The World's Great Snare

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  She glanced over towards their package. Its size appeared undiminished. His eyes followed hers, and he divined her thoughts.

  “I stuffed a lot of grass and things in while you were asleep,” he said. “I didn’t want you to know! I thought you’d be scared!”

  “It was real thoughtful of you—but I’d just as lief have known!” she answered. “I wouldn’t have eaten so much, either!”

  “It isn’t that!” he answered slowly. “We’ll perhaps be able to rub on for food, but—they haven’t left us much water!”

  She looked up at him and shuddered. He kept his face turned away from her.

  “Is there—any at all?” she whispered.

  “A little—about one bowlful!” he answered. “I dare say it’ll last us. We shall be out of this infernal sterile region presently. There are the Koomer hills to cross, you know—it’s been a dry season, but there’s almost certain to be water there. Then we shall soon join the track that leads to Christopher’s Creek, and we may fall in with some diggers. We’ll camp here, Myra! It’s well on the open!”

  They tethered the mule, and, rather reluctantly, he handed her the package. She opened it with sinking heart. Quite three-quarters of its contents were gone. For a moment, her eyes were dim. Then she brushed the tears away, and forced a little laugh.

  “I guess it’ll be a mean supper to-night, old boy!” she said lightly. “No tea, anyway!”

  He looked round, relieved at her tone. “I’m going to make a great fire, all the same,” he said. “I don’t think we shall have any prowlers to-night.”

  He built up some logs of wood which he had been collecting, and applied a match. They flared up almost at once. Then he loosened his belt, and looked to his revolver with more care than usual.

  “How about the cartridges?” she asked.

  “Gone!” he answered shortly. “I have four charges in my revolver, and I don’t think there are four of them after us, or they’d have closed in before now. Four charges mean four men’s lives! I shan’t feel like missing!”

  “Who do you think it is?” she asked.

  “Dan Cooper, most likely, and perhaps a pal. That little hound who shot Jim may be in it. I don’t understand why they didn’t do for me last night instead of just stealing our things. There’s one thing to be grateful for, though: they didn’t find the baccy. Pete put it in the mustard tin, and they chucked it down without opening it!”

  He filled his pipe, and, leaning forward, lit it by one of the dancing flames. Unseen by Myra, he had slipped half his supper back again. The pipe would do as well!

  They sat together in silence. His arm was around her waist, her head had fallen upon his shoulder. Slowly the soft darkness of the Californian night fell around them, pierced only by those lurid tongues of crackling flames which leaped upwards from the fire he had kindled. One by one the stars crept out into the dark blue sky, and in the distance the fireflies danced around the alder bushes. A great hush seemed to have fallen upon the earth.

  “Kinder lonesome, isn’t it?” Myra whispered, her hand stealing into his.

  He nodded, with his eyes fixed steadily upon the nearest range of alder bushes.

  “Seems so!” he answered laconically.

  She shuddered a little at the meaning in his words.

  “You don’t see anything, do you?” she asked under her breath.

  He shook his head. “No; and don’t expect to!” he declared reassuringly. “I don’t think that they will trouble us to-night, Myra. They’ll know that we shall be on the alert. I’m going to keep up a blazing fire, and if any one passes that line of shrubs yonder, they are within the range of my revolver; and I’m in just about the humour to shoot straight!” he answered grimly.

  “But you’re not going to sit up all night?” she said. “Can’t I watch some of the time?”

  He patted her little hand tenderly, and reached out for the blanket.

  “No; I’d rather sit up myself,” he answered. “Besides, you’re tired and I’m not! Directly there’s a tinge of light yonder,” he waved his hand eastward, “I shall wake you and take a nap for an hour. Now, good night, little woman! Sleep well!”

  She bent forward, holding up her face to him, and he kissed her with a rough sort of tenderness which seemed characteristic of the man. Her dark eyes were wonderfully soft and bright in the glow of the ruddy flames.

  “I’m sorry, Bryan, real sorry!” she whispered. “It’s all through me, your having to leave the diggings, and being in danger like this. I guess you’re sorry I came after you!”

  He did not care to ask himself whether her words were true, for the sad wistfulness of her tone had touched his heart. He denied it instantly, and stooping down kissed her again, and of his own accord. It was an unusual thing for him to do.

  “Don’t you worry, Myra,” he said hopefully. “We shall pull through this all right. Go to sleep now, there’s a dear little woman!”

  She leaned back with a contented sigh, and closed her eyes; with awkward care he threw the other blanket over her. Then he relit his pipe, which had gone out whilst they had been talking, with a piece of smouldering wood, and turned his face towards the point of danger.

  Slowly the long hours of night dragged themselves away.

  Still he sat like a carved image, only moving now and then to replenish the fire; watching and listening.

  It was past midnight. There had been five hours of darkness, and all that time there had been no sound. Suddenly the deep, intense hush of the night which brooded over the desert was broken in a strange, almost grotesque manner. From the long straggling cover of stunted alder-trees there had rung out upon the breathless night a peal of harsh, strident laughter.

  The Englishman sprang to his feet, and moved a step forward, his revolver clenched in his hand, and his eyes striving to penetrate the gloom beneath those thickly growing boughs. Myra, too, had been startled from her deep sleep, and stood by his side, with pale, horror-stricken face.

  “What—what was it?” she whispered, clinging to his left arm.

  “I don’t quite know!” he answered coolly. “It sounded like a man’s laugh. Keep still!”

  Minutes which seemed like hours passed slowly away. Then suddenly the sound was repeated, only this time there was a more human note in the laughter—for such it certainly was. Bryan raised his revolver, and pointed it to the spot whence the sound had come, but he lowered it again almost immediately. The cover was scarcely within range, and he had but four shots.

  He took another step forward, and raised his voice.

  “Is that you, Dan Cooper?” he cried. “Come out and show yourselves, you skulking cowards!” he thundered into the darkness.

  There was no answer—no repetition of the sound. Again that unbroken silence reigned upon the earth. They piled up the logs, and the red, lurid flames cast their fantastic light to the very borders of the alder bushes. But in the shadows beyond there was darkness—darkness and silence. Hour after hour, they watched and waited in vain, even Myra never daring to think of sleep. But there came no further sound. No human being appeared within the broad circle of that burning light.

  XVIII. THE PASSION IN THE DESERT

  Table of Contents

  Once more it was evening. Another day of journeying across the dry, arid plain under a burning sun, was over. Once more the night was before them; the night with its vague terrors and forced inaction.

  They made their little preparations with scant exchange of words—there was so little to be said that did not savour of despair. When the time came for setting out their evening meal, Myra spread on the ground before them the slender remains of their little stock, and pointed to it with tears in her eyes.

  “How much do you think we ought to take, Bryan?” she asked timidly. “I am not very hungry.”

  “And I have my pipe and tobacco, thank God!” he put in quickly. “Let’s see—there’s nearly half a tin of beef left. We’ll divide that, and share a piece of hard t
ack. That’ll leave about as much for to-morrow!”

  “And after that?” she asked fearfully.

  “We must trust to what turns up!” he said, with a dry little laugh. “We should be on the track by then, of diggers going to and fro from Christopher’s Creek.”

  “You know that we have no water!” she faltered.

  “Yes, I know it!” he answered. “We must hope to reach the hills to-morrow!”

  They ate a little, but their mouths were parched and dry. The long day’s travel in the burning heat without water or sufficient nourishment had had its effect upon them. The Englishman’s eyes were bloodshot, and underneath them were deep black lines. There was a wan look about his face, too, as though of great physical exhaustion. Myra watched him with an aching heart. It was she who had brought him out into this desert. It was for her sake and in her defence he had incurred the bitter hatred of these men who, without doubt, were hunting them down. She had scarcely a thought for the straits in which she herself was. Hunger and thirst and fatigue were forgotten in the great sickening fear lest the doom which seemed to be slowly overshadowing them should claim him for its victim. He had done so much for her—and she loved him. There was a lump in her throat, and she could not eat.

  When his back was turned, she slipped the greater portion of her supper into her pocket. Then she lay down with her head upon one of the rolled-up blankets, and watched him pile up the fire.

  The place where they were camping was scarcely so open as that of the night before. There was more scrub about, and closer at hand. But it was the best they could find. They had struggled on and on until Myra had felt her feet give way beneath her, and had fallen, half-fainting, upon a little bank. The twilight was already settling down upon them, and in front, the country seemed even more broken up. So they had stayed there, and side by side they watched the stars steal into the deep violet sky, and the flames of their pine-wood fire leap up into the darkness, casting strange shadows upon the ground and across the bushes. Soon she fell asleep with a sort of effortless ease, born of her utter exhaustion of mind and body. And he, who dared not sleep, sat gaunt and hollow-eyed by her side, his revolver across his knees, watching and listening. He had no count of time. There was nothing by which he could measure it, save by his own sensations, and by their record the hours that passed before midnight alone, were in themselves longer than any night he had ever known. His throat and his brain were alike burning, but he was still conscious of two strong feverish desires—one for water, or anything to moisten a little his burning thirst; the other, the deep desire to kill or take some terrible vengeance on the man who had come like a thief in the night, and first robbed and then mocked them.

  So he sat there with strained eyes, watching and listening. All day long he had mounted every little eminence which they had passed, and with his hand shadowing his eyes had swept the horizon for some signs of their pursuers. He had seen nothing of them, and yet, now that night was come, and he sat there a lone figure on the vast desert, he felt instinctively that they were at hand. Every moment he expected to hear that demoniacal peal of mocking laughter, or some other and possibly more threatening token of their near presence. If only one of them would step for a moment out of their cowardly ambush—one single moment would be enough, for he had no fear of missing them. There is a despair which only nerves the hand and quickens the eye! It was so with him then!

  Minute by minute, hour by hour, the night passed on his way. He sat with his eyes idly watching the flames which leaped up from his feet. To-night they seemed to be showing him little glimpses of his past days, of those wild, unsettled days of his later boyhood and early manhood. There was a girl’s face looking up at him from the smouldering embers—a fair, proud face with the lips curled a little in a fine disdain, and the eyes mocking him. See, there she was, holding out a tiny white hand to him, with her skirts gathered daintily in the other, and held back lest they should come too near to his soiled garments. What condescension, and what queenly, gracious beauty! How her voice had thrilled him in those days—him, the vagabond of the place, the incorrigible, the ne’er-do-well! He had not dared to think of her lately—but surely there was no harm now! He might allow himself this last sweet luxury! Would she—

  It had come at last. After hours of waiting and of deep, breathless quiet, the silence of the night was broken.

  There was the flash of a revolver, and a loud report from behind a little line of scrub to the right of them—a report followed almost instantly by the hideous death-cry of an animal in torture. The Englishman leaped to his feet, maddened with rage. A few yards away, Peter, their faithful mule, lay gasping out his last breath. There was no further report. The death-cry of the animal was followed by a silence as intense and unbroken as the hours which had passed before. Bryan could contain himself no longer. He threw all prudence to the winds, and breaking from Myra’s arms, he sprang across the open space, his great gaunt figure clearly defined in the leaping firelight.

  “Come out, you miserable sneaks, you cowards!” he shouted. “Dan Cooper! Do you hear, Dan Cooper! Stand out like a man, I say, and show yourself!”

  There was no answer. Reckless with passion, he fired twice into the shrubs from whence the shot had come. The reports echoed away again and again; then there was silence. He reached the shrubs themselves. There was no one there. Beyond was a gloomy wilderness. To go a step further was to offer himself an easy mark to any one who might be lurking beyond.

  Two of his four cartridges were spent, wasted. He raised his hands to the skies and shouted a curse which leaped up from his heart. Then he turned away and walked back to their camping-place.

  Day broke, and with wan white faces they turned their backs upon the line of light in the east. There was little left for them to carry. The blankets they left behind—it was not worth while bringing them—and the remainder of their little stock of provisions went easily into his pocket. They started hand in hand, but they kept their faces averted. There was a writing even on his strong features which was like the writing of death.

  As the sun grew hotter, they lay down under a little group of stunted trees. Here for the first time for many hours he dozed, and she watched, sitting by his side with his head upon her lap. Higher and higher the sun rose into a cloudless sky, and the heat grew more fierce. As noontime approached, she felt her tongue swell in her mouth, and several times her senses reeled. She laid his head tenderly down, stood up, and tried to swallow a morsel of food. It was useless! It stuck in her throat. Then, as she was sinking down again, some moving object far behind on the way by which they had come attracted her. She shaded her eyes with her hand, and gazed steadily. Yes, they were distinctly in sight now: two men riding on mules, and each leading a spare one. She even saw the water-bottles on their backs, and the sight forced tears into her eyes.

  She looked down at her companion. He was dozing feverishly, tossing about and muttering to himself.

  “Now is the time,” she said softly; “it may revive him. It is our one hope!”

  She drew a small bottle from her pocket. It contained her last allowance of water, which, unseen by him, she had poured into a smaller phial and kept. She drew out the cock, and holding it carefully, stooped down.

  “Wake up, Bryan!” she whispered.

  He sat up dazed and stupefied. She held out the phial. “Drink!” she said quietly.

  He snatched it, and drank three-quarters of its contents at a gulp. Then his reason came back like a flash. He withdrew the flask from his mouth, and looked at her.

  “You have let me drink it!” he said hoarsely. “You kept—It was yours, and I have drunk it nearly all!”

  “You wanted it more than I did!” she faltered.

  He pressed the phial into her hand. She moistened her lips with a few drops of what was left. The sensation was the most exquisite she had ever known. Then she pointed away across the plain.

  “See,” she said, “there they are! Dan Cooper and the other—Skein!
”

  The Englishman crawled to his feet with a wild, grim look of satisfaction. He looked to the primings of his revolver.

  “Let them come!” he muttered. “Ay, let them come! They may have water! Stoop down, Myra! Lie down in the shade! Let them get near!”

  They lay flat on the ground, and waited. They waited until they heard the sound of mules’ feet and men’s voices close at hand Then Bryan stood up, his revolver in his hand. Scarcely twenty paces away, were Dan Cooper and Skein riding leisurely along. At the sight of the gaunt, desperate figure rising up as it were out of the ground, they stopped short. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, both men leaped from their mules, and crouched behind them.

  Bryan lowered his revolver. “What have I done to you men,” he cried, “that you should hunt me to death like a dog? Give me some water! You have it there in those bottles! Give me some water! We arc dying of thirst!”

  Dan Cooper rose slowly up from his ambush, and laughed. His evil face still showed the mark of the Englishman’s fist.

  “You may starve and rot like a dog for all the help I give you!” he cried. “What do you think I have followed you for? To help you? By God, no! I am here to watch you die!”

  Bryan stepped forward, and raising his revolver unsteadily, fired. The mule that was between them staggered and sank down. But Dan Cooper rose up from behind, unhurt, with a wicked smile upon his lips, and unfaltering hand. The dying sun gleamed upon the barrel of his revolver, and his lips remained parted in that devil’s smile. He saw that Bryan was on the verge of fainting—he had nothing to fear from him. Already he was swaying like a drunken man, and making vain efforts to steady his revolver. Dan Cooper took a leisurely aim, and fired. Too late Myra had sprung forward with a cry of horror, passionately striving to drag him away, to get between the two men. He was prone upon the ground with his sightless eyes turned to the deep blue sky, and the dark, thick drops of blood oozing slowly out from his chest. She threw herself down beside him in a wild abandonment of grief.