Comrades Part 44

Norman turned his face away and looked over the still, blue waters, struggling with himself as he felt the tug of her soft hand on his heart.

Suddenly a hundred men with Wolf at their head sprang over the steep embankment and rushed to the dredge. Tom leaped to his feet and lifted his bomb without a word.

Norman covered Barbara and grasped his uplifted arm.

"It's all over boys. I've surrendered!" he shouted.

Barbara faced Wolf with blazing eyes:

"You have betrayed my trust!"

Wolf brushed her aside and confronted Norman, who had thrown the bomb he had taken from Tom's hand into the sea.

Norman paid no attention to Wolf, and seemed to see only the girl's face convulsed with pa.s.sion. His eyes never left her for a moment.

Wolf turned and secured the other men who had defended the dredge, marching them with their hands tied behind their backs between two rows of guardsmen off to jail.

Norman spoke at last to Barbara in low, cold tones:

"I congratulate you."

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"That you are a superb actress. You have played your part to perfection. Your rle was very dramatic, too. A clumsy woman would have bungled it, and lost even at the last moment."

"You cannot believe that I willingly betrayed you?" she cried, in anguish.

"I wish I had died before I knew it," he answered, bitterly.

Barbara pressed close to his side and seized his hand fiercely. He turned away with a shudder.

"Look at me," she pleaded.

He turned and faced her with a look of anger.

"Words are idle. Deeds speak louder than words."

"Norman, you are killing me with this cruel doubt!" she sobbed. "I give up! I love you! I love you!"

She threw her arms around his neck and her head sank on his breast.

He resisted for a moment, then clasped her to his heart, bent and kissed her with pa.s.sionate tenderness.

"You believe me now?" she cried, through her tears.

"G.o.d forgive me for doubting you for a moment!" he answered, earnestly.

The guard suddenly drew Norman from her arms, tied his hands, and led him away to prison while the little figure followed, sobbing in helpless anguish.

Wolf walked behind, his big mouth twitching with smiles he could not suppress.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A PRIMITIVE LOVER

Wolf led Barbara into his office, lighted the lamp, and waited in patience for her first blinding surrender to grief to spend itself before speaking.

He stood over her at last with a smile, bent and touched her brown curls.

The girl sprang to her feet and faced him.

"It's no use, my beauty, I'm on to your tricks now!"

The little figure stiffened, and her gaze was steady, though her fingers trembled as she nervously twisted the tiny handkerchief she held.

"You've been playing me for a fool for the past two months. Your eyes have been laughing into mine with all sorts of little daring suggestions when you had an axe to grind at my expense. And then you had a habit of disappearing until you needed something else. You were off billing and cooing with our hero and smiling at my stupidity behind my back."

"I've spoken to him to-day," Barbara answered solemnly, "the first words of love that ever pa.s.sed my lips."

"You did pretty well for an amateur, if that was the first kiss you ever gave him."

"It was the first!" she said, defiantly.

"It will be the last for him."

"Perhaps," she answered, with a curl to her lips.

"You think I don't mean it?" Wolf demanded, stepping close and thrusting his ma.s.sive head forward while his big fists closed.

"I don't doubt it," she answered, firmly. "But I'm not afraid of you, Herman."

"You doubt my power?" he asked.

"Over others, no."

"But over you?"

Wolf suddenly grasped her.

The girl shrank back in terror for an instant, and then, to his surprise, her hand was still and cold and steady. Not a tremor in the tense body. Her brown eyes, staring wide, held his gaze without a sign of weakness or of fear. Something in her att.i.tude startled the beast within him. He suddenly dropped her hand and changed his tone.

"Come, let's not quarrel! Don't be foolish. It is for you I've been scheming and planning the past year. For you the regent's palace was planned. Within five years a hundred thousand people will be here.

The State will be rich beyond our wildest dreams, and I shall be the State. I want you to sit by my side."