“He will be disturbed, before we’re done,” Ned told her grimly. “Just say that—that she wants to see him. He’ll come—he’ll merely think it has to do with some business we’ve just been talking over. Go at once, Lenore—before he goes to bed. That’s your part—to bring him here. You can leave him at the door if you like—you can even stay at the other cabin while he comes.”
Her searching eyes suddenly turned in fascinated horror to Bess. Standing near the open door, so that the room might not be filled with the dust of the snuff and thus convey a warning to Doomsdorf, she was emptying the contents of the snuff-box into her handkerchief. Her eyes gleamed under her brows, and her hands were wholly steady. Lenore shivered a little, her hands pressing Ned’s.
“What does it mean——?”
“Liberty! That’s what it means, if the plan goes through.” For the first time Ned’s voice revealed suppressed emotion. Liberty! He spoke the word as a devout man speaks of God. “It’s the only chance—now or never,” he went on with perfect coldness. “You’ve got to hold up and do your share—I know you can. If we succeed—and we’ve got every chance—it’s freedom, escape from this island and Doomsdorf. If we fail, it’s likely death—but death couldn’t be any worse than this. So we’ve nothing to lose—and everything to gain.”
Was it not true? Have not the greatest of all peoples always known that it is better to die than to live as slaves? It was the very slogan of the ages—the great inspiration without which human beings are not fit to live. Overswept by their ardor Lenore turned back through the door.
Her instructions were simple. The easiest task of the three was hers. Bess took one of the crude chairs, her handkerchief—clutched as if she had been weeping—in her lap. Ned sat down in one of the other chairs, intending to arise and excuse himself the instant Doomsdorf appeared. His muscles burned under his skin.
It was only about fifty yards to the cabin. If Doomsdorf came at all, it would be in the space of a few seconds. Lenore started out bravely: her part of the task would be over in a moment. Just a few steps in the glare of the Northern Lights, just a few listless words to Doomsdorf, and liberty might easily be her reward. All the triumphs she had once known might be hers again; luxury instead of hardship, flattery instead of scorn—freedom instead of slavery. But what if the plan failed? Ned had spoken bluntly, but beyond all shadow of doubt he had told the truth. Death would be the answer to all failure. Destruction for all three.
The door of the cabin closed behind her, and Lenore was alone with the night. The night was rather temperate, for these latitudes, yet her first sensation was one of cold. It seemed to be creeping into her spirit, laying its blasting hand upon her heart. The stars appalled her, the Northern Lights were unutterably dreadful. She tried to walk faster, but instead she found herself walking more slowly.
The wind stirred through the little spruce, whispering, whimpering, trying to reach her ear with messages to which she dared not listen, chilling her to the core, appalling her with its hushed, half-articulate song of woe and death. There was nothing but Death on these snowy hills. It walked them alone. It was Death that looked into her eyes now, so close she could feel its icy hand on hers, its hollow visage leering close to her own. Life might be hateful, its persecutions never done, but Death was darkness, oblivion, a mystery and a terror beyond the reach of thought.
So faint that it seemed some secret voice within her own being, the long-drawn singsong cry of a starving wolf trembled down to her from a distant ridge. Here was another who knew about Death. He knew the woe and the travail that is life, utter subservience to the raw forces of the North; and yet he dared not die. This was the basic instinct. Compared to it freedom was a feeble urge that was soon forgotten. This whole wintry world was peopled with living creatures who hated life and yet who dared not leave it. The forces of the North were near and commanding to-night: they were showing her up, stripping her of her delusions, laying bare the secret places of her heart and soul, testing her as she had never been tested before.