Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/390

378 cascade's thunder, she could hear the curses he shrieked at them derisively echoed back by gorge and mountain.

Then suddenly, so quickly it happened she never afterwards could tell just how, the bridge sagged in the middle; one rotting cable parted. The howling wretch clutched for the hand-rail. The bridge buckled, the sections swung to the sides of the gorge, and the body plunged head downward. It was horrible and yet grotesque, the bow-legs sprawling in the air, the jacket flopping over the head like a sack. From its lining and pockets dropped whirling, round, shiny things.

So, in a shower of gold, the old sinner plunged to his doom

Fifty yards from the hut, they saw flickers of the fire, and heard the voices of the watchers.

She paused in the shadows.

"You must sail with us tomorrow. We will stop at the port with you and Linda.

"And now, because we won't have much chance—to talk over things on the ship again—I want to thank you for all you have done. I never will forget—never." Then she went on, a little more lightly, perhaps with a forced blitheness, though he could not see the moisture gleaming in her eyes.

"Sometime you must come and visit us—Ben and me. He's a fine boy. You'll like him when you come to know him."

"Yes, I have seen many men and I know that he will be true." And the girl remembering her sweetheart's unchivalrous treatment of the man before her, was touched.