Way Down East Part 17

True, Sanderson partially succeeded in avoiding the sledge-hammer fist, though it missed his head, it struck glancingly on the left shoulder.

numbing for the moment the whole arm. Sanderson countered as the blow fell, by bringing his right arm up with all his force and striking David on the face. He sank to his knees, like a wounded bull, but was on his feet again before Sanderson could follow up his advantage.

David, heedless of the pain and fast flowing blood, rushed a third time, catching Sanderson in a corner of the room whence he could not escape.

In an instant, the two were locked in a death-like grip.

To and fro they reeled. No sound could be heard save the snapping of brands on the hearth, the shuffle of moving feet and the short gasps of struggling men.

In that terrible grasp, Sanderson's strength was as a child's.

He could not call into play any of the wrestling tricks that were his, all he could do was to keep his feet and wait for the madman's strength to expend itself.

The iron grip about his body seemed to slacken for a moment. He wriggled free, and caught the fatal underhold.

By this new grip, he forced David's body backward till the larger man's spine bade fair to snap.

David felt himself caught in a trap. Exerting all his giant strength he forced one arm down between their close-locked bodies, and clasped his other hand on Sanderson's face, pus.h.i.+ng two fingers into his eyeb.a.l.l.s.

No man can endure this torture. Sanderson loosed his hold. David had caught him by the right wrist and the left knee, stooping until his own shoulders were under the other's thigh. Then, with this leverage, he whirled Sanderson high in the air above his head and threw him with all his force down upon the hearth.

A shower of sparks arose and the strong smell of burning clothes, as Sanderson, stunned and helpless, lay across the blazing fire-place.

For a moment, David thought to leave his vanquished foe to his own fate, then he turned back. What was the use? It could not right the wrong he had done to Anna. He bent over Sanderson, extinguished the fire, pulled the unconscious man to the open door and left him.

It came to David like an inspiration that he had not thought of the lake; the ice was thin on the southern sh.o.r.e below where the river emptied. Suppose she had gone there; suppose in her utter desolation she had gone there to end it all? Imagination, quickened by suspense and suffering, ran to meet calamity; already he was there and saw the bare trees, bearing their burden of snow, and the placid surface, half frozen over, and on the southern sh.o.r.e, that faintly rippled under its skimming of ice, something dark floating. He saw the floating black hair, and the dead eyes, open, as if in accusation of the grim injustice of it all.

He hurried through the drifted snow, as fast as his spent strength would permit, stumbling once or twice over some obstruction, and covered the weary distance to the lake.

About a hundred yards from the lake Dave saw something that made his heart knock against his ribs and his breath come short, as if he had been running. It was Anna's gray cloak. It lay spread out on the snow as if it had been discarded hastily; there were footprints of a woman's shoes near by; some of them leading toward the lake, others away from it, as if she might have come and her courage failed her at the last moment. The cape had not the faintest trace of snow on its upturned surface. It must, therefore, have been discarded lately, after the snowstorm had ceased this morning.

Dave continued his search in an agony of apprehension. The sun faintly struggled with the ma.s.s of gray cloud, revealing a world of white. He had wandered in the direction of a clump of cedars, and remembered pointing the place out to her in the autumn as the scene of some boyish adventure, which to commemorate he had cut his name on one of the trees. a.s.sociation, more than any hope of finding her, led him to the cedars--and she was there. She had fallen, apparently, from cold and exhaustion. He bent down close to the white, still face that gave no sign of life. He called her name, he kissed her, but there was no response--it was too late.

Dave looked at the little figure prostrate in the snow, and despair for a time deprived him of all thought. Then the lifelong habit of being practical a.s.serted itself. Unconsciousness from long exposure to cold, he knew, resembled death, but warmth and care would often revive the fluttering spark. If there was a chance in a thousand, Dave was prepared to fight the world for it.

He lifted Anna tenderly and started back for the shed where he had fought Sanderson. Frail as she was, it seemed to him, as he plunged through the drifts, that his strength would never hold out till they reached their destination. Inch by inch he struggled for every step of the way, and the sweat dripped from him as if it had been August. But he was more than rewarded, for once. She opened her eyes--she was not dead.

He found them all at the shed--the Squire, his mother, Kate, the professor and Marthy. There was no time for questions or speeches.

Every one bent with a will toward the common object of restoring Anna.

The professor ran for the doctor, the women chafed the icy hands and feet and the Squire built up a roaring fire. Their efforts were finally rewarded and the big brown eyes opened and turned inquiringly from one to another.

"What has happened? Why are you all here?" she asked faintly; then remembering, she wailed: "Oh, why did you bring me back? I went to the lake, but it was so cold I could not throw myself in; then I walked about till almost sunrise, and I was so tired that I laid down by the cedars to sleep--why did you wake me?"

"Anna," said the Squire, "we want you to forgive us and come back as our daughter," and he slipped her cold little hand in David's. "This boy has been looking for you all night, Anna. I thought maybe he had been taken from us to punish me for my hardness. But, thank G.o.d, you are both safe."

"You will, Anna, won't you? and father will give us his blessing." She smiled her a.s.sent.

"I say, Squire, if you are giving out blessings, don't pa.s.s by Kate and me."

In the general kissing and congratulation that followed, Hi Holler appeared. "Here's the sleigh, I thought maybe you'd all be ready for breakfast. Hallo, Anna, so he found you! The station agent told me that Mr. Sanderson left on the first train for Boston this morning.

Says he ain't never coming back."

"And a good thing he ain't," snapped Marthy Perkins--"after all the trouble he's made."

THE END.