The island of the stairs

by Cyrus Townsend Brady

Should I open the battle there or retreat into the inner cave and wait, was the question that had to be decided. Perhaps the latter would be the safer plan but I had a strange unwillingness to adopt it, for once within I feared we should never get out alive except as prisoners, so long as they held the outer cave and I could never dislodge them from it. There was not much more chance of getting out alive from the outer cave, for that matter, but still it seemed so. We could at least see the sky and the sunlight. Should we stay there or go further into the wall?

I decided upon the former course. I explained to my mistress that I would keep the outer cave as long as I could, begging her to retreat to the inner chamber. She demurred at first, but when I spoke to her peremptorily at last—God forgive me—she acceded to my request humbly enough. Indeed, she saw that in this matter I could not be denied and also perhaps that I had right and prudence on my side. Her presence would only have embarrassed me in my fighting although I could quite understand that she wanted to fight, too. It was in her blood and she has since confessed that she never expected that we would come through the conflict alive and she would fain have died by my side. But that was not to be, and so, for the once she obeyed me.

I thrust the best pistol into her hand and told her to reserve it for herself in case her capture was inevitable, but not to pull the trigger until the last moment. And I promised her faithfully that I would not foolishly or uselessly jeopard myself but that after I had made what fight I could, I would join her if it were in any way possible.

Even then she hung in the wind awhile, seeming loath to go when all had been said between us. Finally she approached me, laid her hand on my arm and looked up at me. Seeing that she had previously decided to go and said so, I wondered what was coming now.

“Master Hampdon,� she said softly, “here we be a lone man and woman among these savages and murderers with but little chance for our lives, I take it. I am sorry that I struck you on the ship—and—you may—kiss—me—good-by.�

With that she proffered me her lips. I could face a thousand savages, a hundred Pimballs, without a quiver of the nerves, but at these unexpected words and that wonderful condescension, my knees fairly smote together before this small woman. I stood staring down at her.

“You were once over eager to take from me by force what I now offer you willingly,� she said, half turning away in a certain—shall I say disappointment?

With that I caught her to me and once again I drank the sweetness of her lips. We were bound to die and I kissed her as a man does when he loves a woman. I forgot the savages outside, the stones, the spears, the arrows streaming through the entrance, the yells and curses that came to us. I held her in my arms and without resistance. I could have held her there forever, quite willing to die in such sweet embrace. She pushed me away from her at last and I could swear that my kisses had been returned, and then with a whispered blessing she dropped to her knees and crawled within the adjoining cave.

I could have fought the world, thereafter, for her kisses intoxicated me like wine. Yet even then I did not delude myself. I felt that on her part at least, it was a farewell kiss such as two true devoted comrades might give to each other in the face of death. I said to myself that to her the pressure of my lips had only been as the salute of an ancient gladiator about to die was to the Cæsar who watched the struggle. To me—well I blessed her even for that crowning mercy.

With a pistol in each hand and the third upon a rock close at hand I waited. I had not long to wait. There was a sudden fiercer rain of arrows and spears, some of which struck at my feet or by my side. I gathered up a sheaf of them and laid them at hand beside the pistol on the rock.