CHAPTER III

THE TEMPTER'S VOICE

On the sixth day Bivens rose early and declared that he would try the ducks. The day before had been, in the local vernacular, a "weather breeder"--a day of breathless seas, a soft haze hanging from the sky, a lazy, sensuous, dreamy, alluring tenderness in the air.

The barometer was falling now and dark, snowy-looking clouds were piling up on the western horizon. A breeze came stealing out of the cloud-banks with the chill of snow in its breath.

Bivens insisted on going out at once, against the advice of Stuart and the protest of the guide. He not only insisted on going after the ducks but, what was worse, swore that he was going to get his mail and telegrams from the shore.

Stuart protested vigorously.

"I've told you that the guide is the only man who can run that tender over the crooked course to the mainland, and if he goes away we'll have no one to take us out."

"What do you need a guide for? It's not a half-mile to those blinds. I've seen you every day go back and forth in plain view of the yacht. Nan could row out there and back by herself. Send him ashore. Don't you know how to put out your own decoys?"

He spoke with the stubbornness of a spoiled child.

"If a bad blow comes we'll need two strong men to handle the boat."

"Rot!" Bivens cried. "We've got two tenders. Send your guide ashore with one of the sailors to run his engine. The other man can tow us out and back."

Against his judgment he allowed Bivens to have his way.

The little man clambered on deck and bustled about, giving orders to the sailor who was stowing the lunch and ammunition.

When Stuart stopped the tender at the first blind, about five hundred yards away, Bivens protested.

"Here, here! I'm no mollycoddle if I have been sick. I can throw a stone to this blind. This isn't the one I want. There it is down yonder toward the end of that marsh. I saw thousands of ducks circling around it yesterday."

"But they'll come here to-day," Stuart urged. "The wind has shifted and they shift their course with the wind. This blind is all right."

"I won't have it!" Bivens stormed. "Go to the other!"

"This is all right to-day, I tell you," Stuart replied.

Bivens's face flushed with rage.

"Look here, Jim, I've given in to you every day we've been down here. I'm going to have my way this time."

He turned to the sailor who was running the tender's engine and spoke sharply.

"Go to that other blind!"

The sailor sprang to the wheel and the tender shot ahead. Stuart settled back in his seat with angry disgust, and Bivens laughed.

"Cheer up, it's no use to give orders for a funeral yet. If we can't get back to that yacht in fifteen minutes against any wind that blows to-day, I'll eat my hat. I'm feeling better than I have for months. I'm in for a good time. Don't be a piker."

Stuart determined to make the best of it.

"All right," he answered cheerfully.

"I'll be responsible for any trouble that comes, so don't you worry."

"You're not in New York now, Cal," Stuart said with a grunt. "You may own the earth, but the sea still has a way of its own."

"Good Lord, man, I could walk back to the yacht at low water, it all goes bare."

"Yes, unless the wind hauls in to the northeast and rolls in a big tide through that inlet."

"All right, let her roll. The tender will come back and pull us in."

By the time the decoys were out it began to spit snow, and the wind had freshened.

As the sailor was about to start back, Stuart spoke sharply:

"Listen to me now, Niels."

The Norwegian tipped his cap and stood at attention.

"Yes, sir!"

"Keep a sharp watch on this weather. If you see the wind haul to the north, put a compass in your tender, take your bearing from the yacht to this blind, in case it should shut in thick, and come after us in double-quick time. You understand?"

"Yes sir."

"If it looks bad, don't wait too long."

"I'll watch it, sir," was the prompt response, as he stooped to start his wheel.

"And Niels!" Stuart called again. "If it should be blowing a gale you'd better bring the cook along to steer while you watch your engine. Have him fix a light supper before he starts.

"Aye, aye, sir!" he cried, as the little craft shot away, leaving a streak of white foam in her wake.

Bivens was vastly amused at Stuart's orders.

"Jim, you're as fussy as an old maid. You ought to marry and join the human race."

Stuart scanned the horizon, watching a flock of ducks working their way northward. The sign was ominous. Birds know which way the wind is going to blow before it comes, and if a gale is on the way they always work into the teeth of it. They are all equipped with barometers somewhere inside their little brain-cells.

It was useless to tell this to Bivens. He didn't have sense enough to understand it. But he quietly made up his mind to take up the decoys and row in as soon as the tide ebbed down to two feet of water.

In the meantime he would make the best of the situation. The ducks began to come in and decoy like chickens. He killed half a dozen and in the excitement began to forget the foolhardiness of the trip.

Bivens shot a dozen times, missed, got disgusted and began to fret and complain.

At first Stuart made no answer to his nagging suggestions until Bivens got to the one thing that had evidently been rankling in his heart.

"Jim, you're the biggest puzzle I ever struck. Every time I look at you I have to rub my eyes to see if I'm awake. Would you mind telling me the mental process by which you rejected my offer?"

"What's the use to discuss it, I've made up my mind--and that's the end of it."

"But I want to know," Bivens persisted. "Your silence on the subject makes me furious every time I think of it. How any human being outside of an insane asylum could be so foolish is beyond my ken."

"I know it is, so let's drop it," Stuart interrupted.

"I won't drop it. You rile me. You're the only man I've struck on this earth that didn't have his price."

"Perhaps we have different ways of fixing values. To me value is a thing which gives life. If it brings death is it valuable? You are not yet fifty years old and a wreck. What's the use? What can you do with your money now?"

"It brings luxury, ease, indulgence, power, admiration, wonder, and the envy of the world."

"What's the good of luxury if you can't enjoy it; ease if you never take it; indulgence when you have lost the capacity to play; power if you're too busy getting more to stop and wield it?"

"Jim, you're the biggest fool I ever knew, without a single exception," Bivens said, petulantly.

Stuart glanced anxiously toward the yacht. It was three o'clock. The tide had ebbed half out and there was barely enough water on the flats now for the tender to cross. It was snowing harder and the wind had begun to inch in toward the north.

"No more ducks to-day, Cal," Stuart said briskly, returning to his tone of friendly comradeship. "We've got to get away from here. It's getting colder every minute. It will be freezing before night."

"Well, let it freeze," Bivens cried, peevishly. "What do we care? It's just ten minutes' run when the tender comes."

To Stuart's joy he saw the men start the tender.

"It's all right, they're coming now!" he exclaimed. "We'll have another crack or two before they get here."

He crouched low in the blind for five minutes without getting a shot, rose and looked for the tender. To his horror he saw her drifting helpless before the wind, her engine stopped and both men waving frantically their signals of distress.

"My God!" he exclaimed. "The tender's engine is broken down."

Bivens rose and looked in the direction Stuart pointed.

"Why don't the fools use the oars?"

"They can't move her against this wind!"

"Will they go to sea?" Bivens asked, with some anxiety.

"No, they'll bring up somewhere on a mud flat or marsh in the bay on this low water, but God help them if they can't fight their way back before flood tide."

"Why?" Bivens asked, incredulously.

"They'd freeze to death in an open boat to-night."

"Norwegian sailors? Bosh! Not on your life! They were born on icebergs."

Stuart rose and looked anxiously at the receding tide. He determined to try to reach the yacht at once. He put the guns into their cases, snapped the lids of the ammunition boxes, stowed the ducks he had killed under the stern of the boat, and stepped out into the shallow, swiftly moving water. He decided to ignore Bivens and regard him as so much junk. He pulled the boat out of the blind, shoved it among the decoys, and took them up quickly while the little financier sat muttering peevish, foolish complaints.

"Now if you will lie down on the stern deck, I'll see if I can shove her."

"Why can't I sit up?" Bivens growled.

"You can, of course, but I can't move this boat against the wind if you do."

"All right, but it's a rotten position to be in and I'm getting cold."

Stuart made no reply, but began to shove the little boat as rapidly as possible across the shallow water.

The snow had ceased to fall and the cold was increasing every moment. He scanned the horizon anxiously, but could see no sign of the disabled tender.

He had gone perhaps two hundred yards when the boat grounded on the flats. He saw at once that it was impossible to make the yacht until flood tide. The safest thing to do was to get out and push to the island marsh, two or three hundred yards away. There they could take exercise enough to keep warm until the tide came in again. It would be a wait of two hours in bitter cold and pitch darkness, but there was no help for it.

Bivens sat up and growled:

"What the devil's the matter? Can't you hurry up, I'm freezing to death!"

"We can't make it on this tide. We'll have to go to the marsh."

"Can't we walk over the flats and let the boat go?"

"I could walk it, but you couldn't."

"Why not?" Bivens asked, angrily.

"Because you haven't the strength. This mud is six inches deep and tough as tar. You'd give out before you'd gone two hundred yards."

"Nothing of the sort!" Bivens protested, viciously. "I'll show you!"

He stepped out of the boat and started wading through the mud. He had made about ten steps when his boot stuck fast, he reeled and fell. The water was less than six inches deep but his arms were wet to the skin as far as the elbows, and the icy water got into his boots and drenched his feet.

Stuart picked him up without comment and led him back to the boat. Bivens was about to climb in when the lawyer spoke quickly:

"You can't sit down now. You've got to keep your body in motion or you'll freeze. Take hold of the stern of the boat and shove her."

Muttering incoherent curses the little man obeyed while his friend walked in front, pulling on the bow line.

In fifteen minutes they reached the marsh and began the dreary tramp of two hours until the tide should rise high enough to float their boat again.

"Why can't we walk along this marsh all the way to where the yacht lies?" Bivens asked, fretfully. "We can fire a gun and the doctor can help us on board."

"We can't go without the boat. The marsh is a string of islands cut by three creeks. The doctor has no way to get to us. Both tenders are gone."

Stuart kept Bivens moving just fast enough to maintain the warmth of his body without dangerous exhaustion.

The wait was shorter than expected. The tide suddenly ceased to run ebb and began to come in. The reason was an ominous one. The wind had hauled squarely into the north and increased its velocity to forty miles an hour and each moment the cold grew more terrible. Stuart found the little boat afloat on the flood tide, jumped in without delay and began his desperate battle against wind and tide.

It was absolutely necessary for Bivens to keep his body in motion, so Stuart gave him an oar, and ordered him to get on his knees and help shove her ahead. He knew it was impossible for him to keep his feet.

Bivens tried to do as he was told and made a mess of it. He merely succeeded in shoving the boat around in a circle, preventing Stuart from making any headway.

"What's the matter?" Bivens yelled above the howl of the wind. "You're pushing against me, just spinning around. Why don't you keep her straight?"

Stuart saw they could never make headway by that method, turned and shot back into the marsh.

"Get out!" he shouted sternly. "You can walk along the edge--I can shove her alone."

Bivens grumbled, but did as he was ordered.

"Don't you leave the edge of that marsh ten feet!" Stuart shouted, cheerfully. "I think we'll make it now."

"All right," was the sullen answer.

It was a question whether one man had the strength to shove the little boat through the icy, roaring waters and keep her off the shore. He did it successfully for a hundred yards and the wind and sea became so fierce he was driven in and could make no headway. He called Bivens, gave him an oar and made him walk in the edge of the water and hold the boat off while he placed his oar on the mud bottom and pushed with might and main to drive her ahead.

Again and again he was on the point of giving up the struggle. It seemed utterly hopeless.

It took two hours of desperate battling to make half a mile through the white, blinding, freezing, roaring waters.

The yacht now lay but three hundred feet away from the edge of the marsh. Stuart could see her snow-white side glistening in the phosphorescent waves as they swept by her. The lights were gleaming from her windows and he could see Nan's figure pass in the cabin.

As he stood resting a moment before he made the most difficult effort of all to row the last hundred yards dead to the windward, he caught the faint notes of the piano. She was playing, utterly unconscious of the tragic situation in which the two men stood but a hundred yards away. The little schooner was still aground resting easily on her flat bottom in the mud, where the tide had left her as it ebbed. Unless she went on deck, it was impossible for Nan to realize the pressure of the wind.

She was playing one of the dreamy waltzes to which she had danced amid the splendours of her great ball.

The music came over the icy waters accompanied by the moan and shriek of the wind through the rigging with unearthly weird effect.

"Say, why do we stop so much?" Bivens growled. "I'm freezing to death. Let's get to that yacht!"

"We'll do our best," Stuart answered gravely, "and if you know how to pray now's your time."

"Oh, Tommyrot!" Bivens said, contemptuously, "I can throw a stone to her from here."

"Get in!" Stuart commanded, "And lie down again flat on your back."

Bivens obeyed and the desperate fight began.

He made the first few strokes with his oars successfully and cleared the shore, only to be driven back against it with a crash. A wave swept over the little craft dashing its freezing waters into their faces.

Stuart drew his hand across his forehead and found to his horror the water was freezing before he could wipe it off.

He grasped Bivens's hands and found a cake of ice on his wrist. He shoved the boat's nose again into the wind and pulled on his oars with a steady, desperate stroke, and she shot ahead. For five minutes he held her head into the sea and gained a few yards. He set his feet firmly against the oak timbers in the boat's side and began to lengthen his quick, powerful stroke. He found to his joy he was making headway. He looked over his shoulder and saw that he was half way. He couldn't be more than a hundred and fifty feet and yet he didn't seem to be getting any nearer. It was now or never. He bent to his oars with the last ounce of reserve power in his tall sinewy frame, and the next moment an oar snapped, the boat spun round like a top and in a minute was hurled back helpless on the marsh.

As the sea dashed over her again Bivens looked up stupidly and growled:

"Why the devil don't you keep her straight?"

Stuart sprang out and pulled the numbed man to his feet, half dragged and lifted him ashore.

"Here, here, wake up!" he shouted in his ear. "Get a move on you, or you're a goner." He began to rub Bivens's ice-clad wrists and hands, and the little man snatched them away angrily.

"Stop it!" he snarled. "My hands are not cold now."

"No, they're freezing," he answered as he started across the marsh in a dog trot, pulling Bivens after him. The little man stood it for a hundred yards, suddenly tore himself loose and angrily faced his companion.

"Say, suppose you attend to your own hide--I can take care of myself."

"I tell you, you're freezing. You're getting numb. As soon as I can get your blood a little warm we've got to wade through that water for a hundred yards and make the yacht."

"I'll do nothing of the sort," Bivens said, with dogged determination. "I'll stay here till the next tide and walk out when the water's ebbed off."

Stuart shook him violently and shouted above the shriek of the wind.

"Do you know when that will be, you fool?"

"No, and I don't care. I'm not going to plunge into that icy water now."

"The tide won't be out again before four o'clock to-morrow morning."

"All right we'll walk around here until four."

"You'll freeze to death, I tell you! Your hands and feet are half frozen now."

"I'm not half as cold as I was," Bivens whined, fretfully.

"You're losing the power to feel. You've got to plunge into that water with me now and we can fight our way to safety in five minutes. The water is only three feet deep, and I can lift you over the big waves. We'll be there in a jiffy. Come on!"

He seized his arm again and dragged him to the edge of the water. Bivens stopped short, tore himself from Stuart's grip and kicked his shins like a vicious, enraged schoolboy.

"I'll see you to the bottomless pit before I'll move another inch!" he yelled savagely. "Go to the devil and let me alone. I'll take care of myself, if you'll attend to your own business."

Stuart folded his arms and looked at him a moment, debating the question as to whether he would wring his neck or just leave him to freeze.

Bivens rushed up to the lawyer and tried to shake his half-frozen fist in his face.

"I want you to understand, that I've taken all I'm going to from you to-day, Jim Stuart!" he fairly screamed. "Put your hand on me again and I'll kill you if I can get hold of one of these guns. I want you to remember that I'm the master of millions."

"Yesterday in New York," Stuart answered with contempt, "you were the master of millions. Here to-night, on this marsh, in this desert of freezing waters, you're an insect, you're a microbe!"

"I'm man enough to take no more orders from a one-horse lawyer," Bivens answered, savagely.

"All right, to hell with you!" Stuart said, contemptuously, as he turned and left him.

He began to walk briskly along the marsh to keep warm.

Nan was playing the soft strains of an old-fashioned song. He stopped and listened a moment in awe at the strange effects. The sob and moan of the wind through the yacht's shrouds and halyards came like the throb of a hidden orchestra, accompanying the singer in the cabin. The old song stirred his soul. The woman who was singing it was his by every law of nature. The little shrivelled, whining fool, who would die if he left him there, had taken her from him; not by the power of manhood, but by the lure of gold that he had taken from the men who had earned it.

All he had to do to-night was to apply the law of self-interest by which this man had lived and waxed mighty, and to-morrow he could take the woman be loved in his arms, move into his palace its master and hers. There could be no mistake about Nan's feelings. He had read the yearning of her heart with unerring insight. Visions of a life of splendour, beauty and power with her by his side swept his imagination. A sense of fierce, exultant triumph filled his soul. But most alluring of all whispered joys was the dream of their love-life. The years of suffering and denial, of grief and pain, of bitterness and disappointment would make its final realization all the more wonderful. She was just reaching the maturity of womanhood, barely thirty-one, and had yet to know the meaning of love's real glory.

"She's mine and I'll take her!" he cried at last. "Let the little, scheming, oily, cunning scoundrel die to-night by his own law of self-interest--I've done my part."

Again the music swept over the white foaming waters. His heart was suddenly flooded with memories of his boyhood, its dreams of heroic deeds; his mother's serene face; his father's high sense of honour; and the traditions of his boyhood that make character noble and worth while, traditions that created a race of free-men before a dollar became the measure of American manhood.

"Have I done my part?" he asked himself, with a sudden start. "If he has his way he will die. Peevish, fretful, spoiled by the flattery of fools, he is incapable of taking care of himself under the conditions in which he finds himself. If I consent to his death am I not guilty of murder? Out of the heart are the issues of life! Have I the right to apply his own law? Could I save him in spite of himself if I made up my mind to do it? Pride and ceremony, high words and courtesy cut no figure in this crucial question. Could I save him if I would? If I can, and don't, I'm a murderer."

He turned quickly and retraced his steps. Bivens was crouching on his knees with his back to the fierce, icy wind, feebly striking his hands together.

"Are you going to fight your way with me back to that yacht, Cal?" he asked sternly.

"I am not," was the short answer. "I am going to walk the marsh till four o'clock."

"You haven't the strength. You can't walk fast enough to keep from freezing. You'll have to keep it up eight hours. You're cold and wet and exhausted. It's certain death if you stay. That water is rising fast. In ten minutes more it will be dangerous to try it. Will you come with me?"

"I've told you I'll take my chances here and I want you----"

He never finished the sentence, Stuart suddenly gripped his throat, threw him flat on his back, and while he kicked and squirmed and swore, drew a cord from his pocket and tied his hands and feet securely.

Paying no further attention to his groans and curses, he threw his little, helpless form across his shoulders, plunged into the water and began his struggle to reach the yacht. It was a difficult and dangerous task. The weight of Bivens's inert form drove his boots deep into the mud, and the wind's gusts of increasing fury threatened at almost every step to hurl them down. Again and again the waves broke on his face and submerged them both. Bivens had ceased to move or make a sound. Stuart couldn't tell whether he had been strangled by the freezing water or choked into silence by his helpless rage.

At last he struggled up the gangway, tore the cabin door open, staggered down the steps into the warm, bright saloon, and fell in a faint at Nan's feet.

The doctor came in answer to her scream and lifted Bivens to his stateroom, while Nan bent low over the prostrate form, holding his hand to her breast in a close, agonising clasp, while she whispered:

"Jim, speak to me! You can't die yet, we haven't lived!"

He sighed and gasped:

"Is he alive?"

"Yes, in his stateroom there, cursing you with every breath."

The young lawyer closed his eyes, blinded with tears, murmuring over and over again:

"Thank God!--Thank God!"

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