Menotah Part 46

'First I will warn you. As you pa.s.s I shall strive to wound you. A touch with this knife is death.'

He stood irresolutely, while a contemptuous smile broke over Marie's white countenance.

'I am waiting for you.'

He gazed from the open door to that terrible window, where the dreaded power of justice perhaps even then lay concealed.

'It will be over in a single moment.'

He tried to nerve himself for the act. With a single motion of his hand he might hurl the slight girl from the door; with one blow of his powerful fist he could paralyse that arm. But she was quick, and fearfully determined. The risk was too great.

'Coward!' she burst forth in a first expression of pa.s.sion. 'I am but a weak woman--how weak you can hardly tell. But even for your liberty you will not attack me, for the gift of your life you dare not pa.s.s me.'

There was silence, until the splas.h.i.+ng of heavy raindrops on the s.h.i.+ngle could be distinctly heard.

'Hark! there are other sounds than the rain and the thunder.'

'I hear footsteps,' said Marie, in a barely intelligible voice.

Menotah barred the doorway with a trembling arm. 'Your chance is gone,'

she said, yet with a peculiar deliberation. 'You know why these men have come. You do not deserve to live, for you have been false to everyone.

They will take you with them, and treat you as they did Riel. They will hang you as they did him.'

She fell back as she spoke against the wall, while the hot breath choked her.

Another thought occurred to him. If he could reach the next room he might obtain his weapons. Armed, he would be not only a brave man, but a formidable foe. But Menotah still guarded the threshold, the deadly instrument in her hand, her eyes following his every movement.

'You cannot escape,' she murmured with low, fearful accent. There was a new expression upon her face which Marie wondered at. 'You are captured by a weak woman. You did not think to set eyes on me again. You thought I should crawl away to some quiet spot, there to sob away my life as the wounded deer. Yet I have followed your footsteps to repay you for the wounds you have inflicted upon me. The time is here now--the hour for vengeance.'

The last words fell from her lips in a frightened whisper. For the first time since that fatal night of desertion, emotion awoke in her colourless face, while a strange moisture started into her eyes.

But where was the plan for vengeance, and why did she not follow it out?

For this meeting she had waited and planned. Now it had arrived. Why did she not make use of opportunity and act quickly? The deadly drug still lay unused in her bosom. Why did she not make use of it? _Because she had then forgotten its very existence._

Again came the sounds On this occasion Lamont fancied he could detect a creaking of the storm door outside.

'They are coming,' said Marie, in a hushed tone.

Menotah looked upon her wildly. She repeated the words as though doubtful of their full significance. Then in a tremulous half whisper, 'Perhaps they are all round the door. He might escape by the window.'

'Escape!' half shouted Marie, excitedly.

Menotah's face had broken and changed, like the sky after a storm. The cruelty had melted and gone. A look of fear crept into her pain-filled and l.u.s.trous eyes. Suddenly, after a short and mighty struggle with herself, she turned and loudly cried at Lamont,--

'The window!'

The guilty man started at the change in that voice. Again he saw Menotah in the full suns.h.i.+ne, flitting along by the high cliff of the Saskatchewan, with bright song and laughter.

'There is still one chance left.'

Lamont could not move. He was divided between paralysing dread and suspicious perplexity. But she came towards him. He shrank from the knife with the brown stained point. Fearlessly she took him by the arm, then compelled him across the room.

'See!' Her voice was low and fervent. 'You may yet escape, with this knife to aid you. Make for the bush on the river's opposite bank. There you will be safe.'

There was a trembling pity in every motion, while her limbs shook with weakness. Upon her he turned his dazed eyes. Then he saw that her cheeks were burning, as though with fever, that the look on her face was wild and cunning.

'Let me go for my rifle,' he said.

'You cannot. They will see you. Go! For the love you bore me once--escape.'

Marie pa.s.sionately intervened. 'You have jested with him enough. Take care, or he will s.n.a.t.c.h the knife from you.'

'Jesting!' cried Menotah, piteously. 'Ah, no. I am the coward now. I loved him. I gave him my heart and wrapped my soul round his life. Now I am called to avenge. I cannot. I cannot. The pain has returned--back to my heart. I thought the flame dead and cold. But it has sprung up again.

It lives! It lives!'

She sprang at Lamont, and hung to him with an embrace. 'There is still time. Go! Go!'

'Stop!' cried Marie, furiously. 'You are in league with him. He shall not escape.'

'Do not listen to her. See! I will hold her arms.'

Marie advanced with a loud cry, but Menotah was upon her with all her lithe strength, holding her back, stifling her screams.

'The knife!' cried Lamont, with his usual selfish thought.

She threw it at him, but in the effort Marie cast her aside. Frantically she cried, in a piercing voice which rose above the storm, 'Help! He is escaping. The window!'

A second of silence, then there came deep voices and sounds of hurried footsteps.

'There is death on the point of the knife.' Again she held back the struggling Marie.

Lamont sprang to the window. Freedom was his. Another second--one more step forward, then the darkness would have received him, the night would have covered his flight. But that step was not to be made.

A man rose up suddenly from the gloom, a spare man with thin, nervous face. There could be no pa.s.sing, no resisting, this new opponent. He had not strength to raise his hand against that figure.

'Sinclair!'

The single word burst from him as he fell back in a bath of terror.

There was no hope now.

For hostile sounds uprose on every side. Like a man in a dream, he watched an officer, followed by two soldiers, entering the room at the door. These men were deemed sufficient to arrest one who would be unprepared. A larger band might have excited suspicion; besides, there might still be partisans of the White Chief hanging round the enclosures of the fort.

But as these entered a dreadful cry rang forth. Menotah was upon her knees, crying bitterly in this new sorrow. 'We may not turn back, if we have sworn to hate. If we pray for vengeance, the G.o.d will force it on us against the will.'

Sinclair advanced with an oath, and took her by the shoulder. 'What are you doing here? Helping him to escape--eh?'

'Yes,' cried Marie, fiercely. 'And she would have killed me--the savage!'

'You'd better get out while we give you the chance,' said the hunter, 'or you'll be taken and hung along with him.'