CHAPTER XXIX
THE YOUNG QUEEN SEES THE TRUTH
FOR Beatrice Corliss a night of horror, for Joe Embry the supreme endeavour and final treachery. The treachery of a man builded upon the treachery of a woman of the Mrs. Denham ilk, a structure which might stand or might totter and fall, as fate willed it.
Beatrice had known what it was to feel rude hands upon her, to have a terrified outcry stifled in her throat, to see vague threatening shapes struggling about her in the darkness where she had gone with Embry, to watch Embry go down under those struggling forms, to wonder breathlessly if he had been killed, then to feel herself lifted bodily in a pair of strong arms and carried at a run down the graded roadway and flung unceremoniously into a waiting automobile. Only two connected sentences had she heard the whole while: a muttered, "Easy with her, Steele!" when she had been swept clear of the ground; a sharp, "Go ahead!" when she was bundled into the car.
So this again was the work of Bill Steele! That was her first clear thought through the murk of frightened anger. Was the man mad? Were there no limits to his lawless desperation? Did he think that in a day like today there was scope for the reckless play which this attack spelled?
In front of her a man sat stooped over his wheel, driving the big car on with growing speed, with eyes only for the road which his lamps retrieved from the dark. At each side of her was another man, an arm run through hers. The three men, their faces hidden from her, were as silent as the sleeping world through which they sped.
After her first frantic buffeting with superior force she had grown very quiet; after the first surge of fear had come anger to be followed by cool, calculating thought.
Now, no matter what appearances were or might be, she was suddenly assured of one fact which startled, then thrilled her strangely. This was obviously meant to appear the work of Bill Steele and she knew that appearances lied! A man had seized her rudely, another had cried, "Easy with her, Steele!" and she knew now that the man holding her then had not been Bill Steele! She had sensed it then even, now she knew. How does one know things like this? Earlier in the evening Steele himself had been briefly tricked by the masquerading Della … and then he had known. How and why? Because he loved her and there is a sixth sense? How now did she know so well that this was not Steele's work? First because it was not his way; not headlong, like him, smacking rather of cunning and deceit. And she would have known had it been Steele's arms about her… because she loved him!
While she sat breathing deeply the glorious truth flashed into her soul, turning its searchlight upon her own self, showing her her own long hidden heart's desire. She loved Bill Steele, though she had not been willing to admit it, though she had not even seen it clearly. She had wanted him to hold her in his arms tonight, she had wanted him to kiss her; for one stinging-sweet second she had closed her eyes blissfully and lived to the uttermost with his lips on hers.
"Bill Steele," she whispered softly. "I love you!"
They had turned toward the east, headed toward Camp Corliss. Were they taking her to Summit City or on beyond? Questions to be asked but not answered For at last her eyes were blindfolded and she knew that the car had circled and circled in a meadow and now might be retracing its way or travelling on eastward. And then, with eyes still blinded, she was forced to step to the ground, to mount a horse, to ride where there was but an uneven trail underfoot. She heard the automobile speeding away behind her. And she knew that now at last there was but one man with her. A man who silently took her horse's reins, who rudely forced her hand away from the band about her eyes, who was spurring on at her side through the mountains.
Then came back her fear in resurging waves. What sign would there be left behind that her friends could follow? How far would the brutality of her captor go? Where was the end of it all for Beatrice Corliss?
Mile after mile they went and no longer could she guess even vaguely where. They rode through brush which whipped at her feet; they made a slow way down many a steep slope; they mounted slowly to other broken lands, they galloped swiftly through open spaces. She grew to feel the first herald of fatigue; wondered how many hours had already dragged by; yearned as she had never yearned before for the coming of day after this endless night.
And then at last they stopped. The man with her dismounted and held out his hand to her. With no alternative but with a sudden stiffening of rebellious muscles, she slipped from the saddle. Still with bandaged eyes, her captor's hand on her arm, she went forward a half dozen paces. Then there was a rough wooden floor under her feet and she heard the slam of a door. Now at last she could whip the bandage from her eyes.
She was in a little one room cabin such as one finds everywhere in the mountain country. But, so great was the darkness about her, that to know even that she must pass her hands along the walls. She stumbled against a crude table; sought its surface for a possible match and found nothing; passed on; stumbled against a stove; then a bunk against the far wall. There was a small window; she could feel the rectangular opening but found that it was boarded up securely. She went wearily to the table and sat down upon it, choosing it rather than a bunk of doubtful cleanliness.
She heard the man moving. Evidently he was busy with the horses. Then it grew very silent. There was no sound to tell her if he lounged at her door, if even now he was lifting his hand to the latch, if he had gone away.
Dawn came slowly. She had found that neither door or window permitted hope of escape and with a long hopeless sigh settled again upon her table, leaning back against the wall.
"At least," she told herself, "I am nicely dressed for an escapade like this. Looks almost premeditated, Beatrice, my dear!"
For the fighting spirit in her had beaten down her fear; she had rested; she had had much time to think; a growing hope had followed her thoughts. A hope which thrilled through her, which made less dark the night shutting her in, which whispered softly of that which Beatrice Corliss knew she desired with her whole heart.
"I believe I could almost go to sleep, now!" she whispered. But instead she slipped from the table and began a restless walking up and down praying for the dawn, praying for certainty. And, to be ready for whatever might come she sought in the cabin some weapon which might be required at her hands. For, even with hope for that which she did hope, there came many a long shudder that night. … When all that she could find was an old broken ax handle, she took it up and weighed it in her hands … If only Bill Steele could have seen the look in her eyes then! … and hid it at the foot of the bunk.
Since no night is so long as one filled with uncertainty, since uncertainty may grow all but unbearable when fed upon utter silence, Beatrice would have welcomed eagerly the least little sound from without. The moving of browsing horses, the wind in the trees, even the step of the man outside. So was she ready to welcome mightily that sound which did come to her, a man's voice shouting, the rattle of pistol shots, shouts and shots mingled, and then the flying thud of shod hoofs.
"Beatrice! Beatrice! Are you all right. Oh, Beatrice!"
At the first sound she had leaped forward, trembling with excitement at the door. With the words she dropped back slowly, her hands twisting before her. … It was Embry's voice …
Embry's hands jerked away the heavy bar outside and threw the door open. It was dawning across the mountains. She could see him outlined in the pale rectangle. In the hand hanging at his side was a revolver. He was breathing heavily.
"So you have come, have you?" she said quietly.
She went back to the bunk and sat down. Her eyes, scarcely to be seen in the gloom, were steady upon him. He came forward eagerly, his hand out to her.
"Beatrice!" he cried. "They have not harmed you? Oh, Beatrice …"
She made no answer but watched him keenly. He came on to her, his hand still out.
"I followed," he said hurriedly. "Was lucky enough to get my hands on one of the men … they had trouble with their engine, thank God! … made him tell me where you were. … What is it, Beatrice? What is it?"
"Liar, Joe Embry!" she told him steadily. "Liar and gambler and crook! And cur and coward!"
He started back as though her hand had slapped his flushed cheek.
"You have played the long chance, Joe Embry," she went on quietly. "You have been forced to it and, gambler style, have played the long chance. And lost! If you will stand aside I think I will go out."
While the dawn brightened about them Joe Embry did not stir for a long time, did not move hand or foot. Then at last, slowly, he slipped his revolver into his coat pocket. His face would have told nothing even had the light been better.
"I don't quite catch your meaning, Miss Corliss," he returned in his usual smooth, expressionless voice. "No doubt the experiences of the night have terribly upset you. Will you seek to be calm and …"
Her cool, contemptuous laughter cut him short.
"You lose, Joe Embry," was all that she said.
"Just what am I losing?" he asked quietly.
"Me! Me and my millions! What you have been playing for since I first met you. And shall I tell you why you lose? Because you are not man enough to win! When, the other night. Bill Steele played the long chance and bucked your own game at Boom Town he won … because, losing at first he but played the harder, because if twelve thousand dollars would not have done it he would have risked twice twelve thousand. Because he had made up his mind to win, and, being a man, he won! And you, Joe Embry, just miss that … just miss being a man!"
"Again," he said, though now with the first tremour in his voice, "I don't quite get you."
And again she laughed at him, fearless in her anger and scorn.
"Am I a fool?" she cried passionately. "Fool I have been, but not to the uttermost! Do I hear nothing of what goes forward, and hearing do I not think and wonder? Do I not know now that it was your money which financed that hideous house in Summit City? That it was you and not Bill Steele who put up those insulting signs? That it was Bill Steele who, before all men and in white rage, tore down your handiwork in Boom Town? That it has been for your own ends all along that you have urged me on to strife with him? That it was you tonight who dared have me brought here that it might be you who would come bravely to the rescue?"
"You are mistaken," he said sharply.
"I am not mistaken," she flared out at him. "Had Bill Steele wanted to carry me away tonight he would have done it alone, Bill Steele's way, a man's way! No, Mr. Embry, I am not mistaken. You have played your game, played it to the desperate end and have lost."
He stood in silence, his eyes keen and hard and penetrating. Then he shrugged.
"Have it your own way," he said coolly, and now more than ever did she marvel at the man's mastery of himself. "If you like, I have played a risky game because I have had to do it. And lost? Not yet, if you please. I have not lost and, by God, I am not going to lose. … We need not waste time in idle talk, need we? When a man plays a desperate game it is usually through no mere preference on his part; he does what he is driven to do. I have got to go through with this; I have got to see that in the end I don't lose out. You seem to know a very great deal; let me tell you something that you don't know. It is believed now that you were brought here forcibly. Here you shall stay … alone with me … all of today and tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow night. Then some of your friends, led here as by chance by a certain one of your guests, will find us together. Then, since it was I and I alone who told the kidnapping story, how is it going to look for you, Beatrice Corliss? What will they say?"
His words had come slowly, clearly and coolly. But swift had been the mounting of blood rushing into her cheeks, swift the blazing fires in her eyes.
"They will understand what I wish them to understand," he continued rather more quickly. "Compromised you will have been already, since they think that Steele has you. Do you wish further compromise, your name and mine food for gossip?"
Readily enough and more than once had she called Steele "Brute!" Embry's words she heard in dumb, frozen silence.
"You will marry me," he told her, his tone ringing with conviction, "because I love you, because I am the man for you, because you half love me now, … and finally, because there is nothing left for you; that or a bandied name. You have called me desperate. I am. Do you know just what that means?"
At one moment red with anger, now was she white with the passion gripping her, her voice coming harsh and uncertain.
"I'd choose disgrace, yes, and death, before you!" she cried wildly.
Behind her her hand had closed upon the broken ax handle, her only weapon. In another instant she might have launched herself at him, striking with all of the fierceness of her sex when awakened to utter loathing and terror. And, then, at her moment of greatest need, there came to her from without a sound which set her heart to leaping, her pulses bounding.
It was Bill Steele's voice, like some glorious trumpet, shouting cheerily:
"Coming, Trixie girl! Coming!"