The Golden Age of Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK ™, Vol. 1: George Allan England. George Allan England

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СКАЧАТЬ would have struck her down, but her circling arms impeded him.

      “’Polyte, I forgive you. No matter what you done, it’s all right. All right every way. I’m goin’ to stick. Nothin’ can take me away. I was with you an’ belonged to you, livin’—only to you, nobody else! I’ll go with you, dyin’. All the way, ’Polyte—all the way, to the end!”

      Stupid and brutalized, he peered at her in silence. Then he stared about him—at the swift, dun water and the sliding shore, now barely silhouetted against the darker hills that rimmed the sullen sky.

      Suddenly he passed a hand over his eyes and blinked. He seemed to be taking fresh thought and new decision. The exultation of having cheated the sheriffs had died in his veins. And now the distant threnody of the rapids, borne to his ears on the wind, stirred him to new endeavor.

      “Tais-toi! Shut up dat nonsense!” he growled with an oath. “You ain’t got no sweeps aboard here, hein?”

      “Nary sweep, and I’m glad of it! It’s good that I ain’t. Now you an’ me can finish together. I ain’t scared to! Are you?”

      “Huh! W’at you mean now?”

      Her eyes were filled with infinite yearning.

      “Leggo my arm! You’re crazy! W’at for you hang to me dat way?”

      She looked at him there in the dusk, silent a moment, while the great waters leaped and laughed in their wild strength.

      “We’ll go together!” she cried suddenly, her voice quivering with terrible eagerness.

      “Dieu! No! Go not’in’! I’m goin’ swim!”

      “’Polyte!”

      “Eh?”

      “I’ve gave you everything I ever had to give—gave you my own self, ’Polyte, and my love. And you never give me even a ring! Now do this for me, to pay for it—kiss me, just once, and let’s see if we cant scare up a prayer, somehow or ’nother.”

      “Va chez l’diab’! I’m goin’ to get t’rough this, moé! Get to land, I tell you, if you don’ butt in. Crazy, you! Shut up now, an’ lemme t’ink!”

      He shook himself free from the girl with a curse; and now, clinging to the rail, peered at the Canadian shore, drifting back and away with terrifying speed. Louder now and ever more ominous the thunders of the long rapids rose to his ears.

      “You can’t make it, nohow, ’Polyte,” the girl urged again close beside him, luring him eagerly to non-resistance and to the death she burned to share with him. “Nobody could live in this here current, and—”

      “Ferme ta gueule!” he howled, raising his fist in menace, while the boat reeled drunkenly down-stream.

      “No, I won’t keep still!” she retorted. “Looka here, ’Polyte! Even if you did make the shore in them striped clothes, what chance would you have? First woodsman you met he’d nail you. An’ without me—me to get grub to you up in our shack on Restigouche—”

      He menaced her so savagely with upraised fist that she held a moment’s silence.

      “Shut up an’ lemme t’ink, nom de Dieu!” he screamed at her with furious imprecations.

      But she would not be denied her plea. She seized his hand.

      “’Polyte,” she said, “you’ll go with me?”

      “No, by God!”

      “Then listen!”

      “Huh?”

      “See here! Give me them striped clothes. If you’re bound to try for it, give ’em to me, and take these here clothes o’ mine!”

      “W’at?”

      “Give me the stripes. Take the mackinaw an’ overalls. Maybe we can both make it. I’m with you, anyhow, to the finish. If we don’t get through, no matter. If we do, maybe if I’m in them stripes I can fool ’em for a while—help throw ’em off the track, so you can get clean away. If they shoot me, all right. Take my duds, anyhow take ’em, quick!”

      Stupefied, with still uncomprehending eyes, he stared. With ratlike suspicion he snarled at her, his teeth bare.

      “Huh! You tryin’ for play some trick on me now, sacré tonnerre?”

      “’Polyte! Me—play a trick on you?”

      “If I t’ink you try, I choke you wit’ dese two hands an’ t’row you in de rivière myself!”

      Her arms went round his neck, and in a sudden abandon she kissed the pale, unshaven lips.

      “Trust me, ’Polyte! Take my clothes—give me yourn! There may be some show yet, even now!”

      He thrust her away, and for a moment stood considering, while the boat, with ever-accelerating speed, swung down the last long reach of the smooth and crawling swirl where the waters paused a moment, hesitant, before the last mad plunge.

      Gnawing his nails, his face a terrible gray, eyes bestial, shoulders heavy and hulking, he stood there silent.

      “I cal’late we won’t get through, ’Polyte,” said the girl calmly, as though she had been at home and had spoken of the weather. A serene joy vibrated in her deepening voice. “It don’t matter either way. We’ll be together, whether we do or don’t. Both of us together, ’Polyte—together at last an’ always!”

      He did not even reply. Clutched on the rail of the lurching scow, he stared at the shore, gaging his chances.

      As the boat was driving now he knew it promised to slide over to the northern side of the long reach that ended at Crag Point. If so, it might go down the Canadian rapids, where some few craft had been known to live. It might conceivably reach Kamouraska Whirlpool, where it would be either grounded or swung close to shore. There might still be hope—perhaps—who could say?

      Savagely he whirled on the girl, and ripped his stripes, away with eager haste.

      “Quick, damn you!” he shouted. “Your clo’es ! Vite! Vite!”

      CHAPTER IV

      As the scow slued into the oily pause above the rapids, into the black and bubbling smoothness, overhung by drifting vapors, through which the soul-shaking reverberation bellowed, ’Polyte clad now in overalls and mackinaw—cursed the big boat with exceeding bitterness.

      “If I had a canoe, me—if I had a lumber-jack’s bateau—I make it, sure! But wit dis—”

      The girl, in convict garb, broke his thought.

      “Remember, I’m goin’ with you to the end! To the very end, no matter what happens!”

      He deigned no answer save a growl, and turned from her to stare at the sickening downward slide of foam ahead, dim in the murk. Came a moment’s silence while the scow, drifting, turning, neared the slant СКАЧАТЬ