When she came up with him he had thrown down his pack at the very edge
of the gorge. She came to his side, leaned forward, and looked down. Far
below plunged the wildest torrent she had ever seen; it hurled itself in
mad haste between boulders; it shot down over dizzy falls; it made for
itself a white mantle of frothing waters; it looked as black as ebony in
sections of smoother channel and as cold as death; it spun in
whirlpools, it filled the air with its din. And King meant to go down to
it; to cross it; to climb the dizzy cliff upon the further side! She
knew from his look, without asking. For just across the chasm from them
in the highest of the cliffs was the yawning black-mouthed place of
horrors. If one slipped on those bare rocks, clambering down or climbing
on the further side! She sat down suddenly; now when her lip was caught
between her teeth it was to fight back the tears. The world was so cold
and stern and brutal; this man was so much like the environment; she was
so woefully, desperately heart-sick. On this lofty crest of a
devil-tossed land she felt the insignificance of a fly clinging to the
brow of an abyss.
King went about his task methodically. Gloria watched him rather than
look across the rocky gorges. Slowly and with difficulty he made his way
down the steep wall of rocks, dragging and pulling the roll of bedding
and provisions after him. It required perhaps twenty minutes for him to
get to the bottom. She wondered where he would attempt a crossing; the
water looked so black in the pools, so violent over the rapids. He went
up-stream; there lay an old cedar log so that it spanned the current,
its sturdy old trunk ten feet above the water. For a moment King
disappeared under an out-thrust ledge; then she saw him again, the pack
on his shoulders. He had climbed up to the top of the log; he was
crossing. Where he went now she must follow!
Fascinated, she watched him. Once she thought he was going to fall. But
unerringly he trod the rude bridge underfoot, gained the other side
without mishap, tossed down his bundle, and lowered himself from the log
after it. Gloria marvelled at him; she could see his face and it was
impassive. Could he not hear the hostile voices of the raging waters?
Could he not feel the ominous threat of the bleak day and the monster
cliffs? Was he a man without imagination as he seemed to be without
fear?
On he went, down-stream again, clinging to the steep pitch of the gorge,
until he was almost under the mouth of the cavern. He put back his head
and looked up; it was a hundred feet above him and the cliffs, from
where Gloria sat numb with cold and dread, looked unsurmountable. Yet he
was going up them!
"And where he goes you will follow." It was as though the wild waters
below were chanting it into her ears and thereafter filling the gorge
with the mockery of derisive laughter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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