XVI
Doomsdorf had seemingly achieved his purpose, and his prisoners lay crushed in his hands. A fear infinitely worse than that of toil or hardship had evidently killed the fighting spirit in Bess; Lenore had been broken by Doomsdorf s first words. And now all the structure of Ned's life had seemingly toppled about him.
The lesson that Doomsdorf taught had gone deep, not to be forgotten in any happier moment that life might have in store for him. There was no blowing into flame the ashes of his old philosophy. It was dead and cold in his breast; no matter what turn fate should take, his old conceit and self-sufficiency could never come again. He was down to earth at last. The game had been too big for him. The old Ned Cornet was dead, and only a broken, impotent, hopeless thing was left to dwell in his battered body.
He had found the training camp, but it was more bitter than ever his father had hinted that it could be. Indeed Godfrey Cornet, in those brooding prophecies at which his son had laughed, had been all too hopeful regarding it. He had said there was a way through and on, always there was a way through and on; but here the only out-trail was one of infinite shadow to an unknown destination. Death—that was the way out. That was the only way.
It was curious how easy it was to think of death. Formerly the word had invoked a sense of some thing infinitely distant, nothing that could seemingly touch him closely, a thought that never came clearly into focus in his brain. All at once it had showed itself as the most real of all realities. It might be his before another night, before the end of the present hour. It had come quick enough to Knutsen. The least resistance to Doomsdorf's will would bring it on himself. Many things were lies, and the false was hard to tell from the true, but in this regard there was no chance for question. Doomsdorf would strike the life from him in an instant at the first hint of revolt.
It was wholly conceivable that such a thing could occur. Ned could endure grinding toil till he died; even such personal abuse as he had received an hour or so before might find him crushed and unresisting, but yet there remained certain offenses that could not be endured. Ned could not forget that both Lenore and Bess were wholly in Doomsdorf's power. A brutal, savage man, it was all too easy to believe that the time would come soon when he would forget the half-promise he had given them. The smoky gaze that he had bent toward Bess meant, perhaps, that he was already forgetting it. In that case would there be anything for him but to fight and die? No matter how great a weakling he had been, the last mandate of his honor demanded that. And a bitterness ineffable descended upon him when he realized that even such bravery could not in the least help the two girls,—that his death would be as unavailing and impotent as his life.
How false he had been to himself and his birthright! He had been living in a fool's paradise, and he had fallen from it into hell! Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage: for less return Ned had sold himself into slavery. He had been a member of a dominant race, the son of a mighty breed that wrested the soil from the wilderness and built strong cities on the desolate plains; but he had wasted his patrimony of strength and manhood. A parlor knight, he had leaned upon his father's sword rather than learning to wield his own; and he had fallen vanquished the instant that he had left its flashing ring of steel.
For in this moment of unspeakable remorse, he found he could blame no one but himself for the disaster. Every year men traversed these desolate waters to buy furs from the Indians; he had been in a staunch boat, and with a little care, a little foresight, the journey could have been made in perfect safety. It was a man's venture, surely; but he could have carried through if he had met it like a man instead of a weakling. He knew perfectly that it was his own recklessness and folly that set the cups of burning liquor before Captain Knutsen as he stood at his wheel. It was his own unpardonable conceit, his own self-sufficiency that made him start out to meet the North half prepared, daring to disturb its ancient silences with the sound of his wild revelry; and to live, in its grim desolation, the same trivial life he lived at home. He hadn't even brought a pistol. Sensing his weakness and his unpreparedness, Doomsdorf hadn't even done him the honor of searching him for one.
Knutsen's death was on his own head: the life of utter wretchedness and hopelessness and insult that lay before Lenore and Bess was his own doing, too. It wouldn't compensate to die in their defense, merely leaving them continued helpless prey to Doomsdorf. He saw now, with this new vision that had come to him, that his only possible course was to live and do what he could in atonement. He mustn't think of himself any more. All his life he had thought of nothing but himself; self-love had been his curse to the end of the chapter,—and now he could not make himself believe but that it had been some way intertwined in his love for Lenore. He would have liked to give himself credit for that, at least—unselfish devotion, these past years, to Lenore—but even this stuck in his throat. But his love for her would be unbiased by self-love now. He would give all of himself now—holding nothing back.
In spite of his own despair, his own bitter hopelessness, he must do what he could to keep hope alive in Lenore and Bess. It was the only chance he had to pay, even in the most pitiful, slight degree for what he had done to them. He must always try to make their lot easier, doing their work when he could, maintaining an attitude of cheer, living the lie of hope when hope seemed dead in his breast.
Ned Cornet was awake at last. He knew himself, his generation, the full enormity of his own folly, the unredeemed falsehood of his old philosophy. Better still, he knew what lay before him, not only the remorselessness of his punishment but also his atonement: doing willingly and cheerfully the little he could to lighten the burdens of his innocent victims. He could have that to live for, at least, doing the feeble little that he could. And that is why, when Doomsdorf looked at him again, he found him in some way straightened, his eyes more steadfast, his lips in a firmer, stronger line.
“Glad to see you're bucking up,” he commented lightly.
Ned turned soberly. “I am bucking up,” he answered. “I see now that you've gone into something you can't get away with. Miss Gilbert was right; in the end you'll find yourself laid out by the heels.”
It can be said for Ned, for the reality of his resolve, that his words seemed to ring with conviction, giving no sign of the utter despair that was in his heart. Of course he was speaking them for the ears of Lenore and Bess, in order to encourage them.
“You think so, eh?” Doomsdorf yawned and stretched his arms. “Just try something—that's all. And since you're feeling so good, I don't see why you shouldn't get to work. You can still put in a fairly good morning. And you”—he turned, with the catlike swiftness that marked so many of his movements, toward Bess—“what's your name?”
“You just heard him say. Miss Gilbert”
“You can forget you are a 'Miss.' You're a squaw out here—and can do squaw's work. What's your first name?”
Bess, in her misery, looked at him with dread. “Bess Gilbert,” she answered quietly.
“Bess it will be. Lenore, I think you call the other—and Ned. Good thing to know first names, since we've got an uncertain number of years before us. Well, I suggest that all three of you go out and see what you can do about wood. You'll have to cut some and split it. I've been lazy about laying in a winter store.”
Much to his amazement, Ned stood erect, pulled down his cap over his brown curls, and buttoned his coat. “I'll see what we can do,” he answered straightforwardly. “I have, though, one thing to ask.”
“What is it”
“That you let the two girls take it easy to-day—and get warmed through. If you sent them out now, weakened as they are, it might very easily mean pneumonia and death. It's to your interest to keep them alive.”
“It's to my interest, surely—but don't rely on that to the extent of showing too much independence. The human body can stand a lot before it gives up the ghost. The human voice can do a lot of screaming. I know, because I've seen. I don't mind running a little risk with human life to get my way, and I know several things, short of actual killing, that go toward enforcing obedience and quelling mutiny.”
Lenore, staring wildly at him, caught her breath in a sob. “You don't mean”
Doomsdorf did not look at her. He still smiled down at Ned. “You've never felt a knout, have you, on the naked back?” he asked sweetly. “I found out what they were like in Siberia, and with the hope of showing some one else, I took one out—in my boot. It's half-killed many a man—but I only know one man that it's completely killed. He was a guard—and I found out just how many blows it takes. You can stop a hundred—fifty—perhaps only ten before that number, and life still lingers.” The man yawned again. “But your request is granted—so far as Lenore is concerned. You can leave her here for me to entertain. Bess has spirit enough to talk—she has undoubtedly spirit enough to work.”
Ned, deeply appalled and unspeakably revolted, looked to Lenore for directions. Her glorious head was on her arms, and she shook it in utter misery. “I can't go out there now,” she said. “I'll just die if I do—I'm so cold still, so weakened. I wish I had died out there in the storm.”
Ned turned once more to Doomsdorf. “She's telling the truth—I think she simply can't stand to go,” he urged gravely. “But though she's absolutely in your power, there are some things even a beast can't do. You just the same as gave me your word”
“There are things a beast can't do, but I'm not a beast. There's nothing I can't do that I want to do. I make no promises—just the same, for this time, I don't think you need be afraid. I don't take everything that comes along in the way of a woman. I want a woman of thews!”
Bess dared not look at him, but she felt the insult of his searching gaze. She buttoned her coat tight, then stood waiting. An instant later Doomsdorf was holding the door open for her as she went to her toil.