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Page 83
"In the morning, as soon as there is light enough," she said, wondering
at her own calmness, "I am going to perform a capital operation upon
Mr. Norton. It will be without his knowledge and consent. If he lives
and you will give up your practice and retire to your ranch or what
business pleases you, I will guarantee that he does not prosecute you
for what has passed. If he dies . . ."
"If he dies"--he snatched the words from her--"it will be murder!"
". . . you would be free from prosecution," she continued, quite as
though he had made no interruption, "I rather imagine that I should
die, too. And, as you say, I would be liable for murder. He is asleep
now because I have drugged him. I shall chloroform him before he
wakes. I should have no defense in the law-courts. Yes, it would be
murder."
He drew a step back from her as though from one suddenly gone mad.
"What are you operating for?" he demanded.
"For your blunder," she said simply. "And you are going to help me."
"Am I?" he jeered. "Not by a damned sight! If you think that I am
going to let myself in for that sort of thing . . ."
Until now he had not seen the gun in her hand. Her quick gesture
showed it to him.
"Charles Patten," she told him emphatically, "I am risking Mr. Norton's
life; I am therefore risking my own. Understand what that means.
Understand just what you have got to win or lose by to-night's work.
Consider that I pledge you my word not to implicate you in what you do;
that if worse came to worse, you could claim and I would admit that you
were forced at the point of a gun to do as I told you. Oh, I can shoot
straight! And finally, I will shoot straight, as God watches me,
rather than let you go now and stop what I have undertaken! Think of
it well, Charles Patten!"
Patten, being as weak of mind as he was pudgy of hand, having besides
that peculiar form of craft which is vouchsafed his type, furthermore
more or less of a coward, saw matters quite as Virginia wished him.
Together they awaited the coming of the dawn. The girl, realizing to
the uttermost what lay before her, forced herself to rest, lying still
under the stars, schooling herself to the steady-nerved action which
was to have its supreme test.
Just before the dawn they had coffee and a bite to eat from Norton's
little pack. Close to the drugged man they builded a rude low table by
dragging the squared blocks of fallen stone from their place by the
wall. Upon this Virginia placed the saddle-blankets, neatly folded.
Already Patten was showing signs of nervousness. Looking into her face
he saw that it was white and drawn but very calm. Patten was asking
himself countless questions, many of them impossible of answer yet.
She was closing her mind to everything but the one supreme matter.
He helped her give the chloroform when she told him that there was
sufficient light and that she was ready. He brought water, placed
instruments, stood by to do what she told him. His nervousness had
grown into fear; he started now and then, jerking about guiltily, as
though he foresaw an interruption.
Together they got Norton's inert form upon the folded blankets.
Patten's hands shook a little; he asked for a sip of brandy from her
flask. She granted it, and while Patten drank she cut away the hair
from the unconscious man's scalp. Long ago her fingers had made their
examination, were assured that her diagnosis was correct. Her hands
were as untrembling as the steel of her knife. She made the first
incision, drawing back the flap of skin and flesh, revealing the bone
of the skull. . . .
For forty-five minutes she worked, her hands swift, sure, capable,
unerring. It was done. She was right. The under-table of the skull
had been fractured; there was the bone pressure upon the underlying
area of brain-tissue. She had removed the pressure and with it any
true pathological cause of the theft impulse.
She drew a bandage about the sleeping eyes. She made Patten bring his
own saddle-blanket; it was fixed across the entrance of the anteroom of
the King's Palace, darkening it. Then she went to the ledge just
outside and stood there, staring with wide eyes across the little
meadow with its flowers and birds and water, down the slope of the
mountain, to the miles of desert. She had now but to await the
awakening.
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