XXXI
When Bill sprang forward to intercept the attack upon the girl he came with amazing accuracy and power. There was nothing of blindness or misdirection about that leap. It was as if his sight had already returned to him. The real truth was that by means of his acute ear he had located the exact position of every actor in the impending drama.
What was more important, he knew the location of both candles. For all his almost total blindness, he could discern through his watering eyes the faint, yellow gleam of each. The one that burned beside him, on the little shelf, he brushed off with one sweep of his hand as he leaped. He knocked the second from the table; it fell, flickered, filled the room an instant with dancing light, and then went out. The utter darkness dropped down.
The act had been so swift and unexpected that neither Joe, standing nearest to the girl, or Harold across the room could draw their pistols and fire. Seemingly in a flash the darkness was upon them. No more was Bill the blind and helpless mole, to strike down with one careless blow. He was face to face with his enemies in his own dark lair. He had turned the tables; the advantage of vision on which they had presumed had been in an instant removed. They could see no more than he could now. Besides, in the hours since his rescue, he had already learned to find his way around the cabin.
And this was no half-darkness—that which descended as the candles were struck down. It was the infinite, smothering gloom of an underground cave in which no shadow could live, nor the sharpest outline remain visible. Harold cursed in the blackness; as if in a continuation of the leap he had made to upset the candles, Bill seized Virginia in his strong arms. He thrust her to the floor and into the angle between her bunk and the wall, the point that he instinctively realized would be easiest to defend and safest from stray bullets. Then, widening his arms, almost to the width of the little space between the table and the wall, he lunged forward again.
Virginia's pistol was in Joe's hand by now, and he shot in Bill's direction. Two spurts of yellow fire broke for an instant the utter gloom. But there was no time for a third shot. He was the nearest of the three attackers, and Bill's outstretched arms seized him. The woodsman's muscles gave a mighty wrench.
His grasp was about Joe's chest at first, but with a great lurch he slung the man's body out far enough so that he could loop his sinewy arms about the man's knees. Joe was shifted in his arms as workmen are sometimes snatched up by a mighty belt in a machine shop; he seemed simply to snap in the remorseless grasp. Bill himself had no sensation of his enemy's weight. He had him about the knees by now, Joe's body thrust out almost straight from centrifugal force, and with a terrific wrench of his mighty shoulders Bill hurled him against the wall.
It was well for his enemies that none of them were in the road of that human missile. They would have taken no further part in the ensuing battle. Joe's body crushed against the logs with a sound that was strange and horrible in the utter darkness; the pistol spun from his hand and rattled down'; then he fell with a crash to the floor. There was no further movement from him thereafter. His neck had been broken like a match. The odds were but two to one.
Harold had taken out his own revolver now and was shooting blindly in the darkness. Ducking low, Bill leaped for him. In that leap there was none of the gentle mercy with which he had dealt with him first, so long ago in Harold's cabin. But a quick movement by Harold saved him from the full force of the leap; in a moment they were grappling in each other's arms.
Bill wrenched him back and forth, and in an instant would have crushed the life out of him if it hadn't been for the interference of Pete. The latter breed leaped on his back, and Bill had to neglect Harold an instant to stretch up his arms and hurl Pete to the floor. Harold still clung to him, trying to seize his throat, but Bill wrenched him down. He flung his own body down on top of him, then seized him by the throat with the deadly intention of hammering his head on the floor; but before he could accomplish his purpose Pete was upon him again.
It was the end of the preliminaries. In that second the fight began in earnest. They were both powerful men, the breed and Harold; and Bill was like a wild beast—quick as a cougar, resistless as a grizzly—a fighting fury that in the darkness was terrible as death. Mighty muscles, stinging blows, striking fists and grasping arms; the rage and glory of battle was upon him as never before.
It was the death fight—in the darkness—and that meant it was a savage, nightmare thing that called forth those most deep and terrible instincts that in the first days of the earth were stored and implanted in the germ plasm. These were no longer men of the twentieth century. They were simply beasts, fighting to the death in a cave. It was a familiar thing to be warring thus in the darkness: Neither Harold nor Pete missed the light now. They were carried back to no less furious battles, fought in dark caverns under the sea; murder flamed in their hearts and fire ran riot in their blood.
They were no longer conscious of time; already it was as if they had struggled thus through the long roll of the centuries. It was hard to remember what had been the cause of the fight. It didn't matter now, anyway; the only issue left was the life of their adversary. To kill, to tear their enemies' hearts from their warm breasts and their arteries from their throats,—this was all that any of the three could remember now. It was true that Bill kept his adversaries away from Virginia's corner as well as he could, but he did it by instinct rather than by conscious planning. He had not hated Harold in these months past, but had only regarded him with contempt; but hate came to him fast enough in those first moments of battle.
Once, reeling across the cabin, they encountered soft flesh that tried to escape from beneath their feet; at first Bill thought it was Joe, returned to consciousness. But in an instant he knew the truth. "Go back to your corner. Virginia," he commanded.
For some reason that he could not guess, she had seen fit to crawl forth from her shelter; whether or not she returned to it he couldn't tell. There was no chance to warn her again. His foes were upon him.
This was not a silent fight, at first. So that they would not attack each other, Harold and Pete cried out often, to reveal their location and to signal a combined attack against Bill. In the instants that he was free from Bill's arms and he knew that his confederate was out of range, Harold fired blindly with his pistol. Their bodies crashed against the wall, broke the furniture into kindling at their feet; they snarled their hatred and their curses.
Bill fought like a giant, a might of battle upon him never known before. He would hurl away one, then whirl to face the other; his fists would lash out, his mighty shoulders would wrench. More than once their combined attack hurled him to the floor, but always he was able to regain his feet. Once he seized Harold's wrist, and twisting it back forced him to drop the pistol. But Pete's interference prevented him from breaking his arm.
Steadily Harold and Pete were learning to work together. They were used to the darkness now; Pete obeyed the white man's shouts. Two against one was never a fair fight, and they knew that by concerted action they could break him down.
One lucky blow sent Pete spinning to the floor, and Bill's strong arms hurled Harold after him. Just for a fraction of an instant he stood braced and alone in the center of the cabin. For the instant a silence, deep and appalling past all words, fell over the room. But Harold's voice quickly shattered it.
"Up and at him Pete!" he cried, hoarse with fury. They both sprang upon him again.
Both were fortunate in securing good holds, and as they came from opposite sides, Bill found it impossible to hurl them off. Both of his foes recognized their great chance; if they could retain their hold only for a moment they could break him and beat him down. Harold also knew that this was the moment of crisis. All three contestants seemed to sweep to the fray with added fury. Bill was drawing on his reserve strength—the battle could only last a few minutes longer.
They fought in silence now. They did not waste precious breath on shouts or curses. There were no pistol shots, no warnings; only the sound of troubled breathing against the shock of their bodies as they reeled against the walls. Bill was fighting with all his might to keep his feet.
But the tower that was his body fell at last. All three staggered, reeled, then crashed to the floor. Pete had managed to wiggle from underneath and, his hold yet unbroken, struggled at Bill's left side; Harold was on top. But for all that he lay prone, Bill was not conquered yet. With his flailing arms he knocked aside the vicious blows that Harold aimed at his face; he tore Pete's grasp from his throat. He fought with a final, incredible might. And now he was breaking their holds to climb once more upon his feet.
Then—above the sound of their writhing bodies—Virginia heard Pete exclaim. It was a savage, a murderous sound, and anew degree of terror swept through her. But she didn't cry out. She had her own plans.
"Hold him—just one instant!" Pete cried. The breed had remembered his knife. It was curious that he hadn't thought of it before.
He took it rather carefully from his holster. The two men were threshing on the floor by now, Harold in a desperate effort to keep his enemy down, and there was plenty of time. Pete's hand fumbled in his pocket. In his cunning and his savagery he realized that the supreme opportunity for victory was at hand; but he must take infinite pains.
He didn't want to run the risk of slaying his own confederate. His hand found a match; he raised his knife high. The match cracked, then flamed in the darkness.
But it was not to be that that murderous blow should go home. He had forgotten Bill's lone ally,—the girl that had seemed so crushed and helpless a few minutes before. She had not remained in the safe corner where Bill had thrust her, and she had had good reasons. The price that she paid was high, but it didn't matter now. She had crawled out to find her pistol that Joe's hand had let fall, and just before Pete had lighted his match her hand had encountered it on the floor.
It seemed to leap in her hand as the match flamed. It described a blue arc; then rested, utterly motionless, for a fraction of an instant. For that same little time all her nervous forces rallied to her aid; her eyes were remorseless and true over the sights.
The pistol shot rang in the silence. The knife dropped from Pete's hand. She had shot with amazing accuracy, straight for the little hollow in his back that his raised arm had made. He turned with a look of ghastly surprise.
Then he went on his face, creeping like a legless thing toward the door. With a mighty effort Bill rolled Harold beneath him.
The battle was short thereafter. Harold had never been a match for Bill, unaided. The latter's hard fists lashed into his face, blow after blow with grim reports in the silence. Harold's resistance ceased; his body quivered and lay still. Remembering Virginia Bill leaped to his feet.
But Harold was not quite unconscious. But one impulse was left,—to escape; and dumbly he crawled to the door. Pete had managed to open it; but he crawled past Pete's body, strangely huddled and still, just beyond the threshold. Then he paused in the snow for a last, savage expression of his hate.
But it was just words. No weapon remained in his hands. "I'll get you yet, you devil!" he screamed, almost incoherently. "I'll lay in wait and kill you—you can't get away! The wolves have got your grizzly meat—you can't go without food."
His voice was shrill and terrible in the silence of the winter night. Even in the stress and inward tumult that was the reaction of the battle, Bill could not help but hear. He didn't doubt that the words were true: he realized in an instant what the loss of the grizzly flesh would mean. But his only wish was that he had killed the man when he had him helpless in his hands.
He remembered Joe then, and listened for any sound from him. He heard none, and like a man in a dream he felt his way to the lifeless form beside the wall. He seized the shoulders of the breed's coat, dragged him like a sack of straw, and as easily hurled his body through the doorway into the drifts. Two bodies lay there now. But only the coyotes, seekers of the dead, had interest in them.
He turned, then stood swaying slightly, in the doorway. No wind stirred over the desolate wastes without. The cabin was ominously silent. He could hear his own troubled breathing; but where there was no stir, no murmur from the corner where he had left Virginia. A ghastly terror, unknown in the whole stress of the battle, swept over him.
"Virginia," he called. "Where are you?"
From the dark, far end of the cabin he heard the answer,—a voice low and tremulous such as sometimes heard from the lips of a sick child. "Here I am, Bill," she replied. "I'm hit with a stray shot—and I believe—they've killed me."