Chapter LXXXII: Useless Struggles

Early in the morning, Mrs. Forbes rode furiously down to the banks of the river opposite Diamond Island. She found no boat on the shore, and looked wildly up and down for some means of crossing. She saw nothing but a yacht that had drifted from its mooring, and lay anchored near the island. She flung up her hand in hopes that a boat might come to her from that quarter; but every minute seemed an hour to her then, and in her desperate haste she plunged her horse into the stream, knowing well that it was at the risk of her life. The brave beast took to the water gallantly; but was soon lifted from his feet, and given to the mercy of the current, which ran deep and strong against him. Borne down by the lady’s weight, and disturbed by the heavy drag of her skirts, the poor beast was losing all control of himself. His rider, wild with fear, shrieked for help, in a voice of terror that rang from shore to shore.

Out from the yacht a tiny boat flashed, cutting its way down the swift current with the speed of a bird in flight. The lady saw this, and the horse seemed to understand it with human intelligence, for he made no more effort than was needed to keep his head out of water. How the rescue was accomplished, Mrs. Forbes scarcely knew. She remembered a cry of encouragement, a slow gliding of the boat close to her horse, and a great rush of thanksgiving that she was safe, and lying prostrate, half buried in her own wet garments, at the feet of her preserver. She arose to her knees with a struggle to sit up, and saw that the person who had saved her was a woman. Wild, thankful, overwhelmed, she looked into that face dumb with awe and unbelief.

“Clara! Clara Anderson!”

“Yes, Alice Forbes, it is I. Give no time to that, but tell me how it is that you have plunged to your death in this way?”

“I was wild—I was mad—but it was to save my brother.”

“Your brother?”

“Not the one you think of. Not the poor fellow who is mourning you as dead—but Fletcher—my brother Fletcher, whom Waldon means to murder before the day is out. Oh, God save him! we are talking here while they—and any moment it may happen—give me the oars. I am strong now.”

“No; which way?”

“The island—the island!”

Clara bent almost superhuman force on her oars, and landed at the mouth of the little inlet just as the horse staggered up the bank, and went thundering over the log bridge across the island.

“Out yonder, if you would help me,” said Mrs. Forbes, pointing down to the picnic grounds. “If you reach them first, stop this bloodshed. I cannot say how, but do it.”

Clara Anderson turned at once, and walked swiftly in the direction thus impetuously pointed out.

Mrs. Forbes gathered up her skirts with both arms, and hurried up to the house.

Without heeding old Celia, who peeped through the window with every hair on her head in wild commotion, she opened the door and went directly up-stairs.

Bertha was asleep; utter exhaustion had done its work upon her, and she lay like a dead creature, scarcely breathing. Lydia, too, was curled up on the couch, with a blanket over her head, plunged in slumber so profound that no ordinary noise could arouse her.

Mrs. Forbes dragged her wet skirts across the room, and took Bertha by both shoulders, in a fury of impatience.

“What! sleeping here? Do you know that the sun is up—that he might be dying for your sake this minute? God forgive you, girl! Get up! get up!”

Bertha started wildly from her bed, and encountered that white, eager face, and a panic seized upon her.

“He has gone! They took him off this morning! Tell me what you have done toward saving his life?”

Bertha looked upon the distracted woman wildly for a moment, then fell down, with her face upon the pillow, crying out:

“I could not do it—I could not do it!”

“Then get up and do something now! I have found out, no matter in what way, that they are coming over here—to this very island. Thank God, I got here first! There was no sign of them. Dress yourself Bertha, dear. Bertha, I don’t mean to be harsh, but it is a human life. Don’t you understand? My brother Egbert, I love him so! If he dies, Bertha—by that man’s hand, too—Wilson Forbes will be a widower in less than two months.”

Bertha understood it all. Two men, who had loved her, were to fight on that island, and one would be killed.

“Oh, God!” she cried out, in the depths of her soul, “not that one!—not the man who has twice saved me!”

Thus the girl prayed, while she put on her garments, one by one.

Mrs. Forbes stood by the window, looking out for a sign of human disturbance, her eyes burning with terrible dread, her lips parted with intense anxiety.

“They have not come. We shall be in time. You and I will throw ourselves between them—front their weapons with our bosoms. Let Waldon’s bullet lodge there! You and I know how he can wound, and we have learned to bear it. Oh, I wonder from which direction they will come! Hyde’s is above here—our house below. Who will come first? Egbert, I will be sworn! He is the only brave one of the lot. Where is that girl? She might watch in one direction, while I keep sight of the bank on this side.”

Lydia, by this time, was stirring under her blanket. Mrs. Forbes saw that some one was on the couch, and running to it, shook the girl thoroughly awake.

“Get up, child, and dress yourself, quick!—no matter about your hair, let it fly loose—put on anything, and run down to the bridge! Here is a red scarf, fling it up if you see strangers on the other island! There, there, let me button your dress! I can’t, I can’t, my hands shake so—do it yourself! But, oh, for mercy’s sake, be in haste!”

Lydia lost no time; she understood the situation at once, and hurried on her clothes with wonderful rapidity. Then, with her dress but half-buttoned, and barefooted, she tossed the hair back from her face, seized the red scarf, and ran toward the bridge.

Mrs. Forbes went back to the window, drawing a deep breath. Bertha was striving to dress herself, like one in a dream, where garments disappear or are deficient. Her wet clothes lay in a heap on the floor; she was compelled to look for others, and that took time, agitated as she was. This delay almost drove her friend mad.

“Come! come at once!” she cried out. “Don’t look for a hat! They will land at the other island, or where the ground is cleared for picnics. We will be in wait for them to come in sight, Bertha. Come!”

The impatience of these crowded utterances shook every nerve in Bertha’s body with the force of a shock. Her limbs were powerless. The hair she strove to gather up broke loose from her trembling hands.

Mrs. Forbes saw this, and came to her aid. In absolute desperation she twisted that mass of hair in a coil, and forced garment upon garment—exclaiming at last:

“That is enough! Come, I say!”

That instant a shout reached them from the bridge, where Lydia was shaking her red scarf with frantic violence. They had reached the door, and darted through it, like mother birds answering the cry of their young. In less than two minutes they were on the bridge, but as their feet touched the logs, a sharp report, followed in the same breath by another, that seemed to cut both hearts in twain, rang through the island.

Down upon the logs these pallid women sank, looking wildly at each other. They dared not turn one glance toward that green spot, from which the smoke was curling upward in two places, and where a man lay stretched upon the grass, with his face to the sky, and drops of blood trickling down from his breast.

Lydia flung away her scarf, and went slowly forward, with a bitter wish in her heart that the upturned face might be one she had such good cause for hating.