She led the way out into the clear, icy night. It was one of those still, clear, late winter evenings, not so cold as it had been, when the frozen, snow-swept world gave no image of reality to the senses. The snow wastes and the velvet depths of the sky were lurid, flashing with a thousand ever-changing hues from the giant kaleidoscope of the Northern Lights. Moved and held by this wonder that never grows old to the northern man, Doomsdorf halted them just without the cabin door.
As they watched, the procession of colors suddenly ceased, leaving world and sky an incredible monochrome in red. It was wanly red at first, but the warm hue slowly deepened until one could imagine that the spirits of all the dead, aroused for some cosmic holiday, were lighting flares of red fire. It was a strange sight even for these latitudes; but this lambent mystery is ever beyond the ken of man. The name that Doomsdorf had given his island had never seemed so fitting as now. In the carmine glow the bearded face of the master of the isle was suddenly the red-hued visage of Satan.
But the light died away at last, and the falling darkness called them back to themselves. The lust that fired Doomsdorf’s blood, the fear like the Arctic cold in the veins of Ned and Bess was all worldly enough. For a moment he studied their pale, tense faces.
“There’s no need of going farther,” he said in his deep, rumbling voice. “There was no need of even coming here. You seem to be forgetting, you two, where you are—all the things I told you at first.”
He paused, and his voice had dropped, and the tone was strange and even, dreadful to hear, when he spoke again. “I’ve evidently been too easy with you,” he went on. “I’ll see that I correct that fault in the future. You, Ned, made a serious mistake when you interfered in this matter to-night. I’ll see if I can’t teach you to keep your place. And Bess—long ago I told you that your body and your soul were mine—to do with what I liked. You seemed to have forgotten—but I intend that you will call it to mind—again.”
But Ned still faced him when he paused, eyes steadfast, his face an iron gray in the wan light. His training had been hard and true, and he still found strength to stand erect.
“I want to tell you this—in reply,” he answered in the clear, firm voice of one who has mastered fear. “We know well enough what you can do to us. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going to yield to you—to every one of your evil wishes. Life isn’t so pleasant to either of us that we’ll submit to everything in order to live. No matter what you do to me—I know what I’ll do to you if you try to carry out your wicked designs by force.”
Doomsdorf eyed him calmly, but the smile of contempt was wholly gone from his lips. “You’ll show fight?” he asked.
“With every ounce I’ve got! You may master me—with every advantage of weapons and physical strength—but you’ll have to kill me first. Bess will kill herself before she’ll yield to you. You won’t be better off—you’ll simply have no one to do your trapping for you. It isn’t worth it, Doomsdorf.”
He eyed them a moment, coolly and casually. “When I want anything, Ned, I want it bad enough to pay all I’ve got for it,” he said in a remarkably even tone. “Don’t presume that I value your lives so much that I’ll turn one step from my course. Besides, Ned—you won’t be here!”