Heretofore, in seasons of danger, Major Gordon had invariably known what to do. There had always been some possibility of escape, something which, if tried, might perhaps avert death. But now he saw no chance, however remote. He was like the miserable victim, who, bound hand and foot, is laid down in the path of the hideous Juggernaut, and who beholds, with chill horror, the terrible machine advancing continually nigher and nigher. Yet he thought less of himself than of Kate. To see her perish before his eyes, and of a death so awful, he being powerless to assist her, was the pang that wrung his soul. But his agony was not unmixed with a certain pleasure. From the deep recesses of his heart, surprising even himself, there thrilled, in this crisis, a wild joy. He could not pause to analyze it, but it seemed to say that death was sweet, with Kate to share it. Instinctively he looked at her, something of all this finding expression in his glance. Her eyes met his, in a long, full gaze, as if her whole soul was in it, a gaze which raised this sensation of joy to one of absolute bliss. For a moment he almost thanked heaven for the calamity which had broken down the barriers of conventionalism and sex between them. The near approach of death had revealed to him how much he loved Kate; and that look, did it not, he said, betray that she loved him as well?
All this occupied but an instant. But the conflagration, in that brief interval, had diminished its distance one-half.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MISUNDERSTANDING
Trifles, light as air,
Are to the jealous, confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ —Shakespeare.
‘Tis than delightful misery no more,
But agony unmixed. — Thornson.
Suddenly Kate cried, in a voice almost inaudible from eagerness,
“I see a bridle path, I remember. Follow me.”
As she spoke, she struck Arab with all her strength, so that he shot forward like a bolt from a cross-bow, entering the forest, on the right, where the tracks of an old road were dimly visible. The trees had so overgrown the way, indeed, that Kate had to stoop to his neck, in order to avoid striking the branches. Her companion darted after her, burying both rowels into his steed.
There was no sign, as yet, to what point the path would lead. It was evidently a temporary road, made by the wood-choppers long before, at some period when they were cutting rails or timber in the forest. There were scores of such tracks traversing the woods, but their course was never direct, and often they led back quite near to the place where they started. A person, unfamiliar with the particular road, might lose himself speedily in its labyrinths. But the positiveness with which Kate spoke convinced Major Gordon that she had used the path before, and that it held out a possibility, at least, of escape.
In confirmation of this, he observed that the conflagration, though pressing close on their left, moved in a parallel line with them. For several seconds it was a race for life and death between the advancing fire and the fugitives. On sped the horses, their muscles starting out like whip-cord, and the ground fairly flying beneath their hoofs. But close and hot in pursuit, like a troop of hungry wolves, whose breath already burns the flying hunter, the conflagration came leaping and roaring behind. Not once, however, did Kate look around after the first hurried glance, which ascertained that her companion had understood her and followed.