Power believed now Molly Gregory was dead. The child had sat all night in the hut after he had left her listening to the storms breaking outside. No doubt she had been filled with fancies which had mocked at sleep. To-day she had watched the water climbing towards her door with greedy lips. She had fled at last in panic to the land, and the blundering river had seized her in its arms.
He believed she was dead, and here he sat on horseback guiding the beast forward, holding it tight when it stumbled, avoiding the driftwood, and bending his head beneath limbs of trees. She was dead and he moved forward towards the body of the river, while the gentle waves of this back channel crept up the legs of his horse so that now they licked its belly. He did this calmly and with a cool brain. Was he over quick at forgetting, or had too much sorrow defeated itself, as one pain is cured by another?
She was dead, but the three men that had loved her were still condemned to use the eyes that had looked upon her, to employ the arms that had supported her, to move the lips that had been pressed by her kisses.
There came an end to the advance. A stone's throw beyond the halting place began the current. The river swept on its journey with a high tremendous cry. Far among the timber on the other bank brown currents surged and boiled. Trunks of trees whirled down from distant forests; rubbish from a hundred places hurried out of sight. The lesser trees danced their leaves upon the waves. Like a barbarous giant the river thundered to the sea.
Somewhere in that yeast of waters the child's fair body hurried away. From the tumult of the river it was passing to the amorous embraces of a coral sea. The scarlet lips where so many men had left their kisses would be caressed anew by the gentle lips of an ocean. By day and by night that slender form would float on its final journey, peering into the mouths of solemn caverns, stroked by the tresses of love-sick weeds, secure from the greedy suns staring hungrily through the blue roof, and followed by the curious moon as she looked to see what radiant thing took its walk by dark along the ocean bed.
The brilliant fishes would arrive to peer at this rare thing, the loathsome octopus beneath his ledge of rock would hide his shame behind a sepia curtain, and presently the brown pearl-fisher, descending from his bobbing barque, would halt in wonder at a pearl larger and more lustrous than all his toils had brought him.
Where had fled the little soul? Perhaps as a tiny jewelled bird already it fluttered through celestial fields, quick and charming and bright, but a thing of small account. In that new country where sight was keener, it would not again be priced above its worth.
The flow and hurry of the river was drugging Power's mind. He broke the spell by a jerk of the head, and looking behind him saw King not very far away deep in the water. King was suddenly an old man. Power turned to the horseman beside him. O'Neill stared at the broken hut. His head was thrust forward, and he sat huddled in the saddle. The water had climbed to the saddle-flap, and the ends of his oilskin played with the waves. He began to speak at that moment.
"I reckon I'd have a chance of getting across. I could go higher up and beat the pull of the current."