The Top of the World Part 39

His hands were clenched as he left her. She did not dare to follow him or call him back.

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE NEW ERA

Looking back later, it almost seemed to Sylvia that the days that followed were as an interval between two acts in the play of life.

It was a time of transition, though what was happening within her she scarcely realized.

One thing only did she fully recognize, and that was that the old frank comrades.h.i.+p between herself and Burke had come to an end.

During all the anxiety of those days and the many fluctuations through which Guy pa.s.sed, Burke came and went as an outsider, scarcely seeming to be interested in what pa.s.sed, never interfering. He never spoke to Kieff unless circ.u.mstances compelled him, and with Sylvia herself he was so reticent as to be almost forbidding. Her mind was too full of Guy, too completely occupied with the great struggle for his life, to allow her thoughts to dwell very much upon any other subject. She saw that Burke's physical wants were attended to, and that was all that she had time for just then. He was sleeping in the spare hut which she had prepared for Guy with such tender care, and she was quite satisfied as to his comfort there. It came to be something of a relief when every evening he betook himself thither. Though she never actually admitted it to herself, she was always more at ease when he was out of the bungalow.

She and Kieff were fighting inch by inch to save Guy, and she could not endure any distractions while the struggle lasted. For it was a desperate fight, and there was little rest for either of them.

Her first sensation of repugnance for this man had turned into a species of unwilling admiration, His adroitness, his resource, the almost uncanny power of his personality, compelled her to a curious allegiance. She gave him implicit obedience, well knowing that, though in all else they were poles asunder, in this thing they were as one. They were allied in the one great effort to defeat the Destroyer. They fought day and night, shoulder to shoulder, never yielding, never despairing, never slacking.

And very gradually at last the tide that had ebbed so low began to turn. Through bitter suffering, often against his will, Guy Ranger was drawn slowly back again to the world he had so nearly left.

Kieff never let him suffer for long. He gave him oblivion whenever the weakened endurance threatened to fail. And Sylvia, seeing that the flickering strength was always greater under the influence of Kieff's remedy, raised no protest. They fought death with the weapon of death. It would be time enough when the battle was won to cast that weapon aside.

During those days of watching and conflict, she held little converse with Guy. He was like a child, content in his waking hours to have her near him, and fretful if she were ever absent.

Under Kieff's guidance, she nursed him with unfailing care, developing a skill with which she had never credited herself. As gradually his strength returned, he would have her do everything for him, resenting even Kieff's interference though never actively resisting his authority. He seemed to stand in awe of Kieff, Sylvia noticed, a feeling from which she herself was not wholly free. For there was a subtle mastery about him which influenced her in spite of herself. But she had put aside her instinctive dislike of the man because of the debt she owed him. He had brought Guy back, had wrenched him from the very jaws of Death, and she would never forget it. He had saved her from a life-long sorrow.

And so, as slowly Guy returned, she schooled herself to subdue a certain distrust of him which was never wholly absent from her consciousness. She forced herself to treat him as a friend. She silenced the warning voice within her that had bade her so constantly beware. Perhaps her own physical endurance had begun to waver a little after the long strain. Undoubtedly his influence over her was such as it could scarcely have become under any other circ.u.mstances. Her long obedience to his will in the matter of Guy had brought her to a state of submission at which once she would have scoffed. And when at last, the worst of the battle over, she was overtaken by an overpowering weariness of mind and body, all things combined to place her at a hopeless disadvantage.

One day, after three weeks of strenuous nursing, she quitted Guy's room very suddenly to battle with a ghastly feeling of faintness which threatened to overwhelm her. Kieff, who had been present with Guy, followed her almost immediately to her own room, and found her with a deathly face groping against the wall as one stricken blind.

He took her firmly by the shoulders and forced her down over the back of a chair, holding her so with somewhat callous strength of purpose, till with a half-hysterical gasp she begged him to set her free. The colour had returned to her face when she stood up, but those few moments of weakness had bereft her of her self-control.

She could not restrain her tears.

Kieff showed no emotion of any sort. With professional calm, he put her down upon the bed, and stood over her, feeling her pulse.

"You want sleep," he said.

She turned her face away from him, ashamed of the weakness she could not hide. "Yes, I know. But I can't sleep. I'm always listening. I can't help it. My brain feels wound up.

Sometimes--sometimes it feels as if it hurts me to shut my eyes."

"There's a remedy for that," said Kieff, and his hand went to his pocket.

She looked at him startled. "Oh, not that! Not that! I couldn't.

It would be wrong."

"Not if I advise it," said Kieff, with a self-a.s.surance that seemed to knock aside her resistance as of no account.

She knew she ought to have resisted further, but somehow she could not. His very impa.s.sivity served to make opposition impossible.

It came to her that the inevitable was upon her, and whatever she said would make no difference. Moreover, she was too tired greatly to care.

She uttered a little cry when a few seconds later she felt the needle pierce her flesh, but she submitted without a struggle.

After all, what did it matter for once? And she needed rest so much.

With a sigh she surrendered herself, and was amazed at the swift relief that came to her. It was like the rolling away of an immense weight, and immediately she seemed to float upwards, upwards, like a soaring bird.

Kieff remained by her side, but his presence did not trouble her.

She was possessed by an ecstasy so marvellous that she had no room for any other emotion; She was as one borne on wings, ascending, ever ascending, through an atmosphere of transcendent gold.

Once he touched her forehead, and bringing his hand slowly downwards compelled her to close her eyes. A brief darkness came upon her, and she uttered a m.u.f.fled protest. But when he lifted his hand again, her eyes did not open. The physical had fallen from her, material things had ceased to matter. She was free--free as the ether through which she floated. She was mounting upwards, upwards, upwards, through celestial morning to her castle at the top of the world. And the magic--the magic that beat in her veins--was the very elixir of life within her, inspiring her, uplifting her. For a s.p.a.ce she hovered thus, still mounting, but imperceptibly, caught as it were between earth and heaven. Then the golden glamour about her turned to a mystic haze. Strange visions, but half comprehended, took shape and dissolved before her. She believed that she was floating among the mountain-crests with the Infinite all about her. The wonder of it and the rapture were beyond all utterance, beyond the grasp of human knowledge; the joy exceeded all that she had ever known. And so by exquisite phases, she entered at last a great vastness--a slumber-s.p.a.ce where all things were forgotten, lost in the radiance of an unbroken peace.

She folded the wings of her enchantment with absolute contentment and slept. She had come to a new era in her existence. She had reached the top of the world. . . .

It was long, long after that she awoke, returning to earth with the feeling of one revisiting old haunts after half a lifetime. She was very tired, and her head throbbed painfully, but at the back of her brain was an urgent sense of something needed, something that must be done. She raised herself with immense effort,--and met the eyes of Burke seated by her side.

He was watching her with a grave, unstirring attention that did not waver for an instant as she moved. It struck her that there was a strange remoteness about him, almost as if he belonged to another world. Or was it she--she who had for a s.p.a.ce overstepped the boundary and wandered awhile through the Unknown?

He spoke, and in his voice was a depth that awed her.

"Do you know me?" he said.

She gazed at him, bewildered, wondering. "But of course I know you! Why do you ask? Are you--changed in any way?"

He made an odd movement, as if the question in her wide eyes pierced him. He did not answer her in words; only after a moment he took her hand and pushed up the sleeve as though looking for something.

She lay pa.s.sive for a few seconds, watching him. Then suddenly, blindly, she realized what was the object of his search. She made a quick, instinctive movement to frustrate him.

His hand tightened instantly upon hers; he pointed to a tiny mark upon the inside of her arm. "How did you get that?" he said.

His eyes looked straight into hers. There was something pitiless, something almost brutal, in their regard. In spite of herself she flinched, and lowered her own.

"Answer me!" he said.

She felt the hot colour rush in a guilty flood over her face. "It was only--for once," she faltered. "I wanted sleep, and I couldn't get it."

"Kieff gave it you," he said, his tone grimly insistent.

She nodded. "Yes. He meant well. He saw I was f.a.gged out."

Burke was silent for a s.p.a.ce, still grasping her hand. Her head was throbbing dizzily, but she would not lower it to the pillow again in his presence. She felt almost like a prisoner awaiting sentence.

"Did he give it you against your will?" he asked at length.

"Not altogether." Her voice was almost a whisper. Her heart was beating with hard, uneven strokes. She felt sick and faint.

Burke moved suddenly, releasing her hand. He rose with that decision characteristic of him and walked across the room. She heard the splash of water in a basin, and then he came back to her.

As if she had been a child, he raised her to lean against him, and proceeded very quietly to bathe her face and head with ice-cold water.

She shrank at the chill of it, but he persisted in his task, and very soon she began to feel refreshed.