The Flaming Jewel

by Robert W. Chambers

stray sunbeam.

  The haunting odour of the late autumn was in the air -- delicately acrid-- the scent of frost-killed brake and ripening wild grasses, ofbrilliant dead leaves and black forest loam pungent with mast from beechand oak.

  Eve's treat was light on the moist trail; her quick eyes missed nothing-- not the dainty imprint of deer, fresh made, nor the sprawlinginsignia of rambling raccoons -- nor the big barred owl huddled on apine limb overhead, nor, where the swift gravelly reaches of the brookcaught sunlight, did she miss the swirl of the furrowing and milling ofpainted trout on the spawning beds.

  Once she took cover, hearing something stirring; but it was only ayearling buck that came out of the witch-hazel to stare, stamp, andwheel and trot away, displaying the danger signal.

  In her cartridge-pouch she carried the flat, sealed packet which Clinchhad trusted to her. The sack swayed gently as she strode on, slappingher left hip at every step; and always her subconscious mind remained onguard and aware of it; and now and then she dropped her hand to feel ofthe pouch and strap.

  The character of the forest was now changing as she advanced. The firsttamaracks appeared, slim, silvery trunks, crowned with the gold ofautumn foliage, outer sentinels of that vast maze of swamp and streamcalled Owl Marsh, the stronghold and refuge of forest wild things --sometimes the sanctuary of hunted men.

  From Star Peak's left flank an icy stream clatters down to the levelfloor of the woods, here; and it was here that Eve had meant to quenchher thirst with a mouthful of sweet water.

  But as she approached the tiny ford, warily, she saw a saddled horsetied to a sapling and a man seated on a mossy log.

  The trappings of horse, the grey-green uniform of the man, left no roomfor speculation; a trooper of the State Constabulary was seated there.

  His cap was off; his head rested on his palm. Elbow on knee, he satthere gazing at the water -- watching the slim fish, perhaps, darting upstream toward their bridal-beds hidden far away at the headwaters.

  A detour was imperative. The girl, from the shelter of a pine, lookedout cautiously at the trooper. The sudden sight of him had merelychecked her; now the recognition of his uniform startled her heart outof its tranquil rhythm and set the blood burning in her cheeks.

  There was a memory of such a man seared into the girl's very soul; -- aman whose head and shoulders resembled this man's, -- who had the samebright hair, the same slim and powerful body, -- and who moved, too, asthis young man moved.

  The trooper stirred, lifted his head to relight his pipe.

  The girl knew him. Her heart stood still; then heart and blood ran riotand she felt her knees tremble, -- felt weak as she rested against thepine's huge trunk and covered her face with unsteady fingers.

  Until the moment, Eve had never dreamed what the memory of this manreally meant to her, -- never dreamed that she had capacity for emotionso utterly overwhelming.

  Even now confusion, shame, fear were paramount. All she wanted was toget away, -- get away and still her heart's wild beating, -- control thestrange tremor that possessed her, recover mind and sense and breath.

  She drew her hand from her eyes and looked upon the man she hadattempted to kill, -- upon the young man who had wrestled her off herfeet and handcuffed her, -- and who had bathed her bleeding mouth withsphagnum, -- and who had kissed her hands----

  She was trembling so that she became frightened. The racket of thebrook in his ears safeguarded her in a measure. She bent over nearlydouble, her rifle at a trail, and cautiously began the detour.

  * * * * *

  When at length the wide circle through the woods had been safelyaccomplished and Eve was moving out through the thickening ranks oftamarack, her heart, which seemed to suffocate her, quieted; and sheleaned against a shoulder of rock, strangely tired.

  After a while she drew from her pocket _his_ handkerchief, and looked atit. The square of cambric bore his initials, J.S. Blood from her lipremained on it. She had not washed out the spots.

  She put it to her lips again, mechanically. A faint odour of tobaccostill clung to it.

  By every law of loyalty, pride, self-respect, she should have held thisman her enemy. Instead, she held his handkerchief against her lips, --crushed it there suddenly through her skin from throat to hair.

  Then, wearily, she lifted her head and looked out into the grey andempty vista of her life, where the dreary years seemed to stretch likemilestones away, away into an endless waste.

  She put the handkerchief into her pocket, shouldered her rifle, moved onwithout looking about her, -- a mistake which only the emotion of themoment could account for in a girl so habituated to caution, -- for shehad gone only a few rods before a man's strident voice halted her:

  "Halte la! Crosse en air!"

  "Drop that rifle!" came another voice from behind her. "You're covered!Throw your gun to the ground!"

  She stood as though paralysed. To the right and left she heard peopletrampling through the thicket toward her.

  "Down with that gun, damn you!" repeated the voice, breathless fromrunning. All around her men came floundering and crashing toward herthrough the undergrowth. She could see some of them.

  As she stopped to place her rifle on the dead leaves, she drew the flatpacket from her cartridge sack at the same time and slid it deftly undera rotting log. Then, calm but very pale, she stood upright to faceevents.

  The first man wore a red and yellow bandanna handkerchief over the lowerhalf of his face, pulled tightly across a bony nose. He held a longpistol nearly parallel to his own body; and when he came up to where shewas standing he poked the muzzle into her stomach.

  She did no flinch; he said nothing; she looked intently into the tworatty eyes fastened on her over the edge of his bandanna.

  Five other men were surrounding her, but they all wore white masks ofvizard shape, revealing chin and mouth.

  They were different otherwise, also, wearing various sorts and patternsof sport clothes, brand new, and giving them an odd, foreign appearance.

  What troubled her most was the silence the maintained. The man wearingthe bandanna was the only one who seemed at all a familiar figure, --merely, perhaps, because he was American in build, clothing, andmovement.

  He took her by the shoulder, turned her around and gave her a shoveforward. She staggered a step or two; he gave her another shove and shecomprehended that she was to keep on going.

  Presently she found herself in a steep, wet deer-trail rising upwardthrough a gully. She knew that runway. It led up Star Peak.

  Behind her as she climbed she heard the slopping, panting tread of men;her wind was better than theirs; she climbed lithely upward, setting apace which finally resulted in a violent jerk backward, -- a savage,wordless admonition to go more slowly.

  As she climbed she wondered whether she should have fired an alarm shoton the chance of the State Trooper, Stormont, hearing it.

  But she had thought only of the packet at the moment of surprise. Andnow she wondered whether, when freed, she could ever again find thatrotting log.

  Up, up, always up along the wet gully, deep with silt andfrost-splintered rock, she toiled, the heavy grasping of men behind her.Twice she was jerked to a halt while her escort rested.

  Once, without turning, she said unsteadily: "Who are you? What have Idone to you?"

  There was no reply.

  "What are you going to do to me----" she began again, and was shaken bythe shoulder until silent.

  At last the vast arch of the eastern sky sprang out ahead, where stuntedspruces stood out against the sunshine and the intense heat of middayfell upon bare table-land of rock and moss and fern.

  As she came out upon the level, the man behind her took both her armsand pulled them back and somebody bandaged her eyes. Then a hand closedon her left arm and, so guided, she stumbled and crept forward acrossthe rocks for a few moments until her guide halted her and forced herinto a sitting position on a smooth, flat boulder.

  She h
eard the crunching of heavy feet all around her, whispering madehoarse by breath exhausted, movement across rock and scrub, retreatingsteps.

  For an interminable time she sat there alone in the hot sun, drenched tothe skin in sweat, listening, thinking, striving to find a reason forthis lawless outrage.

  After a long while she heard somebody coming across the rocks, stiffenedas she listened with some vague presentiment of evil.

  Somebody had halted beside her. After a pause she was aware of nimblefingers busy with the bandage over her eyes.

  At first, when freed, the light blinded her. By degrees she was able todistinguish the rocky crest of Star Peak, with the tops of tall treesappearing level with the rocks from depths below.

  Then she turned, slowly, and looked at the man who had seated himselfbeside her.

  He wore a white mask over a delicate, smoothly shaven face.

  His soft hat and sporting clothes were dark grey, evidently new. Andshe noticed his hands -- long, elegantly made, smooth, restless, platingwith a pencil and some sheets of paper on his knees.

  As she met his brilliant eyes behind the mask, his delicate, thin lipsgrew tense in what seemed to be a smile -- or a soundless sort of laugh.

  "Veree happee," he said, "to make the acquaintance. Pardon myunceremony, miss, but onlee necissitee compels. Are you, perhaps, alittle rested?"

  "Yes."

  "Ah! Then, if you permit, we proceed with affairs of moment. You willbe sufficiently kind to write down what I say. Yes?"

  He placed paper and pencil in Eve's hand. Without demurring orhesitation she made ready to write, her mind groping wildly for thereason of it all.

  "Write," he said, with his silent laugh which was more like thesoundless snarl of a lynx unafraid:

  "To Mike Clinch, my fathaire, from his child Eve. ... I am hostage, heldby Jose Quintana. Pay what you owe him and I go free.

  "For each day delay he sends you one finger which will be severed frommy right hand----"

  Eve's slender fingers trembled; she looked up at the masked man, staredsteadily into his brilliant eyes.

  "Proceed miss, if you are so amiable," he said softly.

  She wrote on: "-- One finger for every day's delay. The whole hand atthe week's end. The other hand then, finger by finger. Then, alas! theright foot----"

  Eve trembled.

  "Proceed," he said softly.

  She wrote: "If you agree you shall pay what you owe to Jose Quintana inthis manner: you shall place a stick at the edge of the Star Pond wherethe Star rivulet flows out. Upon this stick you shall tie a white rag.At the foot of the stick you shall lay the parcel which contains yourindebt to Jose Quintana.

  "Failing this, by to-night _one finger_ at sunset."

  The man pause: Eve waited, dumb under the surging confusion in herbrain. A sort of incredulous horror benumbed her, through which shestill heard and perceived.

  "Be kind enough to sign it with your name," said the man pleasantly.

  Eve signed.

  Then the masked man took the letter, got up, removed his hat.

  "I am Quintana," he said. "I keep my word. A thousand thanks andapologies, miss. I trust that your detention may be brief and not toodisagreeable. I place at your feet my humble respects."

  He bowed, put on his hat, and walked quickly away. And she saw himdescend the rocks to the eastward, where the peak slopes.

  When Quintana had disappeared behind the summit scrub and rocks, Eveslowly stood up and looked about her at the rocky pulpit so familiar.

  There was only one way out. Quintana had gone that way. His men nodoubt guarded it. Otherwise, sheet precipices confronted her.

  She walked to the western edge where a sheet of slippery reindeer mossclothed the rock. Below the mountain fell away to the valley where shehad been made prisoner.

  She looked out over the vast panorama of wilderness and mountain, rangeon range stretching blue to the horizon. She looked down into thedepths of the valley where deep under the flaming foliage of October,somewhere, a State Trooper was sitting, cheek on hand, beside awaterfall -- or, perhaps riding slowly through a forest which she mightnever gaze upon again.

  There was a noise on the rocks behind her. A masked man came out of thespruce scrub, laid a blanket on the rocks, placed a loaf of bread, somecheese, and a tin pail full of water upon it, motioned to her, and wentaway through the dwarf spruces.

  Eve walked slowly to the blanket. She drank out of the tin pail. Thenshe set aside the food, lay down, and buried her quivering face in herarms.

  * * * * *

  The sun was half way between zenith and horizon when she heard somebodycoming, and rose to a sitting posture. Her visitor was Quintana.

  He came up to her quite close, stood with glittering eyes intent uponher.

  After a moment he handed her a letter.

  She could scarcely unfold it, she trembled so:

  "Girlie, for God's sake give that packet to Quintana and come home. I'mnear crazy with it all. What the hell's anything worth beside yougirlie. I don't give a damn for nothing only you, so come on quick.Dad."

  * * * * *

  After a little while she lifted her eyes to Quintana.

  "So," he said quietly, "you are the little she-fox that has learnedtricks already."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Where is that packet?"

  "I haven't it."

  "Where is it?"

  She shook her head slightly.

  "You had a packet," he insisted fiercely. "Look here! Regard!" and hespread out a penciled sheet in Clinch's hand:

  * * * * *

  "Jose Quintana:

  "You win. She's got that stuff with her. Take your damn junk and letmy girl go.

  "Mike Clinch."

  * * * * *

  "Well," said Quintana, a thin, strident edge to his tone.

  "My father is mistaken. I haven't any packet."

  The man's visage behind his mask flushed darkly. Without warning orceremony he caught Eve by the throat and tore open her shirt. Then,hissing and cursing and panting with his own violence, he searched herbrutally and without mercy -- flung her down and tore off her spiralputtees and even her shoes and stockings, now apparently beside himselfwith fury, puffing, gasping, always with a fierce, nasal sort of whiningundertone like an animal worrying about its kill.

  "Cowardly beast!" she panted, fighting him with all her strength --"filthy, cowardly beast! ----" striking at him, wrenching his graspaway, snatching at the disordered clothing half stripped from her.

  His hunting knife fell clattering and she fought to get it, but hestruck her with his open hand, knocking her down at his feet, and stoodglaring at her with every tooth bared.

  "So" he cried. "I give you ten minutes, make up your mind, tell me whatyou do with that packet."

  He wiped the blood from his face where she had struck him.

  "You don't know Jose Quintana. No! You shall make his acquaintance.Yes!"

  Eve got up on naked feed, quivering from head to foot, striving tobutton the grey shirt at her throat.

  "Where?" he demanded, beside himself.

  Her mute lips only tightened.

  "Ver' well, by God!" he cried. "I go make some fire. You like it, eh?We shall put one toe in the fire until it burn off. Yes? Eh? How youlike it? Eh?"

  The girl's trembling hands continued busy with her clothing.

  "So!" he said, hoarsely, "you remain dumb! Well, then, in ten minutesyou shall talk!"

  He walked toward her, pushed her savagely aside, and strode on into thespruce thicket.

  The instant he disappeared Eve caught up the knife he had dropped, kneltdown on the blanket and fell to cutting it into strips.

  The hunting knife was like a razor; the feverish business wasaccomplished in a few moments, the pieces knotted, the cord strained ina desperate test over her knee.

  And now she ran to the precipice where, ten feet below, the top of agreat pine pro
truded from the gulf.

  On the edge of the abyss was a spruce root. It looked dead, wedged deepbetween two rocks; but with all her strength she could not pull it out.

  Sobbing, breathless, she tied her blanket rope to this, threw the otherend over the cliff's edge, and, not giving herself time to think, layflat, grasped the knotted line, swung off.

  Knot by knot she went down. Half-way her naked feet brushed theneedles. She looked over her shoulder, behind and down. Then, teethclenched, she lowered herself steadily as she had learned to do in theschool gymnasium, down, down, until her legs came astride of a pinelimb.

  It bent, swayed, gave with her, letting her sag to a larger limb below.This she clasped, letting go of her rope.

  Already, from the mountain's rocky crest above, she heard excited cries.Once, on her breakneck descent, she looked up through the foliage of thepine; and she saw, far up against the sky, a white-masked face lookingover the edge of the precipice.

  But if it were Quintana or another of his people she could not tell.And, again looking down, she began again the terrible descent.

  * * * * *

  An hour later, Trooper Stormont of the State Constabulary, sat his horsein amazement to see a ragged, breathless, boyish figure speeding towardhim among the tamaracks, her naked feet splashing through pool and mireand sphagnum.

  "Good heavens!" he exclaimed as she flung herself against his stirrup,sobbing, hysterical, and clinging to his knee.

  "Take me back," she stammered, "-- take me back to daddy! I can't -- goon -- another step----"

  He leaned down, swung her up to his saddle in front, holding her cradledin his arms.

  "Lie still," he said coolly; "you're all right now."

  For another second he sat looking down at her, at the dishevelled hair,the gasping mouth, -- at the rags clothing her, and at the flat packetclasped to her breast.

  Then he spoke in a low voice to