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Page 15
But Ferriss was puzzled as to how he should answer Bennett. On the one
hand was the woman he loved, and on the other Bennett, his best friend,
his chief, his hero. They, too, had lived together for so long, had
fought out the fight with the Enemy shoulder to shoulder, had battled
with the same dangers, had dared the same sufferings, had undergone the
same defeats and disappointments.
Ferriss felt himself in grievous straits. Must he tell Bennett the
truth? Must this final disillusion be added to that long train of
others, the disasters, the failures, the disappointments, and deferred
hopes of all those past months? Must Bennett die hugging to his heart
this bitterness as well?
"I sometimes thought," observed Bennett with a weak smile, "that she did
care a little. I've surely seen something like that in her eyes at
certain moments. I wish I had spoken. Did she ever say anything to you?
Do you think she would have married me if I had asked her?" He paused,
waiting for an answer.
"Oh--yes," hazarded Ferriss, driven to make some sort of response,
hoping to end the conversation; "yes, I think she would."
"You do?" said Bennett quickly. "You think she would? What did she say?
Did she ever say anything to you?"
The thing was too cruel; Ferriss shrank from it. But suddenly an idea
occurred to him. Did anything make any difference now? Why not tell his
friend that which he wanted to hear, even if it were not the truth?
After all that Bennett had suffered why could he not die content at
least in this? What did it matter if he spoke? Did anything matter at
such a time when they were all to die within the next twenty-four hours?
Bennett was looking straight into his eyes; there was no time to think
of consequences. Consequences? But there were to be _no_ consequences.
This was the end. Yet could Ferriss make Bennett receive such an
untruth? Ferriss did not believe that Lloyd cared for Bennett; knew that
she did not, in fact, and if she had cared, did Bennett think for an
instant that she--of all women--would have confessed the fact, confessed
it to him, Bennett's most intimate friend? Ferriss had known Lloyd well
for a long time, had at last come to love her. But could he himself tell
whether or no Lloyd cared for him? No, he could not, certainly he could
not.
Meanwhile Bennett was waiting for his answer. Ferriss's mind was all
confused. He could no longer distinguish right from wrong. If the lie
would make Bennett happier in this last hour of his life, why not tell
the lie?
"Yes," answered Ferriss, "she did say something once."
"She did?"
"Yes," continued Ferriss slowly, trying to invent the most plausible
lie. "We had been speaking of the expedition and of you. I don't know
how the subject was brought up, but it came in very naturally at length.
She said--yes, I recall it. She said: 'You must bring him back to me.
Remember he is everything to me--everything in the world.'"
"She--" Bennett cleared his throat, then tugged at his mustache; "she
said that?"
Ferriss nodded.
"Ah!" said Bennett with a quick breath, then he added: "I'm glad of
that; you haven't any idea how glad I am, Dick--in spite of everything."
"Oh, yes, I guess I have," murmured Ferriss.
"No, no, indeed, you haven't," returned the other. "One has to love a
woman like that, Dick, and have her--and find out--and have things come
right, to appreciate it. She would have been my wife after all. I don't
know how to thank you, Dick. Congratulate me."
He rose, holding out his hand; Ferriss feebly rose, too, and
instinctively extended his arm, but withdrew it suddenly. Bennett paused
abruptly, letting his hand fall to his side, and the two men remained
there an instant, looking at the stumps of Ferriss's arms, the tin spoon
still lashed to the right wrist.
A few hours later Bennett noted that the gale had begun perceptibly to
abate. By afternoon he was sure that the storm would be over. As he
turned to re-enter the tent after reading the wind-gauge he noted that
Kamiska, their one remaining dog, had come back, and was sitting on a
projection of ice a little distance away, uncertain as to her reception
after her absence. Bennett was persuaded that Kamiska had not run away.
Of all the Ostiaks she had been the most faithful. Bennett chose to
believe that she had wandered from the tent and had lost herself in the
blinding snow. But here was food. Kamiska could be killed; life could be
prolonged a day or two, perhaps three, while the strongest man of the
party, carrying the greater portion of the dog meat on his shoulders,
could push forward and, perhaps, after all, reach Kolyuchin Bay and the
Chuckch settlements and return with aid. But who could go? Assuredly not
Ferriss, so weak he could scarcely keep on his feet; not Adler, who at
times was delirious, and who needed the discipline of a powerful leader
to keep him to his work; Muck Tu, the Esquimau, could not be trusted
with the lives of all of them, and the two remaining men were in all but
a dying condition. Only one man of them all was equal to the task, only
one of them who still retained his strength of body and mind; he
himself, Bennett. Yes, but to abandon his men?
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