“What sex, my man?”
“Gurl!”
I could have cried out. Something found my heart and seized it in a suffocating grip.
“Where was it?”
“Caught yonder in the timbers.”
I reeled and clutched at Duke, but he shook me off sternly. I knew as surely as that the night was done with that here our search ended.
That I stood quaking and shivering as nerveless as a haunted drunkard; that I dared not follow them when they moved to the steps; that Duke’s face was set like a dying man’s as he walked stiffly from me and stood looking down upon the boat with a dreadful smile—all this comes to me from the grim shadows of the past. Then I only knew a huddled group—a weighted chamber of shapes with something heavy and sodden swung among them—a pause of hours—of years—of a lifetime—and suddenly a hideous scream that cleft like a madman’s into the waste silence of the dawn.
He was down upon his knees by it—groveling, moaning—tearing tufts of dead wintry grass with his hands in ecstasy of pain—tossing his wild arms to the sky in impotent agony of search for some least grain of hope or comfort.
I hurried to him; I called upon his name and hers. I saw the sweet white face lying like a stone among the grass.
Wiser than I, the accustomed ministers of scenes such as this stood watchful by and waited for the fit to pass. When its fury was spent, they quietly took up their burden once more and moved away.