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diff --git a/old/30466.txt b/old/30466.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e1df410..0000000 --- a/old/30466.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3514 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wild Oranges, by Joseph Hergesheimer - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Wild Oranges - -Author: Joseph Hergesheimer - -Release Date: November 13, 2009 [EBook #30466] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD ORANGES *** - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - -WILD ORANGES - - - - -WILD ORANGES - -BY - -JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER - -ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM - -KING VIDOR'S PHOTOPLAY - -A GOLDWYN PICTURE - -GROSSET & DUNLAP - -PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK - -Made in the United States of America - - - - -COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc. - -Published, April, 1918, in a volume now out of print, -entitled "Gold and Iron," and then reprinted twice. - -First published separately, March, 1922 - - - - -TO GEORGE HORACE LORIMER - - - - -WILD ORANGES - - - - -I - - -The ketch drifted into the serene inclosure of the bay as silently as -the reflections moving over the mirrorlike surface of the water. -Beyond a low arm of land that hid the sea the western sky was a -single, clear yellow; farther on the left the pale, incalculably old -limbs of cypress, their roots bare, were hung with gathering shadows -as delicate as their own faint foliage. The stillness was emphasized -by the ceaseless murmur of the waves breaking on the far, seaward -bars. - -John Woolfolk brought the ketch up where he intended to anchor and -called to the stooping white-clad figure in the bow: "Let go!" There -was an answering splash, a sudden rasp of hawser, the booms swung -idle, and the yacht imperceptibly settled into her berth. The wheel -turned impotently; and, absent-minded, John Woolfolk locked it. He -dropped his long form on a carpet-covered folding chair near by. He -was tired. His sailor, Poul Halvard, moved about with a noiseless and -swift efficiency; he rolled and cased the jib, and then, with a -handful of canvas stops, secured and covered the mainsail and -proceeded aft to the jigger. Unlike Woolfolk, Halvard was short--a -square figure with a smooth, deep-tanned countenance, colorless and -steady, pale blue eyes. His mouth closed so tightly that it appeared -immovable, as if it had been carved from some obdurate material that -opened for the necessities of neither speech nor sustenance. - -Tall John Woolfolk was darkly tanned, too, and had a grey gaze, -by turns sharply focused with bright black pupils and blankly -introspective. He was garbed in white flannels, with bare ankles and -sandals, and an old, collarless silk shirt, with sleeves rolled -back on virile arms incongruously tattooed with gauzy green -cicadas. - -He stayed motionless while Halvard put the yacht in order for the -night. The day's passage through twisting inland waterways, the hazard -of the tides on shifting flats, the continual concentration on details -at once trivial and highly necessary, had been more wearing than the -cyclone the ketch had weathered off Barbuda the year before. They had -been landbound since dawn; and all day John Woolfolk's instinct had -revolted against the fields and wooded points, turning toward the open -sea. - -Halvard disappeared into the cabin; and, soon after, a faint, hot air, -the smell of scorched metal, announced the lighting of the vapor -stove, the preparations for supper. Not a breath stirred the surface -of the bay. The water, as transparently clear as the hardly darkened -air, lay like a great amethyst clasped by its dim corals and the arm -of the land. The glossy foliage that, with the exception of a small -silver beach, choked the shore might have been stamped from metal. It -was, John Woolfolk suddenly thought, amazingly still. The atmosphere, -too, was peculiarly heavy, languorous. It was laden with the scents of -exotic, flowering trees; he recognized the smooth, heavy odor of -oleanders and the clearer sweetness of orange blossoms. - -He was idly surprised at the latter; he had not known that orange -groves had been planted and survived in Georgia. Woolfolk gazed more -attentively at the shore, and made out, in back of the luxuriant -tangle, the broad white facade of a dwelling. A pair of marine glasses -lay on the deck at his hand; and, adjusting them, he surveyed the face -of a distinguished ruin. The windows on the stained wall were broken -in--they resembled the empty eyes of the dead; storms had battered -loose the neglected roof, leaving a corner open to sun and rain; he -could see through the foliage lower down great columns fallen about a -sweeping portico. - -The house was deserted, he was certain of that--the melancholy -wreckage of a vanished and resplendent time. Its small principality, -flourishing when commerce and communication had gone by water, was one -of the innumerable victims of progress and of the concentration of -effort into huge impersonalities. He thought he could trace other even -more complete ruins, but his interest waned. He laid the glasses back -upon the deck. The choked bubble of boiling water sounded from the -cabin, mingled with the irregular sputter of cooking fat and the -clinking of plates and silver as Halvard set the table. Without, the -light was fading swiftly; the wavering cry of an owl quivered from the -cypress across the water, and the western sky changed from paler -yellow to green. Woolfolk moved abruptly, and, securing a bucket to -the handle of which a short rope had been spliced and finished with an -ornamental Turk's-head, he swung it overboard and brought it up half -full. In the darkness of the bucket the water shone with a faint -phosphorescence. Then from a basin he lathered his hands with a thick, -pinkish paste, washed his face, and started toward the cabin. - -He was already in the companionway when, glancing across the still -surface of the bay, he saw a swirl moving into view about a small -point. He thought at first that it was a fish, but the next moment saw -the white, graceful silhouette of an arm. It was a woman swimming. -John Woolfolk could now plainly make out the free, solid mass of her -hair, the naked, smoothly turning shoulder. She was swimming with -deliberate ease, with a long, single overarm stroke; and it was -evident that she had not seen the ketch. Woolfolk stood, his gaze -level with the cabin top, watching her assured progress. She turned -again, moving out from the shore, then suddenly stopped. Now, he -realized, she saw him. - -The swimmer hung motionless for a breath; then, with a strong, sinuous -drive, she whirled about and made swiftly for the point of land. She -was visible for a short space, low in the water, her hair wavering in -the clear flood, and then disappeared abruptly behind the point, -leaving behind--a last vanishing trace of her silent passage--a -smooth, subsiding wake on the surface of the bay. - -John Woolfolk mechanically descended the three short steps to the -cabin. There had been something extraordinary in the woman's brief -appearance out of the odorous tangle of the shore, with its ruined -habitation. It had caught him unprepared, in a moment of half weary -relaxation, and his imagination responded with a faint question to -which it had been long unaccustomed. But Halvard, in crisp white, -standing behind the steaming supper viands, brought his thoughts again -to the day's familiar routine. - -The cabin was divided through its forward half by the centerboard -casing, and against it a swinging table had been elevated, an -immaculate cover laid, and the yacht's china, marked in cobalt with -the name Gar, placed in a polished and formal order. Halvard's service -from the stove to the table was as silent and skillful as his housing -of the sails; he replaced the hot dishes with cold, and provided a -glass bowl of translucent preserved figs. - -Supper at an end, Woolfolk rolled a cigarette from shag that resembled -coarse black tea and returned to the deck. Night had fallen on the -shore, but the water still held a pale light; in the east the sky was -filled with an increasing, cold radiance. It was the moon, rising -swiftly above the flat land. The moonlight grew in intensity, casting -inky shadows of the spars and cordage across the deck, making the -light in the cabin a reddish blur by contrast. The icy flood swept -over the land, bringing out with a new emphasis the close, glossy -foliage and broken facade--it appeared unreal, portentous. The odors -of the flowers, of the orange blossoms, uncoiled in heavy, palpable -waves across the water, accompanied by the owl's fluctuating cry. The -sense of imminence increased, of a _genius loci_ unguessed and -troublous, vaguely threatening in the perfumed dark. - - - - -II - - -John Woolfolk had said nothing to Halvard of the woman he had seen -swimming in the bay. He was conscious of no particular reason for -remaining silent about her; but the thing had become invested with a -glamour that, he felt, would be destroyed by commonplace discussion. -He had no personal interest in the episode, he was careful to add. -Interests of that sort, serving to connect him with the world, with -society, with women, had totally disappeared from his life. He rolled -and lighted a fresh cigarette, and in the minute orange spurt of the -match his mouth was somber and forbidding. - -The unexpected appearance on the glassy water had merely started into -being a slight, fanciful curiosity. The women of that coast did not -commonly swim at dusk in their bays; such simplicity obtained now only -in the reaches of the highest civilization. There were, he knew, no -hunting camps here, and the local inhabitants were mere sodden -squatters. A chart lay in its flat canvas case by the wheel; and, in -the crystal flood of the moon, he easily reaffirmed from it his -knowledge of the yacht's position. Nothing could be close by but -scattered huts and such wreckage as that looming palely above the -oleanders. - -Yet a woman had unquestionably appeared swimming from behind the point -of land off the bow of the _Gar_. The women native to the locality, -and the men, too, were fanatical in the avoidance of any unnecessary -exterior application of water. His thoughts moved in a monotonous -circle, while the enveloping radiance constantly increased. It became -as light as a species of unnatural day, where every leaf was clearly -revealed but robbed of all color and familiar meaning. - -He grew restless, and rose, making his way forward about the -narrow deck-space outside the cabin. Halvard was seated on a coil -of rope beside the windlass and stood erect as Woolfolk approached. -The sailor was smoking a short pipe, and the bowl made a crimson spark -in his thick, powerful hand. John Woolfolk fingered the wood -surface of the windlass bitts and found it rough and gummy. -Halvard said instinctively: - -"I'd better start scraping the mahogany tomorrow, it's getting -white." - -Woolfolk nodded. Halvard was a good man. He had the valuable quality -of commonly anticipating spoken desires. He was a Norwegian, out of -the Lofoden Islands, where sailors are surpassingly schooled in the -Arctic seas. Poul Halvard, so far as Woolfolk could discover, was -impervious to cold, to fatigue, to the insidious whispering of mere -flesh. He was a man without temptation, with an untroubled allegiance -to a duty that involved an endless, exacting labor; and for those -reasons he was austere, withdrawn from the community of more fragile -and sympathetic natures. At times his inflexible integrity oppressed -John Woolfolk. Halvard, he thought, was a difficult man to live up -to. - -He turned and absently surveyed the land. His restlessness increased. -He felt a strong desire for a larger freedom of space than that -offered by the _Gar_, and it occurred to him that he might go ashore -in the tender. He moved aft with this idea growing to a determination. -In the cabin, on the shelf above the berths built against the sides of -the ketch, he found an old blue flannel coat, with crossed squash -rackets and a monogram embroidered in yellow on the breast pocket. -Slipping it on, he dropped over the stern of the tender. - -Halvard came instantly aft, but Woolfolk declined the mutely offered -service. The oars made a silken swish in the still bay as he pulled -away from the yacht. The latter's riding light, swung on the forestay, -hung without a quiver, like a fixed yellow star. He looked once over -his shoulder, and then the bow of the tender ran with a soft shock -upon the beach. Woolfolk bedded the anchor in the sand and then stood -gazing curiously before him. - -On his right a thicket of oleanders drenched the air with the perfume -of their heavy poisonous flowering, and behind them a rough clearing -of saw grass swept up to the debris of the fallen portico. To the -left, beyond the black hole of a decaying well, rose the walls of a -second brick building, smaller than the dwelling. A few shreds of -rotten porch clung to its face; and the moonlight, pouring through a -break above, fell in a livid bar across the obscurity of a high single -chamber. - -Between the crumbling piles there was the faint trace of a footway, -and Woolfolk advance to where, inside a dilapidated sheltering fence, -he came upon a dark, compact mass of trees and smelled the increasing -sweetness of orange blossoms. He struck the remains of a board path, -and progressed with the cold, waxen leaves of the orange trees -brushing his face. There was, he saw in the grey brightness, ripe -fruit among the branches, and he mechanically picked an orange and -then another. They were small but heavy, and had fine skins. - -He tore one open and put a section in his mouth. It was at first -surprisingly bitter, and he involuntarily flung away what remained in -his hand. But after a moment he found that the oranges possessed a -pungency and zestful flavor that he had tasted in no others. Then he -saw, directly before him, a pale, rectangular light which he -recognized as the opened door of a habitation. - - - - -III - - -He advanced more slowly, and a low, irregular house detached itself -from the tangled growth pressing upon it from all sides. The doorway, -dimly lighted by an invisible lamp from within, was now near by; and -John Woolfolk saw a shape cross it, so swiftly furtive that it was -gone before he realized that a man had vanished into the hall. There -was a second stir on the small covered portico, and the slender, -white-clad figure of a woman moved uncertainly forward. He stopped -just at the moment in which a low, clear voice demanded: "What do you -want?" - -The question was directly put, and yet the tone held an inexplicably -acute apprehension. The woman's voice bore a delicate, bell-like -shiver of fear. - -"Nothing," he hastened to assure her. "When I came ashore I thought no -one was living here." - -"You're from the white boat that sailed in at sunset?" - -"Yes," he replied, "and I am returning immediately." - -"It was like magic!" she continued. "Suddenly, without a sound, you -were anchored in the bay." Even this quiet statement bore the shadowy -alarm. John Woolfolk realized that it had not been caused by his -abrupt appearance; the faint accent of dread was fixed in the illusive -form before him. - -"I have robbed you too," he continued in a lighter tone. "Your oranges -are in my pocket." - -"You won't like them," she returned indirectly; "they've run wild. We -can't sell them." - -"They have a distinct flavor of their own," he assured her. "I should -be glad to have some on the _Gar_." - -"All you want." - -"My man will get them and pay you." - -"Please don't----" She stopped abruptly, as if a sudden consideration -had interrupted a liberal courtesy. When she spoke again the -apprehension, Woolfolk thought, had increased to palpable fright. "We -would charge you very little," she said finally. "Nicholas attends to -that." - -Silence fell upon them. She stood with her hand resting lightly -against an upright support, coldly revealed by the moon. John -Woolfolk saw that, although slight, her body was delicately full, -and that her shoulders held a droop which somehow resembled the -shadow on her voice. She bore an unmistakable refinement of being, -strange in that locality of meager humanity. Her speech totally lacked -the unintelligible, loose slurring of the natives. - -"Won't you sit down," she at last broke the silence. "My father was -here when you came up, but he went in. Strangers disturb him." - -Woolfolk moved to the portico, elevated above the ground, where he -found a momentary place. The woman sank back into a low chair. The -stillness gathered about them once more, and he mechanically rolled a -cigarette. Her white dress, although simply and rudely made, gained -distinction from her free, graceful lines; her feet, in black, -heelless slippers, were narrow and sharply cut. He saw that her -countenance bore an even pallor on which her eyes made shadows like -those on marble. - -These details, unremarkable in themselves, were charged with a -peculiar intensity. John Woolfolk, who long ago had put such -considerations from his existence, was yet clearly conscious of the -disturbing quality of her person. She possessed the indefinable -property of charm. Such women, he knew, stirred life profoundly, -reanimating it with extraordinary efforts and desires. Their mere -passage, the pressure of their fingers, were more imperative than the -life service of others; the flutter of their breath could be more -tyrannical that the most poignant memories and vows. - -John Woolfolk thought these things in a manner absolutely detached. -They touched him at no point. Nevertheless, the faint curiosity -stirred within him remained. The house unexpectedly inhabited behind -the ruined facade on the water, the magnetic woman with the echo of -apprehension in her cultivated voice, the parent, so easily disturbed, -even the mere name "Nicholas," all held a marked potentiality of -emotion; they were set in an almost hysterical key. - -He was suddenly conscious of the odorous pressure of the flowering -trees, of the orange blossoms and the oleanders. It was stifling. He -felt that he must escape at once, from all the cloying and insidious -scents of the earth, to the open and sterile sea. The thick tangle in -the colorless light of the moon, the dimmer portico with its enigmatic -figure, were a cunning essence of the existence from which he had -fled. Life's traps were set with just such treacheries--perfume and -mystery and the veiled lure of sex. - -He rose with an uncouth abruptness, a meager commonplace, and hurried -over the path to the beach, toward the refuge, the release, of the -_Gar_. - -John Woolfolk woke at dawn. A thin, bluish light filled the cabin; -above, Halvard was washing the deck. The latter was vigorously -swabbing the cockpit when Woolfolk appeared, but he paused. - -"Perhaps," the sailor said, "you will stay here for a day or two. I'd -like to unship the propeller, and there's the scraping. It's a good -anchorage." - -"We're moving on south," Woolfolk replied, stating the determination -with which he had retired. Then the full sense of Halvard's words -penetrated his waking mind. The propeller, he knew, had not opened -properly for a week; and the anchorage was undoubtedly good. This was -the last place, before entering the Florida passes, for whatever minor -adjustments were necessary. - -The matted shore, flushed with the rising sun, was starred with white -and deep pink blooms; a ray gilded the blank wall of the deserted -mansion. The scent of the orange blossoms was not so insistent as it -had been on the previous evening. The land appeared normal; it -exhibited none of the disturbing influence of which he had been first -conscious. Last night's mood seemed absurd. - -"You are quite right," he altered his pronouncement; "we'll put the -_Gar_ in order here. People are living behind the grove, and there'll -be water." - -He had, for breakfast, oranges brought down the coast, and he was -surprised at their sudden insipidity. They were little better than -faintly sweetened water. He turned and in the pocket of his flannel -coat found one of those he had picked the night before. It was as keen -as a knife; the peculiar aroma had, without doubt, robbed him of all -desire for the cultivated oranges of commerce. - -Halvard was in the tender, under the stern of the ketch, when it -occurred to John Woolfolk that it would be wise to go ashore and -establish his assertion of an adequate water supply. He explained this -briefly to the sailor, who put him on the small shingle of sand. There -he turned to the right, moving idly in a direction away from that he -had taken before. - -He crossed the corner of the demolished abode, made his way through a -press of sere cabbage palmettos, and emerged suddenly on the blinding -expanse of the sea. The limpid water lay in a bright rim over -corrugated and pitted rock, where shallow ultramarine pools spread -gardens of sulphur-yellow and rose anemones. The land curved in upon -the left; a ruined landing extended over the placid tide, and, seated -there with her back toward him, a woman was fishing. - -It was, he saw immediately, the woman of the portico. At the moment of -recognition she turned, and after a brief inspection, slowly waved her -hand. He approached, crossing the openings in the precarious boarding -of the landing, until he stood over her. She said: - -"There's an old sheepshead under here I've been after for a year. If -you'll be very still you can see him." - -She turned her face up to him, and he saw that her cheeks were without -trace of color. At the same time he reaffirmed all that he felt before -with regard to the potent quality of her being. She had a lustrous -mass of warm brown hair twisted into a loose knot that had slid -forward over a broad, low brow; a pointed chin; and pale, disturbing -lips. But her eyes were her most notable feature--they were widely -opened and extraordinary in color; the only similitude that occurred -to John Woolfolk was the grey greenness of olive leaves. In them he -felt the same foreboding that had shadowed her voice. The fleet -passage of her gaze left an indelible impression of an expectancy that -was at once a dread and a strangely youthful candor. She was, he -thought, about thirty. - -She wore now a russet skirt of thin, coarse texture that, like the -dress of the evening, took a slim grace from her fine body, and a -white waist, frayed from many washings, open upon her smooth, round -throat. - -"He's usually by this post," she continued, pointing down through the -clear gloom of the water. - -Woolfolk lowered himself to a position at her side, his gaze following -her direction. There, after a moment, he distinguished the sheepshead, -barred in black and white, wavering about the piling. His companion -was fishing with a short, heavy rod from which time had dissolved the -varnish, an ineffectual brass reel that complained shrilly whenever -the lead was raised or lowered, and a thick, freely-knotted line. - -"You should have a leader," he told her. "The old gentleman can see -your line too plainly." - -There was a sharp pull, she rapidly turned the handle of the -protesting reel, and drew up a gasping, bony fish with extended red -wings. - -"Another robin!" she cried tragically. "This is getting serious. -Dinner," she informed him, "and not sport, is my object." - -He looked out to where a channel made a deep blue stain through the -paler cerulean of the sea. The tide, he saw from the piling, was low. - -"There should be a rockfish in the pass," he pronounced. - -"What good if there is?" she returned. "I couldn't possibly throw out -there. And if I could, why disturb a rock with this?" She shook the -short awkward rod, the knotted line. - -He privately acknowledged the palpable truth of her objections, and -rose. - -"I've some fishing things on the ketch," he said, moving away. He blew -shrilly on a whistle from the beach, and Halvard dropped over the -_Gar's_ side into the tender. - -Woolfolk was soon back on the wharf, stripping the canvas cover from -the long cane tip of a fishing rod brilliantly wound with green and -vermilion, and fitting it into a dark, silver-capped butt. He locked a -capacious reel into place, and, drawing a thin line through agate -guides, attached a glistening steel leader and chained hook. Then, -adding a freely swinging lead, he picked up the small mullet that lay -by his companion. - -"Does that have to go?" she demanded. "It's such a slim chance, and it -is my only mullet." - -He ruthlessly sliced a piece from the silvery side; and, rising and -switching his reel's gear, he cast. The lead swung far out across the -water and fell on the farther side of the channel. - -"But that's dazzling!" she exclaimed; "as though you had shot it out -of a gun." - -He tightened the line, and sat with the rod resting in a leather -socket fastened to his belt. - -"Now," she stated, "we will watch at the vain sacrifice of an only -mullet." - -The day was superb, the sky sparkled like a great blue sun; schools of -young mangrove snappers swept through the pellucid water. The woman -said: - -"Where did you come from and where are you going?" - -"Cape Cod," he replied; "and I am going to the Guianas." - -"Isn't that South America?" she queried. "I've traveled far--on maps. -Guiana," she repeated the name softly. For a moment the faint dread in -her voice changed to longing. "I think I know all the beautiful names -of places on the earth," she continued: "Tarragona and Seriphos and -Cambodia." - -"Some of them you have seen?" - -"None," she answered simply. "I was born here, in the house you know, -and I have never been fifty miles away." - -This, he told himself, was incredible. The mystery that surrounded her -deepened, stirring more strongly his impersonal curiosity. - -"You are surprised," she added; "it's mad, but true. There--there is a -reason." She stopped abruptly, and, neglecting her fishing rod, sat -with her hands clasped about slim knees. She gazed at him slowly, and -he was impressed once more by the remarkable quality of her eyes, -grey-green like olive leaves and strangely young. The momentary -interest created in her by romantic and far names faded, gave place to -the familiar trace of fear. In the long past he would have responded -immediately to the appeal of her pale, magnetic countenance.... He had -broken all connection with society, with---- - -There was a sudden, impressive jerk at his line, the rod instantly -assumed the shape of a bent bow, and, as he rose, the reel spindle was -lost in a grey blur and the line streaked out through the dipping tip. -His companion hung breathless at his shoulder. - -"He'll take all your line," she lamented as the fish continued his -straight, outward course, while Woolfolk kept an even pressure on the -rod. - -"A hundred yards," he announced as he felt a threaded mark wheel -from under his thumb. Then: "A hundred and fifty. I'm afraid it's a -shark." As he spoke the fish leaped clear of the water, a spot of -molten silver, and fell back in a sparkling blue spray. "It's a -rock," he added. He stopped the run momentarily; the rod bent -perilously double, but the fish halted. Woolfolk reeled in smoothly, -but another rush followed, as strong as the first. A long, equal -struggle ensued, the thin line was drawn as rigid as metal, the rod -quivered and arched. Once the rockfish was close enough to be -clearly distinguishable--strongly built, heavy-shouldered, with -black stripes drawn from gills to tail. But he was off again with -a short, blundering rush. - -"If you will hold the rod," Woolfolk directed his companion, "I'll -gaff him." She took the rod while he bent over the wharf's side. The -fish, on the surface of the water, half turned; and, striking the gaff -through a gill, Woolfolk swung him up on the boarding. - -"There," he pronounced, "are several dinners. I'll carry him to your -kitchen." - -"Nicholas would do it, but he's away," she told him; "and my father is -not strong enough. That's a leviathan." - -John Woolfolk placed a handle through the rockfish's gills, and, -carrying it with an obvious effort, he followed her over a narrow, -trampled path through the rasped palmettos. They approached the -dwelling from behind the orange grove; and, coming suddenly to the -porch, surprised an incredibly thin, grey man in the act of lighting a -small stone pipe with a reed stem. He was sitting, but, seeing -Woolfolk, he started sharply to his feet, and the pipe fell, -shattering the bowl. - -"My father," the woman pronounced: "Lichfield Stope." - -"Millie," he stuttered painfully, "you know--I--strangers--" - -John Woolfolk thought, as he presented himself, that he had never -before seen such an immaterial living figure. Lichfield Stope was like -the shadow of a man draped with unsubstantial, dusty linen. Into his -waxen face beat a pale infusion of blood, as if a diluted wine had -been poured into a semi-opaque goblet; his sunken lips puffed out and -collapsed; his fingers, dust-colored like his garb, opened and shut -with a rapid, mechanical rigidity. - -"Father," Millie Stope remonstrated, "you must manage yourself better. -You know I wouldn't bring any one to the house who would hurt us. And -see--we are fetching you a splendid rockfish." - -The older man made a convulsive effort to regain his composure. - -"Ah, yes," he muttered; "just so." - -The flush receded from his indeterminate countenance. Woolfolk saw -that he had a goatee laid like a wasted yellow finger on his chin, and -that his hands hung on wrists like twisted copper wires from circular -cuffs fastened with large mosaic buttons. - -"We are alone here," he proceeded in a fluctuating voice, the voice of -a shadow; "the man is away. My daughter--I----" He grew inaudible, -although his lips maintained a faint movement. - -The fear that lurked illusively in the daughter was in the parent -magnified to an appalling panic, an instinctive, acute agony that had -crushed everything but a thin, tormented spark of life. He passed his -hand over a brow as dry as the spongy limbs of the cypress, brushing a -scant lock like dead, bleached moss. - -"The fish," he pronounced; "yes ... acceptable." - -"If you will carry it back for me," Millie Stope requested; "we have -no ice; I must put it in water." He followed her about a bay window -with ornamental fretting that bore the shreds of old, variegated -paint. He could see, amid an incongruous wreckage within, a dismantled -billiard table, its torn cloth faintly green beneath a film of dust. -They turned and arrived at the kitchen door. "There, please." She -indicated a bench on the outside wall, and he deposited his burden. - -"You have been very nice," she told him, making her phrase less -commonplace by a glance of her wide, appealing eyes. "Now, I suppose, -you will go on across the world?" - -"Not tonight," he replied distantly. - -"Perhaps, then, you will come ashore again. We see so few people. My -father would be benefited. It was only at first, so suddenly--he was -startled." - -"There is a great deal to do on the ketch," he replied indirectly, -maintaining his retreat from the slightest advance of life. "I came -ashore to discover if you had a large water supply and if I might fill -my casks." - -"Rain water," she informed him; "the cistern is full." - -"Then I'll send Halvard to you." He withdrew a step, but paused at the -incivility of his leaving. - -A sudden weariness had settled over the shoulders of Millie Stope; she -appeared young and very white. Woolfolk was acutely conscious of her -utter isolation with the shivering figure on the porch, the -unmaterialized Nicholas. She had delicate hands. - -"Good-by," he said, bowing formally. "And thank you for the fishing." - -He whistled sharply for the tender. - - - - -IV - - -Throughout the afternoon, with a triangular scraping iron, he assisted -Halvard in removing the whitened varnish from the yacht's mahogany. -They worked silently, with only the shrill note of the edges drawing -across the wood, while the westering sun plunged its diagonal rays far -into the transparent depths of the bay. The _Gar_ floated motionless -on water like a pale evening over purple and silver flowers threaded -by fish painted the vermilion and green of parrakeets. Inshore the -pallid cypresses seemed, as John Woolfolk watched them, to twist in -febrile pain. With the waning of day the land took on its air of -unhealthy mystery; the mingled, heavy scents floated out in a sickly -tide; the ruined facade glimmered in the half light. - -Woolfolk's thoughts turned back to the woman living in the miasma of -perfume and secret fear. He heard again her wistful voice pronounce -the names of far places, of Tarragona and Seriphos, investing them -with the accent of an intense hopeless desire. He thought of the -inexplicable place of her birth and of the riven, unsubstantial figure -of the man with the blood pulsing into his ocherous face. Some old, -profound error or calamity had laid its blight upon him, he was -certain; but the most lamentable inheritance was not sufficient to -account for the acute apprehension in his daughter's tones. This was -different in kind from the spiritual collapse of the aging man. It was -actual, he realized that; proceeding--in part at least--from without. - -He wondered, scraping with difficulty the under-turning of a cathead, -if whatever dark tide was centered above her would, perhaps, descend -through the oleander-scented night and stifle her in the stagnant -dwelling. He had a swift, vividly complete vision of the old man face -down upon the floor in a flickering, reddish light. - -He smiled in self-contempt at this neurotic fancy; and, straightening -his cramped muscles, rolled a cigarette. It might be that the years he -had spent virtually alone on the silence of various waters had -affected his brain. Halvard's broad, concentrated countenance, the -steady, grave gaze and determined mouth, cleared Woolfolk's mind of -its phantoms. He moved to the cockpit and from there said: - -"That will do for today." - -Halvard followed, and commenced once more the familiar, ordered -preparations for supper. John Woolfolk, smoking while the sky turned -to malachite, became sharply aware of the unthinkable monotony of the -universal course, of the centuries wheeling in dull succession into -infinity. Life seemed to him no more varied than the wire drum in -which squirrels raced nowhere. His own lot, he told himself grimly, -was no worse than another. Existence was all of the same drab piece. -It had seemed gay enough when he was young, worked with gold and -crimson threads, and then---- - -His thoughts were broken by Halyard's appearance in the companionway, -and he descended to his solitary supper in the contracted, still -cabin. - -Again on deck his sense of the monotony of life trebled. He had been -cruising now about the edges of continents for twelve years. For -twelve years he had taken no part in the existence of the cities he -had passed, as often as possible without stopping, and of the villages -gathered invitingly under their canopies of trees. He was--yes, he -must be--forty-six. Life was passing away; well, let it ... -worthless. - -The growing radiance of the moon glimmered across the water and folded -the land in a gossamer veil. The same uneasiness, the inchoate desire -to go ashore that had seized upon him the night before, reasserted its -influence. The face of Millie Stope floated about him like a magical -gardenia in the night of the matted trees. He resisted the pressure -longer than before; but in the end he was seated in the tender, -pulling toward the beach. - -He entered the orange grove and slowly approached the house beyond. -Millie Stope advanced with a quick welcome. - -"I'm glad," she said simply. "Nicholas is back. The fish weighed--" - -"I think I'd better not know," he interrupted. "I might be tempted to -mention it in the future, when it would take on the historic suspicion -of the fish story." - -"But it was imposing," she protested. "Let's go to the sea; it's so -limitless in the moonlight." - -He followed her over the path to where the remains of the wharf -projected into a sea as black, and as solid apparently, as ebony, and -across which the moon flung a narrow way like a chalk mark. Millie -Stope seated herself on the boarding and he found a place near by. She -leaned forward, with her arms propped up and her chin couched on her -palms. Her potency increased rather than diminished with association; -her skin had a rare texture; her movements, the turn of the wrists, -were distinguished. He wondered again at the strangeness of her -situation. - -She looked about suddenly and surprised his palpable questioning. - -"You are puzzled," she pronounced. "Perhaps you are setting me in the -middle of romance. Please don't! Nothing you might guess----" She -broke off abruptly, returned to her former pose. "And yet," she added -presently, "I have a perverse desire to talk about myself. It's -perverse because, although you are a little curious, you have no real -interest in what I might say. There is something about you like--yes, -like the cast-iron dog that used to stand in our lawn. It rusted away, -cold to the last and indifferent, although I talked to it by the hour. -But I did get a little comfort from its stolid painted eye. Perhaps -you'd act in the same way. - -"And then," she went on when Woolfolk had somberly failed to comment, -"you are going away, you will forget, it can't possibly matter. I must -talk, now that I have urged myself this far. After all, you needn't -have come back. But where shall I begin? You should know something of -the very first. That happened in Virginia.... My father didn't go to -war," she said, sudden and clear. She turned her face toward him, and -he saw that it had lost its flower-like quality; it looked as if it -had been carved in stone. - -"He lived in a small, intensely loyal town," she continued; "and when -Virginia seceded it burned with a single high flame of sacrifice. My -father had been always a diffident man; he collected mezzotints and -avoided people. So, when the enlistment began, he shrank away from the -crowds and hot speeches, and the men went off without him. He lived in -complete retirement then, with his prints, in a town of women. It -wasn't impossible at first; he discussed the situation with the few -old tradesmen that remained, and exchanged bows with the wives and -daughters of his friends. But when the dead commenced to be brought in -from the front it got worse. Belle Semple--he had always thought her -unusually nice and pretty--mocked at him on the street. Then one -morning he found an apron tied to the knob of the front door. - -"After that he went out only at night. His servants had deserted him, -and he lived by himself in a biggish, solemn house. Sometimes the news -of losses and deaths would be shouted through his windows; once stones -were thrown in, but mostly he was let alone. It must have been -frightful in his empty rooms when the South went from bad to worse." -She paused, and John Woolfolk could see, even in the obscurity, the -slow shudder that passed over her. - -"When the war was over and what men were left returned--one with hands -gone at the wrists, another without legs in a shabby wheelchair--the -life of the town started once more, but my father was for ever outside -of it. Little subscriptions for burials were made up, small schemes -for getting the necessities, but he was never asked. Men spoke to him -again, even some of the women. That was all. - -"I think it was then that a curious, perpetual dread fastened on his -mind--a fear of the wind in the night, of breaking twigs or sudden -voices. He ordered things to be left on the steps, and he would peer -out from under the blind to make sure that the walk was empty before -he opened the door. - -"You must realize," she said in a sharper voice, "that my father was -not a pure coward at first. He was an extremely sensitive man who -hated the rude stir of living and who simply asked to be left -undisturbed with his portfolios. But life's not like that. The war -hunted him out and ruined him; it destroyed his being, just as it -destroyed the fortunes of others. - -"Then he began to think--it was absolute fancy--that there was a -conspiracy in the town to kill him. He sent some of his things away, -got together what money he had, and one night left his home secretly -on foot. He tramped south for weeks, living for a while in small place -after place, until he reached Georgia, and then a town about fifty -miles from here----" - -She broke off, sitting rigidly erect, looking out over the level black -sea with its shifting, chalky line of light, and a long silence -followed. The antiphonal crying of the owls sounded over the bubbling -swamp, the mephitic perfume hung like a vapor on the shore. John -Woolfolk shifted his position. - -"My mother told me this," his companion said suddenly. "Father -repeated it over and over through the nights after they were married. -He slept only in snatches, and would wake with a gasp and his heart -almost bursting. I know almost nothing about her, except that she had -a brave heart--or she would have gone mad. She was English and had -been a governess. They met in the little hotel where they were -married. Then father bought this place, and they came here to live." - -Woolfolk had a vision of the tenuous figure of Lichfield Stope; he was -surprised that such acute agony had left the slightest trace of -humanity; yet the other, after forty years of torment, still survived -to shudder at a chance footfall, the advent of a casual and harmless -stranger. - -This, then, was by implication the history of the woman at his side; -it disposed of the mystery that had veiled her situation here. It was -surprisingly clear, even to the subtle influence that, inherited from -her father, had set the shadow of his own obsession upon her voice and -eyes. Yet, in the moment that she had been made explicable, he -recalled the conviction that the knowledge of an actual menace lurked -in her mind; he had seen it in the tension of her body, in the anxiety -of fleet backward glances. - -The latter, he told himself, might be merely a symptom of mental -sickness, a condition natural to the influences under which she had -been formed. He tested and rejected that possibility--there could be -no doubt of her absolute sanity. It was patent in a hundred details of -her carriage, in her mentality as it had been revealed in her -restrained, balanced narrative. - -There was, too, the element of her mother to be considered. Millie -Stope had known very little about her, principally the self-evident -fact of the latter's "brave heart." It would have needed that to -remain steadfast through the racking recitals of the long, waking -darks; to accompany to this desolate and lonely refuge the man who had -had an apron tied to his doorknob. In the degree that the daughter had -been a prey to the man's fear she would have benefited from the -stiffer qualities of the English governess. Life once more assumed its -enigmatic mask. - -His companion said: - -"All that--and I haven't said a word about myself, the real end of my -soliloquy. I'm permanently discouraged; I have qualms about boring -you. No, I shall never find another listener as satisfactory as the -iron dog." - -A light glimmered far at sea. "I sit here a great deal," she informed -him, "and watch the ships, a thumbprint of blue smoke at day and a -spark at night, going up and down their water roads. You are -enviable--getting up your anchor, sailing where you like, safe and -free." Her voice took on a passionate intensity that surprised him; it -was sick with weariness and longing, with sudden revolt from the -pervasive apprehension. - -"Safe and free," he repeated thinly, as if satirizing the condition -implied by those commonplace, assuaging words. He had, in his flight -from society, sought simply peace. John Woolfolk now questioned all -his implied success. He had found the elemental hush of the sea, the -iron aloofness of rocky and uninhabited coasts, but he had never been -able to still the dull rebellion within, the legacy of the past. A -feeling of complete failure settled over him. His safety and freedom -amounted to this--that life had broken him and cast him aside. - -A long, hollow wail rose from the land, and Millie Stope moved -sharply. - -"There's Nicholas," she exclaimed, "blowing on the conch! They don't -know where I am; I'd better go in." - -A small, evident panic took possession of her; the shiver in her voice -swelled. - -"No, don't come," she added. "I'll be quicker without you." She made -her way over the wharf to the shore, but there paused, "I suppose -you'll be going soon?" - -"Tomorrow probably," he answered. - -On the ketch Halvard had gone below for the night. The yacht swayed -slightly to an unseen swell; the riding light moved backward and -forward, its ray flickering over the glassy water. John Woolfolk -brought his bedding from the cabin and, disposing it on deck, lay with -his wakeful dark face set against the far, multitudinous worlds. - - - - -V - - -In the morning Halvard proposed a repainting of the engine. - -"The Florida air," he said, "eats metal overnight." And the ketch -remained anchored. - -Later in the day Woolfolk sounded the water casks cradled in the -cockpit, and, when they answered hollow, directed his man with regard -to their refilling. They drained a cask. Halvard put it on the tender -and pulled in to the beach. There he shouldered the empty container -and disappeared among the trees. - -Woolfolk was forward, preparing a chain hawser for coral anchorages, -when he saw Halvard tramping shortly back over the sand. He entered -the tender and, with a vicious shove, rowed with a powerful, -vindictive sweep toward the ketch. The cask evidently had been left -behind. He made the tender fast and swung aboard with his notable -agility. - -"There's a damn idiot in that house," he declared, in a surprising -departure from his customary detached manner. - -"Explain yourself," Woolfolk demanded shortly. - -"But I'm going back after him," the sailor stubbornly proceeded. "I'll -turn any knife out of his hand." It was evident that he was laboring -under an intense growing excitement and anger. - -"The only idiot's not on land," Woolfolk told him. "Where's the water -cask you took ashore?" - -"Broken." - -"How?" - -"I'll tell you fast enough. There was nobody about when I went up to -the house, although there was a chair rocking on the porch as if a -person had just left. I knocked at the door; it was open, and I was -certain that I heard someone inside, but nobody answered. Then after a -bit I went around back. The kitchen was open, too, and no one in -sight. I saw the water cistern and thought I'd fill up, when you could -say something afterward. I did, and was rolling the cask about the -house when this--loggerhead came out of the bushes. He wanted to know -what I was getting away with, and I explained, but it didn't suit him. -He said I might be telling facts and again I mightn't. I saw there was -no use talking, and started rolling the cask again; but he put his -foot on it, and I pushed one way and he the other----" - -"And between you, you stove in the cask," Woolfolk interrupted. - -"That's it," Poul Halvard answered concisely. "Then I got mad, and -offered to beat in his face, but he had a knife. I could have broken -it out of his grip--I've done it before in a place or two--but I -thought I'd better come aboard and report before anything general -began." - -John Woolfolk was momentarily at a loss to establish the identity of -Halvard's assailant. - -He soon realized, however, that it must be Nicholas, whom he had never -seen, and who had blown such an imperative summons on the conch the -night before. Halvard's temper was communicated to him; he moved -abruptly to where the tender was fastened. - -"Put me ashore," he directed. He would make it clear that his man was -not to be interrupted in the execution of his orders, and that his -property could not be arbitrarily destroyed. - -When the tender ran upon the beach and had been secured, Halvard -started to follow him, but Woolfolk waved him back. There was a stir -on the portico as he approached, the flitting of an unsubstantial -form; but, hastening, John Woolfolk arrested Lichfield Stope in the -doorway. - -"Morning," he nodded abruptly. "I came to speak to you about a water -cask of mine." - -The other swayed like a thin, grey column of smoke. - -"Ah, yes," he pronounced with difficulty. "Water cask----" - -"It was broken here a little while back." - -At the suggestion of violence such a pitiable panic fell upon the -older man that Woolfolk halted. Lichfield Stope raised his hands as if -to ward off the mere impact of the words themselves; his face was -stained with the thin red tide of congestion. - -"You have a man named Nicholas," Woolfolk proceeded. "I should like to -see him." - -The other made a gesture as tremulous and indeterminate as his speech -and appeared to dissolve into the hall. John Woolfolk stood for a -moment undecided and then moved about the house toward the kitchen. -There, he thought, he might obtain an explanation of the breaking of -the cask. A man was walking about within and came to the door as -Woolfolk approached. - -The latter told himself that he had never seen a blanker countenance. -In profile it showed a narrow brow, a huge, drooping nose, a pinched -mouth and insignificant chin. From the front the face of the man in -the doorway held the round, unscored cheeks of a fat and sleepy boy. -The eyes were mere long glimmers of vision in thick folds of flesh; -the mouth, upturned at the corners, lent a fixed, mechanical smile to -the whole. It was a countenance on which the passage of time and -thoughts had left no mark; its stolidity had been moved by no feeling. -His body was heavy and sagging. It possessed, Woolfolk recognized, a -considerable unwieldy strength, and was completely covered by a -variously spotted and streaked apron. - -"Are you Nicholas?" John Woolfolk demanded. - -The other nodded. - -"Then, I take it, you are the man who broke my water cask." - -"It was full of our water," Nicholas replied in a thick voice. - -"That," said Woolfolk, "I am not going to argue with you. I came -ashore to instruct you to let my man and my property alone." - -"Then leave our water be." - -John Woolfolk's temper, the instinctive arrogance of men living apart -from the necessary submissions of communal life, in positions--however -small--of supreme command, flared through his body. - -"I told you," he repeated shortly, "that I would not discuss the -question of the water. I have no intention of justifying myself to -you. Remember--your hands off." - -The other said surprisingly: "Don't get me started!" A spasm of -emotion made a faint, passing shade on his sodden countenance; his -voice held almost a note of appeal. - -"Whether you 'start' or not is without the slightest significance," -Woolfolk coldly responded. - -"Mind," the man went on, "I spoke first." - -A steady twitching commenced in a muscle at the flange of his nose. -Woolfolk was aware of an increasing tension in the other, that gained -a peculiar oppressiveness from the lack of any corresponding outward -expression. His heavy, blunt hand fumbled under the maculate apron; -his chest heaved with a sudden, tempestuous breathing. "Don't start -me," he repeated in a voice so blurred that the words were hardly -recognizable. He swallowed convulsively, his emotion mounting to an -inchoate passion, when suddenly a change was evident. He made a short, -violent effort to regain his self-control, his gaze fastened on a -point behind Woolfolk. - -The latter turned and saw Millie Stope approaching, her countenance -haggard with fear. "What has happened?" she cried breathlessly while -yet a little distance away. "Tell me at once----" - -"Nothing," Woolfolk promptly replied, appalled by the agony in her -voice. "Nicholas and I had a small misunderstanding. A triviality," he -added, thinking of the other's hand groping beneath the apron. - - - - -VI - - -On the morning following the breaking of his water cask John Woolfolk -saw the slender figure of Millie on the beach. She waved and called, -her voice coming thin and clear across the water: - -"Are visitors--encouraged?" - -He sent Halvard in with the tender, and as they approached, dropped a -gangway over the _Gar's_ side. She stepped lightly down into the -cockpit with a naive expression of surprise at the yacht's immaculate -order. The sails lay precisely housed, the stays, freshly tarred, -glistened in the sun, the brasswork and newly varnished mahogany -shone, the mathematically coiled ropes rested on a deck as spotless as -wood could be scraped. - -"Why," she exclaimed, "it couldn't be neater if you were two nice old -ladies!" - -"I warn you," Woolfolk replied, "Halvard will not regard that -particularly as a compliment. He will assure you that the order of -a proper yacht is beyond the most ambitious dream of a mere -housekeeper." - -She laughed as Halvard placed a chair for her. She was, Woolfolk -thought, lighter in spirit on the ketch than she had been on shore; -there was the faintest imaginable stain on her petal-like cheeks; her -eyes, like olive leaves, were almost gay. She sat with her slender -knees crossed, her fine arms held with hands clasped behind her head, -and clad in a crisply ironed, crude white dress, into the band of -which she had thrust a spray of orange blossoms. - -John Woolfolk was increasingly conscious of her peculiar charm. Millie -Stope, he suddenly realized, was like the wild oranges in the -neglected grove at her door. A man brought in contact with her -magnetic being charged with appealing and mysterious emotions, in a -setting of exotic night and black sea, would find other women, the -ordinary concourse of society, insipid--like faintly sweetened water. - -She was entirely at home on the ketch, sitting against the immaculate -rim of deck and the sea. He resented that familiarity as an -unwarranted intrusion of the world he had left. Other people, women -among them, had unavoidably crossed his deck, but they had been -patently alien, momentary; but Millie, with her still delight at the -yacht's compact comfort, her intuitive comprehension of its various -details--the lamps set in gimbals, the china racks and chart cases -slung overhead--entered at once into the spirit of the craft that was -John Woolfolk's sole place of being. - -He was now disturbed by the ease with which she had established -herself both in the yacht and in his imagination. He had thought, -after so many years, to have destroyed all the bonds which ordinarily -connect men with life; but now a mere curiosity had grown into a -tangible interest, and the interest showed unmistakable signs of -becoming sympathy. - -She smiled at him from her position by the wheel; and he instinctively -responded with such an unaccustomed, ready warmth that he said -abruptly, seeking refuge in occupation: - -"Why not reach out to sea? The conditions are perfect." - -"Ah, please!" she cried. "Just to take up the anchor would thrill me -for months." - -A light west wind was blowing; and deliberate, exactly spaced swells, -their tops laced with iridescent spray, were sweeping in from a sea -like a glassy blue pavement. Woolfolk issued a short order, and the -sailor moved forward with his customary smooth swiftness. The sails -were shaken loose, the mainsail slowly spread its dazzling expanse to -the sun, the jib and jigger were trimmed, and the anchor came up with -a short rush. - -Millie rose with her arms outspread, her chin high and eyes closed. - -"Free!" she proclaimed with a slow, deep breath. - -The sails filled and the ketch forged ahead. John Woolfolk, at the -wheel, glanced at the chart section beside him. - -"There's four feet on the bar at low water," he told Halvard. "The -tide's at half flood now." - -The _Gar_ increased her speed, slipping easily out of the bay, gladly, -it seemed to Woolfolk, turning toward the sea. The bow rose, and the -ketch dipped forward over a spent wave. Millie Stope grasped the -wheelbox. "Free!" she said again with shining eyes. - -The yacht rose more sharply, hung on a wave's crest and slid lightly -downward. Woolfolk, with a sinewy, dark hand directing their course, -was intent upon the swelling sails. Once he stopped, tightening a -halyard, and the sailor said: - -"The main peak won't flatten, sir." - -The swells grew larger. The _Gar_ climbed their smooth heights and -coasted like a feather beyond. Directly before the yacht they were -unbroken, but on either side they foamed into a silver quickly -reabsorbed in the deeper water within the bar. - -Woolfolk turned from his scrutiny of the ketch to his companion, and -was surprised to see her, with all the joy evaporated from her -countenance, clinging rigidly to the rail. He said to himself, -"Seasick." Then he realized that it was not a physical illness that -possessed her, but a profound, increasing terror. She endeavored to -smile back at his questioning gaze, and said in a small, uncertain -voice: - -"It's so--so big!" - -For a moment he saw in her a clear resemblance to the shrinking figure -of Lichfield Stope. It was as though suddenly she had lost her fine -profile and become indeterminate, shadowy. The grey web of the old -deflection in Virginia extended over her out of the past--of the past -that, Woolfolk thought, would not die. - -The _Gar_ rose higher still, dropped into the deep, watery valley, and -the woman's face was drawn and wet, the back of her straining hand was -dead white. Without further delay John Woolfolk put the wheel sharply -over and told his man, "We're going about." Halvard busied himself -with the shaking sails. - -"Really--I'd rather you didn't," Millie gasped. "I must learn ... no -longer a child." - -But Woolfolk held the ketch on her return course; his companion's -panic was growing beyond her control. They passed once more between -the broken waves and entered the still bay with its border of -flowering earth. There, when the yacht had been anchored, Millie sat -gazing silently at the open sea whose bigness had so unexpectedly -distressed her. Her face was pinched, her mouth set in a straight, -hard line. That, somehow, suggested to Woolfolk the enigmatic -governess; it was in contradiction to the rest. - -"How strange," she said at last in an insuperably weary voice, "to be -forced back to this place that I loathe, by myself, by my own -cowardice. It's exactly as if my spirit were chained--then the body -could never be free. What is it," she demanded of John Woolfolk, "that -lives in our own hearts and betrays our utmost convictions and -efforts, and destroys us against all knowledge and desire?" - -"It may be called heredity," he replied; "that is its simplest phase. -The others extend into the realms of the fantastic." - -"It's unjust," she cried bitterly, "to be condemned to die in a pit -with all one's instinct in the sky!" - -The old plea of injustice quivered for a moment over the water and -then died away. John Woolfolk had made the same passionate protest, he -had cried it with clenched hands at the withdrawn stars, and the -profound inattention of Nature had appalled his agony. A thrill of -pity moved him for the suffering woman beside him. Her mouth was still -unrelaxed. There was in her the material for a struggle against the -invidious past. - -In her slender frame the rebellion took on an accent of the heroic. -Woolfolk recalled how utterly he had gone down before mischance. But -his case had been extreme, he had suffered an unendurable wrong at the -hand of Fate. Halvard diverted his thoughts by placing before them a -tray of sugared pineapple and symmetrical cakes. Millie, too, lost her -tension; she showed a feminine pleasure at the yacht's fine napkins, -approved the polish of the glass. - -"It's all quite wonderful," she said. - -"I have nothing else to care for," Woolfolk told her. - -"No place nor people on land?" - -"None." - -"And you are satisfied?" - -"Absolutely," he replied with an unnecessary emphasis. He was, he told -himself aggressively; he wanted nothing more from living and had -nothing to give. Yet his pity for Millie Stope mounted obscurely, -bringing with it thoughts, dim obligations and desires, to which he -had declared himself dead. - -"I wonder if you are to be envied?" she queried. - -A sudden astounding willingness to speak of himself, even of the past, -swept over him. - -"Hardly," he replied. "All the things that men value were killed for -me in an instant, in the flutter of a white skirt." - -"Can you talk about it?" - -"There's almost nothing to tell; it was so unrelated, so senseless and -blind. It can't be dressed into a story, it has no moral--no meaning. -Well--it was twelve years ago. I had just been married, and we had -gone to a property in the country. After two days I had to go into -town, and when I came back Ellen met me in a breaking cart. It was a -flag station, buried in maples, with a white road winding back to -where we were staying. - -"Ellen had trouble in holding the horse when the train left, and the -beast shied going from the station. It was Monday, clothes hung from a -line in a side yard and a skirt fluttered in a little breeze. The -horse reared, the strapped back of the seat broke, and Ellen was -thrown--on her head. It killed her." - -He fell silent. Millie breathed sharply, and a ripple struck with a -faint slap on the yacht's side. Then: "One can't allow that," he -continued in a lower voice, as if arguing with himself; "arbitrary, -wanton; impossible to accept such conditions---- - -"She was young," he once more took up the narrative; "a girl in a -tennis skirt with a gay scarf about her waist--quite dead in a second. -The clothes still fluttered on the line. You see," he ended, "nothing -instructive, tragic--only a crude dissonance." - -"Then you left everything?" - -He failed to answer, and she gazed with a new understanding and -interest over the _Gar_. Her attention was attracted to the beach, -and, following her gaze, John Woolfolk saw the bulky figure of -Nicholas gazing at them from under his palm. A palpable change, a -swift shadow, enveloped Millie Stope. - -"I must go back," she said uneasily; "there will be dinner, and my -father has been alone all morning." - -But Woolfolk was certain that, however convincing the reasons she put -forward, it was none of these that was taking her so hurriedly ashore. -The dread that for the past few hours had almost vanished from her -tones, her gaze, had returned multiplied. It was, he realized, the -objective fear; her entire being was shrinking as if in anticipation -of an imminent calamity, a physical blow. - -Woolfolk himself put her on the beach; and, with the tender canted on -the sand, steadied her spring. As her hand rested on his arm it -gripped him with a sharp force; a response pulsed through his body; -and an involuntary color rose in her pale, fine cheeks. - -Nicholas, stolidly set with his shoes half buried in the sand, -surveyed them without a shade of feeling on his thick countenance. But -Woolfolk saw that the other's fingers were crawling toward his pocket. -He realized that the man's dully smiling mask concealed sultry, -ungoverned emotions, blind springs of hate. - - - - -VII - - -Again on the ketch the inevitable reaction overtook him. He had spoken -of Ellen's death to no one until now, through all the years when he -had been a wanderer on the edge of his world, and he bitterly -regretted his reference to it. In speaking he had betrayed his -resolution of solitude. Life, against all his instinct, his wishes, -had reached out and caught him, however lightly, in its tentacles. - -The least surrender, he realized, the slightest opening of his -interest, would bind him with a multitude of attachments; the octopus -that he dreaded, uncoiling arm after arm, would soon hold him again, a -helpless victim for the fury Chance. - -He had made a disastrous error in following his curiosity, the -insistent scent of the wild oranges, to the house where Millie had -advanced on the dim portico. His return there had been the inevitable -result of the first mistake, and the rest had followed with a fatal -ease. Whatever had been the deficiences of the past twelve years he -had been free from new complications, fresh treacheries. Now, with -hardly a struggle, he was falling back into the old trap. - -The wind died away absolutely, and a haze gathered delicately over the -sea, thickening through the afternoon, and turned rosy by the -declining sun. The shore had faded from sight. - -A sudden energy leaped through John Woolfolk and rang out in an abrupt -summons to Halvard. "Get up anchor," he commanded. - -Poul Halvard, at the mainstay, remarked tentatively: "There's not a -capful of wind." - -The wide calm, Woolfolk thought, was but a part of a general -conspiracy against his liberty, his memories. "Get the anchor up," he -repeated harshly. "We'll go under the engine." The sudden jarring of -the _Gar's_ engine sounded muffled in a shut space like the flushed -heart of a shell. The yacht moved forward, with a wake like folded -gauze, into a shimmer of formless and pure color. - -John Woolfolk sat at the wheel, motionless except for an occasional -scant shifting of his hands. He was sailing by compass; the patent -log, trailing behind on its long cord, maintained a constant, jerking -register on its dial. He had resolutely banished all thought save that -of navigation. Halvard was occupied forward, clearing the deck of the -accumulations of the anchorage. When he came aft Woolfolk said -shortly: "No mess." - -The haze deepened and night fell, and the sailor lighted and placed -the port and starboard lights. The binnacle lamp threw up a dim, -orange radiance on Woolfolk's somber countenance. He continued for -three and four and then five hours at the wheel, while the smooth -clamor of the engine, a slight quiver of the hull, alone marked their -progress through an invisible element. - -Once more he had left life behind. This had more the aspect of a -flight than at any time previous. It was, obscurely, an unpleasant -thought, and he endeavored--unsuccessfully--to put it from him. He was -but pursuing the course he had laid out, following his necessary, -inflexible determination. - -His mind for a moment turned independently back to Millie with her -double burden of fear. He had left her without a word, isolated with -Nicholas, concealing with a blank smile his enigmatic being, and with -her impotent parent. - -Well, he was not responsible for her, he had paid for the privilege of -immunity; he had but listened to her story, volunteering nothing. John -Woolfolk wished, however, that he had said some final, useful word to -her before going. He was certain that, looking for the ketch and -unexpectedly finding the bay empty, she would suffer a pang, if only -of loneliness. In the short while that he had been there she had come -to depend on him for companionship, for relief from the insuperable -monotony of her surroundings; for, perhaps, still more. He wondered -what that more might contain. He thought of Millie at the present -moment, probably lying awake, steeped in dread. His flight now assumed -the aspect of an act of cowardice, of desertion. He rehearsed wearily -the extenuations of his position, but without any palpable relief. - -An even more disturbing possibility lodged in his thoughts--he was not -certain that he did not wish to be actually back with Millie again. He -felt the quick pressure of her fingers on his arm as she jumped from -the tender; her magnetic personality hung about him like an aroma. -Cloaked in mystery, pale and irresistible, she appealed to him from -the edge of the wild oranges. - -This, he told himself again, was but the manner in which a ruthless -Nature set her lures; it was the deceptive vestment of romance. He -held the ketch relentlessly on her course, with--now--all his -thoughts, his inclinations, returning to Millie Stope. In a final, -desperate rally of his scattering resolution he told himself that he -was unfaithful to the tragic memory of Ellen. This last stay broke -abruptly, and left him defenseless against the tyranny of his mounting -desires. Strangely he felt the sudden pressure of a stirring wind upon -his face; and, almost with an oath, he put the wheel sharply over and -the _Gar_ swung about. - -Poul Halvard had been below, by inference asleep; but when the yacht -changed her course he immediately appeared on deck. He moved aft, but -Woolfolk made no explanation, the sailor put no questions. The wind -freshened, grew sustained. Woolfolk said: - -"Make sail." - -Soon after, the mainsail rose, a ghostly white expanse on the night. -John Woolfolk trimmed the jigger, shut off the engine; and, moving -through a sudden, vast hush, they retraced their course. The bay was -ablaze with sunlight, the morning well advanced, when the ketch -floated back to her anchorage under the oleanders. - - - - -VIII - - -Whether he returned or fled, Woolfolk thought, he was enveloped in an -atmosphere of defeat. He relinquished the wheel, but remained seated, -drooping at his post. The indefatigable Halvard proceeded with the -efficient discharge of his narrow, exacting duties. After a short -space John Woolfolk descended to the cabin, where, on an unmade berth, -he fell immediately asleep. - -He woke to a dim interior and twilight gathering outside. He -shaved--without conscious purpose--with meticulous care, and put on -the blue flannel coat. Later he rowed himself ashore and proceeded -directly through the orange grove to the house beyond. - -Millie Stope was seated on the portico, and laid a restraining hand on -her father's arm as he rose, attempting to retreat at Woolfolk's -approach. The latter, with a commonplace greeting, resumed his place. - -Millie's face was dim and potent in the gloom, and Lichfield Stope -more than ever resembled an uneasy ghost. He muttered an indistinct -response to a period directed at him by Woolfolk and turned with a -low, urgent appeal to his daughter. The latter, with a hopeless -gesture, relinquished his arm, and the other vanished. - -"You were sailing this morning," Millie commented listlessly. - -"I had gone," he said without explanation. Then he added: "But I came -back." - -A silence threatened them which he resolutely broke: "Do you remember, -when you told me about your father, that you wanted really to talk -about yourself? Will you do that now?" - -"Tonight I haven't the courage." - -"I am not idly curious," he persisted. - -"Just what are you?" - -"I don't know," he admitted frankly. "At the present moment I'm lost, -fogged. But, meanwhile, I'd like to give you any assistance in my -power. You seem, in a mysterious way, needful of help." - -She turned her head sharply in the direction of the open hall and said -in a high, clear voice, that yet rang strangely false: "I am quite -well cared for by my father and Nicholas." She moved closer to him, -dragging her chair across the uneven porch, in the rasp of which she -added, quick and low: - -"Don't--please." - -A mounting exasperation seized him at the secrecy that veiled her, hid -her from him, and he answered stiffly: "I am merely intrusive." - -She was seated above him, and she leaned forward and swiftly pressed -his fingers, loosely clasped about a knee. Her hand was as cold as -salt. His irritation vanished before a welling pity. He got now a -sharp, recognized happiness from her nearness; his feeling for her -increased with the accumulating seconds. After the surrender, the -admission, of his return he had grown elemental, sensitized to -emotions rather than to processes of intellect. His ardor had the -poignancy of the period beyond youth. It had a trace of the -consciousness of the fatal waning of life which gave it a depth denied -to younger passions. He wished to take Millie Stope at once from all -memory of the troublous past, to have her alone in a totally different -and thrilling existence. - -It was a personal and blind desire, born in the unaccustomed tumult of -his newly released feelings. - -They sat for a long while, silent or speaking in trivialities, when he -proposed a walk to the sea; but she declined in that curiously loud -and false tone. It seemed to Woolfolk that, for the moment, she had -addressed someone not immediately present; and involuntarily he looked -around. The light of the hidden lamp in the hall fell in a pale, -unbroken rectangle on the irregular porch. There was not the shifting -of a pound's weight audible in the stillness. - -Millie breathed unevenly; at times he saw she shivered uncontrollably. -At this his feeling mounted beyond all restraint. He said, taking her -cold hand: "I didn't tell you why I went last night--it was because I -was afraid to stay where you were; I was afraid of the change you were -bringing about in my life. That's all over now, I----" - -"Isn't it quite late?" she interrupted him uncomfortably. She rose and -her agitation visibly increased. - -He was about to force her to hear all that he must say, but he stopped -at the mute wretchedness of her pallid face. He stood gazing up at her -from the rough sod. She clenched her hands, her breast heaved sharply, -and she spoke in a level, strained voice: - -"It would have been better if you had gone--without coming back. My -father is unhappy with anyone about except myself--and Nicholas. You -see--he will not stay on the porch nor walk about his grounds. I am -not in need of assistance, as you seem to think. And--thank you. Good -night." - -He stood without moving, his head thrown back, regarding her with a -searching frown. He listened again, unconsciously, and thought he -heard the low creaking of a board from within. It could be nothing but -the uneasy peregrination of Lichfield Stope. The sound was repeated, -grew louder, and the sagging bulk of Nicholas appeared in the -doorway. - -The latter stood for a moment, a dark, magnified shape; and then, -moving across the portico to the farthest window, closed the shutters. -The hinges gave out a rasping grind, as if they had not been turned -for months, and there was a faint rattle of falling particles of -rusted iron. The man forced shut a second set of shutters with a -sudden violence and went slowly back into the house. Millie Stope said -once more: - -"Good night." - -It was evident to Woolfolk that he could gain nothing more at present; -and stifling an angry protest, an impatient troop of questions, he -turned and strode back to the tender. However, he hadn't the slightest -intention of following Millie's indirectly expressed wish for him to -leave. He had the odd conviction that at heart she did not want him to -go; the evening, he elaborated this feeling, had been all a strange -piece of acting. Tomorrow he would tear apart the veil that hid her -from him; he would ignore her every protest and force the truth from -her. - -He lifted the tender's anchor from the sand and pulled sharply across -the water to the _Gar_. A reddish, misshapen moon hung in the east, -and when he had mounted to his deck it was suddenly obscured by a -high, racing scud of cloud; the air had a damper, thicker feel. He -instinctively moved to the barometer, which he found depressed. The -wind, that had continued steadily since the night before, increased, -and there was a corresponding stir among the branches ashore, a -slapping of the yacht's cordage against the spars. He turned forward -and half absently noted the increasing strain on the hawser -disappearing into the dark tide. The anchor was firmly bedded. The -pervasive far murmur of the waves on the outer bars grew louder. - -The yacht swung lightly over the choppy water, and a strong affection -for the ketch that had been his home, his occupation, his solace -through the past dreary years expanded his heart. He knew the _Gar's_ -every capability and mood, and they were all good. She was an -exceptional boat. His feeling was acute, for he knew that the yacht -had been superseded. It was already an element of the past, of that -past in which Ellen lay dead in a tennis skirt, with a bright scarf -about her young waist. - -He placed his hand on the mainmast, in the manner in which another -might drop a palm on the shoulder of a departing faithful companion, -and the wind in the rigging vibrated through the wood like a sentient -and affectionate response. Then he went resolutely down into the -cabin, facing the future. - -John Woolfolk woke in the night, listened for a moment to the -straining hull and wind shrilling aloft, and then rose and went -forward again to examine the mooring. A second hawser now reached into -the darkness. Halvard had been on deck and put out another anchor. The -wind beat salt and stinging from the sea, utterly dissipating the -languorous breath of the land, the odors of the exotic, flowering -trees. - - - - -IX - - -In the morning a storm, driving out of the east, enveloped the coast -in a frigid, lashing rain. The wind mounted steadily through the -middle of the day with an increasing pitch accompanied by the basso of -the racing seas. The bay grew opaque and seamed with white scars. -After the meridian the rain ceased, but the wind maintained its -volume, clamoring beneath a leaden pall. - -John Woolfolk, in dripping yellow oilskins, occasionally circled the -deck of his ketch. Halvard had everything in a perfection of order. -When the rain stopped, the sailor dropped into the tender and with a -boat sponge bailed vigorously. Soon after, Woolfolk stepped out upon -the beach. He was without any plan but the determination to put aside -whatever obstacles held Millie from him. This rapidly crystallized -into the resolve to take her with him before another day ended. His -feeling for her, increasing to a passionate need, had destroyed the -suspension, the deliberate calm of his life, as the storm had -dissipated the sunny peace of the coast. - -He paused before the ruined facade, weighing her statement that it -would have been better if he had not returned; and he wondered how -that would affect her willingness, her ability, to see him today. He -added the word "ability" instinctively and without explanation. And he -decided that, in order to have any satisfactory speech with her, he -must come upon her alone, away from the house. Then he could force her -to hear to the finish what he wanted to say; in the open they might -escape from the inexplicable inhibition that lay upon her expression -of feeling, of desire. It would be necessary, at the same time, to -avoid the notice of anyone who would warn her of his presence. This -precluded his waiting at the familiar place on the rotting wharf. - -Three marble steps, awry and moldy, descended to the lawn from a -French window in the side of the desolate mansion. They were -screened by a tangle of rose-mallow, and there John Woolfolk seated -himself--waiting. - -The wind shrilled about the corner of the house; there was a mournful -clatter of shingles from above and the frenzied lashing of boughs. The -noise was so great that he failed to hear the slightest indication of -the approach of Nicholas until that individual passed directly before -him. Nicholas stopped at the inner fringe of the beach and, from a -point where he could not be seen from the ketch, stood gazing out at -the _Gar_ pounding on her long anchor chains. The man remained for an -oppressively extended period; Woolfolk could see his heavy, drooping -shoulders and sunken head; and then the other moved to the left, -crossing the rough open behind the oleanders. Woolfolk had a momentary -glimpse of a huge nose and rapidly moving lips above an impotent -chin. - -Nicholas, he realized, remained a complete enigma to him; beyond the -conviction that the man was, in some minor way, leaden-witted, he knew -nothing. - -A brief, watery ray of sunlight fell through a rift in the flying -clouds and stained the tossing foliage pale gold; it was followed by a -sudden drift of rain, then once more the naked wind. Woolfolk was fast -determining to go up to the house and insist upon Millie's hearing -him, when unexpectedly she appeared in a somber, fluttering cloak, -with her head uncovered and hair blown back from her pale brow. He -waited until she had passed him, and then rose, softly calling her -name. - -She stopped and turned, with a hand pressed to her heart. "I was -afraid you'd gone out," she told him. "The sea is like a pack of -wolves." Her voice was a low complexity of relief and fear. - -"Not alone," he replied; "not without you." - -"Madness," she murmured, gathering her wavering cloak about her -breast. She swayed, graceful as a reed in the wind, charged with -potency. He made an involuntary gesture toward her with his arms; but -in a sudden accession of fear she eluded him. - -"We must talk," he told her. "There is a great deal that needs -explaining, that--I think--I have a right to know, the right of your -dependence on something to save you from yourself. There is another -right, but only you can give that----" - -"Indeed," she interrupted tensely, "you mustn't stand here talking to -me." - -"I shall allow nothing to interrupt us," he returned decidedly. "I -have been long enough in the dark." - -"But you don't understand what you will, perhaps, bring on yourself--on -me." - -"I'm forced to ignore even that last." - -She glanced hurriedly about. "Not here then, if you must." - -She walked from him, toward the second ruined pile that fronted the -bay. The steps to the gaping entrance had rotted away and they were -forced to mount an insecure side piece. The interior, as Woolfolk had -seen, was composed of one high room, while, above, a narrow, open -second story hung like a ledge. On both sides were long counters with -mounting sets of shelves behind them. - -"This was the store," Millie told him. "It was a great estate." - -A dim and moldering fragment of cotton stuff was hanging from a -forgotten bolt; above, some tinware was eaten with rust; a scale had -crushed in the floor and lay broken on the earth beneath; and a -ledger, its leaves a single, sodden film of grey, was still open on a -counter. A precarious stair mounted to the flooring above, and Millie -Stope made her way upward, followed by Woolfolk. - -There, in the double gloom of the clouds and a small dormer window -obscured by cobwebs, she sank on a broken box. The decayed walls shook -perilously in the blasts of the wind. Below they could see the empty -floor, and through the doorway the somber, gleaming greenery without. - -All the patient expostulation that John Woolfolk had prepared -disappeared in a sudden tyranny of emotion, of hunger for the slender, -weary figure before him. Seating himself at her side, he burst into a -torrential expression of passionate desire that mounted with the tide -of his eager words. He caught her hands, held them in a painful grip, -and gazed down into her still, frightened face. He stopped abruptly, -was silent for a tempestuous moment, and then baldly repeated the fact -of his love. - -Millie Stope said: - -"I know so little about the love you mean." Her voice trailed to -silence; and in a lull of the storm they heard the thin patter of rats -on the floor below, the stir of bats among the rafters. - -"It's quickly learned," he assured her. "Millie, do you feel any -response at all in your heart--the slightest return of my longing?" - -"I don't know," she answered, turning toward him a troubled scrutiny. -"Perhaps in another surrounding, with things different, I might care -for you very much----" - -"I am going to take you into that other surrounding," he announced. - -She ignored his interruption. "But we shall never have a chance to -learn." She silenced his attempted protest with a cool, flexible palm -against his mouth. "Life," she continued, "is so dreadfully in the -dark. One is lost at the beginning. There are maps to take you safely -to the Guianas, but none for souls. Perhaps religions are----Again I -don't know. I have found nothing secure--only a whirlpool into which I -will not drag others." - -"I will drag you out," he asserted. - -She smiled at him, in a momentary tenderness, and continued: "When I -was young I never doubted that I would conquer life. I pictured myself -rising in triumph over circumstance, as a gull leaves the sea.... When -I was young.... If I was afraid of the dark then I thought, of course, -I would outgrow it; but it has grown deeper than my courage. The night -is terrible now." A shiver passed over her. - -"You are ill," he insisted, "but you shall be cured." - -"Perhaps, a year ago, something might have been done, with assistance; -yes--with you. Then, whatever is, hadn't materialized. Why did you -delay?" she cried in a sudden suffering. - -"You'll go with me tonight," he declared stoutly. - -"In this?" She indicated the wind beating with the blows of a great -fist against the swaying sides of the demolished store. "Have you seen -the sea? Do you remember what happened on the day I went with you when -it was so beautiful and still?" - -John Woolfolk realized, wakened to a renewed mental clearness by -the threatening of all that he desired, that--as Millie had -intimated--life was too complicated to be solved by a simple -longing; love was not the all-powerful magician of conventional -acceptance; there were other, no less profound, depths. - -He resolutely abandoned his mere inchoate wanting, and considered the -elements of the position that were known to him. There was, in the -first place, that old, lamentable dereliction of Lichfield Stope's, -and its aftermath in his daughter. Millie had just recalled to -Woolfolk the duration, the activity, of its poison. Here there was no -possibility of escape by mere removal; the stain was within; and it -must be thoroughly cleansed before she could cope successfully, -happily, with life. In this, he was forced to acknowledge, he could -help her but little; it was an affair of spirit; and spiritual -values--though they might be supported from without--had their growth -and decrease strictly in the individual they animated. - -Still, he argued, a normal existence, a sense of security, would -accomplish a great deal; and that in turn hung upon the elimination of -the second, unknown element--the reason for her backward glances, her -sudden, loud banalities, yesterday's mechanical repudiation of his -offered assistance and the implied wish for him to go. He said -gravely: - -"I have been impatient, but you came so sharply into my empty -existence that I was upset. If you are ill you can cure yourself. -Never forget your mother's 'brave heart.' But there is something -objective, immediate, threatening you. Tell me what it is, Millie, and -together we will overcome and put it away from you for ever." - -She gazed panic-stricken into the empty gloom below. "No! no!" she -exclaimed, rising. "You don't know. I won't drag you down. You must go -away at once, tonight, even in the storm." - -"What is it?" he demanded. - -She stood rigidly erect with her eyes shut and hands clasped at her -sides. Then she slid down upon the box, lifting to him a white mask of -fright. - -"It's Nicholas," she said, hardly above her breath. - -A sudden relief swept over John Woolfolk. In his mind he dismissed as -negligible the heavy man fumbling beneath his soiled apron. He -wondered how the other could have got such a grip on Millie Stope's -imagination. - -The mystery that had enveloped her was fast disappearing, leaving them -without an obstacle to the happiness he proposed. Woolfolk said -curtly: - -"Has Nicholas been annoying you?" - -She shivered, with clasped straining hands. - -"He says he's crazy about me," she told him in a shuddering voice that -contracted his heart. "He says that I must--must marry him, or----" -Her period trailed abruptly out to silence. - -Woolfolk grew animated with determination, an immediate purpose. - -"Where would Nicholas be at this hour?" he asked. - -She rose hastily, clinging to his arm. "You mustn't," she exclaimed, -yet not loudly. "You don't know! He is watching--something frightful -would happen." - -"Nothing 'frightful,'" he returned tolerantly, preparing to descend. -"Only unfortunate for Nicholas." - -"You mustn't," she repeated desperately, her sheer weight hanging from -her hands clasped about his neck. "Nicholas is not--not human. There's -something funny about him. I don't mean funny, I----" - -He unclasped her fingers and quietly forced her back to the seat on -the box. Then he took a place at her side. - -"Now," he asked reasonably, "what is this about Nicholas?" - -She glanced down into the desolate cavern of the store; the ghostly -remnant of cotton goods fluttered in a draft like a torn and grimy -cobweb; the lower floor was palpably bare. - -"He came in April," she commenced in a voice without any life. "The -woman we had had for years was dead; and when Nicholas asked for work -we were glad to take him. He wanted the smallest possible wages and -was willing to do everything; he even cooked quite nicely. At first he -was jumpy--he had asked if many strangers went by; but then when no -one appeared he got easier.... He got easier and began to do extra -things for me. I thanked him--until I understood. Then I asked father -to send him away, but he was afraid; and, before I could get up my -courage to do it, Nicholas spoke---- - -"He said he was crazy about me, and would I please try and be good to -him. He had always wanted to marry, he went on, and live right, but -things had gone against him. I told him that he was impertinent and -that he would have to go at once; but he cried and begged me not to -say that, not to get him 'started.'" - -That, John Woolfolk recalled, was precisely what the man had said to -him. - -"I went back to father and told him why he must send Nicholas off, but -father nearly suffocated. He turned almost black. Then I got -frightened and locked myself in my room, while Nicholas sat out on the -stair and sobbed all night. It was ghastly! In the morning I had to go -down, and he went about his duties as usual. - -"That evening he spoke again, on the porch, twisting his hands exactly -as if he were making bread. He repeated that he wanted me to be nice -to him. He said something wrong would happen if I pushed him to it. - -"I think if he had threatened to kill me it would have been more -possible than his hints and sobs. The thing went along for a month, -then six weeks, and nothing more happened. I started again and again -to tell them at the store, two miles back in the pines, but I could -never get away from Nicholas; he was always at my shoulder, muttering -and twisting his hands. - -"At last I found something." She hesitated, glancing once more down -through the empty gloom, while her fingers swiftly fumbled in the band -of her waist. - -"I was cleaning his room--it simply had to be done--and had out a -bureau drawer, when I saw this underneath. He was not in the house, -and I took one look at it, then put the things back as near as -possible as they were. I was so frightened that I slipped it in my -dress--had no chance to return it." - -He took from her unresisting hand a folded rectangle of coarse grey -paper; and, opening it, found a small handbill with the crudely -reproduced photograph of a man's head with a long, drooping nose, -sleepy eyes in thick folds of flesh, and a lax under-lip with a fixed, -dull smile: - - WANTED FOR MURDER! - - The authorities of Coweta offer THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS for the - apprehension of the below, Iscah Nicholas, convicted of the murder - of Elizabeth Slakto, an aged woman. - - General description: Age about forty-eight. Head receding, with - large nose and stupid expression. Body corpulent but strong. - Nicholas has no trade and works at general utility. He is a - homicidal maniac. - - WANTED FOR MURDER! - -"He told me that his name was Nicholas Brandt," Millie noted in her -dull voice. - -A new gravity possessed John Woolfolk. - -"You must not go back to the house," he decided. - -"Wait," she replied. "I was terribly frightened when he went up to his -room. When he came down he thanked me for cleaning it. I told him he -was mistaken, that I hadn't been in there, but I could see he was -suspicious. He cried all the time he was cooking dinner, in a queer, -choked way; and afterward touched me--on the arm. I swam, but all the -water in the bay wouldn't take away the feel of his fingers. Then I -saw the boat--you came ashore. - -"Nicholas was dreadfully upset, and hid in the pines for a day or -more. He told me if I spoke of him it would happen, and if I left it -would happen--to father. Then he came back. He said that you -were--were in love with me, and that I must send you away. He added -that you must go today, for he couldn't stand waiting any more. He -said that he wanted to be right, but that things were against him. -This morning he got dreadful--if I fooled him he'd get you, and me, -too, and then there was always father for something extra special. -That, he warned me, would happen if I stayed away for more than an -hour." She rose, trembling violently. "Perhaps it's been an hour now. -I must go back." - -John Woolfolk thought rapidly; his face was grim. If he had brought a -pistol from the ketch he would have shot Iscah Nicholas without -hesitation. Unarmed, he was reluctant to precipitate a crisis with -such serious possibilities. He could secure one from the _Gar_, but -even that short lapse of time might prove fatal--to Millie or -Lichfield Stope. Millie's story was patently fact in every detail. He -thought more rapidly still--desperately. - -"I must go back," she repeated, her words lost in a sudden blast of -wind under the dilapidated roof. - -He saw that she was right. - -"Very well," he acquiesced. "Tell him that you saw me, and that I -promised to go tonight. Act quietly; say that you have been upset, but -that you will give him an answer tomorrow. Then at eight o'clock--it -will be dark early tonight--walk out to the wharf. That is all. But it -must be done without any hesitation; you must be even cheerful, kinder -to him." - -He was thinking: She must be out of the way when I meet Nicholas. She -must not be subjected to the ordeal that will release her from the -dread fast crushing her spirit. - -She swayed, and he caught her, held her upright, circled in his steady -arms. - -"Don't let him hurt us," she gasped. "Oh, don't!" - -"Not now," he reassured her. "Nicholas is finished. But you must help -by doing exactly as I have told you. You'd better go on. It won't be -long, hardly three hours, until freedom." - -She laid her cold cheek against his face, while her arms crept round -his neck. She said nothing; and he held her to him with a sudden throb -of feeling. They stood for a moment in the deepening gloom, bound in a -straining embrace, while the rats gnawed in the sagging walls of the -store and the storm thrashed without. She reluctantly descended the -stair, crossed the broken floor and disappeared through the door. - -A sudden unwillingness to have her return alone to the sobbing menace -of Iscah Nicholas, the impotent wraith that had been Lichfield Stope, -carried him in an impetuous stride to the stair. But there he halted. -The plan he had made held, in its simplicity, a larger measure of -safety than any immediate, unconsidered course. - -John Woolfolk waited until she had had time to enter the orange-grove; -then he followed, turning toward the beach. - -He found Halvard already at the sand's edge, waiting uneasily with the -tender, and they crossed the broken water to where the _Gar's_ cabin -flung out a remote, peaceful light. - - - - -X - - -The sailor immediately set about his familiar, homely tasks, while -Woolfolk made a minute inspection of the ketch's rigging. He descended -to supper with an expression of abstraction, and ate mechanically -whatever was placed before him. Afterward he rolled a cigarette, which -he neglected to light, and sat motionless, chin on breast, in the warm -stillness. - -Halvard cleared the table and John Woolfolk roused himself. He turned -to the shelf that ran above the berths and secured a small, locked tin -box. For an hour or more he was engaged alternately writing and -carefully reading various papers sealed with vermilion wafers. Then he -called Halvard. - -"I'll get you to witness these signatures," he said, rising. Poul -Halvard hesitated; then, with a furrowed brow, clumsily grasped the -pen. "Here," Woolfolk indicated. The man wrote slowly, linking -fortuitously the unsteady letters of his name. This arduous task -accomplished, he immediately rose. John Woolfolk again took his place, -turning to address the other, when he saw that one side of Halvard's -face was bluish and rapidly swelling. - -"What's the matter with your jaw?" he promptly inquired. - -Halvard avoided his gaze, obviously reluctant to speak, but Woolfolk's -silent interrogation was insistent. Then: - -"I met that Nicholas," Halvard admitted; "without a knife." - -"Well?" Woolfolk insisted. - -"There's something wrong with this cursed place," Halvard said -defiantly. "You can laugh, but there's a matter in the air that's not -natural. My grandmother could have named it. She heard the ravens that -called Tollfsen's death, and read Linga's eyes before she strangulated -herself. Anyhow, when you didn't come back I got doubtful and took the -tender in. Then I saw Nicholas beating up through the bushes, hiding -here and there, and doubling through the grass; so I came on him from -the back and--and kicked him, quite sudden. - -"He went on his hands, but got up quick for a hulk like himself. Sir, -this is hard to believe, but it's Biblical--he didn't take any more -notice of the kick than if it had been a flag halyard brushed against -him. He said 'Go away,' and waved his foolish hands. - -"I closed in, still careful of the knife, with a remark, and got onto -his heart. He only coughed and kept telling me in a crying whisper to -go away. Nicholas pushed me back--that's how I got this face. What was -the use? I might as well have hit a pudding. Even talk didn't move -him. In a little it sent me cold." He stopped abruptly, grew sullen; -it was evident that he would say no more in that direction. Woolfolk -opened another subject: - -"Life, Halvard," he said, "is uncertain; perhaps tonight I shall find -it absolutely unreliable. What I am getting at is this: if anything -happens to me--death, to be accurate--the _Gar_ is yours, the ketch -and a sum of money. It is secured to you in this box, which you will -deliver to my address in Boston. There is another provision that I'll -mention merely to give you the opportunity to repeat it verbally from -my lips: the bulk of anything I have, in the possibility we are -considering, will go to a Miss Stope, the daughter of Lichfield Stope, -formerly of Virginia." He stood up. "Halvard," Woolfolk said abruptly, -extending his hand, expressing for the first time his repeated -thought, "you are a good man. You are the only steady quantity I have -ever known. I have paid you for a part of this, but the most is beyond -dollars. That I am now acknowledging." - -Halvard was cruelly embarrassed. He waited, obviously desiring a -chance to retreat, and Woolfolk continued in a different vein: - -"I want the canvas division rigged across the cabin and three berths -made. Then get the yacht ready to go out at any time." - -One thing more remained; and, going deeper into the tin box, John -Woolfolk brought out a packet of square envelopes addressed to him in -a faded, angular hand. They were all that remained now of his youth, -of the past. Not a ghost, not a remembered fragrance nor accent, rose -from the delicate paper. They had been the property of a man dead -twelve years ago, slain by incomprehensible mischance; and the man in -the contracted cabin, vibrating from the elemental and violent forces -without, forebore to open them. He burned the packet to a blackish ash -on a plate. - -It was, he saw from the chronometer, seven o'clock; and he rose -charged with tense energy, engaged in activities of a far different -order. He unwrapped from many folds of oiled silk a flat, amorphous -pistol, uglier in its bleak outline than the familiar weapons of more -graceful days; and, sliding into place a filled cartridge clip, he -threw a load into the barrel. This he deposited in the pocket of a -black wool jacket, closely buttoned about his long, hard body, and -went up on deck. - -Halvard, in a glistening yellow coat, came close up to him, speaking -with the wind whipping the words from his lips. He said: "She's ready, -sir." - -For a moment Woolfolk made no answer; he stood gazing anxiously into -the dark that enveloped and hid Millie Stope from him. There was -another darkness about her, thicker than the mere night, like a black -cerement dropping over her soul. His eyes narrowed as he replied to -the sailor: "Good!" - - - - -XI - - -John Woolfolk peered through the night toward the land. - -"Put me ashore beyond the point," he told Halvard; "at a half-sunk -wharf on the sea." - -The sailor secured the tender, and, dropping into it, held the small -boat steady while Woolfolk followed. With a vigorous push they fell -away from the _Gar_. Halvard's oars struck the water smartly and -forced the tender forward into the beating wind. They made a choppy -passage to the rim of the bay, where, turning, they followed the thin, -pale glimmer of the broken water on the land's edge. Halvard pulled -with short, telling strokes, his oarblades stirring into momentary -being livid blurs of phosphorescence. - -John Woolfolk guided the boat about the point where he had first seen -Millie swimming. He recalled how strange her unexpected appearance had -seemed. It had, however, been no stranger than the actuality which had -driven her into the bay in the effort to cleanse the stain of Iscah -Nicholas' touch. Woolfolk's face hardened; he was suddenly conscious -of the cold weight in his pocket. He realized that he would kill -Nicholas at the first opportunity and without the slightest -hesitation. - -The tender passed about the point, and he could hear more clearly the -sullen clamor of the waves on the seaward bars. The patches of green -sky had grown larger, the clouds swept by with the apparent menace of -solid, flying objects. The land lay in a low, formless mass on the -left. It appeared secretive, a masked place of evil. Its influence -reached out and subtly touched John Woolfolk's heart with the -premonition of base treacheries. The tormented trees had the sound of -Iscah Nicholas sobbing. He must take Millie away immediately; banish -its last memory from her mind, its influence from her soul. It was the -latter he always feared, which formed his greatest hazard--to tear -from her the tendrils of the invidious past. - -The vague outline of the ruined wharf swam forward, and the tender -slid into the comparative quiet of its partial protection. - -"Make fast," Woolfolk directed. "I shall be out of the boat for a -while." He hesitated; then: "Miss Stope will be here; and if, after an -hour, you hear nothing from me, take her out to the ketch for the -night. Insist on her going. If you hear nothing from me still, make -the first town and report." - -He mounted by a cross pinning to the insecure surface above; and, -picking his way to solid earth, waited. He struck a match and, -covering the light with his palm, saw that it was ten minutes before -eight. Millie, he had thought, would reach the wharf before the hour -he had indicated. She would not at any cost be late. - -The night was impenetrable. Halvard was as absolutely lost as if he -had dropped, with all the world save the bare, wet spot where Woolfolk -stood, into a nether region from which floated up great, shuddering -gasps of agony. He followed this idea more minutely, picturing the -details of such a terrestrial calamity; then he put it from him with -an oath. Black thoughts crept insidiously into his mind like rats in a -cellar. He had ordinarily a rigidly disciplined brain, an incisive -logic, and he was disturbed by the distorted visions that came to him -unbidden. He wished, in a momentary panic, instantly suppressed, that -he were safely away with Millie in the ketch. - -He was becoming hysterical, he told himself with compressed lips--no -better than Lichfield Stope. The latter rose greyly in his memory, and -fled across the sea, a phantom body pulsing with a veined fire like -that stirred from the nocturnal bay. He again consulted his watch, and -said aloud, incredulously: "Five minutes past eight." The inchoate -crawling of his thoughts changed to an acute, tangible doubt, a -mounting dread. - -He rehearsed the details of his plan, tried it at every turning. It -had seemed to him at the moment of its birth the best--no, the -only--thing to do, and it was still without obvious fault. Some -trivial happening, an unforeseen need of her father's, had delayed -Millie for a minute or two. But the minutes increased and she did not -appear. All his conflicting emotions merged into a cold passion of -anger. He would kill Nicholas without a word's preliminary. The time -drew out, Millie did not materialize, and his anger sank to the -realization of appalling possibilities. - -He decided that he would wait no longer. In the act of moving forward -he thought he heard, rising thinly against the fluctuating wind, a -sudden cry. He stopped automatically, listening with every nerve, but -there was no repetition of the uncertain sound. As Woolfolk swiftly -considered it he was possessed by the feeling that he had not heard -the cry with his actual ear but with a deeper, more unaccountable -sense. He went forward in a blind rush, feeling with extended hands -for the opening in the tangle, groping a stumbling way through the -close dark of the matted trees. He fell over an exposed root, -blundered into a chill, wet trunk, and finally emerged at the side of -the desolate mansion. Here his way led through saw grass, waist high, -and the blades cut at him like lithe, vindictive knives. No light -showed from the face of the house toward him, and he came abruptly -against the bay window of the dismantled billiard room. - -A sudden caution arrested him--the sound of his approach might -precipitate a catastrophe, and he soundlessly felt his passage about -the house to the portico. The steps creaked beneath his careful tread, -but the noise was lost in the wind. At first he could see no light; -the hall door, he discovered, was closed; then he was aware of a faint -glimmer seeping through a drawn window shade on the right. From -without he could distinguish nothing. He listened, but not a sound -rose. The stillness was more ominous than cries. - -John Woolfolk took the pistol from his pocket and, automatically -releasing the safety, moved to the door, opening it with his left -hand. The hall was unlighted; he could feel the pressure of the -darkness above. The dank silence flowed over him like chill water -rising above his heart. He turned, and a dim thread of light, showing -through the chink of a partly closed doorway, led him swiftly forward. -He paused a moment before entering, shrinking from what might be -revealed beyond, and then flung the door sharply open. - -His pistol was directed at a low-trimmed lamp in a chamber empty of -all life. He saw a row of large black portfolios on low supports, a -sewing bag spilled its contents from a chair, a table bore a tin -tobacco jar and the empty skin of a plantain. Then his gaze rested -upon the floor, on a thin, inanimate body in crumpled alpaca trousers -and dark jacket, with a peaked, congested face upturned toward the -pale light. It was Lichfield Stope--dead. - -Woolfolk bent over him, searching for a mark of violence, for the -cause of the other's death. At first he found nothing; then, as he -moved the body--its lightness came to him as a shock--he saw that one -fragile arm had been twisted and broken; the hand hung like a withered -autumn leaf from its circular cuff fastened with the mosaic button. -That was all. - -He straightened up sharply, with his pistol levelled at the door. But -there had been no noise other than that of the wind plucking at the -old tin roof, rattling the shrunken frames of the windows. Lichfield -Stope had fallen back with his countenance lying on a doubled arm, as -if he were attempting to hide from his extinguished gaze the horror of -his end. The lamp was of the common glass variety, without shade; and, -in a sudden eddy of air, it flickered, threatened to go out, and a -thin ribbon of smoke swept up against the chimney and vanished. - -On the wall was a wide stipple print of the early nineteenth -century--the smooth sward of a village glebe surrounded by the low -stone walls of ancient dwellings, with a timbered inn behind broad -oaks and a swinging sign. It was--in the print--serenely evening, and -long shadows slipped out through an ambient glow. Woolfolk, with -pistol elevated, became suddenly conscious of the withdrawn scene, and -for a moment its utter peace held him spellbound. It was another -world, for the security, the unattainable repose of which, he longed -with a passionate bitterness. - -The wind shifted its direction and beat upon the front of the house; a -different set of windows rattled, and the blast swept compact and cold -up through the blank hall. John Woolfolk cursed his inertia of mind, -and once more addressed the profound, tragic mystery that surrounded -him. - -He thought: Nicholas has gone--with Millie. Or perhaps he has left -her--in some dark, upper space. A maddening sense of impotence settled -upon him. If the man had taken Millie out into the night he had no -chance of following, finding them. Impenetrable screens of bushes lay -on every hand, with, behind them, mile after mile of shrouded pine -woods. - -His plan had gone terribly amiss, with possibilities which he could -not bring himself to face. All that had happened before in his -life, and that had seemed so insupportable at the time, faded to -insignificance. Shuddering waves of horror swept over him. He raised -his hand unsteadily, drew it across his brow, and it came away -dripping wet. He was oppressed by the feeling familiar in evil -dreams--of gazing with leaden limbs at deliberate, unspeakable acts. - -He shook off the numbness of dread. He must act--at once! How? A -thousand men could not find Iscah Nicholas in the confused darkness -without. To raise the scattered and meager neighborhood would consume -an entire day. - -The wind agitated a rocking chair in the hall, an erratic creaking -responded, and Woolfolk started forward, and stopped as he heard and -then identified the noise. This, he told himself, would not do; the -hysteria was creeping over him again. He shook his shoulders, wiped -his palm and took a fresh grip on the pistol. - -Then from above came the heavy, unmistakable fall of a foot. It was -not repeated; the silence spread once more, broken only from without. -But there was no possibility of mistake, there had been no subtlety in -the sound--a slow foot had moved, a heavy body had shifted. - -At this actuality a new determination seized him; he was conscious of -a feeling that almost resembled joy, an immeasurable relief at the -prospect of action and retaliation. He took up the lamp, held it -elevated while he advanced to the door with a ready pistol. There, -however, he stopped, realizing the mark he would present moving, -conveniently illuminated, up the stair. The floor above was totally -unknown to him; at any turning he might be surprised, overcome, -rendered useless. He had a supreme purpose to perform. He had already, -perhaps fatally, erred, and there must be no further misstep. - -John Woolfolk realized that he must go upstairs in the dark, or with, -at most, in extreme necessity, a fleeting and guarded matchlight. -This, too, since he would be entirely without knowledge of his -surroundings, would be inconvenient, perhaps impossible. He must try. -He put the lamp back upon the table, moving it farther out of the eddy -from the door, where it would stay lighted against a possible pressing -need. Then he moved from the wan radiance into the night of the hall. - - - - -XII - - -He formed in his mind the general aspect of the house: its width faced -the orange grove, the stair mounted on the hall's right, in back of -which a door gave to the billiard room; on the left was the chamber of -the lamp, and that, he had seen, opened into a room behind, while the -kitchen wing, carried to a chamber above, had been obviously added. It -was probable that he would find the same general arrangement on the -second floor. The hall would be smaller; a space inclosed for a bath; -and a means of ascent to the roof. - -John Woolfolk mounted the stair quickly and as silently as possible, -placing his feet squarely on the body of the steps. At the top the -handrail disappeared; and, with his back to a plaster wall, he moved -until he encountered a closed door. That interior was above the -billiard room; it was on the opposite floor he had heard the footfall, -and he was certain that no one had crossed the hall or closed a door. -He continued, following the dank wall. At places the plaster had -fallen, and his fingers encountered the bare skeleton of the house. -Farther on he narrowly escaped knocking down a heavily framed -picture--another, he thought, of Lichfield Stope's mezzotints--but he -caught it, left it hanging crazily awry. - -He passed an open door, recognized the bathroom from the flat odor of -chlorides, reached an angle of the wall and proceeded with renewed -caution. Next he encountered the cold panes of a window and then found -the entrance to the room above the kitchen. - -He stopped--it was barely possible that the sound he heard had echoed -from here. He revolved the wisdom of a match, but--he had progressed -very well so far--decided negatively. One aspect of the situation -troubled him greatly--the absence of any sound or warning from Millie. -It was highly improbable that his entrance to the house had been -unnoticed. The contrary was probable--that his sudden appearance had -driven Nicholas above. - -Woolfolk started forward more hurriedly, urged by his increasing -apprehension, when his foot went into the opening of a depressed step -and flung him sharply forward. In his instinctive effort to avoid -falling the pistol dropped clattering into the darkness. A sudden -choked cry sounded beside him, and a heavy, enveloping body fell on -his back. This sent him reeling against the wall, where he felt the -muscles of an unwieldly arm tighten about his neck. - -John Woolfolk threw himself back, when a wrist heavily struck his -shoulder and a jarring blow fell upon the wall. The hand, he knew, had -held a knife, for he could feel it groping desperately over the -plaster, and he put all his strength into an effort to drag his -assailant into the middle of the floor. - -It was impossible now to recover his pistol, but he would make it -difficult for Nicholas to get the knife. The struggle in that way was -equalized. He turned in the gripping arms about him and the men were -chest to chest. Neither spoke; each fought solely to get the other -prostrate, while Nicholas developed a secondary pressure toward the -blade buried in the wall. This Woolfolk successfully blocked. In the -supreme effort to bring the struggle to a decisive end neither dealt -the other minor injuries. There were no blows--nothing but the -straining pull of arms, the sudden weight of bodies, the cunning -twisting of legs. They fought swiftly, whirling and staggering from -place to place. - -The hot breath of an invisible gaping mouth beat upon Woolfolk's -cheek. He was an exceptionally powerful man. His spare body had been -hardened by its years of exposure to the elements, in the constant -labor he had expended on the ketch, the long contests with adverse -winds and seas, and he had little doubt of his issuing successful from -the present crisis. Iscah Nicholas, though his strength was beyond -question, was heavy and slow. Yet he was struggling with surprising -agility. He was animated by a convulsive energy, a volcanic outburst -characteristic of the obsession of monomania. - -The strife continued for an astonishing, an absurd, length of time. -Woolfolk became infuriated at his inability to bring it to an end, and -he expended an even greater effort. Nicholas' arms were about his -chest; he was endeavoring by sheer pressure to crush Woolfolk's -opposition, when the latter injected a mounting wrath into the -conflict. They spun in the open like a grotesque human top, and fell. -Woolfolk was momentarily underneath, but he twisted lithely uppermost. -He felt a heavy, blunt hand leave his arm and feel, in the dark, for -his face. Its purpose was to spoil, and he caught it and savagely bent -it down and back; but a cruel forcing of his leg defeated his -purpose. - -This, he realized, could not go on indefinitely; one or the other -would soon weaken. An insidious doubt of his ultimate victory lodged -like a burr in his brain. Nicholas' strength was inhuman; it increased -rather than waned. He was growing vindictive in a petty way--he tore -at Woolfolk's throat, dug the flesh from his lower arm. Thereafter -warm and gummy blood made John Woolfolk's grip insecure. - -The doubt of his success grew; he fought more desperately. His -thoughts, which till now had been clear, logically aloof, were blurred -in blind spurts of passion. His mentality gradually deserted him; he -reverted to lower and lower types of the human animal; during the -accumulating seconds of the strife he swung back through countless -centuries to the primitive, snarling brute. His shirt was torn from a -shoulder, and he felt the sweating, bare skin of his opponent pressed -against him. - -The conflict continued without diminishing. He struggled once more to -his feet, with Nicholas, and they exchanged battering blows, dealt -necessarily at random. Sometimes his arm swept violently through mere -space, at others his fist landed with a satisfying shock on the body -of his antagonist. The dark was occasionally crossed by flashes before -Woolfolk's smitten eyes, but no actual light pierced the profound -night of the upper hall. At times their struggle grew audible, -smacking blows fell sharply; but there was no other sound except that -of the wind tearing at the sashes, thundering dully in the loose tin -roof, rocking the dwelling. - -They fell again, and equally their efforts slackened, their grips -became more feeble. Finally, as if by common consent, they rolled -apart. A leaden tide of apathy crept over Woolfolk's battered body, -folded his aching brain. He listened in a sort of indifferent -attention to the tempestuous breathing of Iscah Nicholas. John -Woolfolk wondered dully where Millie was. There had been no sign of -her since he had fallen down the step and she had cried out. Perhaps -she was dead from fright. He considered this possibility in a hazy, -detached manner. She would be better dead--if he failed. - -He heard, with little interest, a stirring on the floor beside him, -and thought with an overwhelming weariness and distaste that the -strife was to commence once more. But, curiously, Nicholas moved away -from him. Woolfolk was glad; and then he was puzzled for a moment by -the sliding of hands over an invisible wall. He slowly realized that -the other was groping for the knife he had buried in the plaster. John -Woolfolk considered a similar search for the pistol he had dropped; he -might even light a match. It was a rather wonderful weapon and would -spray lead like a hose of water. He would like exceedingly well to -have it in his hand with Nicholas before him. - -Then in a sudden mental illumination he realized the extreme peril of -the moment; and, lurching to his feet, he again threw himself on the -other. - -The struggle went on, apparently to infinity; it was less vigorous -now; the blows, for the most part, were impotent. Iscah Nicholas never -said a word; and fantastic thoughts wheeled through Woolfolk's brain. -He lost all sense of the identity of his opponent and became convinced -that he was combating an impersonal hulk--the thing that gasped and -smeared his face, that strove to end him, was the embodied and evil -spirit of the place, a place that even Halvard had seen was damnably -wrong. He questioned if such a force could be killed, if a being -materialized from the outer dark could be stopped by a pistol of even -the latest, most ingenious mechanism. - -They fell and rose, and fell. Woolfolk's fingers were twisted in a -damp lock of hair; they came away--with the hair. He moved to his -knees, and the other followed. For a moment they rested face to face, -with arms limply clasped about the opposite shoulders. Then they -turned over on the floor; they turned once more, and suddenly the -darkness was empty beneath John Woolfolk. He fell down and down, -beating his head on a series of sharp edges; while a second, heavy -body fell with him, by turns under and above. - - - - -XIII - - -He rose with the ludicrous alacrity of a man who had taken a public -and awkward misstep. The wan lamplight, diffused from within, made -just visible the bulk that had descended with him. It lay without -motion, sprawling upon a lower step and the floor. John Woolfolk moved -backward from it, his hand behind him, feeling for the entrance to the -lighted room. He shifted his feet carefully, for the darkness was -wheeling about him in visible black rings streaked with pale orange as -he passed into the room. - -Here objects, dimensions, became normally placed, recognizable. He saw -the mezzotint with its sere and sunny peace, the portfolios on their -stands, like grotesque and flattened quadrupeds, and Lichfield Stope -on the floor, still hiding his dead face in the crook of his arm. - -He saw these things, remembered them, and yet now they had new -significance--they oozed a sort of vital horror, they seemed to crawl -with a malignant and repulsive life. The entire room was charged with -this palpable, sentient evil. John Woolfolk defiantly faced the still, -cold inclosure; he was conscious of an unseen scrutiny, of a menace -that lived in pictures, moved the fingers of the dead, and that could -take actual bulk and pound his heart sore. - -He was not afraid of the wrongness that inhabited this muck of house -and grove and matted bush. He said this loudly to the prostrate form; -then, waiting a little, repeated it. He would smash the print with its -fallacious expanse of peace. The broken glass of the smitten picture -jingled thinly on the floor. Woolfolk turned suddenly and defeated the -purpose of whatever had been stealthily behind him; anyway it had -disappeared. He stood in a strained attitude, listening to the -aberrations of the wind without, when an actual presence slipped by -him, stopping in the middle of the floor. - -It was Millie Stope. Her eyes were opened to their widest extent, but -they had the peculiar blank fixity of the eyes of the blind. Above -them her hair slipped and slid in a loosened knot. - -"I had to walk round him," she protested in a low, fluctuating voice, -"there was no other way.... Right by his head. My skirt----" She broke -off and, shuddering, came close to John Woolfolk. "I think we'd better -go away," she told him, nodding. "It's quite impossible here, with him -in the hall, where you have to pass so close." - -Woolfolk drew back from her. She too was a part of the house; she had -led him there--a white flame that he had followed into the swamp. And -this was no ordinary marsh. It was, he added aloud, "A swamp of -souls." - -"Then," she replied, "we must leave at once." - -A dragging sound rose from the hall. Millie Stope cowered in a -voiceless accession of terror; but John Woolfolk, lamp in hand, moved -to the door. He was curious to see exactly what was happening. The -bulk had risen; a broad back swayed like a pendulum, and a swollen -hand gripped the stair rail. The form heaved itself up a step, paused, -tottering, and then mounted again. Woolfolk saw at once that the other -was going for the knife buried in the wall above. He watched with an -impersonal interest the dragging ascent. At the seventh step it -ceased; the figure crumpled, slid halfway back to the floor. - -"You can't do it," Woolfolk observed critically. - -The other sat bowed, with one leg extended stiffly downward, on -the stair that mounted from the pale radiance of the lamp into -impenetrable darkness. Woolfolk moved back into the room and replaced -the lamp on its table. Millie Stope still stood with open, hanging -hands, a countenance of expectant dread. Her eyes did not shift -from the door as he entered and passed her; her gaze hung starkly on -what might emerge from the hall. - -A deep loathing of his surroundings swept over John Woolfolk, a sudden -revulsion from the dead man on the floor, from the ponderous menace on -the stair, the white figure that had brought it all upon him. A -mounting horror of the place possessed him, and he turned and -incontinently fled. A complete panic enveloped him at his flight, a -blind necessity to get away, and he ran heedlessly through the night, -with head up and arms extended. His feet struck upon a rotten fragment -of board that broke beneath him, he pushed through a tangle of grass, -and then his progress was held by soft and dragging sand. A moment -later he was halted by a chill flood rising abruptly to his knees. He -drew back sharply and fell on the beach, with his heels in the water -of the bay. - -An insuperable weariness pinned him down, a complete exhaustion of -brain and body. A heavy wind struck like a wet cloth on his face. The -sky had been swept clear of clouds, and stars sparkled in the pure -depths of the night. They were white, with the exception of one that -burned with an unsteady yellow ray and seemed close by. This, John -Woolfolk thought, was strange. He concentrated a frowning gaze upon -it--perhaps in falling into the soiled atmosphere of the earth it had -lost its crystal gleam and burned with a turgid light. It was very, -very probable. - -He continued to watch it, facing the tonic wind, until with a clearing -of his mind, a gasp of joyful recognition, he knew that it was the -riding light of the _Gar_. - -Woolfolk sat very still under the pressure of his renewed sanity. Fact -upon fact, memory on memory, returned, and in proper perspective built -up again his mentality, his logic, his scattered powers of being. The -_Gar_ rode uneasily on her anchor chains; the wind was shifting. They -must get away!--Halvard, waiting at the wharf--Millie---- - -He rose hurriedly to his feet--he had deserted Millie; left her, in -all her anguish, with her dead parent and Iscah Nicholas. His love for -her swept back, infinitely heightened by the knowledge of her -suffering. At the same time there returned the familiar fear of a -permanent disarrangement in her of chords that were unresponsive to -the clumsy expedients of affection and science. She had been subjected -to a strain that might well unsettle a relatively strong will; and she -had been fragile in the beginning. - -She must be a part of no more scenes of violence, he told himself, -moving hurriedly through the orange grove; she must be led quietly to -the tender--that is, if it were not already too late. His entire -effort to preserve her had been a series of blunders, each one of -which might well have proved fatal, and now, together, perhaps had. - -He mounted to the porch and entered the hall. The light flowed -undisturbed from the room on the right; and, in its thin wash, he saw -that Iscah Nicholas had disappeared from the lower steps. Immediately, -however, and from higher up, he heard a shuffling, and could just make -out a form heaving obscurely in the gloom. Nicholas patently was -making progress toward the consummation of his one fixed idea; but -Woolfolk decided that at present he could best afford to ignore him. - -He entered the lighted room, and found Millie seated and gazing in -dull wonderment at the figure on the floor. - -"I must tell you about my father," she said conversationally. "You -know, in Virginia, the women tied an apron to his door because he -would not go to war, and for years that preyed on his mind, until he -was afraid of the slightest thing. He was without a particle of -strength--just to watch the sun cross the sky wearied him, and the -smallest disagreement upset him for a week." - -She stopped, lost in amazement at what she contemplated, what was to -follow. - -"Then Nicholas----But that isn't important. I was to meet a man--we -were going away together, to some place where it would be peaceful. We -were to sail there. He said at eight o'clock. Well, at seven Nicholas -was in the kitchen. I got father into his very heaviest coat, and laid -out a muffler and his gloves, then sat and waited. I didn't need -anything extra, my heart was quite warm. Then father asked why I had -changed his coat--if I'd told him, he would have died of fright--he -said he was too hot, and he fretted and worried. Nicholas heard him, -and he wanted to know why I had put on father's winter coat. He found -the muffler and gloves ready and got suspicious. - -"He stayed in the hall, crying a little--Nicholas cried right -often--while I sat with father and tried to think of some excuse to -get away. At last I had to go--for an orange, I said--but Nicholas -wouldn't believe it. He pushed me back and told me I was going out to -the other. - -"'Nicholas,' I said, 'don't be silly; nobody would come away from a -boat on a night like this. Besides, he's gone away.' We had that last -made up. But he pushed me back again. Then I heard father move behind -us, and I thought--he's going to die of fright right now. But father's -footsteps came on across the floor and up to my side." - -"'Don't do that, Nicholas,' he told him; 'take your hand from my -daughter.' He swayed a little, his lips shook, but he stood facing -him. It was father!" Her voice died away, and she was silent for a -moment, gazing at the vision of that unsuspected and surprising -courage. "Of course Nicholas killed him," she added. "He twisted him -away and father died. That didn't matter," she told Woolfolk; "but the -other was terribly important, anyone can see that." - -John Woolfolk listened intently, but there was no sound from without. -Then, with every appearance of leisure, he rolled and lighted a -cigarette. - -"Splendid!" he said of her recital; "and I don't doubt you're right -about the important thing." He moved toward her, holding out his hand. -"Splendid! But we must go on--the man is waiting for you." - -"It's too late," she responded indifferently. She redirected her -thoughts to her parent's enthralling end. "Do you think a man as brave -as that should lie on the floor?" she demanded. "A flag," she added -obscurely, considering an appropriate covering for the still form. - -"No, not on the floor," Woolfolk instantly responded. He bent and, -lifting the body of Lichfield Stope, carried it into the hall, where, -relieved at the opportunity to dispose of his burden, he left it in an -obscure corner. - -Iscah Nicholas was stirring again. John Woolfolk waited, gazing up the -stair, but the other progressed no more than a step. Then he returned -to Millie. - -"Come," he said. "No time to lose." He took her arm and exerted a -gentle pressure toward the door. - -"I explained that it was too late," she reiterated, evading him. -"Father really lived, but I died. 'Swamp of souls,'" she added in a -lower voice. "Someone said that, and it's true; it happened to me." - -"The man waiting for you will be worried," he suggested. "He depends -absolutely on your coming." - -"Nice man. Something had happened to him too. He caught a rockfish and -Nicholas boiled it in milk for our breakfast." At the mention of Iscah -Nicholas a slight shiver passed over her. This was what Woolfolk hoped -for--a return of her normal revulsion from her surroundings, from the -past. - -"Nicholas," he said sharply, contradicted by a faint dragging from the -stair, "is dead." - -"If you could only assure me of that," she replied wistfully. "If I -could be certain that he wasn't in the next shadow I'd go gladly. Any -other way it would be useless." She laid her hand over her heart. "I -must get him out of here----My father did. His lips trembled a little, -but he said quite clearly: 'Don't do that. Don't touch my daughter.'" - -"Your father was a singularly brave man," he assured her, rebelling -against the leaden monotony of speech that had fallen upon them. "Your -mother too was brave," he temporized. He could, he decided, wait no -longer. She must, if necessary, be carried away forcibly. It was a -desperate chance--the least pressure might result in a permanent, -jangling discord. Her waist, torn, he saw, upon her pallid shoulder, -was an insufficient covering against the wind and night. Looking about -he discovered the muffler, laid out for her father, crumpled on the -floor; and, with an arm about her, folded it over her throat and -breast. - -"Now we're away," he declared in a forced lightness. She resisted him -for a moment, and then collapsed into his support. - -John Woolfolk half led, half carried her into the hall. His gaze -searched the obscurity of the stair; it was empty; but from above came -the sound of a heavy, dragging step. - - - - -XIV - - -Outside she cowered pitifully from the violent blast of the wind, the -boundless, stirred space. They made their way about the corner of the -house, leaving behind the pale, glimmering rectangle of the lighted -window. In the thicket Woolfolk was forced to proceed more slowly. -Millie stumbled weakly over the rough way, apparently at the point of -slipping to the ground. He felt a supreme relief when the cool sweep -of the sea opened before him and Halvard emerged from the gloom. - -He halted for a moment, with his arm about Millie's shoulders, facing -his man. Even in the dark he was conscious of Poul Halvard's stalwart -being, of his rocklike integrity. - -"I was delayed," he said finally, amazed at the inadequacy of his -words to express the pressure of the past hours. Had they been two or -four? He had been totally unconscious of the passage of actual time. -In the dark house behind the orange grove he had lived through -tormented ages, descended into depths beyond the measured standard of -Greenwich. Halvard said: - -"Yes, sir." - -The sound of a blundering progress rose from the path behind them, the -breaking of branches and the slipping of a heavy tread on the -water-soaked ground. John Woolfolk, with an oath, realized that it was -Nicholas, still animated by his fixed, murderous idea. Millie Stope -recognized the sound, too, for she trembled violently on his arm. He -knew that she could support no more violence, and he turned to the -dim, square-set figure before him. - -"Halvard, it's that fellow Nicholas. He's insane--has a knife. Will -you stop him while I get Miss Stope into the tender? She's pretty well -through." He laid his hand on the other's shoulder as he started -immediately forward. "I shall have to go on, Halvard, if anything -unfortunate occurs," he said in a different voice. - -The sailor made no reply; but as Woolfolk urged Millie out over the -wharf he saw Halvard throw himself upon a dark bulk that broke from -the wood. - -The tender was made fast fore and aft; and, getting down into the -uneasy boat, Woolfolk reached up and lifted Millie bodily to his side. -She dropped in a still, white heap on the bottom. He unfastened the -painter and stood holding the tender close to the wharf, with his head -above its platform, straining his gaze in the direction of the obscure -struggle on land. - -He could see nothing, and heard only an occasional trampling of the -underbrush. It was difficult to remain detached, give no assistance, -while Halvard encountered Iscah Nicholas. Yet with Millie in a -semi-collapse, and the bare possibility of Nicholas' knifing them -both, he felt that this was his only course. Halvard was an unusually -powerful, active man, and the other must have suffered from the stress -of his long conflict in the hall. - -The thing terminated speedily. There was the sound of a heavy -fall, a diminishing thrashing in the saw grass, and silence. An -indistinguishable form advanced over, the wharf, and Woolfolk -prepared to shove the tender free. But it was Poul Halvard. He got -down, Woolfolk thought, clumsily, and mechanically assumed his place -at the oars. Woolfolk sat aft, with an arm about Millie Stope. -The sailor said fretfully: - -"I stopped him. He was all pumped out. Missed his hand at first--the -dark--a scratch." - -He rested on the oars, fingering his shoulder. The tender swung -dangerously near the corrugated rock of the shore, and Woolfolk -sharply directed: "Keep way on her." - -"Yes, sir," Halvard replied, once more swinging into his short, -efficient stroke. It was, however, less sure than usual; an oar missed -its hold and skittered impotently over the water, drenching Woolfolk -with a brief, cold spray. Again the bow of the tender dipped into the -point of land they were rounding, and John Woolfolk spoke more -abruptly than before. - -He was seriously alarmed about Millie. Her face was apathetic, almost -blank, and her arms hung across his knees with no more response than a -doll's. He wondered desperately if, as she had said, her spirit had -died; if the Millie Stope that had moved him so swiftly and tragically -from his long indifference, his aversion to life, had gone, leaving -him more hoplessly alone than before. The sudden extinction of Ellen's -life had been more supportable than Millie's crouching dumbly at his -feet. His arm unconsciously tightened about her, and she gazed up with -a momentary, questioning flicker of her wide-opened eyes. He repeated -her name in a deep whisper, but her head fell forward loosely, and -left him in racking doubt. - -Now he could see the shortly swaying riding light of the _Gar_. -Halvard was propelling them vigorously but erratically forward. At -times he remuttered his declarations about the encounter with -Nicholas. The stray words reached Woolfolk: - -"Stopped him--the cursed dark--a scratch." - -He brought the tender awkwardly alongside the ketch, with a grinding -shock, and held the boats together while John Woolfolk shifted Millie -to the deck. Woolfolk took her immediately into the cabin; where, -lighting a swinging lamp, he placed her on one of the prepared berths -and endeavored to wrap her in a blanket. But, in a shuddering access -of fear, she rose with outheld palms. - -"Nicholas!" she cried shrilly. "There--at the door!" - -He sat beside her, restraining her convulsive effort to cower in a -far, dark angle of the cabin. - -"Nonsense!" he told her brusquely. "You are on the _Gar_. You are -safe. In an hour you will be in a new world." - -"With John Woolfolk?" - -"I am John Woolfolk." - -"But he--you--left me." - -"I am here," he insisted with a tightening of his heart. He rose, -animated by an overwhelming necessity to get the ketch under way, to -leave at once, for ever, the invisible shore of the bay. He gently -folded her again in the blanket, but she resisted him. "I'd rather -stay up," she said with a sudden lucidity. "It's nice here; I wanted -to come before, but he wouldn't let me." - -A glimmer of hope swept over him as he mounted swiftly to the deck. -"Get up the anchors," he called; "reef down the jigger and put on a -handful of jib." - -There was no immediate response, and he peered over the obscured deck -in search of Halvard. The man rose slowly from a sitting posture by -the main boom. "Very good, sir," he replied in a forced tone. - -He disappeared forward, while Woolfolk, shutting the cabin door on the -confusing illumination within, lighted the binnacle lamp, bent over -the engine, swiftly making connections and adjustments, and cranked -the wheel with a sharp, expert turn. The explosions settled into a -dull, regular succession, and he coupled the propeller and slowly -maneuvered the ketch up over the anchors, reducing the strain on the -hawsers and allowing Halvard to get in the slack. He waited -impatiently for the sailor's cry of all clear, and demanded the cause -of the delay. - -"The bight slipped," the other called in a muffled, angry voice. -"One's clear now," he added. "Bring her up again." The ketch forged -ahead, but the wait was longer than before. "Caught," Halvard's voice -drifted thinly aft; "coral ledge." Woolfolk held the _Gar_ stationary -until the sailor cried weakly: "Anchor's apeak." - -They moved inperceptibly through the dark, into the greater force of -the wind beyond the point. The dull roar of the breaking surf ahead -grew louder. Halvard should have had the jib up and been aft at the -jigger, but he failed to appear. John Woolfolk wondered, in a mounting -impatience, what was the matter with the man. Finally an obscure form -passed him and hung over the housed sail, stripping its cover and -removing the stops. The sudden thought of a disconcerting possibility -banished Woolfolk's annoyance. "Halvard," he demanded, "did Nicholas -knife you?" - -"A scratch," the other stubbornly reiterated. "I'll tie it up later. -No time now--I stopped him permanent." - -The jigger, reefed to a mere irregular patch, rose with a jerk, and -the ketch rapidly left the protection of the shore. She dipped sharply -and, flattened over by a violent ball of wind, buried her rail in the -black, swinging water, and there was a small crash of breaking china -from within. The wind appeared to sweep high up in empty space and -occasionally descend to deal the yacht a staggering blow. The bar, -directly ahead--as Halvard had earlier pointed out--was now covered -with the smother of a lowering tide. The pass, the other had -discovered, too, had filled. It was charted at four feet, the _Gar_ -drew a full three, and Woolfolk knew that there must be no error, no -uncertainty, in running out. - -Halvard was so long in stowing away the jigger shears that Woolfolk -turned to make sure that the sailor had not been swept from the deck. -The "scratch," he was certain, was deeper than the other admitted. -When they were safely at sea he would insist upon an examination. - -The subject of this consideration fell rather than stepped into the -cockpit, and stood rocked by the motion of the swells, clinging to the -cabin's edge. Woolfolk shifted the engine to its highest speed, and -they were driving through the tempestuous dark on to the bar. He was -now confronted by the necessity for an immediate decision. Halvard or -himself would have to stand forward, clinging precariously to a stay, -and repeatedly sound the depth of the shallowing water as they felt -their way out to sea. He gazed anxiously at the dark bulk before him, -and saw that the sailor had lost his staunchness of outline, his -aspect of invincible determination. - -"Halvard," he demanded again sharply, "this is no time for pretense. -How are you?" - -"All right," the other repeated desperately, through clenched teeth. -"I've--I've taken knives from men before--on the docks at Stockholm. I -missed his hand at first--it was the night." - -The cabin door swung open, and a sudden lurch flung Millie Stope -against the wheel. Woolfolk caught and held her until the wave rolled -by. She was stark with terror, and held abjectly to the rail while the -next swell lifted them upward. He attempted to urge her back to the -protection of the cabin, but she resisted with such a convulsive -determination that he relinquished the effort and enveloped her in his -glistening oilskin. - -This had consumed a perilous amount of time; and, swiftly decisive, he -commanded Halvard to take the wheel. He swung himself to the deck and -secured the long sounding pole. He could see ahead on either side the -dim white bars forming and dissolving, and called to the man at the -wheel: - -"Mark the breakers! Fetch her between." - -On the bow, leaning out over the surging tide, he drove the sounding -pole forward and down, but it floated back free. They were not yet on -the bar. The ketch heeled until the black plain of water rose above -his knees, driving at him with a deceitful force, sinking back slowly -as the yacht straightened buoyantly. He again sounded; the pole struck -bottom, and he cried: - -"Five." - -The infuriated beating of the waves on the obstruction drawn across -their path drowned his voice, and he shouted the mark once more. Then -after another sounding: - -"Four and three." - -The yacht fell away dangerously before a heavy diagonal blow; she hung -for a moment, rolling like a log, and then slowly regained her way. -Woolfolk's apprehension increased. It would, perhaps, have been better -if they had delayed, to examine Halvard's injury. The man had insisted -that it was of no moment, and John Woolfolk had been driven by a -consuming desire to leave the miasmatic shore. He swung the pole -forward and cried: - -"Four and a half." - -The water was shoaling rapidly. The breaking waves on the port and -starboard swept by with lightning rapidity. The ketch veered again, -shipped a crushing weight of water, and responded more slowly than -before to a tardy pressure of the rudder. The greatest peril, John -Woolfolk knew, lay directly before them. He realized from the action -of the ketch that Halvard was steering uncertainly, and that at any -moment the _Gar_ might strike and fall off too far for recovery, when -she could not live in the pounding surf. - -"Four and one," he cried hoarsely. And then immediately after: -"Four." - -Chance had been against him from the first, he thought, and there -flashed through his mind the dark panorama, the accumulating disasters -of the night. A negation lay upon his existence that would not be -lifted. It had followed him like a sinister shadow for years to this -obscure, black smother of water, to the _Gar_ reeling crazily forward -under an impotent hand. The yacht was behaving heroically; no other -ketch could have lived so long, responded so gallantly to a wavering -wheel. - -"Three and three," he shouted above the combined stridor of wind and -sea. - -The next minute would see their safe passage or a helpless hulk -beating to pieces on the bar, with three human fragments whirling -under the crushing masses of water, floating, perhaps, with the dawn -into the tranquillity of the bay. - -"Three and a half," he cried monotonously. - -The _Gar_ trembled like a wounded and dull animal. The solid seas were -reaching hungrily over Woolfolk's legs. A sudden stolidity possessed -him. He thrust the pole out deliberately, skillfully: - -"Three and a quarter." - -A lower sounding would mean the end. He paused for a moment, his -dripping face turned to the far stars; his lips moved in silent, -unformulated aspirations--Halvard and himself, in the sea that had -been their home; but Millie was so fragile! He made the sounding -precisely, between the heaving swells, and marked the pole instantly -driven backward by their swinging flight. - -"Three and a half." His voice held a new, uncontrollable quiver. He -sounded again immediately: "And three-quarters." - -They had passed the bar. - - - - -XV - - -A gladness like the white flare of burning powder swept over him, and -then he became conscious of other, minor sensations--his head ached -intolerably from the fall down the stair, and a grinding pain shot -through his shoulder, lodging in his torn lower arm at the slightest -movement. He slipped the sounding pole into its loops on the cabin and -hastily made his way aft to the relief of Poul Halvard. - -The sailor was nowhere visible; but, in an intermittent, reddish light -that faded and swelled as the cabin door swung open and shut, Woolfolk -saw a white figure clinging to the wheel--Millie. - -Instantly his hands replaced hers on the spokes and, as if with a -palpable sigh of relief, the _Gar_ steadied to her course. Millie -Stope clung to the deck rail, sobbing with exhaustion. - -"He's--he's dead!" she exclaimed, between her racking inspirations. -She pointed to the floor of the cockpit, and there, sliding -grotesquely with the motion of the seaway, was Poul Halvard. An arm -was flung out, as if in ward against the ketch's side, but it -crumpled, the body hit heavily, a hand seemed to clutch at the boards -it had so often and thoroughly swabbed; but without avail. The face -momentarily turned upward; it was haggard beyond expression, and bore -stamped upon it, in lines that resembled those of old age, the -agonized struggle against the inevitable last treachery of life. - -"When----" John Woolfolk stopped in sheer, leaden amazement. - -"Just when you called 'Three and a quarter.' Before that he had fallen -on his knees. He begged me to help him hold the wheel. He said you'd -be lost if I didn't. He talked all the time about keeping her head up -and up. I helped him. Your voice came back years apart. At the last he -was on the floor, holding the bottom of the wheel. He told me to keep -it steady, dead ahead. His voice grew so weak that I couldn't hear; -and then all at once he slipped away. I--I held on--called to you. But -against the wind----" - -He braced his knee against the wheel and, leaning out, found the -jigger sheet and flattened the reefed sail; he turned to where the jib -sheet led after, and then swung the ketch about. The yacht rode -smoothly, slipping forward over the long, even ground swell, and he -turned with immeasurable emotion to the woman beside him. - -The light from the cabin flooded out over her face, and he saw that, -miraculously, the fear had gone. Her countenance was drawn with -weariness and the hideous strain of the past minutes, but her gaze -squarely met the night and sea. Her chin was lifted, its graceful line -firm, and her mouth was in repose. She had, as he had recognized she -alone must, conquered the legacy of Lichfield Stope; while he, John -Woolfolk, and Halvard, had put Nicholas out of her life. She was -free. - -"If you could go below----" he suggested. "In the morning, with this -wind, we'll be at anchor under a fringe of palms, in water like a blue -silk counterpane." - -"I think I could now, with you," she replied. She pressed her lips, -salt and enthralling, against his face, and made her way into the -cabin. He locked the wheel momentarily and, following, wrapped her in -the blankets, on the new sheets prepared for her coming. Then, putting -out the light, he shut the cabin door and returned to the wheel. - -The body of Poul Halvard struck his feet and rested there. A good man, -born by the sea, who had known its every expression; with a faithful -and simple heart, as such men occasionally had. - -The diminished wind swept in a clear diapason through the pellucid -sky; the resplendent sea reached vast and magnetic to its invisible -horizon. A sudden distaste seized John Woolfolk for the dragging death -ceremonials of land. Halvard had known the shore mostly as a turbulent -and unclean strip that had finally brought about his end. - -He leaned forward and found beyond any last doubt that the other was -dead; a black, clotted surface adhered to the wound which his pride, -his invincible determination, had driven him to deny. - -In the space beneath the afterdeck Woolfolk found a spare folded -anchor for the tender, a length of rope; and he slowly completed the -preparations for his purpose. He lifted the body to the narrow deck -outside the rail, and, in a long dip, the waves carried it smoothly -and soundlessly away. John Woolfolk said: - -"'... Commit his body to the deep, looking for the general resurrection -... through ... Christ.'" - -Then, upright and motionless at the wheel, with the wan radiance of -the binnacle lamp floating up over his hollow cheeks and set gaze, he -held the ketch southward through the night. - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wild Oranges, by Joseph Hergesheimer - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILD ORANGES *** - -***** This file should be named 30466.txt or 30466.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/4/6/30466/ - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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