A Gentleman of Courage. James Oliver Curwood

she was slipping—slipping. …

      He scrambled toward her, flinging himself down the treacherous dip to catch at her long hair. He caught a strand of it, but it pulled away from him—and he thrust himself another foot and buried his fingers in the wet mass of it. In that moment the sea took her. It dragged her down, and Pierre, holding fast to her hair, went with her into the black death of the Pit; and as he went his wide eyes saw once more the blue of the sky and the tops of his beloved forests, and out of his soul came a soundless cry, the faith and gratitude of a man who was not afraid to die, "After all—God has been a long time good to me—Pierre Gourdon!"

      Even then, in that roaring baptism of death, his mind was on the woman. It would not do to let her body beat itself among the rocks alone, and in some way—as they were twisted and torn by the rending currents—he got his arms about her. He made no effort to fight, except to hold her. To fight against the forces which had him in their power was impossible. He was like a chip in a boiling pot, twisted and turned, now thrust downward and then up, but never far enough to snatch a breath of air. He felt the blows of the rocks. Then he began going down, until it seemed in the last moment that he was falling swiftly through illimitable space. Consciousness of the woman's presence was gone, but he still held her in his arms.

      Only the strong hands of Joe Gourdon and Simon McQuarrie held Josette from joining her husband in the heart of the Pit. She struggled against them, crying out her right to go to him, until they brought her to the narrow rim of beach under the cliff and her eyes fell on little Mona. The wind had blown the child's wet hair back from her face, and a bitter cry came to Josette's lips and resentment burned in her for an instant like a fire. Pierre was gone because of her, because of this beautiful, star-eyed child and the woman! They had taken him from her. And here was the child, living, staring at her with those eyes which had made Pierre call her l'Ange—staring at her—while Pierre—and the other woman—dead and beaten among the rocks. … And then. …

      "My mother!"

      It was the child's voice, two words crying out to her, faint and yearning and filled with agony above the lash of the sea, and with an answering cry Josette fell down sobbing upon her knees and opened her arms and held the little stranger tightly against her breast. For a space after that she was blind to what happened about her. Dominique stood between her and the sea, even as he saw the grim joke which the fiends of the Pit were playing upon them this day. For these fiends were seldom known to give up their playthings, whether logs or sticks or living things. Once he had known them to keep the body of a dog for days, and at another time a strong-limbed buck had died there, and it was a week before they had tired of him and had thrown him ashore. But this day there was a change. Joe Gourdon and Jeremie Poulin and Poleon Dufresne had leaped waist-deep into the surf and were bringing out the bodies of Pierre and the woman!

      It was Marie Antoinette who knelt beside them first, and unclasped Pierre's arms from about the woman. And then Josette saw them. She staggered to her feet and ran past Dominique, and the first she looked upon was the white, dead face of the mother. Very tenderly then she took Pierre's head in her arms, and bent her own over it until both their faces were shrouded in her long hair.

      "He isn't dead," she whispered. No one heard her, for she was saying it only to herself, and then to Pierre. "He isn't dead. He isn't dead." She repeated the words, swaying her body gently with Pierre, and the others drew back, and Marie Antoinette hid little Mona's face against her while Simon McQuarrie and Telesphore Clamart bore the dead woman between them round the end of the cliff. And Josette kept repeating, "He isn't dead, he isn't dead," and she kissed Pierre's lips, and pressed her cheek against his cheek, and the women and men of Five Fingers stood back and waited, none daring to be first to break in upon these sacred moments which belonged to Josette and her dead.

      At last Marie Antoinette came up softly and knelt beside Josette and put a loving hand about her shoulder. Josette's eyes turned to look at her and they were soft and glowing and so strange they frightened Marie Antoinette. "He isn't dead," she was still saying, and she bowed her face down again to Pierre's.

      Choking the sob in her throat, Marie Antoinette put her hand to Josette's face—and a great shock ran through her. She had touched Pierre's cheek. She felt with her other hand, and drew back Josette's hair, her heart suddenly throbbing like an Indian drum. Then she saw it was not the madness of grief that kept Josette repeating those words, but the intuition of a soul which had felt the nearness of its mate, for Pierre's eyes slowly opened and the first vision which came to him out of a roaring sea of dreams was the face of his wife.

      From the group of tensely waiting people Mona had come, sobbing in a strange, quiet way for her mother, and as Marie Antoinette drew a little back Josette caught the child close to her, along with Pierre, and as Pierre reached his arms up weakly to them both the thought came to him again, "God has been a long time good to me—Pierre Gourdon!"