The Hunted Woman Part 25

With that she left him, and she did not look back as she and Peggy Blackton went into the house. But as they drove away they saw two faces at the window that overlooked the townward road, and two hands were waving good-bye. Both could not be Peggy Blackton's hands.

"Joanne and I are going for a walk this afternoon, Blackton," said Aldous, "and I just want to tell you not to worry if we're not back by four o'clock. Don't wait for us. We may be watching the blow-up from the top of some mountain."

Blackton chuckled.

"Don't blame you," he said. "From an observer's point of view, John, it looks to me as though you were going to have something more than hope to live on pretty soon!"

"I--I hope so."

"And when I was going with Peggy I wouldn't have traded a quiet little walk with her--like this you're suggesting--for a front seat look at a blow-up of the whole Rocky Mountain system!"

"And you won't forget to tell Mrs. Blackton that we may not return by four o'clock?"

"I will not. And"--Blackton puffed hard at his pipe--"and, John--the Tete Jaune preacher is our nearest neighbour," he finished.

From then until dinner time John Aldous lived in an atmosphere that was not quite real, but a little like a dream. His hopes and his happiness were at their highest. He knew that Joanne would go walking with him that afternoon, and in spite of his most serious efforts to argue to the contrary he could not keep down the feeling that the event would mean a great deal for him. Almost feverishly he interested himself in Paul Blackton's work. When they returned to the bungalow, a little before noon, he went to his room, shaved himself, and in other ways prepared for dinner.

Joanne and the Blacktons were waiting when he came down.

His first look at Joanne a.s.sured him. She was dressed in a soft gray walking-suit. Never had the preparation of a dinner seemed so slow to him, and a dozen times he found himself inwardly swearing at Tom, the Chinese cook. It was one o'clock before they sat down at the table and it was two o'clock when they arose. It was a quarter after two when Joanne and he left the bungalow.

"Shall we wander up on the mountain?" he asked. "It would be fine to look down upon the explosion."

"I have noticed that in some things you are very observant," said Joanne, ignoring his question. "In the matter of curls, for instance, you are unapproachable; in others you are--quite blind, John Aldous!"

"What do you mean?" he asked, bewildered.

"I lost my scarf this morning, and you did not notice it. It is quite an unusual scarf. I bought it in Cairo, and I don't want to have it blown up."

"You mean----"

"Yes. I must have dropped it in the cavern. I had it when we entered."

"Then we'll return for it," he volunteered. "We'll still have plenty of time to climb up the mountain before the explosion."

Twenty minutes later they came to the dark mouth of the tunnel. There was no one in sight, and for a moment Aldous searched for matches in his pocket.

"Wait here," he said. "I won't be gone two minutes."

He entered, and when he came to the chamber he struck a match. The lantern was on the empty box. He lighted it, and began looking for the scarf.

Suddenly he heard a sound. He turned, and saw Joanne standing in the glow of the lantern.

"Can you find it?" she asked.

"I haven't--yet."

They bent over the rock floor, and in a moment Joanne gave a little exclamation of pleasure as she caught up the scarf. In that same moment, as they straightened and faced each other, John Aldous felt his heart cease beating, and Joanne's face had gone as white as death. The rock-walled chamber was atremble; they heard a sullen, distant roaring, and as Aldous caught Joanne's hand and sprang toward the tunnel the roar grew into a deafening crash, and a gale of wind rushed into their faces, blowing out the lantern, and leaving them in darkness. The mountain seemed crumbling about them, and above the sound of it rang out a wild, despairing cry from Joanne's lips. For there was no longer the brightness of suns.h.i.+ne at the end of the tunnel, but darkness--utter darkness; and through that tunnel there came a deluge of dust and rock that flung them back into the blackness of the pit, and separated them.

"John--John Aldous!"

"I am here, Joanne! I will light the lantern!"

His groping hands found the lantern. He relighted it, and Joanne crept to his side, her face as white as the face of the dead. He held the lantern above him, and together they stared at where the tunnel had been. A ma.s.s of rock met their eyes. The tunnel was choked. And then, slowly, each turned to the other; and each knew that the other understood--for it was Death that whispered about them now in the restless air of the rock-walled tomb, a terrible death, and their lips spoke no words as their eyes met in that fearful and silent understanding.

CHAPTER XIX

Joanne's white lips spoke first.

"The tunnel is closed!" she whispered.

Her voice was strange. It was not Joanne's voice. It was unreal, terrible, and her eyes were terrible as they looked steadily into his. Aldous could not answer; something had thickened in his throat, and his blood ran cold as he stared into Joanne's dead-white face and saw the understanding in her eyes. For a s.p.a.ce he could not move, and then, as suddenly as it had fallen upon him, the effect of the shock pa.s.sed away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The tunnel is closed," she whispered.... "That means we have just forty-five minutes to live.... Let us not lie to one another."]

He smiled, and put out a hand to her.

"A slide of rock has fallen over the mouth of the tunnel," he said, forcing himself to speak as if it meant little or nothing. "Hold the lantern, Joanne, while I get busy."

"A slide of rock," she repeated after him dumbly.

She took the lantern, her eyes still looking at him in that stricken way, and with his naked hands John Aldous set to work. Five minutes and he knew that it was madness to continue. Hands alone could not clear the tunnel.

And yet he worked, tearing into the rock and shale like an animal; rolling back small boulders, straining at larger ones until the tendons of his arms seemed ready to snap and his veins to burst. For a few minutes after that he went mad. His muscles cracked, he panted as he fought with the rock until his hands were torn and bleeding, and over and over again there ran through his head Blackton's last words--_Four o'clock this afternoon!--Four o'clock this afternoon!_

Then he came to what he knew he would reach very soon, a solid wall! Rock and shale and earth were packed as if by battering rams. For a few moments he fought to control himself before facing Joanne. Over him swept the grim realization that his last fight must be for her. He steadied himself, and wiped the dust and grime from his face with his handkerchief. For the last time he swallowed hard. His soul rose within him almost joyously now in the face of this last great fight, and he turned--John Aldous, the super-man.

There was no trace of fear in his face as he went to her. He was even smiling in that ghostly glow of the lantern.

"It is hard work, Joanne."

She did not seem to hear what he had said. She was looking at his hands.

She held the lantern nearer.

"Your hands are bleeding, John!"

It was the first time she had spoken his name like that, and he was thrilled by the calmness of her voice, the untrembling gentleness of her hand as it touched his hand. From his bruised and bleeding flesh she raised her eyes to him, and they were no longer the dumb, horrified eyes he had gazed into fifteen minutes before. In the wonder of it he stood silent, and the moment was weighted with an appalling silence.

It came to them both in that instant--the _tick-tick-tick_ of the watch in his pocket!

Without taking her eyes from his face she asked:

"What time is it. John?"

"Joanne----"

"I am not afraid," she whispered. "I was afraid this afternoon, but I am not afraid now. What time is it, John?"