CHAPTER XXXVI
THE CURSE OF THE GOLD
They journeyed over the divide as fast as the tired girl could travel, but when they reached the bridge over the gorge, the sun had set. In the west two scarfs, one of pink and one of saffron, floated away after his passing, and the gold seemed to ripple up from the underworld, like the reflection of the gleaming treasure under the dark lid.
But above them all was black. The smoke over Cone Mountain, looming up like a vast umbrella, covered half of the island.
She pointed at the harbour.
"See those lights!"
Upon the tips of the yards, and topmasts, all over the ship, burned little lights like flickering souls.
"I never saw the sun do that before."
"It is not the sun, my dear Mademoiselle. It is St. Elmo's Fire, and it always comes, like the moons, before the mountain does its worst. The people of the Caribbees say they are tapers of the sea—a wake for those that will be lost. And look, Mademoiselle, there are the lost souls themselves, above the mountain."
And there they were, the seven moons, swimming through the twilight so palely that one had to look twice to discern them.
The air was very calm now and pregnant with strange, quivering thrills, as if surcharged with electricity. She thought it was her own excited nerves, the feeling of dread she had at that farewell so soon to come—and perhaps the memory of that kiss, which she had let him give her, just after she drifted back from the yawning pit of unconsciousness and before she opened her eyes entirely. It was one of the few girlish deceits of her blameless, straight-forward life—but she was glad, glad for that kiss. There was no harm in it, and somehow she wanted that to remember.
The real danger that threatened she realized now, still, she hated to hasten that last journey to its end, but he urged her forward.
They had reached the bridge above the waterfall, and he bade her go over first, as the old cables could not support their united weight. On the other side she watched, hands at her throat, it swayed so, as he crossed. Safe on the other side, he turned, and looked back for signs of pursuers. As he did so, he bent forward, and his hand lowered to his hip. Her eyes followed his and saw the figure crouching on the trail, just fifty yards from the gorge.
The old man had returned at last.
The Frenchman thrust her behind a tree, and waited at the northern end of the bridge as the figure stepped upon it. The flask had perhaps made his footing insecure, and the frail old structure rocked from side to side under the stocky figure. He reached the middle. Even above the cascade's thunder, she could hear the curses he shrieked at them derisively echoed back by gorge and mountain.
Then suddenly, so quickly it happened she never afterwards could tell just how, the bridge sagged in the middle; one rotting cable parted. The howling wretch clutched for the hand-rail. The bridge buckled, the sections swung to the sides of the gorge, and the body plunged head downward. It was horrible and yet grotesque, the bow-legs sprawling in the air, the jacket flopping over the head like a sack. From its lining and pockets dropped whirling, round, shiny things.
So, in a shower of gold, the old sinner plunged to his doom
Fifty yards from the hut, they saw flickers of the fire, and heard the voices of the watchers.
She paused in the shadows.
"You must sail with us tomorrow. We will stop at the port with you and Linda.
"And now, because we won't have much chance—to talk over things on the ship again—I want to thank you for all you have done. I never will forget—never."
Then she went on, a little more lightly, perhaps with a forced blitheness, though he could not see the moisture gleaming in her eyes.
"Sometime you must come and visit us—Ben and me. He's a fine boy. You'll like him when you come to know him."
"Yes, I have seen many men and I know that he will be true." And the girl remembering her sweetheart's unchivalrous treatment of the man before her, was touched.
And she was glad that it was dark all about them, and he could not see the tremor of her lips when he said:
"All the happiness in the world—and in Heaven—my dear lady, I wish for you. I do not pray as often as a good Catholic should, but I will pray for that—very often."
Then they went to the fire and the waiting sailors of the North Star.