_Chapter XXIV_
The mere fact of being absolutely alone from midday to dark would havebeen for Gloria an experience at any time and in any environment. Ofher friends in the city there were many who had never in a lifetimeknown what it was to spend half a dozen consecutive daytime, wakinghours in perfect solitude, catching not so much as a fleeting glimpse ofa servant, a policeman, a nurse, or a street-car conductor in theechoing street. Solitude rendered rippleless by an absence of anyfamiliar sound; neither the whisk of a maid's broom, the clang of atelephone bell, the buzz of motors, or the slamming of doors. At thoseintervals when King thought of her, it was to realize that she mightquite naturally find discomfort in her bleak surroundings, being deniedcoal-grate and upholstered chair; it did not suggest itself to him thatthe chief discomfort would be a spirit-crushing, terrifying loneliness.
She told herself, when he had gone, that she was glad to be alone. Fiveminutes later she began to stir restlessly; another five minutes andalready she was listening for his return. Never once during the day wasthere a sudden or unexpected sound, whether the snapping of a burningfaggot or the scratching against the rock of a log rolling apart, or theflap of her canvas, that she did not look expectantly toward the rudedoor through which she thought to see him returning.
Once that her restlessness came upon her she could not remain quiet. Shedrew on her boots and walked up and down, casting fearsome glancestoward the darkest portion of the cavern, shunning it, keeping the firebetween it and herself. When she peered out across the desolate worldshe drew back from its bleak menace, shuddering, returning to crouchmiserably by her fire, shut in between two frightful things, the blackunknown of the bowels of the cave, the white horror of the brutal,insensate wilderness. And, in her almost hysterical emotional frenzy shesaw back of each of them the man, Mark King, as though they were but theexpressions of his own brutality.
After an hour she felt that she would go mad unless she found somethingto hold her mind back from those hideous channels into which it slippedso readily. She snatched up the book which King had left with her, andforced herself to read. Pages eluded her, but here and there singlelines or words caught her attention as a thorny copse catches and plucksthe garments of one going blindly through it. So she was arrested by theline: "_In simpleness and gentleness and honour and clean mirth_." Andthis was one of the times when she threw the book down and got up andwalked back and forth impatiently. It was almost as though King had leftthe wretched volume behind to be his spokesman in his absence; she toldherself angrily that he was _not_ like that, had never been like that.He was a mere brute of a man, not "_such as fought and sailed and ruledand loved and made our world_." He was, rather, unthinkably crude andboorish and detestable.
But, rebelling at utter loneliness, she was forced again and again tothe only companion at hand. She read _The Explorer_, fascinated in ashivery, uncanny way by the first line, as though a ghostly voice werewhispering to her from the black corners of the cave: "_There's no sensein going further--it's the edge of cultivation._" And later: "_I facedthe sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down._" Others than shehad gone into the last solitudes. Others who had joyed in it and sung ofit! It was as though the dead shades of those others squatted at theedges of her fire and mocked at her. Then she could fancy that it wasKing himself jeering, and that he cried: "_Then He chose me for HisWhisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!_"
She snapped the book shut. Later she opened it to the tale of Tomlinson.She did not entirely grasp it, but she could not entirely miss what itsaid. She hurried on; she wondered vaguely at the call of the Red Gods;here again, seeking distraction, she was whipped back to reality. Therewere the lines, staring at her, as though King had rewritten Kipling:
"_Who hath smelt wood-smoke at twilight? Who hath heard the birch log burning? Who is quick to read the noises of the night?_"
And the answer was: "Mark King." Even now it was a torturous twilightin the cave, even now she smelled wood-smoke; even now she was like onestarting at the noises of the night....
"Man-stuff," she thought contemptuously. She had heard such anexpression used in connection with the verses of this uncouth scribe. Itdid not strike her that man-stuff might well enough be woman-stuff also,being one or the other, or both, for the sheer reason that it was human.She chose to consider it merely the sort of coarse food for male mentaldigestion. A man's nature was not fine and intricate; rather hisemotional qualities must be like stubby, blunt, callous fingers,unskilled and not highly sentient. A man lacked the psychical andspiritual and intellectual development which was that of a maid likeGloria; his joys were chiefly physical. So he cared to blaze trails likethe explorer; the impact of a storm's buffeting and the low appreciationof a full stomach drew limits marking his possibilities of expansion. Hewas a beast, and she hated the whole sex sweepingly and superbly. Ingreat surges of genuine sympathy her heart went out to herself.
But, after all, the moments in which her thoughts were snared away fromher fears and the oppression of loneliness were few and short. Fromwondering what kept King she passed to bitter anger that he shoulddesert her so; she concluded that he was doing it with malicious intent.
Repeatedly she was tempted to go forth and seek Gratton: to hunt up anddown until at last she came to him. Again and again she went to themouth of the cave and looked forth. But each time she drew back,terrified at the thought of making her way unaided down the sheer cliffwall. She sought to tell herself that she was not afraid of the snow, ofbeing lost, of being unable to find Gratton. But she could not climbdown the cliff; she knew that she would fall. Dizzy and sick, shiveringwith dread and cold, she turned back always.
She let her fire die down, not noticing it. Then the cold reminded her,and she worked long building another. She knew where a block of matcheswas; she had seen King set it carefully away. In her excitement shestruck dozens of matches, dropping the burnt ends about her.
At last her fire blazed up and she warmed herself. Then she wasconscious of a strange faintness and realized that she was hungry. Shewent to their food cache and ransacked it hastily. She opened a tin ofsardines and came back to the fire with it in her hands. She had noclear conception of the deed when, half of the fish consumed, the smellystuff revolted her and she hurled the remaining part into the bed ofcoals.
* * * * *
King stamped the loose snow from his boots and came in. Gloria stoodconfronting him, tense, rigid, white-faced, her hands stiff at hersides. She wanted to cry out, to upbraid him, all of her fear of the dayturned into molten anger, but at the moment her strength failedstrangely, her heart seemed to be stopping, she choked up. The surge ofher relief, like a suddenly released current, impacting with that othercurrent of her unleashed anger, made of her consciousness a sort ofwild, fuming whirlpool. Nothing was clear to her just then save thatMark King had come back and that, no doubt, his heart was filled withjeers; she could not read the expression of his shadowed face, butfancied it one of mockery.
King was tired throughout every muscle of his body. He set down hisrifle, tossed his hat aside, and slumped down by the fire. Coming infrom the storm-cleansed open he sniffed at the closeness of the cave. Itwas not alone the smell of smoke; his first thought was that Gloria hadbeen cooking something. Then he noted the sardine-can. With a stick heraked it out of the coals. And now Gloria could read his expression wellenough as he jerked his head up.
"In God's name," he demanded, "what do you mean by a thing like that?Are you stark, raving mad?"
For a moment she was at a loss to understand what had enraged him. Theact of tossing the distasteful food into the fire had been purelyinvoluntary; her conscious mind had hardly taken cognizance of the fact.When it dawned upon her what he meant, her own anger was still greaterthan her sense of her act's folly. But she found no ready answer to hisaccusation. She was not without reason; in their present predicament shewas a fool to have done a thing like that; she could hardly believe thatshe ha
d done it. And so she stared impudently at him and held hersilence, and finally, with an elaborate shrug of disdainful shoulders,she turned her back on him.
But King flung to his feet and set his hands on her two shoulders andswung her about. Her eyes opened widely.
"Listen to me," he said angrily. "I am going to talk plain to you. Youare a fool, a downright, empty-headed silly fool. What you havedestroyed in wanton carelessness would have kept the life in a man awhole day. Haven't you sense enough to see it's going to be nip and tuckif we ever get out of this? You've shown yourself, from start to finish,a miserable cheat; there's no trust to be put in either your judgment oryour intentions. Be still," he commanded, as she sought to wriggle outof his grasp, to avoid the direct blaze of his eyes. "I am going to dowhat I can for you; to see you safe through this, if I can. Not becauseyou are anything to me, but just because you are Ben Gaynor's, and he ismy friend. Understand?"
"You are hurting me," she said in defiance. "Take your dirty hands off."
"When I am done," he returned curtly. "I am going to stick to you andsee you through, I tell you. But I am not going to have you throw all ofour chances away by dumping grub into the fire. If you do one otherbrainless thing like that, and I catch you at it, I am going to tie youup, hand and foot, and keep you out of mischief."
"You wouldn't dare----"
But she knew better; he would dare anything. He _was_ of the type thatfought and sailed and ruled. Now, when having spoken his mind he turnedaway from her, she stared after him and watched him as he dropped backby the fire. Then she went slowly to her bed to hide her trembling, andlay down.
Presently she heard him stirring. She did not turn her head to look athim. But she knew that he was busied with supper. She smelt coffee,heard the clash of tin cup and plate, and realized that he was eating.She wondered if he had forgotten her. After a while she moved just atrifle and furtively; he had put away his dishes and was filling hispipe. And he knew that she was watching him.
"No," he said to her unspoken question. "I am not going to cook for youany more. I have had a hard day of it, doing the man's work. Had youdone the woman's you would have had supper ready for me."
He lighted his pipe with a splinter of burning pine. Then for the firsttime he saw the waste of scattered matches on the floor. From them helooked to her in an amazement so sheer that it left him no word ofexpostulation. The suspicion actually came to him that the girl was mad.It was scarcely conceivable that a perfectly sane individual could dothe things which she had done.
She saw him get up and begin gathering up all of the foodstuff. Hecarried it to the back of the cave, where he passed out of her sight inthe dark. He was gone ten minutes and came back empty-handed. He madethe second trip, after which there was left on a shelf of rock only halfa dozen matches and enough food for one scanty meal. This Gloriaignored.
"Do you think," she said contemptuously, "that what you have hidden backthere I couldn't find?"
"You could find it but you won't," he returned with quiet assurance thatjerked the question from her:
"Why?"
"Because," he grunted contemptuously, "you are too much of a coward togo back there to look for it."
And in her heart she knew that here was but the mere truth. For, whywas she not already in Gratton's camp? Her opportunity had come andgone--because she had been afraid.