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Page 65
On the veranda, close beside him, was a deep-seated wicker arm-chair.
Bennett sank down into it, drawing his hands wearily across his
forehead. The stillness of a summer night had settled broadly over the
vast, dim landscape. There was no moon; all the stars were out. Very far
off a whippoorwill was calling incessantly. Once or twice from the
little orchard close at hand an apple dropped with a faint rustle of
leaves and a muffled, velvety impact upon the turf. Kamiska, wide awake,
sat motionless upon her haunches on the steps, looking off into the
night, cocking an ear to every faintest sound.
Well, Ferriss was dead, and he, Bennett, was responsible. His friend,
the man whom most he loved, was dead. The splendid fight he had made for
his life during that ferocious struggle with the Ice had been all of no
effect. Without a murmur, without one complaint he had borne starvation,
the bitter arctic cold, privation beyond words, the torture of the frost
that had gnawed away his hands, the blinding fury of the snow and wind,
the unceasing and incredible toil with sledge and pack--all the terrible
hardship of an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Pole, only to die
miserably in his bed, alone, abandoned by the man and woman whom, of all
people of the world, he had most loved and trusted. And he, Bennett, had
been to blame.
Was Ferriss conscious during that last moment? Did he know; would he,
sometime, somewhere, know? It could not be said. Forever that must
remain a mystery. And, after all, had Bennett done right in keeping
Lloyd from the sick-room? Now that all was over, now that the whole
fearful tragedy could be judged somewhat calmly and in the light of
reason, the little stealthy doubt began to insinuate itself.
At first he had turned from it, raging and furious, stamping upon it as
upon an intruding reptile. The rough-hewn, simple-natured man, with his
arrogant and vast self-confidence, his blind, unshaken belief in the
wisdom of his own decisions, had never in his life before been willing
to admit that he could be mistaken, that it was possible for him to
resolve upon a false line of action. He had always been right. But now a
change had come. A woman had entangled herself in the workings of his
world, the world that hitherto had been only a world of men for him--and
now he faltered, now he questioned himself, now he scrutinised his
motives, now the simple became complicated, the straight crooked, right
mingled with wrong, bitter with sweet, falseness with truth.
He who had faith in himself to remove mountains, he who could drive his
fellow-men as a herder drives his sheep, he who had forced the vast grip
of the Ice, had, with a battering ram's force, crushed his way through
those terrible walls, shattered and breached and broken down the
barriers, now in this situation involving a woman--had he failed? Had he
weakened? And bigger, stronger, and more persistently doubt intruded
itself into his mind.
Hitherto Bennett's only salvation from absolute despair had been the
firm consciousness of his own rectitude. In that lay his only comfort,
his only hope, his one, strong-built fabric of defence. If that was
undermined, if that was eaten away, what was there left for him?
Carefully, painfully, and with such minuteness as he could command, he
went over the whole affair from beginning to end, forcing his unwilling
mind--so unaccustomed to such work--to weigh each chance, to gauge each
opportunity. If _this_ were so, if _that_ had been done, then would
_such_ results have followed? Suppose he had not interfered, suppose he
had stood aside, would Lloyd have run such danger, after all, and would
Ferriss at this time have been alive, and perhaps recovering? Had he,
Bennett, been absolutely mad; had he been blind and deaf to reason; had
he acted the part of a brute--a purblind, stupid, and unutterably
selfish brute--thinking chiefly of himself, after all, crushing the
woman who was so dear to him, sacrificing the life of the man he loved,
blundering in there, besotted and ignorant, acting the bully's part,
unnecessarily frightened, cowardly where he imagined himself brave;
weak, contemptibly weak, where he imagined himself strong? Might it not
have been avoided if he had been even merely reasonable, as, in like
case, an ordinary man would have been? He, who prided himself upon the
promptness and soundness of his judgment in great crises, had lost his
head and all power of self-control in this greatest crisis of all.
The doubt came back to him again and again. Trample it, stifle it, dash
it from him as he would, each time it returned a little stronger, a
little larger, a little more insistent. Perhaps, after all, he had made
a mistake; perhaps, after all, Lloyd ran no great danger; perhaps, after
all, Ferriss might now have been alive. All at once Bennett seemed to be
sure of this.
Then it became terrible. Alone there, in the darkness and in the night,
Bennett went down into the pit. Abruptly he seemed to come to
himself--to realise what he had done, as if rousing from a nightmare.
Remorse, horror, self-reproach, the anguish of bereavement, the infinite
regret of things that never were to be again, the bitterness of a
vanished love, self-contempt too abject for expression, the
heart-breaking grief of the dreadful might-have-been, one by one, he
knew them all. One by one, like the slow accumulation of gigantic
burdens, the consequences of his folly descended upon him, heavier, more
intolerably, more inexorably fixed with every succeeding moment, while
the light of truth and reason searched every corner of his mind, and his
doubt grew and hardened into certainty.
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