At last he was at the place—at the foot of the second ladder, on the narrow ledge that overlooked the third. He scarcely knew why he had been led to choose this spot, for the top would surely have done as well. But the ladder there was shorter, and a desperate man might let himself drop below, or rush up like lightning before one could pull a second trigger. The third ladder was immensely long; Michael himself had once said that it was sixty feet or more; in the middle of it a man was helpless. If he fell it would be to smash to pieces on the rocks beneath; if he elected to climb, it would be in the face of a dozen bullets.
He threw himself on the ground, and sat cross-legged, with the rifle resting in his lap. He was haunted by a dread that the lay brother might still outwit him; that he might burst on him from behind with a mocking laugh; or dart up unexpectedly from the very edge of the cliff. He wondered how Michael would look with a bullet through his face. He remembered such a wound in the Talavao war, when he had helped to bury the killed; and the thought of it made him shudder. He tried to pray, but the words froze on his lips. What had a murderer to do with prayer? But he was not yet a murderer—not yet. There was still time to draw back; there was still time to save his soul from everlasting hell. How dared he hesitate when all eternity was at stake? He was shocked at himself, at his own resolution, at his own courage and steadfastness. He meant to kill the lay brother, even if the skies were to fall. He was there to make a sublime sacrifice for the sake of those he loved. Let hell do its worst. He would say between the torments: “I saved them! I saved them!” His only dread was that his hand might tremble on the trigger; that at the supreme moment he might flinch and fail; that he might throw his weapon from him in uncontrollable horror.
Hark! what was that? Mercy of God, what was that?
He peeped stealthily over the edge.
Michael was standing at the foot of the ladder.
The priest felt a sudden sinking in the region of the stomach. Something seemed to say to him: “But that’s flesh and blood; that’s a man!” He would have given worlds to have dispossessed himself of the rifle; lies and explanations crowded to his lips; his teeth chattered in his head. Then, as he cowered impotently to the ground, the ladder shook with the weight of Michael’s feet on the lowest rung.
He tried to pull himself together; but under the stress of that overwhelming agitation the mechanical part of him seemed to stop. He had to tell himself to breathe; his heart suffocated within his breast. He gasped like a drowning man, drawing in the air with great, tremulous sighs as his choking throat relaxed. Suddenly he ceased altogether to be himself; he became a phantom in a dream; a twitching, crazy creature whom he saw through a sort of mist, dizzily centred in a whirl of forest and sky.
He looked over and saw that Michael was more than half-way up. The lay brother’s whole body spoke of dejection and fatigue, of a long day’s work not yet ended, and it was evident that the heavy can slung from his neck was for once more of a burden than a satisfaction. He raised his weary eyes, and with a kind of a shock encountered those of Father Studby peering down at him from above. He cried out inarticulately, and began to redouble his exertions, smiling and panting as he did so.
Still as in a dream, the priest leaned boldly over the precipice, and dropped the point of his rifle until its farther sight was dancing across the lay brother’s face, which, in swift gradations, underwent the whole gamut of dismay, astonishment, and utter stupefaction. For an instant Michael faltered and hung back; he even slunk down a step, speechless and as white as death. Then, of a sudden, he broke out into shrill peals of laughter, followed by a torrent of gabble, brisk, friendly, and tremblingly insincere, such as one might address to a madman from whom it is dangerous to run. He had struck a new place, he cried. My word! there was no end to it—pockets upon pockets only waiting to be washed out. It was at the fifth waterfall, not far from the dam by the banyan-tree, and he had worked there all day with extraordinary success. The other place was good enough, to be sure, with its average of three pounds and more, but this at the fifth waterfall was the real McKay. The father must positively come down and see it at once; positively you could see the nuggets shining in every spadeful; no matter if it were late, the father must come. He had better leave his gun on the top, for who was there to touch it?
Father Studby never turned from his position, nor made the least pretence of answering the breathless patter with which the brother tried to shield himself. Like a rock he waited, while the miserable man below him, sweating with fear, moved slowly into point-blank range. Talk as he might, with a volubility that grew increasingly anxious and incoherent, Michael realised at last that his time had come. He stopped; he raised his hand convulsively; he cried out in a broken voice: “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t kill me!”