the roar of all the gales that ever blew, concentrated at that one point in that moment, somehow, I can't say how, I heard her words: 'Let me go, Will! Let me go! Can't you see?—don't you know?—you can't have me and your work both. It has come for me. Let me go, oh, let me go!'
"My God! She was right! Right out of my arms it snatched her, and then all was still again. But where there had been a hundred hearts throbbing to life and love, there was now only one, and it was throbbing to hate! It still does. I hate it! I hate it! What do I want of life now? But I can't die. I am its slave."
Later I spoke of him in the office. "Oh, Estrich? Yes, he is a nice fellow. What he told you is partly true. At least, he was a scientist, and the only survivor of a boat which was lost in a sudden storm with his bride of a few weeks. The rest of it was—well, you could see for yourself he was quite crazy, though harmless."
I did not tell my informant, nor had I told Estrich, of my experience in the Andes the previous year.
We had come to a point in the pass where a cloudburst seemed to have scooped the rock bare of earth, and I noted that my friends crossed themselves. I remarked on it.
"Yes, Señor," was the response, "But this is the Place of the Wrath of Heaven!"
"It must of necessity be, then, that there is a legend about this place," I said, expecting to draw out another of the place-tales one meets with.
My friend who was answering laughed nervously. "But for the once I must decline to tell the legend. For you see I believe it, and to your ears should I tell it, it would be unbelievable. You would laugh."
"Do I not know that the tongue of Don Pico speaks nothing but truth?" I answered.
"That is truth. Well, I take the chance. You saw that the ground was swept bare, completely, and perhaps you think a most terrible storm of rain caused it. You would be wrong. It was the wind, Señor. And with the dirt it took away twelve men—puff!—and no one ever found a coat from their backs.
"It was fifteen years ago, Señor. A scientist, an American, was going over the pass as are we. And his rascally guides thought to arrange an ambush with some robbers, to share the loot.
"But for once, Señor, heaven in these degenerate days saw fit to perform a miracle like those of the Good Book. When the meeting was almost at hand—Hand of God! It was dark, though there had been no cloud. And a wind such as never the Andes had seen came and struck the robbers and destroyed even the ground they stood on. And—Hand of God! In the next moment it was clear and quiet, but the robbers were vanished completely. And the guides were changed men, Señor. They confessed and were punished; and now they work in the garden of the church at Lima, doing the work of God."
