CHAPTER XXV.
A QUESTION OF TWO MORALITIES.
The road towards the block-house ran along the river bank past the Kofn Ford. They went slowly on together through the starry windy night, Rallywood with his hand on the bridle and the wounded man holding limply to the saddle.
The tsa raved and rocked in the pine trees, through the pauses of the storm a wolf barked, and the black, tumbled water was still swelling and gulping under the low stars. But the tumult of noises only served to accentuate the hideous loneliness which is the salient characteristic of the Frontier.
Counsellor, with an unaccustomed warfare in his heart—rage and the pity of it working together—stared into space across the leaping river.
As the two men drew near the ford, they saw the dim figure of a horseman riding down the bank on the opposite side, with the evident intention of crossing. The approaches to the ford were flooded, for the angry water fretted out its banks at such times and deepened into dangerous swirls over the crossing-place.
Rallywood checked the horse to shout and signal to the man that the ford was impassable, but his voice was drowned by the harsh throated noises of the night. Weak as was the starlight, something of the loose reckless swing in the saddle told Rallywood that the rider was Anthony Unziar. Unziar galloped down the stones of the incline and plunged into the torrent. It was clear from where he took the water that he intended to make for the little beach below the block-house. His course was marked by a whitish rise in the water; now and then the watchers on the bank lost sight of the struggling figure as a tree-trunk whirled past and hid him, or he seemed to sink in some tormented eddy, but he came into view again and always nearer. At the last moment, whether horse and man were exhausted or whether a furious tangle of cross-currents caught them, they were swung round and away from the landing-point.
It was now evident that Unziar saw Rallywood, for in answer to the latter's signs that he must make for the shallows lower down, Unziar waved some object over his head as if to call attention to it. The suck of the current was fast drawing him away, but with another strong effort he got the horse's head round; they heard his faint shout upon the wind then the words came more clearly:
'Carry them on—Selpdorf!' He flung something forwards; the gale caught and hurled it on to the rocks at Rallywood's feet.