His blood ran cold.
He had dreaded the prospect of that hazardous climb up the face
of the rock. Now he was overcome by an even greater dread: that he
would be unable to reach the place of refuge.
He had no thought of Alix Crown now--no thought of her beauty, her
body, her riches. His cherished dream was over. She took her place
among other forgotten dreams. The sinister business of saving his
own skin drove her out of his mind. It drove out all thought of
Rosabel Vick. The hounds were at his heels. It was no time to think
of women!
II
Anxiety that touched almost upon despair hastened his steps.
Abandoning caution, he ran recklessly up the path among the rocks,
stumbling and reeling but always keeping his feet, and came at last
to the gloomy, forbidding facade of Quill's Window. Here he groped
along the wall, clawing for the sunken cleats with eager, trembling
hands. He knew they were there--somewhere. Not only had he seen
them, he had climbed with ease, hand over hand, ten or a dozen
feet up the cliff. He had shuddered a little that day as he looked
first over his shoulder and then upward along the still unsealed
stretch that lay between him and the mouth of the cave, seventy
or eighty feet away. But that was in broad daylight. It would be
different now, with darkness as his ally.
He remembered thinking that day how easy it would be to reach
Quill's Window by this rather simple route.
Pages:
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343