CHAPTER XVII

In the dark hall, bound hand and foot, Bud Childers lay flat on his back staring into Hell. In the old days of the Spanish Inquisition devilish minds spent days of thought in devising new tortures by which to bring with a nice appreciation of every fine point fresh torments to individual cases. The infliction of pain was a profession. But even these fanatical experts could have contrived nothing better adapted to the especial requirements of Childers than this which Allston--wholly without that object in mind--had hit upon.

Bud’s very soul was seared by the realization of how he had been foiled, outwitted, and manhandled by this pink-cheeked stranger--this honey-lapping interloper--this lily-fingered rival. The fellow had thrown and tethered him as though he were a yearling steer. And he had done this in Bud’s own home--in his own inviolable cove. Allston had kicked him one side like a yellow dog within the sacred precincts of his own shack and left him like a crippled pup in the dark. And Roxie had been a witness of this ignominy.

But that was not all. That was enough to make a man writhe like a salted worm, but it was not all. Allston was still here. He was occupying Bud’s own living-room. He was sitting in one of Bud’s chairs. He was warming himself before Bud’s fire. And this with Bud’s own woman aiding and abetting.

Gawd A’mighty! Gawd A’mighty!

As the full meaning of it all burned into his brain, Bud found it as difficult to breathe as though he were being strangled. He could hear their voices from the next room, though he could not make out their words. That was worse. It left him free to imagine. They were talking about him and laughing.

Gawd A’mighty!

Bud strained at the ropes binding his hands--strained until the cords bit into his flesh. He tested his strong legs against the ankle straps until his muscles cramped into knots. He turned his head this way and that, his mouth open like a snapping dog, until the sweat stood out upon his thin forehead in great beads. It ran down into his narrowed eyes, burning them with salt.

Here in his own shack! Here where for three generations no man had dared tread without being asked! Here in these rooms he had made ready for Roxie--she who on the morrow was to have been his bride! The egg-eyed hornyhead!

He was breathing like a man who has run a mile. His big hairy chest--made deep by so many trips up and down the mountain--heaved spasmodically. It was well his heart was strong--else something might have snapped. It was carrying a heavy load. As it was there were moments when those thin lips covering that iron jaw grew first purple and then white.

He could hear their voices and hear their feet when they moved. If Allston had only come out here occasionally and kicked him, he could have stood it better. But the man ignored him as though he were not there. They talked on and for all he knew held hands--in the room where the sprig of laurel stood in a bottle on the table: on the table covered with new oilcloth which he had ridden to the village to buy for her. This man was treading with his dirty feet the floor Bud had got down on his knees to clean for Roxie. And she was in there beside him.

Bud lay passive for a few minutes. The cold wind slithered in beneath the door and marked him as with a knife-blade where it touched his skin. It played with his disheveled black hair. It worried, like a playful pup, the bottom edges of his trousers and his ankles. It maddened him like something alive bent upon teasing. He kicked out at it with both tied feet.

And the man who had done all this was the man he had allowed to go when he had drawn a sure bead on his heart that day in the cove. What a cussed fool he had been not to put an end to him then and there! God give him one more such chance--just one more! God give him half a chance--just a fighting chance! With a gun or a knife or with his naked fists. He had not fought with his hands since he was a boy, but now he felt the instincts of a mountain cat. He craved to claw and to tear. He ached to bite with his yellow teeth as animals bite.

Again he tested his strength until the muscles in his throat stood out like whipcords. He could not understand why the rope did not break. With the strength now latent in him he felt that he could snap iron chains. It was maddening. When finally he sank back once again limp after his effort, he felt a choking sensation in his throat like that which comes to small boys helpless in their rage. Something akin to tears moistened his hard blue eyes. To offset this, he voiced an ugly oath below his breath.

He flopped over on his side to relieve the weight of his body on his hands. There was humiliation in that act itself. It gave him the effect of groveling. He had seen dogs, belly to the ground, crawl along like that, and it always filled him with contempt. He felt the same contempt for himself. But quickly following every such emotion came his black rage against Allston--the man who forced upon him each additional torment.

Gawd A’mighty!

But all this while Bud spoke never a word out loud. There were moments when he could have shrieked in rage; there were other moments when wild oaths sought expression. But every time so tempted he brought his thin lips tight over his teeth. Had Allston himself come out here, he would have been met with stolid silence. Speech to Bud, when highly moved, expressed nothing. It was too utterly inadequate. His emotions drove him to stolidness--to the stoicism of the Indian.

At the end of ten minutes Bud had spent in unavailing struggle the first mad onrush of his blind rage. By brute force he had failed to accomplish anything except to lacerate his flesh. He accepted this fact as a fresh humiliation. He had pride in his physical strength. The deepest satisfaction he could have had at the moment would have been to burst these bonds Allston had fastened upon him.

Exhausted mentally and physically, he lay quiet for a moment. Passive, he found himself able to think more clearly. It was barely possible that what could not be accomplished in one way might be in another. A rat was a small animal, and yet by industry and patience he generally managed to secure his ends. Bud had seen them by constant gnawing eat their way through oak beams that would have foiled the strength of a bear. A rope was made up of many fine strands. If a man could break them one by one, it was only a question of time when he would have them all severed.

Bud squirmed his long fingers tipped with hard nails until they reached the hempen cords. Then he began to scratch against them--slowly, laboriously, painfully. It was a tedious process. But the rope was old. He could feel the outer strands fuzz up as he continued. He could also feel the calloused tips of his fingers quicken as the skin wore away. It was a question which would last the longer. It was a question how much time he had, anyway. But with those voices coming to him from the next room he must be doing something. And one can never tell.

Gawd A’mighty, if he should get free--!