But more than gold was at stake now,––more than jewels, though they sparkled like stars. The prize for steady legs and unflinching nerves was a respite from Death. If he reached the cave, he would have several days at least before him. Neither thirst nor hunger, fierce masters though they are, can work their will except by slow process. Against them Stubbs would be racing and he had faith in this man.
He did not fear Death itself. In thinking of the end, the bitter thing it meant to him was the taking off of her. And every day meant one day more of her––another chance of finding her and getting her back to God’s country and the life which awaited them there. It did wait for them; in coming here they had left the true course of their life, but it remained for them to take it up when once they should make the beaten tracks again. Now he was trembling along the 257 ragged edge of losing it all––all that lay behind and all that lay before. But if this was to be so, why had he ever seen that face in the misty dark? why had he come upon her the second and the third time? why had Chance brought him to her across ten thousand miles of sea? why had it brought him here? Why at the beginning could he not have forgotten her as one forgets those who flit into one’s life and out again? He did not believe in a jesting God.
One foot forward, the body flat against the wall, a little choke from the dust, then the other foot after. A pause to catch the breath, then––one foot forward, the body flat against the wall, a little choke from the dust, then the other foot after. Also he must pause to remember that it was twelve hands up, close to the wall, thirty paces on, then ten.
Odd things flash through a mind long at a tension. In the midst of his suffering he found time to smile at the thought that life had reduced itself to such a formula. A single error in this sing-song, such as ten hands up instead of twelve,––was it ten or twelve? Ten hands up and close to the wall––twelve hands up and close to the wall––they sounded alike. Each fell equally well into the rhythm of his song. He stopped in the grip of a new fear. He had forgotten, and, trying to recall the rest, he found he had forgotten that too. His mind was a jumble so that now he did not dare to put out his right foot at all without first feeling with his toe a little beyond.
But this passed soon, and his thoughts returned to her, which steadied him instantly. So he came safely to the single step down and accomplished this. Then the other and accomplished that. At the end of a few paces farther he faced the great rock. It had become dark down here now,––so dark that he could not see six inches ahead. His foot had come against the rock, and then he had felt up with his hands. He found it impossible to stoop sufficiently accurately to measure from the bottom. There was nothing for it but to guess––to try again and again until either it gave or he proved that it would not give.
He placed his hand upon the rock at about the height of his chest and threw his weight forward. It was as though he were trying to push the mountain itself to one side. He tried above, below, to the right, to the left without result. Nothing discouraged, he began again, starting from as low as he could reach and pressing with all his strength at intervals of a few inches. Suddenly, like a door opened from within, the rock toppled to the right where it hung balanced over the precipice, leaving an opening two feet wide. It would have been a tight squeeze for Stubbs, but Wilson easily jammed through. He saw that the path continued at a slightly downward slope.
“Thirty paces on and ten to the left.”
He repeated the words parrot fashion and his feet obeyed the instructions automatically. The thirty paces ended so near the edge of crumbling rock that it fell away beneath his toe leaving some two inches 259 over nothing. Had a man walked here without directions, he certainly would have taken this last step and been hurled into the space below. It was pitch dark where he stood. He felt along the wall for the opening which should take him to the left ten paces. The wall, the path, the depth below the path were all one save to touch alone. It was as though he himself had been deadened to every sense but this. During the last few minutes his brain, too, had dulled so that all he now grasped of the great happy world outside was a vague memory of blue sky before which a shadowy figure danced like a will-o’-the-wisp. But still propelled by the last instinct to leave man before the soul, he put one foot ahead of him, pressed his body flat to the wall, and drew the other after. As he proceeded thus, counting the steps he took, he became aware that the air was fresher. Ahead, he saw an opening which was a little less dark than this which stifled him. It was light, though he saw it only faintly through blurred eyes. It was a gray slit coming together at the top. He groped his way almost to the edge and then to the left he saw a second opening––an opening into another dark. It was the cave. He staggered the few remaining feet and fell prone upon its granite floor.
How long he remained so he could not tell. He was not wholly unconscious, but in a state so bordering upon it that he realized nothing but the ecstatic relief which came to his aching body. Still he was able to realize that. Also he knew that he had reached his 260 journey’s end, so far as anything more he could do was concerned. He would wait––wait as long as possible––cling to the very last second of life. He must do that for her. That was all that was left.