Then a suspicion flashed into her mind. Perhaps she had missed the
trail,--the real trail. She could not have been mistaken in the signs;
there was the last pyramid in plain view still from where she stood.
But it was not unlikely that there was another trail from the sharp
turn where she had been confused for a moment, another exit made
necessary by the disruption of the cliff. She paused uncertainly,
looking now at the great heap of stone below her,--a thousand feet of
jagged rock and sliding sand,--and now back at the toilsome way she
had come. And then her eyes were caught by something that held her
spellbound with horror. Up to the rocky skyline from beyond the
barrier she had lately crossed there swept a tumbling mist, as
gray-black as the rock itself; and an instant after she felt a
stinging blow of wind on her cheek, and heard a low whisper in the air
around her.
She was roused by a sound that brought her up rigid and alert in the
saddle. What was that? A faint report, as of a gun--from somewhere.
She listened, turning her head slowly and cautiously, and holding her
breath. A long time, it seemed to her, she listened; and heard only
that warning whisper of the wind across the flat. But there! Another!
It came up faintly from below, expiring at the very edge of the
precipice. She peered guardedly down into the chasm, and saw nothing
but the vast pile of debris, and a bit of green meadow over against
the edge of the black forest. But it was a gun! She began now to
examine the edge of the cliff. To her left it fell sheer away hundreds
of feet to the lower masses of fallen stone; and there was no trail on
that side. Dismounting, she led her horse slowly along the brink at
her right; and so came at length to the spot where the trail dropped
to the first incline. It seemed incredible; but then, even as the word
framed itself in her mind, her heart bounded up into her throat.
There--there--under her eyes were hoofprints, the print of steel shoes
in the sand; and they went down, down, down. And, as if to remove the
last of doubt and hesitancy, there came wavering up from below a third
thin report, a little more distinct than the others, and undeniable.
She lifted her face toward the sky, and pressed her hands upon her
breast.
"God help us! God help us--both!" she murmured.
Then she remounted Tuesday, and forced him over the edge of the
cliff.
* * * * *
Haig lay on his back, his head against the stone by which he had
recovered the coveted revolver. A handkerchief dyed red and blackened
with powder stains lay against one cheek. His right hand still
clutched the revolver.
He did not move, and she thought him dead. Then, through the blackness
that enveloped her, she dully and slowly comprehended that his eyes
were closed, not staring up at her. She knelt swiftly, and pressed her
head to his breast; and then leaped to her feet with a wild outcry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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