"You come here one, two year ago," Pierre continued. "You eat up home of M. Duchaine, my master. Old M. Duchaine my master, too. I belong here. You eat up all, come back, eat up some more. Then you sell Mlle. Jacqueline to Louis d'Epernay. You made her run 'way to New York. I ask your _diable_ when your time come. Your _diable_ he say wait. I wait. Mlle. Jacqueline come back. I ask your _diable_ again.

He say wait some more. Now your _diable_ tell me he send you here to-night because your time come, and all finish now."

The face that Simon turned on me was not in the least like his own. It was that of a hopeless man who knows that everything he had prized is lost. He had never cowered before anyone in his life, I think, but he cowered now before Pierre Caribou.

"Hewlett!" he cried in a high-pitched, quavering voice, "help me throw this old fool out of the way."

I spoke to Pierre. "Our quarrel is at an end," I said. "I am going away. You must go, too."

Pierre Caribou did not relax an inch of ground.

Then a roar burst from Leroux's lips, and he flung himself upon the Indian in the same desperate way as I had experienced, and in an instant the two men were struggling at the edge of the platform.

It was impossible for me to intervene, and I could only stand by and stare in horror. And, as I stared, I saw the face of Lacroix among the rocks again, peering out, with an evil smile upon his lips.

Whether they fought in silence or whether in sound I do not know, for the noise of the cataract rendered the battle a dumb pantomime.

Pierre had pulled the Frenchman out to the middle of the ledge and was trying to force him over. But Leroux was clinging with one hand to the cliff and with the other he beat savagely upon his enemy's face, so that the blood covered both of them. But Pierre did not seem to feel the blows.

Leroux, one-handed, was at a disadvantage. He grasped his antagonist again, and the death-grapple began.

It was a marvel that they could engage in so terrific a fight upon the ice-coated ledge and hold their balance there. But I saw that they were in equipoise, for they were bending all the tension of each muscle to the fight, so that they remained almost motionless, and, thigh to thigh, arm to arm, breast to breast, each sought to break the other's strength. And I saw that, when one was broken, he would not yield slowly, but, having spent the last of his strength, would collapse like a crumpled cardboard figure and go down into the boiling lake.

The cataract's half-sphere of crystal clearness framed them as though they formed some dreadful picture.

They bent and swayed, and now Leroux was forcing Pierre's head and shoulders backward by the weight of his bull's body. But the Indian's sinews, toughened by years of toil to steel, held fast; and just as Leroux, confident of victory, shifted his feet and inclined forward, Pierre changed his grasp and caught him by the throat.

Leroux's face blackened and his eyes started out. His great chest heaved, and he tore impotently at his enemy's strong fingers that were shutting out air and light and consciousness. They rocked and swayed; then, with a last convulsive effort, Leroux swung Pierre off his feet, raised him high in the air, and tried to dash his body against the projecting rock at the tunnel's mouth.

But still the Indian's fingers held, and as his consciousness began to fade Leroux staggered and slipped; and with a neighing whine that burst from his constricted throat, a shriek that pierced the torrent's roar, he slid down the cataract, Pierre locked in his arms.

I cried out in horror, but leaned forward, fascinated by the dreadful spectacle. I saw the bodies glide down the straight jet of water, as a boy might slide down a column of steel, and plunge into the black cauldron beneath, around whose edge stood the mocking and fantastic figures of ice. The seething lake tossed them high into the air, and the second cataract caught them and flung them back toward the Old Angel.

Their waters played with them and spun them round, caught them, and let them go, and roared and foamed about them as they bobbed and danced their devil's jig, waist-high, in one another's arms.

At last they slid down into the depths of the dark lake, to lie forever there in that embrace. And still the cataracts played on, sounding their loud, triumphant, never-ending tune.

I was running down the tunnel again. I was running to Jacqueline, but something diverted me. It was the face of Lacroix, peering at me from among the crevices of the rocks with the same evil smile. I knew from the look on it that he had seen all and had been infinitely pleased thereby.

I caught at him; I wanted to get my hands on him and strangle him, too, and fling him down, and stamp his features out of human semblance. But he eluded me and darted back into the cliff.

I followed him hard. This time I did not mean to let him go.

Lacroix was running toward the gold-mine. He made no effort to dodge into any of the unknown recesses of the caves, but ran at full speed across the open space and plunged into the tunnel leading to the shore by the _chateau_.

I caught him near the entrance and held him fast.

He struggled in my grasp and screamed.

"Go back! For the love of God, go back, _monsieur_!" he shrieked.

"Let me go! Let me go!"

He fought so desperately that he slipped out of my hands and darted into the mine again, taking the tunnel which led toward the Old Angel, and thence wound back toward the _chateau_.

I caught him again before the cave where Jacqueline lay. I wound my arms around him. A dreadful suspicion was creeping into my mind.

He made no attempt to fight me, but only to escape, and his face was hideously stamped with fear.

"Let me go!" he howled. "Ah, you will repent it! _Monsieur_, let me go! I will give you a half-share in the gold. What do you want with me?"

What did I want? I did not know. It must have been the same instinct that leads one to stamp upon a noxious insect. I think it was his joy in the hideous spectacle beneath the cataract that had made me long to kill him.

But now a dreadful fear was dawning on me.

"Jacqueline!" I screamed.

"I have not seen her," he replied. "Now let me go! Ah, _mon Dieu_, will you never let me go? It is too late!"

Suddenly he grew calm.

"It is too late," he said in a monotonous voice, "You have killed both of us!"

And, with the sweat still on his forehead, he stood looking maliciously at me.

"If you had let me go," he said, "you would have died just as you are going to die."

I saw the face of the cliff quiver; I saw an immense rock, half-way up, leap into the air and seem to hang there; then the ground was upheaved beneath my feet, and with a frightful roar the rocky walls swayed and fell together.

And the rivulet became a cataract that surged over me and filled my ears with tumult and sealed my eyes with sleep.

CHAPTER XXIV

FULL CONFESSION

Darkness impenetrable about me, and a thick air that I breathed with great gasps that hardly brought relief to my choking throat. And a voice out of the darkness crying ceaselessly in my ears:

"Help me! Help me!"

In that nightmare I saw again those awful scenes as vividly as though they had been etched in phosphorus before my eyes. I saw the last struggle of Pierre and Leroux, and I pursued Lacroix along the tunnel.

I saw the cliff toppling forward, and the rock poised in mid-air.

And the voice cried: "Help me! Help me!" and never ceased.

I raised myself and tried to struggle to my feet. I found that I could move my limbs freely, I tried to rise upon my knees, but the roof struck my head. I stretched my arms out, and I touched the wall on either side of me.

I must have been stunned by the concussion of the landslide. By a miracle I had not been struck.