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[230] <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVII MASTERS AGAIN</h2></div> IN THE hour preceding dawn, Roy gave over his fight against an unaccustomed nervousness that had kept him awake, rose, took a sponge bath, shaved, and dressed himself for the day. He stole from the room, and quietly let himself out of the house, in confident expectation that the outdoors charm of dawn would soothe the unrest of his spirit. A slight noise arrested his attention as he went toward the north end of the cottage. He was wearing tennis shoes, of which the rubber soles made no sound on the ground, and he went forward with caution, his curiosity aroused, for he was certain that he caught a sibilant whisper. Already, there was a rosy grayness stealing on the air, so that he could see, though dimly. As he came to the corner of the house, he halted, and peered covertly forward. He could distinguish a shadow that moved a little. As his eyes grew accustomed to the twilight, he made out that there were two forms there, one much the larger. Again, his ears detected a[231] faint whispering, too indistinct to be understood. Then, one softly spoken phrase came clearly: “Come away—they’ll hear us.” It was the voice of the engineer. Roy’s muscles tensed for the leap forward. But he remembered the fact that as yet there was nothing in the way of direct evidence against Masters. He and his friends believed in the man’s guilt, but there was no proof. Now something might be said that would serve to convict the engineer of his crimes. Roy determined to listen, to learn what he might. The two who had met thus mysteriously moved toward the north-east, going swiftly toward the shore of the lake. At a safe distance behind them, Roy followed. The couple halted in an open place on the lake shore, where a cliff dropped sheer to the water some thirty feet, as much more to the bottom of the lake. Roy contrived to make a slow progress to a point in the undergrowth above them, hardly a rod away, and here he was able to understand every word spoken between them. And now, fire of wrath, kindled by jealousy, burned fiercely in Roy’s bosom,[232] for there came to him the voice of the smaller of the two persons, and it was the voice of a girl—the voice of May Thurston. Strangely, the idea that she could be the one thus to meet the engineer by stealth had not occurred to him hitherto, and the shock of the discovery came near to robbing him of his self-control. Indeed he made a movement to dart forth, but again his action was checked by the command of reason, though through evil seconds he fought against obedience. Then abruptly, his mood changed as he caught the significance of the dialogue between the speakers: “I knew it was you,” May was saying, in a voice vibrant with horror, which she strove to repress. “I knew it was you that first time, for I went up there, and found the rifle in the tree where you had been when I met you in the morning. I supposed, of course, that you understood how I knew, and so you wouldn’t dare to try again. And I thought you had gone. Thank God, I couldn’t sleep tonight, and came out in time to see you light that fuse—in time to put it out before you could stop me. I shall tell them everything in the morning, the first thing.” [233]There was a note of finality in her voice. It was evident that whatever tenderness she had felt for this man had been overwhelmed beneath the flood of her loathing for his crimes. Masters must have understood perfectly the uselessness of all effort to persuade her from her purpose, for he wasted not an instant in argument; instead, he acted. Before Roy could make a movement to interfere, the engineer had leaped forward. His long, powerful fingers closed in a strangling grasp on the soft, white throat of the girl, sank viciously into the tender flesh. May’s eyes protruded, her arms straightened out in a spasm of physical anguish, but no sound issued from the parted lips. Almost in the same second, Masters shifted his grip with lightning speed to her waist, lifted her easily, and swung her from the cliff out into space. Then, he went crashing off into the wood, running blindly, ere yet came the splash made by the girl’s falling body as it entered the water. Perhaps Masters did not hear the second splash, which followed after the briefest interval. If he heard, and thought of it at all, he probably deemed it caused by some rock his[234] movement had set rolling over the cliff. Assuredly, he never dreamed that there had been at hand a man to plunge after his victim, to save her from the death to which he had assigned her. In his intimacy with May, he had learned that she could not swim. In that deep water, where the naked cliff rising vertically offered no hand-hold, she, in her dazed condition, could have no chance to escape alive out of the peril into which his cruelty had cast her. Such was the engineer’s belief, and his feeling was merely of satisfaction in thus having rid himself of the witness who knew his blood-guiltiness. Even as his body clove the air in the long dive to the water, Roy was conscious of a pang of regret that he must suffer the enemy to escape. Then, he was beneath the surface, groping vainly. As his head shot clear again, his eyes glimpsed May’s head just disappearing near at hand. In a moment, he had reached her, was in time to seize her before she sank again. He was at home in the element, and, as the girl was unconscious, and so offered no resistance by a struggle, his task was all the easier. He quickly brought her to the[235] shore, at a point where there was a break in the cliff, and the ground sloped sharply to the level above. He did not pause until he had carried her in his arms to the top of the bank. There, he laid her face downward on the ground, then lifted her by the waist, so that the lungs might empty themselves of water. Afterward, he chafed her face and hands, and soon, to his great relief, she showed signs of returning consciousness. As she had been immersed for so brief a time, she speedily made a complete recovery, save for the weakness consequent to the shock of the whole experience. Indeed, her wretchedness was rather from the violence of the engineer’s attack than from the little water she had swallowed before her rescue by Roy. It was after the first confused questioning on her part, and Roy’s account of his presence on the scene, that she gave an explanation of the events that had led to the attempt against her life. She, too, had sought relief from wearisome wakefulness by wandering abroad in the night. While she was close to the cottage, yet in the shadows of the wood, she had heard a sound that attracted her attention, and had[236] watched carefully. There was a long silence before her interest was rewarded, but at last, she made out a movement on the north wall of the cottage itself, which was only a little way from her. Observing closely, she perceived that the object was a man, who was descending a ladder. It needed no more to fill her with alarm, and with fear came suspicion, which was almost certainty, as to the identity of the prowler. At first, however, she remained quiescent, doubtful as to her right course of conduct, anxious, if it were in any wise possible, to avoid alarming the household. During her period of delay, the man disappeared with the ladder, but he returned immediately, and forthwith she saw a match struck. It was extinguished at once, but, as the flame died out, she beheld a glowing spark, which remained against the wall. Even as she stared, it seemed to mount upward very slowly. She believed, then, that the desperate man had determined to set the cottage on fire, and a new horror gripped her, so that the scream she attempted did not pass her lips. In an instant, she had reached the cottage—she caught the spark between her palms, and smothered[237] the fire. Before she had time to understand the situation, she was hurled backward, and found herself in the arms of Masters, who was whispering fiercely in her ear to be silent. Without giving him any heed at first, she mechanically examined her smudged hands, and found that she held in them the charred end of a cord. As she drew the length of this to her, it came readily, and she was aware that it had broken from its fastening under the impact of the man’s leap on her. She knew, also, that this thing she was holding was a fuse. Her quick intelligence grasped the truth that the treacherous engineer, who now embraced her so roughly, had again sought to destroy his enemies. She was so agitated by the realization, so distraught by the thought that she was lying helpless within the criminal’s arms, while he held a hand over her mouth to silence her shrieks, that she even welcomed the suggestion overheard by Roy as to their moving to a greater distance from the cottage. The remainder of the incident was already known to her savior. As she ended her story, May, overwrought, began crying softly. There are times when the[238] simplicity of direct physical contact avails more than any magic of words to tell sympathy and love. It was so in this instance. Wet and bedraggled as he was from his descent into the lake, Roy drew into his arms the crouched form of the girl, and held her closely, while from them the rivulets slid silently away downward, to seek again the lake from which they had been ravished. The girl was first startled, then soothed, then wondrously content. The dawn came, stealing softly, and the light fell on them as a blessing. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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