The Top of the World by Ethel May Dell (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📕

a kiss that was close and sacred, uniting each to each beyond all severance--a soul communion.
Burke was trembling as she had never known him tremble before. "Why--have you come back?" he said, as speech returned.
She answered him swiftly and passionately, clinging faster with the words: "Because--God knows--I would rather die with you--than--than live without you! I love you so! Oh, don't you understand?"
Yes, he understood, though all else were beyond his comprehension. Never again would he question that amazing truth that had burst upon him here at the very Gate of Death, changing the whole world.
He looked down upon her as he held her, the light from the candle shining through her hair, her vivid face uplifted to his, her eyes wide and glowing, seeing him alone. No, he needed no words to tell him that.
And then suddenly the roar without increased a hundredfold. A shrieking wind tore past, and in a moment the flickering light went out. They stood in darkness.
Her arms clasped his neck more closely. He felt the coming agony in her hold. She spoke again, her lips against his own. "Through the grave--and Gate of Death--" she said.
That aroused him. A strength that was titanic entered into him. Why should they wait here for Death? At least they would make a fight for it, however small their chance. He suddenly realized that mortal life had become desirable again--a thing worth fighting for--a precious gift.
He bent, as he had bent on that first night at the farm--how long ago!--and gathered her up into his arms.
A rush of water swirled about his knees as he made for the dim opening. The bank had gone. Yet the rise in the ground would give them a few seconds. He counted upon the chance. Out into the open he stumbled.
The water was up to his waist here. He floundered on the yielding ground.
"Don't carry me!" she said. "I can wade too. Let me hold your hand!"
But he would not let her go out of his arms. His strength in that moment was as the strength of ten. He knew that unless the flood actually overwhelmed him, it would not fail.
So, slipping, struggling, fighting, he forced his way, and, like Diamond, he was guided by an instinct that could not err. Thirty seconds after they left it, the hut on the sand was swept away by the hungry waters, but those thirty seconds had been their salvation. They had reached the point where the ground began to rise towards the _kopje_, and though the water still washed around them the force of it was decreasing at every step,
As they reached the foot of the _kopje_ itself, a stream of moonlight suddenly rushed down through the racing clouds, revealing the whole great waste of water like a picture flung upon a screen.
Burke's breath came thick and laboured; yet he spoke. "We are saved!" he said.
"Put me down now!" she urged. "Please put me down!"
But still he would not, till he had climbed above the seething flood, and could set her feet upon firm ground. And even then he clasped her still, as if he feared to let her go.
They stood in silence, holding fast to one another while the moonlight flickered in and out, and Burke's heart gradually steadied again after the terrific struggle. The rain had almost ceased. Only the sound of the flood below and the gurgle of a hundred rivulets around filled the night.
Sylvia's arm pressed upon Burke's neck. "Shall we go--right to the top?" she said.
"The top of what?" He turned and looked into her eyes as she stood above him.
She bent to him swiftly, throbbing, human, alive. She held his face between her hands, looking straight back for a space. Then with a little quivering laugh, she bent lower and kissed him.
"I think you're right, partner," she said. "We don't need to go--any farther than this. We've--got there."
He caught her to him with a mastery that was dearer to her in that moment than any tenderness, swaying her to his will. "Yes--we've got there!" he said, and kissed her again with lips that trembled even while they compelled. "But oh, my soul--what a journey!"
She clung to him more closely, giving of her all in full and sweet surrender. "And oh, my soul," she laughed back softly--"what an arrival!"
And at that they laughed together, triumphant as those who have the world at their feet.


CHAPTER XIII
BY FAITH AND LOVE

The flood went down in the morning, and behind it there sprang into being a new world of softest, tenderest green in place of the brown, parched desert that had been. Mary Ann stood at the door of her hut and looked at it with her goggle-eyes in which the fright of the storm was still very apparent.
Neither she nor her satellites would go near the house of the _baas_ that morning, for a dread shadow lay upon it into which they dared not venture. The _baas_ himself was there. He had driven her into the cooking-hut a little earlier and compelled her to prepare a hot meal under his stern supervision. But even the _baas_ could not have forced her to enter the bungalow. For by some occult means Mary Ann knew that Death was waiting there, and the wrath of the gods was so recent that she had not courage left for this new disaster.
Diamond had brought his burden safely out of the storm, and was now comfortably sheltered in his own stable. But the man who had ridden him had been found hours later by the big _baas_ face downwards on the _stoep_, and now he lay in the room in which he had lain for so long, with breathing that waxed and waned and sometimes stopped, and eyes that wandered vaguely round as though seeking something which they might never find.
What were they looking for? Sylvia longed to know. In the hush of that room with the light of the early morning breaking through, it seemed to her that those eyes were mutely waiting for a message from Beyond. They did not know her even when they rested upon her face.
She herself was worn out both physically and mentally, but she would not leave him. And so Burke had brought in the long chair for her and made her lie down while she watched. He brought her food also, and they ate together in the quiet room where the ever-changing breathing of the man upon the bed was the only sound.
He would have left them alone then, but she whispered to him to come back.
He came and bent over her. "I'll smoke on the _stoep_," he said. "You have only to raise your voice if you want-me, and I shall hear."
She slipped her arms about his neck, and drew him down to her. "I want you--all the time," she whispered.
He kissed her on lips and hair, but he would not stay. She heard him pass out on to the _stoep_, and there fell a deep silence.
It seemed to lap her round like a vast and soundless sea. Presently she was drifting upon it, sometimes dipping under, sometimes bringing herself to the surface with a deliberate effort of the will, lest Guy should come back and need her. She was unutterably tired, and the rest was balm to her weary soul, but still, she fought against complete repose, until, like the falling of a mist, oblivion came at last very softly upon her, and she sank into the deeps of slumber. . . .
It must have been some time later that something spoke within her, recalling her. She raised herself quickly and looked at Guy to find his eyes no longer roving but fixed upon her. She thought his breathing must be easier, for he spoke without effort.
"Fetch Burke!" he said.
She started up to obey. There was that about Guy at the moment which she had never seen before, a curious look of knowledge, a strength new-born that, was purely spiritual. But ere she reached the window, Burke was there. He came straight in and went to Guy. And she knew that the end was very near.
Instinctively she drew back as the two men met. She had a strong feeling that her presence was not needed, was almost an intrusion. Yet she could not bring herself to go, till suddenly Burke turned to her and drew her forward.
"He wants you to say good-bye to him," he said, "and then--to go."
It was very tenderly spoken. His hand pressed her shoulder, and the pressure was reassuring, infinitely sustaining.
She bent over Guy. He looked straight up at her, and though the mystery of Death was in his eyes they held no fear. They even faintly smiled upon her.
"Good-bye, darling!" he said softly. "Think of me sometimes--when you've nothing better to do!"
She found and clasped his hand. "Often!" she whispered. "Very often!"
His fingers pressed hers weakly. "I wish--I'd made good," he said.
She bent lower over him. "Ah, never mind now!" she said. "That is all over--forgiven long ago."
His eyes still sought hers with that strange intentness. "I never loved---anyone but you, Sylvia," he said. "You'll remember that. It's the only thing in all my life worth remembering. Now go, darling! Go and rest! I've got--to talk to Burke--alone."
She kissed him on the forehead, and then, a moment later, on the lips. She knew as she went from him that she would never hear his voice again on earth.
* * * * *


She went to her own room and stood at the window gazing out upon that new green world that but yesterday had been a desert. The thought of her dream came upon her, but the bitterness and the fears were all gone from her heart. The thing she had dreaded so unspeakably had come and passed. The struggle between the two men on that path which could hold but one was at an end. The greater love had triumphed over the lesser, but even so the lesser had not perished. Dimly she realized that Guy's broken life had not been utterly cast away. It seemed to her that already--there at the Gate of Death--he had risen again. And she knew that her agonized prayer had found an answer at last. Guy was safe.
It was a long time before Burke came to her. When he did, it was to find her in a chair by the window with her head pillowed on the table, sunk in sleep. But she awoke at his coming, looking at him swiftly with a question in her eyes which his as swiftly answered. He came and knelt beside her, and gathered her into his arms.
She clung to him closely for a while in silence, finding peace and great comfort in his hold. Then at length, haltingly she spoke.
"Burke,--you--forgave him?"
"Yes," he said.
She lifted her face and kissed his neck. "Burke, you understand--I--couldn't forsake him--then?"
"I understand," he said, drawing her nearer. "You couldn't forsake anyone in trouble."