead of only three.
He was scarcely aware of them in his desire to be gone, merely throwing an order here and there as he partook of a hasty breakfast, and then striding forth to their vast relief to mount into the Cape cart with its two skittish horses that awaited him beyond the _stoep_.
He departed in a cloud of dust, for still the rain did not fall, and immediately, like the casting of a spell, the peace of a great somnolence descended upon the bungalow. The Kaffirs strolled back to their huts to resume their interrupted slumbers.
The dust slowly settled upon all things, and all was quiet.
Down the rough track Burke jolted. The horses were fresh, and he did not seek to check them. All night long he had been picturing that swift journey and the goal that awaited him, and he was in a fever to accomplish it. Their highest speed was not swift enough for him.
Through the heavy clouds behind him there came the first break of the sunshine transforming the _veldt_. It acted like a goad upon him. He wanted to start back before the sun rose high. The track that led to Bill Merston's farm was even rougher than his own, but it did not daunt him. He suffered the horses to take their own pace, and they travelled superbly. They had scarcely slackened during the whole ten-mile journey.
He smiled faintly to himself as he sighted the hideous iron building that was Bill Merston's dwelling-place. He wondered how Sylvia appreciated this form of life in the wilderness. He slowed down the animals to a walk as he neared it, peering about for some sign of its inhabitants. The clouds had scattered, and the son was shining brilliantly behind him. He reflected that Merston was probably out on the lands. His wife would be superintending the preparation of breakfast. And Sylvia----
Something jerked suddenly within him, and a pulse awoke to a furious beating in his throat. Sylvia was emerging at that very moment from the doorway of the humble guest-chamber. The sun was in her eyes, blinding her, and she did not see him. Yet she paused a moment on the threshold.
Burke dragged in his horses and sat watching her across the yard. She looked pale and unspeakably weary in the searching morning light. For a second or two she stood so, then, slightly turning, she spoke into the room behind her ere she closed the door:
"Stay here while I fetch you something to eat! Then you shall go as soon as you like."
Clearly her voice came to him, and in it was that throb of tenderness which he had heard once before when she had offered him her dreaming face to kiss with the name of another man upon her lips. He sat quite motionless as one transfixed while she drew the door after her and stepped forth into the sunshine. And still she did not see him for the glory of the morning.
She went quickly round to the back of the bungalow and disappeared from his sight.
Two minutes later Burke Ranger strode across the yard with that in his face which made it more terrible than the face of a savage beast. He reached the closed door, opened it, and stepped within.
His movements were swift and wholly without stealth, but they did not make much sound. The man inside the room did not hear immediately.
He was seated on the edge of the bed adjusting the strap of one of his gaiters. Burke stood and watched him unobserved till he lifted his head. Then with a curt, "Now!" he turned and bolted the door behind him.
"Hullo!" said Guy, and got to his feet.
They stood face to face, alike yet unlike, men of the same breed, bearing the same ineradicable stamp, yet poles asunder.
The silence between them was as the appalling pause between the lightning and the thunder-clap. All the savagery of which the human heart is capable was pent within its brief bounds. Then Burke spoke through lips that were white and strangely twisted:
"Have you anything at all to say for yourself?"
Guy threw a single glance around. "Not here," he said. "And not now. I'll meet you. Where shall I meet you?"
"Why not here--and now?" Burke's hands were at his sides, hard clenched, as if it took all his strength to keep them there. His eyes never stirred from Guy's face. They had the fixed and cruel look of a hawk about to pounce upon its prey and rend it to atoms.
But there was no fear about Guy, neither fear nor shame. Whatever his sins had been, he had never flinched from the consequences.
He answered without an instant's faltering: "Because we shall be interrupted. We don't want a pack of women howling round. Also, there are no weapons. You haven't even a _sjambok_." His eyes gleamed suddenly. "And there isn't space enough to use it if you had."
"I don't need even a _sjambok_," Burke said, "to kill a rat like you."
"No. And I shan't die so hard as a rat either. All the same," Guy spoke with quiet determination, "you can't do it here. Damn it, man! Are you afraid I shall run away?"
"No!" The answer came like a blow. "But I can't wait, you accursed blackguard! I've waited too long already."
"No, you haven't!" Guy straightened himself sharply, braced for violence, for Burke was close to him and