Golden Graves [pp. 1-17]

Golden Graves.
hasten to accept it, and so rest in peace? I
could not but know that at last the time had
come for me to end the struggle. For nearly two days I had been lying upon the bank,
and watching the gathering of the flood at
my feet. My only chance of rescue-if it
it could be called a chance had been passed
by, and I felt that none other would be given. Soon the water would fall-already it
seemed to be receding; but were it to diminish to a mere brook, never again could I find
strength to cross it. And now a cold blast
began to sweep from the north, betokening
an end to the winter thaw. It brought new
pain to my shattered limb; hunger was gnawing me; there could be no rescuing hand
within many miles; at my side, for sole companionship, with open eyes staring upward
at the sky, lay the dead girl, and she once
more changed, and into a kind of terrible
repulsion, as though even there as elsewhere
in the world, all suggestions of beauty must
be taken away, leaving nothing but deformity before mine eyes on every side. The face
had fallen away, the rounded cheeks again
become thin, the staring eyes grew dim and
unloving, the- complexion had lost its momentary freshness, and once more assumed
the yellow hue of death. Nothing was left
that could give to any one the suspicion that
here lay anything else than the half starved
boy that he had assumed to be. It was as
though there had been that transient revival
into the other beauty, so that I might for
some subtle purpose penetrate the long concealed secret, and then a relapse into deformity, so that the world, which I was about to
leave, might present no claim of any kind
to tempt me longingly to cling to it. These
terrors were all that could remain with me
thenceforth, until death might choose to
bring relief. Would it be a sin for me to
hasten that hour?
The night before I had striven to repress
that thought. But why should I now delay?
The flood at my feet would give me almost
instant peace; while on the cold bank might
be many more days of hopeless agony. Then
slowly, and with pain, I twisted myself closer
to the brink and gazed down. A single mo
ment more, and the work would be done,
and then would come rest forever. Could it
be wrong to yield to the temptation? The
sun gilded the water with brightness-there
was even invitation in the purling and lapping of the waves. Again I twisted myself a
little closer; there was now only an inch
nearer for me to move, and the work would
be done. And I tried to mutter a prayer.
"Heaven will surely pardon me," I faintly
whispered in that last moment, before preparing to let myself be swept away upon the
torrent, uttering strange minglings of prayer
and quaint conceit, as I looked first at the
blazing sky, and then let my glance fall for
an instant upon the dead body at my side.
"What else is there left for me to do?
Must I remain and starve, fainting all the
while with pain? And what, after all, is my
life, that I should longer try to save it? If
there were any hope at all-even the faintest
-but here I am, so far away from succor,
so wounded and helpless. Charley, you have
won after all, for you will be last at the Bar.
Perhaps you will never be found at all, and
so will always lie here and keep guard over
the gold, while I-I, far away-God forgive
,,
As I painfully raised my head to take one
last look at the sky and earth, what was it
that I saw slowly working its way through
the gap in the hills, half a mile off-large,
white, and rounded, swaying heavily from
side to side, but all the while pressing steadily onward? Behind it another and similar
object, and yet a third. Faintness came
over me with the thought that the sight was
all too good to be true, and that in my dying
moments my eyes were being deceived with
a false appearance, as of a mirage. But, little by little, the rounded white objects, still
swaying toilsomely from one side to the other, worked themselves toward me, and I
knew that I could not be deceived, that I was
looking upon no unsubstantial vision. They
were real; they were substantial -those
three white-topped wagons, long belated on
their way from Independence, and now
struggling forward to reach some settlement
before the sharper intensity of the winter
1886.]
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