The Isle of Retribution

by Edison Marshall

Ned led her straight toward the ice-bound sea. He realized at once that their least shadow of hope lay in fast flight that might take them to some inhabited island before Doomsdorf could overtake them; never in giving him a chase across his own tundras. Even this chance was tragically small, but it was all they had. To stay, to linger but a moment, meant death from Doomsdorf’s pistol—or perhaps from some more ingenious engine that his half-mad cunning might devise.

Only the miles of empty ice stretched before them, covered deep with snow and unworldly in the glimmer of the Northern Lights that still flickered wanly in the sky; yet no other path was open. They halted a single instant in the shelter of the thickets, slipped on their snowshoes, then mushed as fast as they could on to the beach. In scarcely a moment they were venturing out on the ice-bound wastes.

Doomsdorf encountered their tracks as he reached the cabin door, and guessing their intent, raced for the higher ground just above the cabin. But when he caught sight of the fugitives, they were already out of effective pistol range. He fired impotently until the hammer clicked down against an empty breach, and then, still senseless with fury, darted down to the cabin for his rifle.

But he halted before he reached the door. After all, there was no particular hurry. He knew how many miles of ice—some of it almost impassable—lay between his island and Tzar Island, far to the east. It was not the journey for a man and woman, traveling without supplies. There was no need of sending his singing lead after them. Cold and hunger, if he gave them play, would stop them soon enough.

He had, however, other plans. He turned through the cabin door, spoke to the sullen squaw, then began to make preparations for a journey. He took a cold-proof wolf-hide robe, wrapped in it a great sack of pemmican, and made it into a convenient pack for his back. Then he reloaded his pistol, took the rifle down from the wall, and started forth down the trail that Ned and Bess had made.

It was likely true that the cold, though not particularly intense to-night, would master them before ever they could reach Tzar Island. They had no food, and inner fuel is simply a matter of life and death while traveling Arctic ice. They had no guns to procure a fox, or any other living creatures that they might encounter on the ice fields. But yet Doomsdorf was not content. Death of cold was hardly less merciful than that of a bullet. Just destruction would not satisfy the fury in his heart; the strange, dark lust that raced through his veins like poison demanded a more direct vengeance. Particularly he did not want Bess to die on the ice. He would simply follow them, overtake them, and bring them back; then some really diverting thing would likely occur to him.

It would be easy to do. There was no man in the North who could compete with him in a fair race. The two had less than a mile start of him, and to overtake them was but a matter of hours. On the other hand long days of travel, one after another past all endurance, would be necessary before they could ever hope to cross the ice ranges to reach the settlements on Tzar Island.

To Bess first came the realization of the utter hopelessness of their flight. She could not blind herself to this fact. Nor did she try to hide from herself the truth: in these last, bitter months she had found that the way of wisdom was to look truth in the face, struggling against it to the limit of her strength, but yielding herself neither to vain hope nor untoward despair. The reason why the flight was hopeless was because she herself could not stand the pace. She did not have the beginning of Ned’s strength. Soon he would have to hold back so that she could follow with greater ease, and that meant their remorseless hunter would catch up. The venture had got down simply to a trial of speed between Doomsdorf, whose mighty strength gave him every advantage, and Ned, who braved the ice with neither blankets nor food supplies. Her presence, slowing down Ned’s speed, increased the odds against him beyond the last frontier of hope.

Tired though she was from the day’s toil, she moved freshly and easily at first. Ned broke trail, she mushed a few feet behind. She had no sensation of cold; hardened to steel, her muscles moved like the sliding parts of a wonderful machine. The ice was wonderfully smooth as yet, almost like the first, thin, bay ice frozen to the depth of safety. But already the killing pace had begun to tell. She couldn’t keep it up forever without food and rest. And the brute behind her was tireless, remorseless as death itself.

The Northern Lights died at last in the sky, and the two hastened on in the wan light of a little moon that was already falling toward the west. And now she was made aware that the night was bitter cold. It was getting to her, in spite of her furs. But as yet she gave no sign of distress to Ned. A great bravery had come into her heart, and already she could see the dawn—the first aurora of ineffable beauty—of her far-off and glorious purpose. She would not let herself stop to rest. She would not ask Ned to slacken his pace. She was tired to the point of anguish already; soon she would know the last stages of fatigue; but even then she would not give sign. Out of her love for him a new strength was born—that sublime and unnamable strength of women that is nearest to divinity of anything upon this lowly earth—and she knew that it would hold her up beyond the last limits of physical exhaustion. She would not give way to unconsciousness, thus causing Ned to stop and wait beside her till she died. None of these things would she do. Her spirit soared with the wings of her resolve. Instead, her plan was simply to hasten on—to keep up the pace—until she toppled forward lifeless on the ice. She would master herself until death mastered her. Then Ned, halting but an instant to learn the truth, could speed on alone. Thus he would have no cause to wait for her.