The Isle of Retribution

by Edison Marshall

There was nothing to do but climb into the adjoining tree with his axe and laboriously cut the lodged tree away. In the meantime Bess went to work on the first tree felled, trimming it of its limbs so to cut it into lengths.

Ned joined her at the work, but long before the first tree was cut into fuel, both were at the edge of utter exhaustion. The point of fatigue he had reached that morning in rowing, when he had rested from the sheer inability to take another stroke, was already far past. There had been a point, some time back, when every muscle of his body had throbbed with a burning ache, when pain crept all over him like a slow fire, but that too was largely passed now. His brain was dulled; he felt baffled and estranged as if in a dream. It was more like a nightmare now,—his axe swinging eternally in his arms, the chips flying, one after another.

He seemed to move so slowly. Hours were passing, one after another, and still great lengths of the trees remained to cut and split. But they couldn’t stop and rest. They dared not return to the cabin till the work was done: the brute that was their master would be glad of an excuse to lay on the lash. They had been taught what mercy to expect from him. Here was one reality that their fatigue could not blunt: their cruel master waiting in the cabin. As the rest of their conscious world faded and dimmed he was ever more vivid, ever more real. The time soon came when he filled all the space in their thoughts.

For Ned life was suddenly immensely simplified. All the complexities of his old life had suddenly ceased to matter: indeed that had perished from his consciousness. The world was forgotten, he had no energy to waste in remembering how he had come hence, even who he was. From the supreme egoist, knowing no world but that of which his own ego was the orbit, to a faltering child hardly aware of his own identity: thus had Ned changed in a single night. The individual who had been Ned Cornet had almost ceased to be; and in his place was a helpless pawn of a cruel and remorseless fate.

He knew Fate now. Through the mists of this nightmare that was upon him he saw the Jester with his bells. And as he looked, the sharp, ironic face grew savage, brutal, half-covered with blond hair; the motley became a cap of silver fox. But this changed too, as his axe swung in the air. Once more the face was sharp, but still unutterably terrible to see; but it was livid now, as if sulphurous flames were playing upon it. And the foot—he saw the foot plain against the snow. It was unspeakable, filling him with cold horror all his length. It was some way cloven and ghastly.

The vision passed, broken and dissolved by the noise of the axe on the tough wood. He knew Fate now. He had seen him in all his forms. In his folly he had scorned him, taunted him by his insolence, had dared to dream that he was greater than Fate, immune from his persecution. If this torment ended now, he had paid the price. He had atoned for everything already if he did not lift the axe again. Yet only eternity lay ahead.

Doomsdorf had seemed almost incredible to him at first. It was as if he couldn’t possibly be true: a figment of nightmare that would vanish as soon as he wakened. But he was real enough now. Nothing was left to him but the knowledge how real he was.

He must not rest, he must not pause till the work was done. The fact that Bess had fallen, fainting, in the snow, did not affect him; he must swing his axe and hew the wood. Day was dying. Grayness was creeping in from the sea. It was like the essence of the sea itself, all gray, gray like his dreams, gray like the ashes of his hopes. He must finish the two trees before the darkness came down and kept him from seeing where to sink the blade. Otherwise it wouldn’t matter—day or night, one year or another. Time had ceased to count; seemingly it had almost ceased to move. But the knout would be waiting, hardened and sharp with wire, if he didn’t do his work. Cold fear laid hold of him again.

He did not know that this cold that was upon him was not only that of fear. His clothes had been wet through by perspiration and melted snow, and now the bitter winds off the sea were getting to him. Still he swung his axe. It was always harder to strike true; the tough lengths took ever more blows to split. The time soon came when he was no longer aware of the blows against the wood. The axe swung automatically in his arms; even sense of effort was gone from him. The only reality that lived in him now, in that misty twilight, was the knowledge that he must get through.

It was too dark to see, now, how much of the work remained. The night was cheating him, after all. He struck once more at the tough length that lay at his feet—a piece at which he had already struck uncounted blows. He gave all his waning strength to the effort.